The pandemic changed everything, including how we thought about connection.

For Tracy Crowley, host of Good Life Stories, those months of isolation meant sitting in her dining room sewing, walking through the woods alone, and thinking constantly about the people she couldn’t see. “I was listening to a lot of podcasts,” she recalls, “and thinking about all the people that I knew that I couldn’t see during the pandemic—and what I would do if I could for all those amazing people in my life.”

She started with a mind map. Tracy wrote her name in the center, then began creating categories radiating outward: people who’d become authors, martial artists she knew, artists in her network, successful entrepreneurs, friends who’d been through extraordinary experiences—challenging or joyful—and emerged transformed on the other side.

She wanted to capture their stories. But what would she call this project?

Tracy researched idioms and expressions, searching for something that captured the urgency and intimacy she envisioned. She landed on a phrase everyone knows: “rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic”—that expression about futile activity in the face of inevitable disaster.

The Titanic metaphor stuck. “I went through several iterations of thinking about naming this podcast Deck Chairs or Deck Chairs on the Titanic,” Tracy admits. Her kids and friends offered gentle feedback: if she named it that, people might expect her to actually talk about the Titanic. Fair point.

But the imagery was perfect for what Tracy wanted to create. She refined the premise into a question she now poses to every guest:

“If you and I were sitting in deck chairs on the deck of the Titanic, and we knew it was our last conversation—and yes, we’ll add the caveat that we’re not going to die—but we knew it was our last conversation, what three stories would you tell me? What stories would you want saved, that you’d want your family to listen to, that you’d want your friends to know?”

That’s where Good Life Stories came from. Not from a business plan or a content strategy, but from isolation that created space to think about what matters. The stories we carry. The moments that define us. The experiences we’d preserve if we only had time for three.

“I hope you enjoy the journey we’ve been on for the last three years,” Tracy says, “and I look forward to doing this for a lot longer.”

Three years in, the format remains the same but the guest list keeps expanding. Tracy isn’t looking for the highlight reel—the resume accomplishments or the polished elevator pitches. She’s looking for the stories that shaped people. The deployments and cancer diagnoses. The spontaneous road trips and failed businesses. The moments of crushing loss and unexpected grace. The relationships that almost didn’t happen. The risks that paid off and the ones that didn’t.

These aren’t typical interviews. Tracy isn’t asking about “your journey” or “lessons learned.” She’s asking: what three stories matter so much that you’d preserve them if everything else washed away?

Sometimes guests are friends Tracy has known for years but never really heard. Sometimes they’re colleagues whose full stories she only knows in fragments. The podcast gives her permission to ask the questions she always wanted to ask, to sit long enough to hear the whole story, to understand the moments that made people who they are.

The deck chairs metaphor turned out to be perfect—not because it’s about disaster, but because it’s about what we choose to preserve when time is limited. What stories do we tell when we can’t tell them all? What do we want remembered?

“If you feel like you’ve got three really good stories to share, please reach out,” Tracy says. “We’d be happy to have you as a guest.”

Because everyone has stories worth saving. Good Life Stories is creating connections, one story at a time.

About Tracy Crowley
Tracy Crowley has always been an entrepreneur. Whether it was making gowns for fellow Army wives, taking portraits in black and white, or working on her other businesses, she is always learning something new.

That passion for learning something new and giving something back collide nicely in this podcast.

Join Tracy for Good Life Stories, where simple curiosity brings out great stories, every single time.

Check out Tracy’s new book! https://tracycrowley.life/