As heard on The Debbie Nigro Show
Sometimes it really helps to just talk to other caring people about whatever you’re going through.
And sometimes it’s just good to talk to other people so you feel less alone.
I had a talk with Scott Kelsey, the incredibly resilient Founder & CEO of Shareapy—about his groundbreaking wellness platform born from personal tragedy and built to foster connection, healing, and personal growth.
After a life-altering fall down a staircase left him with a traumatic brain injury, Scott found himself forced to hit pause—and reflect. “I had to isolate, be in a dark room, and let my brain heal,” he shared. That isolation led to introspection, which ultimately led to inspiration.
Through peer support groups and candid conversations with others who had walked similar paths, Scott experienced something powerful: true connection.
And from that connection, the idea for ‘Shareapy’ was born—a space where people could listen, think, and share openly in facilitator-led virtual gatherings.
“Every time I shared my story, I felt calmer… and every time, the other person would say, ‘Hey, sharing my story helped me too,’” Scott said. That mutual exchange of vulnerability and strength became the core of the Shareapy Method.
Today, Shareapy supports people from ages 19 to 81 through weekly 60-minute sessions that are safe, confidential, and completely voluntary—you don’t even have to talk if you don’t want to. Just listening can be transformative.
With loneliness now considered the number one public health issue in the U.S., according to the Surgeon General, Shareapy is more than a wellness trend—it’s a much-needed movement.
To learn more or join a session, visit Shareapy.com.
I’m sharing this podcast of my warm conversation with Shareapy Founder Scott Kelsey on The Debbie Nigro Show because I sense more people might benefit from knowing about it. If you’d rather read than listen the transcript of the audio is below.
AUDIO TRANSCRIPT:
0:00:41
(Speaker 2)
I’m Debbie Nigro. What’s going on with you guys? Hopefully you’re well today. I kind of have leaned toward this topic a lot lately in my life and on my shows because I see there’s a collective change in our culture where everybody’s trying to do better for themselves, for their health, for their mental health, physical health, for their emotional health, social health.
0:01:11
(Speaker 2)
And there’s a guy who I was connected with on LinkedIn. I love LinkedIn for finding new people and them finding me. And I happened to see him comment on something I commented on and then I went to look up what he was about, and I was like, wow, what is Shareapy? So we’re going to find out today, because I’ve invited him to be my guest on the show today. And I’d like to welcome now Scott Kelsey, the founder and CEO of Shareapy, to share what
0:01:39
(Speaker 2)
the heck it’s all about. Hello there, Scott.
0:01:41
(Speaker 1)
Scott Kelsey, Founder and CEO, Shareapy about? Hello there, Scott. Hey, Debbie, thanks so much. And I appreciate the opportunity to share a little bit of our story with you and your listeners. So thank you to reach out and the
0:01:51
(Speaker 2)
opportunity to do so. Thank you. And Scott, you know, I’m drawn to other entrepreneurs. So I know that you have founded this new concept. It’s a groundbreaking wellness platform that is changing lives because people are now sharing experiences. Explain the beginning, the idea, what’s going on.
0:02:11
(Speaker 1)
We’re all ears. Yeah, the thought, the beginning of Shareapy happened about six years ago, a little over six years ago. I had spent the prior 20 plus years in a finance career here in the Princeton, New Jersey area. And without taking up too much time in terms of that, you know, good career, you know, it’s blessed with a lot of good things.
0:02:41
(Speaker 1)
But really what was the inflection point was I unfortunately suffered a fall down the stairs in our home in Princeton just over seven years ago, severe traumatic brain injury where, you know, it was just a point in my life. I had a wife who was pregnant with our son at the time, who’s now six and a half, and my daughter, who is three.
0:03:07
(Speaker 1)
And, you know, fortunately or unfortunately, or both, I would say, she found me before I did potentially bleed out and not be here to be sharing this story with you. So that was kind of the start of my healing journey, right? Healing from a traumatic brain injury.
0:03:24
(Speaker 2)
I need to stop you there because I’m putting myself in your wife’s position. She’s pregnant, her husband has now got a brain… I mean this is a horrific time in
0:03:34
(Speaker 1)
your life. Yeah, traumatic for sure, right? We all have different levels and this is a trauma but I, you know, I could see this as being very traumatic
0:03:45
(Speaker 2)
for her, right? And you, of course, and her, and oh my god, it’s like too much to
0:03:50
(Speaker 1)
bear even. Yeah, I mean, for me, like, I don’t recall much of the following two or three months, right? I was given direction by guidance, I was brought to my, the doctors, I need you, neurologists, I remember bits and pieces of those months but it was kind of a, hey you have to slow down, you have to isolate, you have to be in a dark room, you’ve got to limit inputs and let your brain heal. So with that, you know, as I started to kind of come out of it, you know, there was fear, right? I had previous, you know, concussions in my younger days, when I played college and professional hockey.
0:04:27
(Speaker 1)
So it really was a sense of fear of like, what just happened and how, you know, what’s the future look like, right? And that’s when I started, you know, realizing that A, I had to, you know, follow the rules and the roadmap
0:04:45
(Speaker 1)
that my neurologist had pointed out, an incredible team here in this area to do so. But I also did a deeper dive in terms of what just happened and kind of rewound the last 20 years and some things that I didn’t manage correctly, anxiety, depression, that I was diagnosed with 20 years before. So it was
0:05:06
(Speaker 1)
like it was kind of a clean the house and kind of realized that you need to start working on these things because as you know and our listeners know that as our careers, you know, as we go in our careers and we have you know more responsibilities being a husband, being a father, life comes at us fast, and I just wasn’t processing it and handling it in the most effective and efficient way.
0:05:30
(Speaker 1)
So it was really a clean the house and realize what I needed to do to get better myself.
0:05:33
(Speaker 2)
Okay, so this brings you to this moment where you come up with this idea?
0:05:40
(Speaker 1)
Yeah, it was more in terms of talking, being pointed in directions for some other peer support groups, being open and honest with friends of mine about my mental health struggles that I probably wasn’t before and then just directing me into people that some I knew, some that I didn’t know well, to just talk, sit down and talk, have a cup of coffee and talk, talk with somebody who I knew but never knew he had a traumatic brain injury.
0:06:05
(Speaker 1)
And every time that I had those conversations or was involved in a peer support group discussing mental health, brain injury, I just felt this sense of calm in terms of, hey, I can openly share my story because there’s a relatability with the people I was sharing it with. And through that began a sense of calm, comfort and healing. And on top of that, almost every time when I thank that person or people for listening to my story, they responded with, hey it helps me to share it.
0:06:38
(Speaker 1)
Ah, okay. So there was the germ idea. Yeah, why isn’t there more and why does it always have to be, you know, it doesn’t always have to be something where something traumatic happens or we hit a point in our life, you know, why can’t we, you know, allow, where can we have people experience the power of
0:06:58
(Speaker 2)
just true connection and peer support to help them navigate life in general. Do people feel comfortable sharing their experiences with random people online? Is that something that you’re seeing is working or not working or what is working? Explain. Yeah, yeah.
0:07:17
(Speaker 1)
No, I mean, we, you know, we have facilitated. We actually have a training program for facilitators to get them, you know, understanding proper facilitation, creating that safe space, right? So that, you know, that’s very important to us in terms of having the ability, you know, not just being a free for all where people dial in, we’re currently virtual on Zoom and are just kind of controlling the room themselves. So we have it facilitated in a manner that,
0:07:48
(Speaker 1)
we’ve changed a few things here and there over the last year or so, but it’s proven very effective, right? And it’s different. Everybody has a different level of openness. Like we don’t, you know,
0:07:58
(Speaker 1)
while we do have specific conversations and specific get togethers for, you know, specific communities, our general, what we call, Shareapy Global Community is just a mixture of all those. And we’ve seen people come in to kind of be like, hey, it sounds pretty cool, I wanna try it out.
0:08:18
(Speaker 1)
Once they’re in, and it’s all at different paces, and visually, as they begin to understand or feel that it is comfortable. They start listening to other people’s stories. It doesn’t need to be directed in terms of mental health and wellness. I believe everything that we go through in one way, shape or form affects that in our lives but people really get accustomed and comfortable within this space, and you know, whether,
0:08:46
(Speaker 1)
and they’re not, you don’t need to share, right? It’s all elective. You can just sit there and listen.
0:08:53
(Speaker 2)
Okay.
0:08:54
(Speaker 1)
Soak in some information, and you know, some people get more comfortable with sharing a little bit about themselves up front, you know, and over time, sharing more and sharing more. We’ve had several of our members over the last year or so that have liked it so much that really hate
0:09:09
(Speaker 2)
missing their weekly get-together. Okay, so I’m understanding a little better now. I’m imagining that, you know, and having myself gone through difficult stuff, it is important to be able to talk to somebody about it who gets it, right? You know, I’ve had a lot of people call me and introduce me to people who’ve been through the same things. Like, for example, I went through breast cancer and they’re like, oh, Debbie, would you talk
0:09:30
(Speaker 2)
to so-and-so? Sometimes you just need to talk about what your thing is, which is what you started doing. You need to talk about your thing and your community. Now that every single topic comes up, what’s the confidentiality in place on this platform that you’ve created, Cherope? Because I imagine a lot of it is something or some things that people
0:09:49
(Speaker 1)
don’t want the whole world to know. Yeah, so we’re not like recording anything for, you know, we’re not recording anything, you know, in terms of video or anything so people understand that, you know, we can set the space, right? Just like a lot of other peer support groups, we can set the space and iterate and reiterate our guidelines in terms of, hey, this is a safe space. What’s kind of shared here, we want it to be kept here, you know, and
0:10:19
(Speaker 1)
that’s what we can do, right? Yeah, is there, and I’m thinking about
0:10:26
(Speaker 2)
what’s going on behind your platform, is there a range of people in ages and categories that you see, or is there a sweet spot of people who feel comfortable doing this or need to do this?
0:10:37
(Speaker 1)
You know, I’ve seen it, you know, in terms of our current membership, you know, we’ve got, you know, members from age 19 to 81. Okay. Right?
0:10:48
(Speaker 1)
If there seems to be a predominance of people in an age group, it’s probably in the, you know, 40 to, you know, late 30s to late 40s range.
0:10:57
(Speaker 2)
Interesting.
0:10:58
(Speaker 1)
But that’s just, I mean, we really, we haven’t yet done an official, you know, full advertising marketing campaign to attract members. We’ve been working on the platform, getting feedback from our members to build as solid as the platform and experience as we can. So there’s the global community, which is just a mixture of all these other potential communities, some we’ve set up, some we haven’t, that people can plug into and that’s just you know people learning
0:11:28
(Speaker 1)
from others experiences you know. 80 year olds learning from a 20 year old’s experience and vice versa. Women learning from men you know. So that’s like that’s just that we’re just giving the people the opportunity to actively listen, understand the benefits of that in any conversation, whether it’s in our get-togethers or outside of them, and share if they like. So there’s specific conversations, specific communities that we’ve built with specific
0:11:55
(Speaker 1)
needs, but everything plugs back into, if you want, to the global Sheripee community where it’s kind of a mixture of everybody.
0:12:02
(Speaker 2)
Okay. So you’re listening to Scott Kelsey, the founder and CEO of Shareapy, which is a groundbreaking wellness platform that is now changing lives through shared experiences. And I imagine, Scott, besides your own personal reason why you started this and need to connect with people as you were coming out of your difficult medical situation, that people are just not as social as they used to be before COVID and that
0:12:25
(Speaker 2)
they need places to connect with other humans. Am I right in assuming that? Yeah,
0:12:31
(Speaker 1)
I don’t, I would say not an assumption, right? You’ve got the exerts in general writing a book upon it, doing a tour on it. You’ve got, you know, there’s plenty of stats in terms of a loneliness crisis, you know, the effects of social media on connection, whether it’s in our user or even adults, and I just think that, you know, and I was part of this, right, and it’s hard to get away from it, is it’s become almost, it’s almost become habitual with a lot of people in terms
0:13:00
(Speaker 1)
of what they turn to to get that adrenaline or to get that fixed in terms of the connection, right? So I believe that we’ve really got a far way away from true connection and not only just true connection with others but true connection with oneself and understanding that, hey, I’m not alone and there’s other people and I don’t need to fight my battles or get through these challenges by myself.
0:13:23
(Speaker 1)
So yeah, there’s no shortage of, you know, there’s not many people that I’ve talked to over the last couple of years, whether it’s investors or whether it’s people we’re looking to partner with that are going to argue the fact that we’re less connected in terms of meaningful connections than we’ve ever been.
0:13:39
(Speaker 2)
Yeah, and the Surgeon General didn’t say it was a loneliness epidemic that is the number one problem health crisis in this country right now. So you’re doing something right, and I appreciate how much effort you’ve put into it in the last six years. I am rooting for you to continue on, get the funding you need, the rest of the funding to take it to the next level.
0:13:59
(Speaker 2)
And I think everybody will benefit from Shareapy, which is a place for you guys to improve your mental well-being and personal and professional development by connecting with others online, facilitator-led gatherings and there’s a proven Sherapy method that guides people in weekly 60-minute get-togethers and you’re encouraged to listen and think and share and science shows us the incredible benefits of doing so in a safe, secure and non-judgmental environment. That’s what your website says. So you can unleash your potential and feel a lot better about yourself and your life with Cherapee. Check it out, Cherapee.com.
0:14:33
(Speaker 2)
Thank you so much, Scott. You have a fabulous day. I’m glad we connected. Thanks so much, Debbie. I appreciate it. Okay. Be well. You’re listening to the Debbie Nigro Show and this is my Wellness Wednesday Edition, always drawn toward innovators, if you will, people who and people who have resilient stories of survival and how they overcame it. So you’re gonna have resilient stories of survival and how they overcame it. So you’re gonna
0:14:55
(Speaker 2)
meet somebody else just like that next. Don’t go away.
