Sumit Paul-Choudhury shares that in his childhood he somewhat lost faith in mankind after starkly coming to the realization that not everyone is kind, good, and caring. Sumit went on to pursue science, technology, and the future. He became Editor-in-Chief of New Scientist, trained as an astrophysicist, and received a Sloan Fellowship in strategy and leadership from the London Business School. Then his wife died and on that day, he became an optimist. It was a life reset for him and optimism beca...
Mar 31, 2025•1 hr 14 min
Just over a year ago, my father died. I was 53. Thousands of people testified to his positive impact in their lives. Me included. And…the event helped me reveal some patterns I’d repeated, that were not constructive for my life. One of the stories I share in my book, What Drives You, is that of Lori Harder. Lori was raised in a very strict, religious family. She cites they were very sedentary and most of their family time out of church, existed on the couch watching TV and eating junk food. Ther...
Mar 28, 2025•1 hr 8 min
Failure is a popular topic in the self-improvement world, but I feel it's generally addressed like a motivational talk. Don't let failure get you down. It's part of life. It's not failing, it's trying. Which is why I was interested when I heard about Manu Kapur (Man-oo kapoor) work on failure, who is a professor at the same university where Einstein attended and then taught. Manu studies learning and growth from a scientific standpoint and actually developed the Theory of Productive Failure, whi...
Mar 24, 2025•1 hr 12 min
I don’t normally gravitate towards people with the huge followings and big brand personalities. But I also like a good, down to earth story of personal evolution, and this is one I’m bringing back. A few years ago I got to have a long conversation with Chalene Johnson. We recorded a couple of shows and talked for hours longer about our sordid fitness and athletic journeys. Chalene literally holds a Guinness World Record for having starred in the most fitness videos. An odd title to me, and one s...
Mar 21, 2025•1 hr 9 min
I’m thinking of a movie, Stranger Than Fiction. It came out in 2006 starring Will Ferrell, Emma Thompson, Dustin Hoffman, and Queen Latifah. In it, Will Ferrell plays a mentally unstable IRS auditor who starts hearing an author's voice in his head and as she writes this fictional story, he is the main character and the events literally happen in his life. So he hears her speak of events, such as something happening that causes his death. And he’s left talking back, saying, “Hey! Stop doing that!...
Mar 19, 2025•21 min
We all think we know what self-talk is. But I think we miss the gravity of it. I’m reminded of the joke where one fish asks another fish "how's the water?" The other fish replies, "what the heck is water?" We were never introduced to our own self-talk, it was there since the day we were conceived to varying degrees. We are not necessarily conscious of it. In this episode we expand on self-talk to help you conceptualize how it is your very perception of life. My guest is Marianne Renner. I’ve got...
Mar 17, 2025•1 hr 29 min
Mentors. Chances are slim you have someone who really fills the role. These days people will tend to cite their favorite authors and philosophers and influences as their mentors. And to that degree, I’d say that almost everyone in my life “mentors” me, as I learn from everyone. But I really define a mentor as someone who literally knows you and is invested in helping guide you. We used to have this in families where we lived in a village and closely amongst family and friends. We had grandparent...
Mar 14, 2025•1 hr 4 min
We all understand what alignment is in regards to our car. It’s pulling one way or the other, the steering wheel is crooked when we drive straight. Over time it wears our tires out incorrectly, and if you’ve ever had an old, beat up car like I have, you are literally pulling it one way the entire time you drive. I find our lives are often this way in some areas. We are not in alignment. But we, and I mean me as well, so often think we’re doing others and the world a favor by enduring it. But bei...
Mar 12, 2025•15 min
I grew up in the Christian church amongst celebrated Bible verses, such as, “Ask and ye shall receive,” “Knock and the door will be open to you,” and “Seek, and ye shall find.” These concepts and requests were to be aimed at God. Today we hear a lot about manifesting. This often gets friction from the religious crowd as it feels like credit is given to the individual and not God. In this episode today I have a conversation with Cathy Heller about it. We are not discussing, dissecting, or debatin...
Mar 10, 2025•1 hr 29 min
We often hear about morning routines and the best time for certain activities. What I mostly hear however, are people’s experiences of what works best for them, and while I’m appreciative they’ve found what works for them, I’m cautious to take anything and say it’s what everyone should do. I am interested in what research actually says though. Dan Pink is one of the most prolific researchers I know when it comes to human potential. I’ve lost track of how many best selling books he has written, s...
Mar 07, 2025•1 hr
In the last episode I talked with Dr Adam Dorsay about the four types of connection we want and need as humans. I hope you listened and got benefit. I’ll list them out in this short episode. But here I want to draw attention to the real type of connection we are talking about, and most of us…missing. If we don’t understand, we’ll miss the concept entirely. Imagine one person asking another if they cycle. And the other says, “Absolutely! Almost every day?” So the first person says, “Well great, w...
Mar 05, 2025•20 min
Dr. Adam Dorsay is a licensed psychologist and an executive coach in Silicon Valley where he serves people who have achieved all the big trophies of the world; money, status, possessions, power, and some of them, fame. And yet they are coming to him for help. Why? After all these years, he’s written a book to culminate the primary problem he sees. Lack of true connection. We are all out there trying to win the world, and in the process, we neglect our soul. We neglect the primary thing that give...
Mar 03, 2025•1 hr 30 min
You may well know of Nick Vujicic (voo-uh-chich), a famous personality with no arms and no legs. He has an incredible message which you’re about to hear. I’m bringing this episode back because of something Tom Ziglar, who was with me when I talked with Nick, said at a later date as we were discussing confidence. He referenced Nick, saying here is a guy with no arms or legs. He is the most physically vulnerable of just about anyone. And yet he seems to be more confident than almost everyone. I ne...
Feb 28, 2025•1 hr 1 min
I want to talk through looking at probable threads for looking at some of your propensities. I’ve long been interested, and critical, of personality profiles. How much can I know who I truly am, in regards to how I’ve been programmed, even genetically? I’ve continued to try and understand myself in relation to my nature, and my nurture. Which I used to only relate to my conscious existence, but have learned I must consider my genetics as well. Especially after adopting children from a different ...
Feb 26, 2025•21 min
That statement I would have not uttered in my past. I don’t align with blaming, accusing, making excuses, and giving any power to anyone but myself. But, I’m changing my tune, thanks to my guest today. If someone runs a red light and smashes into my car, breaking my leg, I am ok to blame them for my broken leg. And admitting I now have a broken leg and can’t go run the next day. It would be dumb to blame myself or to deny the car wreck and sit around perplexed as to why my leg is broken, or blam...
Feb 24, 2025•1 hr 28 min
As a culture, especially amongst aspiring people, we look at willpower like it’s a tool. Like a hammer. It’s late in the evening, you have a hankering for a snack, so just go get your hammer. Willpower. And smack that desire down. But how often can we not seem to find the hammer when we need it most? There is a reason. Your willpower is not a hammer. It’s more like your phone and all day the battery is draining. So often when you go to use it, you’ve fully depleted it. So what do you do? That’s ...
Feb 21, 2025•1 hr 3 min
My most recent show was with heavy metal front man, Randy Blythe, who started his music career in the punk rock movement, rebelling against the system. In his new book, Just Beyond the Light: Making Peace with the Wars Inside Our Head, he talks candidly and humbly about how he now regrets his polarized positions, and today questions his positions rigorously, with a lot more grace for all sides. It’s impacted me to have a guy who so raged against the machine, now have such a new perspective. And ...
Feb 19, 2025•21 min
Randy Blythe is the lead singer and songwriter for the heavy metal band, Lamb of God. He writes and sings, you might call it yelling...even growling, very angry, aggressive, and dark music. He has the sordid past you would expect. Severe alcoholism. Jail time for manslaughter charges. You might be surprised, or not, that he's the son of a Southern Baptist pastor. And Randy has just written his second book, called Just Beyond the Light: Making Peace with the Wars Inside Our Head. I was sent an ad...
Feb 17, 2025•1 hr 25 min
I adore music. It moves me like few other things in existence. There was a time when my family and I watched America’s Got Talent, and it was the breakout singers that we most enjoyed. You may remember Mandy Harvey. Mandy was in college pursuing a vocal music education degree, then lost her hearing. She left the program to pursue other career options, but later returned to music. She ultimately landed on America’s Got Talent where she reached the finals and was Simon Cowell’s Golden Buzzer Winne...
Feb 14, 2025•52 min
Wrapping up my series on binary thinking and our cultural propensity and judge and reject others with differing perspectives, I am interested in this concept of moral outrage. In my recent discussion with Fox TV personality Kat Timp, she stated that “Moral outrage is often rooted in self-esteem more than altruism.” I intrigued myself with the statement and went and researched it further. What I found gave a lot of support to the statement and got me thinking about myself and some of the hardline...
Feb 13, 2025•16 min
I feel if an alien came to earth today and looked at media, whether the news headlines or social media, they’d think we must be near war. Now, with the literal news media who is paid to get readers, they know the value of drama, and if it bleeds, it leads. But with social media, most of what I see we are just inflicting upon ourselves. Somebody makes a benign post that may showcase a like or dislike or a viewpoint or opinion, and…the fight is on. The comments sections can turn into war zones. I ...
Feb 12, 2025•14 min
In my previous episode I talked with Fox TV personality, Kat Timpf about binary thinking. Right, wrong, black, and white. And our cultural propensity to take a differing opinion or view or belief someone else has, judge them completely for it, and reject them. Kat experiences this frequently when people find out she works for Fox. They label and judge her and distance themselves. Even though they could possibly agree on many other things. They may even in truth, like her. But since she’s labeled...
Feb 11, 2025•14 min
My perspective is that we are the most divided culture ever right now. Every issue is a trigger for everyone and you are required to stand on one side or the other or be deemed negligent or ignorant. And if someone aligns with a differing side or perspective, you need to distance yourself from them. To me it feels like we’ve fallen into the most strict, religious culture ever. Everyone has their set of beliefs according to the religion of their perspective, and if you believe differently, you ar...
Feb 10, 2025•1 hr 8 min
Talking about a good life feels like speaking to success. What makes it up? And we generally say that we must define this for ourselves. Agreed. However, my guest has been studying this for a long, long time, and to have a good life he’s found it boils down to three buckets. Categories if you will. Jonathan Fields has come to be known as “the good life guy.” He has a wildly popular podcast called The Good Life Project. I’ve had Jonathan on my show twice and often reference his profile that looks...
Feb 07, 2025•1 hr 12 min
In my show with TJ Powers, talking through his book, The DOSE Effect: Optimize Your Brain & Body By Boosting Your Dopamine, Oxytocin, Serotonin, and Endorphins, he lists out 20 activities to address all those brain chemicals, and I want to give it to you, whether you buy the book or not. If you can add just one to your day, you’ve at least done that to advocate for your mental well being and overall capacity. I’m thinking about looking at it every morning, then going through it as a checklis...
Feb 06, 2025•16 min
In our culture today, the concept of “slowing down” has little attraction. We are enamored with speed. So instead of trying to sell “slowing down” let’s look at what the point of questioning our speed is. Imagine going to hike the Grand Canyon. Or another nearby attraction, Las Vegas. And imagine if your goal is speed. Do you want to just get through either of them as fast as you can? Or would you rather explore and experience what they have to offer? Now come back to our lives in general. Forge...
Feb 05, 2025•14 min
I’m a very visual guy, so I often think of visual analogies to help me better conceptualize a concept. So imagine you are watching a video tape of yourself, sped up to show all your activities for a day. With special attention on how much time you are looking at screens and what you are looking at. How many times do you look at your phone? How many times on your computer are you viewing social media or entertainment or even just random information or news updates? Let’s call it non-productive vi...
Feb 04, 2025•15 min
Sometimes an analogy comes along that just clicks. It takes information you may have heard before and helps drive it home. That is what happened with my guest in this show regarding the brain chemicals that fuel our drive and motive. TJ POWER is a neuroscientist and innovator in the area of mental health. His work focuses on providing easy-to-adopt, scientifically backed teachings that empower people to take action towards healthier lifestyles. He has a really big following and when I got his bo...
Feb 03, 2025•1 hr 25 min
In the world of personal development you hear a lot of stories of people making huge changes. Rags to riches, zero to hero, and massive life turn-arounds. It makes for a great story, but is it relevant for us? In 2003 I was at a critical juncture in my life where I'd bit off more than I could chew. I abruptly quit my cycling career and business, moved my wife and three kids cross country and started a new life. It was needed. Since then, most changes have not been quite so massive. We tend to lo...
Jan 31, 2025•49 min
Anytime a question like this is posed, you really expect that it’s bait to pull you in and emphasize in this case, how we really, massively need community. I’m not going to do that. I’m quite an introvert and I don’t often enjoy groups of people. I want to look at what community can look like for different people. My muse continues to be Ian Morgan Cron from his new book, The Fix: How the Twelve Steps Offer a Surprising Path of Transformation for the Well-Adjusted, the Down-and-Out, and Everyone...
Jan 30, 2025•16 min
