In this episode, I discuss the three key elements to living a great life and maintaining your freedom.
Last week, we spoke about the importance of "going pro." This week, I talk about the importance of committing 100% to everything you do.
This week I got together with a couple of veterans to discuss current events and the impact on the veteran community.
I don't feel like this episode got the attention it deserved due to the Covid-19 pandemic. As such, I am republishing it for your listening pleasure.
Scott Carney is an anthropologist and journalist who explores the limits of human physiology.
Scott's curiosity is driven by the following conundrum: as modern society has advanced, human beings have seemed to venture farther and farther away from their natural states. We have exchanged much of our natural past for comfort, and we've paid for it with a pandemic of obesity and chronic health problems.
Yet those evolutionary advantages that allowed us run down game and travel long distances in diverse climates are still accessible. Scott's work explores how the average human being can tap into this ability.
His New York Times Best-Selling book, What Doesn't Kill Us followed his adventures with Wim Hof, the Ice Man. Wim is known for being able to endure extreme cold. He holds records for being underwater in brutally cold temperatures, for running across the Arctic Circle in a pair of shorts, and for climbing Mount Everest in shorts.
Scott began that book trying to debunk him, but tried Wim's methods and found that they actually worked. This ignited a firestorm of curiosity, and in his new book, The Wedge, Scott explores how human beings can control their automatic reactions to fear and extreme environments.
Get your copy of The Wedge: Evolution, Consciousness, Stress, and the Key to Human Resilience at https://amzn.to/3bq16y6
In life, you can't go halfway on the things you want to accomplish. Far too many people remain amateurs throughout their lives. If you truly want to move forward, you need to decide to go pro.
I hesitate to publish my opinion on this situation, not because I'm afraid of controversy or of expressing my opinion, but because there are already so many opinions out there and mine is not particularly special.
Nevertheless, as there are veterans of all races who listen to this podcast, I thought it particularly important to address it.
Revisiting one of my favorite interviews of all time with the world famous author of the 48 Laws of Power and The Laws of Human Nature, Robert Greene.
Far too many people are stuck in victim mode and the "to me" mindset.
In this mindset, you're thinking everything in the world happens "to me." This mindset is so damaging because it takes all of your own agency out of the situation, and it puts you into a state of being where you do not believe you have control over anything.
The key to getting out of victim mode is to start seeing that the world is happening "for you" rather than "to you." Everything, good, bad, and difficult, is there to help you to grow into the person you're supposed to become.
Kayla Arestivo is the founder of the Trails of Purpose podcast, an organization that provides equine therapy to veterans around Hampton Roads, Virgrinia.
Kayla's work is largely informed by the loss of her father, who tragically perished along with his co-workers in the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.
In this conversation, we discuss Kayla's work, the importance of mental health, and steps people should take during the Covid-19 crisis to keep their heads together.
Without gyms open, we've all had to redefine what fitness means for each of us. For too long, our focus has been on vanity over health. In this episode, I break down the mental processes for staying fit for your entire life.
Nick Pineault, widely known as "the EMF Guy" is the #1 Bestseller of The Non-Tinfoil Had Guide to EMFs. Nick is an advocate for safe technologies and he is a leading voice discussing the effects of electromagnetic pollution on our health.
Very early on in the Covid-19 crisis, Nick wrote an article titled "Navigating Through The Coronavirus Panic: 8 Inconvenient Facts About Covid-19 Testing." It was one of the most well-researched, well-written articles I had read on the subject and it was covering facts that the media was neglecting entirely.
Facts like the potential 80% false-positive rate of Covid-19 tests.
It's important to note here that Nick is not saying that Covid-19 doesn't exist. He's not delving into conspiracy theories. He's basing his opinion on widely published research along with references to CDC and WHO policy.
We had a great conversation about this crisis, it's impact, and what we should all be aware of as we move forward.
To learn more about Nick, head over to https://theemfguy.com/.
To get The Non-Tinfoil Hat Guide to EMFs by Nick Pinneault: https://amzn.to/2YYSwnb.
To win the day, you need to win the morning. In this episode, I bring some practical tips for setting up your morning routine.
Discomfort is a symptom of growth. Whenever you step into a new situation, you will be faced with uncertainty and a stretching of your skills that will inevitably lead to discomfort.
Human beings tend to run away from these situations and it keeps them from real growth. If you are not feeling discomfort, there is a problem.
Comfort can be seductive. We fall into it, and we get trapped by it.
In this episode, we discuss overcoming the desire to quit when things get uncomfortable.
After living here for 13 years, I'm leaving California. While I love the land, and many of the people, I had to get out.
There are other changes coming that go into in this episode, but one thing remains sure, my commitment to this podcast.
We all have negative self-talk that limits us. It tends to come up whenever we're attempting something important, and it limits us from being who we truly need to be to get things done that will move our lives forward.
In this episode, I discuss ways of getting past the negative self-talk and toward a more productive mindset.
Tone Floreal is one of the most interesting men I've ever met, and he's also one of my best friends. He works with intelligent microcurrent, a type of therapy that helps to reduce inflammation and pain. It's done some amazing things for me, and Tone works with a lot of celebrities.
Nevertheless, his business has been nearly obliterated by the financial shutdown due to Covid-19. While, of course, that bothers Tone, what bothers him more are the assaults on our freedoms that have happened since the start of this whole thing.
We had a great discussion of what's going on, and what we can all do to keep our heads together during this crisis.
What's happening right now with Covid-19 is unprecedented, but it will happen again. Our state governments have shown no qualms about shutting down the economy in response to this disease, regardless of the economic impact.
Here's the deal: you can't control if a pandemic is going to happen. You also can't control what the government does. Nevertheless, you can control how vulnerable you are to the next economic disaster.
This episode goes into strategies you can take to survive the next economic shutdown.
When Theodore Roosevelt was just 24 years old, he lost his mother and his wife on the same day just three days after the birth of his first child.
Theodore experienced the loss of his brother Elliot less than ten years later to alcoholism.
Despite the immensity of these losses, Roosevelt was not broken by them. Instead, he pushed forward on his work, became a noted author, a politician, and eventually, President of the United States.
This episode explores the good and bad lessons we can take from Theodore Roosevelt for how we deal with our own loss in this life.
Param Parastaran is an entrepreneur, author, and an Iranian immigrant. Pram immigrated to the United States with his family in the midst of the Iranian Revolution.
His family worked extraordinarily hard for their future, and Param eventually went to college and became an entrepreneur. He became extraordinarily successful, on the surface, but developed a massive drug addiction.
This all came to a head when his wife found him passed out naked on top of his home bar with white powder and broken glass surrounding him. He went on a journey to heal himself through psychoanalysis and self-exploration. His book, Perfect Pain, chronicles this journey.
In this episode, Param and I discuss his story, how he healed himself, and his advice for others facing the perils of addiction.
With the economic shutdown of Covid-19, we will probably be falling upon hard times.
Yet, as I've always said, hard time breed hard people. As a capable person, this is your opportunity to impact the world positively, if you choose to.
Free speech is dying in America and the Covid-19 crisis is only accelerating its death.
Long before this crisis, there were increasing cases where people were either getting shouted down or physically attacked for their viewpoints.
In addition to that, the major tech companies pulled videos and de-platformed commentators they deemed to be dangerous.
In this episode, I give you my own opinion as a member of the "new media" on why this is wrong regardless of what your political beliefs are.
Doug Ward is a US military veteran who served in every branch of the military. He followed up his military career with time as a contractor, and then opened up his own leadership consulting business, Anchor Strategies, LLC.
Doug saw the devastating effects that poor leadership could have on an organization, and he made it his mission to help companies to keep their work forces in the game.
In this conversation, Doug and I discuss his military career and his approach to leadership.
Bad things happen in life, and they don't just happen once. In fact, the situation we are facing with Covid-19 is likely not the only difficult situation you will face in this life.
In this episode, I discuss the most important factor in surviving and thriving difficult situations: being adaptable.
In this episode I discuss three steps you need to take to be adaptable:
In the midst of the Covid-19 crisis, Mayor Eric Garcetti of Los Angeles is providing rewards to people who snitch on citizens and businesses who violate social distancing rules.
I will say this flat out: I am not advising people to stop social distancing. I am also not advising people to break the law.
Nevertheless, the idea that there are some applauding Mayor Garcetti for these actions scares me far more than the virus ever will.
Authoritarian government may not have killed as many people as disease throughout our history, but it has done so far more efficiently than disease ever will.
In this episode, I discuss parallels to Soviet Russia and what I believe needs to happen to keep us from falling further down the slope toward tyranny.