Time.  A true currency if there ever was one.  Yet, rarely do we consider as diligently as we should if we are spending it wisely.  We may shop for good deals on a regular basis, some may even call us frugal, but when it comes to spending our time we give it away to the first thing that comes our way.  Today’s guest, Garland Coulson, is a time management consultant and it’s his job to change that relationship.  He wants us to be frugal WITH time, and regularly consider how we are spending it.  In this interview he’ll give us plenty of tips to help us better manage our most valuable resource.

Most of us live our lives looking forward to things.  This is fortunate.  This is the privileged position that we are in.  It also means that we often neglect the present and miss out on the magic of the mundane.  We look forward to getting off work, so we don’t have as productive of a day.  We look forward to the weekend, so our week seems less fulfilling.  We look forward to getting to our destination, so we overlook the beauty in the journey.  Being present in the here and now is a popular philosophy, but few of us truly embrace it the way that today’s guest has.  Reed is a tour cyclist.  He rides his bike 100’s (sometimes 1000’s) of miles on vacation.  He has ridden similarly freakishly long distances to work and back, day after day.  Reed has taken what for many of us is the thing that stands between us and being where we want to be, and embraced it as the place that he does want to be.

I’m going to give anyone reading this a peek behind the curtain.  When I’m writing these blurbs for the episodes I try to come up with a thesis around which I will write.  Now, sometimes when I come up with a thesis I try to tap into the collective zeitgeist and think of a stat or a fact that we all agree with that is going to support my thesis.  Like, ‘we all like puppies’.  After I think of the stat or fact, I then go to good old google and search for it, to add some level of integrity to what I’m saying.  Cut to this weeks episode.

I think to myself, the most wanted superpower has to be flight.  This is gonna tie in perfectly to this week’s episode on zip-lining and why people like my guest, Mike Seper, love it.  So I go to google, see if a large scale survey has ever been done on what super powers people want, and low and behold one has been done.  Cool, just gotta make sure everyone wants to fly like Mike and I and then we can get this show on the road.  And…4th?!  4th place!  Flying is not first, nor second, nor third.  4th.  The number one power people want is invisibility, which in addition to ruining my blurb about flying, really throws a monkey wrench in my idea that the vast majority of humanity is good.  Something tells me that these people don’t want invisibility so that they can anonymously help more people.  Anyway, to all my fellow flyers at heart, today we learn about a way we can get close to the real thing.  

Some things speak to our minds.  These are the most common of things that we regularly encounter every day.  Other things speak to our hearts.  These are less common, but still encountered with regularity.  Rarely, oh so rarely, does something speak directly to our soul.  A good way to categorize these things is to realize that we, in turn, cannot really speak about them.  We don’t know how to describe something that speaks to our soul.  Think about a soul-mate, or love at first sight.  We can throw a lot of adjectives around about why we like that person, but those are just the words that speak to our hearts and minds, and probably apply to plenty of other people that we have met.  The thing that makes this one person so special cannot be spoken.  There is just a deep seated knowing in the soul.  

Amazingly, there are things that seem to speak to all of our souls, belying the notion that we are not connected.  Fire is the perfect example of this.  Anyone who has ever gone camping and stared into a fire can attest to the feeling that you get.  My best words to describe it would be a peaceful reverence, but again, words don’t really work here.  Today’s guest, Victoria Zajac, knows all about the soul affirming power of fire.  Rather than just be a cautious observer, Victoria decided to get up close and get to know fire even better.  Spinning, swallowing, dancing, breathing, you name it, Victoria does it.

Professional sports are such a unique and incredible thing.  Unlike many other professions where there can be prerequisites, necessary degrees, and boxes to check to be afforded an opportunity for employment, sports asks only one thing of you.  Are you one of the best people in the entire world that does this?  If the answer is no, well then you better work even harder until you are or move along and find yourself another profession.  It is the truest form of Darwinism that we have in modern society.  Today’s guest, Sean Lawton, is a professional Lacrosse player for the Boston Cannons.  He’ll tell us all about the trials and tribulations of becoming a professional athlete and distill the lessons he’s learned from the process.  Also, we’ll get a brief course in Lacrosse 101.

Applications and technology have really changed the look and feel of the world in the last decade.  Transportation, finances, dating, you name it, it’s all been changed and it all feels very different than it did just 10 years ago.  One area that might not seem very different is how we make physical goods.  Manufacturing mass quantities of goods that we use has remained fairly the same, but that doesn’t mean that nothing has changed.  Recently, mainstream adoption and advancements in 3D printing have paved the way for a whole new type of manufacturing, and with it, entirely new possibilities about the products we can make.  

A couple days ago we celebrated Thanksgiving.  It’s a wonderful holiday where we spend time with people that we love and think about the things in our lives that we are grateful for.  With that in mind I wanted to put out an episode that could touch on that note of gratitude, and what better episode could there be than an interview on organ donation.  It is the biggest and most important gift that you can give someone!  There were people this past Thursday that were sitting with their families, that would not have been sitting with their families had someone not given them the ultimate gift.  Today we learn about how the process works, and what we can do to make sure we are in a position to help.

Humans are some pretty complicated organisms.  We have a body, mind, and spirit all wrapped into one package.  Each needs it’s own nurturing and care, and the health of each will influence the other two.  Yet even knowing this, we are often “too busy” to really care for ourselves the way we know we should.  We may go to the gym and see how the time that we give to our bodies also helps pacify our minds, but how often do we try to work the other way around?  Today’s guest, Stephanie Kato, is a pioneer of the concept of Metaphysical Cleansing.  She is a firm believer in healing the physical body through work with the emotional and spiritual bodies.  Today she’ll teach us about the metaphysical path to holistic health. 

Do you believe in ghosts?  Like religion, your belief in the paranormal can really be swayed by the culture you belong to.  For some reason in America we don’t really embrace the idea of ghosts, and yet over 80 percent of our population believes in the afterlife.  Today’s guest, Craig Owens, is a talented photographer and, like many people, used to be ghost-agnositc. Then, one day Craig was doing a vintage photo shoot at a supposedly haunted hotel, and he experienced paranormal phenomena first hand while doing the shoot.  This planted the seeds for an amazing passion project called Haunted by History. Craig uses actors to recreate scenes at haunted hotels and takes truly unique photos that teleport the viewer back in time.

I consider myself a pretty fit guy.  I like to eat relatively healthy.  Go to the gym from time to time.  Go for daily walks with my dog and even the occasional run.  Yet every time I go to the gym I am quickly reminded that there are people that are in a whole different stratosphere of fitness than I am.  They are the 1%.  They can be described by the same sentences I wrote above about myself, but with far less adverbs and qualifiers.  They are fit, eat healthy, and go to the gym.  All in all, they are really awesome, disciplined people.  Today’s guest is the 1% of the 1%.  She is currently the USA Weightlifting National Champion in the 63kg category.  She’ll tell us all about the sport of weightlifting and explain what it takes to get to the top of the mountain.

Have you ever been cut off in traffic and felt that you now had a personal vendetta against the person in the other vehicle?  Have you ever gotten in an disagreement with a family member and proceeded to think about how angry they make you for the rest of the day?  Have you ever had a bad day and taken it out on someone that had nothing to do with it?  It sounds like you could use some practice in emotional regulation.  Today’s guest, Dr. Patricia Zurita Ona, explains how most of us could use a little work at regulating our emotional state.  She’ll give us tips and advice for recognizing our emotions as they enter a heightened state, and altering them to for our benefit.

Being just fine, in perfectly normal health, is such an incredible blessing that we all too frequently take for granted.  It is only when we go through aches and pains, viruses and diseases that we really really consider how lucky we usually are.  Yet, even with aches and pains there is one area of our health that is still taken for granted, and that is our mental health.  Many of us have the fortune of going through our lives and dealing with a little bit of anxiety here, some depression there, but all in all our brains are wired for normal mental health.  Today’s guest, Will Jiang, is not so lucky.  While going to college he suffered a psychotic break that later got him diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia.  Will will tell us all about what it is like inside the mind of someone with schizophrenia, and how he was eventually able to to thrive in spite of his condition.

I have been a fan of podcasts for close to ten years now.  I’ve always loved their ability to open my mind and teach me something new.  Two years ago I decided to start my own.  Having my own podcast has taught me even more than listening to podcasts, and has been such an incredibly fun journey.  I get a lot of questions from listeners thinking about starting their own podcasts and I always recommend that they do.  Today I bring on a couple that have a wonderful podcast that features small businesses in Arizona.  It’s a great idea for a show that any one of you could try to replicate in your local area.  We’ll discuss the ins and outs, and ups and downs of podcasting.  So, if you are one of the many people that have thought about starting your own podcast, listen to today’s episode and get inspired!

Cancer.  It’s probably the scariest, most feared word in the English language.  It’s a word that none of us ever want to hear and yet, surprisingly, about 40-50% of us will be diagnosed with cancer in our lifetime.  That means that it’s a near guarantee that you or someone you are very close to will get cancer.  Today’s guest, Dr. Sarah Boston, is one of the leading veterinary cancer surgeons in the world.  A few years ago her professional and personal life merged when she found a lump on her neck that she had a bad feeling about.  Sarah then became her own advocate on the long journey to diagnosis, treatment, and recovery.

“Where there’s a will, there’s a way.”  For the majority of human history these words were a great motivator, but probably not very realistic.  There was a whole lot that just plain and simple could not be done.  Then, with the advent of computers, that statement seemed a bit more true.  Those with enough time and money could tackle all sorts of problems.  More recently, with the proliferation of the internet and smartphones, it would seem that statement is darn near fact.  Apple realized this fact back in 2010 and coined the phrase “There’s an app for that”.  Today there are tools online that can help just about anybody program an app to do just about anything.  Matt is one such anybody and in just a few short months he learned how to program apps that solved his problems.

What do you believe in?  Do you only believe in what you can see and touch?  Do people say that you’re the most gullible person in the world and you’ll believe anything?  Are you religious, or is science your only deity?  Where do you stand on the occult and mysterious?  In the past people that chose to balk at religion and consider themselves married to science and logic could sleep soundly only believing in the physical world that science explained.  Then came quantum physics, and with it a bunch of unnerving and miraculous observations without explanation.  Suddenly being ‘logical’ and ‘scientific’ didn’t look so different from being a believer.  Things in the world of mystery and science fiction were now sounding more possible and plausible in the world of actual science.  Of particular interest to me, and the focus of today’s episode, is tarot.  Ask a question, pick some cards, and they will help guide your future.  Sound like BS?  It also sounds an awful lot like the law of attraction mixed with some quantum mechanics helping to guide your life.

Cities.  Suburbs.  Rural country.  These are three very different and distinct areas that we often categorize, subcategorize, and most importantly separate.  But what if aspects of each could move and fit into each other?  What if the most important and vital aspect of one could be moved into the others?  Farming and growing a sustainable, real people feeding amount of agriculture is often thought of as something that can only be done out in rural land.  However, people like today’s guests are using a little bit of technology and creativity to help bring agriculture to an urban setting, and from the sound of it things are going very well.

There are not many foods that are irrevocably linked to days or events in our lives.  Turkey, for instance, for people in the U.S. on Thanksgiving.  There are fewer foods still that share their tie with events throughout the world, across cultures.  Go to a birthday party in Japan and you will find a birthday cake.  Go to a wedding in Switzerland and you will certainly enjoy some wedding cake.  When you really think about it, cake is in some pretty rarified air.  It makes since then that some people get really into the art and craft of making truly amazing cakes.  Today’s guest, Corrie Rasmussen, explains the hobby and career of cake decorating.

Do you like to exercise and consider yourself pretty fit?  Let’s take a little test.  Do you like swimming?  How about swimming for two hours straight, nonstop?  Do you like riding your bike?  How about riding your bike for 112 miles, roughly the distance from Los Angeles to San Diego?  Or maybe you’re more of a runner.  How about running a full length marathon?  I feel like I like fitness as much as the next guy, but I’m not lining up to do any of that stuff!  Now, think about doing all 3 of those things, swimming for 2 hours, biking for 112 miles, and running a marathon BACK to BACK to BACK, with no stopping in between.  Seems pretty inhuman.  Well, it’s what today’s guest, and thousands of other people in the world do.  Today we’ll learn all about the Iron Man triathlon and the crazy people that do them.

Ahhhh beer, how I love thee.  Is there anything more refreshing than a Mexican beer with a lime on a hot day?  Is there anything more satisfying than a dunkelweizen in the fall?  Anything more perfect than a complex IPA or red ale?  The answer to all of these questions is of course, no.  Beer is such a wonderful beverage with so much depth to explore.  Most of us undertake this exploration by heading down to our local market or bar, getting something that sounds interesting, and then imbibing.  This exploration can be taken a step further however by inserting ourselves into the process earlier, and making the beer ourselves.  Today’s guest, Emma Christensen (author of Brew Better Beer and True Brews) gives us a lesson on home brewing and explains how making beer can deepen our appreciation for this wonderful beverage.