AlignedLife with Justin Castelli

After 27 years in corporate sales and relationship management, my friend Jeff Williams felt the misalignment in his work show up as real pain in his body. In this episode, Jeff shares how he knew it was time to leap, how he prepared, and the question that helped him go: do I deserve to free myself from a toxic environment? We started with empathy, which Jeff describes as hearing the need behind th...

In this episode of AlignedLife, I sit down with Jack Raines — venture capitalist, Substack writer, and author of the new book Young Money — to talk about what money actually means once you stop treating it as a scoreboard. Jack grew up around entrepreneurial parents and grandparents, which shaped his view of money as fungible rather than scarce. He shares the story of the trip his grandmother took...

Zac Owens is back on AlignedLife — and this conversation picks up right where we left off two years ago. Since his first appearance, Zac launched For the City, a foundation that gave 120 kids a free basketball camp experience. Then, right before heading back overseas, he tore his ACL — a season-ending injury that forced him off the court and into the deepest inner work of his life. We talk about w...

What if the difference between good and great isn't talent — it's what happens in the 5 minutes before you step on the field? In this session of Mindful Mondays, we break down meditation — not the sit-cross-legged-and-empty-your-mind myth, but the real, practical tool elite athletes use to get present, cut distractions, and perform under pressure. We recap last week's mindfulness talk (fear only l...

Session 2 of Mindful Mondays--a series for teen athletes on mindset, mindfulness, and the mental side of sport. This episode breaks down what mindfulness actually means, why elite athletes like Jared McCain and Michael Jordan rely on it, and how presence unlocks flow state on the court, field, or pitch.   We look at NBA forward Aaron Gordon's string of soft-tissue injuries and the connection betwe...

This is the first of five talks I'm hosting at our house for Roman and Leo's friends and teammates. The goal is to introduce them to ideas, concepts, and tools that will not only help them on the court or field, but more importantly in life. I'm just trying to plant some seeds! The series covers Mindset, Mindfulness, Meditation, Breathwork, and Visualization. Only 3% of high school athletes play c...

On this episode of AlignedLife, my guest is my youngest son, Silas, who's 8 years old and just wrapped up recording an episode of my dad's podcast, The Encore Phase, right before this one. I wanted to sit down with Silas because I love how freely he follows his creativity, and I wanted to explore that with him. We talk about how he goes all-in on his interests, from WWE to the NBA to painting rock...

Every week on The Five, we find one headline and one deeper idea across all five pillars of aligned living — Spirit, Mind, Body, Money, and Creativity — and ask what they mean for the life you're actually trying to build. This week, one thread ran through every pillar before we went looking for it: the things you gave up in the process of becoming competent. In Spirit, the science of awe — why the...

Every week on The Five, we find one headline and one deeper idea across all five pillars of aligned living — Spirit, Mind, Body, Money, and Creativity — and ask what they mean for the life you're actually trying to build. This week, one thread ran through every pillar before we went looking for it: what you're holding too tight.  In Spirit, new research across 22 countries confirms what the theolo...

Every week on The Five, we find one headline and one deeper idea across all five pillars of aligned living—Spirit, Mind, Body, Money, and Creativity—and ask what they mean for the life you're actually trying to build. This week, one thread ran through every pillar before we went looking for it: showing up. Not dramatically. Not as a resolution. Just the ordinary, recurring act of being present — t...

Every week on The Five, we find one headline and one deeper idea across all five pillars of aligned living — Spirit, Mind, Body, Money, and Creativity — and ask what they mean for the life you're actually trying to build. This week, one question ran through all five pillars: what are you still keeping for yourself? Not dramatically. Not as a manifesto. Just as an honest look at how many small hand...

Every week on The Five, we find one headline and one deeper idea across all five pillars of aligned living — Spirit, Mind, Body, Money, and Creativity — and ask what they mean for the life you're actually trying to build. This week, a clip went viral that most people laughed at. Steven Bartlett — host of one of the world's most listened-to podcasts — said that three glasses of wine "ruined three d...

Every week on The Five, we find one headline and one deeper idea across all five pillars of aligned living — Spirit, Mind, Body, Money, and Creativity — and ask what they mean for the life you're actually trying to build. This week, one thread ran through every single pillar before we even went looking for it: friction. Deliberate, chosen friction.  There's an ancient case for silence that a noisy...

Most of us are trying to think our way through things that can only be lived through. This week on The Five — new research out of a leading journal reframes the entire relationship between faith and belief, and the finding might surprise you. Neuroscientists are finally giving us a better map for one of the most universal human experiences — one that the five stages model got wrong for decades. We...

Every week on The Five, we find one headline and one deeper idea across all five pillars of aligned living — Spirit, Mind, Body, Money, and Creativity — and ask what they mean for the life you're actually trying to build. This week, one question surfaced across all five pillars without us looking for it: what do you actually stand on? A generation of young men is quietly walking back into churches...

This week on The Five, we're sitting with an uncomfortable question that kept surfacing across every single pillar: we know what we need — so why aren't we doing it? Americans are cutting off loved ones at record rates while simultaneously reporting they've never felt more alone. The research on behavior change confirms what most of us already sense — that willpower isn't the problem, identity is....

Welcome to the very first episode of The Five — a weekly show inside the AlignedLife podcast where we explore one news headline and one deeper idea across all five pillars of aligned living: spirit, mind, body, money, and creativity. Something is shifting in America — and this week, you can feel it across all five pillars. A generation that grew up online is quietly turning toward faith, not out o...

In this episode, I sit down with my coach Phil Wood for what I hope will be a regular series of conversations — and I couldn't think of a better place to start than the story of one of the biggest chapter endings I've ever heard. Phil and his wife Jen spent 20 years as church-planting pastors, pouring their entire lives — their identity, their community, their spirituality, their income — into one...

What does it mean to live beyond the numbers, and what happens when a financial planner starts writing from the heart? In this episode, I sit down with Ohan Kayikchyan, financial planner and founder of Alohana Financial, to explore how he's building a practice rooted in life planning, self-reflection, and authentic connection.  We dig into the origin of Alohana Moments — his personal blog combinin...

This is the first episode of a new format I'm trying, bringing the AlignedLife conversation home, literally. I sat down with my wife, Ang, to talk about one of the most important questions we wrestle with as parents: how do we help our three boys grow into the fullest, most authentic versions of themselves? We cover a lot of ground in this one--from the tension between wanting to guide our kids an...

What if you were given the choice to stay or go — and you chose to stay? In this conversation, I sit down with my friend Aaron Schaben, and we start exactly where his story begins: the moment he left his body during a near-death experience at the 2019 Boston Marathon. With an internal body temperature of 108°, Aaron found himself above his own body — not in fear, but in complete peace — and was gi...

In this conversation, I sit down with my friend and one of the best advisors I know, Michael Remedios, founder of Wonderland FP, to explore his journey through what he calls the "art of the sabbatical." Michael made the bold decision to leave a successful career as a lead advisor — at the height of his earning potential — to create space for reflection, experimentation, and eventually launching hi...

After 20 years climbing the corporate ladder inside hospitals and health systems — VP roles, COO of a major Metro Detroit hospital, navigating a global pandemic on the front lines — my guest Frank Sawyer walked away from it all to build something he believes can actually fix healthcare. In this episode, Frank and I talk about what's really broken in the healthcare system (and why it's not a conspi...

I first met Daisy through Tom Morgan's Leading Edge community, and when I mentioned I'd done human design and gene keys, she laughed—"You're much further into astrology than you realize." In this conversation, Daisy walks me through my own gene key profile live, and what unfolds is remarkable. Gene keys and human design are consciousness mapping tools that reveal how we're uniquely designed to ope...

In this conversation, I sit down with Rashan Brown—spoken word poet, founder of Poetry Me Please, and someone who's masterfully building his creative vision alongside a full-time career. What started with heartbreak in high school and a fascination with battle rap has evolved into a platform that's bringing spoken word poetry to stages like Brooklyn's Kings Theatre. Rashan's journey is the perfect...