The Chase Merrill Podcast

OB is an online fat loss coach, the founder of OB Health Coaching, and host of the OB Health Podcast. What if the biggest obstacle to losing weight isn't food, but your relationship with it? OB spent eight years trapped in an all-or-nothing relationship with food that tanked his hormones, before rebuilding his entire coaching philosophy around fixing it instead of restricting harder. So why do...

Judy Grisel is a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Bucknell University and the author of Never Enough: The Neuroscience and Experience of Addiction. What actually drives addiction — genes or environment? Judy spent a decade lost to addiction, homeless and sick, before turning her own life into a research question and becoming one of the field's leading addiction neuroscientists. Her...

This is a solo episode — I talk through the fears I don't usually say out loud. - Save hundreds on the best saunas on the market: HERE (use code MERRILL) Save on Ice Barrel Cold Plunge: HERE (use code MERRILL) Save on beef protein: HERE (use code MERRILL) Save on Nordic Wave Cold Plunge: HERE (Use code MERRILL) Save on Board Game Tables: HERE ( Use MERRILL10) - Thank You For Listening To The C...

Nick Pelletier is an ultra endurance athlete, documentary filmmaker, and host of the Comfort Breeds Complacency podcast. What does it take to fail at something twice and still go back? Nick spent four years and three attempts trying to swim the 113-kilometer length of Okanagan Lake, battling chafing so severe he couldn't lift his arms, wildfire smoke that erased the shoreline, and a shoulder t...

Ryan Glatt is a brain health coach, certified personal trainer, and director of the FitBrain Program at the Pacific Neuroscience Institute, and author of Brain Health and Exercise. What's actually happening in your brain when you exercise? Most of what circulates online about neuroplasticity, brain rewiring, and "brain hacks" is either oversimplified or flat-out wrong, and there'...

Mark Divine is a retired U.S. Navy SEAL Commander, founder of SEALFIT and Unbeatable Mind, and author of several bestselling books including Unbeatable Mind and The Way of the SEAL. What's actually happening when a mind can't be broken? Mark earned the nickname "Cyborg" in the SEALs for barely registering pain, but what he's built since retiring goes far beyond physical tough...

Dr. Dan Sullivan is a naturopathic doctor, functional medicine practitioner, and ADHD specialist. What's actually driving the rise in adult ADHD diagnoses? Standard of care jumps straight to stimulant medication, but Dr. Dan Sullivan argues that medicating a body that's never been tested is like bolting a turbocharger onto an engine that was never built to handle it. So what should actuall...

Bradley Schurman is a demographer, futurist, and the author of The Super Age: Decoding Our Demographic Destiny. What happens when a country runs out of people before it runs out of promises to them? By the end of the decade, America will have more people over 65 than under 18, and the Social Security and Medicare trust funds are on pace to run dry by 2030 with no fix in sight. So how much of that...

David Allen is the creator of the Getting Things Done (GTD) methodology, a management consultant, and an executive coach. What's actually stealing your focus? Most people are carrying somewhere between 150 and 200 unfinished commitments in their head at once, using their brain as an office it was never built to be. So why does everyone feel so overwhelmed, and what does it actually take to get...

Simone Stolzoff is a journalist, author, and TED speaker. What happens when the world gets more uncertain right as our tolerance for uncertainty keeps shrinking? Answers are a tap away, yet most people are more anxious and less equipped to sit with not knowing than ever before. So what's actually driving that gap, and how do you build the tolerance back? Expect to learn why our brains are biol...

Dr. Paul Morland is a demographer, author, and researcher. What's actually happening to the global population? For decades we were warned about overpopulation, yet birth rates are now collapsing below replacement across most of the world, from China to Chile. So what happens to an economy, and a civilization, when there simply aren't enough people left to sustain it? Expect to learn why th...

Fawzi Ammache is an AI engineer, emerging-technology educator, and the creator of Future with Fawzi. What's actually going to happen with AI? Every headline swings between utopia and collapse, leaving most people anxious and convinced their job is next. So what's real, what's hype, and what should we actually be worried about? Expect to learn why the most useful AI will also be the mos...

Dr. Trish Leigh is a neuroscientist, author, and neurofeedback specialist. What is pornography actually doing to your brain? It floods the reward system with levels of dopamine no real-world experience can match, and after only a couple of exposures — often in childhood — the brain recalibrates around the high. So why does it become so hard to stop, and what does it actually take to rewire the pat...

Wyatt Ewing is an entrepreneur, the founder of Ice Barrel, and the co-founder of Founders Only Club and World's Toughest Mile. What does it actually take to build a company out of nothing? Wyatt went from selling million-dollar private jets to hand-painting toxic epoxy onto barrels in his garage, betting everything on a cold therapy practice most people thought was insane. So what separates th...

Steve Mesler is an Olympic gold medalist bobsledder, three-time Olympian, co-founder of Classroom Champions, and an executive performance coach. What happens after you achieve the one thing you've chased your whole life? Steve won gold in Vancouver and, years later, found himself crying alone on his couch every morning, standing on a train platform thinking his family would be better off witho...

Laura Vanderkam is an author, journalist, and speaker focused on time management and productivity. What's actually getting in the way of using our time well? Most people insist they have no free time, yet the same hours slip away to doom scrolling and busywork every single day. So is the problem really a lack of time, or the belief that we don't have any? Expect to learn why we don't b...

Bill Schindler is an archaeologist, anthropologist, chef, and author. What did our ancestors actually know about food that we've forgotten? For millions of years, nearly every tool humans invented was built to make food safer and more nourishing, yet today we're surrounded by more food than ever and sicker for it. So what went wrong, and what would it take to eat like a human again? Expect...

What does it actually take to stay disciplined for years without burning out? Most high performers learn to achieve through force — pushing harder, doing more, shaming themselves into action — until that approach quietly stops working. So what replaces willpower once it fails, and how do you build the kind of self-trust that makes hard things automatic? Expect to learn why the relationship you hav...

Genny Rumancik is an emotional intelligence educator, author, and founder of The EQ School. What does it actually take to change? We're taught that discipline, willpower, and pushing harder are the levers of growth — yet most people find themselves cycling through the same patterns no matter how hard they try. So what's actually driving those patterns beneath the surface, and how do you br...

Martyn Whittock is a historian, author, and former educator with over 35 years of teaching medieval history, and the author of American Vikings and Vikings in the East. What was a Viking? Not a people, a nation, or a religion — but a job description. The Norse exploded out of Scandinavia for three centuries, raiding from Lindisfarne to Baghdad, yet within two generations almost everywhere they lan...

What's actually happening inside your gut? Modern diets, over-sterilized environments, and decades of bad supplement advice have quietly dismantled the microbiome that runs almost every system in your body — from your immune system to your brain. So what does a genuinely healthy microbiome look like, and what does it actually take to rebuild one? Expect to learn why 80% of gut-brain communication...

What's actually stopping you from doing the thing? It's not your schedule, your energy, or the weather — it's the gap between the idea and the action. The cold plunge is always worse from the outside looking in. So what does standing next to a 40-degree tank each day teach you about starting a podcast, finishing a 100-day challenge, or building something before anyone's watching Ex...

Alex Tarnava is a health researcher, inventor of molecular hydrogen tablets, and author. What's happening to human capacity? Society is telling people to specialize, comply, and trust institutions — but the systems running our lives may be designed, even if unintentionally, to produce weaker, more exploitable people. So what's actually been engineered into our education, our corporations,...

Dr. Lee Warren is a neurosurgeon, Iraq War veteran, podcast host, and author of four books, including The Life-Changing Art of Self-Brain Surgery. What if the thing controlling your thoughts, habits, and emotions isn't who you really are? For decades, science taught us that genes and brain chemistry write our futures — that we're stuck with the minds we were given. But the latest neuroscie...

Dan Millman is a former world-champion athlete, coach, and bestselling author of Way of the Peaceful Warrior. What does it actually take to live with a peaceful heart? We're told that finding our calling, thinking positively, and reaching our goals will finally make us happy, yet the people chasing those things hardest often feel the furthest from peace. So what are we getting wrong about succ...