100% Awesome Podcast

While it's true that most of us appreciate the ease and entertainment that we get from our digital devices, it may also be true that we are spending more time on them than we want to be. Why is this?  Well, it turns out that our brains are biologically programmed to respond to the content and the alerts of digital media and there is an entire attention economy dedicated to taking advantage of that...

All of us know about trying harder. We've been taught to believe that if your life doesn't look the way you want, you probably need to try harder! But today I want to offer you the idea that instead of being harder and tougher on ourselves in order to create what we want in our lives, what we really need to do is to be warmer with ourselves. Instead of criticism and impatience with our efforts, wh...

I can't believe it, but this is the 250th episode of the podcast! And today, I'm showing my appreciation for all the things that have helped me reach this milestone. I have been the recipient of an endless supply of encouragements and today I want to take a moment to say thank you. During the episode you'll learn how you have your own endless supply of encouragements and how you can use those enco...

Perhaps there is no category of thoughts with more stigma or misunderstanding than suicidal thoughts. These kinds of thoughts scare us. We don't like to talk about them and most of us don't know what to do when we find them in our own heads or in the heads of the people we love and care about. But suicidal thoughts are common for human beings and really understanding why we have them and what we s...

There's a famous concept that is often used in business, in teams, and in other organizations that says that when it comes to success, culture is way more important than strategy. When it comes to accomplishing your own dreams and creating results in your own life, this idea is just as true. It's easy to focus your energy and effort on the "strategies" and all the things you need to do. But what i...

It's been a tough week for coaches in the NFL. The playoffs are in full swing and right now there are a lot of coaching changes happening across the league and lots of talk about who's in and who's out.  Just like in fashion or in NFL coaching, our thoughts go in and out of usefulness. There are times when we decide that thinking one way has got to go and it's time to make room for something new....

There's a good reason that many of our dreams go unfulfilled: our brains always get in the way.  In the first three weeks of the year, I have already been reminded how just as soon as we start working towards our dreams, our brains step up to stop us—which is why all of us have to learn to fight for our dreams. Today on the podcast, I'm sharing three recent experiences and three lessons to help yo...

You are not your brain.  You are not your biology or your physiology or your neurochemistry. You are a being separate from your brain, but your brain chemistry is making a far bigger impact on your life, your feelings, and your choices than you may realize. Today on the podcast I'm teaching you about some of the most important neurotransmitters in your brain, why they work the way they do, and how...

This time of year we hear lots of talk about goals, but I think many of us have goal trauma. We've been hurt by goals we've set in the past or hurt by our own mistreatment of ourselves as we pursued them. A lot of us are disillusioned and tired and maybe we're even a little bit scared to set goals because, instead of helping us, many of our goals have ended up eroding the relationship we have with...

Recently I have been thinking about the difference between living your life well and having a life well-lived. Living your life well is about making sure you're living your life correctly, taking all the right action and making all the right choices so that you can earn approval from yourself or others. It's about external measurements and external validation of your choices. While having a life t...

As we are in the final weeks of 2023, I have naturally been thinking about the year—the things I did, the choices I made, the results I have created, and especially the lessons I have learned.  Today on the podcast, I wanted to share the three lessons that have meant the most to me this year. These are the things that changed me the most and made a huge difference in the way I think about myself a...

This time of year, it's hard to miss the onslaught of cheesy, formulaic Christmas movies, where (inevitably) a big city businessman/advertising exec/marketing bro finds true love and happiness with a small-town baker/chef/café owner. It's a story that's been so overtold that you can guess the characters, the setting, the plot, and the happy ending before it even starts.  In many ways, our brain fo...

As humans, most of us wonder about our purpose. Unlike God's other creations, we tend to worry about what we're supposed to be doing with our lives and how to find and fulfill our true purpose while we're here on earth. Sometimes these concerns cause us to hurt ourselves with the thought that our lives were supposed to be different than they are and that if we were better somehow or had made bette...

The holidays can be a really stressful time of year. It seems like there are a million things to do, a million places to be, a million expectations to meet, and never enough time and energy and resources to do it all. In today's episode of the podcast, I'm sharing 6 practical tips to help you navigate the holidays more gracefully and to approach this time of year with more grace for yourself and t...

While there are never feelings that you should or should not feel, there might be feelings that you WANT to feel more of—and maybe gratitude is one of those for you. Not only can gratitude be one of the most enjoyable emotions to feel in and of itself, it can also be used to soften and ameliorate painful emotions like stress and grief.  Today on the podcast, I'm sharing a small but powerful tool t...

My brother recently ran his third 100-mile ultramarathon and I wanted to know all about it! WHY did he run it? HOW did he run it? And WHAT does he do to keep going when things get hard? We talk about all of it in this latest episode of the podcast.  This is an episode packed with tons of insights and a-ha moments to help all of us who want to do hard things but don't know how to keep going when ou...

One of the greatest gifts we have down here on earth is the ability to talk to God. But just like anything else in life, sometimes our thoughts get in the way of us using this gift the way we want to. For many of us, there are a lot of thoughts that can get in the way of our conversations with God, that prevent us from opening up to him, that make us feel guilty and self-conscious, and stop us fro...

It's easy to feel heavy and overwhelmed by the suffering and devastation happening in our world right now. It seems like there is no end to the pain caused by living in the world or to the pain that can be caused by the choices of other people.  In today's podcast episode, I am sharing a recent conversation I had with grief coach, Kelly Norton, who shared some powerful thoughts about how to handle...

A spell is defined as a series of words that has magical powers. But there's nothing mystical or supernatural about the fact that the words in our head (our thoughts) are powerfully, unconsciously, almost "magically" creating our lives.  And if we think about the metaphor of casting spells to allow you to alter or control reality, nowhere is that a more useful skill to have than in your own mind....

Our brains can be kind of tricky sometimes. They often like to give us thoughts that sound nice, but which can actually be harmful and cause us pain. In fact, some of our most poisonous thoughts walk around our minds disguised as helpful, useful, reasonable, and sometimes even "positive" thoughts. Today on the podcast I'll show you how three thoughts (that your brain probably gives you on a daily...

There are lots of times in our lives when we're going to feel discouraged and, as the prefix indicates, to have moments where we literally feel separated from our courage.  When this happens to us or to the people we love, what do we do? How do we effectively help and encourage when we or others need it the most? This week I received an audio message from my son that was so encouraging that it mad...

The seasons are changing and I think it's time to change the way we see ourselves as well. It's time for a season of self-compassion. I talk a lot on the podcast about self-development, but none of us can truly grow and develop and reach our potential without having a high degree of love and compassion for ourselves. Without it, our quest for self-actualization can easily become an exercise in sel...

One of the things that can keep us stuck and discouraged and not pursuing our dreams is the fear of failure.  It's easy to be scared of failure because almost every day our brain points out the ways that it sees us failing. Our brains are good at noticing where we aren't measuring up, where we're falling behind, and where we've failed to meet our own expectations—and it feels terrible. But what if...

We are in a transition time of the year, moving from summer to fall. And every time we come to a transition moment in life, there is an opportunity to check in with yourself and ask yourself if you want to keep creating the things you've been creating or if you want to make a change. This periodic evaluation can allow us to live a life of intention rather than a life by default. In today's podcast...

Dread is suffering your brain creates ahead of time. It's the pain we feel because our brain is trying to avoid a possibly painful experience ahead of us.  And dread can be such an intense emotion that when we feel it, it can be easy to make excuses for ourselves and talk ourselves out of doing the things we want to do.  What if what is really between you and the life you want is just a feeling? W...