Choose the Hard Way

Dan Doty is co-founder of Evryman , a company that brings men together to exercise their emotions so they can lead more successful, fulfilling lives. Early in Dan's career, he spent over 600 days in the backcountry working as a wilderness therapy guide for disadvantaged and at risk young men and taught public high school in the Bronx. Later he worked as a producer and director on outdoor-based fil...

Jeff Provenzano , aka Jeffro, makes his living skydiving , BASE jumping and wingsuit flying as a member of the Red Bull Air Force . Jeff is a stuntman who has appeared in films including Ironman 3 and Godzilla and he is a champion competitor with over 20,000 jumps under his belt. He has trained elite military units in canopy flying and has been part of multiple world record-setting group jumps. He...

Phil Gaimon is an ex-pro cyclist and the creator of the wildly popular YouTube cycling series , The Worst Retirement Ever. He previously joined me for episode 5 where he talked about his transformation from an overweight kid into one of the best pro cyclists in America and his evolution as a creator and entrepreneur. Phil is the author of two memoirs , a creative force and had planned to spend thi...

Kyle Wong is a serial entrepreneur and the CEO and co-founder of Pixlee, a visual marketing platform that helps brands market and sell with customer photos and videos. He launched Pixlee out of his Stanford dorm room and got his start as an entrepreneur in high school at Brooklyn Tech. He has been on a roll ever since.  Kyle has been featured in Forbes' 30 Under 30 List and is a regular speaker an...

Why did police destroy over 400 rape kits in cases where the statute of limitations hadn't expired or when there was no time limit to prosecute? That's the question that drove CNN reporter Ashley Fantz and her colleagues Sergio Hernandez and Sonam Vashi to spend more than a year to create Destroyed, a multi-media investigative report that has already led to changes to how police handle rape kits,...

In the first 18 episodes of Choose the Hard Way, I've had the chance to share interviews with some of the world's top performers. Ep. 19 is different. Recently, I met an astronaut who challenged me to share more about my own failures through this podcast. No problem. I have lived through an abundance of painful experiences in business, relationships and life when I have doubted myself, fallen shor...

Is the future of venture capital in Ohio? And what does being a wrestler have to do with building a high-performance career in tech? The answer to those questions and more on this episode. Today my guest is Robert Hatta, t he Talent Partner at Drive Capital, where he helps portfolio companies build amazing teams. Drive Capital is a venture firm based in Columbus, Ohio that's focused on helping ent...

Miles Daisher is a legendary canopy pilot and wingsuit flyer with more than 7,200 skydives and 4,500 BASE jumps. That's more known BASE jumps than anyone on the planet. He may also well embody more stoke than any human on earth. He's a member of the Red Bull Air Force , a specialized human flight team of expert pilots and has worked as a stuntman flying in films including Ironman 3. In 2005, Miles...

Before he became a Special Forces Engineer and Weapons Sergeant and served in Afghanistan, Iraq and Africa, Doug Kiesewetter was a college dropout whose primary motivation was drinking as much beer as possible and working on his Jeep. A tour of duty as a roughneck in the oil fields of Texas pointed him in a new direction. Still a Green Beret today, Doug is also the content director of SOFLETE, one...

The Beastie Boys, Spike Jonze, Doug Aitken, Public Enemy, Soundgarden, a Tribe Called Quest, the Matrix, Man of Steel, 300, Nike & Converse are but a few of the artists, films & companies who have leveraged the creative talents of Eric Matthies. In this conversation, we discuss his path from a Chicago skate punk with a camera who shot videos for bands like Nine Inch Nails to the exceptional docume...

Diane Luby Lane is an award-winning literary activist, educator, actress, poet, author and the founder and executive director of Get Lit–Words Ignite , an LA-based arts education nonprofit that brings classic poetry to the street and street poetry into the classrooms to empower new generations in literature, self-expression and performing arts. By engaging teens in great works of literature, in-sc...

Pete Holman is a physical therapist, strength & conditioning expert, entrepreneur, inventor, author, and renaissance man based in Aspen, Colorado. Pete is a former TaeKwon-Do US national team captain and TaeKwon-Do National Champion. As a physical therapist, educator and strength & conditioning expert, Pete has worked with tens of thousands of coaches, trainers and athletes around the world rangin...

Growing up in Sacramento, CA, Marcus 'Big Herc' Timmons was a straight-A student and talented athlete before he took a wrong turn into gang life, drug dealing and violence. He spent most of his teens incarcerated the California Youth Authority juvenile detention system and before he went to prison for bank robbery, he worked as a performer in the adult industry. Today, Big Herc, is one of the fast...

Jack and two buddies skateboarded across America in 1976 using a '69 Firebird with a .22 rifle in the trunk as their sag vehicle and luxurious camper. It was a time before Instagram models roamed the earth and invented the sacrament of Van Life. Jack and his pals saw America in a way few characters besides those in fiction ever experienced it. Jack went on to complete four more trans-continental s...

Jeremy shares insights about: being a pioneer, drawing your own map, failing and getting up over and over again to forge a career, start a media company, chase a dream and inspire + enable others to do the same, at scale. ---- Jeremy Powers is a professional cyclist who has won over 90 UCI races, four U.S. National Championships and the 2015 Pan American Championship. He has also been a relentless...

Get this episode now on iTunes , Stitcher , Spotify , & Google Play. On Christmas Eve 2007, Royal Marines Commando Mark Ormrod was on patrol in the Helmand province of Afghanistan when he triggered an IED and lost both legs and one arm. Today, Mark is an internationally acclaimed motivational speaker, a peak performance coach, an entrepreneur and the author of the award-winning autobiography, Man...

Get this episode now on iTunes , Stitcher , Spotify , & Google Play. The content & marketing mastermind shares lessons learned from a career that has included working as a journalist at the Wall Street Journal & Venture Beat; in PR at Tesla; and in content + marketing at Kiva and First Round Capital where she created the esteemed First Round Review. Camille is a powerhouse storyteller and authorit...

Marty Skovlund, Jr. is a veteran Army Ranger who served in the 1st Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment. Currently the executive editor of Black Rifle Coffee Company 's Coffee or Die magazine , he's an entrepreneur, journalist, photographer, award-winning filmmaker and the author of Ranger Knowledge: The Complete Study Guide. His book Violence of Action: The Untold Stories of the 75th Ranger Regiment i...

Former professional cyclist Phil Gaimon once almost died in a bike wreck, but he never rode the Tour de France. Today, he's one of the biggest creative forces and personalities in the sport as the author of three books, creator of The Worst Retirement Ever YouTube series and host of The Peloton Brief Podcast . Phil has started multiple businesses and overcome huge odds to succeed. A self-described...

The North Face athlete on El Cap, Everest, anger, rock climbing, expeditions, origins and her evolution from one of the greatest competitive climbers ever to big mountain alpinist, skier and explorer. Emily Harrington has summited Everest, free climbed El Capitan in Yosemite and completed numerous first ascents of 5.14 sport routes. She has been on expeditions around the world seeking out big moun...

Jason McCarthy is a combat veteran, former U.S. Army Green Beret and entrepreneur. In 2008, Jason founded GoRuck , the gear, apparel and events company that created the GoRuck Challenge--events modeled after Special Forces selection led by SOF cadre that last between a few hours and several days during which participants ruck with packs loaded with 20-40 pounds and get a small taste of what Jason...

7x summiter, 1x without supplemental oxygen, on the sacrifices made to fulfill a lifelong dream.  Adrian Ballinger has summited Mt. Everest seven times. He attempted Everest without supplemental oxygen in 2016 as part of the Everest No Filter expedition with national geographic photographer Cory Richards. Cory made the summit. Adrian didn't. They went back in 2017, and Adrian achieved his goal of...

Anthony Weiner's mayoral campaign head of comms/Booker+Bloomberg administration comms veteran on managing a media crisis & redemption. Barbara Morgan is a VP at the strategic communications firm Greenbrier and the founder of Apex Strategies. She served as a former senior aide to the NJ State Department of Education and the former administrations of Mayors Bloomberg and Booker. Barbara also headed...

This is Andrew Vontz, and on Choose the Hard Way, I explore peak performance and lessons learned at the limits of human experience with a broad variety of guests from tech, business, politics, sports, special ops, and many other disciplines. There aren't shortcuts on the path to becoming the best and my guests are people who choose the hard way. If you like this episode, please subscribe, share wi...