Four Fs Podcast: 10-Minute Wins

After Ranger Assessment and Selection, the regiment handed David Porter a tripod-mounted machine gun and told him to carry it across the mountains of Afghanistan. He calls it "strapping a toddler to your back." David — Charlie Company, 3rd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment — walks through what it actually takes to stay in the Rangers: deployments, Ranger School, the tab, the scroll, and wh...

The Carrizozo lava flow in New Mexico — the longest lava flow in the continental United States at 75 kilometers — likely erupted in about a year. The Laki eruption in Iceland in 1773 put out 18 cubic kilometers of material in 18 months and killed roughly 20% of Iceland's population through famine and fluoride poisoning. Dr. Jeffrey Zurek is a geophysicist who researches the Rio Grande Rift and...

What happens when you cross over? In this episode, we dive deep into a profound near-death experience (NDE) that involves an unexpected connection with nature and a direct encounter with the divine. Our guest today shares a story that was passed down to them—a first-hand account of a man who died, crossed over, and returned with a vivid description of the afterlife. It’s one of the most unique acc...

Explore the intersection of geophysics and AI with Dr. Jeffrey Zurich. Learn how modern technology changes fieldwork on volcanoes. Dr. Jeffrey Zurek (  ⁨@WhimsicalWavelengths⁩  ) a seasoned geophysicist and volcanologist, joins us to discuss his career path and the technical aspects of his work. We examine how gravity measurements provide critical data for understanding volcanic structures and how...

Desai Link explains how he operates massive mining machinery in the Australian desert from a comfortable office in Perth—over 1,000km away. The truck is at a remote mine. The driver is in an office in Perth. That's not the future of safety — that's right now in Western Australia. Desai Link walks through the rise of autonomous mining trucks in WA and explains why the single biggest safety...

Most people pick a mentor by skill set. Tiffanie Janowitz picks differently. For her, the question isn't "what can you teach me?" It's "do I respect the life you're living?" The Limitless founder breaks down the mentor framework that's actually shaped her career — and why alignment beats expertise every time. In this 10-minute conversation, Tiffanie shares: • Wh...

Bottom 10% in accounting. Top of her game in M&A. Himani Naresh — Wharton MBA, former Microsoft M&A leader, and self-described boomerang employee — sits down with The Four Fs Podcast to walk through the wild path from Columbia computer science to Wharton to closing 20+ deals at Microsoft. In this 10-minute conversation, Himani shares: • Why the people in business school matter more than th...

A van stuffed floor-to-ceiling with IBM 286 computers, all the seats ripped out, video cameras bolted on. Top speed: a couple inches an hour. Stop. Stare at a leaf. Ponder for 30 minutes whether it's a leaf or a person. Move another inch. That was Carnegie Mellon's self-driving car in the 1980s. Craig Kaplan used to jog past it. The exact same algorithms running on today's hardware? 18...

"You can't suffer unless you love. It's because we love so much that we suffer." Trauma therapist Richie Landward explains why so many people quietly choose suffering — even when it's painful — because it's familiar, because it grants permission not to act, and because losing it is more terrifying than carrying it. In this 10-minute conversation, Richie shares: • Shame as...

"I was like, wow, I've been working my way through school and paying you, and now they're going to pay me to go to school? I'll do that." Dr. Craig Kaplan — AI researcher who studied under Nobel laureate Herbert Simon at Carnegie Mellon — walks back through the unlikely path that took a kid from Berkeley to Phillips Exeter Academy (yes, the same prep school as Mark Zuckerberg...

"I challenge you to stay in alignment with yourself. When you find yourself in those spaces, soak it all up, stay curious, and keep driving from there." Tiffanie Janowitz — youngest of eight, former University of Utah competitive cheerleader, now CEO of Limitless Society — answers a question from an 8-year-old listener about why she chose cheerleading, and uses it to unpack what "li...

Today's AI sounds smart because it knows a little about everything. But the moment you ask it about something you're an expert in, the cracks show up fast. So how does it become genuinely smarter than the smartest human? Craig Kaplan — Wall Street veteran, AI researcher, and founder of SuperIntelligence.com — joins The Four Fs Podcast to break down the path from "average intelligence&...

One bottle of Centrum Silver. An unlocked locker. One jump away from Ranger selection. David Porter — former 75th Ranger Regiment, now a senior executive at ServiceNow — tells the story of how a tiny mistake at airborne school cost him his shot at Ranger Assessment and Selection, and how the next two weeks reshaped his entire career. In this 10-minute conversation, David shares: • The morning his...

"Grab a coffee. Tell me what happened." That's the entire script. Desai Link — author of "Beyond the Incident" — explains why he's the first person to translate 400 years of British legal causation principles into safety investigation tools, and why the word "interview" itself can wreck the conversation before it starts. In this 10-minute conversation, Desai s...

Food poisoning. 5 days in the ICU. Five weeks of chemotherapy. And a priority list that's never changed since. Microsoft veteran Rich Kaplan walks through the 2005 illness that nearly took his life, the operating philosophy he's lived by ever since — family, health, service — and the unforgettable QVC moment where he sold 22,000 copies of Windows 95 in a single appearance. In this 10-minut...

What does getting handcuffed at 17 over a $1.25 subway token have to do with becoming a Microsoft developer? Everything — if you know how to turn a story into a lesson. In this 10 Minute Wins conversation, Himani Naresh — Columbia computer science grad, version-one SharePoint developer, and former VP at a global media company — walks through the through-line from her NYC subway arrest to her early...

An osprey drops a baby turtle from the sky. It hits a worker in the head. Welcome to Barrow Island. Desai Link — NZ-based health and safety leader and author of "Beyond the Incident" — opens with the wildest stories from a career he never planned: Class A nature reserves in Western Australia, 8-foot monitor lizards that don't fear humans, and the day-to-day reality of an H&S role...

What if the inventions meant to solve our biggest problems actually ended up nearly destroying the planet? Dive into the messy, human side of science where grudges and mistakes have shaped our modern world. In this clip from the Four Fs Podcast, I’m joined by Dr. Jeffrey Zurek—a geophysicist, volcanologist, and host of the Whimsical Wavelengths podcast. We discuss the fascinating (and sometimes da...

Fear lives only in the past or future. Presence dissolves it. And there's a 2,000-year-old word for the muscle that does it: abhaya. Trauma therapist Richie Landward traces fear back to the origin of creation itself — and walks through the 4-step "abhaya" process that transforms fear from enemy into evolutionary partner. In this 10-minute conversation, Richie shares: • Why fear and c...

It's already cheaper to train an AI than to hire an analyst. So what does that mean for graduates, for universities, and for the labor side of the economy itself? Johns Hopkins SAIS professor Gordon Bodnar walks through the AI/labor/GDP math: why companies are pulling back on hiring even as they pour billions into AI, what that means for the next decade of mature talent, and why the textbook G...

One predator. 400 kids. $6,000 to closea case. And a cybersecurity professional whose biggest fear is that even hisown kids could fall for it. Lee Anderson — Innocent Lives Foundation volunteer and former Federal Reservecybersecurity specialist — walks through the practical, non-punitive approachhe's built for protecting his own kids online. In this 10-minute conversation, Lee shares: • The In...

December 2019: he left Simon Sinek's team. February 2020: last in-person gig. March 2020: the speaker industry vanished overnight. David Mead — co-author of "Find Your Why" — walks through the 2-3 years that followed: a half-built home in Alpine, Utah, a surprise home valuation from real-estate friends at AT&T, and a faith that what was supposed to come would. In this 10-minute c...

Rule one: don't be an asshole. Rule two: when in doubt, refer back to rule one. David Porter — Army Ranger turned ServiceNow senior executive — unpacks why "algorithmic" thinking (do A, then B, then C) breaks down the moment you step into the real world, and why the 52 jobs he held before the Army taught him more than business school ever could. In this 10-minute conversation, David...

Your career is not a ladder. It's a jungle gym. Himani Naresh — former VP at a global media company, ex-Microsoft engineer turned MBA turned M&A leader turned nonprofit operator — joins The Four Fs Podcast to make the case that the most fulfilling careers don't follow a straight line. In this 10-minute conversation, Himani shares: • Why your path will be a series of strategic and tacti...

David Mead is a leadership expert and co-author of Find Your Why with Simon Sinek — and when COVID hit, he lost nearly everything he had built after leaving Simon's team. No speaking gigs. No book deal. A brand new house in Alpine he wasn't sure he could afford. And a speakers bureau agent telling him straight: "You are not gonna get a job." In this clip from the Four Fs Podcast,...