Leadership, Life, Health and Happiness

Gary Chupik is internationally recognized as one of the top mental performance coaches in the world, who has worked with the likes of Seattle Seahawks, US figureskating, Crossfit Olympics, National Motorcross Association, Stanford University, Microsoft, Amazon, Boeing, the FBI, police and fire people, and many more. What's his message? You have to know how to lead yourself first before you can lea...

How we perform best mentally is different from what most of us think—and the opposite of what our culture has been telling us and pushing us to do which is:

do as much as you can, all at once, all the time.

 Research shows we can't focus on more than one thing at a time. Even if you think you are, what you're really doing is juggling thoughts—touching on one for a moment and then switching.

 St...

Contrary to popular belief, consistent, high levels of stress aren't conducive to high-performance. Science now shows that being able to lower your stress in-between stressful sprints, improves your mental and physical performance, enhances resilience, creativity, and problem solving skills, and improves your mental and physical health. Reducing stress doesn't require you give up your job,...

Holidays are filled with emotions: hopes and dreams, and also pressure, even fear or dread.  Here are three things I do, to dramatically and immediately reduce my stress, bring me into focus at any current moment , elongate, and extend the amount of time that I spend in the blissful positivity state, and help my brain and body maintain optimal health and performance.

The ability to pause and question assumptions is a superpower. It allows you to engage the executive functioning frontal lobe of your brain, rather than relying solely on the fight flight freeze response which will frequently lead you down the wrong road when it comes to making important, impactful decisions. In this podcast I give you three steps to breaking free of assumptions and the fight, fli...

I stopped paying attention to how old I was after I learned a few things about aging that I think you'd be interested in knowing as well. What I learned was so profound that I literally stopped counting the number of years I've been alive. We used to think of age as a number that predicts illness or death. But we've found out that different people with different lifestyles do not have...

Did you know hunger doesn't always present itself as that familiar "hunger feeling?" Not eating, and specifically not eating the right kinds of food in the right timing, will interfere with your ability to be the kind of person you want to be. It can drastically reduce your ability to be the kind of leader you want to be, and the leader your people need you to be. Come with me on a walk this episo...

How to start becoming who we want to be? Whether it's to be a good leader or to be healthy or something else, it usually involves taking action in ways that are different from most people around us. Sometimes everyone around us. And that can be uncomfortable. The uncomfortability is one of the great hindrances for people stepping up and becoming the person that they truly want to be, for leading t...

Yes, you read the title right. There are techniques you can take from the elite athlete's playbook to boost your own performance. Of course, I talk about leadership in this podcast, but you can take a page from this playbook and it'll help you in so many areas of life. Not striving to be an olympian? That's okay. We all want to be our best, and at the top of our game when the time calls for it. He...

Around 2022, after the pandemic, people started realizing that it wasn't worth giving up their life and their health for jobs that required a lot of energy, but weren't giving them much in return. Then came quiet quitting, next quiet vacationing, now there's coffee and badging. All of these are phrases used by people who are not happy to follow a leader, to be part of a group, to be part of an org...

The U. S. has been in a severe heat wave. For the last 10 days or so it was in northern California and the northwest, and now it's moving east. I was traveling up the coast last week and much of my exercise is outdoors—especially cardio. Do you exercise outdoors in this heat? Many of you want to keep working out because it's part of how you keep our optimal performance: it keeps your energy and yo...

There’s a trend these days for: setting boundaries; sticking up yourself; letting people know they’re crossing a line that’s not OK with you; telling people if they’re asking for something that’s over-the-top or too much. This can be a good thing, because we need to make sure that we can take care of ourselves, both mentally physically and emotionally. And if we’re constantly saying yes to everyon...

Here we have an incredible, motivational story about the power of the human mind, body and spirit. An example of moving from the biggest challenges and the lowest depths in life, to a place where you thrive.  A champion in life and sport, Peter Twist coached medal-winners in the National Hockey League, became a worldwide fitness-industry legend, and continues to be a successful business owner and...

Criticism is hard to take. And if you decide to be a leader, or to assume a leadership role at any time, it's important to build yourself into someone who can listen to criticism and take it as the gift that it can be.  If you're a perfectionist, it's a lot harder to do. And that was my difficulty in the past. In this podcast,  I share my personal experience with handling criticism when you’re alr...

Stress can impact your mental capacity and overall health. We all have different reactions to stress in the sense that we've been brought up differently, we've all had different life experiences, and there are different circumstances that bring up stress for each of us. But there are some things that happen to all of us during a high stress situation, and those are the things that are essentially...

Based on what I’ve seen and current science, there are 6 elements that affect your brain energy. They influence your success at work and in relationships, your leadership abilities, and the success of your team and your company if you have one. They also affect your health and longevity all the way down to your DNA. (But that's for another podcast.) They all work together. Each one affects the oth...

This is part 2, as promised, on what we know about COVID today. This time, I'm talking about prevention. This deep-dive into the research was inspired when I had it in December which sent me digging through the journals to understand what the science is showing, rather than the misinformation too often heard through media and social media. In this episode I share: Lessons on leadership from th...

Mindset is a powerful tool. It's also an undervalued and misunderstood tool. Some think mindset is the outcome of luck, circumstances, or upbringing. Some think it's nothing but slapping a "happy face" sticker on top of a problem. It's none of those. When you learn you can adjust your mindset to create the experiences and outcomes you most desire for yourself and others, that...

There are so many confusing messages about COVID today. Has it become as benign as a cold? Is it just like the flu? Are you completely safe if you're fit and healthy? I'll tell you about the experience I had with it in December. And I'll share the most recent research I've found about it. Below is a list of references to the studies I mentioned in this episode, in the order I speak...

Happy New Year 2024! At the beginning of the year we tend to think about how can we be better, feel better, do better, have better, and make things better. In this episode I have two, different and powerful practices for you to go into the year—and through the year—truly making things different and better. These practices are powerful in ways not many people grasp. By putting them to use, you'...

During the holidays an increased number of responsibilities increases the demands on your brain.  Performing at optimal capacity will become more important, and also more difficult during these next few weeks. As a leader you want to continue being an outstanding role model to the people you’re leading. You want to keep being competent, confident, reliable, resourceful, creative, energetic and ins...

What happens when your plan falls through? Whether it's small or big, when a plan falls apart it can cause significant stress. Even when it seems like life has metaphorically "punched you in the face" as Mike Tyson says, there are techniques and mental tools you can use to help you ride the difficult waves of life. Over time, these tools will make you more resilient. You get better at staying on t...

 If you're like me, you're used to powering through life no matter how you feel. You can't afford to have anything slow you down, and there's just no time to get sick. Over the years I've learned a few lessons about how to avoid getting sick that work much better than powering through it when you feel run down. These practices have helped me perform more optimally than ever bef...

There’s one strategic advantage that many businesses are forgetting about right now. What that means for you is— there's a big, gaping opportunity to beat your competitors. The strategic advantage is your customer's emotional connection to you. Fostering a deep emotional connection is becoming a lost art. If you develop it, it will take you far, far beyond your competitors. In this episode...

Do you have a little voice in your head that says "you’re not good enough," "this is going to fail," "people are going to hate you and your work" or "you can’t trust anyone?"  Everyone has internal saboteurs—even the most the successful people including CEOs in the Fortune 500, & the highest level athletes  They especially show up when we’re about to do...