#WeGotGoals by aSweatLife

Ten years ago, when Rafe Offer created Sofar Sounds , he had no idea what kind of global community he would build. He didn't know how badly people needed real, tangible, human connection. He was just frustrated with his experiences at concerts by musical artists he knew and respected. With the drive to improve his own listening experience, Offer came up with a relatively simple idea: invite artist...

"I do think that I’ve become the patron saint of failure," Sarah Robb O'Hagan said as I spoke to her for the #WeGotGoals podcast with a laugh. But that's exactly what made me pay attention when  I met her two years ago : a special sort of grit that's simultaneously powerful and vulnerable. On this week's episode, Robb O'Hagan and I talk about her goals, sure, and they're well worth a listen, but I...

Some athletes aim to run or bike faster, others to score more points or lift heavier. But those at Chicago’s EDGE Athlete Lounge have the same underlying target: “becoming better people and helping each other attain whatever goal is in front of them.” Robyn LaLonde and her husband Brian opened EDGE about five years ago as a space where athletes can “do hard things together,” she told me on this we...

I have a few things that I wholeheartedly recommend to anyone who will listen to me: the fancy Medjool dates from Trader Joe's, my acupressure mat , the book Station Eleven. And for the past few months, I've added Girls' Night In to that list. Girls' Night In (GNI) is an email newsletter that goes out every Friday, and it's dedicated to all things self-care and the joy of staying in. Expect to get...

By the time Coss Marte, Founder and CEO of ConBody , landed in solitary confinement at Rikers Island Prison he was ready for a new path. And that path would eventually lead him to create a fitness sensation with a built-in cause component that landed him in The New York Times , Buzz Feed , Elle , Vice , and The Startup podcast . While sitting alone in his cell 23 hours a day, he reflected on his n...

My first memory of fitness was in, you guessed it, a Jazzercise class. In elementary school I had a few classes at my dance studio, but that didn't feel like a workout. (And why should it? It was dance. It was just fun!) It wasn't until my aunt dragged me to her Jazzercise class one summer afternoon, and I was sandwiched between so many adult women dancing furiously for an hour, dripping sweat and...

Runners might travel the streets of their city for years without noticing some of the art that decorates alleys, buildings, and walls. Marnie Kunz aims to change that—and to bridge gaps between the communities of athletes, artists, and local businesses while she’s at it. Through her company, Runstreet , she hosts approximately three- to four-mile guided art runs at a relaxed pace through New York...

On the first two seasons of #WeGotGoals, we sought out individual goal-getters that we admired, whose missions aligned with ours and whose passions we found motivating and inspirational. Standouts like Kate Field of The Kombucha Shop, Jillian Lorenz of The Barre Code, Sarah Spain of ESPN, and Jen Ator of Women's Health all graced our airwaves, sharing their invaluable advice and inspiring us to dr...

Readers and listeners, today marks a special day in aSweatLife chronology. Today we celebrate Episode 90 of the #WeGotGoals podcast. And it's not just special because it's episode number 90; we're also celebrating our two-year anniversary of sharing big time goal getters' stories on this podcast platform. We've had just about 90 guests on our podcast over the past two years—from Olympians to world...

When The Barre Code first opened its doors in River North eight years ago, there was something different about it from the start. Rather than touting what women could lose—weight, say, or “cottage cheese”—founders Jillian Lorenz and Ariana Chernin instead put their focus squarely on what each and every person who walked in the doors could gain. “Our studios are so much more than just fitness,” Lor...

One of the workplace hazards of recording a podcast is that a lot of the time, we end up recording over the phone. And with that medium—especially if it's the first time you're ever talking to this person beyond email—developing a good chemistry between host and guest is kind of a 50-50 toss-up. You might get along like a house on fire (which is a really weird phrase, by the way), or you might wai...

One of the workplace hazards of recording a podcast is that a lot of the time, we end up recording over the phone. And with that medium—especially if it's the first time you're ever talking to this person beyond email—developing a good chemistry between host and guest is kind of a 50-50 toss-up. You might get along like a house on fire (which is a really weird phrase, by the way), or you might wai...

When you look at problems like systematic oppression, the 20-year life expectancy gap between people of color and Caucasian communities, a lack of physical activity programming for kids, or even stigma about accessing mental health services … well, it’s easy to feel a bit overwhelmed. The high achievers on this week’s episode of #WeGotGoals, however, chose to face these issues head-on rather than...

Here's a behind-the-podcasting-scenes nugget for you: before I interview anyone for our podcast, I obsessively Google them, usually all within the last 45 minutes leading up to our scheduled interview time. I like to think all the information will be fresh in my head then; it's definitely not cramming, or anything. Right? So it was at approximately 1:17 pm that I called Marie, our Director of Part...

The concept of the pop-up shop changed the way businesses think about brick-and-mortar retail. If you're a small business owner who doesn't want to sign a seven-year lease before you've proven your concept, you don't have to.  Trailblazers - big and small -  have reinvented retail by creating short-term opportunities in retail to test concepts, using underutilized space and social media to fill th...

Dr. Mark Cucuzzella is the author of the new book Run for Your Life —all about how to achieve longevity in the sport—and has finished marathons in under three hours for 30 straight years. But at one point earlier in his career, he was told he’d have to give up running altogether. For this week’s episode of #WeGotGoals, I caught up with Cucuzzella in Austin at The Running Event, a trade show for ru...

Ryan Kikkert, now Executive Chef of The Little Beet Table , a Chicago and New York-based restaurant concept, began his career journey as a journalism major. Deep down, though, the moment he set foot in a restaurant kitchen he felt drawn to its beautiful chaos. While completing his undergraduate degree in advertising and public relations, he ultimately knew he'd use it to aid this other passion - w...

We're highlighting episodes of our podcast #WeGotGoals this month that taught us something or stayed with us for one reason or another. I spent my life watching women break into sports — but so has anyone born after 1972 when Title IX passed . In 1995 at 10-years-old, I saw the first women's hockey team in my puck-worshiping Minnesota town and vividly remember the town's debate around girls playin...

As one of the hosts of the #WeGotGoals podcast, I've had the privilege of hearing from insanely cool goal getters, entrepreneurs, CEOs, and leaders in the health and wellness industry. This week, though, I wanted to revisit an episode that fellow co-host Jeana Anderson Cohen led months ago. Episode 37 is with Jen Ator, Fitness Director of Women's Health. In this episode, you'll hear Ator talk abou...

Ironically, it's often during the "most wonderful time of the year" that time becomes a rarefied commodity. Ads and jingles and carols are pressing the importance of spending quality time with loved ones, but between shopping, holiday parties, pageants, and oh yeah, all the stuff that occupies your time in any normal week, you're hard-pressed to spend quality time with anything besides your Mary P...

Sure, there’s a lot to be said for shiny new presents left underneath the tree (and we have a whopping 10 gift guides to help you in that effort). In other cases, though, great treasures come from digging deep in the back of your closet or dresser drawer to find that shirt you’d forgotten you bought, that necklace you were gifted by your grandmother, or some other item you once wore regularly but...

To some, success might mean setting a clear goal, then crushing it. But Tim Faith , research and development brewer at Goose Island here in Chicago, knows sometimes the biggest wins come when you adjust your aims along the way. Take sports. In high school, Faith thought he’d play football. After two weeks of camp, he realized the complexity of the game didn’t suit him. “I’d rather run in a straigh...

Prior to Thanksgiving week, aSweatLife hosted a breakfast-and-learn focused on gratitude practices - a buzzy topic to be sure, but one that we were excited to talk about in a very different way. Editor In Chief Kristen Geil led us through a few gratitude visualization exercises, and we all went into the day feeling all kinds of warm-fuzzies alongside the rest of the 50 attendees. On this episode o...

(Please note that this episode has explicit language) Meet Jacqueline Gould, wellness coach and shining individual who knows exactly who she is and where her true north lies. Gould's journey onto the #WeGotGoals podcast began in quite the opposite state, however, as she describes her past as one where she had "zero self-worth." I interviewed Gould about the path that led her to founding a company...

At least once a week, I have a slight crisis of environment. We're lucky enough to work from home pretty regularly, but as anyone who works from home full-time can tell you, it's not always all it's cracked up to be, and there eventually comes a time where you're going to go batshit insane if you have to stare at your home's walls for another minute. But at the same time, leaving to go somewhere e...