#WeGotGoals by aSweatLife

On this episode of #WeGotGoals, DeCoons relives his journey with The Bar Method - from acquiring it to leading it to selling it to Self Esteem Brands. He shares the bumps in the roads and what it took to realize his strengths as a leader. Here’s what you’ll hear in this #WeGotGoals episode: 4:25: How Jay's time at the Private Equity firm Summit Partners was his training ground to understand entrep...

Chances are, if you've been a runner, a cyclist, or even a studio fitness-er for a decent amount of time, you've battled injury at some point. In their new book Rebound: Train Your Mind to Bounce Back Stronger from Sports Injuries , Carrie Jackson Cheadle and Cindy Kuzma address not just the physical side of recovering from injury, but also the mental side. Calling this a book doesn't do it justic...

Tune in to aSweatLife’s channels (like our podcast , Instagram , or the blog ; wherever you like to connect – we’re there) and you’ll hear us talk about goals or goal setting in some capacity. To put it lightly, we heart them, big time. But especially with the aSweatLife Ambassador program (which you can read more about applying to here!) our conversation is driven by goals. Every year, after we o...

There’s a chill in the air, a blue line down the street, and Grant Park is getting stocked up with Porta-Potties. That can only mean one thing: It’s Chicago Marathon week! As 40,000 runners prepare to travel 26.2 miles around Chicago this Sunday, three of your #WeGotGoals co-hosts—Kristen, Cindy, and Jeana—sat down and relived some of our marathon memories … the highs, the lows, and everything in...

John Bogosian, Founder and CEO of ZingFit , is easily spotted at wellness conferences - he walks a floor confidently and has a natural gravitational pull that draws people in to talk to him - that, and he's always in a ZingFit hat and a blazer. After a few conferences where I saw this same phenomenon over and over, I had a distinct impression of him as intimidating. Then at a conference in New Yor...

Talking to Anna Renderer, host of a milion POPSUGAR Fitness videos you've no doubt seen and sweated to on YouTube, is a weird cross between feeling like you're being hugged and feeling like you're getting a shot of adrenaline straight to the goal-getting part of your brain. She exclaims, she gushes, she lets you in on her secrets—and you're left with a completely different mindset on your goals on...

An epic fail at work. A blowout with—even a split from—the love of your life. A life-altering piece of medical news. Every day, people carry all this—and more—into spin studios in Chicago and around the country. Inside those walls, they seek an hour or so of peace, of active meditation. “You’re riding to the rhythm of the music, you’re sweaty, you’re working really hard,” Tevia Celli told me on th...

Erin Oprea arrived at 10:59:59 am on the morning of our #WeGotGoals recording. Scheduled for 11 am, I noted how punctual she was, despite the fact she walked all the way from the opposite side of town to get the our recording studio. Over the next hour, I grew increasingly impressed by Erin, a personal trainer to stars like Kacey Musgraves and Carrie Underwood, author of The 4x4 Diet , and expert...

"I’m so far ahead of the curve, I made the curve," Sue Hitzmann said as I asked her about trends in the fitness space and how she carved out a niche where none existed. And if you listen closely enough on this week's episode of #WeGotGoals, you can hear me reflexively snap my fingers at the sound of that unadulterated swagger. That confidence grew from a few factors that Hitzmann talks through - p...

They stand guard over our water supply, ensure the seafood we take from it is sustainable, and produce yoga mats , socks , skin care , and more in environmentally and socially conscious ways. The guests we welcomed to #WeGotGoals for our recent segment on creating a better earth inspired us with their passion and creativity. While climate change remains *the* challenge of our time, we’re grateful...

Ten minutes before my interview with Ryan Horwath of Sitka Salmon Shares , I looked at my list of questions and bolded the one that I felt was most important to a gripping interview: ASK HIM ABOUT THE FISH TUBE. The fish tube, in case you weren't on the Internet over the last couple of weeks, is basically what it sounds like: a video of fisherman placing salmon into a giant pneumatic tube that sho...

As is common with a lot of small businesses, Gabe Kennedy and his co-founder Hudson Gaines-Ross launched Plant People with a few thousand dollars in their pockets. With unique individual backgrounds and a shared interest in holistic healing after both endured serious injuries, they decided to create Plant People . But in opening up the conversation with Gabe about Plant People on this episode of #...

We play volleyball on the beach and stand-up paddle board in the lake, run miles and drink rosé along the Riverwalk. This spring, storms sprung up approximately every other day, saturating us (May was the wettest on record, since we began keeping track in 1871). It’s easy, in Chicago, to take water for granted—we’re surrounded by it. But Debra Shore , a commissioner at the Metropolitan Water Recla...

Ben Katz is the co-founder of Haven Co-Living , a concept that allows like-minded people to live together in beautiful multi-million dollar homes just six blocks from Venice Beach in California. The amenities abound in these stunning homes, but the bedrooms are shared at an affordable monthly rate of $1,000 by yogis, Soul Cycle instructors, and nurses. While the name “co-living” may be new, it’s r...

There's a level of trust necessary for committing to a hair stylist. Not only does the stylist have to know his or her stuff, but you have to feel comfortable enough around him or her for both long, awkward silences and heart-to-heart conversations you never thought you'd have while wearing a full-body cape around your neck. And sure, "hair grows out," eventually, but try telling that to my twelve...

In a culture hyper focused on health, wellness, and overall wellbeing, we're inundated with "organic" this and "100% natural" that. It would almost be more strange to read a label that didn't tout some kind of eco-friendly or health-conscious accreditation. But for Town and Anchor , the labels behind the brand's namesake stand for much more than just keeping up with the Jones's. I sat down with Pa...

Each goal-getter and how they set out to to achieve big things is as unique as his or her own fingerprint. Nothing has been made clearer by interviewing more than 100 people about this very subject for our podcast #WeGotGoals than this point. And for Emmett Williams, President and Partner at MyZone, goal setting runs through his veins and is both his currency and his love language. His currency: I...

A good mani leaves you feeling polished, strong, and put-together—ready to face whatever challenges the day brings you. But often, the process of procuring it poses a conundrum. You could go for a high-end service at a swanky spa, if you have the cash and spare time. Or, you might choose an inexpensive yet inefficient neighborhood spot that leaves you feeling vaguely icky about the inequity betwee...

As a college student, Michael Mader never thought he'd start a business that would seek to end homelessness for youths on a city-wide and nation-wide scale. But then again, he also didn't foresee a traumatic brain injury that would require an emotional and financial support system for months on end, either. As Mader told me on this episode of #WeGotGoals , "I was unable to go to school, I was unab...

"Why are you guys obsessed with eating crickets?" "This is a weird IG story." "Gross." "

When we kicked off Season 3 of #WeGotGoals, we set out to walk the walk by setting small goals within each quarter of this goal-focused podcast to curate guests who are doing big things in the areas which we care most about. For instance, over the last few months we brought community building to the forefront of our goal focus. We interviewed grassroots community developers like the founder of Sof...

On #WeGotGoals podcast episode 102, I interviewed the founder of 305 ( 305 Fitness , that is), Sadie Kurzban. When she was only 24, Kurzban was putting the finishing touches on the first physical space for 305 Fitness in the heart of New York City, a project that was four times as expensive as she planned, while the rest of her pals from college were simply enjoying their second year out of colleg...

Even if you're not familiar (yet) with She Can & She Did or the Badass Lady Gang , you probably know who Kelly Roberts is thanks to her viral 15 minutes back in 2014, when she ran a half marathon and took selfies with an unsuspecting hot guy every mile. The popular Buzzfeed post inspired a blog, and from there, Roberts has taken on the mantle of relatable "struggle runner" to women worldwide....

Bonnie Micheli and Tracy Roemer - co-founders of Shred415 - are sort of a package deal. Together, they go by Bonnie and Tracy, populating a shared Instagram under the name with photos of the two of them, sharing an office where each sits under their first initial, taking vacations with their families together. In fact, it was during this interview that I realized that I had not ever pronounced the...

Go back in time with me for a minute, back to when I climbed Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania (and wrote about it, here ). After the trip, I found it incredibly hard to distill the experience into a two-sentence answer I could call upon when people asked me how the trip went. It was awesome, it was emotional, it was awful at times and joyful at others, and the aspect of doing this insane achievement...