What's the value?

As many of you know, I love philosophy. I love talking to people about life, our experiences, and what this whole thing is all about. My guest today, Shaddow officially says he is an artist, musician, saxophonist, and writer--but he is also a philosopher. And one of my favorite types of people to talk about philosophy are people who bring both wisdom and passion. They have a fire about them that m...

My guest today, Kevin, is the CFO, Founder & Co-Host of Next Level University, a Global Top 100 Self-Improvement Podcast. As Kevin explains it, "in his twenties he had it all: a beautiful girlfriend, high paying job, sports car, his dream body"-- but it wasn't enough. He still struggled with depression, anxiety, and a lack of self worth. After he hit rock bottom he decided to go all in on holi...

One of my favorite types of episodes is when my guest has a really thoughtful, deliberate point of view and we can walk down the thread to try and understand it at a very deep, meaningful level. This was that type of episode. My guest, Dr. Capellan started with her most important value being "living up to her full potential." So we started at the beginning; how do you know what your full potential...

There are often times on this show where I like to wax philosophically with my guest. We can get very abstract and theoretical and just explore concepts with no guardrails or limits. I think there is such beauty and value in those types of conversations. But sometimes, it is equally as valuable to ground ourselves in science and data. We still explore those same philosophical concepts, but we do i...

My guest today, Marie, has had an amazingly tragic, yet beautiful life. We didn't get too deep into the tragic part of it in the show so I will give some of the background here. When she was fourteen she became a mom and was in a very toxic relationship which she stayed in for 25 years. She had three more children, was victim to domestic abuse, drugs/alcohol, and infidelity (by both her and her hu...

Growth is such an interesting concept to me (and my guest, CK). In many ways it seems like growth is not something we choose to value but is inherent in who we are as humans. When we were given the "gift" of consciousness it set us down a never ending path of trying to find new and better ways to grow. We want to develop new technology, new tools, more revenue, more resources, personal growth, pro...

Cassandra has been on a journey focused on teaching others to find their authenticity, to have effective/healthy relationships, and to better communicate with those around them. She has been on this journey to help others, in many ways, because she has been on a journey to help herself. Cassandra went through some pretty terrible traumas in her life, including being sexually abused when she was yo...

The theme that stood out most in this conversation with Isabella, was the importance of intuition in our lives. Isabella spoke about how she has used intuition and finding her inner voice to face her fears, overcome hurdles, and achieve a deep sense of freedom and happiness. At the root of all this is this idea that we don't really need guardrails, we don't need limiting beliefs, and we don't need...

Brent is a Los Angeles native who, inspired by 9/11, got fluent in Arabic, earned a grad degree in Egypt, and then worked as a CIA counterterrorism analyst from 2010 to 2015. His work included tracking ISIS external operators and extremist psychology. He also recently published an LA Times op-ed comparing radicalization trends between ISIS foreign fighters and US political conspiracy theorists. Th...

Marcus is the founder and creator of RelativeVisionTv & Media, where he gets to live out his passion as a Director, videographer, photographer, and journalist. Marcus believes there is so much more to share and show the world than the limits the current media networks provide. A lot of this is rooted in his desire to leave a legacy for his son and his community. He believes playing your part i...

I still remember the day I met Steve almost 4 years ago. I had been thinking about trying Brazilian Jiu Jitsu for a while and when I finally got up the courage to walk into my local 10th Planet gym, Steve was behind the front desk. If you had told me that day that me and him would be on a podcast together having this conversation, I would have said "you are f*cking crazy." I never could have imagi...

"Isn't it a beautiful thing that we get the chance to do more work to become better people?" This was the quote and the sentiment that stuck with me most from my discussion with Denise. We spent much of our conversation talking about how hard it is to truly know and love yourself, how fear and judgement can paralyze us, and how painful it can be to accept the truth about ourselves; and Denise's vi...

Larry is a Husband, Father, Marine Veteran, Entrepreneur, Teacher and Political Activist. His mission is to help people find happiness through community and purpose, and as he sees it, that often happens by overcoming bad policy decisions in government. He was the 2018 Libertarian New York State Gubernatorial candidate and garnered about 100,000 votes (more than any previous Libertarian candidate)...

"God is about relationships not religion." That was a quote from my guest, El, that really stood out for me. We spent much of the discussion exploring what it means to "talk to God" and how this thing we call "religion" was actually never part of God's plan. El believes that God loves all of us and we were created to be in an on-going, intentional relationship with our creator. At this point, if y...

I often talk about the concept of the "philosopher king" on this podcast. It is something I admire and probably aspire towards. The idea that the "best" people are those that don't acknowledge they are the best, that the wisest are very open about how much they don't know, or that those in power are the ones that don't think they deserve to be in power. The humility and self awareness required to...

Anthony is a Corporate Trainer & Motivational Speaker specializing in happiness and well-being to improve team dynamics, communication, trust and productivity. His work is based on the research in the fields neuroplasticity, positive psychology and leadership. Given Anthony's background and knowledge this made for a great discussion. We were able to explore big topics like happiness, service t...

Silvia is an author and a psychotherapist who believes in the transformative power of psychotherapy to change individuals who can change the world.   She created the Critical Therapy Institute to expand psychoanalytic praxis to reflect how race, class, gender, and religion intersect with psychological conflicts. Critical Therapy works from the premise that the personal is political. To be mor...

Michaell was born in Vienna-Austria and now lives in California. He is a Multimedia Artist, writer, and advisor/educator, who is trying to raise our awareness to the true potential of humanity and nature, which are continuously diminished by man-made systems like technology and the economy. Michaell's value was "experiencing his humanness", meaning he looks to experience all aspects of life to try...

Gabi is a full time nomad, adventure athlete, and entrepreneur. She grew up with a really unconventional lifestyle, living in RV and traveling the world in search of adventure with her family of 7, ever since she was 14 years old. Through spending so much time in nature, pursuing flow state through climbing, surfing, and mountain biking, she discovered what it means to feel intrinsically worthy &a...

Mitchell is a career military man first enlisting in the Marines and later being commissioned in the Army. He has multiple combat tours as an Infantry Platoon Leader in Iraq, and later, as an Infantry Company Commander leading the last fighting force out of Iraq in 2011. He has been awarded numerous medals and badges for his service and even after his military career has continued to ser...

I was super excited to talk to Tricia because the focus of her work is to "teach teenagers to be happier, one habit at a time." I am a strong believer that if we want to improve society we need to start with kids. I am also a firm believer that "happiness" is something that we should strive for in life, so I was eager to hear more about Tricia's perspective. As she explained it when she says happi...

In 2014, at 21 years old, Harriet had just completed her degree and was traveling with her best friend when they were hit by a car traveling 101mph. Her friend was killed on the scene and Harriet woke up one month later in a very different world, one filled with an insurmountable amount of pain and with no idea how to fit back into her old life. She went through a long recovery that left her in a...

Creation was the value Daniel (an autodidact, business owner, and podcast host- https://theallunknowing.com) chose for his most important value. Daniel chose creation because he believes our ability to create is our greatest tool to improve the world. He also believes logically, if we exist, then improvement must be our main objective. What else could we be working towards other then to make the w...

Sometimes I find it really insightful and enjoyable to think about common concepts or ideas and dissect them. To try to go beyond the words we normally use to convey their meaning and think about them at a much deeper level. In this conversation with Sofia we ended up doing that with the word "pain." Sofia started off stating "growth through trauma" as her most important value, so that set us down...

Connor is a film director, writer, and traveler. He has a degree in Creative Technologies and works as a video producer for Bright Trip and Debutify, but he also spends almost all of his time traveling. As Connor puts it, "I've traveled to 35 countries to try and understand humanity’s tests and treasures." He values "community" and connection above all and is constantly seeking out novel perspecti...