Climbing Deeper

Welcome to the Climbing Deeper Podcast! 

In the Climbing deeper podcast, we explore our complex world, bringing curiosity and open-mindedness to topics that span art, business, culture, and technology. Your host, Afreezy, interviews artists, creatives, researchers, spiritual teachers and business leaders about their work, the inner workings of different societal systems, and how they strive to improve themselves and the world around them. This podcast is for: 

Creators of art, business, and technology who strive to add more depth to their work from diverse. 

Truth Seekers who wish to go beyond the surface of the current paradigms to dig deep into the systemic problems we face, solutions and the people who build them, and the collective future we’re headed towards.  

Spiritual seekers of all stripes who don’t feel like the current boxes fit them. The people who’re always learning and growing but also like to turn up and have fun.

Make sure you’re subscribed on all the Channels 

On this episode, interview Alan Newton, Founder of virtuall, and an entrepreneur who's looking to create products that connect people, and the world, in a way that's profitable and sustainable.

This conversation was full of gems for personal development and finding peace in the world. Alan's been hacking his own productivity and mental health for a while, and we go down some very fruitful wormholes together in this epsiode. 

In this episode, I talk to Kyle Vaughan, a design strategist, a researcher, an advocate and builder of a sustainable future. He's the founder of the Greatest Possible Good, which is a design strategy and research firm that uplifts everyone they come into contact with.

We delve into how Kyle and his best friend Kenneth Wayman stumbled into the design thinking process by accident because of their desire to create change in the community, the design thinking process itself, democratizing creation through design thinking, and applying design thinking in your everyday life.

In addition, Kyle also shares the processes involved in design thinking which are the following: empathize, synthesize, and ideate. Check out his comprehensive explanation of the processes when you listen to the full episode.

In this episode, I talk to Breanne Gibson, a holistic life designer, whose life goal is to empower people through a regenerative lifestyle that is intertwined with nature and our true human nature. We discuss about the environment, food, health, medicine, and grounding.

In addition, Breanne shares how she grew up on a 10-acre farm in British Columbia, Canada and how she joined the military when she was 17. She also points out how at 18, she felt she was not in alignment with herself and that in the next decade, because of her work in the military as a bio-science officer, she has become aware of the immense impact humanity has on the environment.

Further, she talks about creating lifestyle as a regenerative system, activating one’s energy, places of alignment, and living essentially as one with nature. She also touches on EMF or electromagnetic field as something that could suck and drain one’s energy.

If you want to know more about how EMF affects our health, and how grounding could help alleviate the effects of EMF, listen to the full episode to find out.

On this episode, I speak with Hildy Gottleib, founder of I interview

In this Episode, I interview Ryan Stoll, PhD - Designer, Psychologist, Entrepreneur, and founder of Humanity x Design and Compass for Courage. We discuss his journey in taking 30 years of research on anxiety and turning it into a productized program that helps school administrators and parents train kids in methods to overcome anxiety. We discuss why projects don't make it out of academia, how founders and designers can create better and more impactful products through empathy, and much more! Tune in to learn how design thinking, entrepreneurship, and research all tie together to create impactful products. 

Connect with Ryan Below: 

I'm Re-Introducing Applying Awareness as Designing Impact! 

On this new show, I'll be having discussions around three main topics: 

1. Specific tactics you can use to improve and grow your impact-driven business
   
2. Habits and lifestyle shifts to improve your individual performance and how you feel everyday
   
3. Stories of how creative social innovators disrupted the status quo and created something new
   

Take a listen to this episode for a more in-depth preview of what's to come! 

Have any questions, episode requests, or want to be on an episode yourself? Hit my line at adam@emote.design 

Follow me on social for related content!

Connecting with your spirituality is giving you access to power and energy that you didn't have before hand. I discuss how Sharon Hess, an author, spirituality guide, and wise wanderer of the intuition found her connection with the spiritual, and how she's helped many people do the same. We cover some awesome ground:

-Getting started on your unique spiritual path.
- How persistence comes from the soul.
- Why our soul history can teach us about lessons we need to apply to the present.

This conversation was rich with Sharon's deep intuition and amazing stories. This episode is perfect for anyone looking to become more deeply in tune with their spirituality, or just looking for a quick brain snack to chew on throughout the day. 

Want to level up your mindset and how you move through this world?

Move with Passion, Persistence, and Patience. These are the three key pillars that have lifted D'Andre Evans from a podcaster struggling to find an audience to a community builder and Top 20 podcast host.

We explained how we implement these pillars in our lives,  the benefits they've brought, and how you can incorporate them when building your personal brand.

We discussed how creating and engaging with people around content creates a thriving community that lifts all boats.

And last but probably most important, we dove into investing into meaningful connections in order to improve yourself and your influence. D'Andre provides insight on how the fruits of positive seeds planted in others come back 10x.

Had a great conversation with D'Andre and I appreciate him sharing his wisdom. 

How do you beat depression, anxiety, insomnia, and chronic inaction? How do you become a Human 2.0?

By understanding that every moment is an opportunity to take action to become more aligned with your true self.

Mark Metry and I had an invigorating and inspiring conversation about Mark's rough experiences as a child and young adult, and how he singlehandedly turned himself around by using mindfulness meditation, application of research on human potential, and cultivating a full transparent internal dialogue.

He's a great example of how traumatic experiences can temper and harden your spirit instead of burning you to ashes.

Listening and opening up to the powerful voice in your head that directs you towards positive action. Then take that action. Rinse and repeat.

This is the process through which Mark changed his reality of constant pain into the reality where he's the host of a top 100 podcast, the owner of a successful agency, and a figure for inspiration.

You become a Human 2.0 through Applying Awareness .

Today, I talked with Matt Stewart. Matt's a community leader, leadership consultant for multimillion dollar corporations, and a practical personal problem solver. Matt and I discussed his incredible journey and perseverance through a chronic illness. We dove into the fire that keeps him going, the secrets that he's brought to business leaders around the country, and how he uses awareness to get ahead in his profession. 

How do you use social media as a tool to spread your message and positivity in stead of a time suck?

In this bite of awareness, I discuss some methods I use.

The key is to prevent mindless scrolling!

- Positive Engagement driven social media use. Use social media to learn new things, meet new people, and reconnect with old friends

- Cultivate your bubble mindfully. Every added friend or follow means a certain type of content. Will you learn something new from this content or will it simply reinforce your current worldview

- Value Driven Content. Shift your mindset from "how can I benefit from posting?" to "how can others benefit from my posts?

- Scheduled social time: I'm always struggling with this - preventing social media from creeping into my productive time. Set aside time to truly engage with the people on your social media so you're not just mindlessly scrolling.  

- Recently, I've started to ask myself when I pull out my phone or pop open a tab of social media - Why am I doing this? It really helps me to either be productive on social media or not use it.

How do you engage with social media? Do you do any of the things I discussed? What works and what doesn't work? Let me know :D 

More Tasty Awareness Content

This new episode will have you thinking out side of your spiritual box.

For episode 23, I interviewed JoJo Yao, an impressively intuitive entrepreneur and mentor of many.

He discussed how his father drew connections between the seemingly disparate religions of Hinduism and Christianity

We discussed the empathy and positive energy that manifests when you come to understand the higher power within ever single individual, regardless of how they look, or even act.

Finally, we talk about the power of the mind to plant, cultivate, and let go of seeds that can either boost our state of being or hold us back.

It was an extremely enlightening conversation and I think you'll find the flexibility of his spirituality inspiring.

The ability to effectively teach yourself is one of life's timeless and priceless skills. It means there's nothing you can't learn. In this episode, I'll dive into how to balance and optimize your time in both the performance and learning zones, methods like deliberate practice to form your best learning strategy, and examples of fun activities or topics to start with in your lifelong journey of learning. This episode was really fun to make, and I think it'll bring a lot of value to those who are independent learners or those who want to start teaching themselves a hobby, area of expertise, or profession!

I talk with Sowan Thai about hip-hop, awesome urban agriculture ideas that Sowan is executing on, and how to facilitate community (a few of my favorite things!). Sowan is someone who is living his truth, and manifesting that power in many different ways. He runs a non-profit that puts upcoming artists in the studio. He helped to create a school program that allows kids to eat fresh, healthy food for lunch to stimulate their education. And he's not stopping there...

I've made it to 20 episodes!  

For this Episode, I interviewed Quentin Allums about his various entrepreneurial ventures, the factors that have contributed to his success (and his failures), and how he embraces his weirdness to build an extremely successful online brand.

Quentin's incredible storytelling ability shines through, and we jam on a few different topics of social media, authenticity, entrepreneurship, and company culture!

I learned a lot and had a great time with this interview, and I think you'll enjoy listening to it.

In this episode, I go into some wormholes with Rob Howze!

Rob is a global goodwill ambassador, founder and CEO of Camp Fit, a camp turned reality show where kids are taught how to take care of themselves physically and mentally, and most importantly how to set and reach goals.

In this episode, I talk to health coach and entrepreneur Roman Massey about empowering your self through taking control of your health. Roman talks about his struggles with health in high school, and how the blind spot to what we eat prevents the medical system
from solving the root health issues we have in our society.

Roman talks about our power to heal ourselves through nutrition and personal development, and how doctors might be more effective if they took a "health coach mentality".

We also discuss the misaligned incentives that prevent doctors from empowering patients to take control of their own health.

Roman was an incredibly candid guest, and we covered a lot of ground here.

In this incredibly informational interview, I talk to my high school French and Yoga teacher, Alisan Mills. She still teaches at my school, and performs energy healing through foot-zoning with multiple clients. In the Episode, She tells her powerful story of discovering hidden traumas and healing through the continued education on the chakra system and how to balance our energy centers.

Ali gives an overview of all 7 Chakras, how they can manifest in our lives, and how they tie into the story of her own life or someone she knows. She has a very simple way of explaining the system, and a deep knowledge of how they work. If you think the chakra system is BS, you might re-think that after this episode! 

In Episode 16, I go over the Whys and Hows of self awareness.

Self Awareness is one of those 'soft skills' that drives your personal growth beyond what you could believe. It's the precursor for emotional intelligence, social acuity, and developing productive habits.

In this episode, I talk about asking "what" during self-reflection instead of "why". I discuss cognitive biases and how they get in the way of being self-aware. I also discuss metacognition and it's role in cultivating self-awareness.

I tried to cover all the bases of self-awareness. How do you keep yourself aware? What are the methods you use? What did I miss? What did you learn? Let me know. I love discussing stuff with you all.

In Episode 15, I talk to User experience addict, digital artist, and deep thinker JP Taxman about how we can use education as a force for reducing mental health issues systematically. We discuss JP's own struggles with mental health, and his method of "reframing beliefs" that allows him to break negative thought patterns. We also do a bit of a dive into design and the similarities between design and awareness. They both give us the power to change things in our day-to-day life.

In Episode 14, I talk about my experience with watching talented entrepreneurs grow their ideas and share the strategies that have worked. I discuss how talking to experts and doing comprehensive research around your idea and similar ideas can help you supercharge your idea by taking "Shortcuts" and stealing aspects from people who've already gone through the process. I discuss how flexibility and consistency are key to execute on making an idea come to life.

In Episode 13, I talk with Ted Talker, healing expert, and awesome human Andrew Newman. We discuss how becoming aware of the sources of your discomforts gives you the power to change internally to grow past those discomforts. Andrew also opened my eyes to how our physical and mental discomfort is a symptom of us not living in alignment with our life purpose. At the end of the Episode, Andrew gives some tips on how to cultivate self love and awareness to make your last 20 minutes of the day minutes of healing, discovery, and inner peace.

In Episode 12, I give you all a quick and easy bite of awareness focused on sleeping well. I talk about the numerous benefits of sleep and what could happen if we don't treat it as a first class citizen. In the meat of the episode, I go over sleeping tips that will help you calm your mind at night and wake up right. Sleep is a very important part of our lives (1/3 of our life). We need to treat it as such. Start by listening in to Episode 12, Sleeping Well.

Links

In Episode 11, I talk with sales extraordinaire Brendan Allan Barrett about how to apply expertise in sales to every aspect of your life through social awareness. We discuss Brendan’s winding journey to where he is now, why he enjoys sales, and the different steps you can take to sell yourself, your business, or anything else you have to offer throughout your life. We talk about how the key to selling yourself is confidence and the persistance that comes with (Brendan asked his wife for her phone number 8 times when they met!) Great conversation with an expert in his field.

In Episode 10, Community Gardening Kicks Ass, I talk with my father and Salt Lake City community garden mafia don Jim French about how he got started with community gardening, the fascinating and beneficial social dynamics that emerge from the permaculture lifestyle, and how to get started with your community gardens. I talk to him about the fulfillment and joy he’s gained by playing a central part in cultivating 3-4 stellar gardens around the city, and some of the mindset shifts that permaculture and community gardening requires. These mindset shifts could provide a welcome contrast and balance to the current Western norms in development, food, and lifestyle.

In this first installment of superstar sessions, a type of episode where I interview superstar entrepreneurs, students, teachers, and other experts about how they use awareness to get ahead in their field, I interview serial entrepreneur Nathan Hirsch. Nathan is the CEO and Founder of Freeeup, a platform that connects 5,000+ businesses with the freelancers they need every day. Nathan and I discuss his entrepreneur origin story, how he drew inspiration from his family’s work ethic to push through when the going gets hard, and how his awareness and personality type have shaped his success. There’s a lot of inspiration and helpful habits Nathan shares throughout our interview, it’s very useful for young entrepreneurs or students who want to start doing their own thing!

In Episode 8, Food for Thought, I discuss how we can use food as a tool to increase cognitive functioning and treat mental illnesses such as depression, anxiety, and adhd. Inspired by the burgeoning field of Nutritional Psychiatry lead by Dr. Drew Ramsey, I dive into the biological mechanisms at work when our food fuels and protects our brain. I talk about the different nutrients that are essential for brain health and which foods you can eat to get the most brainpower for your calories. It was a really fun episode to research for and there will be many tips on how to eat to succeed!

In this episode, I’ll be doing a deep dive into the food industry in America. How did it get to where it is now? What forces shaped the industry? What effects is it having on our society, environment, and economy? All of these questions will be answered. I describe how the post WWII military industry machine absorbed the food production industry. I talk about how policy changes in the 1970’s shifted our system towards producing huge surpluses of crops through mechanization and monocropping, and how subsides enable the reliance the food industry has on fossil fuels to function. I then talk about the hidden costs of our food, and how the industry has made a fortune by exploiting the misaligned incentive structures shaped by market forces. This exploitation has caused a lot of disease, economic backlash from the healthcare sector, and a collective disconnection from our food as a society. I reveal some shocking statistics that illustrate the negative effects of these occurences.

On this episode, my guest Colton Lish and I discuss mental health in the social context of America. We discuss how the education system and how the focus on learning numbers and stats as opposed to social awareness might be a factor in the 44 million adults with mental health issues. We discuss the very significant links between mental health and gun violence, and how different cultures treat mental illness. We also discuss ways you can help our society be friendlier to people struggling with their mental health. Even though we discuss serious issues, there’s a lot of lighthearted fun in this episode as well, with discussion of Ted Cruz as the posterboy for America’s institutional inability to educate people on how to become adept social beings. It was an insightful and entertaining conversation with a deep thinker and really intelligent person in Colton.

Great Resource on many aspects of mental health in America: http://www.mentalhealthamerica.net/

I talk to a serial entrepreneur and restaurant industry veteran about starting multiple businesses, finding self-love, and dealing with life events with that self love. It was a great conversation, going from topic to topic. Anastasios is a great storyteller and enthusiastic guest, and has a lot of wisdom to share. 

In this episode, I cover what I want to give to the audience with this podcast, who I am as the host, and how I want the listeners to think of the different types of awareness while listening.