The Dr. Greg Wells Podcast

Welcome back! Every couple of months we like to do a Q&A episode. I’ve been doing a lot of online talks recently and I’ve received so many amazing questions from the participants. So this week I’d like to share a bunch of the common questions that I’ve received and answer them as best I can. There’s a lot of great content and nuggets you can take away from this, and hopefully you find this type of episode really valuable. Enjoy!

Welcome back! This week I’m super excited to share my interview with Elli Weisbaum. Elli is a Toronto-based mindfulness practitioner and teacher who is passionate about the translation of mindfulness practice into everyday life. She is currently based at the University of Toronto as an instructor for the Applied Mindfulness and Meditation Certificate Program and is a PhD Candidate in the Faculty of Medicine. Her thesis is on the application of mindfulness to address physician wellbeing. After completing a masters degree focused on integrating mindfulness into education, Elli spent a year as the international program coordinator for Wake Up Schools, a global initiative to cultivate mindfulness in education. She is also a certified teacher in the Search Inside Yourself (SIY) program which was developed at Google Headquarters and brings together mindfulness, emotional intelligence and neuroscience. Since 2015 she has been a member of the Mindfulness Project Team at The Hospital for Sick Children, which acts as a hub for mindfulness initiatives across the hospital. In this conversation, we do a deep dive into mindfulness and meditation and how we can integrate these practices into our daily lives. You can check out her blog Mindfulness for Life: Navigating a PhD with curiosity, kindness & joy here. Enjoy this conversation!

Welcome back! This week I’m really excited to share my interview with Dr. Milena Braticevic. Milena has a Ph.D. in Integral Health from the California Institute for Human Science. She focuses on prevention-oriented methodologies for mental health sustainability and wellbeing. Her research on the effects of increasing awareness of non-dual consciousness and the natural state in young adults showed significant reductions in symptoms of depression and anxiety and increases in critical thinking, creativity, and collaboration. She currently teaches her experiential mental resilience program at corporations and educational institutions including the University of Toronto School of Continuing Studies. Her mental health literacy programs have helped individuals build resilient minds and have contributed to the reduction in common mental disorders and stigma. You can learn more about her and her work at www.nondualperspectives.com. Enjoy this deep dive into mindfulness, mental health, and mental resilience!

Welcome back! Today I’m really excited to share an interview with Dr. Scott Farrow. Scott is the Director of Biological Discovery at Noblegen Inc., a company that aims to use natural ingredients to make nutrient-rich products that are healthy, sustainable, cost-effective, and renewable to help restore balance to the planet and people. He is an experienced scientist and researcher who specializes in plant biochemistry and natural product biochemical pathway elucidation. This basically means he researches how compounds in plants affect our biology and how they can help us. He completed his Ph.D. at the University of Calgary and is now an Adjunct Professor at Trent University. In this conversation, we discuss how plants can be used to enhance health and wellbeing, treat pain, and the idea of using plants as medicine. Enjoy!

Welcome back! This week I’m really excited to bring back Dr. Ivan Joseph. Dr. Joseph is currently the Vice-President, Student Affairs at Wilfrid Laurier University where he leads the university’s efforts to promote interconnectedness and belonging amongst a diverse student body. Dr Joseph served in similar capacity as Vice Provost, Student Affairs at Dalhousie University. Prior to that, he was Director of Athletics at Ryerson University where he led the Ryerson Rams to first-time national championship twice and first-time provincial championship several times. Ivan is also a keynote speaker, award-winning performance coach, author and recognized educator and mentor. His TED talk on self-confidence has been viewed over 20 millions times, and Forbes has named it one of the best 10 TED talks for Graduates on the Meaning of Life. Dr. Joseph is also the author of You Got This: Mastering The Skill of Self-Confidence, which made Amazon's Top 10 Most Gifted Books in Business Mentoring & Coaching category in 2018. In this conversation, we dive deep into his expertise around self-confidence, cultural transformation, and living a high performance life. To learn more about him and find out more about his new course The Skill of Self-Confidence, you can follow him on social @drivanjoseph or send him an email hello@drivanjoseph.  Enjoy!

Welcome back! This week I’m really excited to share my interview with Olympic Swimmer Martha McCabe. Martha is a two-time Olympian and was captain of the Olympic Swim Team in 2016. Since retiring, she has founded Head to Head, an Olympic-led mentorship program. This organization connects athletes with youth across the country, creating opportunities for kids to learn from some of the best athletes in the world. The programs teaches resilience, inspires confidence, and empowers youth to be the best they can be in sport and in life. In this conversation, we discuss the successes and setbacks of her Olympic journey, and how she’s used her personal experiences in sport to help youth overcome challenges, especially during these times. You can learn more about Head to Head at their website headtohead.ca and you can follow them on twitter and instagram @_headtohead. Enjoy the conversation!

Welcome back! This week I’m excited to share a conversation I had with Sasha Gollish. Sasha has her Ph.D. in Engineering Education and is an Assistant Professor in Engineering at the University of Toronto. Sasha is also a world-class runner. She has an extensive list of athletic accomplishments, including a bronze medal in the 1500m at the Pan American Games in 2015. In the same year she was named the Canadian Interuniversity Sport Female Athlete of the Year, after winning three gold medals at the championship meet. In this conversation, we talk about how Sasha combines rigorous academics with high performance sport. She continuously uses her expertise in engineering and data analysis to improve her running. You can follow her on social @sgollishruns and at her website sashagollish.com.   Enjoy this really insightful conversation all about training and human excellence!

Welcome back! This week on my podcast I had an absolutely incredible conversation with three-time World Series Champion and former Toronto Blue Jays pitcher Todd Stottlemyre. Since retiring, he has become a high-performance business coach, bestselling author, entrepreneur, and keynote speaker.  In this conversation, we discuss his journey as a baseball player, his successes and failures, his self-growth, and lessons from his latest book The Observer. You can order the book on his website toddofficial.com and he’s also offering a free book club through Facebook, in which he goes through the lessons throughout the book chapter by chapter. You can follow him on social @todd.stott. Enjoy!

Welcome back and Happy New Year! For the first episode of the year, I’m excited to share my interview with behaviour change expert Lisa Belanger. Lisa has a Ph.D. in Behavioural Medicine, and is a Certified Exercise Physiologist and High Performance Specialist. Lisa is the CEO of ConsciousWorks, an organization that helps corporations, leaders, employees, students, and athletes reach their true potential through sustained, life-long behaviour change. In this conversation we go through a whole range of topics including exercise and cancer, uncertainty and fear, process versus outcome, and many little things you can do to design your day to optimize your life. This is an amazing conversation for anyone who wants to make changes in their behaviour that stick long term, and a great listen to start off 2021! For more information about ConsciousWorks and Lisa, check out consciousworks.com. Enjoy the conversation!

Welcome back! Today I’m super excited to share my interview with four-time Olympian and two-time Olympic medalist Simon Whitfield. Simon made history in his Olympic debut in Sydney in 2000 when he unexpectedly became the first ever Olympic champion in men’s triathlon. He went on to compete in three more Olympic games, including a silver medal finish in 2008 in Bejing. In 2012, he was selected as team Canada’s flag bearer for the Olympic opening ceremony in London, and in 2017 was inducted into Canada's Sports Hall of Fame. In this conversation, we discuss his journey as an Olympic triathlete, lessons he’s taken away from his career as an athlete, and how he enjoys his life now.  Enjoy!

Welcome back! This week I’m really excited to bring you an interview with Dr. Rumeet Billan. Rumeet is an award-winning, internationally recognized entrepreneur, learning architect, speaker, author, and humanitarian. She is the President and CEO of Viewpoint Leadership and an expert on Psychological Capital. Rumeet has been twice named one of Canada’s Top 100 Most Powerful Women by the Women’s Executive Network and has been featured in Forbes, The Globe and Mail, and The Financial Post. Her talk on The Future of Education at TEDx was highly lauded and later adapted into a workshop for Ontario students. Through her work, Dr. Billan provides a platform that encourages youth, women, communities, and organizations to envision what could be possible. In this amazing conversation we talk about resilience, self-awareness, self-confidence, and the mental skills you need to be able to perform at your best while getting mentally healthy at the same time. You can learn more about her at her website rumeetbillan.com. Enjoy!

Welcome back! I'm really excited to share an interview I did on Leon Goren's podcast. Leon is the CEO and President of PEO Leadership, North America’s premier peer network and advisory community. PEO Leadership supports business leaders to increase both their leadership abilities and their organization’s value. It enables leaders to recognize their potential by challenging their thinking and connecting them to the right relationships. In this conversation we talk about high performance in business situations and achieving focus, concentration, and excellence during the course of the day. We get into some nuts and bolts of getting through days at work and being able to reach your potential. You can check out more of his podcast episodes here: https://peo-leadership.com/podcasts/ Enjoy!

Welcome back! This week I’m very excited to share an interview with Dr. Bill Wells. Bill is a chiropractor, world-class Masters athlete, and co-founder of The Urban Athlete, a health and fitness facility that uses a holistic approach to help athletes reach their goals. In this conversation we discuss his amazing athletic accomplishments and the techniques he uses to recover and regenerate as a Masters athlete. Enjoy!

Welcome back! This week I had an amazing conversation with Dr. Gina Di Giulio. Gina is a Clinical Psychologist and CEO and Founder of Pathwell, an organization that provides individuals and businesses access to mental health services.  She is a firm believer that there is no health without mental health, and that access to mental health services shouldn’t be as cumbersome and confusing as it often can be. In this conversation we discuss positive psychology, resilience, and simple things you can do to manage anxiety and improve your mental health during this time. You can learn more about her organization at pathwell.ca. Enjoy!

Welcome back! This week I’m very excited to share an interview with former Navy SEAL, Ned Mason, and former navy flight surgeon and neuroscientist, Dr. Erik Won. Ned and Erik are using neuroscience and transcranial magnetic stimulation to help treat people for concussions, PTSD, and other neurological and mood disorders. We discuss brainwaves, neuroplasticity, and how this type of treatment can be used to help people achieve optimal brain health and performance. You can learn more about their company at their website waveneuro.com.  Enjoy!

Welcome back! This week I’m very excited to share an interview with professional climber, mountaineer, and alpinist Brette Harrington! Brette is an incredibly accomplished athlete and she’s one of our first ambassadors for our new VIIVIO app! We had a great chat all about her amazing climbing accomplishments, overcoming fear, and the physical and mental skills required to be a climber. Enjoy the conversation!

Welcome back! Thanks for joining me for the 100th episode! This week I had the privilege of interviewing Luke Tyburski. Luke is an expedition adventurer, ultra-triathlete, and mental health advocate. In this conversation, we discuss his journey of overcoming obstacles, his mental health challenges, and eventually how he discovered a life of purpose and passion. Enjoy the episode!

Welcome back!  This week I'd like to share an interview I did on the Living Wells podcast with Mark Henick, all about mental health and wellbeing during these crazy times. I shared the show with Hayley Wickenheiser, who is a four-time Olympic gold medallist and widely considered the greatest female hockey player of all time.  In this conversation, Hayley and I discuss endurance, resilience, mental health, and insights into how to get through this difficult time.  Enjoy the conversation!

This week I've taken a whole bunch of questions I've been getting during virtual keynotes and answered them here on the show.  Let me know if you like these short question and answer segments, and if so we'll add them to future shows. All the best and stay healthy and safe everyone!

Welcome back! This week I’m sharing an interview I did on the Muscle Intelligence Podcast with Ben Pakulski. Ben is a peak performance and mindset coach, and expert in strength training, muscle building, fat loss, and upgrading the body and mind. In this chat we dig into breathing, and how you can the use breathing in extreme sports performance and in meditation. We also discuss some tactics from my latest book Rest, Refocus, Recharge. You can learn more about Ben and hear more podcast episodes at muscleintelligence.com! Enjoy the conversation!

Welcome back! This week I had the privilege of interviewing my friend Ray Zahab! Ray is one of the top adventurers in the world. He’s an ultra-runner, Explorer in Residence Royal Canadian Geographical Society, and has run across some of the most difficult terrain on the planet, including the Sahara desert, the Gobi desert, and a run from the Pacific to the Atlantic Ocean across the Andes mountains. Ray is also the founder of impossible2possible, an organization that helps children break through their limits using adventure. In this amazing conversation, we talk about life during the COVID-19 pandemic, cheating death in one of his expeditions to the Arctic, and the shift in perspective and priorities that arose following that incident. You can learn more about him and his organization at rayzahab.com and impossible2possible.com. Enjoy the conversation!

Welcome back! Today I had a great interview with Mark Tewksbury and Debbie Muir. Mark is an old swimming friend who won Gold at the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona in the 100-metre backstroke. Debbie Muir is a world-class high performance coach in synchronized swimming. She has pivoted into corporate consulting, bringing her expertise in high performance for sports into business. Mark and Debbie now work together at Great Traits, a high-performance leadership training program. They’ve identified a number of different areas that work in sports and in business to elevate performance and unlock human potential. I’m really excited to bring this conversation to you. We dive deep into high performance in sport, business, and life. Enjoy!

Welcome back! I’m really excited to launch Season 4 with an interview I did on Dave Asprey’s podcast Bulletproof Radio. Dave is the creator of Bulletproof Coffee, founder of Bulletproof 360, and three-time New York Times bestselling author. A pioneer of the Biohacking movement, he became known as the Father of Biohacking and has devoted his life to elevating human performance using the latest scientific research combined with ancient healing traditions. Dave’s mission is to share with the world the latest discoveries in health and wellness to help you break through mental and physical barriers to accomplish the unimaginable. You can learn more about Dave at daveasprey.com. In this interview we talk all about biohacking and secrets from my new book Rest, Refocus, Recharge. Enjoy!

Welcome back! It's been a pretty crazy ride over the past few months. This season was much different than Seasons 1 and 2, as the majority of it was during the COVID-19 pandemic. I aim to deliver the latest and most relevant science, research, and insight from the top performers to help you boost your performance and reach your potential. During these difficult times I feel that my role is important now more than ever to help you do that. I hope that this podcast has helped you and that we will continue to grow and learn from each other, so we can be the best versions of ourselves and try and make this world a better place.  In the spirit of rest and recovery, we're going to take the month of August off to reset and recharge so we can come back refreshed and able to uplevel our performance. We want to make Season 4 even better and deliver the best possible information we can to you, our amazing and dedicated listeners.  Before we do that, I'd like to do a quick summary of Season 3,  discuss what the important take aways were, and how we can take these learnings to move forward. I hope you enjoy this short recap, enjoy the rest of the summer, and we'll be back for Season 4 in September! Dr. Greg Wells

Welcome back! This week I’m excited to share my interview with mental performance coach Brian Levenson. Brian is an expert in mental sills and has had the opportunity to work with some of the top athletes in basketball, football, soccer, baseball, hockey, ice skating, wrestling, softball, swimming, lacrosse, rugby, tennis, and golf - at the amateur, high school, college, and professional level. Brian has an unbelievable background in delivering mental skills training to top athletes. He also has great insight into how athletes control their mind to enable them to perform at the highest possible level. I’m super excited to share this interview with you. While a lot of the conversation is centred around sports, his insights apply to absolutely everything. Enjoy the conversation!

Welcome back! This week on my podcast, I want to share with you an interview I did with Ramon David from the Brain First podcast. Brain First's mission is to help people build a better brain, live a happy life, and reach higher levels of performance in everything that they do. They collaborate with leading neuroscientists, brain experts, and biohackers to bring insights that inspire change, and practical tools and strategies to help people be the best versions of themselves.  In this interview we talk all about mental performance, brain function, optimizing health and high performance, and practical strategies to help you cope during this era.  To learn more about the Brain First podcast, check out mybrainfirst.com.  Enjoy the episode!

Welcome back! This week I’d like to share an interview I did on the Marathon Training Academy podcast. This podcast was started in 2010 to empower everyday people to live healthier lives and achieve fitness goals by unleashing their marathon potential. The show features actionable training wisdom delivered in a funny and relatable style. Co-hosts Angie and Trevor want you to believe that you have what it takes to run a marathon and change your life! In this conversation, we dig into exercise, insights from my new book, Rest, Refocus, and Recharge, and how you can use the science of recovery to help you optimize your life. Enjoy!

Welcome back! This week I want to share a session I did on ‘Return to Work’. In this COVID era, the world is slowly re-opening and people are gradually going back to work. It’s really important to figure out how to do that in an intentional way so you’re not just going back to old habits, but going back to work and living your life in a way that is better than the past. I outline a few key things that will help you go back to work in a safe and high performing way. Enjoy!

Welcome back! Today I had the privilege of interviewing James Williams.  James Williams is a Performance Breakthrough Coach and speaker. He is passionate about focusing on creating outer world impact through inner world mastery. His passion for mastering physical, mental, and emotional performance in pursuit of his own life goals is only matched by his dedication to supporting his clients’ belief that anything is possible and available for them. James believes that the relationship we have with ourselves is the foundational key to our own personal growth and the quality of the relationships we hold dear in our life. James works with his clients through systematic processes to learn how to master what he calls the ‘Business of You’. This idea is to support his clients in recognizing that their level of performance from within will impact everything and everyone in their lives. We dig deep into the idea of the Business of You, self-awareness, accomplishment, daily routines, and health and wellbeing.  Enjoy the conversation!

Welcome back! Today I have a great interview with Adam Kreek. I was fortunate enough to have Adam come in and do a guest lecture for my class at the University of Toronto a few years ago and I was really excited to catch up with him again. Adam is a former Olympic rower. He is a three-time World Champion and Olympic gold medalist in Men’s Eight. He also led an expedition to be the first-ever attempt to row across the Atlantic in 2013.   Since his rowing career, Adam has grown into a leadership expert and has focused upon executive leadership and performance. In 2019 he published his first book The Responsibility Ethic: 12 Strategies Exceptional People Use to Do the Work and Make Success Happen. In this conversation, we talk about resilience, mindset, high performance, and his experience in failure and why he values it so much. Enjoy the conversation!

Welcome back! Today I had the absolute privilege of speaking with Dr. Ivan Joseph. Ivan is an award-winning Performance Coach and Leadership and Cultural Transformation Expert. Ivan inspires people and teams to achieve more than they dreamed. Joseph has spent his career leading cultural transformation, helping people believe in themselves, and creating cohesive teams. He speaks about self-confidence, embracing the “grit” to persevere in spite of setbacks, and leading teams to success, drawing from the lessons he’s learned from a life in sport.  Currently the Vice-Provost of Student Affairs at Dalhousie University, Joseph leads the university’s effort to promote interconnectedness and belonging among a diverse student body drawn from across the country and around the globe. Joseph is regularly called on to support national team programs. In 2018 he was selected as Head Coach of the women’s national soccer team in his native Guyana. While serving as high-performance coach for the Canadian men’s basketball team. They won the country’s first ever FIBA Under-19 Basketball World Cup in 2017. Joseph’s TEDx Talk has more than 19 million views, which speaks to the impact he has on people. Forbes named it one of the “Ten Best TED Talks About The Meaning of Life”. In this conversation, in light of everything happening in the States and the rest of the world over the past week, we dig deep into the uncomfortable conversations that need to be had right now.  Enjoy this must-listen episode with Dr. Ivan Joseph. 

Welcome back! Today’s podcast is with Orlando Bowen. Orlando has been through some unbelievable challenges. In 2004, he was assaulted and falsely accused of a crime, ending his professional football career. He was later acquitted and has since dedicated his life to empowering others to overcome adversity, to find their passion, and to use their gifts to serve. Orlando Bowen is one of the most sought after speakers and works with corporations, small businesses, and non-profits. He is also the founder of the "One Voice One Team" Youth Leadership Organization to inspire and to teach resilience, leadership, and teamwork to youth. In this conversation, Orlando and I get really tactical. We dig deep into some specific actions that you can take to move your life forward despite significant obstacles that may be thrown your way. I think you're going to get a lot out of this. Please enjoy my conversation with the inspirational Orlando Bowen.

Welcome back! Today I’m sharing an interview I did on Marty Parker’s podcast. Marty is the CEO and founder of Waterstone Human Capital. Waterstone is a leading executive search firm specializing in culture and talent management, and the development of high performance teams across North America. Marty is considered a global leader and expert on human capital and corporate culture. He is a frequent commentator and keynote speaker on issues surrounding leadership and organizational culture and author of the book “Culture Connection: How developing a winning culture will give your organization a competitive advantage”. In this conversation we dig into what it takes to build a great conversation and to be a great leader. Enjoy!

Hey everyone, welcome back! Today I want to share an interview I did on instagram Live with Nicole Marchand. Nicole is the Co-founder and CEO of Grit capital, a capital market advisory firm based in Toronto, Canada. In our short 20-minute conversation we discuss staying healthy during COVID-19, high-performance, and even dive a bit into financial health during this time. Enjoy the interview!

Welcome back everyone! This week I' m excited to share my interview with Dr. Gillian White. Gill did her PhD with me at the University of Toronto. Gill’s research was on stress reactivity in children with cancer. Gill has developed an expertise in neurophysiology, stress, behaviour, and how physical activity can modulate stress. In this conversation, we discuss what she’s learned from her research about stress and how we can apply these learnings to our every day life. She discusses the importance of having stress in our lives and that we shouldn’t try and eliminate it, but rather manage it constructively and effectively. I think this conversation is very topical as we’re all trying to deal with increasing levels of stress in our lives right now. So hopefully this is really helpful for you and you get some good insight into different behavioural strategies and habits you can incorporate into your life to manage stress. Enjoy the conversation!

Hey everyone, welcome back! This week we have a chance to talk to my friend Ben Morton. Ben graduated from the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst in the UK. Subsequently, he went on to do two tours of duty in Iraq as a captain in the British army. After his military career, he stepped into the corporate world, and has developed extensive leadership experience and is now a consultant to some major organizations in the UK, including Samsung, Go-Ahead, British Airways, and Camelot. These organizations are really leveraging Ben's knowledge to change the game when it comes to world-class health and performance. In this conversation we talked about leadership and servant leadership, and about what it takes to perform under significant pressure. Please enjoy my chat with my friend and leadership expert, Ben Morton.

Welcome back! This week we’re interviewing Dr. Marc Mitchell from the University of Western Ontario. Marc is an assistant professor and he is a specialist in behavioural change. He did his PhD at the University of Toronto and a postdoctoral fellowship at the University Health Network. He works in integrative bio-sciences and the psychological basis for kinesiology. Marc is really interested in studying health incentives and behavioural economics, physical activity promotion, and how you actually change behaviours to get healthier. He's applied that in cardiac rehabilitation and also in e-health, mobile health, and public health interventions. So if you want to know more about how you actually change your behaviours to get healthier, Marc is your guy. I'm super excited that he agreed to come on the show and share some of his insights with all of us. Enjoy this conversation all about the science of behaviour change with Dr. Marc Mitchell.

Welcome back! This week we have an amazing interview with wilderness writer and adventure photographer Bruce Kirkby. Bruce is recognized for connecting wild places with contemporary issues. With journeys spanning more than 80 countries in 2000 days, Bruce's accomplishments include the first modern crossing of Arabia’s Empty Quarter by camel, a raft descent of Ethiopia's Blue Nile Gorge by raft, a sea kayak traverse of Borneo's Northern coast, and a coast-to-coast Icelandic trek. Bruce is a columnist for The Globe and Mail, author of two bestselling books, and a multi-National Magazine Award winner. Bruce's writing has appeared in The New York Times, EnRoute, Huffington Post, Explore, and Canadian Geographic. His photographic clients include Patagonia, Lululemon, Time, Outside, National Geographic Adventure, and MacLean’s. He's a winner of a prestigious Western Magazine Award, and Bruce's photography was selected by National Geographic as among the most compelling adventure images of the decade. In this conversation, we talk about some of his latest adventures, his latest book, and what he's been up to with regards to keeping his family busy and active. This interview gathered some insights into pushing the limits, building a life around your passions and interests, and also developing your skills and executing them under conditions that are extraordinarily difficult. Please enjoy my conversation with adventurer, Bruce Kirkby!

Welcome back! Today I’m excited to share an interview that I did on Casey Zavaleta’s podcast “How do you Feel?”. Casey is a functional strength coach at All Day Fit, a personal training gym based out of Toronto, Canada. Casey’s mission is to help teach women to tune in to their bodies so they can make decisions about their fitness, health, and lifestyle that are right for them. She believes that we should stop obsessing about how we want to look and start focusing on how we want to feel. Prior to her time there, Casey also worked for Toronto Football Club’s Department of High Performance, where she developed programs to optimize the performance of professional athletes. In this episode, we talk about the importance of rest and recharging for high performance in every area of our lives. We also discuss how we can actually use this strange pandemic time to give ourselves a reboot, discover our true priorities, and craft our lives from the ground up. To listen to more of her episodes, go to howdoyoufeelpodcast.com. Enjoy the conversation!

Welcome back! This week I’m really excited to share a chat I had with Dan Pontefract. Dan is a keynote speaker, leadership strategist, best-selling author, and founder of The Pontefract Group, which aims to improve the state of leadership and organizational culture. He’s written three books: “Open to Think”, “The Purpose Effect”, and “Flat Army”, and his fourth book, “Lead. Care. Win. How to Become a Leader Who Matters” will be published later this year. Dan has presented at four different TED events and also writes for Forbes and Harvard Business Review. Dan is an adjunct professor at the University of Victoria, Gustavson School of Business, and has garnered more than 20 industry awards over his career. Dan’s thinking is world class and his ideas of how we can be better leaders in this time of tremendous disruption is important for all of us to hear. Dan gives us a very clear path forwards about what we need to do to navigate the current situation and ensure we’re successful moving forwards after the pandemic. To learn more about Dan, you can visit his website at danpontefract.com.  Enjoy the conversation!

Welcome back! Today I have the pleasure of interviewing Dr. Bill Howatt. Bill is an internationally recognized expert in mental health. He's spent 25 years helping employees, patients, and leaders achieve their potential. Bill has a PhD in Organizational Psychology, did post-doctoral training at UCLA, has developed programs with organizations like the Conference Board of Canada and the University of New Brunswick, and is author of numerous books and articles, including regular contributions to The Globe and Mail. I interviewed Bill previously on this podcast (Episode 37), however I wanted to bring him back on the show as prioritizing mental health has never been so important as it is now during this worldwide crisis.  In this interview, Bill discusses overcoming loneliness, maintaining social connections while physically distancing, and implementing a mental fitness plan during this pandemic.  If you want to learn more about Bill and his new book, "Stop Hiding and Start Living: How to say F-it to Fear and Develop Mental Fitness", check out his website at billhowatt.com.  Enjoy the episode!

Hey everyone, welcome back! Today I'm sharing a conversation I had with my good friend and colleague Yves Doucet.  Yves is a serial entrepreneur and innovator based in New Brunswick, Canada. He is the CEO and founder of Dovico, which is a leading project timesheet software company, with clients in over 80 countries. He has a passion for ingenuity and helping people live great lives. He's on a mission to always do business with values and tries to empower others to do the same. In this conversation, we discuss a number of different topics including rest and recovery, sleep, and creating courage during this difficult time.  To learn more about Yves, you can visit his website at yvesdoucet.com or visit tuba.co for improving team engagement levels and measure organizational success. Enjoy!

Welcome back everyone! This week I'm going to share an interview I did on Karim Kanji's podcast. Karim is a senior digital strategist who understands how to use various digital and social platforms to help brands reach their business and campaign goals and objectives.  In this episode, we talk again about specific tools and tactics you can use to not just get through this difficult time, but actually thrive in it. We discuss various ways you can use this extra time to your advantage.   Learn more about Karim and his podcast at karimkanji.com. Enjoy the episode!

Hey everyone, welcome back! This week I'm sharing with you an interview I did for the Weather Channel about the current COVID-19 pandemic. In this interview I discuss the importance of hand washing, keeping healthy both physically and mentally, and staying emotionally connected with people even while practising physical isolation. I hope this interview will be helpful for you as we get through these tough times. We're all in this together. Greg

Welcome back! Today we are going to have a conversation with Paul Chek. This interview originally appeared on my Be Better Podcast a couple of years ago, but so many people have been asking me about this interview that I decided to repost it. Paul Chek is a world renowned expert in the fields of corrective and high performance exercise, kinesiology, stress management, and holistic wellness. For over 30 years, Paul's unique integrated approach to treatment and education has changed the lives of many of his clients, his students, and their clients (because he coaches coaches). By treating the body as a whole system and finding the root cause of a problem, Paul has been successful where traditional approaches have previously failed. He is the founder of the CHEK (Corrective Holistic Exercise Kinesiology) Institute based in California and the Success Coaching Mastery Program. In this conversation, we do a very, very deep dive into health, wellbeing, and actually drift into spirituality as well, which is cool and amazing given the journey that Paul has been on. So please enjoy this incredibly in depth conversation with health, fitness, and wellness expert Paul Chek.

Hey everyone, welcome back! Today I'm going to share with you a bit of a different podcast. This is a recording of when I was ice climbing in Canmore, Alberta. I was with my friend Kevin McFadden and our guides Eric and Brad, and we climbed a very high frozen waterfall that was 3 pitches. I recorded myself throughout the day, and interviewed my partners and guides. Hopefully this gives you a little insight into what it's like to be out there doing stuff, and the mental games that go on when you're elevating yourself and reaching new limits.   Enjoy!

Welcome back! This week, I'm interviewing Sara Thompson. Sara has a Masters in Exercise Science and is a Registered Kinesiologist. Sara is a member of my team and she has developed an expertise in exercise physiology, coaching, and expeditions that push the limits of human performance. A few years ago Sara successfully summited Chimborazo, the furthest point from the centre of earth, and she just got back from her successful summit of Aconcagua, which is the highest peak in the Americas. She also recently did an expedition in Thailand, in which she was the high performance coach for a group of people learning Muay Thai and Freediving. You can learn more about that trip and the high performance company at createmomentum.co.  In this conversation we talk about her background, what she has learned in her work as a high performance coach, and what it takes to push the limits of human performance in extraordinarily difficult environments.  Enjoy the conversation! 

Hey everyone, welcome back to the show! This week we're really excited to bring you Steve Fleck. Steve Fleck is one of the leading Professional Endurance Sports Race/Event Announcers & Commentators in North America. Each year he is on the microphone at over 30, running, cycling and triathlon races/events across the continent. His entire working life has been spent in and around the world of Endurance Sports with roles in Retail, Sales, Marketing, Media, Communications, and Events.  Steve isn't just a race announcer, he's a storyteller. Steve helps to create the experience of being at those events, and he has seen it all. He has seen the successes, he has seen the failures, and he has conducted the interviews. So he has some tremendous insights into what it takes to be successful at a lot of these events, but also what it means to just simply participate and how powerful the experience itself is. Please enjoy my conversation with leading world class race announcer and my friend, Steve Fleck!

"If you want to make something that's like nothing you've made before, then you have to shake yourself up, go beyond whats comfortable and known and let yourself feel disoriented, overwhelmed, even intimidated. Those moments, when you lose your bearings or where you're forced to sink or swim, and the moments when you have an opportunity to rise to the occasion, to surprise yourself, to do the things you didn't know you could do. That's what making this album was for me, I'm so proud of the process, and I'm so proud of the result.” - Peter Katz This week I'm really excited to bring you an interview that I did with my friend and singer-songwriter Peter Katz! Over the past decade, Peter's seen his albums debut at number one on the iTunes singer-songwriter charts. He has shared the stage and studio with the likes of Academy Award winner Glen Hansard, Juno Award winners, The Good Lovelies, Polaris Prize nominated Melissa McClelland, and the legendary Garth Hudson from the Band. He has toured all over the world playing regularly to capacity crowds and has managed to build an impressive fan base of loyal listeners. The London Free Press describe one of his concerts as "try listening without getting goosebumps." In this conversation, we talk about creativity, learning, pushing through, even though you may not necessarily feel like it. I think there are some tremendous insights here that can benefit everybody. Enjoy!

Welcome back and Happy New Year! I'm happy to announce that this is the first episode of Season 3! We have a ton of incredible interviews scheduled for the upcoming year, however I would like to start the season off by reflecting on the first two seasons. I think it's good to reflect on past seasons before diving into the next. So in this episode I talk about some of my favourite guests and what some important take aways were for me.  So hope you enjoy this short recap and we'll present our first guest of Season 3 next week! 

Welcome back! As we near the end of 2019, I want to totally change up the direction and share a conversation that I had with Brent Jensen on his No Sleep Til Sudbury podcast. Brent's podcast is all about music and the power certain songs have on us. On his podcast, Brent talks about those songs and about how music tells us who we are. In this conversation, we dig into my five favourite songs and why I chose them, how they relate to different points in my life, and how I think about music. I think this conversation is really relevant as we enter into the holidays and have a chance to listen to more music. We’re also learning more about the effect that music has on our mental health. We're discovering that music can be used as a specific treatment for mental health challenges, especially depression. Recently I was privileged to go to the launch of an initiative called the Awesome Music Project, designed to raise awareness and funds for mental health research across the country. So please enjoy my conversation on amazing music with Brent Jensen!

Welcome back! This week I'm excited to share with you an interview that I did on Keith Macpherson's podcast. Keith attained his certified leadership coach designation through the Coaches Training Institute and the Leadership Circle. He has a vast knowledge and experience in the world of wellness and leadership, and has positioned himself as a global teacher on how to establish workplace culture that's both healthy and effective. Keith is brilliant in thinking about the field of mental and spiritual health, and merging those two ideas together. He is probably most renowned for his work as a professional musician - he was a finalist on the hit television series, Canadian Idol. He's a regular columnist for Balance Magazine and he speaks to thousands of people around the world every single day via his daily intentions on social media. If you're interested in checking out his podcast, check out the Keith Macpherson podcast, and you can learn more from him at keithmacpherson.ca. In this conversation we dive into loads of different concepts around health, wellbeing, high performance, and music. Enjoy!

Hey everyone, welcome back! This week we have a great guest on. I am so excited to bring you again Neil Pasricha. This talk is super-timely - it’s coming out the same week that he has his new book out, You Are Awesome. That book has just hit number one internationally. We talk a lot about that as well as other really cool topics around resilience, bouncing back, and mindset. Neil is an author, entrepreneur, podcaster, and public speaker. He focuses on positivity and adding simple pleasures to your day, which is pretty cool in this crazy era that we live in. He's best known for the Book of Awesome series and the Happiness Equation, both of which are international bestsellers. He has sold over 1 million books, and he's an established speaker. His TEDx talk, The Three A's of Awesome, is ranked as the ninth most inspiring TEDx talk, with over 3 million views to date. He has an unbelievably popular blog, A Thousand Awesome Things, that won three Webby Awards and was ranked in PC Magazine's list of the top blogs and websites in 2009 and 2010. He is frequently sought out as a consultant on positivity and leadership. I'm really excited to bring this episode to you. It's great to have him back on the show and I'm sure you're going to love this episode. Enjoy!

Welcome back!  I'm really excited about this week’s interview, which is with one of the top golf players in the world, Tommy Fleetwood. Tommy is currently ranked number five in the world on the PGA tour. Last year he was runner up at the British Open, his second finish at a major championship. He has been consistently improving his performance at events like the Ryder Cup and BMW Championship, the RBC Canadian open, the US Open, the British open, and just yesterday finished his season with another incredible finish. So he's on quite an upwards trajectory right now. In this conversation we talk about excellence, routines, mental skills, all the daily practices that Tommy uses to make sure that he's performing at a high level and how to overcome a disappointing result and get back in the game. Enjoy!

Welcome back! This week, I am super psyched to share with you my conversation with Dr. Robyne Hanley-Dafoe. She is an expert on resiliency and workplace wellness. She is an award-winning psychology instructor and she specializes in resiliency, navigating stress and change, and personal wellness, and behaviour change.  Robyne is a Senior Educational Developer for the Center for Teaching and Learning at Trent University, and she focuses on providing professional development for the teaching community and cultivating student engagement. All of her work now, in addition to what she is doing at the university, revolves around actually getting out into the community and helping people to build their capacity to be more resilient, help people in incredibly challenging circumstances, and apply the information that she has either developed herself or learnt from others, to make a difference in people's lives. So I think you're going to really like this conversation. She is totally engaging and thought-provoking. We dig deep into resiliency and the components that you need for resiliency, which is the ability to bounce back and overcome obstacles in your life. Please enjoy this conversation with Dr. Robyne Hanley-Dafoe!

Welcome back!  I am super excited about this interview that I did with Olympic hurdler, Sarah Wells. She is transforming the world and has an unbelievable track record - literally - as an Olympic hurdler. She is a Pan Am Games medalist, a multiple national champion, ranked top 12 at the Olympic Games, and has gone on now to build a speaking career. Sarah has launched the Believe Initiative, which is transforming the lives of tens of thousands of children and students around the world, helping them learn how to build confidence, to build resilience, and to build their ability to accomplish more. I'm really excited about having Sarah on the show. We dig a lot into the process around excellence, about overcoming obstacles, about staying positive despite unbelievable setbacks, and ultimately how she's built a framework around her strategies to improve resilience and to develop confidence. I’m really excited to share this interview to you. You can check her out online at her website sarahwells.ca and on twitter @sarahwells400mh, which stands for meters hurdles. So please enjoy this interview with Olympian, Sarah Wells. For more information about the peak performance training in Thailand, check it out at createmomentum.co!

Hey everyone, welcome back!  This week, I’m doing an interview with my good friend John Berardi. John is an entrepreneur, best known as the co-founder of Precision Nutrition, the world's largest nutrition, coaching, education, and software company. He's also the founder of Change Maker Academy, which is devoted to helping would-be change-makers turn their passion for health and fitness into powerful, purpose-oriented, wildly successful careers. John has advised Apple, Equinox, Nike, and Titleist, as well as the San Antonio Spurs, Carolina Panthers, U.S. open champ Sloane Stephens, and UFC champ Georges St-Pierre. He's been named as one of the top 20 smartest coaches in the world and the 100 most influential people in health and fitness. In this conversation we talk about nutrition, but we also spend a lot of our time talking about behaviour change and how we can actually cut through the noise around what to do to get healthier, and how we can dissect all the information that's out there and make good decisions for our ourselves. Please enjoy my conversation with nutrition, high performance, and change-making expert, Dr. John Berardi! For more information about the peak performance training in Thailand, check it out at createmomentum.co!

Hey everyone welcome back! We are getting back into the interviews now with some experts on human performance and optimal health. Today I'm really excited to share a conversation that I had with Dr. Sarah Sarkis. Sarah is a psychologist, a writer, and a performance consultant with a private practice in Honolulu, Hawaii. Her integrated approach is based on science. She works to empower her clients to achieve long term change and growth, and she uses psychology, neurobiology, and functional medicine to accomplish that. Her blog, The Padded Room, is one of the most popular mental health blogs right now and she describes it as a virtual safe place to help you manage the jarring realities of life. She also does work with the Flow Research Collective, which is Steven Kotler's research group, all about how to enter into flow states especially after being in challenging situations. You can learn more about her at her website drsarahsarkis.com Pease enjoy my conversation with psychologist Dr. Sarah Sarkis! For more information about the peak performance training in Thailand and how you can enter your own flow state, check out createmomentum.co!

Welcome back! Today I'd like to share one of the most popular episodes from my original podcast - my interview with Ben Greenfield.  Ben is a coach, nutritionist, author, speaker, ex-bodybuilder, ironman triathlete, and spartan racer, with over a decade of experience using cutting-edge and proven scientific concepts to achieve healthy and lasting performance and lifestyle success. He works with athletes, CEOs, and soccer moms alike, helping them to achieve amazing feats of physical endurance without destroying their bodies in the process. In 2013 and 2014, Ben was named as one of the world’s top 100 most influential people in health and fitness. You can check him out at bengreenfieldfitness.com.  I hope that this conversation is helpful for you. Ben and I dig into many granular details about nutrition and training.  Enjoy! For more information about the peak performance training in Thailand, check it out at createmomentum.co!

Welcome back! Today we’re going to continue with the keynote I did last year. This is the final part. We've gone through Radical Attention and Awareness. Part 3 is all about Radical Acceptance and Authenticity, and the physiology, mindset, and space that can get you into a creative space.   Please enjoy part 3 of my keynote all about Radical Creativity! For more information about the peak performance training in Thailand, check it out at createmomentum.co!

Welcome back! Today we’re going to continue with the keynote I started to share with you last week. Last week we explored Radical Attention and the Focused Execution Pathway. This week I’m going to share Radical Awareness, which is all about getting into alpha brainwaves, and creating the ability to do strategic thinking and creative thinking. We’re going to talk about the physiology, mindset, and space you can create to get into that state. Please enjoy part 2 of my keynote all about Radical Awareness! For more information about the peak performance training in Thailand, check it out at createmomentum.co!

Welcome back! Today I am going to share with you a section of a keynote that I did all about focused execution. In this one we dig into concentration and alertness - things that you can do to improve your ability to focus and also what can destroy your ability to focus. We’re going to spend a lot of time digging into the new science of neurophysiology and the things that you can do to control your brainwave states to enable you to perform at the highest possible level. So enjoy this keynote that I gave all about the focused execution pathway. This is Part 1 of 3. Let me know what you think on social @drgregwells. For more information about the peak performance training in Thailand, check it out at createmomentum.co!

Welcome back! This is the final episode from my Keynote at the EPIC community event in Vancouver last year. In Part 3 I wrap everything up, summarize some ideas, and give some specific strategies for what you can do to up-level your life.  Enjoy! For more information about the peak performance training in Thailand, check it out at createmomentum.co!

Hello everyone, welcome back! Let's dive right into Part 2 of my Keynote at the EPIC community event in Vancouver. I dig into all the science of human performance, observations from some of the best performers I've had the chance to interact with, and tools, tactics, and strategies that you can use to try and up-level your life.  Enjoy! For more information about the peak performance training in Thailand, check it out at createmomentum.co!

Hello everyone, welcome back! Today I'm going to share a keynote that I did at the EPIC community last year in Vancouver, Canada. I review all the things I've learned at the Olympics as a commentator and as a physiologist working with Olympic level athletes. This is a great opportunity for us to start digging back into the idea of really performing at your absolute limits and what that involves.  It's broken into three 30-minute chunks. This is Part 1 of 3. We are really excited about this and hope that you enjoy this presentation!

Hey everyone welcome back! Today I'm sharing with you a conversation I had with Dr. Marc Bubbs, a Naturopathic Doctor, Master of Science, Certified Strength and Conditioning Coach, Speaker, and Performance Nutrition Lead for Basketball Canada. He's also the author of the book Peak: The new science of performance that is revolutionizing sports - An integrated and personalized approach to athlete health, nutrition, recovery and mindset. He's a regular contributor to Breaking Muscle and a nutrition advisory board member for Strong Magazine. He's been working with athletes, active people, and clients striving to improve their health for almost two decades, using an evidence-based approach to nutrition, movement, and lifestyle modifications. Dr. Bubbs regularly consults with teams in the NBA, the NFL, the NHL, and the MLB - making him one of the few professionals who is a sports science consultant in all four professional sports leagues in North America. We had a great conversation about human performance, how to go from distraction to focus, priority management, and optimizing potential. So please enjoy my conversation with Dr. Marc Bubbs from The Performance Podcast. You can check out more of his podcasts and what he does at his website https://drbubbs.com. Thanks for listening!

Welcome back everyone! Today I had an amazing conversation with Tamsen Webster. As a professional "Idea Whisperer," Tamsen helps people find, build, and tell the stories of their ideas. She combined 20 years in brand and message strategy with four years as a TEDx Executive Producer to create The Red Thread®, a simple way to change how people see...and what they do as a result. (Though as she'll tell you, everything she knows about people, speaking, and change, she learned at Weight Watchers.) Today, Tamsen is a globe-hopping keynote speaker who consults with enterprise companies like Verizon, Johnson & Johnson, and State Street Bank on how to get their big ideas to have the impact they deserve. Please enjoy this conversation!

Hey everyone thanks for joining me!  Today I have a really good talk with Eric Termuende. Eric is a globally recognized thought leader, author, and international speaker on the future of work and building teams that thrive. He's a co-founder of the company NoW Innovations, advising industry-leading organizations, institutions, and associations on future-proofing their teams, talent management, and re-humanizing the workplace. Eric has a deep understanding of the next generation of work and how to attain and retain the right talent. His bestselling book, Rethink Work, has become a must-read for today's leaders. He's also spoken at TEDx and BUILDEX, and has consulted with organizations like Coca-Cola and Milken Global. He is deeply engaged in doing work that inspires, challenges, and opens minds to opportunity.  Please enjoy my amazing conversation with my good friend and amazing inspirational leader around the future of work, Eric Termuende.

Welcome back!  Today’s podcast is with Orlando Bowen. Orlando has been through some unbelievable challenges. In 2004, he was assaulted and falsely accused of a crime, ending his professional football career. He was later acquitted and has since dedicated his life to empowering others to overcome adversity, to find their passion, and to use their gifts to serve.  Orlando Bowen is one of the most sought after speakers and works with corporations, small businesses, and non-profits. He is also the founder of the "One Voice One Team" Youth Leadership Organization to inspire and to teach resilience, leadership, and teamwork to youth. In this conversation, Orlando and I get really tactical. We dig deep into some specific actions that you can take to move your life forward despite significant obstacles that may be thrown your way. I think you're going to get a lot out of this. Please enjoy my conversation with the inspirational Orlando Bowen. 

Hi everyone, welcome back! Today I had the amazing opportunity to talk with Mark Black, a Heart and Double-Lung Transplant recipient, turned four-time marathon runner, author, coach, and speaker. Mark was born with a life-threatening heart defect, and before the age of one underwent two open-heart surgeries. When he was 22, he was told that he needed a heart and double-lung transplant. So Mark moved thousands of kilometres from home and was put on the transplant waiting list, much of that time spent living in the hospital as his condition grew worse. Finally, after almost a year on the list, Mark received a second chance at life: a life-saving Heart and Double-Lung Transplant. Three years later, he became the only man in history to complete a marathon with someone else’s heart and lungs. He has since run three more marathons. Since receiving his second chance at life Mark hasn’t wasted a moment. Mark has travelled the globe speaking to more than 150,000 people. He delivers practical and life-changing insight on how to flourish in challenging times, break through self-imposed barriers that limit your development and growth, and transform adversity into your competitive advantage. If you want to gain a little bit of inspiration and also learn some very specific insights into how you can overcome obstacles, then this is going to be something that you are going to be absolutely fascinated by.  Please enjoy my conversation with Mark Black!

Hey everyone welcome back!   Today is the final part of my keynote on how to live to 120. I hope these ideas are helpful, I hope that you're finding them interesting, and I hope that this science is making a difference for you. Please let me know what you think on social. So here is the final section of my keynote on how to live to 120. Enjoy!

Hey everyone welcome back!  I hope you liked last week's episode. That was the first segment of the keynote that I gave on how to live to 120. Today is part two. I would love to know what you think of this.  Please enjoy part two of my keynote on how to live to 120.

Hey everyone welcome back!  I'm really excited about today's episode. I'm going to share with you some material that I presented at a conference all about how to live to 120. We talk about new medical technologies, updates on nutrition for anti-inflammation, and exercise for health-span and life-span.  I broke it into three roughly 30 minute segments, so this is part one of three. Enjoy!

Hey everyone welcome back!  I am beyond excited for today’s podcast. I’ve been trying for about four years to get John Ratey on the show. John is a Clinical Associate Professor at Harvard Medical School. He has written nine books including “Spark, The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain”. This book really dives deep into the science of exercise and the brain, and how we can use exercise to improve outcomes in ADD, ADHD, addiction, depression, anxiety, and stress. It also explores how exercise can improve learning and outcomes in aging. More recently he’s written a book called “Go Wild: Free Your Body and Mind from the Afflictions of Civilization”, which is all about nature and community.  These are all topics that I am interested in and have been exploring for a long time. The ability to actually dive into that with the author and a Harvard professor is just beyond exciting for me. So, let’s dive right into this deep exploration of Spark, the Revolutionary Science of Exercise and the Brain. Enjoy!

Hey everyone welcome back!  Today I had a chance to chat to my old friend Ziya Tong. Ziya anchored Daily Planet, Discovery Channel's flagship science program until its final season in 2018. She also hosted CBC’s Emmy-nominated series ZeD, PBS’ national primetime series Wired Science, and worked as a correspondent for Nova ScienceNow alongside Neil deGrasse Tyson on PBS.  Ziya has a new book out called “The Reality Bubble: Blind Spots, Hidden Truths, and the Dangerous Illusions that Shape our World”. This is the summary of the book: From one of the world's most engaging science journalists, a groundbreaking and wonder-filled look at the hidden things that shape our lives in unexpected and sometimes dangerous ways. Our naked eyes see only a thin sliver of reality. We are blind in comparison to the X-rays that peer through the skin, the mass spectrometers that detect the dead inside the living, or the high-tech surveillance systems that see with artificial intelligence. And we are blind compared to the animals that can see in infrared, or ultraviolet, or in 360 degree vision. These animals live in the same world that we do, but they see something quite different when they look around. With all of the curiosity and flair that drives her broadcasting, Ziya Tong illuminates this hidden world and takes us on a journey to examine ten of humanity's biggest blind spots.  During this interview we dig into all of those topics - we talk about global warming, science, curiosity, and just have a great conversation about these ideas and what really defines our reality. So I hope that you enjoy this conversation with Ziya Tong!

Welcome back everyone! Today I have an incredible story for you. I had the amazing opportunity to sit down with Chris Norton.  After a devastating football injury in his freshman year of college, Chris was told he had a 3% chance of moving anything below his neck again. However, after years of intensive rehab, Chris somehow defied the medical community and was able to walk across the stage for his college diploma.  Since then, Chris has become one of the most sought-after motivational speakers, inspiring people with his message of hope, resilience, and faith. In 2018, Chris was named to ITA Group's list of "The Hottest Event Keynote Speakers". Chris and his family also started the SCI CAN Foundation, which has raised close to one million dollars to help others with spinal cord injuries and other neurological disorders. One of his greatest feats was when he walked down the aisle to marry his wife Emily. They have since fostered 17 and adopted five children. Chris and Emily have recently written a memoir "The Seven Longest Yards: Our Love Story of Pushing the Limits While Leaning on Each Other". Chris and Emily's story of love, challenges, and commitment will be available in July 2019.   Please enjoy one of the most inspirational interviews with Chris Norton.

Hey everyone welcome back!  Today we're going to go back to sports and interview Kylie Masse, a Canadian Olympic swimmer. In the 2016 Summer Games, Kylie tied for bronze in the 100 metre backstroke. At the 2017 World Championships, Kylie broke the world record in that event, becoming the first Canadian woman to become a world champion in a swimming event.  I grew up swimming and did it all the way through college, and so it remains a passion of mine. I actually had Kylie in one of my classes at the University of Toronto and I watched her develop into being a world record holder and Olympic medalist. With the World Championships coming up this summer, I thought this would be a good time to connect with Kylie and get some insight about what her history was like as a young athlete, key factors that led to her being successful, and how she manages competition and training.  It's pretty cool to have a few minutes with someone who is absolutely the best in history at what they do. So please enjoy my conversation with Kylie Masse. 

Welcome back!  Today we’re going in a different direction and chatting with country music singer and songwriter Tim Nichols. With nearly two dozen smash hits, multiple BMI songwriting awards, a Grammy for Best Country Song, as well as recently being a 2017 Nashville songwriter Hall of Fame inductee, Tim Nichols has earned his place amongst Nashville's most elite and respected tunesmiths.  In 2004 Nichols co-wrote Tim McGraw's “Live Like You Were Dying,” which stayed at number one for ten consecutive weeks. In addition to breaking a 30-year record, “Live Like You Were Dying” won the Grammy Award for Best Country Song in 2005. It also won Song of the Year Award from the Country Music Association, Academy of Country Music, BMI Country Awards, ASCAP Country Awards, Billboard, and the Nashville Songwriters Association International. It is the only song to have won every major song award that is presented for country music.   Feeling the importance of giving back to the community and the industry, Nichols has served on the board of directors for the Country Music Association, the Nashville Songwriters Association International, and the High Hopes Preschool and Pediatric Therapy Clinic, which serves children with special needs in Nashville and surrounding counties of middle Tennessee.  This interview is all about the process of creating. We uncover a few nuggets around the creative process and what it takes to be as prolific and productive as Tim has been over the last twenty five years.  Please enjoy my very powerful chat with my buddy Tim Nichols!

Welcome back!  Today we have a really cool interview with Shane Feldman. Shane has basically become an expert in community and building more community into your life in this era of constant unrelenting distraction.  Shane is the founder, visionary, and CEO of Count Me In. Count Me In is his youth-led movement which basically started as a small project that went viral and has evolved into a global phenomenon. It is committed to transforming the way teens see themselves in connection to the world through volunteerism, community, and mentorship. It is now the largest youth-led organization on the planet. Since the first program in 2011, Count Me In community members have organized and supported hundreds of service projects, contributing to over 100 million volunteer hours logged, which is valued at over $2.3 billion. Shane has been featured by Larry King, Dr. Oz, Forbes, and People magazine, and has been highlighted in a documentary TV series on A&E. He's spoken with and worked with some of the most dynamic companies on the planet including Google, Microsoft, and Walt Disney, and has been recognized by the White House, the prime minister of Canada, and the United Nations.  Please enjoy my wide ranging conversation all about community with Shane Feldmann!

Welcome back everyone! Today we are revisiting one of the very best interviews from my previous podcast, with Dr. Bill Howatt.  As Chief Research and Development Officer at Morneau Shepell, Bill is an internationally recognized expert in mental health who has spent 25 years helping employees, patients, and leaders achieve their potential. Bill has a PhD in Organizational Psychology, did post-doctoral training at UCLA, has developed programs with organizations like the Conference Board of Canada and the University of New Brunswick, and is author of numerous books and articles, including regular contributions to The Globe and Mail. As I’m sure you know we're faced with a tremendous mental illness epidemic. Around one in five people will access the medical system at some point because of a mental health related challenge. However, much like cancer in the 1950s and AIDS in the 1980s, there is a stigma around talking about mental health challenges.  In this conversation Bill has an amazing ability to explain all of these topics and really explore in great detail where exactly we need to go in the future if we're going to actually address this particular challenge. So I hope that you enjoy this conversation with the amazing, brilliant, and insightful Dr. Bill Howatt.

Welcome back!  Today we're going to revisit an interview with Lisa Bentley that I posted on my previous podcast. Although she is primarily regarded as one of the best Ironman athletes in the world, Lisa spent the first eight years of her triathlon career racing Olympic distance and representing Canada on several national elite teams at the World Championships and the 1995 Pan Am Games. In 1997, Lisa switched her focus to the Ironman distance, winning her first long distance event, Strongman Japan, and breaking the course record by 19 minutes. She placed ninth in her first Ironman World Championships, beginning a progressive rank improvement that culminated in a third place win at the 26 Ironman World Championships. Over the course of her career she has won eleven Ironmans and sixteen 70.3 Half Ironman distances, and achieved several top five finishes at Ironman World Championships. She had at least one Ironman victory for each year from 2000-2007 and was ranked among the top five triathletes in the world for over a decade. Lisa competed at the highest level in Ironman despite having cystic fibrosis, a genetic disease resulting in chronic infections and limited lung capacity. Lisa came to see CF as a blessing, fuelling her passion for sport and excellence. Every race gave families hope that their children with CF could achieve similar things in life.  Since she retired from pro sport in 2009, Lisa has been doing marathons, doing motivational speaking, providing television commentary for CTV Olympic Swim coverage, and CBC triathlon and Sportsnet Ironman coverage. She coaches and does sales and marketing work for other triathletes and triathlon events. She is also an advocate for CF, women in sport, and equality in sport.  I'm honoured to have her on the show. Her new book is out called “An Unlikely Champion: Finding a path to fulfillment and winning in life”. She is an amazing human being and you are going to absolutely love this interview. Enjoy!

Welcome back! This week I’m going to share with you an interview that we did on my previous podcast. It was the number one rated podcast on our first iteration so I wanted to bring Dr. John Izzo back because so many people have been asking for it. Dr. John Izzo has been a pioneer on creating successful businesses and emerging work trends for over 25 years. Izzo was a pioneer on employee engagement and social responsibility, a trailblazer on shifting generational values, and he showed how individuals shape the future. He is now blazing a new trail showing businesses why a rising class of people worldwide will shape the economy of the future with his book The Purpose Revolution. This rising class is not one of nationality, income, race, or gender, but one that aspires to have a good life while doing good.  He’s spoken to over one million people, advised over 500 companies, authored six best selling books, and helped some of the world's most admired companies. His clients have included IBM, Qantas, the Mayo Clinic, Verizon, RBC, Telus, WestJet, DuPont, Humana, Microsoft, and McDonald's.  We are really fortunate to get him on the show so I hope you enjoy this podcast interview with Dr Izzo!

Welcome back! I'm happy to announce that this is the first episode of Season 2! To start off this season, this week I had an incredible conversation with Scott Livingston on his podcast “Leave your Mark”. Scott’s podcast is all about high performance and how his guests are leaving their mark on the world. We got into all sorts of cool stuff around exercise training, wellbeing, and even career. I thought it would be cool to change it up and do a deep dive into some of the things I've been working on lately.  You can find all of Scott’s podcast episodes on iTunes and you can follow him on instagram @Kingopain, on Twitter @ Builtbyscott, or on his Facebook fan page Scott G Livingston. Enjoy the episode!

Hey everyone welcome back! Thanks so much for joining me on the show.  Today we have a crazy good interview with one of my oldest friends in the world Tara Norton. Tara is a former professional Ironman triathlete and now an Ultraman world champion. Tara has overcome some unbelievable obstacles in her life, including multiple injuries which you will hear about. This might be one of the most inspirational podcast interviews I've ever done with a ton of takeaways about mindset and positivity.  Please enjoy this really cool interview with my dear friend and Ultraman world champion Tara Norton. 

Welcome back! This week we have an incredible interview with someone who I grew up tracking and idolizing - Silken Laumann. From broken bones and shredded muscle to Olympic glory, Silken’s story is one of courage, perseverance, and the triumph of the human spirit. In May of 1992 just 10 weeks before the Olympic Games in Barcelona, Silken was injured in a brutal rowing accident that left her right leg shattered and deeply injured. She was reigning world champion in single sculls rowing, but her doctor told her that she might never row again. Twenty seven days, five operations, and countless hours of gruelling rehab later, she was back in her rowing shell and began to pursue her Olympic dream all over again. On August 2nd 1992, Silken made the greatest comeback in Canadian sports history and one of the greatest comebacks in all of sports history, winning a bronze medal at the Olympics and ultimately capturing the hearts of millions of people.  Now retired from rowing with three Olympic medals, she has continued to inspire and encourage people to dream, live in the moment, and embrace failure as a stepping stone to progress. She has launched a new initiative called We Are Unsinkable, which is gathering stories from people who have overcome obstacles in their lives and sharing those to help other people become inspired.  I'm really excited about having Silken on the show. We do a review of her entire sporting history, learn a lot about the challenges that she faced after the Olympics were over, and ultimately landing this incredible new initiative that she's launching.  You can check her out on all of her social media which are listed at her website silkenlaumann.com and at weareunsinkable.com. Her story is unbelievable and I think you're going to love this conversation. 

Welcome back! Today I sit down with Leslie Beck. Leslie has spent her career helping Canadians achieve their health goals as they relate to diet and nutrition. She is a coach, best-selling author, columnist, and television and radio personality. As a registered dietitian, Leslie runs a private practice in downtown Toronto at Medcan, where she offers clients expert diet and nutrition advice, personalized meal plans and ongoing coaching. As Medcan’s Director of Food and Nutrition, she oversees nutrition program development and implementation, and works closely with Medcan’s executive chef to develop recipes, menu items, and retail food products (Nourish by Medcan) that align with Medcan’s food philosophy and current nutritional guidelines. Leslie writes a weekly column in The Globe and Mail, can be heard Mondays on CJAD radio in Montreal, and is a contributor to CBC Radio Syndication and CTV news. She’ s also the best- selling author of 12 books on nutrition and health. Born and raised in Vancouver, BC, Leslie obtained her Bachelor of Science in Dietetics from the University of British Columbia and went on to complete the dietetic internship program at St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto. She studied a Masters in Epidemiology at the University of Toronto. Leslie is a member of the College of Dietitians of Ontario, Dietitians of Canada, and The American College of Lifestyle Medicine.

Welcome back everyone! Here is Part Two of my interview with Jim Kwik. The podcast originally appeared on Jim Kwik's podcast. You can check that out and you can find everything about Jim at his website at kwiklearning.com. There you will find all of his social media contacts, his website, and his podcast, which has some unbelievable guests on it. Check that out if you want to learn more about learning, mindset, memory creation, efficiency, and high performance brains.  Enjoy the second half of my interview with memory and learning expert Jim Kwik!

Welcome back! Today I am going to share with you an interview that I did with Jim Kwik for his podcast. It's an overview of some of the principles that many of you are likely getting quite familiar with - sleep, nutrition, exercise, and mindset.  Jim is an incredible interviewer, amazing speaker, and one of the top experts in the world on accelerated learning, memory improvement, and optimal brain performance. He is the CEO and founder of Kwik learning, a leader in accelerated learning with online students of every age and vocation. Jim's cutting edge techniques and impressive mental feats have made him a highly sought-after brain trainer for top entrepreneurs and organizations. His clients include Virgin, Nike, G.E., Fox Studios, Harvard University, and Singularity University.  Here is Part One of my interview with Jim. Enjoy!

Welcome back everyone! Today I talked to my friend Eric Edmeades. Eric is an internationally recognized business speaker and serial entrepreneur. Eric has owned businesses in a variety of industries ranging from mobile computing to Hollywood special effects where he had the privilege of working on Hollywood blockbusters like Avatar and movies in the Pirates of the Caribbean, Transformers, and Iron Man franchises. Today, Eric is focused on business education. As the developer of both Inception Marketing™ and Business Freedom™ Eric travels the world hosting business and marketing education programs, speaking at business conferences and providing executive coaching and business mentoring services. Eric’s talks are designed to get you on the road to real business freedom; owning a business that gives you both the financial freedom and flexibility to spend more time on what really matters; your family, your health and your life.

Philip McKernan is an inspirational speaker, writer, and film maker. Philip works with entrepreneurs and business leaders all over the world. As a speaker, he's inspired and challenged the Canadian Olympic Team and the Pentagon, amongst many other audiences. He helps people get clear on who they are and where they need to go. Philip spends a lot of time challenging the status quo - challenging you to examine what's going on, think about the stories that you're telling yourself, and contemplate a different way of doing things. Philip has caddied for the president of Ireland, was chased by a bull elephant in Nigeria, made wine in Australia, has traveled to 80 countries around the world, has worked with orphans in Sri Lanka, Peru, India, and Guatemala, has written four books, and has released a documentary that explored how the gift of giving makes up for other challenges that we face in our lives. Enjoy this conversation with my good friend Philip McKernan.

Welcome back everyone! Today is an epic conversation with Robyn Benincasa, the adventurer who inspires. Robyn is a world champion adventurer racer, award winning notable motivational speaker, three times Guinness World Record kayaker, San Diego firefighter, 10 times Ironman triathlete, New York Times best selling author, proud owner of two bionic metal hips, and the founder and CEO of the Project Athena Foundation, which helps survivors live an adventurous dream as part of their recovery. In this interview we talk about everything that Robyn is up to. This is one of my most fun conversations. She’s extremely inspiring and has some really practical takeaways at the end. Let's dive right into my conversation with Robyn Benincasa. Enjoy!

Today we get a chance to talk to my friend Neil Pasricha. Neil is a positive psychology researcher who's focused on the relationship between happiness and leadership in business. Neil is one of the most popular TED speakers, with his first TED Talk “The 3 A's of Awesome” ranked as one of the ten most inspiring talks of all time. As a Keynote, Neil has spoken to hundreds of thousands of people around the world including Fortune 100 companies, Ivy League schools, and even royal families in the Middle East. He's written five New York Times best sellers including The Book of Awesome, The Happiness Equation, and Awesome is Everywhere. He established the Institute for Global Happiness, which continues to have an impact around the world. His work has been featured on CNN, BBC, The Today Show, The Early Show, The Oprah Winfrey Network, Harvard Business Review, Fast Company, Fortune, and Forbes. Please enjoy this conversation about happiness, resilience, and living a world class life.

Welcome back! Today we talk to Nick Foley. Nick is the founder of Good Sport, the non-profit organization Move for Inclusion, and is a co-founder of WE BE US. Move for Inclusion works alongside schools assisting with the design and implementation of curriculums based on inclusion. Good Sport is an online character-based education company for athletes, and Nick's newest venture WE BE US (WE as a community can BE stronger if all of US work together) sells socks. For every pair they sell, a new pair is donated to one of their charitable partners across Canada. He's also the author of two books: “Act Like You've Been There: Rules For My Brother,” a guide to living with integrity and perpetuating good citizenship, and most recently the children's book “Kapernakus”, which focuses on self-esteem and inclusion. Nick is the proud father of Brynn and Welles, whom he has learned so much from and who we talk about a lot in this conversation. I hope that you enjoy this conversation with Nick Foley!

World class triathlete Paula Findlay’s journey into the sport of triathlon began first as a swimmer which she been doing since she was 10 years old. Paula won the junior and senior national championships in 2008. She took another major step forward in 2009 when she finished third at the Under-23 World Championships. In 2010, Paula shocked the world becoming the first Canadian triathlete to win a World Championship Series event -- on the now-famous Hyde Park course in London, England. Paula at the time was just turned 21 and she was ranked No. 1 in the world. From late June 2011 through to the Olympics in London and most of 2013, a nagging hip injury limited Findlay to just five events, one of which she did not start, another of which she did not finish, and a disappointing performance at the London Olympics. A healthy Findlay is back to elite racing with some impressive results in both half iron man and iron man distance triathlons.

Ian Lopatin is the founder of a lifestyle clothing company called Spiritual Gangster. When he was a kid, he watched mom host neighbourhood yoga gatherings and as an adult he worked as an entertainment lawyer in L.A. He had a life changing encounter with Bikram Chowdhry and after that he opened One Yoga studios in Phoenix and Scottsdale Arizona. He ended up teaching yoga around the country and was known for linking yoga with hip hop music, which completely changed the way that yoga was being taught. He then moved on to found Spiritual Gangster and has become wildly successful. Ian and I discuss his business success as well as his lifestyle practices, as he's an elite performer in business while he travels all over the world. I’m really fascinated about his integration of mindfulness, a physical practice, a very difficult work life, and travel. I hope that you enjoy this conversation with my friend Ian Lopatin.

Dr. Mark Rowe is a thought leader in the area of health, inner happiness, and well-being. He founded Waterford Health Park as a new paradigm for sustainable improvements in community health. The health care facility was a finalist for World Building of the Year at the World Architecture Festival Awards in 2010. In 2013 it received Global Health Improvement Award. Mark wrote “A Prescription for Happiness” and “The Men's Health Book”. He's a member of the Healthy Ireland Council, which provides the platform to connect communities, families, and individuals into a national movement - supporting everyone to enjoy the best possible health and wellbeing. He runs his lifestyle medicine Be Well clinic from the Waterford Health Park. He is an international keynote speaker on the philosophy of wellbeing, lifestyle as medicine, health leadership, regenerative space, and a prescription for happiness. His TEDx Talk in Dublin in 2017 was titled The Doctor of the Future.

Filipe Masetti Leite is a journalist, cowboy, author, and adventurer who rode horseback from the Centennial Calgary Stampede to Ushuaia, Argentina (2012 to 2017). Born in Brazil and raised in Canada, he graduated in journalism from Ryerson University in Toronto. He has worked for OmniTV, CBC Radio, and Rede Globo. He currently writes for several publications in Canada and Brazil, including the Toronto Star and Trip Magazine. During his 23 500 km journey in the saddle, Filipe filmed a reality series for the Lonely Planet’s OutWildTV (post-production) and wrote a book released in Portuguese by Harper Collins - 13 weeks on the best-seller list in Brazil - in August of 2017. The English version of the book came out worldwide July 15, 2018. "Long Ride Home: Guts, Guns, Grizzlies," became a number one best seller on amazon.ca and is currently being adapted into a major motion picture. Instagram and Twitter @filipemasetti Website: https://www.cavaleirodasamericas.com.br/

Flow states are some of the most incredible experiences you can have as a human being. They occur when we engage in an activity that completely consumes our attention and challenges us at exactly the right level. Maybe you are exercising at a new level and it feels easy. Maybe you are working, lose all track of time and get five times as much done. Maybe you are having an amazing conversation over dinner with a group of people or sitting on a beach coming up with a new solution to an old problem. Flow states are absolutely incredible, and they have been a reference point for guests on this podcast over and over again. So I wanted to share with you a condensed version of The Power of Flow, which explores what happens when you get into that state, how you can deliberately activate it and what it can do for you. It is a simple idea that can make a huge difference in your life, so check out my presentation on the POWER OF FLOW.

In this era of constant, unrelenting distraction, I have become more and more and more convinced that focus is a prerequisite for any sort of world-class performance. You cannot perform well if you are distracted, and I don't think you can be particularly healthy either. I think mental health depends, to some extent, on our ability to control and maintain our attention. I've also worked with hundreds of Olympians and seen how much the ability to sustain a consistent level of focus is crucial for world-class performance. I wanted to explore this topic in more depth, so I did a presentation on The Power of Focus. I recorded the audio and have pulled it out to share with you. I’d love to hear your thoughts about how you focus, what you use focus for and what challenges you face in maintaining it. As part of our ongoing conversation about better health and human performance, please enjoy my presentation on THE POWER OF FOCUS.

In this episode, I want to share an idea with you that I call The Power of Challenge. I've been studying how people overcome obstacles in their lives to put themselves on a better trajectory. It’s really interesting to think about mental health and how we can help people move into a space where they maximize their potential. I gave a session recently exploring The Power of Challenge and recorded it, so I wanted to share it with you. This is sort of new thinking for me, and I’d love your opinions and comments about your experience with this and how you apply it in your life. The more we can create a conversation around this, the better, because mental health is one of the biggest issues we're faced with today. So here we go. Let me know what you think of this session I did recently on the POWER OF CHALLENGE.

Today we have a really cool interview with my friend Kunal Gupta. Kunal started a company about 10 years ago called Polar mobile, which has expanded and grown into a global technology company. As the company has grown Kunal has as well. He has lately begun to write blog posts on finding focus, and has become a leader in integration of mindfulness into leadership and into the workplace. I was really excited to chat with him because I think that he has an interesting perspective. He has business credentials that are tremendous and he also has very practical ideas on how to implement all of these these ideas into your life. He's experimented with minimalism and with Mindful Leadership. This is a deep dive into a life that's been transformed over the last decade. So please enjoy this conversation with my friend Kunal Gupta.

Ariel Garten is a neuroscientist, innovator, and entrepreneur whose driving purpose is to empower and help others overcome mental obstacles in order to live healthy, happy lives and reach their maximum potential. Garten is the Founder of InteraXon, the makers of Muse: the brain sensing headband. Before founding InteraXon, Ariel was not only trained as a neuroscientist and psychotherapist, but also started her own international clothing line while she worked in labs researching Parkinson’s disease and hippocampal neurogenesis. Her creativity and entrepreneurial head combined with her fascination with the brain lead her to join forces with two like-minded friends, the later co-founders of InteraXon. Together they founded a Silicon Valley backed startup that allowed people to control computers with their minds, the technology that sparked the creation of Muse. These days, Ariel can be found at on stages across the world speaking about happiness, meditation & mental health.

Hello podcasters! It's great to be with you today. I want to share an interview with communication and leadership guru Judith Humphrey, who coached me in my early career and was instrumental in preparing me for the 2010 and 2012 Olympics and the Superbodies series, which won a Gemini award. In 1988, Judith launched The Humphrey Group, the first Canadian firm to focus on uniting leadership and communication. Now led by her son Bart Egnal, it remains a major presence in the field, continuing to deliver pioneering programs established by Judith like Taking the Stage for women leaders. Since her retirement in 2017, Judith has continued to write and speak widely, sharing her knowledge about how to inspire through communication. In 2012, she was awarded the prestigious YWCA Woman of Distinction award for entrepreneurship. I hope you benefit tremendously from this deep conversation about leadership, communication and crafting a world-class life.

Welcome back everyone. It's great to be with you. I want to continue with a keynote presentation I gave called How to Live to 120. This talk was part of a series that ultimately led to my bestselling book, The Ripple Effect, which is the advanced version of ideas that I was just beginning to distill and organize. In part three, I explore nutrition and its role in causing inflammation, along with a bunch of tactics and recipes you can use to make sure you are as healthy as possible. From there, the keynote moves into the power and benefits of being in nature, both physically (including at the cellular level) and mentally. Here’s part three of my presentation, HOW TO LIVE TO 120.

Hey everyone. Welcome back! Thanks so much for sharing your attention with me on my podcast. I want to continue with part two of my keynote, How to Live to 120. This talk was part of a series of thinking processes that ultimately led to my bestselling book, The Ripple Effect, which is the advanced version of ideas that I was just beginning to distill and organize. In this segment, I begin with physical health, move into mind-body connections and then explore meditation and mental health. Please enjoy part two of my keynote, HOW TO LIVE TO 120.

Hi folks! I am really excited to share this podcast with you. It’s a keynote I gave a couple of years ago in which I tried to deconstruct how to live to 120. In this podcast, I explore several cutting-edge medical technologies that are emerging before getting into an approach to physical fitness that will help extend your life that I call the Four Fs model: Fit, Force, Fast and Flex . This talk was part of a series of thinking processes that ultimately led to my bestselling book, The Ripple Effect, which offers the advanced version of ideas that I was just beginning to get distilled and organized. I hope you enjoy these ideas and also those found in part two and three of this same talk. Thanks for listening and enjoy HOW TO LIVE TO 120.

Hey everyone. Welcome back! Thanks for joining me on my podcast. I've been trying for a while to bring you an episode on coaching so you can help people around you improve their performance. I’m stoked that I was able to speak with Alan Stein Jr. who is a coach, consultant, speaker and author with industry-leading expertise in improving organizational performance, cohesion and accountability. Prior to his current work, Alan spent 15 years working with some of the highest-performing basketball players on the planet, including NBA superstar Kevin Durant. Alan now travels the world teaching organizations how to utilize the same strategies in business that elite athletes use to perform at a world-class level. He has worked with some amazing organizations, including Tower Health, American Express, and USA Basketball, among many others. I'm really excited to do a deep dive into coaching and how to help people achieve world-class performance.

Hello! It's great to be with you. Today, I interview Eric Williamson, a grad student at the University of Toronto who conducts research as part of my team. He's just a fantastic human being who is already making a significant contribution to our understanding of nutrition’s impact on performance. Eric is a registered dietitian who has completed his Master's degree and is currently pursuing a PhD. In our conversation, he breaks down a lot of the common questions people ask me around nutrition. Specifically, we dive into protein and weight loss, which are two issues I know many people ask about. Ultimately, we just end up talking about healthy eating and approaches to improving nutrient intake in your overall diet, which is ultimately what I believe healthy nutrition is all about. So here we go – a deep dive into nutrition science. Please enjoy my conversation with my friend and colleague, ERIC WILLIAMSON.

Welcome back to the podcast! This week, I wanted to share an interview Bruce Bowser and I did for the Author Hour podcast. We were invited to do it because our book, The Focus Effect, is attracting a lot of attention. This conversation is really fun because Bruce and I got a chance to chat about the three main sections of the book (Personal Mastery, Work Mastery and Life Mastery) and explore our ideas for helping people fight back against this age of distraction. Bruce is fantastic and was incredible to partner with on the book – me coming from a physiology perspective and him from the business angle. Bruce is President of AMJ Campbell and an entrepreneur who has been successful in a range of business ventures. I hope you find this interview useful as you map out a strategy for reducing distraction and making your life better by controlling your focus. Please enjoy this conversation with my great friend, BRUCE BOWSER.

Hey there. Welcome back! Thanks for joining me for my conversation with Graham Brown, Director of Manufacturing for Lush Cosmetics. This interview is a little bit different but completely amazing. We end up speaking quite a bit about Graham’s commitment to the happiness and well-being of his employees and passion for making Lush an ethical and sustainable brand. Graham was Lush North America's first employee, managing all Lush operations this side of the Atlantic out of his dorm room in Vancouver right from delivery of raw ingredients to hand pressing bath bombs. As the business grew, so did his portfolio. He took on his current role in 1999 and now leads a team of over a thousand people. This is a great conversation with tons of very practical takeaways that offer a granular look at how to apply techniques I talk about on a regular basis. So, let's dive into this chat with my inspiring friend, GRAHAM BROWN.

Hello! It's great to be with you. One of the most downloaded episodes of my first podcast season was with Dr. Ellen Choi who did her PhD on the benefits of mindfulness and meditation for business. I thought it would be a good idea to bring her on the show again. In this interview, I get an update from Dr. Ellen about her research into the effects of mindfulness training on attention and emotional regulation, authenticity, resilience and performance under pressure. Dr. Ellen graduated with an undergraduate Commerce degree from Queen's University before pursuing a Master of Science at the London School of Economics and a PhD at the Richard Ivey School of Business. She has also worked in commercial real estate and is a trained yoga instructor and executive meditation coach. She has been a wonderful resource in my life, so I am really proud to share this latest interview with my friend, a fascinating individual, DR. ELLEN CHOI.

Greetings, Podcast Universe! I am really excited about today's show on which I speak with Jake Thompson, a specialist in the area of competition. In my mind, competition is a primary way to motivate ourselves to achieve more in life. I grew up in the crucible of competitive swimming, and the skills I learned have led to almost everything I've been able to achieve. Jake helps teams establish a competitor's mindset because he believes it’s the path to becoming resilient, pursuing your passion and smashing your goals. Jake is a popular speaker and also the Founder and Chief Encouragement Officer at Compete Every Day. He started selling T-shirts out of the trunk of his car in 2011 and is now distributing globally through retailers and his online store. A native of Texas, he's a graduate of both Texas Christian University and the University of Dallas. He is also the youngest strategic advisory board member at the University of Dallas's College of Business.

Hello everyone! It’s great to be with you. Today, I want to share an interview I did with Jonathan Levi on his Becoming Superhuman podcast. Jonathan is an extraordinary guy, and the interview was full of insights as we talked back and forth about human performance. A bit about Jonathan: after successfully selling his Inc. 5,000-rated startup in 2011, Jonathan spent time in Israel, where he enlisted the help of speed-reading expert and university professor Anna Goldentouch and machine learning expert Dr. Lev Gold. These two tutored him in speed-reading, advanced memorization, and other mental performance techniques. Jonathan applied these techniques during his MBA at INSEAD and saw incredible results. He was overwhelmed by the interest his classmates showed in his superlearning skill set, so he decided to pursue the field full time. Since then, he has become a proficient lifehacker and industry-leading guru in the optimization of processes such as travel, sleep & language learning.

Welcome back! Thank you so much for joining me on my podcast. Today, we have the opportunity to interview a really incredible person who's become a pretty good friend of mine. Alex Hutchinson is an author, scientist and journalist who has an incredible knack for deconstructing and translating knowledge about the limits of human performance. He has produced fantastic articles for magazines like Outside and Running World, and his latest book is amazing. Endure: Mind, Body, and the Curiously Elastic Limits of Human Performance has a forward written by Malcolm Gladwell. Alex explores our capacity to endure because he believes it underlies great performance in any field, ranging from sprinting to ultra-marathoning, summiting Everest, aceing a final exam and completing a difficult project at work. The question Alex obsessively explores is one that I constantly ask myself: What are we actually truly capable of achieving? So let’s dive into this complex and fantastically fun interview!

Hello podcasters! It's great to be with you. Today, I interview Dr. Brynn Winegard, an award-winning professor, speaker and brain expert. I'm psyched about this interview because I'm really interested in how we can couple everything we know about positive psychology with cutting-edge neuroscience to improve mental health and performance. Dr. Brynn is formally educated in neuroscience, psychology, and marketing and strategy, including a BSc, MBA and PhD. On top of her training and research, she also spent a decade in corporate marketing working for organizations like Pfizer, Nestlé and Johnson & Johnson. While she retains faculty positions at the Schulich School of Business, The DeGroote School of Business and the University of Guelph, Dr. Brynn has now dedicated herself to a speaking career helping groups, organizations and companies learn to build better brains. She is a world-leading expert in neuroscience and in the intersection of business and brain science.

Welcome back! John Foley's personal path to high performance began as a child when he stood alongside his father at an air show featuring the Blue Angels. From that moment John knew that someday he'd be carving up the skies as a member of the Blues. Eventually he lived that dream. But getting there wasn't easy. In fact, John's journey from an awestruck child at an air show to the cockpit of the Blue Angels F-18 Hornet -one of my favorite planes - is a study in persistence, hard work and the will to overcome obstacles and setbacks. John graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy with a degree in mechanical engineering. John was a top 10 carrier pilot six times before becoming a Marine instructor pilot and a Blue Angel. He holds a Master’s degree in Business Management from the Stanford Graduate School of Business where he's a Sloan Fellow and he has an International Policy Studies degree also from Stanford University and he has a degree in strategic studies from the Naval War College.