DREAM THINK DO | Motivation, Encouragement & Strategy

My guest is Congressman Ro Khanna, who represents California's 17th Congressional District, which is located in the heart of Silicon Valley. The congressman is serving in his first term and currently sits on the House budget and the Armed Services committees. Listen To The Podcast: Now I know what you might be thinking dream think doers, you might be thinking wait, we don't talk politics on Dream, Think, Do. That is true, but I didn't invite the congressman on the podcast to talk about politics. Recently I met Ro at an event we were both at, and we realized we have a heart, we both have a heart for rural America. Ro is actually working hard on some really innovative strategies to bring high tech jobs to small towns instead of sending them kind of over places in the world. As you guys know, I come from a small town and I believe that some of the biggest and best ideas come from small towns. So we had a connection. Plus, I'm just fascinated with the guy. He's got an incredible story. I'll let you know here a bit more. Mitch: Now Representative Khanna was born in Philadelphia to a middle class family. His parents emigrated to the U.S. in the 70s from India in search of an opportunity and a better life for their family, for their kids. His father was a chemical engineer. His mother was a substitute teacher. Now this guy is no schlepp okay. He got his BA in economics from the University of Chicago, and received his law degree from Yale University. Not bad. From there Ro went on to such things as teaching economics at Stanford, as well as teaching law at Santa Clara University and American Jurisprudence at San Francisco State University. I could go on and on, but I'm just going to bullet point some things because we'll come back to them. Mitch: But one, this is some of the cool stuff that he's done that stands out to me. He provided pro bono legal counsel to Hurricane Katrina victims. He wrote a book called Entrepreneurial Nation, Why Manufacturing Is Still Key to America's Future. He served in President Barrack Obama's administration as Deputy Assistant Secretary to the U.S. Department of Commerce. Get this, this is staggering, this is horrifying, since he's been in office he's attended over 1,900 events. That number's probably even gone up since I got this data, and he's responded to over 70,000 personal correspondence. Sheesh! So, he's getting stuff done. No matter where you land politically, that's an impressive list, and he's a good guy. I'm leaving a lot out, I could go longer, but after meeting Ro I wanted you guys to hear from him because I wanted to get in his head a little bit and hear about his journey and hear how he's getting all this stuff done too. Mitch: Let's get to this. Congressman Khanna, welcome to Dream, Think, Do. Ro Khanna: Thank you. I'm so excited about this. I love your podcast. It's all about inspiration at a time I think we could use more of that, so thanks for having me on. It's a real honor. Mitch: Absolutely. I love it. Okay so I just read off some of your accomplishments. I hope it made you blush a little bit. You can share it [crosstalk 00:03:06] and all that. Ro Khanna: They leave out all the failures. I've always wondered about the introduction. If someone could just do an introduction of all your failures at some point. Mitch: Exactly. You're right. And then you're just like ugh. Ro Khanna: They didn't mention that I lost my first election 19% to 72%, or I lost my second time, or something. They conveniently omit all your failures. Mitch: Yeah, that's a different Wikipedia page right. I love it. Well I appreciate you listing some of those off too. We'll go after some of that just later too because I do think, I mean you've battled back from different things too and I love that. But okay so I see this list, I see you're in the House of Representatives, you're doing it, what were you like as a kid? I mean were you,

My guest is McKenna Hasse. Mckenna is a 21 year old race car driver from my town, Des Moines, Iowa. She primarily races at the Knoxville raceway, which is known as the Sprint Car Capital of the World. Listen To The Podcast: Resources: http://www.mckennahaase.com/ Interview: Now, get this, Mckenna is Knoxville's first and only female feature winner in over 100 years. She's got this incredible record and she's got her sights on NASCAR!. And her driving career is impressive in and of itself. But her record off the track is really what grabbed my attention. Again, did I mention she's 21? And she owns and operates her own sprint car team, which is a business, it's got to be in order to make this thing happen. So she's doing that. She also operates her own youth driver development program called Compass Racing Development LLC. So cool. She's a business student at Drake University where she's involved with a number of organizations ranging from the Drake Investment Club, to the Drake American Marketing Association, to the fellowship of Christian athletes. And as you hear from her, she is awesome and energetic and fun, but you should know she's also tougher than crap. In addition to driving a sprint car, she also has a second degree black belt in TaeKwonDo, and she does some Ninja Warrior training and gymnastics to boot. So she's gotten so much done in a short period of time, and I think once you hear from her, you'll hear why. But I think she's just getting started. And I wanted to have her on, especially since we're celebrating the beginning of the year, we're busting into 2019, we're all committed to making this our best year ever, I just wanted you to hear from more people like Mckenna. So let's get to this. Mitch Matthews: Mckenna Haase welcome to Dream.Think.Do. Mckenna Haase: Thank you for having me. Mitch Matthews: So I've been inspired by your story from afar for a while, and I've got so many questions for you. But just to kind of help Dream.Think.Doers from all over the world who maybe aren't familiar with sprint cars, give us a little explanation of sprint cars versus like a NASCAR car. Mckenna Haase: So sprint car racing is open wheel, open cockpit, and so it kind of looks like an Indy car, but the cage's a little bit taller and there's wings on top. And one on the top, that's really big, and then one smaller one on the front to help weigh it down for us. Mitch Matthews: We should just explain that. The wings aren't to make you fly, it's because you're going so fast, you could fly, the wings are actually meant to keep you on the track, right? Mckenna Haase: Yes, exactly. Mitch Matthews: Exactly. Mckenna Haase: And then they weigh about 1500 pounds or so, which is about like half the way of a normal vehicle. And then they have anywhere from 500 to 900 horsepower depending on what class you're in, which can range in speeds of 100 to 150 miles an hour. Mitch Matthews: So you're basically strapped into a rocket that is open. You've got a cage around you and stuff, but it's open. It's just got to be the adrenaline rush. Plus, you're on a track that's basically a mud track, but if I understand sprint cars, the longer the evening goes, the more races, the more the track basically becomes like ice, like driving on patches of ice? Mckenna Haase: Exactly. And the tracks are a lot shorter than NASCAR tracks. Mitch Matthews: Yeah. How short are they? What's the distance around in Knoxville? Mckenna Haase: Knox is the largest, or one of the largest sprint car tracks in the world. It's a half mile on the inside of the track and then the smaller tracks can go down to a quarter mile. Mitch Matthews: And is that tougher? Like is the smaller track tougher because you're just constantly turning, or? Mckenna Haase: Well, we turned right to go left because our cars drift, and so we're actually on certain tracks like early in the night, we're full throttle.

Year of No Fear with Mitch Matthews I'm Mitch Matthews and we're declaring 2019 as the "Year of No Fear." I know that's a bold statement but I believe this is the year to break free from worry and fear! So let's do this. Listen To The Podcast: I think we need to draw a line in the sand and say, if fear is holding you back in any way, I want to say this is the year we bust through that together. I hope you're with me on this. Here's the thing, if you don't deal with worry, God bless you. That's fantastic. Maybe you don't need this episode, maybe you should just listen to this episode for those other people in the world, because there's plenty of them. I can tell you that the stats show that we get nailed by worry a lot. A lot of people get worried, a lot. They get hit by it. In fact, 72% of the American population, the workforce in America, says they're impacted by worry. 70%, the last was 72 ... 70% say that they lost sleep due to worry. 82%, get this, 82% of primary care visits are stress and worry related in the United States. How crazy is that? I just gave you something new to worry about. How about that? Here's the thing is that I know for a fact that fear, in the past at least, has held me back. I know, with talking to so many different people about going after their dreams. Dreams that people are passionate about, people are excited about, all of that. I've seen fear kill more dreams before they get started, but also as they're launching, as they start to actually have success. I've seen fear sneak in, and steal it. Either shut down the dream or steal away the joy. I've experienced it myself. I've seen it in others. And I've just decided, you know what, as Dream, Think, Doers, I want to make 2019 the year of no fear. We're not going to do this perfectly, but just think about it. Just think of a year where we are beating back fear with a stick. Specifically worry, right. We are going to be able to go past, blast past worry. I hope you join me in on this. In this particular episode, what we're going to do is we're going to go after renewing your mind. Renewing your thinking. Specifically, we're going to go after three things in your brain. Three key components in your brain that deal with worry. We're gonna give you some tools, some specific things to be able to redirect that thinking. What we're going to do is periodically, it's not going to be the whole season, or the whole year, we're going to come back to his. We're going to revisit different strategies for overcoming worry. To live in joy. To live in creativity. To be innovative. To be in the moment. To have our best thinking, our best lives, all of that. Are you in? I hope so. Today, we're going to get specific. We're going after the brain. We're going after thinking. Just know that this is the beginning of something big. I'm excited you're still here. I assume since we're still talking that you're in, so join me here. One other thing that I want to speak to as we're going after worry, quick, just again, beat it over the head a little bit. Is that some crazy data came out recently on the subject of worry. This just ticked me off, all the more. It's just one more reason why we're going after this. A recent study looked at, basically people who said they worried. What they did is they had them journal, document the things they were actually worried about, over the course of time. A shocking thing, actually not so shocking, wasn't surprising at all, but offensive. All right? Came out of that subject, and the study was by Robert Leahy, PhD. It was spoken to actually out of the book The Worry Cure. Recently looking at it, actually the author of that book, The Worry Cure, Robert Leahy, PhD. Here's the thing, the data was interesting in that. Had all these people journaling the things that they were worried about. What they did, then they also looked back retrospectively and said, "Okay, of those things that you worried about,

My guest today is Britton Murdock Nunn, and she is the entrepreneur behind The Biggest Little Fashion Truck in Reno, Nevada. My team and I got to meet Britton recently when we hosted a Big Dream Gathering at the University of Nevada. I will let her tell her story, but the very short version is she was on a career track that wasn't a good fit. But she decided to make some changes, and that led her to launch an innovative, crazy-cool business involving fashion, fun and a big pink truck! Listen To The Podcast: RESOURCES: Website: biggestlittlefashiontruck.com INTERVIEW: Britton, welcome to DREAM THINK DO. Oh, my gosh. Thank you for having me. This is just fun. We're just gonna get to continue a conversation we started in Reno. I'm so in. I'm so excited. I love it. Okay, so DREAM THINK DO-ers, just know this. We're going to talk about this Biggest Little Fashion Truck, and you guys are gonna love it. If you want to see footage of this, just go to mitchmatthews.com/208, and we'll include the video where we got to spend the day with Britton. So you'll actually get to see it, and I do want you to see it, because it's so, so cool. Britton, when you describe The Biggest Little Fashion Truck to someone, how do you describe what it is that you do? First, I always start with just a fashion truck in general, and what it is. A fashion truck operates and looks similar to a food truck, so we do popups around town, in front of local businesses or inside local businesses. You might find us in or near wine bars, lash extension studios, doctors' offices. You name it, we've probably done it. And then we set up festivals downtown, so we pop up on the street and you can shop inside the truck. And then we do just a lot of home parties, so we go to people's homes and we set up inside for a little private shopping event for your friends, or birthday parties, or whatever it may be. So, it looks and operates very similarly to a food truck, except we sell women's clothing. It doesn't smell the same as a food truck. But it looks awesome, right? And, guys, you've gotta know this is a big, pink, four-wheel-drive, dreamy vehicle that is not necessarily easy to drive. It certainly doesn't look easy to drive. But it is awesome when it comes pulling up to a location, which is just so much fun. It really is. I gotta say, when our researcher brought up your story and said, "She's got a fashion truck." I'm like, "Cool. What is a fashion truck?" Is this a common thing? Are fashion trucks happening all over the place? I mean, you are literally the first time I've ever heard of it. Well, I think that they're getting big in bigger cities, which I think everything kind of starts in New York, LA. So there are fashion trucks, and there's a lot of fashion trailers where people pull a retro-cool Airstream behind them, and then you can shop inside it or something like that. I have seen a few that look similar to mine, as far as truck model. But I'm the first and only one in Reno, so I'm pretty new in this area. Yeah. So, you're kinda teaching people what it is as you're doing it. Yes. It's definitely a new idea, a new concept, especially for the businesses that I work with. I mean, there's no one that's out there doing this, so I'm kind of having to initiate the negotiations with other businesses. Yeah, absolutely. You make it a win-win. For some businesses, they're doing it for their employees. For some businesses, they're doing it for their clients. Or some people are just having parties as you said, and you're showing up and doing it at their houses. Yeah. I think a lot of businesses who want to get more foot traffic on, let's say like one of their dead nights, maybe like a Wednesday or Thursday. I'll pop in, and then people come to their business, so it drives foot traffic for them. And then also, if it's like a wine bar or something, then it drives drink sales. Hello, drinking and shopping? Come on.

My guest is Melissa Johnson Matthews. My bride is joining me on this episode of Dream Think Do. How cool is that? Plus not only am I joined by my favorite person on the planet but I get to discuss one of my favorite subjects on the planet. Prayer. That's right, we're going after prayer. The subject of prayer and the reason for that is I think fourfold. Listen To The Podcast: I came up with four different reasons so get ready. Reason one, we've had a number of awesome guests on this year talking about meditation and how that plays into their lives and how that's helped them. I've mentioned on several occasions that I enjoy and absolutely appreciate meditation and at the same time, I pray. I think meditation is complementary to prayer but at the same time different than prayer. Many of you have picked up on that and started to ask questions. You've asked how prayer plays into my life. When do I pray? How do I do it? What does it look like for me? You want to talk about it and I love that. So I'm going to answer some of your questions, and we'll be talking with Melissa too. She's incredibly wise. Prayer is near and dear to her heart too and she teaches on this subject a lot. She teaches classes on prayer as well as she heads up a program called Alpha at our church. It's an international program. It's kind of a Faith:101 class and prayer is a big part of it. When I think about prayer, I think about Melissa so I wanted to have her on to join me in this conversation. INTERVIEW: Melissa, welcome, finally to DREAM THINK DO. Well, thank you. It's really good to be here. Hey, DREAM THINK DO family, it's good to meet you finally. No joke, holy cow, like you've been a part of the family forever, you've helped to make all of this happened but now you finally get to be on the microphone. Yes, dangerous spot people, dangerous. Right and… everybody.. put a seatbelt on and get ready for Mrs. Matthews, this is going to be fun. We've been married 26 years. Yes, I believe so, if our math is correct, we've been married for 26 years. Which is just amazing. Yeah, it's pretty crazy and you haven't aged at all. Right. Thanks, honey. Ok. So prayer is a big part of our lives. You teach on it, so before we start to dive into this, what should we speak to before we dive into this subject of prayer? Well, I love talking about prayer. I could talk about prayer all day long and so, we may end up doing this a little longer than your normal podcast, but one of the things that we have to acknowledge before we start talking about this is that you and I will be coming from a Christian perspective. There are all kinds of prayer in the world. All religions of course and most cultures have a form of prayer in some way. It's important to honor the fact that every religion is going to pray differently. That's the first step that we need to acknowledge. So you and I will be coming from a Christian perspective. That's important because the things that we talk about are unique to a Christian perspective and to honor those other religions, I can't speak to exactly what prayer means for them but prayer is such an interesting topic because like I said most people around the world pray and prayer looks different for every person. There are some folks that are more comfortable with a formula or more of a written or a ritual kind of prayer. Some people like to go as I like to say, kind of free-wheeling and four-wheeling, right? They experience it and they say it or they think it. Prayer can take many forms and I am happy to just answer any of the questions that your listeners had or dig into whatever you'd like. Great. The thing about DREAM THINK DO that's been one of my favorite aspects is we've had so many different people on. We celebrate so many different vantage points, so many different perspectives on life. A lot of different faith backgrounds and all of that.

My guest is Jack Nasher and he is the founder of the Nasher Negotiation Institute. He's a leading negotiation expert and one of the world's best-known experts on deception detection. He went to Oxford and was the youngest appointee to get a full professorship at the esteemed Munich Business School at the age of 31. He's also now a visiting faculty member at Stanford University. Listen To The Podcast: He applies his passions for reading people in a number of ways, and now also performs as a mentalist at the world-renowned Magic Castle in Hollywood. He's got a new book out. It's called Convinced: How to Prove Your Competence and Win People Over. We're going to talk about the book, some of his adventures, and most importantly dig into some strategies to help reinforce that you are confident, you're ready, you're worth listening to. So, let's get to this. RESOURCES: Convinced!: How to Prove Your Competence & Win People Over Book INTERVIEW: Jack. Welcome to DREAM THINK DO, buddy. Thank you very much. Thanks a lot. With that intro, I don't even have to say anything. It's done. We're already done. Thanks so much for being on the show, Jack. Yeah, that was good. Alright. I so want to get into the content of the book because it's awesome, but you're a negotiation expert, you are a reader of people, a mentalist. Is this something you've always been drawn to? Were you doing this kind of stuff when you were a kid? Well, yeah. I mean, it's a skillset. It's not that I was born with some ability. I wish I were you know? Some aliens kidnapped me and gave me this, but it didn't happen. You know, when I was a kid I loved magic. I had a magic set, and I would perform at children's birthday parties, weddings, and all of that. Then when I studied psychology I found that there is a different sort of magic and yes, it's called mentalism, and that's kind of mixing magic with psychology. So, basically it's using your five known senses to create the illusion of a sixth sense to be able to read minds, to know what people are thinking, and it's very interesting to see, you know, what you can actually do. How can you influence people? And I do that on stage, I do that in Hollywood, I do that for various functions and events. It's fun. It's just the other side of psychology. Right. I mean, it is a fun application for a lot of serious science and psychology here. Well, to be honest, it's actually more honest negotiations because at least you tell them at the beginning that you're going to deceive them. Negotiations are not like that. That's a great way to look at it. Yeah. In a negotiation, of course, you want to get the max and you don't want people to find out that you used psychological tactics and techniques, which you sometimes do, but it's always up to my clients what they want to use. I'm like a doctor. I'm just telling you what's possible and it's up to you to decide what treatment you want. Yeah. Absolutely. And, I mean, to have the moniker of deception detection. Tell me more about that. How does that work for you? Well, yeah, it's interesting because actually, the reason why I got into that many years ago was that I was quite naïve you know? I believed stuff. Yeah. And so I thought, "I've got to do something against that." You know? Because I always felt that people could easily take advantage of me. Even though I studied psychology I never heard of any studies concerning deception detection, but then as I looked into that, actually there were hundreds of studies. Paul Ekman is the only one you kind of know, Microexpression, you've probably heard of it. And there was a great TV show "Lie to Me" on Fox with Tim Roth. Great show and there is a lot of scientific stuff going on that people don't know about. I read everything about it for a year you know? I kind of made notes for myself, and then I had so many notes and I kind of wrote a handbook for myself and I n...

Today my guest is Thane Marcus Ringler. Thane was a professional golfer but when a back injury forced him to make a change… he decided to come alongside leaders, entrepreneurs and professionals to help them apply the elite athlete mindset to everyday life. Listen To The Podcast: Thane's new book is: From Here To There: A Quarter-Life Perspective on the Path to Mastery. I know we're wrapping up 2018 as you're listening to this, and I know many of you are thinking about different ways to set yourself up for new levels of success in 2019. We talk about going after big dreams, especially if you're feeling like your dream's taken some hits or maybe even hit a dead end. RESOURCES: From Here To There: A Quarter-Life Perspective on the Path to Mastery Book: https://www.thanemarcus.com/book/from-here-to-there Website: thanemarcus.com INTERVIEW: Thane, welcome to DREAM THINK DO, brother. Thanks for having me, Mitch. It's going to be a fun time today, excited to see what comes of it. No kidding. Me too. You were a professional golfer for four years or so. When did that hit you as a dream? Were you three years old and hitting golf balls? Yeah. Well, I was three years old swinging a golf club. I don't know how many balls I was hitting at that age. I didn't know what I was doing exactly, but it was fun because dad was out there. Yeah, so it started at three or four, and really, the dream of it, of playing professionally, I would say, didn't really take root for me until college. It was always a bigger dream for my dad. He obviously wanted me to play professionally, and that was a goal or at least an idea or thought and vision he had, but I was always a little too realistic or practical to let myself entertain that idea until it became much closer to reality. I withheld that as a dream because I didn't want to be let down by not reaching it, right? In college, once I started getting closer and closer, I started getting a little more excited about it and seeing it as an actual possibility. Can you remember a moment where you thought, "This could happen." Maybe it was a game or a particular shot where you're like, "Okay, maybe I can do this." I wouldn't say there's a specific moment, but I would say that my sophomore and junior year in college were really the times that it started sinking in more. I got a couple of wins under my belt and could see my scoring average in my game progress consistently and could see how I stacked up against others at a broader range, a broader pool of players. That was when I really started entertaining it and saying, "Okay. This could be a possibility.", and then starting to figure out what that would look like. And then it wasn't until between my junior and senior year was really when I wanted to make the decision. I wanted to decide if I would commit to doing it or not and that was because I really wanted to not waste time. A lot of guys will graduate from college and then play the summer after as an amateur and then try to raise money that Fall for Q School. I wanted to jumpstart into it a little bit faster and just turn professional right after graduating. So, I. I really reached out to coaches, to friends, to family, to other people that knew me, knew my game and knew the field, other players who had played to get some background research and just try to get an objective view of is this really a good opportunity, is this something I'm capable of pursuing. The feedback was, yes, it's worth a shot, you have the skills, the toolset, go for it. So, my senior year I worked the whole school year on developing a business plan so that I would have the funds needed to launch right in, right after I graduated, which was a great learning process as well. My grandpa was a great influence in that. I came up with this plan and then pitched it to individuals in my life and to people, I knew who might be interested or able to invest,

My guest is TJ Anderson. He is a behavior change specialist, a health hacker, and founder of Elevate Your State, which is a growing community of health-conscious leaders online. TJ is dedicated to helping high-performance entrepreneurs, business professionals, and health-conscious leaders to merge the fundamentals of a healthy life with cutting-edge science and strategy, so you can stay on top of your health game. His new book, called The Art of Health Hacking, has been endorsed by people like J.J. Virgin and Bulletproof Coffee's own Dave Asprey. In short, he's killing it, and he's helping people to live better and healthier lives. Listen To The Podcast: RESOURCES: The Art of Health Hacking Book: https://amzn.to/2QhGWj0 Elevate Your State Website/Podcast: www.elevateyourstate.co Youthing Song on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVr1EZZ-gJQ Dry Farm Wines: http://www.dryfarmwines.com/elevateyourstate Healthy Holiday Recipe E-Book: https://drive.google.com/open?id=14zMwfBqEClBe2UQl2Yx4_EbP5kfvkjzJ INTERVIEW: TJ, welcome to DREAM THINK DO. Oh, Mitch, it's an honor and a pleasure to be here. Thanks for having me. Absolutely. This is just fun, man. I know you've been healthy since the day we met. Has that always been a thing for you? I don't know that we've ever talked about childhood stuff. Did you grow up being healthy, or was this later in life kind of thing for you? Good question. Well, everyone's childhood is different, and I would say health is relative across the spectrum. I had a great childhood, but my personal, own desire and passion related to health improvement, health consciousness, et cetera, didn't really start until after college. That's when the fire ignited. After college, I realized how the unhealthy lifestyle I was living in college wasn't the best for me. I actually realized through my parents. My mom inspired me through creating my own meals. It really starts in the kitchen, how much nutrition impacts health. That was after college. Awesome. So some people have always just been geared toward healthy living. For others, it's a major event in their life. Maybe somebody else close to them started to have health issues, or themselves started to have health issues. Yours was a little bit more gradual but, man, it's become a major focal point for your life, for your own life, but also helping people all over. Definitely. The inspiration really came for health right when it came for entrepreneurship, so the passion for both took off at the same time. At times, I would notice my parents running their own business, and how that could add a lot of stress on to one's shoulders if they don't navigate it in the best way. It's not easy. There's no playbook about how to be a healthy high performer. I used to be the health guy that was just all into health and fitness and looking good and feeling good. Then, when I went down the rabbit hole of what's possible for using our health as an asset in our life, with how well we're able to think clearly and have the energy necessary to work and perform at the top of our game, I've really started, through the book and in all my work, it's really connecting the dots between how our decisions, our habits, our behaviors impact our performance, both in the present moment, but also for the further, for longevity. Absolutely. Well, that's funny, because I remember it. Just as you're saying that I remember you had invited me to be a part of one of your first entrepreneurial groups, right? You were trying to help a bunch of entrepreneurs get healthy and stay healthy. I'll just never forget. I remember one of the interactions. One of the guys was sort of confessing, "I did this to try to get six-pack abs, but the thing that I'm actually benefiting from is clarity." He said, "Yeah, I'm losing some weight. I'm feeling better, but," he's like, "I had no idea the positive effects on my clarity of thought, my reduced anxiety,

My guest is New York Times bestselling author, Sara Bliss. Sara has written 11 books. Everything from Hotel Chic at Home, to The Thoroughly Modern Married Girl. She's also co-authored books like Pretty Powerful and Beauty from the Inside Out with wellness and beauty guru, Bobbi Brown, Sara has some great ideas flowing. Her most recent book is where we're going to focus today. It's called Take the Leap, and it comes out in a few weeks, but it's currently available for pre-order wherever you grab your books. In Take the Leap, Sara actually interviewed people who transformed their lives for the better. These are people who went from a "normal" career, to find or create something they loved. Listen To The Podcast: RESOURCES: Book Take the Leap: Click Here INTERVIEW: Sara, welcome to DREAM THINK DO. Thank you. I'm super fired up to be here. I love it. It's one of those where I love the title. What started you on the path to writing Take the Leap? I have written about so many different things, I mean everything from beauty, to travel, to health. But profiles have been the one consistent thing that I've done for almost 20 years. I noticed really early on that a lot of successful people had had these entirely different lives before they found their greatest success. I thought it was really fascinating because it basically tears through this myth that so many of us have, that all successful people somehow follow this linear path that they know what their passion is, or they start really young. Yeah, they were clear on it when they were five years old, right? Exactly. I think for those of us who don't feel that way or aren't on the path that they want to be on, it's super inspiring. I was a little bit lost in my own career, and kind of all over the place. I found these stories really comforting. I started collecting them. I would tell them to other people and everyone always had the same response, "Wait, I didn't know that. I didn't know that Carolina Herrera, the designer, didn't start her business until she was 40." You know there are so many cool stories like that, and that's really where the idea came from. I love it. I couldn't agree more. I think as a purveyor of strategy, and I know you provide a lot of strategy in the book too, strategies are great, but I think people need more stories in strategy. Yes. Like if we have this story, then we'll figure out the strategy. I think that's what there needs to be more of in the world. That's why I was so excited about what you're doing with the book. Now, I see a title like Take the Leap, and I know the subject is all about getting that clarity and going for it. But one of the things I had to ask you is do you write this from the vantage point of always being a risk taker? Or, do you write this from the vantage point of maybe being risk-averse and having to learn how to take a leap like that? I am probably a little bit more of the latter. I'm a little bit of a homebody. I literally live on the same block that I grew up on. No kidding. That's amazing. That's awesome. At the same time, I ended up taking leaps in my career literally every week. That's how I've managed to stay afloat as a writer. I mean anyone who is a professional writer will tell you. The whole landscape of the job has shifted. When I started, it was not that hard to get a publishing deal if you were a well-regarded, not necessarily even famous, just you know, if you were a working writer. Now they really want you to have a huge platform behind you. What I used to get paid for a magazine article versus what I get paid now, those are like two very different numbers. So I had to really hustle and I developed this whole kind of branding side of my business where I did ghostwriting, or I'd consult with brands on everything from PR, I've launched websites for them, I help them with content. I wrote this books on hotels and have been covering tr...

INTRODUCTION: My DREAM THINK DO guest this week is Karen Wickre. Karen has been in leadership of a few companies you may have heard of. She was the Editorial Director of Twitter. Before that, she was with Google. She's a 30-year veteran of Silicon Valley and has been an advisor to multiple startups as well. She's a lifelong information seeker and serves on the boards of organizations like The International Center For Journalists, The News Literacy Project, and The Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. She's a proud introvert. And as a result, she felt compelled to write a brand spanking new book called Taking The Work Out of Networking. It's a guide for anyone who wants to trade in the much-loathed and often abused common practices of networking and replace them with the valuable habits that can lead to better relationships, stronger connections, and kick butt networks. Karen has captured some innovative new ways for anyone, introverted or not, to embrace their true nature and create enduring, reliable, and critical connections. Listen To The Podcast: RESOURCE: Book Taking the Work out of Networking (Click here) INTERVIEW: Karen, welcome to DREAM THINK DO. Thank you so much, Mitch. I'm glad to be here. So… I get a sense that this book is one that you wrote that you wish you would have had at the beginning of your career. I think that's right. In fact, I kind of wrote it because I thought, "Why don't I just put down all the stuff I know since people are always asking me for introductions and career advice." I don't even have to be the only one who does this. Other people can do this, too. Yeah, it's like you wrote the book to save yourself some time, like, "Just read the book. It's all in there." I love it. And it was an interesting exercise. How do you explain this stuff? So I tried to unpack it. You know, some method to the madness. I love it. So you write from introvert's perspective. I am also an introvert who's learned to do extroverted things, but when it comes to reenergizing, taking care of my inner introvert, there's a lot of alone time, lot of quiet time that's needed. Would you say that you have always kind of known you were introverted, understood that about you or is that something that's more of a newer revelation to you? HELPING INTROVERTS STAY ENERGIZED I think it's not super new to me now, but I think as a kid I thought of myself as shy and my friends would say, "Are you kidding me? You're not shy." Because I always had information, I always knew what was going on. In high school kids would say, "What's happening on Friday night?" And I would know because I was friends with all the kids. So I was like the information source. That was an early signal about this kind of thing, but I didn't want to be the center of attention, and I did hang back. I liked to be in the background. So that's always been true. Anyway, it took me a little while to divide off the stereotype of shy from what's an introvert. An introvert, as you just suggested, is someone who recharges and get their energy from alone time and quiet time as opposed the other end of the spectrum, the extrovert, give me another party. Yeah. Exactly. I'm going to get my 10 closest friends together and we're going to re-energize, which, to me, is not energizing. Yeah. Enough already. Right. That's really the young definition from the 20s that a lot has been built on. Now I've read a lot about this, thanks in part to Susan Cain, whose 2012 book Quiet really paved the way. We're all on a spectrum. It's not a sort of you're either this or that. Now I've done enough reading to tell you that you are probably like me, a social introvert, which is a different flavor, but along the spectrum. Exactly right. I love it. I do some speaking, especially on college campuses. Nothing against extroverts, but I actually think introverts tend to be better networkers, tend to be better connectors just for that point that y...