Future Optimist

Spencer Burleigh is the founder and president of Rent the Backyard, a Y Combinator-backed startup that’s aiming to solve the housing crisis in the Bay Area and beyond. His innovative approach involves building pre-fabricated ADUs (or additional dwelling units) in the backyard of people who have them. The result? Affordable housing for the people living in the backyard, greater population density, less wasted space, and extra income for homeowners. It’s a really cool win/win/win that’s taking off, and it just might be coming to an area near you soon. Let’s learn how this man saw a big problem and came up with a solution, getting the attention of Silicon Valley’s top brass.  Show Notes/Highlights: beattheoftenpath.com Follow me on Instagram: @therosspalmer Subscribe on YouTube.

Rebecca Eyre has a remarkable story that led to her becoming the CEO of Project HEAL, an organization dedicated to providing eating disorder treatment to people historically denied access. In this episode, I learn the true scale of eating disorders, and it’s shocking. But just as importantly, I learned how Rebecca didn’t truly “come alive” until she attached herself to a cause that she truly believed in. Very inspiring stuff!

Beaumarchais: A Biography by Maurice Lever is one of the most fascinating biographies I've ever read. As you know, I seek out unusual success stories to provide us with better templates for our own life, especially if we feel weird, misunderstood, or like we "missed the boat". There is SO much to learn from this man's story. I give you my take in this special episode. Follow me on YouTube. Follow me on Instagram.

Dr. Sara Murdock has made it her life’s mission to bring diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging to companies and organizations around the world. She works with executives and organizations to either proactively create a better workplace or to bounce back from PR disasters and rebuild in more conscientious ways. In her career she’s worked with 10,000+ people over 20 years, doing consulting, seminars, training, and sessions for 200+ people at once.

Adam Hewett is quite literally revolutionizing music as we know it. It turns out that music can interact with our brains in a way that is completely unique to humans—no other animal on the planet is impacted by music the way we are. Adam has dedicated his life to using science and brain data to create brain-influencing audio—audio that can put the brain into states such as a “flow” state, deep sleep, productive spaces, and more. No, this isn’t snake oil. It’s extensively researched, and now scientifically accepted.

Stefanie Sword-Williams is the founder and author of F*ck Being Humble. Stefanie created a business to encourage individuals to be unapologetically proud of their achievements and overcome the fear of self-promotion. Named to Forbes 30 Under 30 in Europe, she has delivered workshops for global brands. Her story of how she turned her expertise into a mission is profoundly inspiring.

Jamey Mossengren quit a lucrative 9-5 job to become a professional unicycling unicorn. Now he enjoys a life of greater fulfillment and freedom than he ever had before, and he gets to make thousands of people happy everywhere he goes.

Dr. Kyle Grant is an ex-NASA scientist who created a venture-backed start-up called Oxwash. His company has raised millions of dollars from Silicon Valley VCs like Biz Stone (co-founder of Twitter) and more. Dr. Grant has developed groundbreaking new methods for reducing microplastics from laundry, dramatically reducing energy and water consumption, and just generally transforming and disrupting this horribly polluting industry.

Harrison Broadhurst & Chris Rännefors are Co-Founders of BatBNB, a highly innovative and unique start-up saving the bats. If ever there was something or someone in need of a massive PR campaign, it’s bats. Bats and their role in our planet have been so profoundly misunderstood, and things have only gotten worse for them in recent years. My guests today created a start-up around bats that saw them succeed on Shark Tank, get big backing and create a highly successful company around something they are passionate about.

Juggling between keeping the content treadmill running and our bigger goals can be a challenge. This is especially true as we need to put out more and more content just to "keep up". In this original article, I share some thoughts on how we can achieve a better balance in our lives.