The SuperHuman Academy Podcast

Greetings, SuperFriends! Today we are joined by Susan Peirce Thompson, Ph.D., who is an Adjunct Associate Professor of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at the University of Rochester. But Susan is also better known for being an expert in the psychology of eating. She is the author of the New York Times bestselling book Bright Line Eating: The Science of Living Happy, Thin & Free, she is president of the Institute for Sustainable Weight Loss, and the founder and CEO of Bright Line Eating Solutions. This is a lot of stuff. Susan and I had an incredible conversation about some of the cutting-edge research that she’s been doing. We also talked about her past experiences, dealing with drug addiction and then dealing with obesity. We talked about the psychology and the neuroscience behind the food that we eat and the not-so-food that we eat, and how it is setting so many people up for failure. And then we talked about some other very interesting things. I definitely learned some stuff that I’m going to apply in my daily life, and I think you guys will as well. If you love this episode, go ahead and send us a tweet and let us know what you think, or comment below! -Jonathan Levi

Greetings, SuperFriends! Today we are joined by one of my personal heroes, someone whose work I've admired for years, and someone who has really shaped my thinking on a lot of different topics, ranging from A.I., Elon Musk, and electric cars, to the history of the universe and space travel. You are probably wondering who that guy is, that writes about so many different things. Well, his name is Tim Urban, and he is the creator and writer/illustrator of Wait But Why, where he writes very in-depth posts on a wide range of topics from procrastination to A.I. It's really an incredible blog. You probably know Tim because of some of his mega-viral posts, like his post on why Generation Y is unhappy, or his Ted Talk on procrastination. But, you might have recently learned about him because he actually got the opportunity to hang out with one of his most famous readers, Elon Musk. Tim spent time following Elon around, just learning about everything that he could through him, and then creating posts out of it. So, he had more access to Elon Musk than most people. You'll see in the interview the amazing insights that he has about what makes Elon Musk successful, and, of course, how you can emulate that success. By the way, his blog started in 2013, and now it has almost 600.000 email subscribers with over 1 million people visiting the site every single month. Incredible. I was really excited to interview Tim, and an incredible episode came out of it. He has so many unique insights about writing, about procrastination, and, of course, about Elon Musk. I know you guys will enjoy this episode, and if you do, please make sure to share it.

Greetings, SuperFriends! Today we are joined by Brad Lambert. Brad is a Hollywood movie producer. You've probably seen some of his work if you've seen any of the stuff that Warner Brothers or Robert Downie Jr. have been doing recently. Brad has a very interesting story that we're gonna get into in today's show. He started his career at 16 years old, today he is only 29, and yet somehow he has managed to work his way into the inner circles of some of the world's top athletes, brands, actors, and actresses. I wanted to understand how. You folks know that I'm so interested in relationships and how to actually build strong and authentic ones. I really think it is one of the SuperHuman skills that has put me where I am today, and I'm not even that good at it. So, when I meet someone like Keith Ferrazzi or Brad Lambert, who are able to build these incredible powerful relationships from a place of authenticity, I immediately want to know how they do it. I want to know what their tricks and secrets are, and how they are leveraging relationships and building value for other people in a way that allows them to achieve their dreams, while helping others achieve their dreams as well. This is a really great conversation, and I'm sure you folks are going to see that I completely vibe with Brad. In fact, we even talked about what it's like when you vibe with someone, and we definitely got into some very interesting stuff about how you can leverage relationships. We talked about ways that you can get your dream job, or how to get in a room with people that you admire. I definitely took away a lot of valuable takeaways and action items, and I am sure you folks will do so as well. -Jonathan Levi

Greetings, SuperFriends! Today we are joined by a superstar named Danielle LaPorte. She's the author of 3 non-fiction books, including her newest one, White Hot Truth. Danielle is one of Oprah Winfrey's' Super Soul 100 leaders, and she also is a very popular blogger and thought leader. She has a Top 10 iTunes app, one of her books has been translated into 8 languages... I can't really keep up with her bio. Danielle is amazing and you guys are going to see/hear that. In this episode, we talked both about stuff that we haven't covered on this show before and about a lot of stuff that we have covered, but not in the same way. The stuff that is new has to do with gender dynamics and what we as men can do to avoid a lot of 'bad practices', like being patronizing, and also what you women can do, and where that boundary is for speaking up for yourself, creating boundaries, and healthy defense. We also talk a lot about very interesting things, like psychedelics, business leadership and much more. I'm going to make you guys listen to the whole episode to get the full scoop. I really enjoyed this episode, Danielle was kind enough to say that she really enjoyed it, and I think you guys will do so too!

Greetings, SuperFriends! Today we are joined by Jeff Emmerson. He is a new author who recently entered the self-help space and his book is called Beyond ADHD: Overcoming the Label and Thriving. Now, you guys maybe know that I've been diagnosed with ADD, rather, informally, under-the-table diagnosed with ADD. We get into that a little bit in the episode. We also talk about this whole culture of diagnosing kids with ADD. Do they all really have ADD to such a large percentage of the population, or is other stuff going on? In the episode, we talk about Jeff's own personal journey through depression. He gets very personal, which I always appreciate. He shares a lot of really hard stuff that he went through and ultimately talks about some of the things that he is doing and helps others do to manage and overcome this diagnosis, this black mark, that so many people carry around. It's a great episode and I think you guys are really going enjoy it!

Greetings, SuperFriends! Today we are joined, once again, by my SuperFriend Ms. Amy Smith, The Joy Junkie. In our last episode, we talked a lot about communication, and how learning to communicate properly will unlock SuperHuman levels of efficiency, happiness, and satisfaction in your life. That has proven to be so true for me, in my life and in my relationship. Thus, I wanted to catch up with Amy. I didn't really have any new reason to have her back on the show besides the fact that I love her perspective, I love her energy and, of course, that you guys really enjoyed our previous episode. So we hopped in, we started chatting and I think an amazing episode came out of it. We talked about goal setting, we talked about relationships and some of the difficult challenges that people get stuck on in relationships. We talked about compassion for the self and then we talked about something that I think is perhaps more important than all of that. At least it has been in my experience, and that is making peace with your past even if you don't realize that there is something to make peace with. If you think that, psychologically, you are all clear, trust me, you are not. There are things that you can make peace with, and that is what we talk about in this episode. As you know, I really enjoy talking to Amy, and I'm sure you guys will enjoy listening to this.

Greetings, SuperFriends! This is an episode that is worth many, many listens. Personally, I am going to listen to it way more than I normally listen to our own episodes, which is 2-4 times already. Why, you ask? Well, do you guys remember how in 2016 we won Product Hunt's best podcast episode of the year? We got a Golden Kitty award, which is kind of a really cool thing. And we did it because we had today's guest on the show. That's right. We have David Heinemeier Hansson back on the show! For those of you who haven't heard that episode, stop what you are doing, go back and listen to it. David is the epitome of what we call a SuperLearner. He invented the Ruby on Rails software development platform, which is used by companies like Fiverr, YellowPages, Shopify, and Github. Many of the websites that you use every day were built on technology that David himself invented. On top of that, he is the co-founder of Basecamp, which he's been running for almost 20 years. To top even that off, he is an accomplished professional race car driver, an amateur photographer, a husband, and a father. He also is various more things. In this episode, we wanted to talk not about learning and productivity, but about a different subject that David and his partner have covered in their books, which is leadership. Managing and working in remotely distributed companies, what the workplace of tomorrow will look like, and how we can all become SuperHuman in our productive lives and careers. I have to say I'm a huge fan of David's and I tried as much as possible to let him present his ideas. With that said, so many of his ideas have shaped the way I live my life, the way that I run my companies, and have influenced the lives of my employees and my customers. So, again, I really can't overstress this, listen to this episode with a pen and paper, listen to it at least twice, and you guys will learn just so much about how to get great work done in less time, with greater happiness, from anywhere in the world that you choose to be. This is an incredible episode! I think it gives a really, really solid fight to the first episode we did with David, which was an award-winning one. It's a shame that Product Hunt has discontinued that award because I'm quite confident this episode would have won it again!

Greetings, SuperFriends! In today's episode, I want to tell you about a very different experience that I had, where I was able to find my way into a room of 50 SuperHumans at the same time. 50 people I admire. This is an essay I wrote about getting yourself into the right room and surrounding yourself with people who inspire and motivate you. The biggest part of this post talks about the specific group that I was with, but I want to encourage you guys to think while you're listening about the types of people that you want to surround yourself with and what you could stand to gain from doing so. So, without any further ado, let me present you the power of being in the right room, even if it costs you $25k!

Greetings, SuperFriends! Today we are joined by the amazing Sunny Lenarduzzi, who, to be honest, I don't think I could have gotten this interview with if we weren't already friends since years before. Sunny has almost a decade of experience as an award-winning video, social media and online business strategist. From tech start up’s to authors, you've probably seen her working with HootSuite, with Lewis Howes, with Gary Vee, and you've also seen her do amazing and incredible campaigns, such as one she did with Applebee's that had a billion impressions in one day! Sunny is the creator of Youtube for Bosses, and also teaches all kinds of amazing courses online. You may have seen her speak at NATO's headquarters, and you can also find all kinds of amazing stuff from her in Entrepreneur, Forbes and the Huffington Post. She is also on Youtube, and has been awarded 'Best in Social Media' in western Canada. Enough about the brag reel. Sunny is an amazing human being and an amazing entrepreneur. The reason I wanted to do this episode was, well, first that I wanted to catch up with Sunny and I thought it would be interesting for you guys to hear the conversation, but I also wanted to get her to share her experience about something that I think a lot of people struggle with. As you guys know, I'm trying to spend less time on social media, and I recently did an episode about how I'm trying to spend less time on my phone. And yet, I know people like Sunny, who not only are able to not spend all their lives on their phone, but are able to use social media tools and digital tools to their advantage to build strong and meaningful relationships with other people. So, I wanted to ask Sunny, how the heck are you doing this? How are you building such a strong business, such a strong brand and also such strong relationships with such amazing people without spending all your time on your smartphone? We talked about that, we talked a lot about business and how Sunny has grown a million dollar one out of pretty much nothing. We also covered some of her hacks for productivity. What's more, we talked about how she overcame a massive stress breakdown, and rose to become even greater, even more grounded and even more calm. In general, we got to talk about all kinds of amazing stuff, that I think you guys are really gonna enjoy. If you guys do enjoy it, let me know it with a comment or a review. I want to know if you guys are interested in these episodes, which aren't about nutrition or fitness, but are talking about ways that we can all do something better in our lives.

Greetings, SuperFriends! Welcome to a special episode of the Becoming SuperHuman podcast. I'm calling this episode special because it's a little bit of a different format, once again. If you guys liked the episode where I focused in and explored a specific skill, did a spotlight if you will, then you will really love this episode. The goal of this episode is to spotlight the life of a real-world SuperLearner.  To try and understand what they did, how they did it, what the results were, and what kind of amazing life were they able to lead because of their incredible learning ability. We get to start out with a SuperLearner that you may have never heard of, but I'm not gonna tell you just yet who it is. I want to know what you guys think of this episode because I so enjoyed reading the books by this individual, exploring their life and just being inspired by what they were able to accomplish. I hope you guys enjoy it! If you guys do and if you guys want me to do more spotlights like this, I have to say they take a heck of a lot longer than interviewing. But, if you guys enjoy them, I'll be more than happy to do more of them, more spotlights on history's famous SuperLearners, and see what we can all learn from them. So, without any further ado, let me present to you the first and maybe last SuperLearner spotlight, with Richard Feynman.