The SuperHuman Academy Podcast

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.  

Greetings, SuperFriends! Today we are joined by a guest that we've had a lot of requests for, and finally were introduced to thanks to one of our students. It is Jerzy Gregorek. You guys have probably heard about Jerzy, as he is in Tim Ferriss's latest book, as well as in one of the longest and most popular episodes of The Tim Ferriss Show. But, that is not his biggest claim to fame at all. In fact, Jerzy is the creator and founder of the UCLA Weightlifting Team, he is a 4-time champion Olympic Weightlifter, and he still has a world record that has been standing for 17 years, which nobody has been able to beat. Jerzy immigrated from Poland to the United States together with his wife, Aniela, in 1986, as a political refugee and rose through the ranks of being a trainer and mentor to people, for over 30 years. He went on to develop the Happy Body Program, which is a fitness regime and routine that you follow every single day. It is designed to improve upon the issue of fitness and help people create bodies that actually function and work. Jerzy is 63 years old and he can still beat pretty much all of us around when it comes to Olympic weightlifting power and strength. He is an incredible individual, and, on top of all of that, he has also been awarded various awards as a poet and as a published author. He has written a number of books including books on grit and books on, obviously, the Happy Body Method. There apparently are a whole lot of things to say about Jerzy Gregorek, and, as you'll see in this episode, we did not cover even a fraction of them. I have to admit that we jumped around and I tried to get as much of Jerzy's life wisdom and advice into 1 episode as I could, but we reached the end of the episode and realized we'd have to do another one. I did my best guys and I think you are really gonna love the episode, I believe you will learn a lot and I think you are going to appreciate Jerzy's perspective. I'd love if you guys leave a comment below or send me a note on Twitter to let me know what I should have gone into in more depth, and what you would like to hear on my next episode with my new superfriend, Mr. Jerzy Gregorek.

Greetings, SuperFriends! In a recent episode, I went on a full-on rant about writing, why it is such an important skill and how it can dramatically impact your life and change the way you think. Well, today we are joined by a real-world example. His name is Benjamin Hardy, and, on the outside, he is an everyday Ph.D. student working his way through a Ph.D. in organizational psychology. But, if you dig a little bit deeper, you will realize that Benjamin is actually the number 1 writer in Medium.com, which, through a crazy series of events, ended up landing him in Fortune, Forbes, Entrepreneur, Fast Company, Business Insider, Psychology Today, and more. It also landed him a quarter-of-a-million-dollars book deal, and that is just the start of what his writing has done for him. So, in this episode, we talk not only about his psychology research, and some of the things that he has discovered, but we also go into willpower, and why, as his book says, Willpower Doesn't Work. We start to understand why it is that we all fail at our New Year's resolutions and what we can do instead. And then, on top of that, we go through this amazing case study of what happens when you combine an aptitude for learning, like Benjamin's, and what I call an exponential skill, in this case, writing. So, this is just an amazing case study in SuperLearning applied and what you can achieve if you master one of this core exponential skills. I know you guys are going to enjoy the episode. Personally, I didn't do a whole lot of talking here, I just sat back and listened to Benjamin, and I recommend you do the same!

Greetings, SuperFriends! Today is a special episode, as I don't have a guest. Instead, I wanted to focus on a specific topic of SuperHuman performance, a specific little skill that I think people in today's day and age neglect. I started writing and what happened was pretty amazing. I ended up coming up with a whole new idea, a whole new category and class of skills that I articulate throughout this essay. A category of skills that I've always kind of known about in the back of my head but never put in words. In a way, it kind of proves my point on what I talk about today. That is the concept that, if you go through this process, if you practice this type of skill, you have so many dividends and so much interest that gets paid out of it. So I hope you guys really enjoy it. Generally speaking, you guys tend to love these non-interviews where I rant on about a given topic. So if you do like it, please let us know with a comment or a review. Alright, here is my essay on why writing is an exceptional skill, or even better, a SuperPower.

Greetings, SuperFriends! Today we are joined by Dr. Michael Greger. Michael is a New York Times best-selling author, a physician, an internationally recognized professional speaker, and, well, a really interesting dude, as you will find out. He has appeared on The Colbert Report, The Dr. Oz Show and was an expert witness for Oprah Winfrey at the infamous "meat defamation" trial. Another interesting fun fact that I learned as I researched Dr. Greger is that he donates all the speaking fees and proceeds from his books and DVDs, which I just think is really amazing and worth noting. You've probably heard of some of his books including How Not To Die and Carbophobia: The Scary Truth About America's Low-carb Craze. You can probably tell just from that title that he and I disagreed about a few things. We also agreed about a lot of things. Which ones? Well, listen to find out. In the episode, we talk about fruit, about nutrition, about legumes, which is an interesting topic, and we also talk about animal protein. We get quite nitty-gritty on how nutrition works and why there are so many different opinions about it. One side note is that Dr. Greger works on a treadmill desk, not a standing desk, and I do apologize in case you can hear it in the background. We tried to do our best to minimize the sound. Nevertheless, we talk about it in the episode, and so it kind of works out. So, without further ado, let's dive into the episode, which I really believe you will enjoy!

Greetings, SuperFriends! This week we are going to dive into a rather controversial topic, one that people have brought up to me for years. That is, is speed reading a hoax, or is it the real deal? You know, over the last few years that I've been teaching accelerated learning a lot of people have sent me many articles either proving or disproving speed reading. Therefore, what I wanted to do was sit down and look at one of the most prominent studies disproving it, which is an evaluation of many other studies, and also share some studies proving it. Now, probably the most surprising thing through this whole exercise and analysis was that I probably agree with 70% t0 80% of what the research has found and you will see exactly why as I explain through the entire episode. You will listen to a lot of surprising things and a few surprising ones. I encourage you guys to challenge me and my assumptions, to share what you guys think and also to think critically about what I have to say. I think you guys are really going to enjoy the episode, I think it's going to clear up a lot of misconceptions that people have around what we do, what I do, and also what the speed reading industry as a whole does.