The SuperHuman Academy Podcast

Today we are going to talk about creativity, and to do that, we are inviting someone on the show who really has helped thousands and thousands of people become more creative in a way that might surprise you. His name is Grant Faulkner, and he is the executive director of National Novel Writing Month and he's the co-founder of a 100 Word Story. Now you've seen his stories in Tin House, Southwest Review, Green Mountains Review, all kinds of different places, and you've seen his essays in the New York Times, Poets and Writers Digest, and The Writer. Grant recently published a collection of 100 word stories, Figures and what he does is help people become more creative. He's written a book called Pep Talks for Writers, and he has a new book coming out in October. I wanted to have Grant on the show because he has helped so many people do something that maybe they didn't think they could do: be creative and write. But in the course of the conversation we go a lot deeper and we talk about why writing and creativity are such superhuman skills, why they will change the way you think, change the way you live, and help you accomplish your goals. It's a great episode, and I think you guys are going to find it very interesting. Grand and I have a lot of in common things as you will see. Enjoy!

Today we are joined by Drew Logan. You've probably heard of him - he's a renowned fitness expert, celebrity trainer, and a television star. But actually, we go through something much more kind of interesting and rare in the beginning of the episode, which is that Drew died. Three times. He is the only known survivor of three consecutive sudden cardiac arrests. Doctors don't know why it happened. They don't know if it'll happen again. And living with that has given drew a really unique mindset and really unique approach to life. Drew is known for his fitness approach, 25 days, which deals a lot with habit and mindset. And in this episode, we talk about how all that works and how he has created a proven program to rewire your brain, stop weight gain, and finally crush the habits you hate forever. His book will be coming out in September, which if you're listening to this at release, is probably right now. And he sure has a lot of really valuable stuff to offer.

On today's episode, we are joined by Akshay Nanavati. He is an author, public speaker, and just all around really impressive guy. He has overcome drug addiction, PTSD, from fighting in Iraq with the Marines, and alcoholism that pushed him to the brink of suicide. He's explored some of the most hostile environments on the planet and he has come up with a methodology. It is the same methodology that shares the title with his book, FearVana, which the Dalai Lama himself said "inspires us to look beyond our own agonizing experiences and find the positive side of our lives." Akshay and I had a really incredible conversation. He is also very much interested in neuroscience and the science of memory and learning, and so we attack it from that angle. We start talking about fear, and how we can break the patterns of fear, but more importantly, how we can use fear, and how fear can be a good thing in our lives to create improvement and push us forward. It's a very unique and interesting perspective, and I think you're going to learn a lot not just about fear... not just about tenacity and bravery, but also about habits, about learning, about the brain, about neuroscience, and just about how to structure your life in a very very deliberate way. You might also learn a thing or two about how to turn things around if you're someone who's really suffering or has hit a rough patch.

Today we are joined by Ryan Stewman. Now, about his bio. Honestly, you can't make this kind of stuff up. Ryan started out life with a very, very challenging upbringing. He was adopted got into all kinds of trouble. He got arrested for selling drugs. He got out.... but got arrested again, and spent a pretty good amount of time in prison. But today, fast forward, and he is a millionaire entrepreneur. He runs six different businesses. He's published four different books. He has three healthy children and a loving wife... He has really cleaned up his life, and has become an expert in sales and entrepreneurship. Now you might be asking yourself at this point: "I mean, his workload sounds pretty superhuman. His time management sounds pretty superhuman. But what exactly is superhuman about this guy?" Well, first of, we do get into all of that: The entrepreneurship that he learned throughout his struggles. We get into what you can learn from such a challenging and trying experience, and how you can learn something like entrepreneurship. But beyond that, we also get into the skill of sales, and why I think it's an important skill that anyone should have, whether it's selling yourself at a job interview, selling yourself to that attractive guy or gal at the bar, or selling in your day job. Throughout the interview, we talk a little bit about what good salesmanship or saleswomanship looks like, how you can learn it, and why we feel it's a skill that will allow you to unlock your superhuman potential. There's also some pretty touching personal stories in here, and obviously the story has a happy ending, because you can check out Ryan and all of his incredibly successful businesses today. Finally, there's some instructions at the end of the episode that will get you a free copy of his book, so check that out!

Today, we are joined by Tee Major. Now, I have to admit: I didn't know about Tee before his publicist reached out, and I'm kind of sad that I didn't, because he's an amazing guy and you guys are about to find out why. He's not only one of Jillian Michaels top Fit Fusion trainers on the web, he's a member of the ACE group and a specialist in fitness and nutrition, too... But he is also a tactical fitness instructor who served the military, and was their trainer in Iraq and Kyrgyzstan, during  Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom. He's worked with the Navy, the Air Force, and the Marines, but as I found out, there's actually even more to him! He's an entrepreneur, a successful business owner, a nomad traveling the world, an adventurer, and really just someone who has so much to share. Throughout the episode, we get into a lot. Obviously, we talk about fitness and leadership and nutrition, but then we also go into entrepreneurship. We go into freedom and even get into these pretty difficult childhood and some of the very painful financial and emotional struggles that set him back until the point where he was able to make a change and completely turn his life around, and get to the very impressive place that he is today: Running multiple businesses and helping people all over the world, inspiring millions of people on YouTube, and so on. I'm really excited for you guys to hear this episode. I think there are a couple very very significant takeaways both in life and in fitness that everyone out there should hear.

Today we are joined by Dr. Marilyn Glenville. If you haven't heard of Marilyn, well, you probably don't live in the UK, because she is the U.K.'s leading nutritionist and she specializes in women's health. But she's an inspiring public speaker, she's very easy to listen to, and very practical in her approach. She's also the former president of the Food and Health Forum at the Royal Society of Medicine... and she's written over 20 books. In the episode, we talk about nutrition, we talk about all the various aspects, the ins and outs, we discover some interesting stuff we discover some interesting ways that ancestral health or a Mediterranean diet can improve maladies that you might not know it can improve. And, in general, we give some great homework for you to play around with and see how you can optimize and improve your diet. I know you guys are going to enjoy this episode, so I don't have to say I hope!

Today we are joined by Dr. John Day. He is a cardiologist from Salt Lake City, Utah, who spent a significant portion of his life in Asia. He is fluent in Mandarin and he was trained at Stanford University. Here's where it gets interesting: He did some work some research with a little known village in China known as "Longevity Village." And there, he discovered a people who live, on average, to be 100 years old or older. Over the process of getting to know them, working with them, speaking their language, Dr. Dre was able to figure out the secret. He was able to determine exactly what they do... and how it's so different from what we do. I don't know if you guys know the statistics, but most people in most western countries... Well, we do not live to be 100 years old. We live to be significantly less. And so I think there's a lot of really interesting value here. Some of it will come as a surprise... But most of it won't. Most of it is a reinforcement of a lot of the stuff that we talk about every week, maybe with some new, unique, and interesting angles that will inspire and motivate you. I hope you guys are able to live well past 100 with the information that you learned in today's episode!

If you've been listening to the show for any amount of time you know that I'm a big fan of leveraging my time, and you know that I'm all about "outsourcing," "delegating," finding ways to do things in a more efficient way, by hiring people bringing people on... so on and so forth. And today, I wanted to talk with someone who is an expert in that field. Specifically, his name is Mike Grogan, and he's a best selling author, sought after speaker, and an internationally recognized expert on habet creation, change management, and leadership development. Mike is an Irish national who's traveled all over the world, spoken to over 100,000 people in the U.S., Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. His online videos have reach over 15 million people. But we didn't even get into a lot of that stuff, because what Mike does today is that he actually lives in the Philippines, where he is the co-founder of The Rise of the Pinoy, an advocacy group with a mission of empowering Filipinos to create a First World Philippines. He also is involved in helping a lot of individuals and international organizations work with and really harness the incredible amount of intellect and ambition that there is in the Philippines. Now you guys probably know, if you've ever reached out to our customer service or watched our videos, that more than half of our team is all based in the Philippines, working full time to deliver you guys great content, answer all your emails, and more. So this is something that I'm really passionate about, something that I feel was one of the best decisions I made in my business, not just from a cost perspective, but also from a quality of service, quality of product perspective. I really feel that it has allowed me personally and my business to grow and accelerate in ways that I just couldn't have if I hadn't tapped in to this incredible country of 100 million smart, ambitious, and hardworking people. In this episode, I wanted to share that with you guys. I think there's going to be a ton of value for you, whether or not you're entrepreneurs, because you can start discovering how you can potentially outsource or delegate some of the things that you're doing every single day... whether that's research, whether that's organizing your daily life, and really benefit as so many top business leaders have already from the power of the international workforce. We talk about that, we talk a little bit about habits, we talk a little bit about what makes Mike superhuman, and just a little bit about mindset. Also, make sure you listen through to the end for a FREE copy of Mike Grogan's book! I think you guys are really going to enjoy this episode!

Today we are joined by Darius Foroux. He is a serial entrepreneur a blogger and the podcaster behind The Practical Podcast. You may have also heard of his book, Win Your Inner Battles, or his program, Procrastinate Zero, which is a high achievement training program, or his various blogs about productivity, life lessons, and various different ways to have more energy and motivation. We originally heard about Darius from Hugo in Spain, so thank you for the recommendation! As you know, I love talking productivity and I'm a total productivity geek, and I'll take any opportunity I can to learn some new tips and tricks. In this episode, I definitely did that. We talk productivity, we talk tools, tips, strategies, and different ways that you can have more energy and get more done... And I don't think anyone out there would object to that.  I'm sure you guys will enjoy the episode!

Welcome to this week's episode. Today we are going to explore a topic that really we haven't explored enough, and that is learning about music. We all know that music is so good for our brains, and we know that there are so many benefits to learning a musical instrument besides looking cool at parties. But how do we do it? And more importantly, how can we do it faster and more effectively? Well today we are joined by Josh Turknett. He is the author of The Migraine Miracle. We talk a little bit about that, but more importantly, he's a neurologist and he's the author medical editor for The Journal of Evolution and Health. And, on top of all that, he's a musician and instrumentalist. He's the founder of Brainjo, which is a system of musical instruction that really incorporates the Science of Learning and Neuroplasticity. And he's just all around a pretty interesting guy. In this episode, we talk about learning, we talk about migraines a little bit, and then we go into and kind of geek out on the learning behind music. Can anyone learn how to play music? How can you accelerate your learning of music?  How does it influence your brain? How does it change your brain? It does take us a little while to warm up and really get into the super nitty gritty of it, but I think it is going to inspire you and I think you're definitely going to learn a lot. I certainly got an incredible idea for how I could dramatically improve my memorization of new musical pieces.... And it was this common sense thing that I never thought of. Hope you guys enjoy it!