Behind the Book Cover

Name change time! Yes, the podcast formerly known as AfterPartyPod, Recover Girl and Light Hustler is now transitioning into Struggle to Success, where I'm going to be interviewing some of the world's highest achieving people about how they've been able to make their greatest struggles into their greatest success. While I'll still be talking to some people about their issues with addiction and journey into recovery, I'll also be chatting with folks about other struggles and journeys.   I'm so excited about this transition and thrilled about some of the people I've lined up as guests. Look out for the first Struggle to Success episode next week and please know how grateful I am to you for sticking with the show through its many incarnations.

Mike Bayer, also known as Coach Mike, is Founder and CEO of CAST Centers and author of the Best Self: Be You, Only Better.   His career began over 12 years ago as a mental health and addiction counselor. After a residency at The Hazelden Foundation, Mike spent five years in the field and became one of the leading interventionists in the country. He did crisis consulting for several of the country’s top treatment programs, including the Hazelden Foundation.   Fifteen years ago, he founded CAST Centers, a treatment center that provides a network of professional support – including doctors, psychologists, counselors, and instructors – to help clients heal and improve their mental health, emotional health, and their overall well-being.   He's a regular contributor to Dr. Phil, television’s #1-rated daytime talk show. He's also on the Dr. Phil Advisory Board, which consists of 18 of the most accomplished and respected health care professionals in the country.   In this episode, we discussed how you go from struggling with addiction to coaching high-end clients and then becoming a weekly Dr. Phil guest and selling over 100,000 copies of your first book.

Lauren Wallett is a woman of many occupations: business coach, personal coach, writer and my co-host on SHE-E-O, among other things.   We spend an insane amount of time together and this episode is real fly-on-wall stuff: basically what we talk about when there aren't mics around (btw the mics got screwed up and so the interview was done on my Iphone...sorry if it sounds wonky).   Only listen if you want to hear us confess those things we normally don't—getting into being attracted to dysfunctional men, STD's, skin picking and much more.   Oh, yeah.

Kevin Chiu is the co-founder of Catalyst, an NYC-based startup that has raised $5.5M from top venture capitalists like True Ventures & Work-Bench to build a customer data platform that helps tech companies reduce user churn and increase product adoption. Prior to starting Catalyst, he led sales teams at fast-growing companies like Greenhouse Software and DigitalOcean. Kevin also recently received the Forbes 30under30 award for Enterprise Technology entrepreneurs.   He is also two years sober, after a series of incidents that showed him he may have a drinking problem (including a time he got mugged while in a blackout). If you want to know the secret to getting sober and then raising millions of dollars, this one is a must-listen.

In 2014, Willam (Bill) Freer launched the first Family & Friends SMART Recovery meeting in Washington, DC. He was elected to the SMART Recovery Board in 2017 and was named chair of its first Communications Committee. That same year, he became a founding Board member of SMART Recovery International. He helped write the SMART Recovery Five-Year Strategic Plan: Freedom from Addiction.   Now serving as President of SMART Recovery, Bill was a guest on our recent Light Hustle retreat where we were able to sit down and chat about the history of SMART, why this program appeals to certain types and how they have a special rule about how you can't trash AA, among other topics.

Todd Zalkins is an addiction specialist, private counselor, interventionist, and public speaker.   The author of the memoir, Dying for Triplicate, Zalkins was the subject of the award-winning documentary The Long Way Back: The Story of Todd “Z-Man” Zalkins, which documented his own descent into addiction as well as his relationship with the band members of Sublime.   Todd is the Founder and CEO of Four Keys, Inc., an integrative enterprise that encompasses four major aspects of recovery: interventions, treatment recommendation, private counseling, and public speaking & education.   We got to know each other at the recent Light Hustle Publishing retreat, where we talked about sharing our stories, ate s'mores (Todd's first!) and sat down to record a chat about addiction, publishing and what it was like growing up in the belly of the beast.

We break from our regular programming of stories and interviews for a guided meditation designed to help you get in your body, breathe and then access the part of you necessary to share your story.   If you think you may have a story inside of you but haven't been sure how to access it, give this meditation a try.   We'll be back next week with another interview. But in the meantime, why not give this a try?

Mia is a teetotaling NYC broad currently living in LA. She gave up drinking in September of 2015 when she finally stopped ignoring the fact that she would never live the life she so craved if she didn't remove the booze. After nearly 4 years of living this unmasked lifestyle, she has organically created a community online of like-hearted women. Mia is currently facilitating alcohol-free adventure retreats, hosting book club circles and will soon be launching her signature Get High Naturally Breathwork and Coaching programs for the Gray Area Drinker.   In this episode, we talked about finding a community in recovery, how sobriety may give you a "second" marriage and getting out of your comfort zone, among many other topics.

Ruby Warrington is a British writer and thought leader currently living in Brooklyn, NY. Formerly Features Editor on the UK Sunday Times Style magazine, in 2012 she launched The Numinous, a cosmic lifestyle platform that updates all things "new age" for life in the Now Age. Ruby also works as a consultant, while other projects include "sober curious" event series Club SÖDA NYC and spiritual coaching program Moon Club.   Author of Material Girl, Mystical World, Ruby's second book, Sober Curious, was published on December 31 2018. Offering an eye-opening new way to think about our relationship with alcohol, Sober Curious reveals the enormous benefits that come from unlearning the mindless habit of drinking and embracing the life-enhancing choice of sobriety: greater joy, clarity, confidence, and connection.   In this episode, we talked about what it means to be sober curious, the importance of sharing our stories and why one should never sign a new business deal when Mercury is in Retrograde, among many other topics.

Omar Pinto is a Life Transformation Coach, Addiction Recovery Specialist and Lifestyle Entrepreneur who hosts the popular SHAIR podcast.   He took his last drink and hit of cocaine in May 25, 2003. This was the beginning of his journey into personal development.   Over the next 15 years he would completely transform his life - Mind, Body and Spirit. It took him four years to successfully complete the 12-Step recovery process in Narcotics Anonymous.   He launched SHAIR in February 2014 and it now boasts over 1 million downloads. Omar has also cultivated a thriving Facebook Community with over 5,000 members and runs a successful personal development Life Coaching business.   Today, Omar is living his dreams by helping people transform their lives and become the best version of themselves, working remotely from his home office with clients from all over the world, continuing to learn and grow as a coach all while living in Costa Rica with his beautiful wife and daughter.