Breaking Ordinary with Andy Petranek

“I am coming to the realization –– albeit slowly –– that to be content, you have to be authentic. And to be authentic, you have to be vulnerable. If you’re not open to the problems that come in life and aren’t willing to accept setbacks and failures and ridicule and criticism and wear that and move forward, you’re going to be in trouble.” ~ Adam Stanecki

Adam Stanecki joins me this week from the Gold Coast of Australia for the latest installment of the WLC Podcast. Adam calls himself a “lifestyle entrepreneur”. He is a coach who helps people uncover their true potential in business and in life through positive mindset, mindfulness, and mastery. He’s been in the fitness industry for over 20 years, opened the third CrossFit affiliate in Australia many years ago, and has been on his own path of health and fitness mastery since first starting martial arts at the early age of 7. He’s also a music buff, regularly posting his own quotes on Instagram (@adamstanecki) in the style of good old-fashioned album jacket artwork.

Though I knew Adam by name before this conversation, we had never actually spoken in person. And I tried something new for this podcast, something I learned about the way Larry King conducts many of his interviews - with absolutely zero preparation. So I went into the conversation without any real idea of what we would talk about or where it would go - something that was particularly nerve wracking for me for the first part of the recording.

Adam and I enjoy a meandering conversation about life, authenticity, mastery, vulnerability, kids and parenting, training, effectiveness, and personal growth. It’s a very real conversation about very real and current life issues - things that we all think about and deal with all the time. I really enjoyed the conversation and am sure you will too.

Remember to check us out on iTunes - and if you enjoyed the podcast, please leave us a 5-star rating!

“Everything that matters in my life came after ‘f**k it’. So there’s just so much magic on the other side of ‘f**k it’!” ~ Mary Shenouda, aka the Paleochef

Have you ever thought about what you would do if you just said, ‘f**k it?”

Seriously.

Just stop and think about that for a minute.

What are you not doing because you don’t know how, it’s too hard, you’re unsure of the result, you’re afraid of the consequences, you don’t know where to begin, you’re afraid of screwing it up, the risk is too great, someone may find out you don’t know what you’re doing, you’re afraid of failure, etc?

Mary’s Shenouda’s life began once she decided to let go of all of those reasons, fears, rationalizations and made-up consequences of pursuing the life of her dreams, said “f**k it!” ... and just started doing it.

Suffering from headaches and migraines for pretty much all of her life, she discovered her own cure by changing the types of food she ate… from what you might call a “normal” American diet to Paleo. While doing so, she became incredibly proficient in the kitchen, honing her skills as a self-taught chef and coming up with her own twist on recipes and dishes. She even invented a few of her own snacks and treats that she is well known for to this day (like Unicorn Fuel and Phat Fudge).

The result of this? She’s a highly sought after private chef for the elite of Los Angeles with an Instagram following of over 90,000 and a wildly popular energy snack that she sells all over the world called Phat Fuel.

Mary’s life is an open book… and during this podcast she shares a lot of herself and what got her here. She even does a shim-sham flim-flam on me and starts interviewing me at one point.

Check it out - I know you’ll enjoy!

Andy

Curtis Estes has been a wealth management advisor for Northwestern Mutual for 25 years and is, quite frankly, a superstar. He has built an expansive network of people he serves all over Southern California his book of business is literally a Who’s Who of Los Angeles.  But that isn’t why I invited him to be on the Podcast.

Curtis is a lifelong committed learner… a student of life. He considers it his master work… and has been observing, tweaking, adjusting, and overhauling it regularly with help from coaches and teachers for decades. His most recent book, Your Life By Design, was inspired by his realization in a therapy session that he was not living up to his own standards as a father or husband. And Curtis being Curtis, went on a mission to change that… the book is that story.

Curtis is incredibly transparent about his life. In his effort to serve others, he willingly shares both his shortcomings and triumphs. And during our conversation, he doesn’t disappoint. He talks about the things he uses each day, week, month and year to keep him on track - the daily habits, secrets, and shortcuts (there aren’t really any of those!) that have allowed him to build and extraordinary life for himself and his family.

Ever humble, he acknowledges that he is a “work in progress” and strives to do more and be better each and every day.

I was so inspired by what Curtis shared that after this podcast I bought Hal Elrod’s book and started practicing his Miracle Morning routine. It works. Many awesome takeaways from this one.

“If people aren’t getting the results they want in life, they need to  just sit in a room and fully internalize that they are solely responsible for the nonsense they are creating in their life.”

~U.J. Ramdas

Whether you agree with him or not, U.J.’s quote gets to the heart of the matter in transformational change. When you take full responsibility, anything and everything is possible. Why? Because you’re the one that is controlling the outcome. You and only you.

My guest in the podcast this week is U.J. Ramdas, the founder of Intelligent Change, whose first product was a journal that I’ve found quite useful in my life called, quite simply, “The Five Minute Journal”. Ridiculously simple, it provides a daily journaling structure that asks you to ask yourself great questions, and limits the amount of room you have to answer. The key to the journal is that it only takes 5 minutes, as doing it each day for five minutes is better than doing it once-in-a-while for longer.

I asked him to come on the podcast because I was intrigued by the simplicity of the journal itself, as well as his open source mindset as a book writer / publisher (the entire contents of the journal is available on his website for free). U.J. shares about both, plus a whole lot more. Like the fact that less than two years ago he was in a horrific accident that nearly ended his life. And that his roots are in India… only coming to Canada a short time ago on nothing more than a wing and a prayer (and a scholarship).

U.J.’s mission is to help the world improve, change, tranform - hence the name of his company. He’s incredibly insightful, well read, and has great tips for each of us to consider as we go through the daily rigors of life.

I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did!

“The wheel doesn’t roll if you’re missing a spoke.” ~ Charles Staley

Seems obvious, right? But when it comes to the context of your life, where spokes are represented by the physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, financial and sexual realms… and are satisfied through things like family, work, friends, hobbies, personal time, relationship, and health and fitness, chances are your wheel isn’t rolling the way it could be.

This is Charles Staley’s specialty - working with people as their guide, mentor and coach to help them reclaim missing spokes, or simply true what is already there. Charles is recognized globally as an innovative coach and thought leader in the world of health and fitness, having authored thousands of articles and made appearances on both CBS’s This Morning and NBC’s Today Show.  At 56 years old, “skinny” (see photos), and lean with a 400 lb. squat, 510 lb. deadlift and with a max rep chin-up record of 17, he considers himself to be in the best shape of his entire life.

Join us in the podcast where he gets into specifics about how he coaches, what he works on with his clients, what his pre-workout warm-up is (something I’ve never heard of or tried before), how he prescribes food macros for his clients, and the fundamental human movements upon which he bases all his exercise and workout prescriptions.

Raise your hand if the first thing that popped into your mind when you heard the words “self-defense” was some sort of fighter’s punch, kick, spin, or throw. Come on… be honest. Actually, that’s exactly what happened for me. The source of the picture comes from my misunderstanding of the concept of self-defense… “What do I do after I am attacked? And for me, the answer involves some version of a gun-totin’, cigarette smokin’, Ray Donovon-type Hollywood tough guy who takes bad guys down with a single pull of the trigger, punch, kick or throw.

After talking with Tony Blauer, who schooled me for 90 minutes on the very nature of self-defense, that concept for me has been erased. What’s left in it’s place? All the things that a self-aware, tuned-in, situationally present person would do to avoid a confrontation in the first place.

V. Capaldi is nothing short of a miracle. Her story brings hope where there is despair, joy where there is pain, and future where there is hopelessness. Her life is an example of what can happen when you take full responsibility for the hardships (and blessings) that you’ve been given. It's not magic, or a miracle, really... it's the story of someone who never gave up, was receptive to new concepts and ideas, and willing to be responsible and take action.

She was young when first diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis (MS). For years she lived with the disease which was slowly degrading her quality of life and her ability to take care of herself. She moved to Venice, CA because of the weather, which offered an improvement in her quality of life even as her condition worsened. By 2008, she had no use of her arms or hands.

One day while in physical therapy, her therapist suggested she go off gluten... tune in for the REST of the story. Trust me, it's well worth it!

Go to www.wholelifechallenge.com/podcast for full shownotes.

“What would you do if it were your last year alive?”

That is the question that my guest on this episode of the Whole Life Podcast set out to answer as his year-long project in 2016. Faced with a universe that was seemingly conspiring against him over much of 2015 (losing his wife, his business partner, home, and all sources of love and stability), Traver Boehm was at the end of his rope, and with plans to take his own life, re-discovered, miraculously, his desire to live. What was left was great intrigue for that question.

So with nothing left to lose, and nothing more than a blank calendar, a pen and the internet, he sat down and started writing a list of the things that he would like to experience were his life to end at the end of one year. Thus, he began filling in dates on the calendar.

My guest this week is Erin Cafaro Mackenzie. She is two-time Olympic gold medalist. She was  part of the United States Women’s 8 crew team that won back-to-back gold medals in 2008 and 2012. She’s also won gold at six out of eight World Championships (and bronze at the other two). She is also only 5’9 and 160 lbs - tiny in the world of Olympic rowing. Needless to say, she knows what it takes to win.

Erin’s story is incredible. From a grittiness that came from growing up with a big brother and background in basketball, to an accidental “discovery” of rowing as a collegiate sport (Title IX) and parents who were willing to give her the time and space during college let her explore and figure things out on her own, her journey to Olympic gold has been far from “usual”.

This week, we’ve got Valerie Waters to the podcast. Val is a personal trainer to the stars. No, really. She’s been training Cindy Crawford for something like 12 years now… as well as Jennifer Garner. And she has an entire book of A-listers to her credit. She’s one of the go-to trainers for hollywood agents, directors, managers and actors who have goals and deadlines that they absolutely, positively have to meet. She can meet them… and does.

I was really interested in hearing from her about how she does it… how does she get her clients to achieve their goals by specific deadlines? What is her “magic”? What are her workouts like? How does she get hired? What’s it like to be on set? What’s it like to be “friends” with Jennifer Garner? It’s fun - we talk about ALL of that during the podcast.

But I also wanted to hear about how she got to where she is in life. How does someone become a celebrity trainer and get a client list like she has? What are the qualities that are important for a job like that? What do you need to be good at? How do you prepare? How do you talk differently to Cindy or Jennifer than to anyone else you’re training?