Is there life after soccer if soccer is life?

Mounir Darbaki, founder of Shoof Productions, a sports media company out of Minneapolis, Minnesota, shares with us how soccer is still very much a part of his life even though the "dream" is over.

Soccer, and sports in general, have a unique way of teaching us some of life's most difficult lessons. Athletes of all ages and levels will learn this through their own experiences and hopefully one day, share those experiences with others to help them along their way.

Mounir and I talk about some of the struggles that we had and how we handled them so for those soccer players and athletes out there that are either going through your own sports struggles right now or are not sure how to handle life after sports, this one is for you!

"Happiness is important in a career. Work that provides vision, meaning and purpose gives value beyond a paycheck" - Nate Clayberg

Work is something that will fill up a great deal of our time for the majority of our lives and if we spend too much of that time not enjoying what we do, we will spend long periods being unhappy. This affects not only our lives, but the lives of those around us. Not everyone is going to get their dream job right out of the gate, in fact, we may not even be suited for what that job is.

Finding that out is critical for our long term mental and financial well-being. The more often that we are exposed to different career paths, the closer we get to identifying what we may be suited to do. Nate Clayberg offers this kind of exposure and experience in the professional word to high school students and he tells us all about it in this episode!

Steph Phillips is the proud owner of Muddy Pirate Coffee Traders, a very unique coffee company based out of Cedar Falls, Iowa. They offer 100% Arabica coffee from the Caribbean but what makes them truly different is their focus on bringing the customer insight into the origin, history, and culture surrounding pirate life in the Caribbean throughout time.

Coffee is a universal language that brings people together from all walks of life and that's just one of the many topics that Steph and I talk about in this episode. 

We have a very deep and honest conversation about where Steph came from and how her upbringing shaped her positive mindset which ultimately lead her to break the mold of a lot of the stereotypes she faced coming up. She uses her story to inspire others that feel stuck and need to do a little mold breaking themselves.

Arrgh you ready?

Bringing people together for a positive cause is a beautiful thing. Looking after ourselves and making the effort to improve our wellness is also a beautiful thing.

Tarelle Hoskins of Waterloo, Iowa is doing both of these things through a program called Community Wellness Club. He offers fitness classes weekly at a very low cost and nutrition advice online for free so that everyone has a fair chance to work on their well-being regardless of circumstance.

COVID-19 has forced him to close down the wellness center for the time being but he is still putting up at-home workout videos for people as well as nutrition tips daily on the Community Wellness Club Facebook Page.

I hope you enjoy this episode, Tarelle and I approach life in a very similar way so we had a great time making it, our conversation could have gone on for hours!

Can the world be changed through music?

I certainly think so and so does my guest this week, Joe Dean, aka "Thesanity", in fact he is making an attempt to do just that with his own music. Joe is a rapper out of Iowa and at just 19 years old he has decided to pursue rap as a profession. His style is very motivational and inspirational which is something I really enjoy and do not see enough of these days.

Music has the ability to inspire and motivate you, to uplift you and put a smile on your face and so much more.

If you enjoy music(get yourself checked if you don't) and inspirational stories, this episode is for you!

I hope you enjoy and thank you for your time.

Peanut butter, bananas, and bread.

What do these all have in common? Aside from being ingredients to a delicious treat, they are responsible for teaching me one of the most valuable lessons that I've ever learned in my life: You need way less than you think you need in order to get by.

Once I experienced this for myself, taking risks became a hell of a lot easier to do. I realized that if I can get by on these three simple and cheap items with very little else then there really is no excuse for not taking a chance on my dreams. The world doesn't end if I try and fail.

I hope this one helps somebody out.

Thank you for your time.

Be who you are, where you are, and when you lack strength, have the courage to ask for help.

Regardless of where you are in your professional or personal life, there is no greater sign of strength than knowing you don't know it all and asking for help when you know you could use it. No one is an expert at everything, it doesn't matter who you are or what you do. We as individuals can only handle so much and its important to recognize that and practice humility often because it's only a matter of time before our egos come back to bite us.

This is the vision of Meta Hemenway-Forbes, a very close family friend of mine, which I normally just refer to as my second mom. Ever since I was 7 years old and her family moved in a few houses down from mine, we have been in each other's lives non-stop.  Growing up I probably spent more time at Meta's house than I did my own so it's no surprise that we have become as close as we have. This was a unique episode to do because this is the first time I've done one with somebody so close to me so I hope that you enjoy listening to this one as much as I did recording it!

Thank you for your time.

Listen. Explore. Create. 

That's got a nice ring to it. Simple yet powerful, also happens to be the vision of my guest this week, AJ Vens. He is an old coworker and current friend of mine that is responsible for helping me find my footing with this whole podcast deal. He has been doing his own podcast for a few years now and knows his way around the production side of things when it comes to running a podcast and was an amazing resource when I was starting out.  He educated me on different recording styles, different mics and equipment needed depending on what I was hoping to accomplish, he made getting started much easier to say the least. Use your resources! If you don't have any, then ask. If you don't want to ask...ask Google!

In this episode, AJ and I hit on a number of interesting topics ranging from his vision and how it impacts the way he approaches his clothing brand, Wolf Den Wares, to a discussion on the impact that certain parenting styles had on us when we were growing up and how we feel about them now as adults. When it comes to goals and dreams, AJ and I have a very similar approach: Earn them. Our goals and dreams are not something that we deserve just because, they are there to be earned if we put in the time and effort. There is plenty that is out of our control and if we spend too much time thinking about that stuff we get nowhere, but if we choose to focus on the stuff that we do have control over, our chances of reaching our goals and dreams increases by a ton!

If you are someone that is working towards a goal or pursuing a dream, keep going, it isn't meant to be easy. Only you know if you are giving it your best shot and if you truly are, you are awesome. If you are sacrificing a lot and doing the right things but nothing is going your way, you have two options. You could complain and feel sorry for yourself because it just doesn't seem fair, but if you choose that option you definitely will not be moving any closer to whatever it is that you are pursing. Or, you could shift your focus to EARNING it. Instead of telling yourself that you deserve something because you are trying really hard, start telling yourself that you will EARN it no matter how tough it gets. If you think that you deserve, you will find reasons to complain when things aren't going your way, if you decide that you will earn, you will come up with ways to make it happen.

I hope you enjoy this episode and as usual I hope you take something valuable away from it!

Thank you for your time.

If you've been wanting to do something you're passionate about for a long time but just haven't done it yet, why not?

That can be an uncomfortable question to answer because it takes some being honest with yourself and let's face it, that ain't easy. I know for a fact that we all have passions and desires but the number of people that are actually doing something about it is way too small. Most fear either judgement or failure or both which stem from insecurity. The part about being honest with yourself is where you tell yourself truthfully what it is that you want to do and then asking yourself why you are not doing it. If it's judgement from others that's holding you back, here is some good news, you are going to get judged regardless! Whether you are attempting to do something that makes you happy or not doing anything at all, you will be judged either way and since you will get judged either way, why not just do the thing that makes you happy. When it comes to failure, the only way to fail is to not do anything at all. If you take some action you will get a result and that result can tell you a lot. If the result is something you desired, then congratulations, if the result is one that you did not want, then congratulations, you just learned something about yourself and you have an opportunity to take another action! It is not supposed to be easy, we all have our own struggles and our own obstacles, that's what makes us different, but that also means that we have a choice as to how we navigate those struggles and obstacles and that's what makes us unique.

Edina Okanovic (Dina) is a very old friend that I reconnected with recently. She is someone with a passion that has struggles and obstacles just like everyone else, but now she is doing something about it. Dishin' up with Dina is the title of a podcast that she has been wanting to get out into the world in hopes of helping and inspiring people through their obstacles but something was holding her back from committing to it. She is a mother to one daughter and has experienced two miscarriages and she is only 25. She has struggled with taking a chance on her passion and opens up on why that was the case and how she came to a point where she felt that it was time to do something about it in this episode. Her story will resonate with all the moms out there, especially ones that have had to deal with the tragedy of a miscarriage, but even more so with people in their mid-twenties struggling with taking a chance on themselves.

I hope you enjoy but more importantly, I hope you can find something valuable in this episode that you can relate too.

Thank you for your time.