My guest is Travis Ensley. Travis is one of my best friends on the planet. This guy, over the past 20 years has been a successful leader within the tech industry. He's worked with startups all the way to fortune 500 companies. I can say that he's successful because the companies he's helped have been wildly successful. But I can also say that because I've gotten to know many of the people that he has led. And they love working for and with him. Here's the thing, as you'll see, Travis has this kind of no-nonsense Ron Swanson quality to him, so I'm guessing that he's already bristling at my accolades, but I'm going to go further. He's been successful in business, but I can also tell you he's successful in life, too. He's an awesome husband and dad, and I'm also grateful to say that he is an “bonus uncle” to my boys, and that means the world to me. We talk about a lot of subjects, but today we’re going to dive into the subject and focus on one area of expertise that Travis is just incredible at, and that is establishing systems to manage your time, your tasks, and your priorities. He is a black belt level genius at this. And I benefit from his wisdom on this front weekly, so I wanted to get him on DREAM THINK DO, so you can benefit from it, too. Listen To The Podcast: INTERVIEW: So pour yourself a cup of coffee and let's get to this. Travis. Welcome to DREAM THINK DO, buddy. I'm honored to be here. Thank you. Absolutely. So, we're going to talk about systems and strategies. I mean, you use technology, but your brain works in this way. There's been a couple of questions I've been dying to ask you as a long-time friend. I assume I know the answers to this, but before we dive into the specifics, I want to start a little bit more in your brain. How about that for being scary? So, I wanted to ask you. You're one of the most organized systems oriented people that I know. But have you always been that way? Like, were you that way in junior high and high school? There's very little chance my mom will listen to this. So I will say yes. I've got your mom on speed dial. I’ll check right now. I was one of those kids who would open the bag of Skittles and organize them by color because it made sense for me to do it that way because I wanted to know exactly what I was doing. I'll tell you that my room was not very clean when I was young, but after high school, I went into the Navy, into service, and they beat that out of me. And so, coupled with that, I like to say that I'm just this side of obsessive-compulsive disorder. The healthy side of it, right? The healthy side. Yes, the healthy side of it. With my experience in the service, the very regimented leadership they gave solidified the kind of lifestyle that I choose to lead that way. Absolutely. I wondered if that experience just kind of ground that into you for the first time, or whether that was bringing out natural tendencies. But I assumed it was bringing out those natural tendencies. It allowed me to understand why I thought that way. I think it encouraged that behavior. It showed me a lot of interesting ways to do it, too. But it's also interesting to think about how the world of technology that can support systems for helping navigate our time and our task has evolved so much. I've seen you experiment with different things, try different things, so that was something that I was looking forward to diving into with you. I think sometimes technology can be a benefit, but I think sometimes technology, with all of the options, can also start to bungle that up a little bit. I think in a lot of cases it comes down to discipline. I think technology, in general, can be a huge distraction. It's designed to be that way. Hey, it's a cool thing, or this is the next widget or the next flashy thing that's going to come up, and so everybody has great ideas. In this day and age, it's very easy to take those ideas and translate that ...

My guest today is Light Watkins. Light is a former GAP fashion model. He started attending yoga classes and meditation circles back when he was doing casting calls in New York City. Since 1998, Light has been active in the wellness space, first, as a practitioner and then he's gone on quite a journey with meditation. This journey led to a trip to Northern India, to a little hamlet nestled in the foothills of the Himalayas to become a master in meditation. After about three months there and over thousands of hours of meditation, he completed his training. He now travels the world giving talks on happiness, mindfulness, inspiration, and meditation. He teaches meditation to A-list actors, big name entrepreneurs and a whole lot of regular people because he does it in a unique way. He just got a real practical approach. He introduces all of that in his most recent book called "Bliss More: How to Succeed in Meditation Without Really Trying" which was released earlier this year. Listen To The Podcast: RESOURCES: Bliss More Book: https://amzn.to/2kNy6bc INTERVIEW: Light, welcome to DREAM THINK DO. Thanks, man. I'm so excited to be here. Our mutual friend, Antonio Neves introduced us. Antonio started talking about your book Bliss More as you were launching it. I started to dig into it a little bit, and I was like, "Gosh, meditation can be such a heady thing." I loved how you were very transparent in your story. You didn't try to set yourself up as some mountain top guru; you're a regular guy who's had mountain top experiences through meditation, so I love that. It’s a real practical approach. It wasn't that you sat down and immediately had just these incredible experiences. Tell us a little bit about how your journey with meditation got started. Yes, sure. I got introduced to meditation through taking yoga classes. Everybody always talked about meditation. I was reading a bunch of the new age spiritual books that everyone's familiar with, the Eckhart Tolle book, Power of Now, The Seat of the Soul, The Celestine Prophecy, Conversations with God. There were always mentions of meditation or meditative states, and you figure, if something is hanging around for thousands of years, there's got to be something to it. Yeah, right. If it's been hanging out this long, then maybe, maybe I should dig into it just a little bit. My curiosity got the best of me, and I started going to these French meditation circles in New York City. This is back in the '90s, so I didn't know anyone else who was interested in this which kind of made it more interesting to me. You always want to feel like you're in on something that no one else has heard about yet so then you can then introduce everyone else to it. In those early days, it always frustrated me and fascinated me at the same time that I didn't feel like I was having the experience, the advertised experience. I wasn't going to nirvana. I wasn't having the bliss experience. You don't know what you don't know, so I didn't know that there were different approaches to meditation. I didn't know that there were monastic techniques and there were householder approaches. I was mainly doing monastic approaches, and that's one of the reasons why I was having such difficult experiences. After three years of knocking my head against the wall, I stumbled upon a teacher who showed me some of the householder, meaning regular people, approaches to meditation where you sit on a couch, or you sit in a comfortable chair, and you meditate there. That's where I finally found the bliss that had been eluding me for a very long time. Then everything made sense. It started to click. Well, I love that. A lot of people think of meditation, and they think of the discipline, the monk who deprives themselves of all things to have this experience in meditation. How would you say the householder approach is different?

My guest today is Karen Brown. Karen is a recognized thought leader in the fields of leadership and professional performance, specifically in the areas of the unconscious mind and optimizing your thinking for elevated levels of endurance and success. She is an ultra-endurance athlete who competes around the world. In fact, one of her biggest recent accomplishments was qualifying for and finishing the Ironman World Championship in Kona, Hawaii! Along with being an expert in neuro-linguistic programming and mental and emotional release, she's also an executive coach, sought-after speaker, and best-selling author. Karen's most recent book, called Unlimiting Your Beliefs: Seven Keys to Great Success in Your Personal and Professional Life, has been winning awards and accolades. It has also inspired me to invite Karen on DREAM THINK DO to talk about breaking through those limiting beliefs that creep in and start to shut us down. I'm really looking forward to this conversation. Listen To The Podcast: RESOURCES: Free Micro Solution Video Series: velocityleadershipconsulting.com/dtd Karen's Book: Unlimiting Your Beliefs book INTERVIEW: Let's get to it. Karen, welcome to DREAM THINK DO. Thank you, Mitch. I'm so thrilled to be here. Okay. I do want to dive into your concepts on limited beliefs and breaking through those things, but I've always wanted to ask someone who completed an Ironman World Championship, what was it like to round the corner and see the finish line? Ok, let me set the scene a little bit. I am an amateur athlete, nowhere near pro level, and that is to say that I'm a bit slower than the pros. My time at Ironman World Championships was 15 hours, 45 minutes. When I was rounding the corner, as you said, it was nighttime. It was about 10:30 at night, 10:45 at night. There was total blackness, a sky full of brilliant stars, and two miles away from the finish line, you can hear the roar of the crowd. Oh wow. Even at night? Yes. Hey, and by the way Karen, just so you know, for me to just do the swim, I still wouldn't have been done with just the swim part by 10 o'clock at night. So it's still very impressive. So you're two miles out, and you start hearing the crowd. Yes, you start hearing the crowd, and then you can just faintly make out Mike Riley's voice, who has been the voice of Ironman for 30 some odd years now. He's the one that says the iconic, indelibly memorable, "Karen Brown, you are now an Ironman," when you cross the finish line. It was the most magnificent day, Mitch. Now I'll say the journey to get there was very, very difficult, and there were plenty of times when I wanted to quit and worried that I would quit. We can go into that later. But that specific day, there was never one moment when I wanted to quit. It was joy and bliss and wonderful, and I say this knowing that it was a billion degrees, it was like the surface of the sun hot. It was humid; asphalt was melting, we had torrential rains at the turnaround point in the bike, we had big waves for the swim, incredible crosswinds on the Queen K for the biking portion. So this was no cakewalk. This was very challenging. The part that I tapped into was my journey to get there. This was a lifelong dream. This was something that I wanted for 28 years. The day that I was there, and I was racing alongside all of my heroes, all of the icons that I had seen over the years on the coverage, specifically the icon that touched off this entire lifelong dream of mine, Julie Moss. It had been 30 years to the day since she had competed originally in the second Ironman World Championships that ever televised, and she came back that year and raced one more time. Oh my gosh. She wanted that to be her swan song, and I got to race alongside her. Wow! Did you know that going into it, or was that something you found out along the way? It was something I found out two days before the race...

My guest today is Ryan Carson. Ryan is a longtime entrepreneur who has built four startups, two that got acquired, one that went down in flames, but provided a lot of learning, and a fourth one called “Treehouse,” which is currently doing about $15 million in revenue annually. Treehouse is an online tech school with about 80,000 enrolled students. Their goal is to take people from zero to job-ready and to teach them how to code, amongst other things. He was voted EY's Entrepreneur of the Year, and he's been a guest on some of the top podcasts, shows like Entrepreneur on Fire, Mixergy, This Week in Startups, and Bloomberg's Game Plan. Listen To The Podcast: He's doing some awesome stuff, but Ryan popped onto my radar because he's a longtime DREAM THINK DO-er. Like many of you, he reached out a number of times to offer some encouragement and some feedback. After Episode 171, specifically, he sent an email about the five-minute moment concept. We started going back and forth on that, how it was working for him, and that opened up a whole new subject on the power of “why,” and how being clear on your “why” makes all the difference. Welcome to the show, Ryan! Thank you so much. This is fun. It's weirdly like a family reunion, but this is the first time where we're actually talking, so I love it. I want to talk about the power of “why,” because I know it’s something that's really helped you to get on track with life and career. But I want to go back a little bit and talk a little heart and head stuff first. We have a lot of entrepreneurs on DREAM THINK DO. We're all about helping people get clear on their dreams and goals - so one of the things I wondered, did you always want to be an entrepreneur? Was that your dream as a kid, or was that something that that hit you later? No. It's kind of strange. I hear these stories from other entrepreneurs about selling lemonade to their friends in fourth grade and buying bubblegum in bulk so they could then make a profit on it by selling it to their friends, and I didn't do any of that. This is why I'm excited to talk about my “why,” because the truth is, I'm not really an entrepreneur. I'm someone who is motivated to get a specific thing done in the world, and I've realized that building a business to accomplish that is the best way I can do it. I'm not one of those guys that stares at spreadsheets and obsesses about growth. Right, so for you the entrepreneurial journey is more of a means to an end as opposed to an end itself. Absolutely. That's a great insight. I'm extremely mission-driven, so I can't wait to kind of dive into that more. Great. Now, this is somewhat of a loaded question, but I have to ask it. You've got three startups that anyone would define as successful. I mean two got acquired. One is rocking, right? And one went down in flames. Yes. I don't know of an entrepreneur that doesn't have one of those stories, but what would you say? Which of those experiences helped you the most in getting clear on why you were put on the planet? I think the failure was the most transformative. I was born and raised in Colorado and actually started off in a very religious home. I'm not particularly religious now. My parents did a really good job of driving into me that people are the most important thing in the world, and serving people and making their lives better is the highest possible calling. I continue to believe that. People are people and stuff is stuff, and I try to keep that really clear. I have some nice stuff now, but it has nothing to do with what's good, or what's right, or what makes me happy. So I had this upbringing, and I actually thought I was going to be a pastor for a long time. Interesting. I thought, "I love people, I love helping people. Gosh, if I can serve people like that, that sounds really rewarding," so I was going down that path. I ended up studying computer science in college,

My guest today is Chelsea Moore. At age 22, Chelsea co-founded a company called BOXFOX with two of her friends. BOXFOX is a cool, personalized gifting service they launched with the mission of connecting people and creating stronger relationships through giving. It's a unique service that allows you to put together a perfect gift, for any occasion. Each BOXFOX box is then hand packed and sealed with a written note before it's shipped. She and her friends started this company when they saw a gap in the lifestyle and services space. They wanted to be able to deliver a higher quality gift and make it easy for people too. Listen To The Podcast: To date the company has delivered over 45,000 boxes to over 20 different countries around the world! I do want to talk about the company, but the big reason I wanted to have Chelsea on was to talk about the idea of pursuing a dream with your friends, because that sounds awesome. And sometimes it's the absolute right thing to do. But going after dreams with your friends is not always easy. So I want to talk to her about how they've done it and what tips she has for clarifying the dream together. Deciding on how to go after it together and then just as importantly, maybe even more importantly, how do you stay the course. Especially with the wild twists and turns that can come with any dream journey. So I'm excited to have this conversation, let's get to it. Chelsea, welcome to Dream Think Do. Thank you so much. Absolutely. So how do you describe BOXFOX? We are a gifting company that specializes in bringing personalized and custom gift boxes to people everywhere. And our claim to fame is our Build a BOXFOX platform that enables you to build your own custom gift and care packages that are specifically created from all the best brands. It’s all in one place, brought together for the specific recipient and the specific occasion. Anything from new moms to birthdays, to sympathy to get well, to just because, to congrats on your new job. The reasons are truly endless. We have taken that authenticity to scale with the corporate concierge B2B side of our business as well. We take the same care and detail oriented attention to detail for our corporate clients as well. That's cool. I have to say one of the great things about having a growing podcast is you get pitched by lots of different people. But we went and checked out your website and everybody was really impressed. You have a lot of different offerings but it just feels nice. It feels real like you said, it's a very personalized experience where you really can deliver something nicer than hey, sent you something through Amazon Prime. I love Amazon Prime but this is a different type of experience than that. How did it get started? What was the catalyst for the idea for you guys? I was about six months out of college in 2013 and a good friend of ours had been hospitalized. I was working crazy hours. I couldn't leave to go to five different of my favorite stores and the post office. I to put together something really thoughtful. I had the intention and the want and the need, but not the time. And so it sparked this idea – what do you do on those occasions when flowers don't cut it? Amazon Prime doesn't cut it. How do I put together a meaningful gift box or care package with the next level essentials that somebody actually would need in a specific situation? How do you physically be there for people when you can't actually go to them and be there? That’s what sparked the idea of Build a BOXFOX. Being able to use our platform to create these custom perfect, well presented gifts in high quality, nude or black gift boxes, topped with your note handwritten by our fulfillment team. Personal, as if you had done it yourself. We make it easier, streamlined with all the best brands available to you. We launched with prepacked offerings because some people do like to shop that way and just tru...

Let It Go! with Mitch Matthews Hello, there. Welcome to Dream Think Do. I hope you're doing fantastic no matter where you're at in the world. Welcome to Episode 177. We just keep heading right towards 200 episodes. It's crazy to think about. It's been an awesome journey so far and I’m super stoked about where we're headed. Listen To The Podcast:   Sign up to get your free "3 Buckets" download Your tool for overcoming worry   First Name * Email * Submit Recommended Books: Here's the list of books suggested by DREAM THINK DO-ers: John C Maxwell's: "Thinking for a Change." Henry Cloud: "Never Go Back." William Paul Young's: "The Shack." David Schwartz's: "The Magic of Thinking Big." David Millman's "Way of the Peaceful Warrior."     I'm not sure if you can tell, but we're really trying some new things. Trying to just continue to experiment and take things with DREAM THINK DO to the next level. And you, yes, you, are helping to do that, so thank you so much for that. In fact, this is a very special episode. I tried something different. We crowdsourced some great ideas for this one. That's right. We are going to talk about a really important subject. It's the subject of letting go, specifically around the subject of worry. I don't know if you deal with worry, if someone close to you deals with worry, but one of the strategies that has helped me involves letting go; letting go of worry. I put it out there to Dream Think Do-ers around the world, and maybe you participated just to say, "Hey, what works for you?" on the subject of letting it go. Because the idea of it is so nice, so powerful – but in practice, it's not always easy. So we're going to talk about that. How do you, in fact, let it go? And we're going to get specific with some strategies. I'm also going to share some quotes, some books, all sorts of good stuff that comes from you, the Dream Think Do-ers. So stand by for that. Let me give you a little background about why we're talking about letting go. Way back in Episode Two of Dream Think Do I talked about worry. Worry is just one of those things that if you're going to dream bigger, think better and do more in the world, do more of what you were put on the planet to do, you’ve got to let some stuff go. As we dream big, there's a good chance that worry, negative thinking, those things that keep us awake at night has been a factor. I can tell you, worry has shut down more dreams than just about anything else. Maybe you're not a worrier. If you're not, then continue to listen on behalf of somebody else in your life. But I'm guessing you can identify with being worried from time to time, especially when it comes to going after the big stuff, new stuff, stuff that's important to you, stuff that feels like you're supposed to do it, but you're not quite sure how it's going to work out. You know what I'm talking about? Back in episode two, I shared a strategy that a lot of you loved. It's something I called a "three-bucket strategy." It's something that was introduced to me by somebody in the audience of a talk that I was giving on the subject of – you guessed it – worry. During the break, this person came up to me and he was a big guy, a bit intimidating, to be honest. I found out later he was in the military, had definitely lived through some battles; literally and figuratively. He let me know early on in our conversation that he was a cancer survivor. I told him immediately, "My wife is a cancer survivor." Before I even realized what I was saying, I said, "Bring it in for a hug," which I think surprised him. He was so tall I felt like I was hugging his belt buckle for crying out loud. We talked through some of the strategies that I'd been sharing in my presentation, but then he said, "I've realized, especially with going through cancer, through going through the battle, through now leading a team - I just need three buckets."

My guest is my long-time friend, Susan Baroncini-Moe.  She is the author of the bestselling book, Business in Blue Jeans: How to Have a Successful Business on Your Own Terms in Your Own Style. Susan has worked with clients on four continents in a wide range of industries. She’s a sought-after strategist and has been featured on ABC, in Redbook magazine, USA Today, MSN, Yahoo Finance and I could go on and on. She is the host of 2Questions.TV, a YouTube show and podcast, where she interviews celebrities, best-selling authors as well as esteemed experts and entrepreneurs. Listen To The Podcast: She is a freakishly successful executive coach and business leader with over 16 years of experience. She’s a great encourager. You’re going to love her...and like I said...I’m excited to share this conversation with you because I know Susan will help you shift some of your perspectives — and — get out of your own way. You can go to suebmoe.com/mitch to find out more about Susan and get some goodies just for DREAM THINK DO-ers. So let's get to the INTERVIEW. Susan...welcome to DREAM THINK DO: Thanks for that great introduction, Mitch! As you know, Susan, we've got a lot of people that listen to DREAM THINK DO who are rocking it. A lot of them that are already leaders, entrepreneurs, and globe changers. But there's a lot of people that they've got this idea for a business or they want to launch their business. Susan, “Business in Blue Jeans” came out of some particular circumstances in your life. So tell us about that season of life. I mean, you've created this great business, but tell us about the season where you weren't doing things on your own terms. Yeah, we've never talked about this by the way. Thanks again for having me on your show. I have had a season in my life when I was not doing things on my own terms or in my own style. I think you know, that I studied sociology and social psychology at the University of Iowa. Right. Iowa ties! I actually paid my way through school by working in one of the tech labs and it was back when the Internet was new and I was really interested in, fascinated by it. So I learned at light speed and, and I just learned so much that I taught web design and development classes to faculty, staff, and students at the university. The university liked me and they liked what I was doing and so they recruited me. So my first job was in academia and really, I loved it there and I might have stayed there, but I got recruited by a magazine publishing house in Des Moines. They made me a really interesting offer and painted a really beautiful picture of what my future would be like. So I went there to help them take their printed content and turn it into salable digital content online back when doing that was new. Oh, yes indeed. Those world wide webs. Who knows whether it's going to work or not? Right! I liked the work that I did, but I found very quickly that the environment was “Intrapreneurial”, meaning entrepreneurs inside of a company. I came up with some really cool ideas that I loved and, and what would happen is I would come up with big ideas that would get taken out of my hands. So for example, I came up with this really great idea. Let's do some videos. And so my boss thought it was a great idea and he sent me to Chicago for some in-depth video training. When I came back from a training, I found out that this big player in the company had taken a special interest in my idea and decided his department was going to implement it… and I didn’t get to work on it.  And that bummed me out. And that kind of stuff happened a lot. And I also found that I would come home from work late in the evening and I felt like I was losing my life. And you know, I think this is a concept we get wrong a lot. Just we in general...humans...get it wrong and we have this idea that you go to work, you spend your day and then you come home and you have this ...

Well, hello, Dream, Think, Do-er! I have another interview in my Hero Series. That's right. We're doing a bit of a hero series. These are folks that I want to bring to you because they've been a hero to me in some shape, way, or form. Today is definitely the case. Listen To The Podcast: My guest today is John Michael Morgan. John is a tell-it-like-it-is business strategist who helps entrepreneurs and leaders with creating the beliefs and the behaviors they need to achieve their biggest goals and dreams. His website says that he's best known for his energy and passion, but since I've known John for almost a decade, I'd actually say that he's known for his wisdom, his heart, his ability to bring truth, and his rather intimidating but yet awesome beard. Look him up.  You'll see what I'm talking about. He is an in-demand speaker who is hilarious but, at the same time, he brings truth bombs and strategies that stick, so he's giving talks around the world. So put on your seat belts. This is going to be fun! He's a trusted friend of mine and a true wise mentor for me so, I wanted to bring him back to DREAM THINK DO.  That's right. It's his second appearance on "DTD", so let's get to it. John, welcome back, buddy. Thank you so much for having me, Mike. I'm excited. This is just fun. The whole reason I have a podcast is to get to talk with cool people.  We're almost at our 200th episode but you first were on DREAM THINK DO at episode 18. I mean it was just as the podcast was becoming an adult, turning 18, so, we're back at it. Yeah, I'm honored to be on twice. Kind of a long time in between, but… Well, I said, "Man, we'll bring you back and see if we can get it right this time." So, I do recommend to everyone, go back and listen to our initial conversation, which would be at MitchMatthews.com\018, episode 18. John, you do a lot of coaching and consulting with entrepreneurs and leaders, really high level stuff and I'm looking forward to really diving into some of the strategies you help people with. But I also really want to let dream, think, doers know your background. Because although now, you are all about creating the right beliefs and being intentional with your thinking, it hasn't always been that way for you. Give us a little picture of you as a youth. Have you always had the optimistic, intentional mindset, all of those things? I certainly did not. In fact, my youth was full of depression and anxiety and overcoming a lot of battles. But while I overcame them, what was left was damaged identity, a damaged self-esteem and things like that. So, even as a young adult, while I wasn't depressed or really experiencing anxiety in any of those things, I was also just drifting, just going through the motions, trying college, various professions. Just going through all of those kind of things and not ever actually saying, "What do I want and how do I get that?" Then when I started to get a sense of what I wanted, I was still getting in my own way. How I got to where I am today has been a lifelong journey of the more I grow and improve on the inside, the more all of my outer circumstances and situations also grow and improve. I always appreciate that you're really willing to be raw and authentic about that journey. So fast-forward a bit and you write a game changing book about branding, which was great of course. But your audiences, your coaching clients really started to demand more from the leadership stuff and the mindset stuff, because they were like, "Okay, your branding stuff's awesome, but I'm learning just as much, if not more, about how do I lead, how do I live, all of that." So, I wanted to have you back on, because last time we really talked a lot of branding. This time, I want to talk about, not just leadership, but leading yourself. Taking yourself and your career, all of it to the next level. What do you think? What are some of the things that get in the wa...

Last week I started a series where I'm putting the spotlight on some of my heroes: These are people that have inspired and helped me and I can't wait to introduce them to you. To continue the series today, we're going to talk about one of the biggest fears in the world: The fear of public speaking! Listen To The Podcast: We’re going after it with a long-time friend and a long-time hero, Felicia Slattery. Felicia is a award-winning professional speaker. She's works one-on-one with experts, entrepreneurs, CEOs, celebrities…  to help them to connect with people on a human level from the stage and from online, as well as, build relationships that last. Right from the start of my business, Felicia welcomed me as a peer and helped set me up for success.  She is someone you can listen to and count on. She’s the real deal. Whether you want to be a professional speaker or just be more effective in any speaking scenario, Felicia Slattery will share GREAT strategies that you can apply that will enable you to DREAM THINK DO. Felicia, welcome to "Dream.Think.Do." Wow. Thanks, Mitch. I'm so excited to be here. It's a long time coming. I want to back up. You're one of my heroes. I literally, I mean that. I think I've shared this story with you, but if not, you were the Emcee at one of the first events that I got to speak at as a professional speaker. Do you remember that years and years ago? It was like 400 years ago. I do remember that. It was fantastic. Yeah. Well, I don’t know if I’ve told you this story before, but my business was just getting started. We'd gone through some setbacks at the time as well. I remember checking in at the hotel hoping that no one from the conference was going to be there because I was a little worried about my credit card clearing! I was there. I was passionate about the message I was going to give it. It was a Big Dream Gathering, kind of at the first time we were ever really doing it in a conference setting. But there was that imposter syndrome thing creeping up on me, all of those fears, all those doubts of should I really be here? Should people really listen to me? Do I belong here? As you Emceed, you just controlled the room. Right from the start, you welcomed me as a peer. You set me up for so much success. You warmed that audience up. They were on the edge of their seats. We had a great time. Then the next day, you got up and you actually spoke about my talk and said, "Guys, listen. He's going places. You should listen to him.”  I'm getting a little misty as I tell this, but that message mattered to me so much. It spoke to my heart and that gave me juice for years to come. I just so appreciated how took control of the room. You cared about us. You set me up for success, but those comments you said the next day. It went deep in my heart. You're a long time hero of mine. Aw, you just gave me chills. I'm so happy. Honestly, that's one of the things that as a speaker, we just never know who we're impacting with our words. I had no way of knowing. I don't think you came up to me right afterwards. I don't know that you told me that then, but I'll tell you - Just hearing years later, for you to remember some seemingly just normal thing that I would say at an event because I'm boosting up the speakers. That's part of my job, but also, I don't say anything that I don't also believe. Of course, I meant every word, but it was like I barely would even remember saying that. But I do remember your presentation? Yes, because you were amazing. Thank you. I just want to tell you DREAM THINK DO-ers, this is a person you can listen to. You can probably already tell, she does an incredible job in front of an audience, speaks to thousands of people. She’s the real deal. I say all of that because I just want to jump right into her wisdom here. We're going to go after this. I know you work with all sorts of different types of folks.

Today I'm starting a series where I'm focusing on some of my heroes: People who may or may not be a household name, but they certainly deserve to be. These are people that have inspired me and I can't wait to introduce them to you. Listen To The Podcast: Today, we are talking with Ben Stein, an award-winning teacher and golf coach here in MY town… Des Moines, Iowa. Ben has been a social studies teacher for 16 years. He now teaches at the junior high he attended as a teenager. How cool is that? He has had a huge impact on countless young people, including my two boys. And that's one of the reasons why I wanted to have him on. Ben has an incredible talent for making history live. When he was their teacher, our boys would come home charged up because Mr. Stein had told a great story and got the class talking about it.  As a result, we’d have marathon dinner table conversation. When you look at our history, when you dig into stories of grit, of determination, of collaboration, of healing, of heart, of sticktoitiveness… we can know more of where we came from and who we are. Ben truly wants to help these kids to dream, to think, to do. So let's get to it. Mr. Stein, Ben Stein, welcome to Dream. Think. Do! Thank you for having me. You and I have been friends for years now, but there's a part of me that still wants to call you Mr. Stein, in homage of you being a teacher, and a great one at that. You are too kind. I’m teaching at the school where I grew up, so I have the problem that I still want to call some of my co-workers who were teachers I had by, “Mr., Ms or Mrs.” I love it. We're going to get to some specific stories from history because I think we need to know more about our history right now. Dream. Think Doers are from all around the world. We have listeners from all over Europe, all over Africa - everywhere. So I will say this is a little bit more tip of the hat to U.S. history, but I think these stories are inspiring because they speak to that human spirit.  To grit. We're going to get to that in just a second, but we're going to start with Ben’s story. Did you always want to be a social studies teacher? Is that what you wanted to do or is this something that you found? You know, originally I wanted to play golf. I found out very quickly that I wasn't good enough, so I got my degree in English and then - what do you do with a degree in English? I was going into education to become a teacher, and it was shortly after 9/11. I realized how important it is for us to know who we are. And, as my good friend Oprah tells me - you don't know where you're going unless you know where you are. And as I'm learning more and more of these stories from history, it inspires me to share that with my students, to let them know who they are as Americans and what that means to prepare for the future. That's awesome. One of the things I appreciate is the sort of Socratic method you use in teaching. My boys would come home and mention that you'd share a story but then say, ‘Tim, what do you think of this?’ You would get them talking.  Our boys were fired up because they were engaged. Well, you know, there's a quote in my room which is the theme for the class. It's by Mark Twain, and goes: “History doesn't repeat. It rhymes.” So I start off class with a two minute current event on anything going on and we'll discuss it. It's funny how we can relate that to the same things that were going on 200 years ago, only. It's slightly different. I think that engages the kids because when you're talking about the current events around the world today and then relay that back to the 1700s, I think that's easier for kids to understand. Yeah, absolutely. I'm with you. Let’s dig into it. What are three stories from history that all Americans should know but probably don't? What were some of the stories that come to mind for you? Well George Washington of course comes to mind. To me,