I love interviewing coaches because it is literally their job to help people close the gap between where they are and where they want to be. 

Amanda Bielke is a life design coach who, as the title implies, helps people design an extraordinary life. In this episode, she talks about the most important aspects of designing a life you are in love with.

If you take her lessons to heart, you are bound to come out of this audio experience with an exercise or two you can do to get you closer to extraordinary.

Hit her up if you have any questions:

instagram: @amandabeilke

Go Live An Extraordinary Life.

Andy Nelson is a 2-time cancer survivor,  musician, a life coach, and a loving husband and father. Andy has been through a lot in life, yet his spirits remain high. When you talk to Andy, you are almost amazed at the joy, presence, and thoughtfulness he brings to each moment. This can explain why, even though he has had cancer twice, he does not complain about his experiences. He only talks about "the gifts of cancer" and what it taught him.

Going into this conversation I told Andy the main lesson I was trying to learn from him. I said, "Andy, how does one who has not experienced cancer experiencing the awakening that you did to the preciousness of life?" This was the basis for our entire conversation. I wanted to know how I, and all the listeners, could be hit with the "oh shit, life could end at any moment, I should do what I love now" sort of lesson. 

The interview went above and beyond my expectations - which were already high. Andy and I both were on the verge of tears at certain points of this conversation as we uncovered the most vulnerable moments of his experiences with cancer and life. We talked not only about his experiences, but about how everyone has their own version of cancer.

"We all have cancer." Everyone has their thing they are struggling with, is getting them down, and is the obstacle that keeps surfacing over and over again. Andy shows us we are presented with two options when life presents us with inevitable obstacles: we can suffer or we can learn. Andy shows us how to beautifully take the gifts that our struggles teach us and use them to live a more empowered and purpose-driven life.

This conversation truly has so many amazing lessons and stories. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. If you want to reach Andy, you can visit: www.thegiftsofcancer.com

Go Live An Extraordinary Life.

A lot of people know about the 1 for 1 model shoe company, TOMS SHOES, that Blake Mycoskie created. This is a mission driven business. In his book, Start Something that Matters, Blake talks about his views on life, business, and travel. Blake is not your tradition business man - I'm sure he would resonate more with the titles "world traveler" or "philanthropist". I describe him as a symbol for how we should go about living our lives and viewing our work. The title of the book says it all: Start Something That Matters. This episode is me touching on the highlights of the book.

Book: Start Something That Matters by Blake Mycoskie

Go Live An Extraordinary Life.

Brendon Burchard is a #1 New York Times best-selling author and "the world's leading high performance coach". His latest book, High Performance Habits, was a Wall Street Journal best-seller and named by Amazon as one of its top three best business and leadership books of 2017.

Brendon Burchard was raised in a small town in Montana and after a near death experience, he was awakened to 3 words that would be become the foundation for his life and his work: live, love, matter. With these three words in mind, Brendon driven to live these 3 words to the fullest. 

Brendon found his niche in online coaching. Because he started his career at a big consulting firm, he got a behind the scenes look into the lives or extremely successful CEO's, Presidents, and other high performers. He was curious what makes a high performer. His definition he provides in the book of some who is a high performer is someone who creates ever-increasing levels of both well-being and external success over the long run.

After 20 years of studying these people, he identified six habits that separates these people from the rest of the pack: seek clarity, generate energy, raise necessity, increase productivity, develop influence, and demonstrate courage. Within these six habits, he provides tools, guides, and examples for how we too can become high performers.

One tool he provides, and says is the key to life, is mastering transitions. As Brendon says, "our entire lives are transitions." We wake up, we go to week, we start work, we have a meeting, we have lunch, we start working again, we finish work, we go to the gym, we see our family, etc. Brendon says that we need to be able to transition to the next phase of our day with intention, and we need to be able to leave all the bad energy, emotion, and experiences of the last phase behind.

In this episode, I break down his simple method for mastering transitions, which allows him to always be on and ready to go for every part of his day.

As always, feel free to reach out to me about anything regarding self-discover, personal development, the science behind being human, and all things extraordinary!

instagram: @timbishop_

Go Live An Extraordinary Life.

Jess Lipman is the founder of The Mindfulnest, she has previously worked with #1 New York Times Best Selling Author Brendon Burchard, celebrity brain and memory optimization expert Jim Kwik, and is known in many regards to be the swiss army knife of the thought leadership industry.

Jess has experience in supporting 6 to 8 figure businesses, brands, start-ups and individuals with organizational growth, leadership coaching, marketing strategy and implementation, project management as well as product development. This doesn't even bring up her degree from the USC School of Cinematic Arts and her past life as a videographer.

Starting back in her college days, Jess was practicing mindfulness. As she grew, so did her practice. Jess's personal struggles, however, was a big catalyst for her launching her career as a mindfulness coach. She was a struggling addict, and she had reached a point in life where she was using drugs and alcohol as a quick fix to pain and suffering in her life. Overtime, her mindfulness practices only made her more aware that she needed to make a change. So, this is exactly what she did. 

Through going through her own mindfulness recovery programs, Jess became 100% sober, and she was on a mission to share the work of mindfulness with the world. Her mentor and teacher, Shinzen Young, the author of The Science of Enlightenment: How Meditation Works and the creator of Unified Mindfulness (his systematic approach to categorizing, adapting and teaching meditation), helped her unlock new aspects of her she didn't know existed.

She is now Level 2 certified as a Unified Mindfulness coach and, as mentioned in the beginning, is the founder of The Mindfulness. Jess states "as a mindfulness coach, I take my clients and communities through a mindfulness framework that ultimately supports them in increasing equanimity, concentration and sensory clarity."

Jess is offering an AMAZING FREE OFFER to 5 lucky listeners of this podcast. She is offering 5 FREE POWER SESSIONS where you can get a 1 on 1 mindfulness coaching session with her. Think about this opportunity you have. It's an opportunity to unleash a whole new you, to understand your brain on a deeper level, and to strengthen your mental health.

To get your FREE POWER SESSION WITH JESS, Click the link: www.themindfulnest.co/extraordinary

The Camino de Santiago, or in English known as the way of St. James, is a network of pilgrimages that all lead to the shrine of the apostle Saint James the Great in the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in Galicia in northwestern Spain, where tradition has it that the remains of the saint are buried. The most common route is about 500 miles, starting in Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port in southern France. The whole journey takes about 30 days, and it is known to be one of the most spiritual journeys someone can take.

Everyone has there own reasons for walking the camino. If you have ever seen the movie The Way with Martin Sheen, you will know what I am talking about. If you haven't, basically people will walk the camino to start a new chapter of life, to explore themselves and who they are, to connect closer with God and what their calling is in the world, and many more.

My reason was related to the transition point I was at in life. I had just graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and for 22 years, I was giving a path for doing life. Now, it was up to me to decide who I wanted to be, what I wanted to do, and why I wanted to do it. The thought of this was overwhelming, and while I was tackling the challenge head on, I also used graduation as the perfect excuse to go travel in Europe for a month - Ireland, Spain, Switzerland, and France - to get "find myself." 

While the majority of the trip was spent with friends, I had a gap in my plans were I wanted to be alone. I wanted to walk the Camino de Santiago. As much as I would have loved to walk the whole thing, I didn't have time. So, I decided I was going to do 100 miles - in 4 days! The trip for me was to give myself time to ask myself more spiritual questions and to identify my connections to the spiritual world.

On my journey, ironically enough, I met a 23 year old boy from Malaga, Spain named Santiago. Santiago and I spent the first hour of hour friendship speaking back and forth in each others languages - I would speak in Spanish and he would respond in English. I hadn't practiced Spanish since 3 years earlier - but I could still manage to get by.

This episode is about a very unique conversation I had with Santiago while walking together one afternoon. This conversation was something that, to this day, almost 10 months after, I still remember so vividly. It served as a strong reminder that we must have perspective on all events that occur in our life. This is the only way we will uncover the truth.

Enjoy this episode and enjoy my reflections on this life changing conversation while walking the Camino de Santiago.

Go Live An Extraordinary Life.

Andi Dickmeyer is a recent college graduate who is traveling the world for 1 year researching adventure therapy. Andi was one of a select few across the nation who was awarded a Thomas J. Watson Fellowship. 

"The Watson Fellowship is a rare window after college and pre-career to engage your deepest interest on a global scale. Fellows conceive original projects, execute them outside of the United States for one year and embrace the ensuing journey. They decide where to go, who to meet and when to change course."

Andi was selected for the program and chose the topic of adventure therapy. According to the almighty and powerful Google, adventure therapy is a mental health discipline that uses the natural environment to help individuals cope with and overcome cognitive, behavioral, social, and affective disorders. It is a way of connecting humans to their natural habitat as a way to cope with the mental health issues the world is facing today.

Andi is one of the millions of people on this earth, if not billions, who has had her own battle with mental health. The rates of anxiety, depression, suicide, loneliness, and things of these nature are at alarming high rates in society today. One of the reasons is that humans are living about as far from their natural human state as possible. We live in isolated homes, sit for 8 hours a day, and our focus is no longer on the base of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs such as food, water, shelther, sex, safety, and security. For an increasing number of humans, the things I just listed off are available to them, which leaves them asking "what's next?"

Adventure therapy is one potential solution to this feeling humans are having. It's a way of reconnecting humans to the root of who we are, and it's a way to send people down a journey of self-discovery and understanding.

Please enjoy this episode where Andi talks about her adventures around the world and what she was learned about adventure therapy. If you want to learn more about her experiences, you can visit her blog: andiwatsonyear.blogspot.com

Go Live An Extraordinary Life.

We all say we want to do things. A great example of this would be at the beginning of every year when we all make New Year's Resolutions. We say that we want to have better health, we want to be better friends, we want to finally start that business, or we want to find purpose in life.

Eventually, 90% of all people fail their new years resolutions. In fact, most people fail at most incremental change they try and make in their life. I believe this is the result of two big variables that are missing: commitment and structure. 

In my life, I had been considering how do change faster in my life and how can I really learn from the experiences I am having. One of my best friends reminded me of the book Flow: The Pyschology of Optimal Experience by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. Mihaly is one of the creators of Positive Psychology and how us humans can best experience life. My good buddy reminded me that in order to experience FLOW there must be structure.

This got me to thinking ... I thought about how I had been doing a lot of personal development, as well as building a business as a young entrepreneur, but I didn't have much structure behind it - if any. This is when I birthed the idea of personal challenges. I decided to create structure and commitment in my life by creating challenges, announcing them publicly, and holding myself accountable to them.

Starting the podcast was a way for me to force myself to learn more about myself, the science behind being humans, and to have intimate conversations with others.

My 100 day plant based challenge was a way for me to learn more about food, nutrition, the body, and how the standard american diet isn't going to get it done.

Now I am currently doing a 100 day social media content challenge, a mindfulness meditation challenge, a meet 1 new person a day challenge, and am looking to do more. By simply adding one challenge a time, eventually it becomes habitual. At this point, you can add in a new challenge.

This has been an incredible way for me to grow and learn at an exponential rate. Please enjoy this episode of me talking about how you too can set up personal challenges in your life by creating structure.

Go Live An Extraordinary Life.

Awaken the Giant Within is a #1 New York Times Bestseller selling millions of copies worldwide. The author, Tony Robbins, is not only a #1 New York Times Bestselling Author, but he is the #1 business and life strategist in the world. He is best known for his life-changing seminars he hosts around the world such as Unleash the Power Within and Date with Destiny - a seminar that has its own Netflix Documentary feature about it.

Tony Robbins grew up very poor, and the pain of this experience drove him to action. He did not want to have the environment he grew up in shape the rest of his life. He was made for more. Tony found a mentor Jim Rohn who is one of the greatest motivational speakers ever. Through being guided by Jim, Tony became obsessed with the question "What makes the difference in the quality of people's lives?" 

He has religiously sought out answers to these questions over the course of 40 years. This book contains a lot of the answers to this question. Tony realized early on that the power of the mind is infinite. Everything we do, believe, or feel starts with the mind. This book is all about how to take immediate control of your mental, emotion, physical, and financial destiny.

In this episode, I take the highlights of the 300+ pages of content and provide you with the best lessons that Tony has to offer. The biggest lesson of the whole book is that what we link pain and what we link pleasure to shape our decisions. Our decision shape our destiny. Therefore, to make immediate and actionable change in our lives we have to change what we link pain and pleasure to.

This process is called Neutralistic Programming (NLP) and is a main topic of conversation in this episode. Please enjoy this episode of me sharing the knowledge of one of the brightest minds this world has seen.

Go Live An Extraordinary Life.

Antonio Sundquist as a Founder, Investor, and Mental Health Advocate. His story begins in 1992 in Asuncion, Paraguay where he was given up for adoption and sent to the United States of America. More specifically, he was adopted by a family in Plymouth, Minnesota. His adoption fuels everything he does. It reminds him of his beginnings, it reminds him of what life could have been for him, and it reminds him that life is precious and there is no time to waste.

Raised in Minnesota by two parents who came from entrepreneurial families, Antonio quickly followed suit. He says, "I truly believe history has been shaped by bold and pioneering individuals who ignited a spark that ultimately inspired the products, goods, and services we have with us today. I want to be remembered as one of them." He has a tendency to reverse engineer life and ask himself "what is my end game?", and then work backwards from their. He is a true visionary who sees the world he wants to live in, and then, he creates it.

ACTIV, which he founded 3 years ago, is a company that partners with founders to scale products online. They focus on digital paid advertising, sales funnels, and business growth partnerships.

Let's Get Mental, which was launched at the start of 2020, is a mental-health focused event that, in partnership with the iconic brand Lululemon, Antonio created. This event brings people together to help normalize the conversation around mental health. As Antonio says, "Mental health needs a re-brand." Antonio truly believes that mental health should be viewed the same as physical health and nutritional health. We all have a brain, and we all have parts of our mental health we could work on. He predicts that the mental-health industry will soon too be a multi-billion dollar industry, and he wants to be a part of this movement.

The first time I met Antonio, he said to me "When you be your authentic self, it's possible some people might not like you. However, a lot of people will respect and admire you for being you. In a world of fake, we are craving authenticity and realness." This quote has stuck with me. Antonio lives this to the fullest. He embraces who he is, and he is constantly doing self-audits to get closer and closer to his authentic self.

In this incredible, living room style conversation, we talk about mental health, authenticity, data driven decision making, nutrition, self-audits, the challenges of entrepreneurs, and so much more. 

Enjoy this interview with Antonio, and if you want to learn more about him, you can visit: www.antoniosundquist.com

Go Live An Extraordinary Life.