Messy and Masterful

We are going to talk about the power of our brain today with an expert neurologist who has extensive knowledge as a Chiropractic brain specialist about how our brain adapts, how it grows, how it responds throughout our entire life. Dr. Michael Trayford has founded APEX Brain Centres, a clinic that offers extensive brain rehabilitation programs for people who are suffering from addiction or have suffered a traumatic impact on their brain because of an accident. We speak about the road to recovery, the agility of our thinking, the era of technology addiction and how different our brains evolve, one generation to another. It was a mind-blowing conversation with an extremely interesting guest. Hope you will enjoy pur 60th Episode! You can find more about Dr. Michael Trayford on his website: https://apexbraincenters.com Or through Instagram: @neurowellnessdoc

Happy Thursday all and welcome to our very first Audio Aficionado Episode. So different to our Messy & Masterful Interviews these conversations are all about the power of Audio and more particularly podcasting. We dive into other podcast programs together with people who are doing something great and also have been inspired by this mighty tool of the Gods of Audio. And today my guest is Drew Vernon, the creator of 2 podcasts himself, and an Audio Aficionado in the purest sense of the word. This undoubtedly loving husband and father of 3 is also a Marketing Director at Tonies which is an audio company that produces the Toniebox which are incredible devices that have the power to generate any story your kid wants to hear. Drew is a great guy, an inspiring Podcaster and just like us a devotee to improving the state of Education in this world - could not have asked for a better guest to launch our first Audio Aficionado interview with. Hope you will enjoy it!

Drew's podcast recommendation: Akimbo: A Podcast from Seth Godin

Drew and daughter Audrey's podcast: Childhood

Drew's podcast for tonies® called Tonie Time

It is so good to be back with our Podcast Program. A new series of episodes brought to you every week with also (as you might have noticed) a brand new name. So we took a short break from podcasting taking some time to work with a professional audio consultant to listen to our previously published conversations. We did this because we absolutely love bringing this program to you and we want it to only get better. Now in order to do this we felt it was good not to stay too long in an echo chamber, taking each other's advice as a production team but also to work with third parties to tell us how we could improve. The big takeaway was - papapapapa - they love it! Don't change too much other than maybe adopt a name that better represents the topics that we discuss. So we did just that.

Our production team came up with a list of 20 names that with the entire team at TeachPitch we shortlisted to 3 - we took those 3 names to our community and an overwhelming majority voted for the name: Messy and Masterful!! So here we are - welcome to a brand new episode of Messy and Masterful powered by TeachPitch. We are very happy you could make it!! And boy oh boy do we have a treat for you, because our new guest is one of the very best sommeliers in the world! A sommelier according to Wikipedia is a wine steward, is a trained and knowledgeable wine professional, normally working in fine restaurants, who specializes in all aspects of wine service as well as wine and food pairing. The role of the wine steward in fine dining today is much more specialized and informed than that of a "wine waiter." And I was so delighted to speak to Paz Levinson who was the best sommelier of the Americas in 2015 and became 4th globally in 2016. She is now traveling the world working as a sommelier for the world-famous chef Anne-Sophie Pic and her restaurants all over the world. Paz is absolutely lovely, modest and hardworking and it was a great pleasure talking to her about her challenges in making your mark on the map having one of the best pallets in the world. Cannot wait to hear what you think - please enjoy episode 58, Paz Levinson, The Sommelier! More information on Paz can be found on her website: http://pazlevinson.com

We live in an era of absolute information overload. I am sure you are aware but there is so much content to find out there.

Visually you have your pictures, videos, reels and images all over our social media. Audibly you have your audiobooks, Twitter Spaces or Clubhouse meetings and yes also Podcasts. Now when we started the TeachPitch Podcast little over 1 year ago we did it to highlight the hard work of people who have achieved great things in their own right. Now more than anything I was set on making it clear to our listeners that yes our guests have achieved great success but no this did not happen automatically. Each and everyone of my guests have been through hardships, challenges and needed to overcome huge obstacles to get where they are today. From the President to the Trauma Surgeon, from the CIA Spy to the Psychologist - the deep adversity rimed with their great accomplishment is everywhere. Now some of you might know that our Podcast is born out of a community of educators that wanted to realize change. And the change they all want to see is all focussed on improving the global state of education. Now if you were to go to TeachPitch.com and sign up you will see that we have curated loads of content (over quarter of a million resources to date) that we all brought together in a big online library - ready to use for educators who are keen to improve the situation in their community, classroom or school. I am happy to say that this library is being used by over 62,000 people from over 200 countries to date and it is for those people that we originally developed this program. Our community is very active and I was overjoyed to see that its members also started to help and train one another by creating tutorials and reviews on great educational content and technology they were using - leaving very useful manuals for their peers. Now to make a long story short - with our Podcast we want to extend our line of thinking not only on the platform but also in this show. This is why we are building a community of Audio Aficionados that will help us to review great Podcast shows, Episodes, hosts and guests out there. If you like to listen to Podcasts like I do, you are bound to have your favorites and I want to hear all about them. We want to know from you from the over 1 million of podcasts that are already out there which one we should listen to. We love it that you are listening to us but the last thing we want is to just be dropping content without being aware of the other great Podcast Episodes that are being made all over the world. So if you are listening to this and want our growing community to know more about your favorite podcast (or even the opposite - perhaps you hate a certain show and want the world to know as well) get in touch with us via our show notes or social media and together we can make an excellent Audio Aficionado Episode about it that will change this world forever! Very exciting!! In the next Audio Aficionado Episodes I will surely be talking about the shows that have inspired me. Some of them, I dare to say, have changed my entire outlook on life and I cannot wait to share it with you!

"The world starts with educated children." is the tagline of Room to Read, a globally active charitable organization that has made incredible strides to provide high quality access to millions of children in this world. Interviewing its co-founder and first generation CEO John J Wood to me was an absolute highlight as he has been a hero of mine for many years. So having the ability to speak to him directly for the 5th Episode of the TeachPitch Podcast was truly an honor literally a dream come true. John is an absolute whirlwind. I really admire his undying energy that he used to build Room to Read - and when you look at what John and his co-founders managed to accomplish in 21 years raising over $650 million dollars, helping over 32 million people just to mention a few stats you cannot do anything else than admire him. John has a great mantra which he has abbreviated into GSD (Getting Shit Done) and to me his goal getter mentality is contagious.

He has moved on from Room to Read and founded a new organization called U-Go work that I believe he combines with his job at Concentric Equity in the investment spheres. I have no doubt in my mind that John will make his new endeavours as a succes as he is one that advises others to "stay hungry, stay humble, keep setting big goals and work tirelessly towards those goals."

We are glamming it up today and we are taking you to Hollywood! In our continuous search for the world's most unique jobs and careers we surely found a diamond today as we had the great honor and pleasure to interview Kristan Serafino.

Now Kristan is a hairstylist and not just your regular one.

Throughout her 20 year career she has been responsible for the looks of actors like Matthew McConaughey, Robert Pattinson, Jake Gyllenhaal, Daniel Craig, Shawn Mendes, Ryan Reynolds, Hugh Jackman, Michael J Fox and the list just goes on and on.

Next to being a genius with coiffures (Kristan gave me a lot of good tips and tricks on how to never have a bad hair-day) she is also the most lovely and hard working person you have ever met.

She is continuously on the go advising people whether this is on TV programs like Good Morning America or working with people in her salon, that is if she is not on the road for a film project.

Kristan is now devoted to growing her hair wax company The Best Paste that is winning lots of awards and accolades at the moment and we talk about her stellar journey as hairstylist, CEO and amazing person in general.

Special call-out to Kristan's Chief Operating Officer Doug Church who we also mention in the interview! Doug you rock!

So without further ado let's get into a set of new challenges, beautiful hair, great styling tips & tricks and the great glitter and glam of the movie industry for Episode 56 with Kristan Serafino, the Hollywood Hairstylist.

More about Kristan's company'The Best Paste' can be found here: https://thebestpaste.com

Naza is a Philanthropist who with her organisation the SAGE Foundation, is doing some amazing work funding projects that focus on Education, Girl Empowerment and Environmental Preservation. She is an Iranian refugee who arrived in the United Kingdom at the age of 9 and has the highest belief in the power of education. What makes Naza stand out to me is her approach to philanthropy as a 'chipping in together model' partnering with lots of other organisations, rather than funding everything yourself. If you haven't already done so check out the site of the SAGE Foundation (sagefdn.org) where you can find some great informative videos on all the problems they tackle. Naza's take on things is to: Just Do It! The most important thing is to start and accept that you will make mistakes but if you stick with it and genuinely learn from your failures everything will turn out exactly as you envisioned it would be. Love it!! So without further ado here is to Notes to Nono 8 with Naza Alakija!

The next Episode is one for the deep thinkers among us. I really enjoyed this interview and definitely would like to have this guest come back to our show many more times as he has the talent, experience and words to make us all properly reflect. Dr. Michael Vlerick is a Philosopher. Currently affiliated with Tilburg University in the Netherlands as an Assistant Professor in Philosophy of Science. He is an excellent lecturer, speaker and thinker and authored two very interesting books. His most recent book is called 'Critical and Scientific Thinking: A Short Introduction' and the ebook version of this book is freely available to download for everyone who is keen to get their brain juices flowing. I really enjoyed talking to Michael as he is one of those people who can make very complex things and matters sound very easy. Whenever I speak to people like Michael I feel the world is in very good hands - because there are people who actually get it. We talk about the difference between thinking and critical thinking, writing books, meditation, 'Philosophy for Dummies' and how to achieve world peace. Just your regular podcast banter. So if you are interested in any of the above listen to this interview with Dr. Michael Vlerick - 'The Philosopher'. You can download Michael's book here: https://openpresstiu.pubpub.org/critical-scientific More about Michael can be found here: https://www.michaelvlerick.com

So conversations like the one I had with Jessica Posner-Odede are actually the reason that we came up with the Episode format of 'Notes to Nono' brought to you every Monday. It really opened my eyes to how inequitable our world is today for young women and girls all over the world. Jessica is the CEO of Girl Effect, an organisation that uses the power of media to unlock the power of girls. This organisation genuinely tries to help girls and puts them in the very center of the process to resolve a problem. And by problem I do not only mean the big, atrocious things such as girls not being allowed to go to school or being taken out of school because they are forced to marry at age 11. I am also referring to far more subtle things like how a lot of our technology is far more male focused than it is female focused or that a lot of provided health services out there claiming to help young women & girls are actually not working because they are not communicating or understanding the real problems at hand. Jessica does a far better job in explaining these problems summarised here in Notes to Nono but also in Episode 31 of Season 2. Have a listen and spread the word if you can so all girls will have the ability to negotiate for themselves everywhere in this world.

Another Thursday, another Episode and today we are taking you to an almost parallel universe of Decentralized Finance, Digital Assets, Crypto currencies and a lot of other Web 3 matters that for many among us is still an unknown. Now my next guest is someone who is working on being a bridge for those people who feel that all of this unclear, too intangible and frankly scary. He is what you call an NFT Influencer who goes by the name of Zeneca. His real name is Roy and he is the nicest guy you have ever met. Now Roy has been very successful in educating, informing, myth-busting and even comforting people who have the desire to further immerse themselves into the NFT world. He even founded his own educational platform called ZenAcademy where he teaches people the do's and don'ts of this rapidly evolving world. I genuinely enjoyed this interview as Zeneca was very open and upfront with me about his life, his successes but also his vices and failures. Really learned a lot from him not only as someone interested in what Web 3 has to bring, but also as a human being. So without further ado, please enjoy this interview with Zeneca.