The Wellness Driven Life Show

Music is a universal language to Nick Hames, and he says it has never steered him wrong. Nick, a Boston-raised, Los Angeles-based singer, songwriter and guitarist who fronts the band HAMES, explains why there's a song for every emotion, why a crowd kept dancing straight from a Stevie Wonder cover into a deep, traumatic song he wrote, and why his new album, West Coast Wannabe, is the closure he needed four years after leaving Boston.

He watched Jimmy Page play guitar at three, started lessons at six, and still calls himself a bedroom guitar player playing to his mirror. He talks about why small-town crowds get up and dance while Los Angeles crowds watch, how Prince became his number one hero, what a jar of peanut butter he broke at six has to do with his first EP, the THEN and the NOW, and why a song can store a memory you revisit any time you hit play.

🎵 West Coast Wannabe, the new album from Nick Hames, out November 6: https://too.fm/8xwzr3k

▶️ Watch the full conversation on YouTube: https://youtu.be/0XOhlNgBK94

CHAPTERS

00:00 The song that opens somebody else

00:18 Welcome to The Wellness Driven Life Show

01:00 Meet Nick Hames

01:39 Music is the bridge to the soul

02:05 Growing up north of Boston

03:06 Watching Jimmy Page at three

03:56 A song for every emotion

04:32 Music is a universal language

05:24 Moving a crowd from a big stage

05:51 A bedroom guitar player in the mirror

07:12 Make people feel the way his heroes do

09:23 His dream guitar

09:49 The Hollywood Bowl, one day

10:33 Why audiences dance

11:13 How he builds a set list

11:50 Superstition, then a traumatic song

12:21 Why small towns dance more

13:03 A mountain bar in a town of 3,000

14:29 A word from Driven Livin'

15:34 The musicians who shaped him

16:06 Classic rock in his veins

16:53 Goo Goo Dolls and John Mayer

17:19 Prince, his number one hero

17:48 Inspired by songs, not bands

18:21 Giving the crowd what they came for

19:07 Pop songs with guitar solos

19:47 You sound like an artist I've never heard of

20:59 His first EP, the THEN and the NOW

21:25 A jar of peanut butter at six

22:10 West Coast Wannabe, out November 6

23:06 Missing home in LA

23:44 Closure for that chapter

24:10 A song as a time capsule

24:49 What therapy pieces together

25:37 Son, you'd be crazy not to

26:20 Where to see Nick live

WHAT YOU'LL TAKE AWAY

Why a crowd will keep dancing through a slow, heavy song once the energy is in the room

How a songwriter uses an album to close a chapter of his life and still keep it within reach

How one small moment from childhood, like a broken jar in a grocery aisle, can shape who you are as an adult

ABOUT NICK HAMES

Nick Hames is a singer, songwriter and guitarist, raised in Boston and based in Los Angeles. He fronts the band HAMES and writes his own music. His first EP, the THEN and the NOW, came out in 2024, and his new album, West Coast Wannabe, comes out November 6, 2026.

West Coast Wannabe · Instagram @nickhames · YouTube @NickHames

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PRODUCTION CREDITS

Hosted and executive produced by April Chavez.

Video production by Manlee J. Chavez.

Music by Steve Stuntz.

Guest agreements and disclaimer: drivenlivin.com/guest-agreements

Songwriting as therapy is how Julian Shah-Tayler turns betrayal and anger into music he can walk away from. Julian, a singer, songwriter and producer with a Golden Trailer Award for his work with Lana Del Rey on Disney's Maleficent, breaks down how Carl Jung's shadow work shapes his songs, why his first angry song ends with his 11-year-old daughter Phoebe singing "make it stop," and why he compares a finished song to the bowl Dumbledore pours his memories into.

He sang as a soloist chorister at Durham Cathedral Choir School from the age of seven and spent 10 years touring in Depeche Mode and David Bowie tribute bands. He explains what Carl Jung's shadow has to do with his albums Elysium and Honne Tatemae, why he tries to put Apollo and Dionysus into every song, how a DVD presented by David Lynch brought him to Transcendental Meditation, and what's inside Easy to Love, the Harmony Records set that ships with a free CD player.

▶️ Watch the full conversation on YouTube: https://youtu.be/T7MpQ0CZ5-M

CHAPTERS

00:00 Where the two selves meet

00:19 Welcome to The Wellness Driven Life Show

01:00 Meet Julian Shah-Tayler

02:18 A Durham Cathedral chorister at seven

02:57 Songwriting as self-therapy

03:47 Betrayal and Carl Jung's shadow

04:15 The first angry song he ever wrote

04:44 Why go into dark work?

04:55 Ten years in Depeche Mode and Bowie tribute bands

05:42 An emotive songwriter, not a narrative one

05:56 Why he doesn't write for everybody

06:26 Elysium and Honne Tatemae, one relationship

07:02 Coalescing pain into diamonds

07:23 Malicious Intent and a friend of 25 years

07:51 A song as a bowl for memories

09:46 Therapy without the therapist

10:10 Songs that came true

10:29 The self we show in public

11:23 Raw songs and poetry

12:24 Apollo and Dionysus

14:17 Easy to Love on Harmony Records

14:52 Easy, one of the first songs he wrote

15:23 David Chatfield and a free CD player

17:10 Make it stop: Phoebe on the record

18:21 It takes guts to be gentle and kind

19:41 The booklet and the liner notes

21:37 400 songs and an autobiography

23:03 His first songs, at 15

24:21 Social media and memory

25:17 Phoebe, his one constant on tour

26:49 How do we get present?

27:20 Transcendental Meditation

27:53 The Beatles, Radiohead and David Lynch

29:49 What TM feels like

30:43 Not a cult, a mechanism

31:17 What else keeps him present

32:54 Rejecting the shadow

33:35 His new single

34:36 A father and a performer

37:10 Why you should see him live

38:03 Bar Sinister and the dark wave crowd

39:26 Darker tones to make people love each other

40:00 Where to find Julian

40:54 A book of lyrics, someday

WHAT YOU'LL TAKE AWAY

Why a songwriter treats each finished song as a place to put a memory down, so he can step away from it for a while

What Carl Jung's shadow has to do with why dark songs reach people that bright pop songs miss

What changed when Julian handed the last line of his first angry song to his daughter

ABOUT JULIAN SHAH-TAYLER

Julian Shah-Tayler is a singer, songwriter and producer, born in Leeds, England, and based in Los Angeles. A classically trained pianist and former soloist chorister at Durham Cathedral, he won a Golden Trailer Award for his work with Lana Del Rey on Disney's Maleficent and has recorded with Mike Garson, Carmine Rojas and David J. His albums include Elysium and Honne Tatemae, and his latest release, Easy to Love, is out on Harmony Records.

julianshahtaylermusic.com · Instagram @julianshahtaylermusic

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PRODUCTION CREDITS

Hosted and executive produced by April Chavez.

Video production by Manlee J. Chavez.

Music by Steve Stuntz.

Guest agreements and disclaimer: drivenlivin.com/guest-agreements

Lynne McTaggart has spent twenty-five years gathering evidence that we are not separate. The Field made that case with physics, The Intention Experiment with thought, and The Power of Eight with groups. Her new book, The God Notes, makes it with sound, and she tells April why her answer to "are we made of sound?" is yes: "It's singing out there. Everything from ourselves to the cosmos."

She walks through the research behind the book: cells that make one sound when they're content and another when they're stressed, a psychologist who heard his own nervous system whining after an argument and calmed it with two tuning forks, plants that hear a caterpillar chewing on their leaves, and the Cambridge scientists who believe the sounds of black holes created galaxies. She also asks April to guess which music red blood cells like best. They both guess wrong.

▶️ Watch the full conversation on YouTube: https://youtu.be/mZHAXgA3oVs

CHAPTERS

00:00 Sound came first for galaxies

00:23 What if the universe is made of music?

02:02 Meet Lynne McTaggart

03:14 From investigative reporter to the nature of reality

04:24 The Field, The Intention Experiment and The Power of Eight

05:24 Are we made of sound?

06:32 Music is the bridge to the soul

07:40 We are vibrating packets of energy

08:48 Your cells make a sound

09:10 Your brain works like an orchestra

10:08 What outside sounds do to us

10:52 Guess which music red blood cells like best

12:12 The notes cancer cells don't like

13:25 Notes that send you into transcendence

14:14 Why a search for "best music" gets it wrong

16:10 Not "auditory cheesecake"

17:18 Wind turbines and sounds you can't hear

18:26 The Santa Ana winds

19:56 Choosing where to live by its sound

21:38 How to listen to your body

22:04 Two tuning forks, C and G

22:52 The nervous system that whined

24:56 Twenty seizures a day, then none

26:29 A sonic intergalactic superorganism

26:57 Plants have ears

27:38 Plants that pop like popcorn

28:45 The 1,000 hertz note

29:25 Growing food without pesticides

30:17 Smedley, the plant taking over April's bedroom

31:17 Putting out fires with sound

32:08 Black holes make a sound

33:12 In the beginning was the note

33:32 Not an evolutionary mistake

34:50 What Lynne is most excited about next

36:12 Her free God Notes webinar

36:29 Where to find Lynne

WHAT YOU'LL TAKE AWAY

Why two tuning forks, C and G, calmed a psychologist's rattled nervous system, and what he did with them next.

What Lynne says plants hear, and the 1,000 hertz note that helps crops grow and chases pests away.

What it would mean if sound came before light, and why Lynne says we were never a random accident.

THE GOD NOTES

Lynne's new book, The God Notes: How Sound Creates the World, is out October 20 from HarperOne. Buy it before November 7 and enter your proof of purchase on her site to join her free webinar, Transcending and Healing Through Sound and Through the God Notes.

lynnemctaggart.com/books/the-god-notes

Lynne is in Santa Monica on Sunday, November 15, and April will be in the room.

tcche.org/event/the-god-notes-2026

ABOUT LYNNE McTAGGART

Lynne McTaggart is an award-winning investigative journalist and the author of eight books, including The Field, The Intention Experiment, The Bond and The Power of Eight, published in some 30 languages. She is co-owner and editorial director of What Doctors Don't Tell You and the architect of the Intention Experiments, a web-based global laboratory. She lives in London.

lynnemctaggart.com · Instagram @lynnemctaggartofficial

Her first conversation with April, on The Power of Eight: youtu.be/lOA9hXDbrrQ

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PRODUCTION CREDITS

Hosted and executive produced by April Chavez.

Video production by Manlee J. Chavez.

Music by Steve Stuntz.

Guest agreements and disclaimer: drivenlivin.com/guest-agreements

Christy Uffelman has coached more than 12,000 leaders, and on the way into this conversation her inner critic still asked who she thought she was, on a podcast with April. Christy, founder and CEO of EDGE Leadership and author of Wayfinding, talks about self-trust, the critic she named Edith, and why she calls this work "less of a learning and more of a remembering."

Less than a year into her first sales manager job, at Bayer, she went down in flames. She explains why the skills that make an A-plus sales rep make a C-minus manager, why most adults are running ChatGPT on an operating system akin to Windows 98, and the work she is headed into next: peer groups for executives moving into retirement.

▶️ Watch the full conversation on YouTube: https://youtu.be/Hy8T7rftH6I

CHAPTERS

00:00 "Who do you think you are?"

00:18 The next chapter you come back to

01:21 Meet Christy Uffelman

03:37 "I challenge the status quo"

05:07 Her very first job, at 16

07:38 One of 50 coaches Brené Brown chose

09:57 Safety differs, bravery doesn't

11:14 From EQ to emotional agility

13:27 Feeling the shift around the fire

14:34 One look at Kevin

15:10 Emotions are stories about energy

16:46 What makes a belief a belief

18:45 Running ChatGPT on Windows 98

20:44 If you can hear the voice, you aren't the voice

21:19 Meet Edith, her inner critic

22:21 The quieter voice

24:45 Come back home to yourself

25:34 Life doesn't come with a GPS

26:20 True north is not a straight line

27:50 No one builds maps of new lands alone

28:34 The four points of the compass

30:10 Afraid to be judged on this podcast

31:52 Pilates and accountability partners

35:49 From Johnson & Johnson to Bayer

37:32 Down in flames as a sales manager

39:17 What's next for Christy

40:19 Not a line, a spiral

41:47 Where to find Christy

42:15 Find the nearest three-year-old

WHAT YOU'LL TAKE AWAY

What to do with an inner critic that isn't going anywhere, starting with the line Christy asks every leader to sit with.

Why life and leadership never hand you turn-by-turn directions, and what wayfinding asks of you instead.

Where to look for who you were before you became who you thought the world wanted you to be.

ABOUT CHRISTY UFFELMAN

Christy Uffelman is the founder and CEO of EDGE Leadership in Pittsburgh and a board-certified coach who has worked alongside more than 12,000 leaders over 20 years. She began her career in construction as the first woman on a general contractor's executive staff, and once taught a leadership session 800 feet underground in a coal mine. She is the author of The PEER Revolution and Wayfinding.

edgeleadershipsolutions.com · LinkedIn

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PRODUCTION CREDITS

Hosted and executive produced by April Chavez.

Video production by Manlee J. Chavez.

Music by Steve Stuntz.

Guest agreements and disclaimer: drivenlivin.com/guest-agreements

A spiritual awakening at 27 brought back the gift Regan Caruthers shut off at nine. Regan, author of the memoir Tragic Magic and founder of Aset Center, talks about childhood trauma, the morning she forgave the stepfather who had been violent toward her, and the daily practice she teaches for staying loving when something triggers you.

At nine she screamed for the visions to stop, and they did. Eighteen years later she woke at a national sales meeting to a luminous figure at the foot of her bed. The next morning she called home to tell her stepfather she forgave him, and he put the phone down to tell her a golden eagle had just landed on the crab apple tree in the backyard.

▶️ Watch the full conversation on YouTube: https://youtu.be/fmcvy-ic21w

CHAPTERS

00:00 The man on the fiery throne

00:19 What if sensitivity is a gift?

01:19 Meet Regan Caruthers

02:35 "My mother dated a king"

03:37 A school where three-year-olds meditated

04:07 Shutting it all down at age nine

04:38 The basement and the washing machine

05:46 He came back when she was 27

06:20 X-Men school and Jean Grey

08:30 A mother who never said she was wrong

09:50 "It's only you. I'm not afraid of you."

10:51 The phone call to her stepfather

11:27 A golden eagle and a red fox

12:44 Who was the man?

15:58 Why we're all here

16:22 Luke Skywalker and the dark portal

18:01 Start with your favorite ice cream

20:09 When the wounded parts run the show

20:54 The toddler who made her own sandwich

21:45 Organic food and no media

22:40 Remember a moment of profound love

23:20 Nature, bare feet and fresh water

24:54 The novel she's writing

27:44 Where to find Regan

WHAT YOU'LL TAKE AWAY

Why the wounded parts of you do the reacting, and what changes when you stop arguing with them.

Where to start if the only thing you can feel love for right now is your favorite ice cream.

A daily practice: a long spine, one remembered moment of love, nature, bare feet and fresh water.

ABOUT REGAN CARUTHERS

Regan Caruthers is a spiritual teacher, yoga teacher and the founder of Aset Center in Washington, Missouri. She taught HeartMath programs at the HeartMath Institute after a career as a Silicon Valley executive in educational software. Her memoir, Tragic Magic, came out in November 2024.

regancaruthers.com · Instagram @regancaruthers

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PRODUCTION CREDITS

Hosted and executive produced by April Chavez.

Video production by Manlee J. Chavez.

Music by Steve Stuntz.

Guest agreements and disclaimer: drivenlivin.com/guest-agreements

At 29, five months pregnant, Eileen M. Vélez-Vega was diagnosed with stage four Hodgkin lymphoma. She had chemotherapy while she was pregnant, and her daughter was born that December, healthy, with a lot of hair. Years later she became the first woman to lead Puerto Rico's Department of Transportation and Public Works in its 105 years.

She grew up in Sabana Grande writing letters to NASA and NOAA for posters, fundraised her way to Space Camp, and became the first engineer in her family. When the governor's office asked for her résumé in November 2020, she said no. Her husband told her she was ready, even though she did not feel ready. She tells us what four years of public scrutiny after Hurricanes Maria and Fiona required, why she chose honesty over looking like she knew everything, and why she always saves the cancer story for last.

▶️ Watch the full conversation on YouTube: https://youtu.be/HNE2Iv7Smy4

CHAPTERS

00:00 Chemo while pregnant

00:26 What if the hardest thing you ever rebuilt was yourself

01:36 Meet Eileen M. Vélez-Vega

02:56 Growing up in Sabana Grande

03:39 Letters to NASA and Space Camp

04:29 The first engineer in the family

05:22 The call from the governor's office

07:39 Diallo Wallace and the Space Camp Hall of Fame

09:49 Never underestimate your network

12:25 Saying yes before you feel ready

14:18 An aviation engineer at heart

15:09 Why she said no

16:55 The first, but not the last

17:36 The best and the worst job of her career

19:09 Leading through public and media resistance

20:27 Who is this girl

21:09 Listening in the field

22:12 Telling the public when the plan changes

23:45 What she is building now

24:45 Her daughter, and daring to dream

26:29 Where to find Eileen

27:01 The story she always tells last

28:13 The relapse and a stem cell transplant

29:16 Everything is different after cancer

31:15 Esther 4:14

31:38 Not perfect, but the life you were supposed to have

WHAT YOU'LL TAKE AWAY

A good leader cannot pretend to know it all, so she went to the experts, then to the field.

Say your aspiration out loud. She told a colleague she would be Secretary of Transportation, and that colleague made the call.

In your career, you can be replaced. With your family, you cannot."

ABOUT EILEEN M. VÉLEZ-VEGA

Eileen M. Vélez-Vega is a professional engineer and Strategic Infrastructure Director at Kimley-Horn Puerto Rico. From 2021 to 2024 she served as Puerto Rico's Secretary of Transportation and Public Works, the first woman to hold the post, leading recovery work after Hurricanes Maria and Fiona. An aviation engineer by training, she is a member of the Space Camp Hall of Fame class of 2024 and speaks to cancer patients, survivors, and caregivers about life after a stem cell transplant.

Eileen on LinkedIn

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PRODUCTION CREDITS

Hosted and executive produced by April Chavez.

Video production by Manlee J. Chavez.

Music by Steve Stuntz.

Guest agreements and disclaimer: drivenlivin.com/guest-agreements

What if your skin is telling you about more than your skin? Dr. Mimi Vega, PhD biochemist, former biotech executive, and founder of VGAM Biome, talks about the skin microbiome, the gut-skin connection, and how sleep, stress, and hormones show up on your skin.

She started as a teenager in the chemistry club, trying ingredient after ingredient on her own inflamed skin. Years later, working in oncology, she looked at her son's MRI and knew in an instant what it meant. He is doing well today. The questions that came after led her to the organisms living on our skin. She also talks about the three layers on the surface of your skin, the book she is finishing for early 2027, and why no product can make up for a bad night's sleep.

▶️ Watch the full conversation on YouTube: https://youtu.be/T2oIuuMlMbM

CHAPTERS

00:00 Your skin is telling you something

00:14 What if your skin isn't a problem to fix

01:20 Meet Dr. Mimi Vega

02:38 Asking the same question since childhood

05:12 A teenager in the chemistry club

06:20 Her mother's leukemia

08:43 The MRI

09:31 Discovering the skin microbiome

10:18 The largest organ

12:15 The three layers of your skin

13:47 Why she stopped building correctors

15:18 Your skin changes every day

17:05 A conversation with your skin

17:48 Emotions, autoimmunity, and a food journal

19:31 Science you can't apply is useless

22:02 Her book, coming in early 2027

24:54 Her morning routine

26:09 Breathing through perimenopause

27:11 Eating the rainbow across a week

28:15 You can't outsmart a bad night's sleep

30:34 Where to find Dr. Mimi

WHAT YOU'LL TAKE AWAY

Inflammation is local and also systemic, so your skin can be flagging something that has nothing to do with skin.

Perimenopause lasts about twenty years, and breathing is what helped her most.

Even the best formulation in the world will not make up for a bad night's sleep.

ABOUT DR. MIMI VEGA

Dr. Mireille "Mimi" Vega is a PhD biochemist and former biotech executive who worked across oncology and immunology before founding VGAM Biome in Canada. Her One Human Skin approach formulates for what every skin needs rather than for skin types. She has appeared on Dragons' Den, and her book comes out in early 2027.

SimpleScience.ca

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PRODUCTION CREDITS

Hosted and executive produced by April Chavez.

Video production by Manlee J. Chavez.

Music by Steve Stuntz.

Guest agreements and disclaimer: drivenlivin.com/guest-agreements

Women in engineering still get told they don't belong, and Dr. Kimberly Robinson heard it in her first year of college. She went on to spend 31 years at NASA as a propulsion engineer, astronaut trainer, and payload mission manager for Artemis I, then led the U.S. Space & Rocket Center as CEO. She talks about the astronaut who set her course at a high school awards ceremony, what it was like to train astronauts for their missions, and why nobody pictures themselves in a career until they meet someone doing it.

A NASA astronaut in a blue flight suit flew in on a T-38 to hand a Birmingham high school student an award, and that student decided on the spot what her life would be. She never caught the astronaut's name, and she spent years trying to find her so she could say thank you. She also talks about taking over the U.S. Space & Rocket Center when it could not promise to pay her salary, and what young people around the world are looking for when they picture a technical career: the next handhold, not the whole route up the mountain.

▶️ Watch the full conversation on YouTube: https://youtu.be/XFQgXbK226I

CHAPTERS

00:00 The astronaut who flew in on a T-38

00:20 What if one moment you didn't choose set your course

01:28 Meet Dr. Kimberly Robinson

03:51 Faith and belief in yourself

04:38 Prayer, meditation, and choosing the day

05:07 The award that changed everything

06:31 "Women shouldn't be in this field"

07:35 The astronaut dream that didn't happen

09:05 "Women of True Grit" and the grain of sand

11:06 The eyesight rule

12:14 "Now you've waited too long"

13:04 A missed dream doesn't make you a failure

14:26 Finding another route to the same vision

15:27 Don't define yourself by one title

18:11 Turning around to help others

19:30 "We may not be able to pay your salary"

21:06 Tuskegee Airmen, Victor Glover, and the look in kids' eyes

22:16 You can't see yourself in a career until you see someone doing it

24:03 Training astronauts

24:56 Looking for the next handhold

26:08 Years spent trying to say thank you

28:07 The moon landing was a human achievement

30:01 Where to find Kimberly

WHAT YOU'LL TAKE AWAY

One person in the right room can set the course of a whole career

Most people don't need the whole route up the mountain, just the next handhold.

Nobody pictures themselves in a career until they meet someone doing it.

ABOUT DR. KIMBERLY ROBINSON

Dr. Kimberly Robinson spent 31 years at NASA, starting at Marshall Space Flight Center as a propulsion engineer. She trained astronauts, helped develop the Space Launch System, and served as payload mission manager for Artemis I. She led the U.S. Space & Rocket Center as CEO from 2021 to 2025, and was inducted into the Alabama Engineering Hall of Fame in 2025.

Kimberly Robinson on LinkedIn

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PRODUCTION CREDITS

Hosted and executive produced by April Chavez.

Video production by Manlee J. Chavez.

Music by Steve Stuntz.

Guest agreements and disclaimer: drivenlivin.com/guest-agreements

AI overwhelm is the feeling that everyone else already figured this out. Eliot Prince, an AI coach and the founder of Prince AI Training, breaks down the one hour a day that changed his work, why human expertise matters more as AI becomes a commodity, and why nobody has a head start on you.

Eliot went from twelve-hour shifts in France to fitting five days of work into eight hours, and the method was slower and simpler than most people expect. He talks about the project that was going to fail, the wedding in Greece he was not going to be allowed to work through, and what he did with the hours once they came back.

▶️ Watch the full conversation on YouTube: https://youtu.be/_1XTPLBglZk

CHAPTERS

00:00 When everyone has AI, what is left

00:27 What does a person do with the hours once they come back

01:33 Meet Eliot Prince

03:28 Twelve-hour shifts in France and the laptop dream

05:17 The biggest project of his career, and a wedding in Greece

06:16 One hour a day, do or die

06:47 Five days of work in eight hours, without the exhaustion

08:51 Falling into teaching

10:04 The tap on the shoulder in the pub

13:55 Wrapping a warm blanket around the fear

15:58 AI as a mirror, and finding your zone of genius

17:52 Thinking with a framework, not just a prompt

20:53 Rehearsing the difficult conversation

21:41 Retirees writing their memoirs

24:52 Your expertise still matters

26:13 The only thing left is human

27:22 You are not behind

WHAT YOU'LL TAKE AWAY

One hour a day inside your working day is enough, and the payoff arrives slowly and then all at once.

When everyone has the same tools, your people become the advantage, so creativity and connection matter more.

AI can spot the patterns in your own work that the people around you are too close to see.

ABOUT ELIOT PRINCE

Eliot Prince is an AI coach and the founder of Prince AI Training, and he leads AI curriculum at The Uncommon Business. He teaches professionals to work with AI in a way that gives time back instead of filling it, through his YouTube channel, a newsletter of more than nine thousand readers, and live workshops. He lives in Cornwall in the southwest of the UK.

eliotprince.com

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PRODUCTION CREDITS

Hosted and executive produced by April Chavez.

Video production by Manlee J. Chavez.

Music by Steve Stuntz.

Guest agreements and disclaimer: drivenlivin.com/guest-agreements

Meditation does not require a quiet mind. Jeff Patterson, founder of The Yielding Warrior and Portland Tai Chi Academy, breaks down the five regulations of the meditative arts, the three pillars of yielding, and why getting distracted fifty times in twenty minutes is fifty repetitions of finding your way back to center.

Jeff has spent 37 years in the meditative and martial arts, 32 of them teaching. He tells the story of the two monks and the mud puddle, which is really about what we keep carrying, and he lands on the practice underneath it all: catching the first sign of imbalance before it gains momentum.

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EPISODE CHAPTERS

00:00 "You're still carrying her" — the two monks

00:54 What if the strongest thing you could do is stop pushing

02:48 Chopping wood, the first school, and the Marine Corps

03:40 The boxing coach who changed everything

05:10 "Isn't that for old people in the park?"

07:42 The five regulations of the meditative arts

08:12 Regulating the body, and what your posture is telling you

09:35 The myth of the quiet mind

10:21 Distracted fifty times, and why that is the practice

11:20 The mud puddle, told in full

12:26 Mental health, and what we choose to leave behind

14:39 Why the euphoric state is not the point

15:55 Yielding, broken into three pillars

16:47 Physical yielding, redirecting force instead of meeting it

17:34 Mental yielding, and the first sign of imbalance

18:54 Emotional yielding, the decision before the emotion

19:35 Why everyone yields, and why almost no one sees it

22:31 Six months in the basement, and the day it clicked

27:32 The free Yielding Warrior app

29:07 One year of consistency, and the cave you do not need

WHAT YOU'LL TAKE AWAY

🌀 Why yielding is redirecting force rather than giving in, and why it works in a conversation the same way it works in a push

🧘 The myth that meditation means a quiet mind, and why getting distracted fifty times in twenty minutes is fifty repetitions of finding your way back to center

🌿 What one year of consistency gives you, and why you do not have to retire to a cave to get it

ABOUT JEFF PATTERSON

Jeff Patterson is the founder of The Yielding Warrior and Portland Tai Chi Academy, where he has taught Tai Chi, Qigong, breathwork, and meditation for 32 years, with 37 years of his own practice behind it. He holds black belt equivalency across Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, Eskrima, Muay Thai, Kenpō, Tai Chi, and Qigong, and he is the author of "The Yielding Warrior."

Jeff's free app (reset practices, ritual practices, tracker, journal): https://app.theyieldingwarrior.com

https://theyieldingwarrior.com/

https://www.youtube.com/@TheYieldingWarrior

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PRODUCTION CREDITS

Hosted and executive produced by April Chavez.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/aprilmchavez/

Video production by Manlee J. Chavez.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/manleejchavez/

Music by Steve Stuntz.

https://www.youtube.com/@stevestuntz9303

The views expressed by guests on The Wellness Driven Life Show do not always reflect those of April Chavez or The Wellness Driven Life Show. For more details and a disclaimer, visit https://drivenlivin.com/guest-agreements.

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