What's life like when you're married to a professional baseball player? During the season, when the team is at home, guys leave at 1PM and get home at 1AM; not exactly prime kid/family hours. When the team is on the road, it's for a couple weeks at a time in 3-4 cities. So what do you do? For Heather Zimmerman, the choice was simple: Pack the kids up and board the plane. What's it like dealing with angry fans on social media? How do you use your platform to help others? Did Heather like baseball before she met Ryan?

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The surfing industry is worth more than $10 billion. Boards, apparel and gear typically come from one of 4 main companies. Yet, there has not been a ton of innovation in surf boards for decades. Is there a better way? Can they be more environmentally friendly? Can the be less expensive, last longer, and be easier to use? The founder of Moda Surf Boards (https://modasurfboards.com/), (https://modasurfboards.com/),) Brenton Woo, joins us this week to discuss those issues, his process of going from idea to product, the barriers for entry into the market, and his Dr. Emmett Brown moment.

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This week, our guest is one of the stars of Boy Meets World, Rider Strong. He portrayed Shawn Hunter for all 158 episodes during the show's strong run. His character grew up as the show did, and Shawn went through some super dramatic things and the fact it worked is a credit to the cast, crew, creators, but mostly to Rider himself. He was terrific on everything from his naïveté at the start of the show, falling out of love with acting, and his very own Lindsay Lohan 'I'm not coming out of my trailer!' moment. Really down to earth guy which made for a wonderful conversation. You can check out his really unique book podcast 'Literary Disco': https://lithub.com/category/lithubradio/literary-disco/ (https://lithub.com/category/lithubradio/literary-disco/)

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Why do most restaurants fail? Why are profits and sustained success so hard to come by? When a restaurant group has a smash hit, everyone takes notice. Long Shot Hospitality (https://www.thesaltline.com/about/) (https://www.thesaltline.com/about/)) hit a home run with their spot, The Salt Line. Our guest, Jeremy Carman grew up in hospitality (his parents ran a BandB in Maine). Along with his partners, Paul Holder, Gavin Coleman, and chef Kyle Bailey, have one of the hottest spots in town. So now what? Pandemic happens and it changed their plans but this group is expanding to a 2nd Salt Line location and a brand new restaurant concept. Jeremy was very thoughtful about the lessons they have learned, growing up along with their spots, going from development to doors open as well as what he notices when he goes out to eat.

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From an unregulated oddity that pitted contrasting fighting styles to a $4 billion dollar deal for the UFC, combat sports have advanced at light speed. Our guest this week is host of Morning Kombat (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9Qy3sHrr5wil-rkYcmcNcw), (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9Qy3sHrr5wil-rkYcmcNcw),) and combat sports analyst for CBS Sports and Showtime, Luke Thomas. Quite simply, nobody knows more about MMA, the UFC, or any other sanctioned sport where people throw hands. We discuss everything from the pay-per-view model, the mainstream journey of MMA, its relationship to boxing, how the athletes are treated and more. Great conversation with a true expert in his field.

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What were you doing at 15 years old? If you were like us, you were consumed with sports, Star Wars, and the typical trappings of adolescence. Not so for our guest this week. Mahogany Young is the owner of The Green Things (http://www.thegreenthings.com/ (thegreenthings.com)). She seamlessly balances high school and running her own business. We discussed the challenges of meeting increasing customer demand, where her inspiration comes from, how she came up with the idea for an eco-friendly vegan candle company and a lot more. Mahogany's story made us feel great and we wanted to start off the new year with something super positive.

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Once a city is awarded an Olympic games, what steps must be taken to ensure that those games go off without a hitch? What's like to deal with the IOC? Are local or state governments and politics hindrances to progress? Brian LaFemina has had a long and successful career in sports with the NFL and Madison Square Garden. He is now the Chief Business Officer for the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics. How has the pandemic affected preparations? How is LA planning on utilizing existing infrastructure making anything new sustainable? Brian was terrific on all this and the dozens of challenges his team face as they get ready for the world's games in 2028. You can check out more at http://www.la28.org/ (la28.org)

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How do you transform dozens of school systems that have been underperforming? How do you engage teachers, school boards, politicians, parents and students to reform an education system in dire need of improvement? Our guest this week is John White, who's career has taken him all over the country dramatically improving eduction results everywhere he's been. As the Louisiana State Superintendent of Education for a decade, the turnaround was staggering. John left his post in March of 2020 and is now a visiting scholar at the University of Virginia’s Curry School of Education and Human Development. John gave terrific answers on our failure to prioritize students during this pandemic, his day 1 magic wand improvements, the role of teacher unions and a lot more.

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There has been a return to hand crafted goods in America. Consumers, in many cases now prefer individually made, small batch, farm to table and they appreciate craftsmanship in a way that our ancestors did. Small batch printing is no exception. Kyle Durrie is the owner of Power and Light Press (https://powerandlightpress.com/) (https://powerandlightpress.com/)) in New Mexico. Kyle uses her artistic talent, creativity, and skill to design and produce some unique and beautiful cards the old school way, just like if Johannes Gutenburg had a boutique card shop. How did Power and Light Press do to adapt to the pandemic? How do you combat the ease of going to CVS? Is Etsy a net positive or negative for the craft goods world?

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What's it like to audition? What's it like to put that audition on tape? How are actors and performing artists keeping busy without live events and productions? Our guest this week is talented actor, Danny Gavigan. Danny has performed all over the world on stage and screen. He gave some thoughtful and introspective answers about channeling some meaningful experiences in his life and using them in his characters, powerful live performances and how he makes someone else's words sound like his.

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