My guest is TJ Anderson. He is a behavior change specialist, a health hacker, and founder of Elevate Your State, which is a growing community of health-conscious leaders online. TJ is dedicated to helping high-performance entrepreneurs, business professionals, and health-conscious leaders to merge the fundamentals of a healthy life with cutting-edge science and strategy, so you can stay on top of your health game. His new book, called The Art of Health Hacking, has been endorsed by people like J.J. Virgin and Bulletproof Coffee's own Dave Asprey. In short, he's killing it, and he's helping people to live better and healthier lives. Listen To The Podcast: RESOURCES: The Art of Health Hacking Book: https://amzn.to/2QhGWj0 Elevate Your State Website/Podcast: www.elevateyourstate.co Youthing Song on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVr1EZZ-gJQ Dry Farm Wines: http://www.dryfarmwines.com/elevateyourstate Healthy Holiday Recipe E-Book: https://drive.google.com/open?id=14zMwfBqEClBe2UQl2Yx4_EbP5kfvkjzJ INTERVIEW: TJ, welcome to DREAM THINK DO. Oh, Mitch, it's an honor and a pleasure to be here. Thanks for having me. Absolutely. This is just fun, man. I know you've been healthy since the day we met. Has that always been a thing for you? I don't know that we've ever talked about childhood stuff. Did you grow up being healthy, or was this later in life kind of thing for you? Good question. Well, everyone’s childhood is different, and I would say health is relative across the spectrum. I had a great childhood, but my personal, own desire and passion related to health improvement, health consciousness, et cetera, didn't really start until after college. That's when the fire ignited. After college, I realized how the unhealthy lifestyle I was living in college wasn't the best for me. I actually realized through my parents. My mom inspired me through creating my own meals. It really starts in the kitchen, how much nutrition impacts health. That was after college. Awesome. So some people have always just been geared toward healthy living. For others, it’s a major event in their life. Maybe somebody else close to them started to have health issues, or themselves started to have health issues. Yours was a little bit more gradual but, man, it's become a major focal point for your life, for your own life, but also helping people all over. Definitely. The inspiration really came for health right when it came for entrepreneurship, so the passion for both took off at the same time. At times, I would notice my parents running their own business, and how that could add a lot of stress on to one's shoulders if they don't navigate it in the best way. It's not easy. There's no playbook about how to be a healthy high performer. I used to be the health guy that was just all into health and fitness and looking good and feeling good. Then, when I went down the rabbit hole of what's possible for using our health as an asset in our life, with how well we're able to think clearly and have the energy necessary to work and perform at the top of our game, I've really started, through the book and in all my work, it's really connecting the dots between how our decisions, our habits, our behaviors impact our performance, both in the present moment, but also for the further, for longevity. Absolutely. Well, that's funny, because I remember it. Just as you're saying that I remember you had invited me to be a part of one of your first entrepreneurial groups, right? You were trying to help a bunch of entrepreneurs get healthy and stay healthy. I'll just never forget. I remember one of the interactions. One of the guys was sort of confessing, “I did this to try to get six-pack abs, but the thing that I'm actually benefiting from is clarity.” He said, “Yeah, I'm losing some weight. I'm feeling better, but,” he's like, “I had no idea the positive effects on my clarity of thought, my reduced anxiety,

My guest is New York Times bestselling author, Sara Bliss. Sara has written 11 books.  Everything from Hotel Chic at Home, to The Thoroughly Modern Married Girl. She's also co-authored books like Pretty Powerful and Beauty from the Inside Out  with wellness and beauty guru, Bobbi Brown, Sara has some great ideas flowing. Her most recent book is where we're going to focus today. It's called Take the Leap, and it comes out in a few weeks, but it's currently available for pre-order wherever you grab your books. In Take the Leap, Sara actually interviewed people who transformed their lives for the better. These are people who went from a "normal" career, to find or create something they loved. Listen To The Podcast: RESOURCES: Book Take the Leap: Click Here INTERVIEW: Sara, welcome to DREAM THINK DO. Thank you. I'm super fired up to be here. I love it. It's one of those where I love the title. What started you on the path to writing Take the Leap? I have written about so many different things, I mean everything from beauty, to travel, to health. But profiles have been the one consistent thing that I've done for almost 20 years. I noticed really early on that a lot of successful people had had these entirely different lives before they found their greatest success. I thought it was really fascinating because it basically tears through this myth that so many of us have, that all successful people somehow follow this linear path that they know what their passion is, or they start really young. Yeah, they were clear on it when they were five years old, right? Exactly. I think for those of us who don't feel that way or aren't on the path that they want to be on, it's super inspiring. I was a little bit lost in my own career, and kind of all over the place. I found these stories really comforting. I started collecting them. I would tell them to other people and everyone always had the same response, "Wait, I didn't know that. I didn't know that Carolina Herrera, the designer, didn’t start her business until she was 40." You know there are so many cool stories like that, and that's really where the idea came from. I love it. I couldn't agree more. I think as a purveyor of strategy, and I know you provide a lot of strategy in the book too, strategies are great, but I think people need more stories in strategy. Yes. Like if we have this story, then we'll figure out the strategy. I think that's what there needs to be more of in the world. That's why I was so excited about what you're doing with the book. Now, I see a title like Take the Leap, and I know the subject is all about getting that clarity and going for it. But one of the things I had to ask you is do you write this from the vantage point of always being a risk taker? Or, do you write this from the vantage point of maybe being risk-averse and having to learn how to take a leap like that? I am probably a little bit more of the latter. I'm a little bit of a homebody. I literally live on the same block that I grew up on. No kidding. That's amazing. That's awesome. At the same time, I ended up taking leaps in my career literally every week. That's how I've managed to stay afloat as a writer. I mean anyone who is a professional writer will tell you. The whole landscape of the job has shifted. When I started, it was not that hard to get a publishing deal if you were a well-regarded, not necessarily even famous, just you know, if you were a working writer. Now they really want you to have a huge platform behind you. What I used to get paid for a magazine article versus what I get paid now, those are like two very different numbers. So I had to really hustle and I developed this whole kind of branding side of my business where I did ghostwriting, or I'd consult with brands on everything from PR, I've launched websites for them, I help them with content. I wrote this books on hotels and have been covering tr...

INTRODUCTION: My DREAM THINK DO guest this week is Karen Wickre. Karen has been in leadership of a few companies you may have heard of. She was the Editorial Director of Twitter. Before that, she was with Google. She's a 30-year veteran of Silicon Valley and has been an advisor to multiple startups as well. She's a lifelong information seeker and serves on the boards of organizations like The International Center For Journalists, The News Literacy Project, and The Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. She's a proud introvert.  And as a result, she felt compelled to write a brand spanking new book called Taking The Work Out of Networking. It's a guide for anyone who wants to trade in the much-loathed and often abused common practices of networking and replace them with the valuable habits that can lead to better relationships, stronger connections, and kick butt networks. Karen has captured some innovative new ways for anyone, introverted or not, to embrace their true nature and create enduring, reliable, and critical connections. Listen To The Podcast: RESOURCE: Book Taking the Work out of Networking (Click here) INTERVIEW: Karen, welcome to DREAM THINK DO. Thank you so much, Mitch. I'm glad to be here. So… I get a sense that this book is one that you wrote that you wish you would have had at the beginning of your career. I think that's right. In fact, I kind of wrote it because I thought, "Why don't I just put down all the stuff I know since people are always asking me for introductions and career advice." I don't even have to be the only one who does this. Other people can do this, too. Yeah, it’s like you wrote the book to save yourself some time, like, "Just read the book. It's all in there." I love it. And it was an interesting exercise. How do you explain this stuff? So I tried to unpack it. You know, some method to the madness. I love it. So you write from introvert's perspective. I am also an introvert who's learned to do extroverted things, but when it comes to reenergizing, taking care of my inner introvert, there's a lot of alone time, lot of quiet time that's needed. Would you say that you have always kind of known you were introverted, understood that about you or is that something that's more of a newer revelation to you? HELPING INTROVERTS STAY ENERGIZED I think it's not super new to me now, but I think as a kid I thought of myself as shy and my friends would say, "Are you kidding me? You're not shy." Because I always had information, I always knew what was going on. In high school kids would say, "What's happening on Friday night?" And I would know because I was friends with all the kids. So I was like the information source. That was an early signal about this kind of thing, but I didn't want to be the center of attention, and I did hang back. I liked to be in the background. So that's always been true. Anyway, it took me a little while to divide off the stereotype of shy from what's an introvert. An introvert, as you just suggested, is someone who recharges and get their energy from alone time and quiet time as opposed the other end of the spectrum, the extrovert, give me another party. Yeah. Exactly. I'm going to get my 10 closest friends together and we're going to re-energize, which, to me, is not energizing. Yeah. Enough already. Right. That's really the young definition from the 20s that a lot has been built on. Now I've read a lot about this, thanks in part to Susan Cain, whose 2012 book Quiet really paved the way. We're all on a spectrum. It's not a sort of you're either this or that. Now I've done enough reading to tell you that you are probably like me, a social introvert, which is a different flavor, but along the spectrum. Exactly right. I love it. I do some speaking, especially on college campuses. Nothing against extroverts, but I actually think introverts tend to be better networkers, tend to be better connectors just for that point that y...

INTRODUCTION: Today, we are welcoming back my friend, Sonia Hunt. You maybe remember Sonia from way back in episode 60. Sonia is a digital media entrepreneur who has led a successful career in developing brands for global companies in the food and wine, entertainment, technology, and consumer electronic areas. She runs her own digital agency called, Noie Media. Sonia's been recognized by Fast Company as one of the most influential people in the internet, and tracker.com has named her as one of the most influential people in the healthy living sector. Sonia also spends a lot of her time focusing on helping people with severe food restrictions. You may remember from our earlier conversation that she is a foodie, but she also deals with over 30 allergies herself, and that has become a personal passion for helping people in this area. In fact, her mantra is to stay safe, live healthily, and eat well, and her Ted Talk on this subject has over a million views, so go check that out if you haven't. Listen To The Podcast: RESOURCES: Website: soniahunt.com INTERVIEW: Sonia, welcome back to DREAM THINK DO. Awesome. Thank you so much for having me. I'm always very grateful. Absolutely. Episode 60, so much has happened since then, holy cow. It's amazing. It’s been great to see your trajectory You've got a book coming out, and I can't wait to talk about that a little bit, but really I want to get into this subject. I know defining success has been really important for you because I know you've wanted to create this life that you want. Has that always been a priority to you?  How did this become important, or when did this become important for you? I would say it's always been important. There are probably times where I have lost track or sense of it, and kind of gone down the wrong avenue, I would say. I mean, my life I really feel has been just an evolution to get to the person that you see or hear before you today, which I think is really the best version of Sonia Hunt there's ever been. In the last one to two years has really been the best version, like all the way around, 360. Having two parents who were immigrants that came here, and their first two kids are daughters. My mom was very adamant about telling us daughters that she wanted us to be educated, and get our own jobs, and make our own money because you need to be able to take care of yourself. There's always a high bar, you know I come from Asian parents, who, you know it's all about math and science, and excelling in those areas, because they equate that with monetary freedom. Right? Sure. If you're a scientist, maybe you'll be a doctor, and you'll be super rich, and then you're awesome, you're set. Stuff like that. Ironically, my sister became a doctor, and I became an engineer. How about that? Yeah. It worked out. It kind of worked out. It’s interesting - obviously, our history plays a part in who we become. Our parents, obviously are a huge influence on who we become, but it sounds like that was foundational for you, that expectation that you're going to be successful. Exactly. The foundation was there. The expectation was set, for my sister and I, and then for my younger brother. My sister is even more successful than I am, you know, and in her own field, and so we truly took that to heart. But I would say the part that was always missing, I'll call it the spiritual side of success. I came to Silicon Valley right out of school, this year I can't even believe it, it's 20 years for me here in the Valley. Silicon Valley is definitely a place when at the time when that I came was during the dot com age, and everything was focused on building, and making more money, and making the company more money, and growing in title, and doing that all super rapidly. All of what I call that spiritual side was just lost. Success means you're rich, you're moving up the chain, you're getting to work at the greatest companies,