Have You Exercised Your Brain Recently?

Rian has worked his way on up to working with some of the world’s leading experts on peak performance and flow including Keith Ferrazzi, Dr. Dan Siegel, and Steven Kotler, his partner at Flow Research Collective.

He is the Co-Founder & COO at the Flow Research Collective, a research and training institute focused on decoding the neuroscience of flow states and training leaders to achieve peak performance.

In this episode, we look at a variety of topics ranging from understanding Flow, attachment styles, importance of purpose and much more.

Robert Greene is a phenomenal writer who is loved by many and is considered to be one of the greatest writers of our time. Having authored books like the 48 Laws of Power and the Laws of Human Nature, Robert has spent the entirety of his life researching what makes people, society, and culture tick.

It was such an honor to have the opportunity to speak with Robert and we go in-depth on a myriad of topics from understanding what is true narcissism, how to increase self-awareness, and improve problem-solving. We also touch on his view of the future of society in general and briefly discuss his recent stroke which left him partially paralyzed.

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Today we’re interviewing somebody who is a world traveler and expert in flow states. He’s a writer and consultant and has even given a TedX talk on freestyling.

Besides designing his digital nomad lifestyle, he employs a variety of activities to get into a flow state, including slacklining, freestyle rapping, exercising, and meditating.

His name is Troy Erstling and he’s an extremely interesting and well-spoken guest.

In this episode, Troy shares his thoughts on flow state, how meditation makes you less distractible, resources for productivity, how to set up successful systems for the absence of friction, how to dial in and out of the flow state, and how to maintain the most important relationship in your life.

This is a deep dive episode on flow state, so get ready to get in the zone with us!

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Matt Clifford has helped accelerate the businesses of over 1000 entrepreneurs. He's the co-founder of Entrepreneur First, the world's leading technology talent investor. Entrepreneur First brings together extraordinary people to build startups from scratch in London, Singapore, Berlin, Hong Kong, Paris and Bangalore.

I really enjoyed this conversation about entrepreneurship, being a founder, and how to get started if you are feeling called to be an entrepreneur. We discuss the Mom test for business validity and how Reid Hoffman, the founder of LinkedIn, became a backer for Entrepreneur First. Matt and Entrepreneur First have helped fund over 100 companies including Magic Pony Technology which was acquired by twitter.

In this episode, Matt shares his thoughts on what it means to be an entrepreneur, the mindset of an entrepreneur, resources, and what it takes to become successful.

Today we’re interviewing somebody who is incredibly focused, driven and ambitious from an early age. He’s a polyglot who speaks 5 languages, and is on the top echelons of the Oracle marketing department, serving as a Digital Marketing Manager whose team supports an annual budget of $210M here. He has a significant influence in Oracle’s North America Marketing success, and it's in no small part due to his drive to succeed and get shit done.

Apart from delivering on a budget that is larger than the revenue of most of the world’s companies, he also launched his own unique startup called Univoice, which combines our love and taste for music with language learning, and hopes to make it easier for millions to pick up a new language at a much faster rate.

His name is Sami Halabi and he’s one of the smartest people I’ve had the pleasure of interviewing. He’s had a myriad of achievements in managing Sales & Marketing teams for companies that have gone on to have tremendous growth. His current team at Oracle is ranked as the top 1 of 8 most productive North American Software Sales Organizations.

In this episode, Sami shares his thoughts on marketing, managing a team of people, the science of language learning, what it means to be happy and productive, but most importantly, he offers some applicable advice on how to get out there, overcome mental hurdles, and grow at a rapid pace by expanding the size of your asks and your network.

This is a fast-paced episode without much breathing, and with tons of golden nuggets, so you might want to scale back your playback speed because there’s a ton to learn and digest from a very smart person.

Lidia Zylowska, M.D. is a board-certified psychiatrist and Associate Professor at UMN Department of Psychiatry where she leads the Mental Health Wellness Team.  Dr. Zylowska has expertise in integrative psychiatry, adult Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and mindfulness-based therapy.   Early in her career at UCLA, she conducted pioneering research in mindfulness and ADHD and helped establish the UCLA Mindful Awareness Research Center.   She is also the author of “The Mindfulness Prescription for Adult ADHD” book which was awarded the distinction of “2012 CHADD’s Most Innovative Program”.

In this interview, we detail the difference between meditation and mindfulness, ways to practice mindfulness if sitting still is challenging, whether ADHD drugs are necessary, and the origins of ADHD. Lidia shares some of her favorite resources for adult ADHD. Lidia also discusses mindfulness-based cognitive therapy, how to achieve a balance between acceptance and change, and ways we can check in with

What does it mean to build a startup as an entrepreneur? In this conversation with Brent Summers, we look at some of the challenges that you'll be faced within not only validating your idea, questions you need to be asking yourself, and how to build a startup as a non-technical person, should you have a founder or just manage contractors.

Brent founded and recently sold a company called Code-Free Startup, which is an online learning platform that teaches others how to build a startup using visual design tools like Bubble.is. Brent also has a website called launchingmyself.com and on that site he publishes a list of previous companies or products he's built and gives a case study on the success or failure of that. Brent took a concept from the online marketing world of building a personal brand and selling online courses, because in most cases once you put the course together, it'll continue to make money for you similar to Tim Ferris's  4-Hour Work-week concept.

Have you ever felt completely stuck in your routine? Today we chat with Kyle Pearce about finding flow in creativity and the benefits of getting out in nature.

Kyle Pearce is the founder of DIY Genius and an experiential learning designer, digital business educator and runs educational nature retreats.  Kyle spent the last 7 years building DIY Genius by sharing his passion for self-education and teaching online courses in passion-driven learning, flow psychology, and digital storytelling. He has worked in digital marketing and online education since 2009. He’s a full stack marketer, and when he’s not working, you’ll find him in the forests and mountains biking, skiing or hiking.

We discuss the best way to learn, making a transition to a new lifestyle and business, and how to find work that you truly enjoy.

In this episode of the MindHack podcast, you'll learn simple techniques to improve your memory that can be practiced at any time! Learn techniques from books like Remember It and Moonwalking with Einstein to help you remember letter and number combinations with memory palaces and other techniques. Nelson Dellis is a four-time USA memory champion and holds the world record for memorizing the most names (235) and words (256) in 15 minutes, as well as the most digits (907) in 30 minutes and remembering the most decks of playing cards (9.02 decks) in 30 minutes. Although Nelson seems like a Rainman, he's just an average Joe who has taken up a skill of memorization, a technique that dates back thousands of years. Nelson's book Remember It is extremely well written and even includes an intro written by Dr. Sanjay Gupta. Nelson has been featured on CNN, ABC, and many other places. He is the co-Founder of the Memory League, a free online community, and he has also made three attempts to summit Mt. Everest. This is an interesting conversation where we discuss how he discovered the world of memory and specific techniques you can start using instantly to improve your memory. Nelson even shares the story of how he once used his memory to cover the tab of a $600 restaurant bill. Truly anybody can drastically improve their ability to remember things with the right attitude and technique.

Michael Dash is the President and CEO of Parallel HR Solutions, Inc. His journey to hope follows a six-year lawsuit that’s now settled and the sale of his company he spent eleven years building. Michael knows his struggles are not unique to executives and entrepreneurs around the world. Michael has run addiction recovery programs for over five years now. He climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro and raised over $100K for LLS (Leukemia and Lymphoma Society) and traveled to Bali where he studied Flow Consciousness, meditation, and other practices to overcome past challenges. In this episode, Michael shares some of his favorite personal growth tools and how giving back and travel have had such an impact on his life. He leaves listeners with this advice, "The first step is always recognition that you have a problem or are on the verge of having a problem that is affecting how you show up in life and your health. The next step is curiosity, followed by action and connection. These steps can help us lead much more balanced and fulfilled lives."

Matt Wilson is the co-founder and CEO of under30experiences, recently ranked on the Forbes 5,000 list. In this episode, Cody and Matt discuss the importance of travel in getting outside of your daily habits, and mindfulness-based practices to calm and reduce stress.

Tiago Forte is a writer, speaker, teacher, and researcher dedicated to helping knowledge workers transform their productivity and thrive in the future of work. In this episode, we uncover what it means to be successful, how one can find an achiever's mindset and figure out what it is they are meant to do.

Seth is COO of Xylem Design in Fort Collins, CO. An amateur philosopher and writer of poetry, he's spent the past two years studying under Dan Beachy-Quick, poet and professor at CSU. In this episode we discuss the importance of Kaizen and Poetry––and the positive effects they can have on your life and business.

Nick Winter is the co-founder of the highly successful startup, CodeCombat, a free to use educational gaming company that teaches players the fundamentals of computer programming. He’s also the author of the book, The Motivation Hacker and conducted a series of experiments over 3-months time to create good habits, learn new skills and push himself to achieve more. In this incredible episode, we dig into goal-setting, creating new habits, dealing with burn-out and so much more!

My next guest is Paul Golding and is what I’d refer to as one of the smartest geeks in Silicon Valley. He holds 25 patents across a wide range of fields from cryptography to computational aesthetics. I had to google and they appear to be a subfield of artificial intelligence and its ability to express human creative expression in areas such as music, visual arts, poetry and more. He was also the Chief Scientist at Art.com where he helped to create a new form of art called the Klio, which in simple form was a TV that looked like an art piece which plays dynamic art that can evolve over time, Recently he’s been leading Blockchain and AI research for a leading fintech marketplace lender and was also recognized as an IEE Prize winner for his outstanding achievements in electronic engineering.

Malcolm Ocean is the creator of the Complice goal-oriented productivity system. He’s been experimenting with habit-change and productivity systems since high school and has tried everything from tiny behavioral tweaks to major mindset upgrades. His current main purpose is to make people be able to think and work effectively, as individuals and collectives. In this episode, we go over a whole host of topics covering We talk about Productivity, Goal Setting, Meditation, Bio-feedback, Heart-rate variability. Finding Flow, getting outside your comfort zone and so much more. This episode is jam-packed with helpful stuff.

Charles became an entrepreneur when he was only 4 years old and continued to hone his craft until today. In this episode, he will tell us the roller coaster ride he had to go through before he reached his own version of a successful life. He will convince you why failure is a good thing and that facing the challenges that will hurt you is always better.

Klyn was born with Cystic Fibrosis and Doctors didn’t give her more than 14 years to live. She’s now 30 and has beaten the odds time and time again. She is somebody who has pushed herself over and over, from becoming a fitness fanatic, Zumba instructor, public speaker, entrepreneur and businesswoman, all while still suffering from a genetic disease that requires extended hospital visits on a regular basis.

In this episode of the MindHack Podcast, Ashwin and I interview a guest who has a background in Behavioral Economics. This is admittedly one of the best conversations we’ve had so far in the process as we talk about the psychology of influencing people in positive ways. We also explore how to find meaning behind the work you do, staying humble and discussing how we often have self-limiting beliefs that prevent or stop us from really accomplishing what we’re capable of.

In this super interesting episode, Ashwin and Cody detail the life and story of Ali Mahvan, the CEO and Co-founder of Sharebert, an AI-powered shopping app who got his start shoveling horse shit on a ranch in Arizona. After being bullied as a child he found a passion in boxing, started a sportswear company, and ended up working with some of the most influential people in boxing, including Floyd Mayweather. We also talk journeys, life decision making, and some of our favorite books for entrepreneurs.

This episode uncovers the routines and habits of Liam Martin, co-founder, and CMO of TimeDoctor.com and Staff.com. He’s been working with remote employees over the past 10 years and in this episode, we dig down into the nitty-gritty of outsourcing and how to be more productive in an age that is cluttered with distractions. If you’ve ever dealt with managing or working with remote team members, you’ll want to listen to this one.