Sumit Paul-Choudhury shares that in his childhood he somewhat lost faith in mankind after starkly coming to the realization that not everyone is kind, good, and caring. Sumit went on to pursue science, technology, and the future. He became Editor-in-Chief of New Scientist, trained as an astrophysicist, and received a Sloan Fellowship in strategy and leadership from the London Business School. Then his wife died and on that day, he became an optimist. It was a life reset for him and optimism became his area of focus and research. Sumit has now written a book, The Bright Side: How Optimists Change the World, and How You Can Be One. I was raised in an optimistic home and while I side with optimism, I'm also sensitive to the concept of toxic positivity. So I sat down to hear Sumit's story and learn more about his research. He cites that in today's culture, it can feel "darkly glamorous to think it’s the end of the world. There is kind of a seduction to it." And yet his research shows that optimism simply breeds more opportunity for us. So he's using his research to help us understand what healthy optimism is and how to harness it consciously and healthfully. Find Sumit’s book, The Bright Side, anywhere, and connect with him at alternity.com

Failure is a popular topic in the self-improvement world, but I feel it's generally addressed like a motivational talk. Don't let failure get you down. It's part of life. It's not failing, it's trying. Which is why I was interested when I heard about Manu Kapur (Man-oo kapoor) work on failure, who is a professor at the same university where Einstein attended and then taught. Manu studies learning and growth from a scientific standpoint and actually developed the Theory of Productive Failure, which is the name of his new book. He approaches failure completely differently. Not as something to cope with as if it happens, but something to make sure happens. And without it we have less understanding. The point isn't really even failing, but understanding. Example. I have two kids with permits right now. These are the 6th and 7th kids I've taught to drive. We have the benefit of living out on forest roads, so they can start driving with a little more freedom. I don't tell them how to do everything. I give them the basics to get started, then they get going and...I try to stay silent. Let them look around and figure things out. I take them into a wet or snowy parking lot and have them turn till they slide. It's amazing how much better they drive when they figure out for themselves. Even them asking me instead of me telling them. This is some of the essence of Manu's research and findings. You're about to hear some paradigm shifting perspective on using and leveraging failure to help your mastery, and like me, I think it will make perfect sense to you.

I don’t normally gravitate towards people with the huge followings and big brand personalities. But I also like a good, down to earth story of personal evolution, and this is one I’m bringing back. A few years ago I got to have a long conversation with Chalene Johnson. We recorded a couple of shows and talked for hours longer about our sordid fitness and athletic journeys. Chalene literally holds a Guinness World Record for having starred in the most fitness videos. An odd title to me, and one she questions as well. It’s part of her story. She’s a billboard ad for being fit, trim, and sexy. And yet along the way to achieving this, she hurt herself, physically and mentally. She was selling an image and killing herself to maintain it. Today she is still leading women to looking good, but feeling good as well. And one of the reasons so many people connect to her is her openness about her journey. If she realizes she’s been wrong about something, she admits it. When she tries something that doesn’t work, she shares it. We talk through her story some and lead up to to her having a big health decline that included debilitating brain fog, mood swings, and chronic pain and injuries. This is what started her questioning of the diet and fitness industry she was helping promote. She taught herself to read scientific studies and wisely evaluate the research.

We all think we know what self-talk is. But I think we miss the gravity of it. I’m reminded of the joke where one fish asks another fish "how's the water?" The other fish replies, "what the heck is water?" We were never introduced to our own self-talk, it was there since the day we were conceived to varying degrees. We are not necessarily conscious of it. In this episode we expand on self-talk to help you conceptualize how it is your very perception of life. My guest is Marianne Renner. I’ve gotten to know Marianne well over the last year and she has a real story of not only changing her self-talk, but transforming herself in a way that she can’t really even recognize the person she used to be. She lost her mom at an early age and was left with a broken hearted father. She fell into addiction. She considered ending her life. Even tried. And then had one of those divine moments of clarity. To me it is akin to the fish all of the sudden realizing it was in water. Marianne has not just changed her life, she has changed the very essence of the person she is, and she’s thriving. She has a new book coming out, Self-Talk: 10 Stories You Tell Yourself That Hold You Back…And How to Overcome Them. On a personal side, one of Marianne’s mentors in her journey to remake herself and her life, was my father. Dan Miller. He encouraged her to write a book. She did, completing it right around the time my Dad died. She had him in mind to write the forward to her book. But in his absence, she asked me to carry on the legacy. I am incredibly honored to have written a heartfelt forward for Marianne’s book. I’m honored for multiple reasons, the top one being, I feel this is a message we all desperately need. If you’ll go to mariannerenner.com/selftalk, you can get the first three chapters of her book absolutely free.

Mentors. Chances are slim you have someone who really fills the role. These days people will tend to cite their favorite authors and philosophers and influences as their mentors. And to that degree, I’d say that almost everyone in my life “mentors” me, as I learn from everyone. But I really define a mentor as someone who literally knows you and is invested in helping guide you. We used to have this in families where we lived in a village and closely amongst family and friends. We had grandparents, aunts and uncles and even neighbors who were truly involved in our lives. Today, we are isolated. A few years ago I sat down with Ken Blanchard, famous business and personal leader. Ken authored The One Minute Manager which is a business classic and has sold more than 15 million copies. But this conversation wasn’t about management. It was about mentoring. Ken became the mentor for Claire Diaz-Ortiz, who is an author, speaker and innovation advisor who was an early employee at Twitter. She was named one of the 100 Most Creative People in Business by Fast Company and called “The Woman Who Got the Pope on Twitter.” Clair is an award-winning author of eight books that have been published in more than a dozen countries. But the story here is Ken became a mentor to Claire, and together they co-authored a book titled, One Minute Mentoring: How to Find and Work With a Mentor - and Why You’ll Benefit from Being One. Ken asked Claire to do this book with him because he not only personally mentors her, but she in turn mentors him in regards to the younger generation. It makes an incredibly valuable perspective on the need, value and opportunity of mentoring. I bring this back because at the age of 53, I found a true mentor in my life, and it has been transformational.

I grew up in the Christian church amongst celebrated Bible verses, such as, “Ask and ye shall receive,” “Knock and the door will be open to you,” and “Seek, and ye shall find.” These concepts and requests were to be aimed at God. Today we hear a lot about manifesting. This often gets friction from the religious crowd as it feels like credit is given to the individual and not God. In this episode today I have a conversation with Cathy Heller about it. We are not discussing, dissecting, or debating religion or doctrine, but really honing in on our expectations, a concept I’ve been researching again as of late. Can I have faith in God but suffer from not expecting good things to come my way? Can I not have faith in God but benefit because I do expect good things to come my way? And thus my title for this episode of asking, “Can Anything Overcome Our Expectations For Ourselves?” Cathy Heller is a renowned teacher, podcaster and author. She hosts a top spiritual podcast, Abundant Ever After. She is a practitioner of what she cites as the law of reception, and has a large following that includes a lot of the top psychologists I respect and have had here on the podcast. Her recent book is called, Abundant Ever After: Tools For Creating A Life Of Prosperity And Ease, and as I read it I just resonated with Cathy’s spirit and intrigued myself with her perspectives, so following is our discussion together. If you decide to buy her book, go to cathyheller.com/book and she has some of her courses she’ll give you for free.

Dr. Adam Dorsay is a licensed psychologist and an executive coach in Silicon Valley where he serves people who have achieved all the big trophies of the world; money, status, possessions, power, and some of them, fame. And yet they are coming to him for help. Why? After all these years, he’s written a book to culminate the primary problem he sees. Lack of true connection. We are all out there trying to win the world, and in the process, we neglect our soul. We neglect the primary thing that gives us true joy, happiness, and fulfillment. Connection. This may seem elementary but so are most of the great truths of life. Adam finds there are four key areas of connection that we are missing and it’s taking the joy out of everything else; connection with yourself, others, the world, and something greater. But you can’t just hear that list and fix things. You need to understand what connection really is and how to go about achieving it, because we are all lacking connection to varying degrees and we don’t understand why. Which is why I had Dr Adam Dorsay come onto the show. I wanted to know more for myself, and as you’re about to hear, discussing connect with Adam opened my eyes more, especially in regards to my connection with myself, which is the most common thread of all my research on the human condition. Adam’s book is called Super Psyched: Unleash the Power of the 4 Types of Connection and Live the Life You Love. He also has a podcast of the same name, Super Psyched, that you can check out. I invite you to join me as I talk with Dr Adam Dorsay about how we can better understand and achieve the greatest asset for our lives, connection.

Just over a year ago, my father died. I was 53. Thousands of people testified to his positive impact in their lives. Me included. And…the event helped me reveal some patterns I’d repeated, that were not constructive for my life. One of the stories I share in my book, What Drives You, is that of Lori Harder. Lori was raised in a very strict, religious family. She cites they were very sedentary and most of their family time out of church, existed on the couch watching TV and eating junk food. There were all very overweight and it led to her being significantly bullied in school. But then a visit to a friend’s home opened her eyes to a different world. One of an active and healthy lifestyle with very different engagements to the world. She ultimately became a fitness model and today leads a large organization leading people to pursue their more evolved self. So I’m bringing back our conversation from years ago, before I put her in my book, to hear her story. And how it led her to focus on our “tribes.” My focus is on the power of who we surround ourselves with. Are they influences that are helping us evolve, or devolve? And in today's culture, we’ve also got to watch out for isolation where we don’t really have a tribe any longer. You can find Lori Harder…anywhere. Just type it in as it sounds, L O R I.

That statement I would have not uttered in my past. I don’t align with blaming, accusing, making excuses, and giving any power to anyone but myself. But, I’m changing my tune, thanks to my guest today. If someone runs a red light and smashes into my car, breaking my leg, I am ok to blame them for my broken leg. And admitting I now have a broken leg and can’t go run the next day. It would be dumb to blame myself or to deny the car wreck and sit around perplexed as to why my leg is broken, or blame myself for what…driving through a green light? Recognizing what happened helps me keep myself sane. Then of course, the event is over. I have a broken leg. I was in a car crash. It’s solely up to me to deal with it. To try and heal the leg. To work through the wreck so I don’t have PTSD with driving. My expert guest on this issue is Mariel Buqué. Mariel is a PhD and a Columbia University–trained trauma-informed psychologist, and professor. She has appeared as an expert on Good Morning America and Today and many other outlets, and has offered wellness talks to corporations such as Google, Capital One, and Meta. She is originally from the Dominican Republic and currently lives in New Jersey. I caught up with her recently while she was in Trinidad, to talk about the message in her new book, Break the Cycle: A Guide to Healing Intergenerational Trauma. I feel this message is important and very useful for us all, because we all have things that happened to our ancestors that affect us.