The Becoming Superhuman Podcast

Greetings, SuperFriends! Today we are joined by Cédric Waldburger. Cédric, to whom I was recently introduced by a very good friend, is originally a Swiss national, who today travels the world all year round and lives with only 64 things in his possession! Cédric is passionate about startups. and thus he is a serial entrepreneur, an investor, and a blockchain enthusiast. He is currently working on a number of different startups, including DFINITY, a venture-backed blockchain startup, and another one, that you are going to hear about, that I think is equally as interesting. Cédric has also co-founded a number of businesses around the world from Zurich, New York, Paris, Hong Kong, London, and Berlin, and he's held roles in the technology management side for the better part of 2 decades. He is all about growing business, but that's actually not what we spend the majority of the conversation talking about. What we talked about for 80% of the time was the level to which Cédric optimizes and deliberately thinks abo

Greetings, SuperFriends! Today we are joined by Susan Peirce Thompson, Ph.D., who is an Adjunct Associate Professor of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at the University of Rochester. But Susan is also better known for being an expert in the psychology of eating. She is the author of the New York Times bestselling book Bright Line Eating: The Science of Living Happy, Thin & Free, she is president of the Institute for Sustainable Weight Loss, and the founder and CEO of Bright Line Eating Solutions. This is a lot of stuff. Susan and I had an incredible conversation about some of the cutting-edge research that she’s been doing. We also talked about her past experiences, dealing with drug addiction and then dealing with obesity. We talked about the psychology and the neuroscience behind the food that we eat and the not-so-food that we eat, and how it is setting so many people up for failure. And then we talked about some other very interesting things. I definitely learned some stuff that I’m going to apply in my

Greetings, SuperFriends! Today we are joined by one of my personal heroes, someone whose work I've admired for years, and someone who has really shaped my thinking on a lot of different topics, ranging from A.I., Elon Musk, and electric cars, to the history of the universe and space travel. You are probably wondering who that guy is, that writes about so many different things. Well, his name is Tim Urban, and he is the creator and writer/illustrator of Wait But Why, where he writes very in-depth posts on a wide range of topics from procrastination to A.I. It's really an incredible blog. You probably know Tim because of some of his mega-viral posts, like his post on why Generation Y is unhappy, or his Ted Talk on procrastination. But, you might have recently learned about him because he actually got the opportunity to hang out with one of his most famous readers, Elon Musk. Tim spent time following Elon around, just learning about everything that he could through him, and then creating posts out of it. So, he

Greetings, SuperFriends! Today we are joined by Brad Lambert. Brad is a Hollywood movie producer. You've probably seen some of his work if you've seen any of the stuff that Warner Brothers or Robert Downie Jr. have been doing recently. Brad has a very interesting story that we're gonna get into in today's show. He started his career at 16 years old, today he is only 29, and yet somehow he has managed to work his way into the inner circles of some of the world's top athletes, brands, actors, and actresses. I wanted to understand how. You folks know that I'm so interested in relationships and how to actually build strong and authentic ones. I really think it is one of the SuperHuman skills that has put me where I am today, and I'm not even that good at it. So, when I meet someone like Keith Ferrazzi or Brad Lambert, who are able to build these incredible powerful relationships from a place of authenticity, I immediately want to know how they do it. I want to know what their tricks and secrets are, and how they

Greetings, SuperFriends! Today we are joined by a superstar named Danielle LaPorte. She's the author of 3 non-fiction books, including her newest one, White Hot Truth. Danielle is one of Oprah Winfrey's' Super Soul 100 leaders, and she also is a very popular blogger and thought leader. She has a Top 10 iTunes app, one of her books has been translated into 8 languages... I can't really keep up with her bio. Danielle is amazing and you guys are going to see/hear that. In this episode, we talked both about stuff that we haven't covered on this show before and about a lot of stuff that we have covered, but not in the same way. The stuff that is new has to do with gender dynamics and what we as men can do to avoid a lot of 'bad practices', like being patronizing, and also what you women can do, and where that boundary is for speaking up for yourself, creating boundaries, and healthy defense. We also talk a lot about very interesting things, like psychedelics, business leadership and much more. I'm going to make yo

Greetings, SuperFriends! Today we are joined by Jeff Emmerson. He is a new author who recently entered the self-help space and his book is called Beyond ADHD: Overcoming the Label and Thriving. Now, you guys maybe know that I've been diagnosed with ADD, rather, informally, under-the-table diagnosed with ADD. We get into that a little bit in the episode. We also talk about this whole culture of diagnosing kids with ADD. Do they all really have ADD to such a large percentage of the population, or is other stuff going on? In the episode, we talk about Jeff's own personal journey through depression. He gets very personal, which I always appreciate. He shares a lot of really hard stuff that he went through and ultimately talks about some of the things that he is doing and helps others do to manage and overcome this diagnosis, this black mark, that so many people carry around. It's a great episode and I think you guys are really going enjoy it!

Greetings, SuperFriends! Today we are joined, once again, by my SuperFriend Ms. Amy Smith, The Joy Junkie. In our last episode, we talked a lot about communication, and how learning to communicate properly will unlock SuperHuman levels of efficiency, happiness, and satisfaction in your life. That has proven to be so true for me, in my life and in my relationship. Thus, I wanted to catch up with Amy. I didn't really have any new reason to have her back on the show besides the fact that I love her perspective, I love her energy and, of course, that you guys really enjoyed our previous episode. So we hopped in, we started chatting and I think an amazing episode came out of it. We talked about goal setting, we talked about relationships and some of the difficult challenges that people get stuck on in relationships. We talked about compassion for the self and then we talked about something that I think is perhaps more important than all of that. At least it has been in my experience, and that is making peace with

Greetings, SuperFriends! This is an episode that is worth many, many listens. Personally, I am going to listen to it way more than I normally listen to our own episodes, which is 2-4 times already. Why, you ask? Well, do you guys remember how in 2016 we won Product Hunt's best podcast episode of the year? We got a Golden Kitty award, which is kind of a really cool thing. And we did it because we had today's guest on the show. That's right. We have David Heinemeier Hansson back on the show! For those of you who haven't heard that episode, stop what you are doing, go back and listen to it. David is the epitome of what we call a SuperLearner. He invented the Ruby on Rails software development platform, which is used by companies like Fiverr, YellowPages, Shopify, and Github. Many of the websites that you use every day were built on technology that David himself invented. On top of that, he is the co-founder of Basecamp, which he's been running for almost 20 years. To top even that off, he is an accomplished prof

Greetings, SuperFriends! In today's episode, I want to tell you about a very different experience that I had, where I was able to find my way into a room of 50 SuperHumans at the same time. 50 people I admire. This is an essay I wrote about getting yourself into the right room and surrounding yourself with people who inspire and motivate you. The biggest part of this post talks about the specific group that I was with, but I want to encourage you guys to think while you're listening about the types of people that you want to surround yourself with and what you could stand to gain from doing so. So, without any further ado, let me present you the power of being in the right room, even if it costs you $25k!    

Greetings, SuperFriends! Today we are joined by the amazing Sunny Lenarduzzi, who, to be honest, I don't think I could have gotten this interview with if we weren't already friends since years before. Sunny has almost a decade of experience as an award-winning video, social media and online business strategist. From tech start up’s to authors, you've probably seen her working with HootSuite, with Lewis Howes, with Gary Vee, and you've also seen her do amazing and incredible campaigns, such as one she did with Applebee's that had a billion impressions in one day! Sunny is the creator of Youtube for Bosses, and also teaches all kinds of amazing courses online. You may have seen her speak at NATO's headquarters, and you can also find all kinds of amazing stuff from her in Entrepreneur, Forbes and the Huffington Post. She is also on Youtube, and has been awarded 'Best in Social Media' in western Canada. Enough about the brag reel. Sunny is an amazing human being and an amazing entrepreneur. The reason I wanted to

Greetings, SuperFriends! Welcome to a special episode of the Becoming SuperHuman podcast. I'm calling this episode special because it's a little bit of a different format, once again. If you guys liked the episode where I focused in and explored a specific skill, did a spotlight if you will, then you will really love this episode. The goal of this episode is to spotlight the life of a real-world SuperLearner.  To try and understand what they did, how they did it, what the results were, and what kind of amazing life were they able to lead because of their incredible learning ability. We get to start out with a SuperLearner that you may have never heard of, but I'm not gonna tell you just yet who it is. I want to know what you guys think of this episode because I so enjoyed reading the books by this individual, exploring their life and just being inspired by what they were able to accomplish. I hope you guys enjoy it! If you guys do and if you guys want me to do more spotlights like this, I have to say they tak

Greetings, SuperFriends! Today we are joined by a guest that we've had a lot of requests for, and finally were introduced to thanks to one of our students. It is Jerzy Gregorek. You guys have probably heard about Jerzy, as he is in Tim Ferriss's latest book, as well as in one of the longest and most popular episodes of The Tim Ferriss Show. But, that is not his biggest claim to fame at all. In fact, Jerzy is the creator and founder of the UCLA Weightlifting Team, he is a 4-time champion Olympic Weightlifter, and he still has a world record that has been standing for 17 years, which nobody has been able to beat. Jerzy immigrated from Poland to the United States together with his wife, Aniela, in 1986, as a political refugee and rose through the ranks of being a trainer and mentor to people, for over 30 years. He went on to develop the Happy Body Program, which is a fitness regime and routine that you follow every single day. It is designed to improve upon the issue of fitness and help people create bodies that

Greetings, SuperFriends! In a recent episode, I went on a full-on rant about writing, why it is such an important skill and how it can dramatically impact your life and change the way you think. Well, today we are joined by a real-world example. His name is Benjamin Hardy, and, on the outside, he is an everyday Ph.D. student working his way through a Ph.D. in organizational psychology. But, if you dig a little bit deeper, you will realize that Benjamin is actually the number 1 writer in Medium.com, which, through a crazy series of events, ended up landing him in Fortune, Forbes, Entrepreneur, Fast Company, Business Insider, Psychology Today, and more. It also landed him a quarter-of-a-million-dollars book deal, and that is just the start of what his writing has done for him. So, in this episode, we talk not only about his psychology research, and some of the things that he has discovered, but we also go into willpower, and why, as his book says, Willpower Doesn't Work. We start to understand why it is that we

Greetings, SuperFriends! Today is a special episode, as I don't have a guest. Instead, I wanted to focus on a specific topic of SuperHuman performance, a specific little skill that I think people in today's day and age neglect. I started writing and what happened was pretty amazing. I ended up coming up with a whole new idea, a whole new category and class of skills that I articulate throughout this essay. A category of skills that I've always kind of known about in the back of my head but never put in words. In a way, it kind of proves my point on what I talk about today. That is the concept that, if you go through this process, if you practice this type of skill, you have so many dividends and so much interest that gets paid out of it. So I hope you guys really enjoy it. Generally speaking, you guys tend to love these non-interviews where I rant on about a given topic. So if you do like it, please let us know with a comment or a review. Alright, here is my essay on why writing is an exceptional skill, or ev

Greetings, SuperFriends! Today we are joined by Dr. Michael Greger. Michael is a New York Times best-selling author, a physician, an internationally recognized professional speaker, and, well, a really interesting dude, as you will find out. He has appeared on The Colbert Report, The Dr. Oz Show and was an expert witness for Oprah Winfrey at the infamous "meat defamation" trial. Another interesting fun fact that I learned as I researched Dr. Greger is that he donates all the speaking fees and proceeds from his books and DVDs, which I just think is really amazing and worth noting. You've probably heard of some of his books including How Not To Die and Carbophobia: The Scary Truth About America's Low-carb Craze. You can probably tell just from that title that he and I disagreed about a few things. We also agreed about a lot of things. Which ones? Well, listen to find out. In the episode, we talk about fruit, about nutrition, about legumes, which is an interesting topic, and we also talk about animal protein. We

Greetings, SuperFriends! This week we are going to dive into a rather controversial topic, one that people have brought up to me for years. That is, is speed reading a hoax, or is it the real deal? You know, over the last few years that I've been teaching accelerated learning a lot of people have sent me many articles either proving or disproving speed reading. Therefore, what I wanted to do was sit down and look at one of the most prominent studies disproving it, which is an evaluation of many other studies, and also share some studies proving it. Now, probably the most surprising thing through this whole exercise and analysis was that I probably agree with 70% t0 80% of what the research has found and you will see exactly why as I explain through the entire episode. You will listen to a lot of surprising things and a few surprising ones. I encourage you guys to challenge me and my assumptions, to share what you guys think and also to think critically about what I have to say. I think you guys are really goi

Greetings, SuperFriends! Today we are joined by Josh Perry, whom you may know from the world of extreme sports. Josh is an extreme athlete, specifically a BMX biker. But that's just the beginning of his story. You see, Josh has survived multiple brain tumors. He went through an unbelievable journey to get healthy and get well, including massive surgery and cutting-edge new treatment technology. He survived through it all and now he's living with this condition. Josh has so much to share. We talked about fear, we talked about life purpose and mission and we also talked about the journey that followed this horrifying experience for him and the beauty that came out of it. Josh today is an expert in the nutrition field as well as a BMX athlete. He has written and been featured in more publications than I care to list but, to name a few, they are Men's Health, GQ, US News, LiveStrong, People Magazine, ESPN and many more. He has also launched the dailybrainstorms.com blog where he shares his thoughts and ideas with

Today we are joined by Tal Gur. Tal is a blogger, an entrepreneur, a serial and best-selling author, and a devoted adventurer, who has spent the last decade pursuing 100 major goals across the globe. He has also been writing about it and philosophizing on how we can live fully. His book is called The Art Of Fully Living and it talks about his journey, including its challenges, crippling self-doubt and struggling for a sense of purpose. Through his journey, Tal has discovered a life-changing gift that he is now passing on to others. We talk about how to get fulfillment in life, we talk about some of the skills, strategies, and tips that will help you find fulfillment and happiness and much more. It is a short episode, but I think it's definitely going to uplift your week!

Greetings, SuperFriends! Today we are joined by Jon Vroman. If you haven't heard of Jon Vroman, he is a philanthropist, a speaker, a bestselling author, an ultra-marathon runner and the founder of the Front Row Foundation. Jon has been doing incredible work for many years, working with people at the end of their lives, mainly people with terminal illnesses. The lessons that he's learned and the inspiration that he's taken away has led him to write an incredible book and come up with an entire philosophy about how to make moments. It's normal if you don't understand what that means, what making a moment is actually about. I was unclear about it as well and I was also unclear on what it means to live life in the front row. We went into both of these in the episode, and I have to say I was pleasantly surprised to find out that they meant something way cooler, way more meaningful and way more inspiring than even I could have imagined. So I am very excited to bring you guys this episode and I am sure you guys are

Greetings, SuperFriends! This week we are doing something a little bit different, and it's actually the shortest episode I've ever done, but for good reason. That is because, as you are going to see, this episode is a bit of a rant. It's a rant on something that all of you are doing right now, which is using your phone, using your technology. I wanted to write a post about a really interesting accidental experiment that I conducted, without even realizing that I was conducting it on myself, and the very profound effect that it's had on me. I started to write, and what started as a story became a rant and then became a sort of manifesto. So I hope you guys really enjoy it, as I definitely enjoyed creating it and more importantly I hope that you guys think about it. Like I said, it is the shortest episode that I've ever done and I what I hope/wish for you is that you will take the time that you would have normally spent listening to a longer episode, and you will get out there in nature or sit in a coffee shop