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Retirement Wisdom

Retire Smarter

Season 5

Best Of – Lifelong Learning

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Design Your Retirement

Don’t be a drifter.

Be intentional about your next phase.

Invest in your future with my small group coaching program.

Two new groups starting in January 2023 – Limited to 10 participants

More info and registration here

Questions? Leave a voice message here

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Retiring from full-time work? Congratulations. But don’t retire from learning.

There’s so much to learn – and now you’ll have the time.

Listen in to our best conversations on lifelong learning and jump into

something new in the new year ahead!

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Listen to the Full Podcast Conversations

Learning is a Lifetime Sport – Tom Vanderbilt

Lifelong Learning – Michelle Weise

Old in Art School – Dr. Nell Painter

Breaking the Age Code – Dr. Becca Levy

Thinking Better to Live Better – Dr. Woo-kyoung Ahn

How to Make New Friends in Retirement – Dr. Marisa G. Franco

Cooking Up a Storm in Retirement – Chef Dennis Littley

Tiny Habits Can Lead to Big Changes – BJ Fogg

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About Your Host 
Joe Casey is an executive coach who also helps people design their next life after their primary career. He created his own next chapter after a twenty-six-year career at Merrill Lynch, where he was Senior Vice President and Head of HR for Global Markets & Investment Banking.
If you’re thinking about retirement, you’ll also need to be planning for longevity. That’s why Joe returned to school, earning a Masters in Gerontology from the University of Southern California. Today, in addition to his work with clients, Joe hosts The Retirement Wisdom Podcast, which thanks to his guests and loyal listeners, ranks in the top 1.5 % globally in popularity by Listen Notes. Business Insider has recognized him as one of 23 innovative coaches who are making a difference.

Joe is the author of Win the Retirement Game: How to Outsmart the 9 Forces Trying to Steal Your Joy launching on August 9th.

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Intro and Outro voiceovers by Ross Huguet.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Vintage Years – Dr. Francine Toder

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Retire? My guest today has a phrase that better captures this phase of life than the word retirement: The Vintage Years. So how are you planning for your vintage years? Dr. Francine Toder joins us to discuss how to do so with your brain in mind. And that means including novelty, complexity and problem-solving into your day-to-day life. Taking up an artistic pursuit, even without any prior experience is one way to bring those elements into your vintage years.

Dr. Toder joins us us from the San Francisco Bay area.

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Design Your Retirement

Be intentional about your next phase.

Invest in your future with my small group coaching program.

Two new groups starting in January 2023 – Limited to 10 participants

More info and registration here

_________________________

Bio

Francine Toder, Ph.D. is an emeritus faculty member of California State University, Sacramento and is a clinical psychologist retired from private practice. She is also the author of The Vintage Years: Finding your Inner Artist (Writer, Musician, Visual Artist) After Sixty.Her most recent book is Inward Traveler: 51 Ways to Explore the World Mindfully.  Her extensive writing on diverse topics appears in magazines, professional journals, newspapers, blog sites and as edited book chapters. She resides in the San Francisco Bay area.

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For More On Francine Toder, Ph.D. 
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Podcast Episodes You May Like
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Wise Quotes
On the Power of Novelty
“Basically, neuroplasticity means it’s plastic, it can continue shaping itself. And the way it does that is through novelty, complexity and problem solving. So let’s say you play golf and you like to play golf and you’ve been playing golf for 40 years. Well, I’d say either you take up another sport or you learn to hold a club in your opposite hand, which is almost impossible and very counterintuitive, and most people would not like it. But that has the benefits of what I call novelty and problem solving. It would be the same way if you were a knitter, I’d say take up a different craft or knit something totally different or in a different way. So you don’t have to change hobbies, you just have to change the way you do it. Or find a new hobby. Even if you didn’t know what you wanted, you could go back to something you did as a child.”
On Wisdom and the Richest Stage of Life
“This is the richest stage in life. For one thing, I am a psychologist, so I look at the world through psychologist eyes. When you get to this stage of life, your mental health is probably better than it’s ever been. And partly, and this may surprise some people, it’s because the drop off in certain hormones, estrogen and testosterone and some other ones, that pull for other kinds of activities. And when those are gone, there is more room for taking up something new. And besides that, at this point, we have wisdom. I’ll give you an example. Kids have little bookcases full of half a dozen books, and by the time they’re out of school, you’ve got a big bookcase, and by the time you’re 60, you’ve got a huge bookcase. Well, it’s the same way in your brain. You have a huge amount of storage in your brain, and excellent problem solving skills that young people don’t even have. Those two things together make this the richest stage in life.”
On Staying Sharp

“The most important thing is exercise. And while that isn’t an art form, it certainly can be added to an art form. Many of the artists who I interviewed did some kind of physical thing to facilitate their readiness for pursuing their art form. Even the 90-something artist who was a wood sculptor who I mentioned earlier, when I went to interview him, he showed me the hand weights that he used to get ready for doing his sculpting. And even though he used a walker, he had leg lifts that he showed me he could do with weights on them. So no matter what your level of ability is or whether you’re handicapped or you’re not, there’s something you could be doing. Another one, a writer, Caroline, in the book, before she would do any writing, she’d take a long walk in the woods that were adjacent to where she lived. So exercise, all of the research indicates that’s the most critical thing. Don’t forget about your body. And so that’s the key thing. The second thing is to do something that’s new and complex. I’ll go back to this idea of these three things that I sort teased out of. All of the literature that I read was about novelty, creativity and problem solving. Novelty, newness, do something new. It doesn’t matter what it is. And you could try anything. If you’ve never been a gardener, you could start gardening. If you are a gardener and you like flowers, try photographing them or painting them. And this is what I observed with a lot of the people I interviewed. They sort of didn’t have a plan. It just evolved. But often it evolves out of some kind of physical activity. So that’s critical. And the complexity means if you’re doing something, make sure it’s requires something that’s just not too easy. Learning a foreign language is a good example of that. It is really difficult and it’s good for your brain. You don’t have to be proficient, you never have to speak to another soul. You’re doing it for yourself. But you might find that there are ways in which you connect with other people around that activity as well.”

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About Your Podcast Host
Joe Casey is an executive coach who also helps people design their next life after their primary career. He created his own next chapter after a twenty-six-year career at Merrill Lynch, where he was Senior Vice President and Head of HR for Global Markets & Investment Banking.
Today, in addition to his work with clients, Joe hosts The Retirement Wisdom Podcast, which thanks to his guests and loyal listeners, ranks in the top 1.5 % globally in popularity by Listen Notes. Business Insider has recognized him as one of 23 innovative coaches who are making a difference.
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Intro and Outro voiceovers by Ross Huguet.

Navigating Career Crossroads – Justin Smith, CFP, CAP, CFA

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Are you ready for the new retirement? The old-fashioned “full-stop” retirement simply doesn’t work for everyone. For many people, to retire happy, it includes some form of work – on your own terms. In a hybrid retirement, work – paid or unpaid – can provide meaning, connection, purpose, fulfillment – and some income. There are more options available today to create a hybrid retirement that works for you. But that may mean changing lanes. You’ll need to plan ahead and lay the groundwork. Justin Smith, CFP., CAP, CFA of Savant Wealth Management, offers his tips and a tool to help you think outside the box and navigate career crossroads.

Justin joins us from Phoenix, Arizona.

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Delaying retirement?  You could wait until you retire and ask What Now? – and then scramble – or drift.

Don’t be that person.

Instead, start planning for the non-financial side of retirement now. Delaying when to retire doesn’t mean delaying your preparation. Apply the same principles of design thinking that Nike and other leading companies use to design your future. Learn more about my One-on-One coaching and small group programs. Take the first step toward designing your new life today – schedule a call.

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Bio

Justin specializes in helping executives and successful professionals navigate the chapter between full-time work and full-stop retirement, which we call a “Victory Lap.” He has been involved in the financial services industry since 2005. Prior to joining Savant, he was a partner and portfolio manager for an independent Registered Investment Advisor firm in Chicago.

Justin earned a bachelor of business administration degree with a concentration in finance from the University of Michigan. He is a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ professional and has earned the Chartered Advisor in Philanthropy® (CAP®) and the Chartered Financial Analyst® (CFA®) designations. He is a frequent speaker on the topics of Victory Lap Retirement and tax-smart retirement planning.

Justin loves to cook (especially tacos!) and enjoys spending time outdoors with his wife and three children. After living in the Midwest for many years, they truly appreciate everything Arizona has to offer. In the fall, you are almost certain to find Justin on his patio watching Minnesota Vikings or Michigan Wolverines football.

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For More on Justin Smith

Website

Download The Career Crossroads Workbook

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Podcast Episodes You May Like

How’s Your Network? – Kelly Hoey

The Unretirement Life – Richard Eisenberg

Breaking the Age Code – Dr. Becca Levy

Independence Day – Steve Lopez

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It’s Game Time!

Win The Retirement Game

 “Definitely the best book I’ve read on the non-financial aspects of retirement.”

Amazon    Barnes & Noble    Bookshop.org

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Wise Quotes

On Hybrid Retirement 

“I think this is becoming more and more of a movement. Nobody announced it, but it’s becoming more and more popular. 20 years ago there was really one path where it was somebody in the C-suite and then they would go serve on a board and they went from working 80 hours a week to working 20 hours a week. They’d still fly around and go to board meetings and things like that. But now that has been democratized and there’s countless different ways that people can take a hybrid path. And the big change I’m seeing is that a more people have access to these hybrid paths. Basically anybody who puts in the work can find something that checks all the boxes for them. And the other thing I’m seeing is that people are not waiting until 65 or full retirement age, or the point where they feel fully financial independent. They’re jumping off the treadmill earlier and then they’re playing that hybrid game longer.”

On Planning Ahead

“In the retirement planning game, you absolutely want to be looking forward and start planting the seeds for your next chapter. Often I find it could take two or three years or more for people to get into that retirement rhythm. So if you can start planting seeds, start testing things out, start doing some experiments, 2, 3 or 5 years early, you can give yourself a huge head start. Then you get to make the most of that retirement chapter that you’ve been looking forward to for so long.”

On Creating a Sabbatical or a Gap Year

“I’m seeing some people do sabbaticals where they will take a year or two off. Maybe it’s a trial retirement. They’re not sure if they’re actually going to come back after the sabbatical, but they’ll call it a sabbatical. And when they come back, maybe they go back to the same thing, or maybe they pivot. I’m seeing a lot of creative employment arrangements as well, where they might say to their employer or a prospective employer: Hey, I have all these different tools in my toolbox and you have this unique set of problems. Let’s think about a way we can solve for that and we can find mutually agreeable ways to make that work. Because for some of these folks at this stage in life, the top line compensation might not be their top priority. So employers –  the smart ones – are open to these types of arrangements. And I’ve seen people be able to get health insurance, which can be a big stumbling block for folks before their 65 Medicare eligibility. Maybe in this creative employment arrangement, they get health insurance as part of the deal, get remote work, go part-time, perhaps get two months off in the summer, whatever it might be. So that is becoming more popular as well. There’s just so many benefits from thinking outside the box here.”

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About Your Podcast Host

Joe Casey is an executive coach who also helps people design their next life after their primary career. He created his own next chapter after a twenty-six-year career at Merrill Lynch, where he was Senior Vice President and Head of HR for Global Markets & Investment Banking.
Today, in addition to his work with clients, Joe hosts The Retirement Wisdom Podcast, which thanks to his guests and loyal listeners, ranks in the top 1.5 % globally in popularity by Listen Notes. Business Insider has recognized him as one of 23 innovative coaches who are making a difference.
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Intro and Outro voiceovers by Ross Huguet.

 

 

 

 

Emeralds of Oz – Peter Guzzardi

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The Wizard of Oz is one of the most watched films of all time. Look closely and you’ll see that it contains valuable life lessons for any stage of life, including retirement. Peter Guzzardi joins us to discuss his book, Emeralds of Oz: Life Lessons from Over the Rainbow, which details nine Emeralds of Wisdom, along with 52 life lessons.

He joins us from Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

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Delaying retirement?  You could wait until you retire and ask What Now? – and then scramble – or drift. Don’t be that person. Instead, start now. Apply the same principles of design thinking that Nike and other leading companies use to design your future. Learn more about my One-on-One coaching and small group programs. Take the first step toward your new life today – schedule a call.

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Bio

Peter Guzzardi has worked in publishing for more than forty years. Prominent books he has edited include Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time, Deepak Chopra’s Ageless Body, Timeless Mind, Queen Noor’s Leap of Faith, Susan Cain’s Quiet, and Douglas Adams’s Mostly Harmless. And he’s the author of Emeralds of Oz: Life Lessons from Over the Rainbow. An independent editor and writer, he lives in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

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For More on Peter Guzzardi

Emeralds of Oz

Website (Download the handy Postcard of the 9 Emeralds and a Worksheet to apply them)

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Podcast Episodes You May Like

Chatter & Your Inner Voice – Ethan Kross

How to Make New Friends in Retirement – Dr. Marisa G. Franco

An Artful Life – John P. Weiss

The Emotional Side of Retiring – Kate Schroeder

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It’s Game Time: Win The Retirement Game 

           “Definitely the best book I’ve read on the non-financial aspects of retirement.”

           “I wish I had this book when I retired.”

           “This is a great gift for anyone anticipating retirement years”

Amazon    Barnes & Noble    Bookshop.org

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Wise Quotes

On the Lesson That’s Helped Him the Most

“I think in some ways the one that’s hardest for me to absorb kind of stands out. And that’s Number Five: You Already Possess What You Desire Most. And of course Dorothy’s companions are classic examples of that in the most wonderful way. But to take that in, what does that really mean for me? What does that mean for you? It’s really profound. We’re rushing around looking outside ourselves for the things that we think matter most for money, for success, For me it might be courage. I tend to suffer from anxiety. And so courage. I would never think of myself as a courageous person but this Emerald is telling me I am a courageous person and that courage, I’m not going to find it elsewhere.”

On Mistakes

“The notion that there are no mistakes, only lessons. And that’s so huge. When I grew up and it was all about getting the answers right in school and not making a mistake. And what you really don’t want to be is wrong. But what if you could just remove that? And what if it’s just that life is a series of experiments and explorations and it’s not going to be right or wrong, it’s just you’re going learn from them. So I’m going to take a different approach next time. What a relief that would be to be able to approach life that way.”

On the Beginner’s Mind

“As I look at the Emeralds, the first one is Listen to Your Longing. And that’s from the amazing moment in the barnyard where Dorothy begins to sing. And what a valuable place to start that is for all of us to listen to that longing. What is it we long for? But the second one is See the Situation As If For the First Time. And that one comes from the moment when Dorothy steps out into Munchkin Land because the expression on her face is just this appreciation for the miraculous. It’s like, Oh my gosh. And she’s so open to it. And this is something that in Buddhism is called Beginner’s Mind. This notion that if we can try to separate ourselves from our biases, from our sense that we know how this is going to turn out, even if it’s as mundane as your commute to the office. If you can just take out that notion that you know what it’s going to be like and approach it as though it’s kind of a miraculous thing that all these cars are flowing in the same direction. And look at the light d, the autumn leaves. It’s a way to breathe the miraculous back into your life, which just takes a little focus, a little concentration and awareness as all of these bits of wisdom do. One of the wonderful things about this interview is I had to go back and remind myself. We all stumble across wisdom and we think, Wow, that’s great. That’s really gonna help me a lot.”

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About Your Podcast Host

Joe Casey is an executive coach who also helps people design their next life after their primary career. He created his own next chapter after a twenty-six-year career at Merrill Lynch, where he was Senior Vice President and Head of HR for Global Markets & Investment Banking.
Today, in addition to his work with clients, Joe hosts The Retirement Wisdom Podcast, which thanks to his guests and loyal listeners, ranks in the top 1.5 % globally in popularity by Listen Notes. Business Insider has recognized him as one of 23 innovative coaches who are making a difference.
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Intro and Outro voiceovers by Ross Huguet.

 

Longevity Lifestyle by Design – Mike Drak

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Planning for retirement? You need to also plan for your longevity. And your lifestyle choices will play be a big role in your longevity and satisfaction in retirement. Mike Drak, author of the new book Longevity Lifestyle by Design, returns to The Retirement Wisdom Podcast for an enlightening conversation on how to upgrade your retirement planning.

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Delaying retirement? Many of my clients are. But they’re using this time to get a jump on their future.

You could wait until you retire and ask What Now? – and then scramble – or drift. Don’t be that person. Instead, start now and design your new post-full-time work life.

Find how how the Designing Your Life process (developed by Bill Burnett & Dave Evans at Stanford) can help you unlock a new direction. Apply the same principles of design thinking that Nike and other leading companies use to design your future. Learn more about my One-on-One coaching and small group programs. Take the first step toward your new life today – schedule a call.

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Bio

Mike Drak is the author of his third book Longevity Lifestyle by Design: Redefining What Retirement Can Be. After a thirty-eight year career within the financial services industry, Mike Drak experienced what he has now termed “retirement shock”. As a result, Mike spent the next 6 years doing research about retirement which resulted in his best selling book “Victory Lap Retirement” based on his realization that full stop retirement doesn’t work for most people.

His second book “Retirement Heaven or Hell: Which Will You Choose?” shares some of Mike’s personal experiences in retirement and highlights how people can design and transition to their own unique retirement lifestyle. This book also outlines the valuable retirement lessons learned from the pandemic and introduces nine retirement principles that can support creating a long, healthy and fulfilling life.

Along with being a best-selling author, Mike is also a public speaker and retirement lifestyle designer. He has received awards for his writing and you can find his articles at Booming Encore.

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For More on Mike Drak

Longevity Lifestyle by Design book: Free Download   |  Amazon

Mike Drak’s First Visit with The Retirement Wisdom Podcast

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Podcast Episodes You May Like

Independence Day – Steve Lopez

How to Make New Friends in Retirement – Dr. Marisa G. Franco

Thinking Better to Live Better – Dr. Woo-kyoung Ahn

Taking Stock – Dr. Jordan Grumet

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Win the Retirement Game

(It Might Just Be the Most Important Game of Your Life)

What Readers Are Saying:

           “Definitely the best book I’ve read on the non-financial aspects of retirement.”

           “I wish I had this book when I retired.”

           “…the book is amazingly readable, and chock full of insights.”

           “This is a great gift for anyone anticipating retirement years”

Amazon    Barnes & Noble    Bookshop.org

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Wise Quotes

On Why People Fail Retirement

“I believe it’s just that they have the wrong beliefs about retirement. They don’t fully understand what’s coming their way. Many people think it’s just a financial situation. If you have enough money, you’re going to have a great retirement. And that’s not true. Many people think transitioning to a successful retirement will be easy. What can be hard about retiring? But it’s one of the hardest things you can do. And it’s one of the most stressful events that you’ll go through, too. People don’t realize that. People think when they retire, all their problems are magically going to go away. Well, guess what? They don’t. As a matter of fact, you’re going to have even more problems. And that’s what concerns me. How I read about the Great Resignation, all these people bailing into retirement early. And I’m going, I don’t know, you better, you think this thing through. And I expect a lot of these people will come back out of retirement because they’re going to find out it’s not right for them. You have to put a lot of thought into it. You have to educate yourself and you have to prepare. And preparing takes a long time, if you want to do it right. The decisions you make about retirement are going to impact the next 30, 40 years of your life. So you want to get it right or you’re going to have problems. And who wants to be miserable for 30, 40 years?”

On Longevity & Lifestyle Choices

“Research has shown, and this really woke me up when I read the research, that longevity is impacted 80% to 90% by your lifestyle choices. Which means we can control how long we’re going to live. Well, we can reduce risk. Now there’s always going to be a Black Swan event that might hit, maybe you get hit by a car or you get cancer or something like that. But we really can mitigate the risk and really increase the odds of us living a long and happy life. And so when I knew that, I said, Wow, okay. this is when I have to start looking at that and start planning for it. And that was again, one of the reasons why I decided to attempt this Ironman thing. One of the things is get healthy again. Right? Health is so important. And then I list seven other inputs that will increase your chances of living longer and better than most people. So I was very excited when I saw that. And then I noticed that a lot of these bad things are reversible. And that was music to my ears.”

On Why Work Can Be a Key Part of Retirement

“I believe that work – the right kind of work – work that you love to do, could be like a fountain of youth to you, a source of longevity, a source of happiness. And the happiness and longevity connection is very powerful. And so what you want to do is find or create work that you love to do. And it can either be paid work or unpaid work, but it gives you real good reason to get out of bed in the morning, Something to look forward to. Like early in our working years, that’s how we felt. And then it changed and now we can get back to doing that thing. So, I love to help a lot of people and I get excited about projects. I’m working on this new book project. I’m getting up at 4:30 in the morning. I don’t set the alarm, it’s just, I get excited and I get out of bed and I have all these ideas.”

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About Your Podcast Host

Joe Casey is an executive coach who also helps people design their next life after their primary career. He created his own next chapter after a twenty-six-year career at Merrill Lynch, where he was Senior Vice President and Head of HR for Global Markets & Investment Banking.
Today, in addition to his work with clients, Joe hosts The Retirement Wisdom Podcast, which thanks to his guests and loyal listeners, ranks in the top 1.5 % globally in popularity by Listen Notes. Business Insider has recognized him as one of 23 innovative coaches who are making a difference.
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Intro and Outro voiceovers by Ross Huguet.