Let's Get This Bread: Going From 6 to 10 Podcast Episodes.

Let’s get this bread. That’s the daily Friday text from my best friend Michael Richardson. Yeah, Friday is hype, and the weekend is dope, but most of all I use it as a reminder to go after what I want and not only live life for the weekends. Let’s get this bread, is a reminder that every day of my life can be as hype as a Friday.

Mike Rich is an absolute legend. Grateful that this dude is in my life. Times a million! I could write a whole newsletter about him, his impact, and all of our ridiculous stories, but I’m keeping this one geared toward reflecting on episode 6 of the podcast.

Mike Rich was episode 0 (the test run), episode 6, and more future episodes. This was the first in-person episode of the podcast journey. We worked through questions from a My First Million episode and pulled from a Blake Burge thread on Twitter. It was inspired by Shaan & Sam doing it for one of their episodes. It’s fascinating how many threads have great questions and thought-provoking content but rarely do people post what their answers would be. I think that would be an amazing way to evolve the thread boi lifestyle and the overwhelming amount of threads we see on Twitter.

QUESTIONS REVIEW IN THE EPISODE.

1. What areas of your life are you settling in?

2. What battles are you choosing?

3. In what ways are you getting in your own way?

4. On a scale of 1 to 10, how much do you believe in yourself?

The most interesting part of the podcast that I realized afterward wasn’t the questions or the answers as much it was the fact that podcasts are time capsules. They are a back door to that place and time. A reminder to myself “oh yeah I remember that first in-person episode in my room.” just as much as “damn, that is how I felt at that time about myself and my life.”

Ferate, create more “time capsule” moments. Okay got it.

Episode 7 was with THE ONE AND ONLY Jack Mullaney! Wise, insightful, an amazing friend, my roommate, fellow coach, and a dude that you want in your corner. This episode was one that I beat myself up about the most. Jack crushed it! In this episode, I had a lot of “ahh man I could have done that better” and “dude stop doing that when you ask questions”. It is awesome looking back because the episode still turned out great and all I am doing is getting those reps.

The first lesson from this episode with Jack is just how much opportunity and possibility there is in deeply knowing people. There is just so much more depth in people if you give them the space and listen. For example, I have lived with Jack for +4 years and then when the microphone turns on he drops straight heat on topics I have never heard him speak on. It was a beauty.

The two quotes we discussed continue to be impactful on my life.

1. “It’s not all or nothing, it is always something” John Berardi

2. “Mood Follows Action.” Rich Roll

Jack shared so much clarity in his values as a person and as a coach. He shared his 5 C’s, what they mean to him and how they apply to his life. Having a tremendous amount of clarity on your values lets you experience life through that lens more often. Less guessing, more livin’.

1. Connection

2. Competition

3. Consistency

4. Curiosity

5. Compassion

6. Little on the fringe was Equanimity (Composure)

Episode 8 featured Evan Luecke. He is a freelance digital creator and creative director for the University of Portland athletic department. We recorded this outside cathedral coffee on a sunny day which was hype. Evan and my conversation kept coming back to the common theme of curiosity is the key to progress. One of my favorite moments from this conversation was Evan’s consistency in creating in public with his Photo of The Day Project. This is a daily deposit of what he is experiencing and feeling. Talk about a ton of reps? He consistently did it for a few years, every single day making the vote that he is the type of guy who creates in public! I loved this! Action action action.

My other favorite part was an unplanned tangent of mine. He asked me what advice I would give to everyone right now in the moment of our recording of the podcast. The first thing that came to mind was explaining the difference between advice and guidance. Which will hopefully be an article on my substack here soon. Advice is usually people sharing what they would do in that situation. Where guidance is taking time to understand the current situation, and the cost, and providing insight that applies to the receiver, not the giver. Something I have tried to do more in life is to be specific and clear that I am asking for guidance.

Episode 9 was “Let Get This Bread Episode 2” because Mike Rich was back on the podcast. Had to hash out some misrepresentations of who we are, what we have both done, and who we are becoming since we skipped introductions in episode 6. We dove into how much we have grown in life and discussed Mike’s path from living on my couch for 6 months in Portland (the best of times!!!) to being homeless to the present day!

We also discussed the Lululemon Packet that challenges us to answer tough questions about what we truly want in life and define our 10-year plan. The packet can be found here. I believe this was also the first time we discussed the calendar Mike Rich got for me. A grid of 4000 weeks which is the number of weeks in an average life, roughly 80 years. Which makes you pause… say damn… Try looking at that and filling it out. That is something I have done to demand more instant clarity in my life. 4000 is if everything goes great, with no hiccups. Highly recommended book by Oliver Burkeman.

Good ole episode 10 is where I felt like I started to gain some momentum and this train picked up speed! Dirk Van der Velde jumped on the podcast and oh man this one was an absolute banger. It was tough to narrow this down to three major takeaways. He is living life on his terms building Momentisize Construction and the Van der Velde family! Love this dude's energy!

Dirk brought the juice to this conversation with some killer stories. Which I felt compelled to clip and turn into reels because they were too good! The first one was his story about completing an ultra-marathon mountain race that took 47 hours to complete out in Colorado. This dude got rocked by altitude sickness and ran in a lightning storm. When pacers were allowed his then-girlfriend, now wife, started to run the last few legs with him, crushing elevation change and helping him finish. The craziest part is she had never run more than 5 miles in her entire life and Dirk shared his thoughts at that moment, “how could I not marry this woman?”

His second story included his mindset needed to run 100 miles from Bend, Oregon to Sisters, Oregon. He used mantras that were inside four separate hats. He used those hats at different checkpoints as reminders to himself to keep going. My favorite one was “You didn’t come this far, just to come this far.” Gives you goosebumps.

It was tough to only pick three from this episode but one that stuck with me the most was journaling to his two sons. It reminded me of a podcast episode I heard previously with Brian Peters & Bert Sorin about how a man would journal for a few minutes every day in his iPhone notes to his kids about how much he appreciated them, what he loved about them, and the day-to-day. When he passed away his kids found all of those little iPhone notes. How powerful is that?

That is something that I will do in the future. It always comes back full circle. Creating little time capsules for yourself and others.

Best Day of the Year, Until Tomorrow…

Ferate