Spartan Up! - A Spartan Race For The Mind!

Interviewed during labor, Rose Wetzel proves her mettle! We’ve always said Spartan women are tough, maybe tougher than the men. How many would be able to maintain composure and be interviewed for a podcast between painful contraction? We are so grateful that Rose did! Rose is an accomplished athlete known for her success in American Ninja Warrior and in Spartan Race and now for her composure, strength and grace while giving birth. We highly suggest you make the time to watch this one. Tune in to hear the surprising lessons she shares and see true strength in action. LESSONS Obstacles come up in life. Have your attitude ready. To achieve the overwhelming, focus on one contraction at a time. When facing challenge you need to have to have a sense of confidence in yourself and find a way to relax in the face of adversity. LINKS More about Rose http://rosewetzel.com/ Rose on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/Rose-Wetzel-602541086461407/ Rose on Twitter https://twitter.com/rosewetzel Rose on Instagram https://www.i

Two hundred fractures before the age of 18 from a rare bone disease involuntarily made Sean Stephenson an expert in navigating through pain and adversity. But, he insists, it wasn’t the disability that made him a better person, but the choices he made despite it. He is an advocate of working on all aspects of the self, everyday. In this episode, Stephenson talks about how to distinguish good pain from bad and to invite the former into your life while extinguishing the latter. Good pain tends to disappear with achievement, while the bad lingers on if we’re not careful. Lessons: 1. You can only save those who swim towards you.
 2. The cure for insecurity is self care.
 3. Your life runs better when your mind, body and spirit are clean.
 Links: More about Sean seanstephenson.com ​https://www.facebook.com/theseanstephenson ​ https://twitter.com/TheSeantourage ​ https://www.instagram.com/3footgiant/ SUBSCRIBE: iTunes: http://bit.ly/SpartanUpShow YouTube: http://bit.ly/SpartanUpYT Google Play: http://bit.ly/Spartan

To be your best, get still. In this episode Onnit wellness company founder, Aubrey Marcus, explains why this is not a paradox. Nor, he says, is it contradictory to say that to optimize yourself and your mission you need to focus on others, or to overcome obstacles you need to seek them out. Marcus will guide you through the contrasts in life to highlight your warrior spirit. He is tooled by the example of high achieving parents, shamans and philosophers and is setting a worthy precedent in his own life. Lessons: 1. Get still or quiet enough to be able to discern your mission in life.
 2. To the ordinary person everything is  a blessing or a curse; to the warrior there are only challenges.
 3. Being open to whatever can be helpful is the way to find mastery.  
 Links: Onnit https://www.onnit.com/ SUBSCRIBE: iTunes: http://bit.ly/SpartanUpShow YouTube: http://bit.ly/SpartanUpYT Google Play: http://bit.ly/SpartanUpPlay CREDITS: Producer – Marion Abrams, Madmotion, llc. Hosts: Joe De Sena with Johnny Waite, Sefra

Your life is a story, that means it can be re-written. A profound childhood loneliness prompted Jeff Gomez to seek solace in story which in turn connected him back to people and became his livelihood. His storytelling skills have been put to use by the media giants and even the US Government. His method of storytelling, inspired by anime, is transmedia and fleshes out a story across multiple media platforms. In this episode, Gomez explains how each of our lives is a story which you can shape in new and beneficial ways. If your story starts with an unfavorable or faulty premise, there’s always a possibility of a revision.  Lessons: 1. You are living a story and you’re the screenwriter.
 2. You are capable of revising the story of your life to reflect your current wisdom.
 3. Once people realize their connection to each other they’ll do less harm.  LINKS: https://blog.collectivejourney.com/ https://medium.com/@Jeff_Gomez linkedin.com/in/jeffgomez Facebook: Starlight Runner Entertainment  SUBSCRIBE: iTunes: h

10,752 is the number Jesse Itzler had at the time of this interview, and on each of these he challenges himself to hack his mind into living a more productive and meaningful life. How do you get the most out of each day? Challenge yourself. Itzler believes in immersing himself in new worlds, changing his frame of reference. He turned over his life for a month to an ultra running Navy SEAL. This interview is so engaging we made Jesse Itzler keep talking with us all the way to our next meeting! Lessons: 1. Remember your mortality to gain an appreciation for life.
 2. All the best lessons are from things that are challenging.
 3. Immerse yourself in a different culture to create a different frame of reference.
 LINKS: 29029 - Climb Everest in Vermont with Jesse: http://29zero29.com/ KNOW FOODS: https://knowfoods.com/ Listeners receive 10% of any purchase at Knowfoods.com using the code SPARTANSKNOW 100 Mile Man: http://www.the100mileman.com/ Living With a SEAL: http://www.the100mileman.com/living-with-a-seal/ SU

Eleven seconds was all it took. Eleven seconds stopped cold a promising hockey career scarcely before it started - all on live television. Travis Roy was a promising 20-year-old hockey star, moments into his first collegiate game as a B.U. freshman, a freak accident cracked his fourth vertebra left him paralyzed from the neck down. One misdirected check in the most important hockey game of his life sent Travis Roy crashing into the boards and ended his dreams of hockey greatness. Instead of fulfilling his lifelong dream, he now found himself paralyzed and a quadriplegic. Yet he sees his life’s glass not as half empty or half full but as overflowing! How did Roy deal with such a dramatic shift in his life? What lessons can you take to overcome obstacles How did Roy deal with such a dramatic shift in his life? What lessons can you take to overcome obstacles in your own? This optimist talks about his challenges and the strategies he has used to cope, including starting a foundation to help others in a similar pr

Wearing a pageant sash did not come naturally to Neely Fortune, that’s why she did it. Her challenges with social anxiety, especially in public speaking, were what spurred her into the pageant world in the first place. Then she used the platform to promote PTSD awareness, a cause close to her heart. Through a number of happy coincidences it lead her to Spartan Race, the Death Race all eventually to a role as Race Director of a Spartan Agoge. In this episode Neely talks about the qualities that enabled her rising fortunes. Lessons:   1. Seek out situations that will give you the qualities you seek.
 2. Find your area of weakness and tackle it.
 3. Pursue your passions to the fullest extent and see where they lead. 
 SUBSCRIBE: iTunes: http://bit.ly/SpartanUpShow YouTube: http://bit.ly/SpartanUpYT Google Play: http://bit.ly/SpartanUpPlay CREDITS Producer – Marion Abrams, Madmotion, llc. Hosts: Joe De Sena with Johnny Waite, Sefra Alexandra, Col. Tim Nye, & Dr. Delle Synopsis – Matt Baatz © 2017 Spartan

He’s faced death more than once on his adventures, but ask him which was the toughest and he’ll always answer “the last one.” It’s always the freshest in his mind. Ray believes in the possible and started a foundation called Impossible to Possible. i2P brings his expeditions to classrooms, sharing his journeys and his lessons with kids in an interactive way. Zahab uses these experiences to inspire kids to see possibilities in their own lives. He wasn’t always adventurous, hear how he went from a pack a day smoker afraid to take a chance to the man he is today, and how you can do it too. Lessons: 1. We overcomplicate things; the first step you take doesn’t have to be monumental.
 
 2. Take a chance and you will be surprised where life will take you.
 Links: More about Ray’s organization Impossible 2 Possible http://www.impossible2possible.com/ More about Ray https://www.rayzahab.com/ More about his latest expedition http://impossible2possible.com/arcticextreme/home SUBSCRIBE: iTunes: http://bit.ly/SpartanUpSho

Naval tells Joe De Sena It all boils down to desire. Is it possible to tame your monkey mind ever distracted by desires and pleasures that only soothe you in the short term? Naval Ravikant, the founder of Angel List, says to reach a true sense of happiness, it is not only possible but necessary.  Ravikant explains how to find your true calling and why doing so gifs you the upper hand in any business or personal venture. You become unbeatable. Success may involve years of hard work, but paradoxically, not much struggle. Instead it’s about a quest for flow. How can we tap into that flow? Ravikant will show you how.   Lessons: 1. If you want to be the best, you need to pick one thing to be the best at. 2. The ones who succeed are the ones who are irrationally passionate about what they’re doing.
 3. Happiness is the sense that nothing is missing in this moment. 
 Link: AngelList https://angel.co/ Naval on Twitter https://twitter.com/naval Naval on Tim Ferriss https://tim.blog/2015/08/18/the-evolutionary-angel-na

http://spartan.com/154 A marketing genius, a renowned connector of the elite, carpet cleaning taught Joe Polish everything he needed to know about business. But there’s much more to the story. Joe is best known for his his Genius Network, a meeting of industry transformers. He is known as the master connector. In the interview he also discusses his path from a troubled childhood of addiction and abuse in which connection was hard to come by and what he’s doing now to help addicts of all kinds. Lessons: 1. Doing things the hard way, selling something as dull as carpet 1. Doing things the hard way, selling something as dull as carpet cleaning, can pay off with expertise and strength. 2. When you take the human mind from one level to another you are being entrepreneurial.
 3. Addiction is a connection disorder, what you do when you don’t feel safe in the world.
 To learn more about Joe Polish and his passion projects, please visit: www.JoePolish.com www.GeniusNetworkEvents.com www.JoesMarketingBook.com/request w

Will lessons learned behind the desk transfer to physical challenges? This week’s guest says yes! When you stop climbing corporate ladders, what do you climb next? For Vanessa O’Brien the answer is almost everything! The more difficult the better. She applied what she learned in the challenging environment of the Fortune 500 to the natural environment in a dramatic way. The extreme conditions taught her valuable lessons about happiness and success. Growing up, she was thrust into a challenging situation as well. Learn how O’Brien has combined all these life lessons into a satisfying and productive life. Lessons: 1. Three S’s of success: speed, simplicity and self confidence apply as well on the mountain as behind the desk.
 2. Try something new, make a change, you can always go back.
 3. You will fail, don’t panic. It just means you’re going to succeed. Link: Vanessa O'Brien | Mountain Climber, Explorer, Speaker http://vobonline.com/ Vanessa O'Brien Breaks Explorer Record https://youtu.be/xeyEn1K6J2U 
   CRED

The founder of Bar beverage has 5 tenets for success: be audacious, authentic, tenacious, obsessive and inspire others to be great. No wonder he built a company that just sold for 1.8 billion. A company that uses the civet to represent the highest achieving employees, has to be a little different. Bai has bucked many beverage company trends and has been incredibly successful. See the quirky company tour in this week’s episode, the secret Bag basement, and hear how he built the company and drives innovation. Lessons: 1. You can’t fail by working hard.
 2. If you’re able to unbelieve, life can be unbelievable.
 3. To be successful with your product you need to be able to read and tap into the zeitgeist. Be nimble.
 Link: UNBELIEVE – http://www.drinkbai.com/unbelieve The Unbelievers Trailer https://youtu.be/-Y9CHW3Aqvg   CREDITS Producer – Marion Abrams, Madmotion, llc. Hosts: Joe De Sena with Johnny Waite, Sefra Alexandra, Col. Tim Nye, & Dr. Delle with guest Chris Irving Synopsis – Matt Baatz © 2017 Sparta

What’s the point? Is it money? Is it something more? Roman gathers today’s most influential icons and leaders to do what’s NBDB (Never Been Done Before.) How can we drive culture in a positive direction? Roman Tsunder thinks he’s found a way. In this episode, he explains his mission with PTTOW (Plan To Take On the World) and WORLDZ, and tells Joe how he carved out success from rejection. When he received 73 rejection letters in response to 72 applications, it just meant “yes” must be coming soon. Hear his story and how he now works to shape our world. Lessons: 1. Don’t just preach to those that agree, reach out to the unindoctrinated.
 2. The lowest points in your life can be the greatest pillars for growth.
 3. To be the best, cultivate a healthy obsession for what you do.
 Link: PTTOW http://pttow.com/ WORLDZ http://worldz.us/ CREDITS Producer – Marion Abrams, Madmotion, llc. Hosts: Joe De Sena with Johnny Waite, Sefra Alexandra, Col. Tim Nye, & Dr. Delle with guest Zach Even-Esh ( http://zacheven-esh.c

Dan Pena is an F-ing maniac! He lives in a castle in Scotland, has run ultra-marathons, has made and lost fortunes, never uses a cell phone and his motto is just F-ing do it (obviously). He’s a living contradiction. He speaks at Oxford but you can still hear the echoes of his gritty upbringing on the streets of East L.A. in his voice. He can dance the waltz, play tennis and golf, but you wouldn’t want to mess with him. He knows how to make money, fast. And he’ll tell you and you had better listen to him.   Lessons:   1. Whatever gives you confidence, do that.
 2. Indecision is the worst decision,
 3. Show me your friends and I’ll show you your future.
   Links: The Official Website of Dan Pena. http://www.danpena.com/ CREDITS Producer – Marion Abrams, Madmotion, llc. Hosts: Joe De Sena with Johnny Waite, Sefra Alexandra, Col. Tim Nye, & Dr. Delle Synopsis – Matt Baatz © 2017 Spartan  

“Love is the answer” is the conclusion you might expect from a new age guru not a successful internal medicine doctor and trauma center director as Dr. Erika Schwartz was. But she always went against the grain of conventional protocol. Only now are her views starting to be vindicated. She urges doctors to connect with their patients and for patients to take greater responsibility for their health. How can they do this? Joe and Dr. Erika Schwartz discuss the ways modern medicine has gone astray and how to steer it back onto a more righteous path in this episode.   Lessons:   1. The patient and doctor should be on equal terms since the patient lives in their body and is the expert of their own state of being.
 2. Teach others through your own healthy lifestyle.
 3. Bringing people together is crucial in a disconnected world and the ultimate connection is called love.
 Links: Dr. Erika Schwartz https://www.drerika.com/   CREDITS Producer – Marion Abrams, Madmotion, llc. Hosts: Joe De Sena with Johnny Waite, Sefr

Is Paleo the best diet? The CrossFit pioneer who authored “The Paleo Solution” says maybe. Results may vary according to who you are. The point is you’ll need to experiment a little. Similarly when he started the first CrossFit gym. Rob Wolf didn’t have the franchise model or rule book, He had to write it himself. If you’re going to be successful, he urges you to do the same. Listen this week to learn why Robb Wolf got into CrossFit, wrote “The Paleo Solution,” why you should read his new book “Wired to Eat,” and his secret to success. Lessons: 1. Sometimes you succeed because you’re left with no other choice.
 2. Experiment: try something for a month then determine its cost/benefit for you.
 3. Run with your passion and find people who will compensate for your weaknesses.
 Links: Robb Wolf’s new book “Wired to Eat” https://robbwolf.com/ CREDITS Producer – Marion Abrams, Madmotion, llc. Hosts: Joe De Sena with Johnny Waite, Sefra Alexandra, Col. Tim Nye, & Dr. Delle Synopsis – Matt Baatz © 2017 Spartan

Have you given up? Know someone who has? There’s an answer for everything and Peter Cohen thinks he has it. We live a life our ancestors may have envied, largely free of hardship, so why are so many unsatisfied? Why, Cohen asks bluntly, is the world so messed up? A lot of us, he says, have simply given up. It shouldn’t be this way. Cohen taps from a career of helping people and seeing his wife beat the odds of “terminal” cancer to give you strategies to optimize your life. Three Lessons: 1. Striving keeps us vital.
 2. Action leads to inspiration, not the other way around.
 3. Always have an ikigai, a reason for being.
 Links: Pete Cohen’s Podcast mi365 https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/mi365s-podcast/id1090082990?mt=2  www.Mi365.me CREDITS Producer – Marion Abrams, Madmotion, llc. Hosts: Joe De Sena with Johnny Waite, Sefra Alexandra, Col. Tim Nye & Dr. Delle Synopsis – Matt Baatz © 2017 Spartan


People are kidnapped, run away to the circus, sell a business for 1.7 Billion, complete the explorer's grand slam, and just talk philosophy, grit, and resilience. Today the team previews the next batch of podcast episodes.  We have guests that will change your frame of reference, give you tools to change your life, and teach you to rewrite your own story

When a leader changes his life, the implications can be great. With fifty pounds shed in five years, Ric Urrutia now sets an example for his 550 employees and for his family. His company, Taos Mountain Software, has been growing for twenty-five years and his clients include all the biggest names in Silicon Valley. What makes for a successful employee? What are the secrets to running such a successful company for so long? The answers are not what you’d expect.   Lessons:   1. The best employees are those who are gritty and hungry, not necessarily the ones with prestigious degrees.
 2. Get out of your comfort zone and expand your career horizons.
 3. Lead by example, you affect more people than you realize.
   CREDITS Producer – Marion Abrams, Madmotion, llc. Hosts: Joe De Sena with Johnny Waite, Sefra Alexandra, Col. Tim Nye, Dr. Delle & David Deluca Synopsis – Matt Baatz © 2017 Spartan


Knowing your opponent wins championships. For Olympic fencer Jose Luis Abajo this has been paramount to his success. Self-knowledge too, knowing what will bring out the best in himself. It's what's in the mind that wins the match. This has meant being prepared for the unexpected, for just about anything that comes his way. How do you get ready for unfathomable circumstances? Abajo has a few secrets you can follow. Lessons: 1. We’re still animals and have the survival instinct; discovering that part of ourselves can be transformative.
 2. Let “no” motivate you.
 3. The moment you are prepared to lose is also the moment you start to win.
 CREDITS Producer – Marion Abrams, Madmotion, llc. Hosts: Joe De Sena with Johnny Waite, Sefra Alexandra, Col. Tim Nye, Dr. Delle & David Deluca Synopsis – Matt Baatz © 2017 Spartan