The Alchemist Archive Podcast

What if the hunger that built your success is the same thing keeping you from freedom?Pedro Lopes went from imagining a big life while being excluded by his childhood peers to building Foot Prime, the production and management company behind shoe brands worldwide. He and Matt trace the whole arc: the childhood exclusion that lit his drive, the scrappy turnaround that filled a failing nightclub, the burnout that followed, and the turn toward Reiki, ayahuasca, and indigenous medicine work that changed what he was building for.They get into the difference between reacting and responding, the hidden cost of living on automatic, and why the people closest to you tend to mirror the work you still have left to do. Pedro makes the case that prosperity and spirituality were never opposites, and that growth is less about becoming more than about shedding what is in the way.If you have ever felt driven by pressure, comparison, or the need to prove something, this one will land.

Being happy and being comfortable are not the same thing as being joyful and thriving.Matt and Michael reconnect six years after their first conversation on this show to talk about what changes when you stop chasing the opportunity and start choosing the people. They cover why hustle culture treats people as objects, what the democratization of intelligence means for anyone whose work can now be done by a machine, and why curiosity and tenacity are about to matter more than credentials.Michael Maynes is a revenue operations leader and hyper growth scaler who spent his career in technology sales, serving companies through IPOs and acquisitions. He now works primarily with family owned home services businesses and nonprofits.If this one lands, follow the show and share it with someone who is comfortable but not thriving.New episodes every two weeks.

We build the tools that run our world on a sliver of understanding, then trust them with everything.In this episode, Matt talks with his dear friend Blake Whitcomb about the unlikely path from a rigid religious upbringing to the frontier of AI and cybersecurity. Blake shares how being cast out led to a reckoning, how he taught himself the way the internet works by writing commands out by hand in a cell, and how that focus became a clearance, a career, and eventually his own company. Along the way they get into masculinity, power, and why going into your own depths is the real work.Blake is the CEO and co-founder of Prophetic AI, a Denver-based cybersecurity company whose platform analyzes network traffic to catch the earliest signs of an attack before data is stolen or encrypted. A largely self-taught engineer who earned a Navy secret clearance and worked on networks for the Department of Defense and McKesson before founding his company, he has spent more than a decade studying how machines communicate.If his story moves you, follow the show and pass it to someone who needs to hear it. New episodes every two weeks.

Becoming a parent forces you to face everything you got, everything you didn't, and every pattern you swore you'd never repeat.In this episode, Matt sits down with Kerry Stutzman, a therapist who calls herself a "parentologist," to explore how raising kids becomes some of the deepest inner work there is. They talk about tending the garden of a family instead of just mowing the weeds, living imperfectly with great delight, and the questions that help teenagers and parents alike name what wants to come more fully alive. It's a warm, practical look at healing patterns, protecting kids through hard transitions, and growing up alongside the people we raise.Kerry is a licensed marriage and family therapist, keynote speaker, clinical supervisor, and expert witness with 25 years of teaching parents. Alongside her son Palmer, she helps families safeguard children's mental health through divorce, blending clinical expertise with hard-won personal experience.If it speaks to you, follow the show and pass it along to a parent doing the work. New episodes every two weeks.

Dan Kasper returns to talk about Piloteer, the sensing AI he's building to make elite-team performance available to everyone. He and Matt cover why most companies run on guesswork instead of real-time signal, how AI can reflect the micro-cues that separate the best from the rest, and why the goal isn't to replace coaches but to create a new species of coach. Along the way: burnout, baselines, and why how you do anything is how you do everything.Dan is the founder of Piloteer, a real-time performance system with patent-pending technology, a returning guest, former military team-builder across 27 countries, and ex-Airbnb machine learning. He is on a mission to bring elite-level clarity to every organization.If it speaks to you, follow The Alchemist Archive and share it forward.New episodes every two weeks.