Becoming The Hero

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Today I chat with Michael Easter about my favorite book, The Comfort Crisis.

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Today, I have the opportunity to chat with Army Ranger Jimmy Blackmon.

Welcome back to the show. Today, I speak with Matt Doherty about trusting your coach.

Welcome back to Becoming the Hero (formerly The Hard Thing Podcast). Today I chat with Simon Chapple about getting real with yourself as you get sober. Enjoy.

Thanks for Listening to the Show. Today we'll talk about the True Realities of Finances.

Welcome back to Becoming the Hero.Today I get to talk about drug addiction and addiction recovery with Adam Gunton of Recovered on Purpose. Adam wants to give you his book for free. Just go to fromchainstosaved.com and get the book in digital or audio format.

Welcome back to Becoming the Hero.Today I get to talk about drug addiction and addiction recovery with Adam Gunton of Recovered on Purpose. Adam wants to give you his book for free. Just go to fromchainstosaved.com and get the book in digital or audio format.

Welcome back to Becoming the Hero.I’m your Development Master, Justin Lewis, and together you and I will add more adventure to your life, help you level up in specific ways, and help you be the hero of your own story.If you’ve ever played Dungeons & Dragons you’re very familiar with the Charisma score. It’s the number that describes how well you interact with other people whether in a persuasive way or in an intimidating way. It dictates deception and shows your savvy in social situations. If you’re like me, you’ve probably asked, “Why can’t I have a good charisma score in real life?” In D&D you can get feats, items, or abilities that naturally improve your charisma score. Today, I want to talk about a few ways to boost your charisma score in real life without the use of magical items.Before we get to that, I want to share a specific announcement.My goal is to make episodes that actually make a difference in your life. To further that goal I will now be shifting to one episode a month. This should allow me to make very good content, laser-focused on moving the needle in your life. I’m extremely grateful for all the support you’ve given me and I want to ask you if there’s anything else I can do for you, let me know via Instagram. For now, the episodes will come out on the first of every month. But until then, let’s get back to charisma.Here are 6 ways to boost your charisma score in real life.Wonder and CuriosityThe world is full of wonder and few things make as little sense as people. Behind every person is a history of experience and story. The absolute best way to boost your charisma score in real life is by getting curious about people. Honestly, that’s one of the biggest benefits I’ve earned from doing podcasts is a natural growth in the skill of being curious. Naturally, I’m nervous about social encounters because I never know what to say or how to interact. This might make me say stupid things or speak rather quickly. When I change tactics and instead ask questions about the other members of the social interaction the encounter becomes much more interesting. In the next conversation you have with someone else, ask them a question you are genuinely curious about. You’ll be surprised what happens.Practice Small Talk“Big gulps huh…. Alright…”If you’ve seen Dumb and Dumber, you are very familiar with this particular line. It comes at a point in the movie where the heroes have begun their adventure. Jim Carrey’s character Lloyd says it to a few gentlemen waiting at a gas station and we, the audience, have a good laugh.We’re laughing because it’s such an awkward situation and Lloyd is unaware of the awkwardness or unable to circumvent it. I don’t know about you, but I’ve been in situations exactly like that.  That’s because I didn’t understand the value of small talk. In my estimation, small talk forms the bridge from “stranger danger” to “let’s be friends”. If you don’t construct that bridge effectively, it might lead you to stand on a partially constructed bridge hovering over the awkwardness.To do small talk right, I think you need a few things. 1. You need to give the person you’re talking to a reasonable belief that a conversation or relationship would be worthwhile.2. You need to match their current conversation expectations (I.e. if they are completely closed off then small talk won’t happen, a bridge has two sides). 3. You need to set yourself up for better personal topics. A great one is your name. As I said before small talk should be a preface for deeper topics.Selective VulnerabilitySpeaking of deeper topics, You aren’t just a person. You’re a story. Every person with whom you come in contact with gets an opportunity to immerse themselves in the story that is you. Just like with books, if you don’t interest people or hook them they won’t be...

Today's episode is a little different, I'll let you know why next week.

“Nope, too slow.”I stared at my best friend Ty in disbelief. How was it possible that I still didn’t do the obstacle course in a fast enough time? I jumped from the board to the piece of plywood and then onto the large rock as fast as I could. How could I not have done it fast enough? I kept trying and later ended up leaving with my parents in tears. I tried so hard but couldn’t make it.Welcome back to Becoming The Hero.I’m your DM, Justin Lewis.Today, you and I will learn how to take the lessons from our heroes (real and fictional) to help us add more adventure to our lives, make worthwhile memories, and level up in meaningful ways.The story I shared at the beginning of today’s show was a real experience from when I was 12. My friend and I had set up a makeshift obstacle course. We jumped from obstacle to obstacle in the dirt field in their backyard. I timed him and then he timed me. It was so much fun.Nowadays, that would be considered exercise but back then it was just a game. Because it was a game we both were able to push each other and reach farther. We pushed our limits. That’s the point of today’s show. I want to share 5 ways that you can start gamifying your life to help you push your limits and have more fun. Also, sidenote, my friend was lying. When he timed me he lied about the time. I purposefully said I didn’t do it faster than me to see how fast I could go. I ended up going a good 7 seconds faster than him. That’s the power of gamification.PedometerOne of my recent gamifying tools has been a pedometer. Many of us live very sedentary lives unfortunately. I know I work online at home and so for 8 hours a day roughly, I’m on my tush in front of a screen. Obviously, we all have goals of improving our health and maybe shedding a few layers of triglycerides. For a lot of us we can get in the workouts, but improving our overall activity level is somewhat more difficult. Enter the pedometer. This isn’t any revolutionary tech. We’ve had this for a while, but it has become more advanced. Add a smart watch and you’ve got even more capability in your hands. Let me tell you how I’m using it right now. You see, I’m not interested in massive change. In my estimation and knowing myself, I can burnout really easily. I’m looking more for long-term life-change. On the App that I have, it allows you to set a daily step goal. The step goals can be increased or decreased by 100. That’s important. So I started this a few weeks ago and set the step goal to 5,000. That’s important for me because based on the data in the app, prior to that, I was hitting or missing that number about 50% of the time. Ever week since I’ve hit my goal every day. Not just that, but I’ve also increased it gradually to 5200 steps per day. My idea is to gradually adjust it up but working on consistency over everything so as to help myself create a more all-around active life.Screen Time WidgetThe whole point of gamifying your life is making the worthwhile things you want to do more interesting and easy. The goal is to get you to live a more abundant, adventurous life, in the real world. That does mean that you’ll have to spend time in the real world. There are some of us who might have trouble with that. Screen time Widgets let you see how much time you’re spending where. The best way to fix things is to measure them distinctly. For example, My screen time says that I am down 43% from last week. Sweet… except for the fact that maybe I use my phone to do important things. But the app also allows you to see how much time is spent on which apps. From there you just identify the offending apps and then you lower the time on them.Calorie Counter AppsAnother great way to help yourself gamify your life is by counting your calories with various calorie apps. There are tons of free ones out there. I do like MyPlate but there are so many out there. You...

Welcome back adventurer, to Becoming The Hero. I’m your DM, Justin Lewis. Together, you and I will implement the lessons from our favorite heroes (real or fictional) to help us add more adventure into our lives, create worthwhile memories, and level up in every meaningful way. We’re here to help you become the hero of your story.I love ensemble stories. I love a group of diverse characters with diverse skillsets coming together to pull off some job, heist or coup. One of my favorite parts of ensemble heist stories is the planning montage. I always enjoy seeing the characters come together to figure out who’s skills fit where. The mastermind always sits down, writes a list of their assets, and makes a plan to minimize any liabilities. The mastermind connects the skills to the needs. The mastermind makes the plan come together and as Hannibal says from the A-Team, “I love it when a plan comes together.”Well, time to put on your Mastermind Hat. It’s Montage time!! You and I are going to do the same thing but for your life.We’re going to map out assets, liabilities, strengths weaknesses, and so on. Together, we’re going to help you perform a personal inventory to know what state your “Home Base” is in and help identify the foundation upon which you can grow everything else.But first a small anecdote.When I was growing up, I loved playing Starcraft. If you’re unfamiliar with it, it’s a real-time strategy computer game where you control a faction of military units and fight against an opponent controlling a similar faction. You can build buildings and train military units. I remember playing Starcraft via a LAN connection (raise your hand if you know what that means) with my friend Ty. I looked with jealousy at his base and noticed that he had so many more units and buildings than I did. In an effort to catch up, I would click the build button over and over and over again and all I would hear was that Protoss voice saying “Not enough Minerals” or “Not enough Vespene Gas”. At the same time, I would get alerts saying my units were being attacked. I lost continually.I did poorly because I wasn’t mature enough to acknowledge the dashboard that showed me how many resources I had. I did not completely understand my situation.It’s the same way in life. It’s very difficult to know what you need, how to get it, and how long it’s going to take when you don’t have an inventory telling you that information. That’s the point of creating a personal inventory. It’s almost a scoreboard you make to help yourself gauge and guide your efforts.If you’ve played any sort of RPG you know that your inventory is what you have. In video games and Tabletop RPG’s, it’s often your backpack, bag of holding, or other space where you hold stuff. Generally, to make you look cool in the game and not like you’re carrying a bunch of stuff, you aren’t depicted with that stuff even though it is in your inventory.Doing a personal inventory is very similar. You’ll write down some things that you have that you don’t quite carry with you. It’s a more comprehensive and slightly abstract inventory.One other thing. A personal inventory is just that, it’s personal. I’ll suggest a few things that I recommend everyone put on their inventory, but yours will be different than mine. That’s good because we value different things. So let’s get into it.Write it downI recommend you write this all down. In my opinion, on paper is the best option, but I understand that we live in a digital age. Writing it down helps it stick in your mind better and it helps you slow...

Welcome back, adventurer.Today I continue my conversation with Travis Rosbach.Above all else, we talk about preparing ourselves for future challenges and tragedies.There's also a bonus side quest at the end.

Welcome back, adventurer. Today I have the awesome opportunity to chat with the founder of Hydroflask, Travis Rosbach.It's an awesome conversation with a side quest at the end of today's episode.