Star volleyball player Gabby Reece’s is one half of a power couple with husband Laird Hamilton. The wisdom she’s gained as a public figure, a pro & Olympic athlete, a sports model, a mother, and as partner to an alpha guy like Laird caused our podcast team to nickname her “Yoda.” Gabby has an unexpected message of accepting and nurturing people ...…

The Ice Man, Wim Hof, is crazy for life. He embodies Spartan values: becoming comfortable being uncomfortable, changing your point of reference and finding your true north with passion. Not surprisingly, he shares Joe’s enthusiasm for cold showers, though he suggests to start with a 30 second one. His methods are unique even as his message is c ...…

What do you want to do with your time on this planet? Yanik Silver has taken this question and applied it to his business, Maverick 1000, harnessing entrepreneurial energy to make a difference in the world. But you’d be mistaken to think it’s only outcomes that matter. Silver has researched and discovered methods to find joy scrubbing the burnt ...…

How can lacrosse build a strong sense of self and propel young women to a winning attitude? Lukas Cash, in his extensive and successful lacrosse and leadership camps has found a way. He has a simple, straightforward but effective message to impart to young people. The key is to get them asking the right questions consistently so that they can r ...…

Luis Escobar has made a life around distance running. He has run with the Tarahumara who run as a way of life and with homeless people using running to get “back on their feet.” If his name sounds familiar, he’s also the ultrarunning photographer featured in Born to Run, by Chris McDougall. In this episode we ask him what it is about ultra runn ...…

What’s the connection between Mark Rampolla, Joe De Sena & Coconut water? It begins with dysentery, giardia and an ultra race in Fiji. Joe experienced all three and coconut water saved him. Mark Rampolla, founder of Zico, was introduced to coconut water in the Peace Corps and Coconut water changed his life too when he decided it would be the ve ...…

What does it mean to be a man? Ryan Michler, creator and host of the “Order of Man” Podcast, is studying that question. He’s not doling out advice from a pedestal, but from a near decade long struggle to get his life, and marriage, in order. One thing he discovered was that the best men don’t put up a front of invincibility. Do the things that ...…

With eight thousand characters in Marvel Comics’ universe, even if you’re a rabid comic fan, you probably haven’t scratched the surface of their offerings. We talk with Mindy Hamilton, the SVP of global partnerships at this time honored brand, now under the mega company Disney. She started on her career track at a very young age when she assume ...…

Will OCR be an Olympic sport? Ian Adamson wants to change lives and he approaches the Olympic initiative as an “incredible opportunity”, not as the “insurmountable Everest” it could appear to be. As Adamson is also one of the most successful adventure racers of all time, the challenge is in capable hands. This week, we ask Adamson what it takes ...…

In sports and energy drinks Lance Collins is the top of the heap. How did he get there? By being fast, funded, cutting edge, and well branded for the last three decades. And, critically, by being passionate enough to have a near single minded purpose. He has made great fortunes and launched successful products time and again. What keeps him com ...…

He sailed around the world, twice; the second voyage with his young family in tow. And in spite of starting a crabbing business in his teens and several other ventures throughout his adulthood, his expeditions are where Caspar Craven learned, along with his family, some of the most vital lessons in life, not the least of which is how to be aliv ...…

At age 70 she tried her first Spartan Race. At seventy two years old, 16.7 miles, five thousand feet of climbing at nearly two miles above sea level, she crossed the Lake Tahoe Spartan Race Championship finish line. For Marla Sweeney, this was the twenty third time in almost as many months of crossing that line. She started this endeavor while ...…

Want to find your purpose? Go outside! That’s the sage advice from Steve Lulek, wilderness survival expert and adventure guide. Are we meant to live the bulk of our lives cloistered in cubicles, driving in steel boxes and staring at screens? How can we reverse these cultural norms in order to reconnect to the outdoors and ourselves in the proce ...…

Just move! That’s the bottom line for these three members of Oscar Mike and Operation Enduring Warrior, both organizations designed to get wounded veterans on the move! “Oscar Mike” means “on the move” in military parlance. These three adaptive Spartans, Jonathan Lopez, Noah Currier, and Earl Granville, have sought out the race as a way of erad ...…

From house arrest to the NFL pro bowl in seven years, retired 49er Brian Jennings transformed his life in dramatic fashion. Then, after thirteen years of football success, like all star athletes, he was forced to start over again. As Jenning describes, “athletes are the only people that die twice.” With a podcast, as an inspirational speaker, a ...…

Manufacturing socks in a small town in Vermont, especially in the 80s and 90s when most companies were sending this work offshore, is hardly your standard business plan. Still, as of 2016, Darn Tough Socks was a 40 million dollar business. The name “Darn Tough” is a brilliant pun. The socks, like the CEO, are resilient (carrying a lifetime guar ...…

Why do you work out? Why don’t you? How do you think about how much you eat? Mind Pump podcast host Sal Di Stefano challenges a lot of hardened conventions in the fitness world. He discovered the route he took to health as an insecure teenager was leading to disaster, but fortunately he had an epiphany when he reached adulthood that lead to par ...…

Katrin Davidsdottir, two-time CrossFit world champion Icelandic born, is happiest when she is working. She loves work - whether making progress or failing then moving forward again. How has she achieved so much so young? The attitude and the mindset that nurtured throughout her life. Kristin’s secret may be that she has no secret at all. Her me ...…

Have you seen the iconic photos of Iceland's Blue Lagoon? On the way back from the Spartan Ultra World Championship we found Grimur Saemundsen, the doctor, and entrepreneur who founded the Icelandic spa visited by more than half of the country's tourists. Use his exceptional business success story as a parable to guide your own success. The ind ...…

What would you pay for a 10x improvement to everything in your life? One small change to improve your health, your relationships, your career. Ruari Fairbarns has found that ONE simple thing, and now he's sharing it with us!What would you pay for a 10x improvement to everything in your life? One small change to improve your health, your relatio ...…

Has fear been a problem in your life? Do you use terms like “overcome” or “suppress” in your relationship with fear? pioneering extreme skier Kristen Ulmer talks with guest host Amelia Boon about learning to love fear. They teach you a new way to relate to your own fear. Embrace it. If you want to live a full life of creativity, vitality, adven ...…

There are no valid excuses for staying on the couch, all 52 Spartan Up guests of 2017 agree. The panel is on site in Iceland for the Spartan Ultra & Agoge 007 on the cusp of winter solstice, in the midst of a brutal storm, and in imminent peril from an active volcano. In other words, the perfect race scenario and an ideal backdrop for the theme ...…

What is the secret to longevity? For many athletes, their sports tenure ends, through injury or burnout, earlier than they hope. Through decades Mark Sisson participated in hundreds of endurance challenges including ultras and Ironmans. What helped him avoid that fate? What compelled him to switch from these grueling tests to sports like stand ...…

Underground strength coach Zach Even-Esh has a unique distinction, the only guest to be interviewed three times in Spartan Up! During the insane weekend that in Pittsfield, Vermont (birthplace of Spartan Race,) that contained the Spartan Wrestling Camp, Spartan Agoge and a series of Podcasts, Col. Nye made time to check in with with Spartan up ...…

Bruce Lee’s legacy was so powerful that it lives on through his daughter, Shannon, and the foundation named for him. He passed when she was just four, but his legend reverberates through books, writings, students, fans and of course films. We’ve all heard the famous quote “Be like water, my friend…” but do you know the story behind it? It arose ...…

To climb Everest wasn’t quite enough for climber and documentarian Jimmy Chin. He had to ski it. Even the sherpas urged him not to do it. Despite the appearance of being a free spirit who may have lost control, this is far from who Chin really is. By his own description, he is someone who grew up being very disciplined. His life is about managi ...…

https://www.spartan.com/170 The story begins at age 5, he remembers the garbage man got to the best toy in the dumpster before he could get to it. He didn't understand until he was an adult how that moment formed him. Today Chris practices what he calls "venture philanthropy." He's left the world of finance and embraced his mission in life, his ...…

If Jack Lalanne is the godfather of modern fitness, Elaine “Lala” Lalanne is the Queen! Jack Lalanne revolutionized the way we work out and inspired a generation to embrace fitness and good diet. At 90 his widow, Lala, is still at it - riding skateboards and earning her breakfast with a daily workout. She’s living proof that their lifelong pass ...…

Successful but searching, entrepreneur Phil Randazzo renewed his purpose by helping veterans transition into successful civilian careers through a foundation that eventually became American Dream U. It fulfills two sets of needs: veterans need assistance transitioning into civilian life and the work world needs the unique skill set and drive th ...…

Attacked by a Grizzly bear, twice, Todd Orr survived a modern day version of The Revenant. He not only lived through dual brutal attacks from a grizzly mother, but was conscientious enough attempt writing a warning note to hunters before driving himself to the emergency room. The extent of his injuries made this impossible. His survival was not ...…

When Georgina Pazcoguin witnessed the second tower fall on 9/11, it codified her commitment to her ballet, something she had been practicing since preschool. Her mother urged her to quit and come home, but she doubled down knowing that the world needed the art that she could contribute to heal. In this episode, she describes the dedication and ...…

Win battles through trust, good stories, and building relationships - this is the surprising and refreshing approach of this paradigm shifting green beret, Scott Mann. He introduced “rooftop leadership” in Afghanistan to a skeptical NATO crowd, but his courage to live it and its subsequent success changed minds. In this episode, Mann shows us h ...…

What can a member of the Royal Family teach us about grit? Does a privileged background make it tougher to acquire the passion to succeed? Peter Phillips, eldest grandchild of Queen Elizabeth, was brought up to make sure he didn’t take his good fortune for granted. As you’ll learn in this episode, there were several strategies to ensure that he ...…

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 Warri ...…

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 ...…

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 ...…

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 tr ...…

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 l ...…

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 misdirec ...…

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 lea ...…

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 in ...…

www.spartan.com/155 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 w ...…

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 ...…

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 envi ...…

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 ...…

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 J ...…

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 da ...…

“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 pat ...…

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 successf ...…

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 f ...…