In this podcast episode I have the pleasure to interview Roy Baumeister, PhD, one of the world’s most prolific and influential psychologists and author of the book "Willpower: Rediscovering The Greatest Human Strength", a New York Times bestseller.

Questions and topics covered:
- What is willpower?
- The relationship between willpower and self control
- How self control can predict success
- Why are we not paying more attention to willpower
- Is willpower a limited supply?
- Is willpower always necessary?
- Is there a correlation between self esteem and willpower?
- The influence of today's technology on willpower
- What is The Ego Depletion model
- The relationship between willpower and the body's glucose levels
- Can willpower be trained?
- Willpower and Decision Fatigue
- What's next on Roy's career

In this podcast episode I have the pleasure to interview Miten who, together with his partner Deva Premal, have greatly inspired me through their music, songs and mantras.

Topics Covered:
- His transformation from Andy Desmond (the rock musician) to Miten (the creator of spiritually-themed songs)
- What he learned from his master Osho, and his time in the ashram
- The need for being egoless when chanting mantras
- The meaning of holding silence at the end of the concerts (instead of clapping)
- The difference between singing mantras, chanting mantras and Kirtan
- How he comes up with the songs, and selects the mantras
- His meditation journey and current practice
- How his music retreats work
- What is next for him in life and music
- The importance of finding your mantra, and committing to the practice

In this episode I interview Dr. Rick Hanson, PhD and bestselling author of "Hardwiring Happiness" and "Buddhas Brain". We talk about how his own journey into meditation started, how to heal from trauma so we can show up in our relationships more authentically, the key elements to mindful relating, and the neuropsychological foundation for lasting love.

I’m interviewing a very special guest, an enlightened yogi called Shivarudra Balayogi (official site), henceforth referred to as Babaji. This is a podcast about the spiritual path of devotion and meditation, the traditional guru-disciple relationship, and the intense spiritual practice called Tapas, that culminates in complete and permanent Liberation.

In this episode we talk about pranayama, or yogic breathing. This is a huge topic, and we have barely scratched the surface here. This interview serves as an introduction.

I'm talking with Puneet Nanda (aka Gurunanda), who is an entrepreneur turned Yogi, and a proponent of Pranayama breathing techniques. GuruNanda was having a 16-hour workday life, filled with stress, which culminated into an emergency trip to the hospital with chest pains during what turned out to be a severe anxiety attack. This prompted him to rediscover the yoga he loved as a child growing up in India. He healed himself with Yoga and Ayurveda, sold his business, and is now committed to sharing with the world the power of breathing and meditation.

As brain sensing technologies advance, we will be able to have more and more insight on what is going on in our brain during meditation, and whether we are going in the right direction in our meditation.

In this episode I'm interviewing Ariel Garten. Ariel is a Psychotherapist, Neuroscientist, Entrepreneur, Public Speaker, and the CEO of Interaxon, the company behind Muse, which is a brain sensing headband that helps people meditate - a clinical grade EEG in your pocket.
We talk about:

- Ariel's personal journey into meditation;
- How Muse works, and what type of meditation is best suited for;
- How therapists and other health professionals are using Muse to help their clients/patients;
- Where brain technology is moving towards in the near future
- The challenges with brain modulation tech

Several spiritual traditions work initially with the body for grounding attention, in support for going deeper into ourselves, to subtler states of consciousness. If your body and breath are not calm and harmonious, your mind will likely be bogged down, and won't be able to sustain itself in higher states of meditation.

In this episode I interview Peter Petersen, a qigong and meditation practitioner and teacher, and a wellness coach. We talk about:

- Movement meditation, and what it can do to your emotions and body
- The benefits of doing qigong before meditation
- The power and importance of loving-kindness meditation, and how to practice it
- Peter's experience in a 7 days Vipassana retreat
- Realizing that we are the observer of thoughts and emotion, and can, thus, "step back"
- How the environment, people, and stuff we read/watch influences our thoughts and feelings
- Neuroplasticity and how we change our brain by repeatedly thinking in a certain way the need to slow down

Your mind in meditation is a reflection of your mind in daily life, and vice-versa.  So another way to deepen your meditation practice is to actually make sure that you don't have a thousand threads of unresolved tasks and unprocessed information hanging around your brain. In order words, psychic decluttering is important.

In this episode we discuss this and other related subjects. I'm interviewing Sir John Hargrave, who is the CEO of Media Shower, the world's premiere content marketing company. This interview covers principles and tools ("Mind Games") that John wrote about in his new book Mind Hacking, about how to reprogram your mind and change your life. He is quite geeky, so you'll hear him speak how our mind is like a personal computer, or a smartphone, among other modern metaphors.

In this meditation the attention is guided to move from the objects of perception—thoughts, feelings, memories, sensations—back into the perceiving subject (consciousness, yourself). By constantly remembering our true position as the witness of whatever is being experienced, we experience an expanse of consciousness; suddenly, anything that arises in our mind doesn’t have that much power anymore, because we can clearly see we are larger than any phenomenon.

In this episode I interview Con Georgiou (Constantine Georgiou), who is an entrepreneur, angel investor and meditation practitioner. Hear about his journey in life and how he was positively transformed by The Work of Byron Katie. I’m not connected with her in any way, but I’ve heard a few people speak of good things that happened when they attended The Work.
In this episode you will learn:
Four questions you can ask yourself to review your assumptions and process your psychological material
How internal transformation often manifests in the body as well
How resisting the present moment is suffering
How needing other people's love and attention is a reason for so much trouble

This is an episode packed with practical tips and spiritual wisdom. I interview Nithya Shanti, who is an internationally respected spiritual teacher, seminar leader,writer and educator, and who was ordained as a Buddhist Monk in the Theravada tradition in 2002.
After six years of living in forest meditation monasteries in Thailand, Sri Lanka and also various parts of India and the US, he was guided to live, learn and serve in broader ways than the traditional role of a monk permitted. With the blessings of his teachers he stepped out of the robes in early 2008 and now shares joyful teachings in happiness joyshops, youth programs, corporate trainings and meditation retreats around the world.

In this episode you will learn:

What are the core message of Buddhism
How intimate relationships can help your spiritual growth
Which spiritual principles help you have better relationships
The power of walking meditation and movement meditation
The importance of being honest about our experience

This is a guided mp3 audio for the "I Am" Meditation, also know as I Am That I Am Meditation. It is a type of Self-Enquiry meditation technique.

Meditation is the art of mastering your attention (full definition). While in most styles of meditation we focus our attention on a certain object—either external or internal, gross or subtle—in Self-Enquiry (which is another name for I Am meditation) we focus the attention on the perceiving consciousness. This is the awareness that is behind attention itself, and that underlies all our experience.

In this guided meditation I start with anchoring the attention in the body and breathing, and then we start directing the attention to consciousness itself.
For some people this may seem very abstract, or too subtle, but it is simply our feeling of presence, or existence. It is the open feeling of "I" or "I am", unpolluted by any identification such as "I am this", "I am ". In order to perceive anything, or to do anything, you must be there. We here focus on this "you".

Guillaume then joined a 10 days Vipassana retreat in Bodhgaya, the city where the Buddha reached enlightenment. In Nepal, a Tibetan Healing Master instructed Guillaume on the power of Tibetan Healing Bowls. He now provides coaching services and mindfulness training to leaders and corporations.

In this episode you will learn:
How to do tantric meditation (spoiler: no sex involved);
The value of surrender and letting things happen;
The importance of the intent behind meditation;
How long does it take to distress with meditation;

Buddy Fichera is a corporate coach, meditation teacher, and long-term Buddhist practitioner.
He has practiced with John Kabat-Zinn and Thanissaro Bikkhu. Besides practicing in the Thai Forest Tradition of Buddhism, he oversees two meditation centers located in Fort Worth, and Austin, TX.
In this episode you will learn:
The difference between mindfulness and meditation, from a Buddhist standpoint
The role of “Right View” in meditation
The four types of actions according to Buddhism, and where we should focus our attention
The difference between working on our problems and working on their true causes
Walking the journey with no guilt and no pride

In this episode I am interviewed by Colin Pal (UndeniableClarity.com). You will hear me speak about:
My journey in meditation, spirituality, and life;
What is meditation;
How to get started with meditation;
Where and when to meditate, and for how long?;
Feelings of anxiety during meditation;
Which types of meditation should I do;
Falling asleep in meditation;
Modern mindfulness movement;
The different reasons why people meditate;
Integrating mindfulness and meditation in daily life;
My motivation and mission in building up this blog;

Nicholas Stein is a veteran non-fiction TV producer, and the former show runner for National Geographic channel’s breakout hit Border Wars.

Nicholas spent the better part of four years deeply embedded with the tactical units of a various federal and other law enforcement agencies. His continual reporting on human suffering inside the US/MX border zone left him burned out and depleted, with what he felt was a form of “Journalistic PTSD”. Seeking relief from the traumatic experiences, Nick found great healing and equanimity in the practice of secular Mindfulness, in an MBSR program in Canada (where he had moved for six months).
In this episode you will learn:

How mindfulness brought him the healing that years of therapy couldn’t bring
How he tried meditation and failed multiple times; then finally found meditation through crisis
How we are not the voices in your head; not our thoughts
The importance of correctly describing our experience and emotions
How mindfulness helps increase our comfort zone
The need to celebrate your attention to consciousness and your existence

Ken LaDéroute is a mindfulness meditation trainer, musician, and founder of Clarity Mind Institute and Affirmation Music for Better Outcomes. Ken is a self-made entrepreneur, running profitable franchise businesses and commercial real estate and has taught at the university level.
In this episode you will learn:
How Ken used meditation to overcome depression in his teens, and to go through other hard situations in life
The mindfulness lesson that everything is unimaginably well
The inner discovery of one’s true nature as love and fullness