My conversation with yours truly: After 5 seasons and 105 podcast episodes, I took this episode to reflect on all of the guests I've had, things I've learned, habits I've created and awareness I've gathered. The Meet Mediocrity podcast is not done, but it's time for a break to enjoy the summer of 2022, to focus on some other passions like outdoor photography, cycling, swimming, golf and hiking. It's also time to get my creative juices flowing around what I'd like to do with the podcast next!
Enjoy this great wrap-up episode and stay tuned for what's next.
In the meantime, check out my personal photography Instagram page where you can enjoy many great landscape, wildlife and even some streetscape photos - @mitchmomentsphotos
My conversation with Carly Johnston: One day, Carly found herself having a panic attack. Not just your ordinary moment of stress. A serious, long lasting panic attack!! Being a problem solver and a take charge person, Carly sought to understand what was happening to herself. She read, she studied, she spoke to people and she healed.
Soon after, Carly started an Instagram page (@healingtheanxiousmind) designed to help others. She gained many followers, heard many stories and helped many people. Then, Carly started medical school in Canada where she is currently starting her 3rd year and preparing to become an OB/GYN - with a focus on perinatal mental health.
Now, Carly has her own website - https://www.healingtheanxiousmind.com/ - designed to share resources, blog posts and so much more! Check out the website and listen for a great conversation!
My conversation with Nikki Wilson: Pregnancy, birthing, a newborn baby! These are "supposed" to be some of the most exciting and wonderful times in parents' lives. Sadly, that is often not the case. And, even more sadly, it is often taboo for parents to express the trauma they experience associated with these times and to receive much needed support.
Nikki Wilson is the CEO of Make Birth Better is a UK-based not for profit organization. Make Birth Better is a collective of experts who bring together lived experience and extensive professional knowledge of birth trauma to support parents, health care professionals and newborns - making their birth experiences better and to support traumatic experiences as they invariably arise.
Nikki is kind enough to both share her personal story with us and to describe the services Make Birth Better provide.
Learn more at the website - www.makebirthbetter.org
and on Instagram - @birthbetter
My conversation with Rob Wilson: Food waste is a huge global challenge. Did you know that the most wasted food on the planet is bread? Rob Wilson, the "Chief Toaster" and CEO of Toast Ale sought to tackle this challenge by founding Toast Ale - a UK-based craft brewery that brews beer from leftover bread that would otherwise go to waste.
Since its inception in 2016, Toast Ale has saved millions of pounds of bread from being wasted by brewing it into delicious beer and ale. In fact, Rob even open sources his beer recipes - encouraging others to brew their own beer and to share their innovative recipes. The goal is to put himself out of business by solving the world's bread waste crisis.
Although I'm not sure that will ever happen, it's a lofty aspiration and Rob Wilson is a highly aspirational (and inspirational) person.
Learn more about Rob and Toast Ale on their website https://www.toastale.com/ and their Instagram page @toastale
My conversation with Hayley Curtis: Six years ago, Hayley had hit rock bottom. She had been suffering from severe mental health issues and finally hit her breaking point. She had fallen apart and lost touch with her own identity and her life priorities.
Hayley used journalling - starting with a small goal of writing a few sentences every day. Soon enough, journaling became a discipline of love and it helped her rebuild her identity and her mental health one day at a time.
Now, Hayley helps others with journaling basics, writing prompts and coaching - allowing others to use journaling to improve their well-being and their lives.
Find out more about Hayley at her website - https://www.soulfulljournaling.com/ and her Instagram @soulfull.journaling
My conversation with my son, Jake Schuckman: This is the 100th episode of the Meet Mediocrity podcast and I invited my son Jake to join me as today's guest. Not only is Jake one of my top 15 or 20 favorite people in the world (just kidding Jake!), but Jake and I share a passion for pursuing hobbies. In this episode, Jake and I discuss the hobbies we enjoy, how hobbies enhance our lives, and how we decide when to move from one hobby to another.
Our conversation also veers into work and careers - and the role hobbies play in both balancing out and enhancing our work lives. This is especially important to our health and wellness in a post-COVID world.
Thank you Jake for joining me on this milestone episode and for a fun, informative conversation!
My conversation with Ashley Wray: Ashley is the founder of Mala Collective, a company that supports meditation practices with classes, training and products all designed specifically for meditation. Ashley founded Mala Collective over a decade ago when, on a trip to Bali, fell in love with Mala beads, which help count breaths and keep one's focus during meditation.
Now, Mala Collective creates and sells meditation beads, necklaces, cushions and more - all designed to enhance meditation practices. Her products are deeply rooted in Buddhist and Hindu traditions and are made using all natural materials.
Ashley's own meditation journey and how she shares it with her customers is both impressive and inspiring.
Learn more about Ashley Wray and Mala Collective at her website - https://www.malacollective.com/
And, on Instagram - @malacollective
My conversation with Dr. Whitney Roban: Dr. Roban is a Family, Educational and Corporate Sleep Specialist. She is also the founder of Solve Our Sleep. Whitney's mission is to provide the education and support families, students, teachers and employees to both survive and to thrive with better sleeping.
Whitney is a published author, she has a private sleep practice, she provides educational sleep consulting and corporate sleep programs. Her approach isn't magic and is not about taking medications. It provides fun, useful and practical skills for helping her followers become better sleepers. And, as she says, "even a good sleeper can become a great sleeper!"
Not only do we discuss Whitney's personal journey into sleep consulting, but she provides some very useful tips we can put into practice immediately!
Find out more about Dr. Whitney Roban at www.solveoursleep.com and follow her on Instagram @solveoursleep
My conversation with Sindhu Satish Manepalli - “Things have a way of working themselves out if we just remain positive.” “I don’t think anything is unrealistic if you believe you can do it.” “Optimism is a happiness magnet. If you stay positive, good things and good people will be drawn to you.” We've all heard and read quotes like this. But, is there anything more to these than just positive words?
Sindu Satish Manepalli is a life coach who teaches manifestation, helping you achieve the results you want to achieve, through the Law of Attraction. The law of attraction is a philosophy suggesting that positive thoughts bring positive results into a person's life, while negative thoughts bring negative outcomes. It is based on the belief that thoughts are a form of energy and that positive energy attracts success in all areas of life, including health, finances, and relationships.
In my conversation with Sindhu, we discuss how Sindhu coaches her clients and we explore ways that I can do a better job of using manifestation to make the things I want in my life to happen more readily.
Find out more about Sindhu on her Instagram pages - @lifecoachingwithsin and @fiftyshadesofsin; and on her website - https://fiftyshadesofsin.me/
My conversation with Liz Chelak: Liz is 30 years young, yet she has lived a very full life. She is a recovering addict, she is an entrepreneur, she has tragically lost loved ones, she has founded a nonprofit organization and she provides amazing support and help to people in need.
Liz's fiance was Sam Risso. Sam was an amazing person who helped addicts and people suffering from mental illness. When Sam suddenly and tragically passed away, Liz started the Sam Risso Foundation to carry on his legacy. The Sam Risso Foundation is a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing resources, guidance, and support to those dealing with substance use, mental illness and homelessness.
They are focused on providing resources for detox, treatment, halfway housing, and therapy. They provide peer support and guidance to those in the beginning stages of their recovery journey.
Liz is a truly special person. Listen to this story of her journey.
Find Liz on Instagram - @lizchelak
Find the Sam Risso Foundation on Instagram - @samrissofoundation
Find our more about the foundation on their website - https://samrissofoundation.org/
My conversation with Danielle North: I am incredibly excited to welcome back Danielle for a second visit to the podcast. Danielle reached out to me a few weeks ago to share some exciting news with me. She had been studying sound healing and was now certified to be a sound healer. Honestly, I had not heard of sound healing. I was certainly aware that certain sounds and music could have therapeutic qualities, but I had no direct experience with sound healing.
In this episode, Danielle and I start by reviewing the company she founded, PAUSE. We talk about how PAUSE and the Pause Method can help people recover from and avoid burnout. Given the stressors in today's society. PAUSE is incredibly timely. After sharing her personal burnout story and reviewing how she created PAUSE, Danielle shares her further exploration from PAUSE into sound healing. I must admit that I was skeptical that sounds and musical vibrations could provide physical healing. Danielle shared her story and her journey into sound healing and described the impact it has had on her. To take matters further, after we recorded our podcast, Danielle conducted a sound healing session on me. In my intro and wrap-up to this podcast, I describe my personal experience with sound healing - and, teaser alert, it was really great.
Find out more about Danielle, her books, her retreats and her coaching on her website - https://www.pauseglobal.com/
My conversation with Jimmy Wightman: Jimmy was looking for ways to get a better night sleep, ways to reduce stress and ways to be more mindful when he found meditation. Actually, he found a teacher in the ancient tradition of Vedic meditation which involves the chanting of a mantra while meditating to help achieve an inner peace. Some people have heard of Transcendental Meditation (TM) which is similar. TM originated from Vedic so Jimmy's study was from the original Vedic teachings.
Jimmy soon found that practicing meditation helped significantly reduce his stress, helped him sleep better and to find inner peace. Now Jimmy is a meditation instructor with online courses and books. You can find out more about Jimmy, his meditation style and approach on his website - https://www.delvedeep.com/ and on his Instagram page - @that_meditation_guy
My conversation with Billy Omeltchenko: I've known Billy for over 20 years and I've always admired him greatly. Billy is an accomplished athlete - a star multi-sport athlete in high school, a Division One basketball at Princeton in the 1970s and a short stint playing professional basketball. To me, it isn't Billy's athletic skills that I admire, it's his commitment to our children through youth sports.
My children and literally thousands of other children have benefitted from Billy's selfless service as a coach, coordinator and commissioner of youth sports programs. Billy is level-headed and thoughtful. His approach is to make sure that children of all skill levels, their coaches and their parents have enjoyable and fulfilling youth sports experiences. It is not lost on Billy that it is the adults that often get in the way of those good experiences by being too intense and too vocal. Billy's down to earth approach has helped put children and the adults in positions to be successful - success being defined as having fun, making friends and learning some useful life lessons along the way.
My conversation with Georgie Corke Nieman - Georgie is the founder of Happi Head Co., providing life and leadership coaching and support for small business owners - predominantly women. Georgie’s special skill is helping people discover (or re-discover) their inner creativity. Georgie believes that everyone has a creative side. Finding and appreciating our creativity supports our wellbeing, our wellbeing supports our ability to achieve our greatest potential, and it is that potential that allows us to create amazing projects, businesses and lives!
Georgie’s personal journey is similar to that of many of her clients. Getting caught up in an aspirational, overachieving, corporate work cycle prevented Georgie and many of her clients from enjoying their journey and chasing opportunities that align with their inner values and interests. As Georgie says, “the only way to do great work is to love what you do.” Georgie helps her clients realize that the journey is the fun part - and not to allow a narrow focus on goals spoil the fun part!
Follow Georgie:
My conversation with Laetitia Vitaud: I was so happy when Laetitia reached out to me in late 2021 on LinkedIn to share her thoughts about an article we both reacted to about personal time off. Our conversation started with a laugh about how very differently Americans and Europeans view their holidays, their vacations. After a little back and forth, we decided to have a live video chat, and that video chat led to this - our second podcast episode together.
Laetitia is a human resources expert with a deep perspective regarding the future of work. She is a writer, an author, a consultant and a podcaster. Having a discussion with Laetitia is very fulfilling for me because I have to stay on my toes and I always learn something!
On this, our second podcast episode together (Season 3, Episode 6 was our first one), Laetitia and I explore how different cultures view work and view personal time. We then explore how COVID has altered these views across different cultures. The bottom line is that workers are re-evaluating the role work plays in their lives and employers are re-evaluating how to attract and keep workers so their businesses can thrive in this new world.
Laetitia and I recorded this episode a few months ago - before the COVID Omicron variant had even surfaced. In fact, the term "Great Resignation" was only just starting to be used then we recorded this. However, the content of this episode is as, or even more relevant today than it was a few months ago. As you listen, I suggest that you consider your work life, and what you can do to make your work life fit within your life's priorities in this new world.
Check out more about Laetitia on her website - https://laetitiavitaud.com/
My conversation with The Holly Maree: Holly is a human design specialist and a spiritual teacher. She is also a manifestor. Many of us don’t understand what these things are, but they sound intriguing.
As a manifestor, Holly is an initiator, a first mover, an innovator and a motivator. Until Holly studied “Human Design”, she didn’t understand why she was so incredibly energized by start-up and then demoralized by the ongoing, controlled, repetitive tasks that are required once start-up is complete. Holly experienced this when she took over a cafe that was in bankruptcy. For Holly, the start-up, rebound and build up of the cafe was thrilling, the day-to-day running of the cafe once it was successfully out of bankruptcy was not thrilling for her at all.
In the context of “Human Design” manifestors make up 8-9% of the human population. Once Holly began to understand who she was and why she was a manifestor, she was able to fully appreciate herself and her world. Ultimately she started a consultancy with a podcast and training guides for manifestors - www.thehollymaree.com
My conversation with Kai Cox: In this, the second appearance on the podcast by Kai, we explore "spiritual healing" in a plain, open conversation. Just prior to recording our conversation, Kai performed a "reading" for me. I found it to be both helpful and enlightening.
In this episode, we discuss the reading, we discuss how Kai approaches being a medium, and I "translate" Kai's explanation into a plain spoken explanation that I can get my head around.
The conclusion? The punchline? Done well, having a reading done by a skilled medium can be incredibly helpful. I found it to be therapeutic and insightful.
Check out more about Kai on her website https://www.awakeninnatehealing.com/
She can also be found on Instagram and Facebook
My conversation with Devan Bailey: Finding a career coach isn't hard. Google "career coach" or search "career coach" on Facebook or Instagram. Literally THOUSANDS of options will hit your screen instantaneously. Devan is different. Devan comes at personal and career development from a very relatable starting point and he has developed an approach that is amplified by his energy and charisma.
Devan is a coach, entrepreneur, author, and speaker. He teaches ambitious leaders how to create a mission-driven life that allows them to feel fulfilled. Devan went from being an international businessman with burnout, enduring a nervous breakdown, to a happy, fulfilled person running his own business. Devan developed and teaches the principles he learned from his own experiences.
Devan is also the writer and creator of several high-impact books and courses such as How To Escape From Prison, Secrets of the Emotional Ninja, Powerful By Design, and Living Without Limits.
You can find more about Devan on his social media pages and his website - https://www.shapingreality.com/
My conversation with Yogi Bryan: Bryan Holub, better known as Yogi Bryan, is a hypnotist, yoga instructor, meme maker, podcast host, and meditation guide. His Relax with Yogi Bryan Meditation podcast has over 800,000 downloads. And, it all started from creating an Instagram page to make fun of yoga!
Speaking with Bryan you can see why he is a real life practical joker who became a yoga Instructor and meditation guide. He is a down to earth person with a practical personality and a calming voice. Bryan's approach to yoga and meditation is simple... by not taking it quite so seriously we can more easily see and enjoy the benefits they can both bring into our lives.
Bryan can be found at YogiBryan.com, on Spotify and on YouTube.
