Unstagnate: Live An Unconventional Life | Expand Your Comfort Zone | No-nonsense Personal Growth

I put time and effort into learning Salsa, but it didn't go anywhere. Why do some people learn dancing better and quicker than others? A few months back, I got to see my Scottish friend, Murray dancing with some of my female friends in a house party. They weren’t experienced Salsa dancer, and yet, he made them feel great and look great while he was doing it. Everything he did was smooth, effortless and graceful, and he was having a ball. And to top it off - 12 months before, he had no clue how to dance Salsa, let alone teach and lead a partner. Wow. This is exactly what I wanted when I took Salsa lessons in Colombia when I lived there. And yet, despite spending 20 hours in one-on-one lessons (and even focussing on leading), I never got to the point of feeling comfortable walking into a club and dancing with someone. Salsa seemed complicated, and got me in my head. I definitely wouldn’t have it in me to take a non-experienced dancer and create a great experience for both of us. I’ve also seen other friends

  This is a very special interview for me - with one of my favourite people in the world, who had a big impact on my life. At age 35, Troy had been backpacking the world for 13 years, living in various countries and working odd jobs.  And yet, with no affinity for computers or the internet, he ended up starting an online SEO marketing agency. 10 years later, the agency is serving 70 clients a month, with 3 full time staff.  Even though the agency, its staff and clients are located in Melbourne, Troy recently relocated to the Sunshine coast - 2000km or so away. He still works on the business - around 1 hour or so a day - and the business is thriving more than every before.  What I enjoy about this interview is how atypical Troy is for an online marketer. He's not motivated by money at all, he barely spends time on computers or the internet. And yet has managed to create a greatly successful business that runs without him. We'll talk about his story: How he got his first SEO jobs How he started his first busin

Unlike previous episodes, this episode is NOT an interview. It's also not me reading out an article that I wrote. Instead, I had some bullet points but mostly, I riffed into the microphone about what I thought were the most important elements I've noticed recurring in Unstagnate guests. If you're curious the elements were: 1. Finding Yourself 2. Having a strong "Why" 3. Taking Action Outside of Your Comfort Zone 4. Generosity and Sharing   I was pretty excited and caffeinated when I recorded this. I thought it was just going to be an initial draft - but it came out pretty energetic and I ended up liking it. If I miss a word here or there, please be kind. I've tortured myself over getting this to be perfect enough, and ended up deciding to just go with an authentic, excited, energetic and value filled episode. Enjoy!

Are you one of those people that get excited about doing something new only to cast it aside? Have you ever gone somewhere and found pure joy just in being there? Have you seen ‘signs,’ but you didn’t know where they would lead you? John McIntyre realizes self-growth is essential to building your life and your business. He went from being a teenager with no goals for career success to a successful marketing and musical entrepreneur who has a definitive plan for his future. In the past John never met a dream he could stick to, but he’s developed himself into someone who has focus and knows where he wants to be. Now he is someone who has a schedule and adheres to it so that he can make his vision come true. He learned to embrace ‘stick–to–itiveness’ to enhance his work life without worrying about what other people thought of his decisions. On today’s episode, you’ll hear John’s riveting story of how he nurtured his talents as a music producer and DJ to create and grow his business. He’ll also enlighten us with

This week on the Unstagnate podcast, we’re doing something a bit different. Instead of focusing on self development, I’ll be focusing on how one small startup became less stagnant.   Today’s guest is A.J. Dunn, co-founder of Abroaders – a company that helps people get cheap international travel for pennies on the dollar. AJ will talk about how him and his business partner Erik went from being old friends to business partners, and how they went from their first business to Abroaders. But more interestingly, how they turned Abroaders from a boutique company charging $500 for their services, to a software company that charges exactly $0 to provide almost the same level of service. AJ will talk about how to business was stagnating, how they decided to change direction, and their journey to find investors, release the first software version and how they can make money without charging their customers any money. A brief overview of today’s episode: A.J. shares a story about a sales and fulfillment dilemma he and E

Becoming a creative entrepreneur can be hard.  You may have this intense passion to draw, paint, write, or create beautiful pieces of art… but finding your niche, finding your voice, and finding the right clients can be a big challenge. My guest on the show today is Mars Dorian, creative brand specialist, consultant, and author of three Sci-Fi books. Mars has an interesting story about his journey into finding his creative voice, capturing the audience he wanted to target, and building a successful creative business from virtually nothing. It all started with a Wacom tablet – a device that allows creative artists to draw and illustrate digital artwork directly onto the computer. On today’s episode, Mars shares his creative journey into entrepreneurship, how he discovered his true life mission, how he works with clients to develop creative branding services, as well as how he found his “voice” and incorporated it into his writing and his artwork. Please welcome Mars Dorian to the show! A brief overview of toda

Many people around the world struggle with staying focused and concentrating on specific tasks throughout the day – especially boring, mundane tasks – but people with ADD and ADHD typically struggle a lot more than most people. My guest on the show today, Grant Weherley, founder of Monetize Your Expertise, is one of the thousands of business owners and entrepreneurs who struggle with symptoms of ADHD. At the age of 18, he was diagnosed with ADHD and has dedicated countless hours to figuring out how to manage his symptoms to lead a more productive life and career.  On today’s episode, Grant shares his diagnosis story, shares tips and tricks he has found that has helped him stay more focused, improve his concentration, and reduce his impulsiveness to enable him to not only allow him to grow a successful online course creation company, but also lead a healthier, more fulfilling life.  Please welcome Grant Weherley to the show!    A brief overview of today’s episode:  Grant shares his journey from chi

Everyone says they want to travel the world, see new places, taste new foods, and experience new things, but most people consider this a pipedream – a thing they add to their bucket list but rarely ever set a clear plan to follow through. That’s not the case with today’s guest, Scott Brills. Scott is a traveling entrepreneur and philanthropist who has experienced more out of life and the world around him than most people ever dream about.  Just this year, Scott has traveled to 15 countries, visiting – on average – approximately 30 countries every year. His passion in life is finding the perfect balance and blend in combining the three things he loves – traveling, philanthropy, and building a successful business.  His journey started out at a young age when his interest in traveling the world grew from seeing pictures and hearing stories from others who have traveled to the other side of the world. In high school, he had the opportunity to study abroad in Japan and the experience only further solidified

In a predominantly extroverted culture, Introvert Expert Michaela Chung has always felt “a little different” compared to her peers while growing up. Throughout her childhood and early adulthood, she has tried to be more extroverted, but found that, at the end of the day, it left her feeling emotionally exhausted.  While in college and taking a psychology course, she realized why putting herself “out there” seemed so hard, uncomfortable, and exhausting. She learned, after taking a personality test, that she was an introvert – and that being an introvert was okay!  In 2013, she went on a mission to find her purpose in life. And, due to one experience while travelling, she discovered that her purpose was to help other introverts realize that being introverted was okay, help them understand their feelings about it, as well as help them claim their “alone time.”  Today, she explains in depth what it’s like being an introvert, how society and cultures tend to respond differently to introverted personalities

My guest on today’s show is entrepreneur Karsten Aichholz. Karsten is the founder of an online gaming business who helps casual gamers achieve maximum in-game results with less time investment. Growing up, Karsten has experienced the effects of online game addiction. During high school, he dedicated an average of 6 hours of online play time to games on top of going to school and completing his homework.     Today, Karsten talks about the behaviors that can cause people to become addicted to digital habits, various triggers that are often associated with online game addictions, as well as what inspired him to overcome his addiction and how he did it. We discuss the business ethics within the online gaming industry and he explains why he believes his game addiction throughout high school was the “most productive thing he did” while in school.  Please welcome Karsten Aichholz to the show!  A brief overview of today’s episode:  Why does he believe he was so addicted to EverQuest? What features of the ga

Are you musically inclined? Can you carry a tune? Do you believe that you have to have a “gift,” a “talent,” or an innate ability to create and produce beautiful sounding music? Our guest on today’s show, Christopher Sutton, founder of Musical U and Easy Ear Training used to ride on the bandwagon of people who believed that having musical talent was something someone was born with.   Growing up, Christopher has always had a passion for music. He played several instruments, and although his peers would say that he was a talented musician – he didn’t feel like one. That was, at least, until he learned about ear training and found the missing link that his music was lacking.  Today, Christopher shares his story about his journey through filling in the missing piece in his musical background, what ear training is, how it works, and why different techniques and strategies are used for someone wanting to play a guitar better versus someone that wants to improve their singing.  Christopher also explains how

Today on the show we’ve got Daniel DaVinci.  Besides having a really cool name, Dan is an inspiring guy who’s gone through some incredible changes in his life.  I met him a few years back when we were part of the same social circle of running friends. I was told that he used to be overweight - but I had a hard time imagining it - because he was so lean and trim.  He was a much better runner than me, so it was hard to believe he had only started running the previous year.  A few months ago, I saw him again after a few years and even though he still runs marathons, he didn’t look like a trim runner anymore - he packed on a ton of muscle and looks big and strong. All these transformations are just a sample... Dan has been working hard at changing his life since he was a teenager.  He grew up in pretty extreme poverty, and yet without a formal secondary education has created a successful career for himself as an IT consultant. So Dan’s a hard worker. I know that’s a cliche that gets tossed around, but he's is the

Have you ever wanted to run a Marathon? Well, Matt Callaghan has run over 100 marathons, a few Iron Man races, and quite a few ultra marathons (a Marathon is 42.2km/26.2mi, an ultra marathon is anything above that distance). Running Marathons is not Matt’s job - just a hobby he’s massively passionate about. Matt’s an incredible guy, humble, charming and loves getting other people to run, and he’s seen the big influences it made on his own life and those of others. We talk about: What made Matt get into running in the first place, age 32, working in a corporate job? The first run was exhausting, it was a cold wet London night. Tt generally sucked. We talk about why Matt kept running and how the experience changes from painful to pleasurable in about 2-4 weeks - both for himself and many other people. Matt tells some incredible stories: How he took a group of 9 women, some of whom have never run more than 0.5km (1mi) to a half marathon within 6 months, and then, 3 months later to run a marathon - where all o

Chris Reynolds is an entrepreneur with an interesting life story. He made a lot of money, then lost it, then started all over again in a different path. He went travelling to third world countries, and on more than one occasion figured out causes important to the locals and then created projects and raised money to promote those causes. It might be easier than you may think - he’ll share all the details here. These days, Chris is still changing lives. He runs a business called “The Entrepreneur house”. He basically rents big houses in cool cities around the world, and invites online entrepreneurs to come live with each other. In doing so, he creates a tribe - a community with a great sense of belonging - for people who usually have a pretty lonely work life. Chris is inspiring to listen to, if only because everything he does seems so simple and yet so impactful on people’s lives.  If you were ever interested in starting a charity or a business that really makes the world a slightly better place - you’ll enjoy

Welcome to another episode of Unstagnate where we talk about unconventional, out of the box ideas about self development. Today on the show we have Tal Gur. Tal is a very inspiring guy and he's just about to complete 100 Life Goals list that he gave himself 10 years ago - he has only a handful left! The goals are very diverse and pretty ambitious. Some of them have to do with contribution and volunteering - he built a house for a family in Bolivia. Some have to do with Sports - he completed a couple of marathons as well as an Ironman race. Some have to do with business and financial stability, a lot of travel goals and so on.... 100 Goals in total! Here’s a brief overview of what we covered:  What inspired Tal to create his list of 100 goals?  Is it possible to party for 60 nights in a row?  How Tal speaks fluent English thanks to his party marathon  The importance of financial freedom  How passive income opens your horizons  Taking on the Ironman challenge, and the sacrifices it needed  Why setting yours

Today, I have the pleasure of chatting with Connor Grooms. Connor is well-known for successfully completing several 30-day challenges including gaining a whopping 26-pounds of muscle mass in only 30 days as well as learning to speak conversational Spanish in a month.   Connor shares with us what steps he took to prepare for his 30-day challenges and the core principles he uses to ensure their success. He also explains how one challenge has lead him to build a successful career as well as how his story has aided in landing his first-ever speaking gig, which was remarkably held on the TedX Talk stage in London.  Connor, thank you for joining us today.  A brief overview of today’s episode:  Why does Connor choose to learn new skills in a short period of time?  What is the driving force behind successfully completing the challenges he sets for himself?  Why does he feel that “impressing others is easy,” but impressing himself is significantly harder?  What were the “conversational topics” that Connor an

Today on the show we have the very interesting David Kadavy. He’s an entrepreneur, best selling author of the book “Design for Hackers - reverse engineering beauty”. He was an advisor to productivity startup Timeful which was eventually sold to Google. he’s a public speaker, blogs online and his podcast “Love you work” has been featured in iTunes “New and Noteworthy”.  Since Mr Kadavy had such an interesting life so far, I decided to chat with him about quite a few different topics. We talk about: How being fired from his Silicon valley job sent him experimenting until he got his book deal. How in order to write his book, David sat in front of his laptop for 12 hours a day to only write for 15 minutes.  We discuss how the struggle of productivity and the insights that came out of writing his book eventually led to him being approached to advise timeful. Why some days and some hours are better for specific types of work, how to work with your natural energy cycles, so you’re doing the right tasks at the right

Want to sound like a native in 6 different languages? Our guest today, Idahosa Ness, is exactly that.   Idahosa is an American who grew up speaking only English. But later on in life, while he was learning Spanish studying abroad in Mexico - he realised he was studying it different to everyone else. He just sounded better, more natural. He didn’t have an American accent and sounded much more like a local.   That realisation only became stronger when he moved to China - everyone was trying to mimic Chinese tones but were struggling. He wasn’t.    It was only when he was in Brazil, learning his third foreign language and teaching English that he had a Eureka moment while riding the bus after drumming practice.   Since then Idahosa learned to speak two more languages - French and German. He also broke down his own ability to mimic people’s accents, and started a business - the Mimic Method.   He now helps people learn to talk like a native in 6 languages by recording themselves singing foreign language songs onl

In this NSFW episode - sex. Everyone wants better sex but very few people actually do something about it.   My guest today is Eyal Matsliah. Eyal is a modern sexual educator. He’s helped countless men and women experience more pleasure and better orgasms alone or with a partner.    He wrote a book called Orgasm unleashed covering a ton of aspects of female orgasms, and has a course for men called “Ejaculation Control program”.    As you can imagine, he’s also got a pretty interesting life story.   If you’ve been interested in Tantra, or I should say - the tantric approach to sexuality - but all the hippy wah wah stuff always scared you away or put you off, you want to keep listening. Eyal has a way of making sense, being practical, he has a ton of experience and is obviously very passionate about helping people improve their sex lives.   In this episode we cover how Eyal became a sexual healer and educator.  Why people get stuck in their sex lives in the modern world.    Common mistakes people make when tryin

This is a shorter mini-episode. In these I will share stories and ideas from my own life.   This is an audio version of a blog post I wrote called “There is no Freedom without Financial Freedom”.   It’s about a turning point in my life a few years ago, following which I drastically changed my career path and my financial situation. I can assure you it’s not what you expect.