Stay ConnectedHi, I’m Chase Chewning (@chase_chewning on Instagram) and this is the podcast that is devoted to help you build a life that propels you forward – EVER FORWARD. Conversations with industry leaders in health and wellness, personal development, entrepreneurship, celebrities and entertainers, creatives, military and so much more.
I am a US Army veteran, ACE Certified Health Coach, and I hold a BS in Exercise Science and MS in Health Promotion and currently live in Los Angeles, CA.
Copyright: © 2026
Ben Smith, fellow Army veteran and coach at the legendary Deuce Gym in Los Angeles, encourages anyone going through a life-changing transition period—service members in particular—to actively seek guidance, whether through workshops, support groups, or connecting with a mentor who has been in their shoes and successfully crossed the bridge.
In today's conversation, Ben sheds some light on his mental health struggles before and after his time in the military, including an eating disorder that plagued his days in the Army due to an overwhelming feeling that he had no control over his own life. He also shares two moments in particular when he was gripped by thoughts of suicide and what allowed him to soldier on down a path of healing.
Tune in to learn some of Ben's favorite practices for improving your own mental health today and how to live an others-centered life.
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Dr. Mary Pardee is a naturopathic and functional medicine doctor specializing in mental health and gut health and, by extension, the gut-brain connection. She has a special interest in trauma and how it affects physical health.
She is the founder of Modrn Med, a wellness consulting company that aims to enhance clients' cognitive function, gut health, and energy levels. Through Modrn Med, Dr. Pardee offers at-home lab testing and virtual consults to clients around the world.
Dr. Pardee is also the co-founder of Authentic Self, "a method, program, and experience to create your most desirable life." Her approach to cultivating health and wellness is in maximizing the "distribution of your most finite psychic resources; time, energy and attention" with the aim of achieving congruence "with all aspects of the 'self'—biological, psychological, and energetic or spiritual".
Listen in as Dr. Pardee shares what drew her to study the gut microbiome and explains the crucial link between gut health and mental health, also known as the gut-brain axis (GBA). She gives some key factors to pay attention to when doing a mental or gut health "scan" on yourself and how to fill in your gaps via lifestyle and nutrition tweaks.
Finally, she explains what she is most looking forward to in the realm of holistic health and wellness in the new normal and her suggestions for how other naturopathic specialists can reach more people at a time when they are most needed.
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Harvey Martin and Matt Arends of the MindStrong Project speak on the modalities used at the MindStrong Project, particularly heat and cold therapy, as tools that "bring you back to yourself faster", that help anybody recover and reach a refreshed state of consciousness in the most natural way possible. Their work, ultimately, is around helping a person, through their own physiology, take control.
The MindStrong Project believes in "respecting the animal" in our humanity while exercising the power that puts us at the top of the food chain, namely "advancing our cognition".
As Harvey and Matt explain, advancing our cognition tends to be prioritized at the expense of respecting the animal. Their team uses the modalities that they do in response to the environmental stressors of the modern world in an effort to prepare and allow the body to recover from those stressors.
The MindStrong Project was founded in 2017 to shape the world of human performance by improving the physical, mental, and emotional capacities of top performers through tried-and-tested natural breath, movement, and mindset protocols. Their team of five combines foundational nature-based training with industry leading strength, movement, conditioning, and nutrition programs.
Follow MindStrong @themindstrongproject
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Do you struggle to find the right gift for that special someone in your life? Does throwing a birthday party or even booking a dinner reservation stress you out to the point of panicking and waiting to the last minute? Being a good gift-giver is an innate skill for some but a source of anxiety for the rest of us! But don't worry, there is a sure fire way to honor your significant other, friend, or family member without breaking a mental sweat in order to do so.
In this episode, Chase and his wife May discuss their recent weekend celebrating May's birthday and how Chase was able to make 100% sure that his efforts and gifts well received with the same intention behind them; love. In fact, they break down how to craft the perfect gift or experience based on understanding the other person's love language.
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The secret to mindfulness, according to Yedda Stancil, is understanding that "beliefs are not who we are." She stresses the importance of self-awareness to be able to catch the thoughts that feed into our belief system, because our truths define neither us nor the people around us.
Chase and Yedda look back on the evolution of their respective careers. They reflect on the various opportunities they've faced and the many challenges to their beliefs over time, and how these experiences gradually shaped their purpose and their truth—what Yedda calls "the awakening of my narrative."
Yedda goes on to share how she works with clients looking to experience change by helping them bring to the surface those things that are already inside them—to help them realize that they are enough.
Yedda Stancil is a consciousness coach and highly sought-after consultant for both individuals and organizations. She is the founder of Fantastically Fit! Inc. as well as Mindfulness Bar in Richmond, Virginia.
She is the author of Shut Up and Sit: Finding Silence and All the Life-Changing Magic that Comes with It and the host of the Shut Up & Sit Podcast.
Follow Yedda @yeddastancil
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Sam Visnic believes staying on the cutting edge is the key to FASTER results. Learning new techniques, research, & integrating the best approaches to both clinical massage therapy and movement re-education are essential to understanding pain.
Sam is the founder of Release Muscle Therapy, where he provides pain relief through clinical massage and movement. He is also the owner of the Visnic Center For Integrated Health, whose focus is "on assisting clients with achieving the highest levels of health and vitality through an integrated approach."
Sam began his career as a personal trainer at 19 during the fitness boom of the 1980s. He quickly found his niche in corrective exercise and decided to become a massage therapist subspecializing in neuromuscular therapist.
He describes the trajectory of his career and his expertise in his field as ever-evolving as knowledge about the human body expands over time. He quips, "What happens is, the more you learn in this field, the more challenging your clients get."
Sam explains how his approach progressed in the past two decades, from an initial perspective that was purely mechanistic in its view of the body to one that is entirely holistic—known as the Biopsychosocial model of pain assessment and treatment. His open-mindedness and relentless drive to learn as much as he can earned Sam the reputation of being the go-to guy for difficult cases among his peers.
Listen in as Sam shares why developing the ability to build rapport with clients can be a game-changer for anyone in his field, why hypnotherapy is "the next thing", how your brain controls how you feel pain independent from what's actually happening to your body, and how to rewire your mind to dismantle unproductive beliefs.
Follow Sam @releasemuscletherapy
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Dr. Amy Shah is an allergist and immunologist at Valley ENT as well as a speaker and consultant on health and mindset. In March 2021, she published her first book, I'm So Effing Tired: A Proven Plan to Beat Burnout, Boost Your Energy and Reclaim Your Life.
Shortly after starting her wellness practice, Dr. Shah was named one of mindbodygreen's Top 100 Women In Wellness to Watch in 2015. Clinically, she was named in Phoenix Top Doctors magazine in 2017, 2018, and 2019.
We kick off the conversation with the personal experiences that led Dr. Shah to learn all she could about burnout and, later on, offer guidance to others who are suffering through it. She was inspired to do her part in changing the mainstream perception of burnout as a "badge of honor" and steer people away from the glorification of "the grind".
Listen in as Dr. Shah goes on to discuss the hidden dangers of supplements; why cases of burnout have drastically risen over the past year; the benefits of "circadian fasting"; and how optimizing your gut health, immune health, and hormone health can supercharge your energy levels no matter your age.
Follow Dr. Shah @fastingmd
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How do we not just train harder, but also maximize everything around it including the mind, body, and soul? This is the question that drives Jeff Byers, a former NFL player and the current CEO of Amp Human, which offers innovative products that help athletes push the limits on their performance, adaptation, and recovery.
With an interest in both sports and entrepreneurship from an early age, Jeff always harbored an interest in finding creative ways to push his boundaries for growth as a human. "I was always thinking about the little things I could do to get better," he says. "I tried to use my brain to work smarter than always just work harder."
After retiring from the NFL, Jeff worked for a few years in the finance space before joining an early-stage biotech startup in late 2015. This company had discovered a way to deliver pharmaceuticals through the skin, bypassing the GI system which often limits the body's ability to optimally absorb vitamins and minerals taken orally.
Not long after joining the company, Jeff and one of his partners developed a broad vision for a business offering products specifically formulated to optimize human performance, a space in which they saw, at the time, a huge gap in the market.
Listen in as Jeff talks all things human performance and optimization and why he refers to it as a "broad spectrum". He also discusses the benefits of Amp Human's flagship product, PR Lotion, and its newly released D+ Lotion.
Follow Amp Human @amphuman
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Mike Matthews is the Founder and CEO at Legion Athletics, Inc., a company which offers all-natural, science-based supplements, including pre-workout, post-workout, fat burners, protein powder, multivitamins, and more.
Mike is also the author of several bestselling health and fitness books, including Bigger Leaner Stronger: The Simple Science of Building the Ultimate Male Body and Thinner Leaner Stronger: The Simple Science of Building the Ultimate Female Body.
Chase and Mike do a deep dive into supplementation and how to navigate an industry that has unfortunately grown to be filled with misleading claims, half-truths, and outright lies that leave the average fitness guy or gal at a disadvantage when it comes to getting informed on what the right products for them are.
Listen in as Mike lists foundational supplements that nearly everyone would benefit from adding to their daily regimen. He shares common shady marketing tactics and gimmicks that many supplement companies use to promote subpar products.
Finally, Mike explains the secret to becoming the number one all-natural sports nutrition brand in the world and what sets Legion Athletics' product line apart from all others.
Follow Mike @muscleforlifefitness
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Chris Bello is a Houston-based real estate agent and investor and the host of the Entrepreneur Motivation Podcast.
His journey from employee to entrepreneur is a familiar one to many who have been, or currently are, in his shoes. The Texas native followed his friends and family into the oil and gas industry right out of college for no other reason than that's what everybody else in his circle did.
Right away, Chris realized that he was on the wrong path. He recalls asking himself, "What could there be for me outside of the cubicle?" He began reading books such as Rich Dad Poor Dad and The 4-Hour Workweek. Bit by bit, an inspiring new vision for the future was taking shape in his mind.
"I didn't put all the pieces together," Chris recalls of that time, "but the questions started being asked in my mind."
Chris finally quit his job in 2018 to dive into the world of entrepreneurship and self-development, and hasn't looked back since.
Listen in as Chris shares the practical steps he took to create freedom in his life, including how he set up systems and processes appropriate to his work and lifestyle, the value of the phrase "fail fast, fail often", why you don't have to have the "perfect" plan to start right now, and what it means to embrace your zone of genius while encouraging your team to embrace theirs.
Follow Chris @chrisbello_
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