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If you’ve visited Colorado in the last few years one thing you can’t miss people wearing clothes with the Colorado flag. A company known for it’s hats it starting to stand out in the space, it’s called Yo Colorado. Co-founder Brad Miller joined me to chat about how he went from graphic designer and screen printer to business owner. Now the company has it’s eyes set on being more than just a tourist hat and t-shirt company.
Randal Ford talks about what the job of an advertising photographer really looks like in probably the best description I’ve heard. What it looked like 10 years ago when he did a job compared to what it looks like now. How he got into the fine art world by photographing some cows and happens when you bring your kid to work while shooting an elephant. Be sure to check out his new book 
To most of us going blind would be the ultimate tragedy of our lives. For Erik Wehenmayer though he somehow eventually turned it into a career move. He made a name for himself as the first blind person to summit Everest in 2001 and has gone on to turn adventures into his job. When not going on adventures he is a speaker, writer and co-founder to the 
Hazel Findlay is known as someone who climbs some of the scariest rock climbing routes in the world. But how do you make a career out of doing that? She shares her path, what it’s like to make a living from climbing, how her career has shifted as she’s gotten older, her fascination with the mental side of climbing and the love hate relationship she has with social media.
Pro big wall climber Tommy Caldwell comes on the show to talk about the life as a pro climber. Tommy has gone from something of a climbing prodigy to dirt-bagger to viral celeb to climbing elder statesmen.
What do you do when your job prospects look bleak? Create your own job of course. Scott Rank talks about how he has carved out a career as a historian by way of podcasting and e-books. Now host of the 
Sarah Lavender Smith is a bit of a renaissance woman and in this episode she talks about how that came about. We chat about her path away from her original journalism career plan and how she found herself a runner much to her own surprise. Then how running became a career of its own.
One of the things that I find most interesting is all the different ways you can make a career out of the same thing. As a professor of photography Marc Ullom and I in some ways do the same thing, take pictures, the reality though is what we do is nothing alike and that’s interesting. Marc was actually one of my teachers and early inspirers to explore photography more. I was excited that he was willing to come on the show and share what his journey has been like, what it’s like to teach photography and what he has going on now that excites him.
Back for a second hour with documentary family photographer Kirsten Lewis. I ask more about this whole Creative Live and education side of her business. She tells me more of what she has up her sleeve for the future…it may or may not include Jennifer Garner. We also talk a little about some of her equipment and why she uses it to try and best capture real moments both of subjects and her own family.
One of my favorite things is people with unique careers and Kirsten Lewis certainly has one of those. In fact she kind of helped create the genre of documentary family photographer. We talk about how she arrived at her niche, inspiration, teaching, balancing family life and so much more.
Whenever I see a Perrin James image or video I am always jealous. Which I think is a good sign for how good he is at what he does. He captures some of the most amazing underwater imagery I have ever seen and I was always left wondering how did he do that? Well I got him on the podcast to explain how he did do that!
Aerial photography has for lack of a better pun really taken off in the last few years thanks to advances in drone technology. Around the same time Instagram grew in popularity and became one of the places to showcase aerial photo and video work. Instagram is how I found photographer Tobias Hägg of Sweeden. His aerial landscapes are some of the most interesting and beautiful photo work I have seen recently. I got the chance to talk with him about how he got started, how you make a career out of taking aerial photos and putting them on Instagram and what are the challenges of the field.
Life goes in some odd directions. I feel that way about my own career and looking at where my high school classmate of mine Jessie Fultz ended up I found myself both curious and mystified. How does someone end up as a birth photographer? Well Jessie found her passion in birth photography despite having never really studied photography or given birth! I wanted to find out how all this happened.
Art Streiber doesn’t want to be described as a celebrity photographer. He’d prefer portrait photographer or problem solver, maybe visual fixer. Really though Art is all those things. He is also a very open book about how he goes about solving those visual problems and making portraits of celebrities. And being open in the world of high end photography is not a normal thing. Many photographers act as though they are guarding magical secrets given to them by the gods that they are scared every up and comer is going to steal. Streiber on the other hand gives talks on how he does everything from shoot planning to running his business and then for good measure has an Instagram feed showing how he lit everything. His openness and willing to share was personally inspiring to me as are the long long list of portraits he’s done that you’ve seen on scores of magazine covers.
More with Jess Dales breaking down how she gets jobs from Instagram, who hires her and what they hire her to do. For anyone trying to make something more from social media or just wondering how others have done it these episodes with Jess are super insightful.
Leslie Jamison is the author or the New York Times best seller the Empathy Exams. She is also someone who in her writing is willing to share about some of the most raw things that ever happened to her. In turn in her book people share the raw things that happened to them. I found about Leslie and her writing through my friend, who happened to be her older brother Julian Jamison. I got in touch with Leslie because I wanted to know more about what it’s like to share such intimate details of your life and your family’s life as your profession. We also chat about the business of writing and lots more.
Tim is back for part two talking about the people chasing his record at Western States 100, looking at you Jim Walmsley!
Tim Olson is someone I had hoped to talk to for a while. He is one of the most well known ultra runners out there but he has a lot of things that make him unique. The unique things that some people see are his look with his long blond hair, his dietary habits have gotten a lot of attention as has his embracing of meditation. I wanted to know some other things though like what is it like trying to be a pro runner and having a family? Is racing worth it when you don’t win? And when did he know that he could make a living from this? What is it like to be sort of a poster child of meditation and diet?
el, adventures, photography and writing into a career is something a lot of people wish they could do. Heather Balogh Rochfort is someone who is actually finding ways to do it. From blogging, to writing for magazines to now writing a book
Sometimes you go on a journey to get a career you want and sometimes that career finds you. In a lot of ways travel writing found Fran Golden and it sure seems like she has been enjoying the journey. When the journey is getting paid to cruise around the world and write about it I guess it makes sense that she’d try and find things to enjoy. That said I was amazed in talking to Fran how much she works to churn out stories. The hustle is real! If you ever thought travel writing looked like a great job this is an episode for you.
Scott Carney and I continue our conversation about what makes books sell, what motivates him to write, what question he is trying to answer with all of his writing, what he think of Wim Hof and his strategy for talking to hard subjects. There are lots of good insights into the world and career of writing for anyone aspiring to be an author themselves.
Scott Carney is a writer who has investigate some strange and dangerous things. His books have explored the economy for human body parts, extreme meditation and what can go wrong and how learning techniques for coping with extreme cold can perhaps help your health. He is also very savvy about the business of writing. He shares what he’s done right when approaching the business and some of the mistakes he’s learned from.
Mara Whitten is a communications specialist for Land O’ Lakes, yes the butter company. Mara will let you know it’s so much more than butter though. Indeed Land O’ Lakes is a 13 billion dollar co-op that also owns things like the agra brand Winfield and the animal food brand Purina…except not the cat and dog part…more the race horse, deer, pig, bee and cattle feed part.
Matt Hart has lived a few different career lives. He’s worked in the tech world for companies like Microsoft, he’s been a professional athlete and coach and now he finds himself as a writer and journalist for places like the National Geographic, Outside Magazine, Men’s Journal and even CLIF Bar. If you ever read articles online or in those magazine and thought, “I wish I could do that” or “what is that business like?” than this is going to be the episode for you!
J.E. Skeets the host of The Starters TV show on NBA TV is back! In part two Skeets explains what the day to day job looks like, we talk about what it’s like meeting and working with your childhood athletic heroes, needing to get away from the NBA at times and then play a few Starters style games.
I look at the other side of pro running as I chat with the Ultimate Direction brand manager and sponsor Buzz Burrell. Buzz took over running the hydration company Ultimate Direction a few years back and one of the first things he did was sign on top ultra runners like Anton Krupicka, Scott Jurek and Peter Bakwin to be the face of the brand. I talk with Buzz about life in the outdoor industry, what he looks for in athletes to sponsor, why he thinks going pro in ultra running might not be the best route for most people and more.
Pro runner Anna Frost is back for part 2. We talk running, lessons learned, travel, Hardrock 100, nonsense and she threatens to hit me. The interview went really well!
Anna Frost has made a career of doing some of the hardest athletic feats you can find and excelling at them. From vertical kilometer races, to adventure races to winning both the Hardrock 100 and The North Face 50…twice! She and a partner were also the first women to complete Nolans 14. Nolans 14 if you aren’t acquainted is a fun little challenge in Colorado of seeing if you can do a line of 14 peaks over 14,000 feet high, with no marked trail, 40,000 feet of elevation gain and a 60 hour time limit.
If you enjoy listening to spoken word audio you have Barbara Holdridge to thank for it. Together with her business partner, Marianne (Roney) Mantell, co-founded 
A new segment that we may have once in a while is Storytime! This one features a story I recorded a while back with one of my friends Ben Harland, but it’s one of my favorites. I call it his Christmas miracle. Ben might disagree, but what do I care. Anyway sit back and enjoy a real life series of unfortunate events featuring Ben Harland.
Sage is back! I tricked him into thinking the mic was off and we went down all the nerd running rabbit holes we could…including Run Rabbit Run, diet, shoes, sponsors, running at the front of the pack and too much of me rambling about myself and comparing myself to Sage. If any of that sounds remotely interesting than listen on!
Sage Canaday is a hard man to keep up with. That is most true if you are running, especially in the mountains. It’s also true that trying to keep up with all the ways he is hustling to carve out a career in running is hard. He has sponsors, a YouTube channel with tips and training videos, a podcast, a coaching business and of course he’s on social media. Oh right and he runs and races…very very fast.
Two things I you come away thinking if you meet my guest John Walsh is “That guy is really smart and really nice.” John was the U.S. Attorney for Colorado from 2010-2016. The position is a presidential appointment and serves as the top federal prosecutor for the state of Colorado. Walsh stepped down before the 2016 election and is now a partner at the
The second part of my conversation with mountain athlete Anton Krupicka dives into what has ultra running grown into and where might it go and what has Anton grown into and where is he going? In the last five years due to a number of injury setbacks Anton has moved away from competing at top level ultra running races. In the meantime he embraced climbing again and is now exploring a whole new way of getting into the mountains as he dives into speed accents often combining human powered methods of getting to climbs whether that by foot, bike or ski. It’s an interesting world he has opened up to himself and to others as he casts light on endeavors like the Long’s Peak Triathlon and other high end but not well known link ups and human powered ways of getting into nature and the mountains.
One of my friends described Anton Krupicka as one of the godfathers of pro ultra running. I think he is right. Anton was one of the first people to make a career out of the curious sport of running more than 26.2 miles, usually much longer, in his case often 100 mile races, usually on trails in the middle of nowhere. In 2006 Anton was 23 years old, he’d wrapped up a not very notable college running career at Colorado College when he decided to enter the prestigious Leadville 100 trail race in Leadville, CO. He’d never run close to 100 miles at one time, but unlike almost any other runner his running obsession had led him to regularly average up to and sometimes over 200 miles a week often up in the mountains around Colorado Springs.
The Guillermo Moreno show is a conservative talk radio show in Fresno, California and it just happens to be hosted by someone I went to college with, Guillermo Moreno! Guillermo was kind enough to come on and share the story of how he went from Democrat to Republican, lawyer to talk radio show host and more. We also answer some listener questions and talk a little politics.
Listener questions and creative process with Mark Lampert! In the second part of my interview with Mark we get to a bunch of listener questions and talk more about how he actually goes about creating the sounds for monsters and robots. Spoiler alert, cats may be involved! Mark work for 
Mark Lampert joins the show to talk about his job as a video game audio director. Mark works for 
ty show that ran for 10 seasons. Duff was kind enough to chat with me at his Baltimore location back in 2011. He was in the midst of opening a new location in Los Angeles that is now Charm City Cakes West. You can find out more about Duff and Charm City cakes at 
