Stay ConnectedAs High-Performers, we’re all after three things: to do it all, have it all, and feel good about it, too.
Some will say, “it’s all about “balance”, but I’ve got a different story to share with you….
This podcast is going to take you into the minds of some of the world’s Top Performers in Business, Relationships, Health, and Mindset, and
give you hands-on methods to move from feeling you’re merely managing your High Performance Life, to MASTERING it.
Copyright: © 2023
In this episode, I sit down with Laura Vanderkam, bestselling author of Big Time: A Simple Path to Time Abundance, along with several other books on time management, productivity, and building a more meaningful life.
Laura and I talk about something almost every high performer wrestles with: time.
So many people believe they have a time management problem, but Laura challenges that idea. Often, the issue is not that we have no time. It is that we are not always intentional with the time we do have.
We talk about the difference between time scarcity and time abundance, why busy people can still have unused space in their lives, and how small pockets of time can become opportunities for joy, connection, rest, creativity, and meaningful progress.
Laura also shares how she manages life as a writer, speaker, podcast host, business owner, wife, and mother of five. We talk about planning, energy, open space, parenting, routines, travel, big projects, and why a well-organized life can actually create more freedom, not less.
About the Guest
Laura Vanderkam is the author of Big Time: A Simple Path to Time Abundance, as well as several other time management books, including Tranquility by Tuesday, Off the Clock, and 168 Hours.
She is the host of the Before Breakfast podcast and the co-host, with Sarah Hart-Unger, of the Best of Both Worlds podcast. She also writes the Vanderhacks Substack newsletter, where she shares a short tip each weekday.
Laura's work has appeared in publications including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Fast Company, and Fortune. She lives outside Philadelphia with her husband and five children.
Her work helps people rethink time, not as something they are constantly losing, but as something they can shape with more intention, awareness, and possibility.
Key Takeaways
→ Why time is really about how we experience it
→ What Laura means by "time abundance"
→ Why many people have more space in their lives than they realize
→ How phones and scrolling quietly fill the small crevices of our day
→ Why believing you have time helps you make better choices with the time you do have
→ The difference between time and energy
→ Why low-energy time still matters and can be used intentionally
→ How bedtime gives structure and shape to the day
→ Why planning ahead can create more relaxation, not more rigidity
→ Laura's "three-ring circus" framework: career, relationships, and self
→ How sitting down once a week to plan can prevent chaos later
→ Why meaningful long-term projects can make life feel bigger
→ How reading War and Peace one chapter a day changed Laura's relationship with time
→ Why small actions repeated consistently can create major accomplishments
→ How scheduling open space can create room for opportunity
→ Why most opportunities do not show up gift-wrapped
→ How personal-life overwhelm can prevent people from saying yes to good opportunities
→ Why ambitious parents need systems that protect both family life and personal space
Closing Thoughts
This conversation with Laura reminded me that time is not just something we manage.
It is something we experience.
So many of us walk around saying we are busy, overwhelmed, and out of time. And sometimes we are in a genuinely demanding season. But often, the story we tell ourselves about time shapes the way we use it.
If we believe there is no time, we stop asking what we would do with it.
And when time appears, we give it away to whatever is easiest.
Laura's message is not about cramming more into every hour. It is about becoming more awake to the hours we already have.
That means planning with intention. Protecting open space. Understanding our energy. Creating moments we will remember. And building a life where our time reflects what actually matters.
The goal is not to optimize every second.
The goal is to live with enough awareness that we do not miss our actual life.
Description
In this episode, I sit down with Greg Witz, President and CEO of Witz Education, a leadership development company focused on communication, self-awareness, leadership, and building stronger workplace cultures.
Greg and I talk about something every single person deals with: blame.
We actually started the conversation with technical difficulties, and instead of pointing fingers, we both went into solution mode. That became the perfect setup for this episode, because Greg's new work, The Blame Game, is all about understanding why blame shows up, what it is really trying to protect, and how it damages relationships at work, at home, and in leadership.
This conversation goes deep into communication, emotional intelligence, parenting, marriage, responsibility, and the difference between reacting and responding. Greg explains why blame often gives people a false sense of control, how emotional pressure builds inside of us, and why we need to create space before we speak.
We also talk about listening, why advice and problem-solving can sometimes come too early, and how a simple pause can change the entire direction of a conversation.
About the Guest
Greg Witz is the President and CEO of Witz Education, a leadership development company that helps people become better communicators, stronger leaders, and more self-aware human beings.
His work focuses on practical behavioral frameworks that improve communication, emotional intelligence, workplace culture, and personal responsibility.
One of Greg's core leadership concepts is The Blame Game, which explores how blame prevents accountability and personal growth. Instead of asking, "Whose fault is this?" Greg challenges leaders to ask, "What can I own?"
Through his coaching, training, and speaking, Greg helps leaders and teams recognize emotional triggers, replace judgment with curiosity, take responsibility for their contribution, and respond intentionally instead of reacting emotionally.
Key Takeaways
→ Why blame gives people a false sense of control
→ How blame often comes from built-up stress, fear, pressure, and emotion
→ Why people do not usually wake up wanting to be victims, but often fall into blame when they feel overwhelmed
→ How blame damages leadership, parenting, marriage, and workplace relationships
→ Why listening is not always enough if we immediately judge, minimize, problem-solve, or interrupt
→ The four ways people often listen poorly: judgment, minimization, problem-solving, and interruption
→ Why men often internalize, compartmentalize, and avoid conversations until pressure builds
→ How the "mechanic" or "advice monster" shows up too early in hard conversations
→ Why the simple rule of pausing before speaking can change the outcome
→ Greg's four-and-a-half-second rule for moving from reaction to response
→ Why asking "why" can create defensiveness instead of progress
→ How shifting from "why" to "what" and "how" creates better conversations
→ Why emotional intelligence is not about never feeling emotion, but getting better at catching it
→ How blame creates negative emotional markers in the people we love
→ Why personal responsibility is the antidote to victimhood
→ How the "adult" part of us gets depleted throughout the day
→ Why we often give our best energy to the outside world and our worst energy to the people closest to us
Closing Thoughts
This conversation with Greg reminded me how easy it is to blame when we are tired, scared, overwhelmed, or emotionally full.
Blame can feel powerful in the moment. It gives us something to point at. It gives us somewhere to send our frustration. But it rarely creates the outcome we actually want.
The harder and more important work is learning to pause.
To stop long enough to ask: What am I feeling? What am I trying to protect? What can I own? How do I want to respond?
That pause can change a conversation. It can change a relationship. It can change a marriage. It can change the way we lead.
Greg's message is simple, but it is not easy: better communication starts with personal responsibility.
If we can stop reacting long enough to choose our response, we give ourselves a chance to become better leaders, better parents, better spouses, better friends, and better human beings.
In this episode, I sit down with Dr. Tim Elmore, a leadership expert, bestselling author, and founder of Growing Leaders.
Tim has spent decades studying emerging generations and helping leaders understand how to develop the next generation. His latest book, The Future Begins with Z, challenges the way many people think about Generation Z and offers practical strategies for leading them well.
We talk about why so many leaders are frustrated with Gen Z, why every generation tends to criticize the one coming after it, and how this generation may actually be exposing what leadership has been getting wrong for decades.
This conversation is not about lowering standards. It is about learning how to lead differently.
Tim explains why Gen Z does not need to be fixed — they need to be understood, challenged, coached, and given meaningful responsibility. We also talk about parenting, technology, loneliness, faith, belonging, AI, the future of work, and why leaders need to stop managing generations and start understanding people.
About the Guest
Dr. Tim Elmore is a leadership expert, speaker, bestselling author, and founder of Growing Leaders, a nonprofit organization created to equip emerging leaders.
He spent more than 20 years working alongside leadership expert Dr. John C. Maxwell and has spoken to more than 500,000 leaders from organizations including The Home Depot, Chick-fil-A, Ford, Coca-Cola Bottlers Association, Delta Global, and major professional sports teams.
Tim is the author of 40 books, including Habitudes, Eight Paradoxes of Great Leadership, and The Future Begins with Z: Nine Strategies for Leading Generation Z as They Disrupt the Workplace.
His work focuses on generational leadership, developing young talent, and helping leaders build resilient, accountable, high-performing teams for the future.
Key Takeaways
→ Why every generation thinks the next one is going to ruin the world
→ How Gen Z may be exposing leadership problems that have existed for decades
→ Why Tim believes Gen Z is "the sandpaper on our leadership"
→ Why leaders need to turn frustration with Gen Z into fascination
→ How younger generations often see the future before established leaders do
→ Why Gen Z wants to feel heard, valued, understood, and included
→ The difference between fitting in and truly belonging
→ Why Gen Z does not need lower standards — they need better leadership
→ How leaders can balance accountability with empathy
→ Why parents and leaders may have overprotected young people physically while underprotecting them digitally
→ How technology, social media, and AI are shaping the next generation
→ Why boredom, downtime, and analog experiences still matter
→ How Gen Z is responding to loneliness by searching for deeper meaning, faith, and connection
→ Why leaders need to "play chess, not checkers" when developing young people
→ Tim's ALEG framework: Ask, Listen, Empathize, Guide
→ Why connection must come before correction
→ How leaders can prepare Gen Z to become the future leaders we need
Closing Thoughts
This conversation with Tim reminded me that it is easy to criticize the generation coming up behind us.
It is harder — and more important — to ask what they are revealing.
Gen Z is not perfect. No generation is. But they are growing up in a world that is moving faster than any generation before them. Technology, AI, social media, loneliness, pressure, and uncertainty are shaping how they see life, work, leadership, and belonging.
As leaders, parents, coaches, and mentors, our job is not to simply complain about what they lack.
Our job is to help bring out what is already there.
That means listening more. Coaching better. Holding high standards. Building real trust. Creating belonging. And guiding them with wisdom instead of just authority.
The future is not about managing generations.
It is about understanding people well enough to lead them.
In this episode, I sit down with Steve Judge, a two-time Paratriathlon World Champion, TEDx speaker, author, coach, and resilience expert.
Steve's story is one of the most powerful examples of what it means to rebuild your life after everything changes. After a near-fatal car accident left both of his legs crushed, doctors told him there was a chance he may never walk again. For many people, that kind of moment would become the end of the story. For Steve, it became the beginning of a completely new one.
We talk about what happens when life forces a reset — not just physically, but mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. Steve shares what it felt like to have his identity shaken, how he rebuilt his body one painful step at a time, and why knowing your "why" becomes essential when motivation disappears.
Our conversation goes deep into resilience, identity, mental health, physical health, purpose, achievement, and the importance of building the right people around you. Steve also opens up about becoming a world champion, learning to live with no regrets, and why success is not always about winning — it is about knowing you gave everything you had.
About the Guest
Steve Judge is an award-winning motivational speaker, author, TEDx speaker, coach, and two-time Paratriathlon World Champion.
After a near-fatal car accident left both of his legs crushed and doctors uncertain whether he would ever walk again, Steve committed himself to a long and painful recovery journey. Through years of rehabilitation, discipline, and resilience, he eventually went on to become a two-time World Champion in Paratriathlon — an elite endurance sport combining swimming, cycling, and running.
Today, Steve works with leaders, teams, and organizations around the world, helping them develop resilience, purpose, performance, and well-being. Known for his authenticity, humor, and powerful storytelling, Steve helps people understand how adversity can become a catalyst for growth.
His work is rooted in lived experience, practical insight, and a powerful belief that we cannot always control what happens to us — but we can choose how we respond.
Key Takeaways
→ What happened to Steve's identity when doctors told him he may never walk again
→ Why resilience is not just about surviving hard things, but rebuilding who you are after them
→ How anger, denial, and determination became part of Steve's early recovery
→ Why knowing your "why" matters most when motivation disappears
→ The importance of doing the boring, painful, repetitive work no one sees
→ Why the right people around you — your "golden gang" — can change everything
→ How to stop comparing yourself to other people and focus on what you can do
→ Why Steve defines success as being the best you can be with no regrets
→ What becoming a world champion taught him about preparation, sacrifice, and fulfilment
→ Why mental health and physical health are deeply connected
→ How sharing what you are going through can help stop pressure from building silently
→ Why men especially need safe relationships where they can talk honestly
→ The role of recovery, injury prevention, warmups, and mental preparation in performance
→ Why your mindset is the first thing to change when you no longer want to be defined by what happened to you
→ How visualization can help you reconnect with your goal, opportunity, love, or dream
Description
In this episode, I sit down with Melissa Dawn Simkins, founder of Velvet Suite and author of Athleadership: The Elite Athletic Mindset to Lead Under Pressure and Perform When It Counts.
Melissa brings a powerful perspective on what it really takes to perform under pressure. We talk about why performance is not just about talent, confidence, or knowledge — it is about conditioning. When pressure rises, most people do not rise to the occasion. They fall back on what they have practiced.
Our conversation explores how the mindset of elite athletes can help all of us become better leaders, parents, spouses, and people. Melissa shares why leaders are not born, they are built, and why the daily drills, habits, recovery, self-talk, and uncomfortable reps are what prepare us for the moments that matter most.
We also talk about faith, family, legacy, parenting, identity, recovery, and why leadership is not just something we do at work. Leadership shows up in every part of life.
About the Guest
Melissa Dawn Simkins is an entrepreneur, speaker, author, and leadership expert who has spent over 20 years working with elite athletes, executives, and high-performing organizations.
She is the founder and CEO of Velvet Suite, a leadership and personal brand development company, and the author of Athleadership, a book focused on helping everyday leaders adopt the elite athletic mindset so they can lead under pressure and perform when it counts.
Melissa has worked with major organizations across sports, business, and leadership, including the NFL, NCAA, and FIFA. Her work focuses on mindset, performance, identity, resilience, and helping leaders become the person the moment demands.
Through Athleadership, Melissa is bringing the lessons of elite performance to leaders in every area of life — whether they have ever played a sport or not.
Key Takeaways
→ Why performance under pressure comes down to conditioning, not just talent or confidence
→ How the speed of change, AI, technology, and uncertainty are overwhelming people today
→ Why leaders need to upgrade their internal operating system
→ What elite athletes understand about practice, discipline, recovery, and preparation
→ Why the "moment before the moment" is where performance is built
→ How self-talk shapes confidence, decision-making, and leadership
→ Why confidence becomes real when you see yourself do hard things
→ The importance of getting comfortable being uncomfortable
→ Why surrender, faith, and open hands can help us release control
→ How recovery is not a luxury, but a necessary part of high performance
→ Why micro-recovery matters in the middle of intense days, meetings, and family life
→ How leaders can learn to respond instead of react
→ Why relationships, family, and legacy are all connected to leadership
→ What it means to live a legacy instead of only leaving one
→ Why leadership is not just a title — it is how we show up when life hits us
Description
In this episode, I sit down with Jane Chen, bestselling author of Like a Wave We Break and co-founder of Embrace Global, a company that developed a groundbreaking low-cost infant incubator that has impacted over 1,000,000 babies.
Jane's story is one of extraordinary impact, but also deep personal reckoning. After spending years building a company with the mission of saving premature and underweight babies around the world, Jane found herself burned out, broken, and forced to confront the trauma, identity, and inner pain she had spent much of her life outrunning.
Our conversation goes far beyond achievement. We talk about what happens when success becomes your identity, how childhood wounds can quietly shape ambition, why healing requires feeling instead of just thinking, and what it means to lead from wholeness rather than fear.
Jane shares the journey that took her from Stanford to India, from building Embrace to nearly losing herself, and eventually to Hawaii, where she began rebuilding her life around presence, compassion, surrender, and joy.
About the Guest
Jane Chen is a speaker, leadership coach, bestselling author, and co-founder and former CEO of Embrace Global.
Embrace developed a low-cost infant incubator designed to help premature and underweight babies in areas without access to traditional medical equipment. The company has now impacted over 1,000,000 babies around the world.
Jane is also the author of Like a Wave We Break, a memoir about achievement, burnout, trauma, healing, and the search for identity beyond external success. She is a TED speaker, Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum, and has been recognized by Forbes, The Economist, Fast Company, and the World Economic Forum for her work in innovation and social impact.
Today, Jane works as a leadership coach and speaker, helping people cultivate resilience, emotional awareness, self-compassion, and conscious leadership.
Key Takeaways
→ Why achievement can become a hiding place for unresolved pain
→ How Jane's childhood trauma shaped her drive to help the most powerless people in the world
→ Why building Embrace became deeply tied to Jane's identity
→ What happens when the thing you built begins to collapse — and you no longer know who you are without it
→ Why trauma is not just something that happened in the past, but something that lives in the body and nervous system
→ Why talk therapy alone did not work for Jane, and why somatic healing became such an important part of her journey
→ How Internal Family Systems and "parts work" helped Jane understand her inner critic, overachiever, and need for control
→ Why self-compassion is often more powerful than self-improvement
→ How high performers can confuse external success with internal worth
→ Why surrender, patience, and rest are essential parts of healing
→ What it means to lead from wholeness instead of fear, ego, or control
→ How Jane now defines success through values, love, growth, service, and joy
Closing Thoughts
This conversation with Jane reminded me that success can create impact, but it cannot heal what we refuse to face.
So many high performers spend their lives building, achieving, proving, and pushing forward — only to realize that the external wins do not always quiet the internal pain.
Jane's story is powerful because she did not just build something that helped save lives. She also had to learn how to save herself from the identity, pressure, and pain that had been driving her for so long.
The lesson is not that ambition is bad. The lesson is that ambition becomes dangerous when it is disconnected from self-compassion, presence, and truth.
Real healing does not come from doing more.
It begins when we stop performing, listen to what is underneath, and finally meet ourselves with compassion.
What if high performance is not about working harder — but about building better teams?
In this episode, Scott sits down with Dr. Ron Friedman, an award-winning social psychologist, bestselling author, and expert on high-performance teams. Ron is the author of The Best Place to Work, Decoding Greatness, and his latest book, Superteams, which explores the science behind what separates elite teams from the rest.
Together, Scott and Ron break down why so many organizations confuse effort with effectiveness, why meetings often become a hidden tax on performance, and how the best teams protect their time, energy, and attention. Ron explains why most "teams" are really just groups of people working near each other — and what it actually takes to create shared goals, role clarity, and true interdependence.
They also dive into the habits of elite teams, why the best teammates make the people around them better, how leaders can make failure safer, and why performance improves when teams stop relying on constant collaboration and start designing smarter ways to work.
Key Points:
→ Why more effort can actually make teams worse → The three things every real team needs: shared goals, role clarity, and interdependence → Why the average worker loses so much time to meetings and messages → How the best teams protect focus without creating bottlenecks → Why "no decision, no meeting" can dramatically improve productivity → The one question great leaders ask: "What are you stuck on?" → Why mistakes are necessary for growth and high performance → How great teammates make everyone around them better → Why unreliable teammates are often more damaging than incompetent ones → How elite teams balance solo work with collaboration → Why time blocking, reflection, and fewer transitions help people stay focused → How teams can avoid burnout without lowering their standards
Ron's research shows that high performance is not built by doing more for longer. It is built by designing the right environment — one where people know their role, trust each other, protect their attention, and feel accountable to the team.
Because the best teams do not just get more done.
They make each other better.
Why do so many successful people achieve everything they thought they wanted… and still feel unfulfilled?
In this episode, I sit down with Paul J. Zak, one of the world's leading researchers on trust, happiness, human connection, and the neurochemistry that drives our relationships.
Paul has spent decades studying oxytocin, the biology of trust, and what actually creates happiness, resilience, and fulfillment. His research has taken him everywhere from Fortune 500 boardrooms to remote tribes around the world, uncovering a surprising truth:
The things most people chase—achievement, control, status, and success—are often not the things that create lasting happiness.
Instead, the science points toward something much simpler—and much more human.
We explore the role of relationships, purpose, emotional fitness, marriage, friendship, leadership, parenting, and why meaningful connection may be the single greatest predictor of a thriving life.
About Paul J. ZakPaul J. Zak is a neuroscientist, entrepreneur, professor, and pioneer in the field of neuroeconomics whose work focuses on trust, happiness, human connection, and performance.
Often referred to as "Dr. Love" for his groundbreaking research on oxytocin, Paul has published more than 200 scientific papers and is ranked among the world's most cited scientists. His work has transformed how leaders, organizations, and individuals understand trust, cooperation, empathy, and wellbeing.
He is the author of several bestselling books, including Trust Factor, Immersion, and The Little Book of Happiness.
Key TakeawaysWhat if Alzheimer's isn't just a matter of genetics?
What if the choices you make today could dramatically impact how your brain functions 10, 20, or even 30 years from now?
In this episode, I sit down with Dr. Majid Fotuhi, neurologist, neuroscientist, and author of The Invincible Brain, for a powerful conversation about brain health, aging, memory loss, and the practical steps we can take to build a more resilient brain.
We explore the science behind Alzheimer's disease, why genetics are only part of the story, and the lifestyle choices that have been proven to improve brain performance and reduce cognitive decline.
For anyone who has watched a loved one battle Alzheimer's—or worries about their own future—this conversation offers something incredibly valuable: hope backed by science.
About Dr. Majid FotuhiDr. Majid Fotuhi is a neurologist, neuroscientist, former faculty member at Johns Hopkins, and one of the leading voices in brain health and cognitive longevity.
For nearly four decades, he has studied memory, aging, Alzheimer's disease, and the factors that influence long-term brain performance. Through his clinical work and research, Dr. Fotuhi has helped thousands of patients improve cognitive function and better understand how lifestyle choices affect brain health.
He is the author of The Invincible Brain, which outlines practical, evidence-based strategies to strengthen the brain, reduce cognitive decline, and build resilience against Alzheimer's disease.
Key TakeawaysWhat happens when the life you worked your entire life to build… stops feeling like your life at all?
In this episode, I sit down with Dr. Emilio Galán for one of the deepest and most emotionally honest conversations we've had on the show.
After co-founding a successful healthcare startup and helping build technology used in over a million patient visits across the United States, Emilio made a radical decision: he stepped away from the traditional high-performance path and became a full-time stay-at-home dad.
But this conversation goes far beyond career pivots.
We talk about identity, masculinity, fatherhood, autoimmune disease, emotional regulation, control, fear, friendship, presence, and what it actually means to create a meaningful life — not just an impressive one.
This episode is for anyone who has ever questioned the path they're on… or felt like their body, relationships, or emotions were trying to tell them something they weren't ready to hear.
About Dr. Emilio GalánDr. Emilio Galán is a physician, entrepreneur, and stay-at-home father whose work focuses on performance, parenting, emotional regulation, and modern family life.
After studying at UCSF and UC Berkeley, Emilio co-founded Robin Healthcare — an AI-powered healthcare technology platform used in more than one million patient visits across the U.S.
Following years of startup intensity and while managing multiple autoimmune conditions, Emilio stepped away from the traditional high-performance track to focus on fatherhood, family, and building a more aligned life.
Today, he shares thoughtful and often unconventional perspectives on parenting, communication, self-regulation, and emotional health — helping high performers understand that success at home matters just as much as success at work.
Key Takeaways
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