What Podcasting Over 300 High Achievers Taught Me

It has been more than a year now since I started working with the founder and CEO of Spartan Race Joe De Sena developing and producing the "Spartan Up!" podcast. We've traveled the world exploring what drives successful athletes, entrepreneurs, CEOs, adventurers, professors authors, thought leaders .. even monks, trying to discover and share what we can learn from them. I think I've shot about 300 interviews, and Joe's done another 20 or so without me.  So what have we learned? Joe has a series of articles published in Entrepreneur, Inc and here on Linkedin breaking down many of the lessons.  I'll try to sum up my thoughts from behind the camera here.
This week we published the 100th episode in which our panel of hosts each talk about their favorite interviews so far. Doctor Johnny chose a few of the authors, Col Nye chose National Geographic Explorer Shannon Galpin, Dr. Delle chose the world's greatest living explorer Sir Ran Fiennes, Sefra chose Sealfit's Mark Divine and Joe chose one of my all time favorites Karim Jaude.
So what if I had been asked to choose? Impossible. BUT among my favorites are Nate Carr and his amazing positivity, Tony The Fridge and his intensity, Jay Jackson who reminded us to say we "get to" no we "have to,"Levison Wood who had JUST returned from walking the entire Nile,Nicole DeBoom who brought out Joe's "sassy" side, Mimi Anderson who is unstoppable, of course Angela Duckworth THE expert on GRIT, Risa Mish and her concrete tips on critical thinking, Richard Branson who reminded us to see the best in everyone, Amit Kumar who learned experiences are better than possessions, Dan Edwardes who understands the links between fear and physical movement, Zach Even - Esh who talked about the failures and struggles on the way to success and lives it with sheer enthusiasm for life, Dick Costolo who made the connection between stand up comedy and business success, Juliet Starrett and her hippo escape story, Frank Grippe who understands the value of sheer force of will, Jennifer Gilbert who one day decided not to deviate from her life's plan,Mark Webb who was amazing already and just kept it up after losing a foot ... I hate to start this list knowing I'm missing so many - I can honestly say there has not been one interview that has not taught me something.

If I had to sum it up -

1. Sometimes it's just sheer force of will that gets you there.

2. Optimism is KEY, without it you will never persevere.

3. The mind lives in the body, you can't take care of one but not the other.

4. Every thing you do is a privilege, never take it for granted.

And from the panel - when you have a good team around you, hard work becomes a pleasure.

Here's the 100th episode: