The Art of Adventure podcast was launched October 1, 2014. One year on and we are celebrating 90 episodes of amazing interviews. Yay! People often ask me which interview they should start with, so here is a list of the best episodes from year one. These are a good mix of adventure stories, personal and mental exploration, creative problem solving, and entrepreneurship skills explained step-by-step. Enjoy!
AOA 071 | Chris McDougall | Natural Born Heroes – Maximizing Human Performance 
Chris McDougall is perhaps best know for his phenomenal 2009 book, Born to Run, where he explores running as a human birthright, by following the Tarahumara indians of Copper Canyon, Mexico. Born to Run is one of the main reasons I started eating chia seeds and got back into train running when I lived in Montana. Born to Run is also currently being made into a movie with Matthew McConaughey.
Chris has another amazing new book out in Natural Born Heroes which tells a further story of Cretan resistance runners in WWII, parkour, and human performance.
This episode was a ton of fun for me, as Chris and I share a lot of common interests. We go over both his books, and broadly covers diet, running, athletic performance, movement, evolution, and mindset. I think you will be fascinated at how many different ideas Chris can bring into the conversation. If you are at all interested in optimal human performance, running, or health, this is the episode for you!
AOA 051 | Rick Hanson | Permanently Increase Your Happiness 
Rick Hanson, Ph.D., is a psychologist and and New York Times best-selling author. He has spoken at Oxford, Stanford, and Harvard. He teaches essential inner skills such as personal well-being, psychological growth, and contemplative practice.
Not only is Rick and inner adventurer, he comes from a long line of explorers, and is an accomplished rock climber and says he can remember almost every climb!
This episode is all about how to get good at looking inside your own mind and feelings, and how to use the science of positive neuroplasticity to increase your happiness permanently. Then we will look at how your internal state translate to money, success, and good relationships!
AOA 036| Judy Robinett | How To Be A Power Connector 
As soon as I heard Judy Robinett on another podcast, I went right out and bought her book, How to Be a Power Connector
AOA 088 | Derek Sivers | Turning Observations Into Action
I’ve been following the Derek’s work for many years. Often, he will end a blog post by extending an offer to email him directly with questions. I first sent him an email more than five years ago and we have been in touch 
since then.
Originally a professional musician and circus clown, Derek created CD Baby in 1998. It became the largest seller of independent music online, with $100M in sales for 150,000 musicians.
In 2008, Derek sold CD Baby for $22M, giving the proceeds to a charitable trust for music education.
He is a frequent speaker at the TED Conference, with over 5 million views of his talks.
Since 2011 he has published 34 books, including “Anything You Want†which shot to #1 on all of its Amazon categories.
I finally got to meet Derek at his home while I was visiting Wellington, NZ in May.
Derek is one of the greatest philosophers of our day, and has clear thoughts about careers, propose, learning, and being of value to the world.
One interesting fact Derek reveals in this episode is that despite being an introvert, he went so far as to hold 500+ 1-on-1 get togethers while living in Singapore with people that wanted to learn from him.
In this episode talk about building a career that makes you happy, how to learn from your work, compressing books into directives, how to get rich, mentorship, introversion, CD Baby, and global citizenship, and some of the adventures that Derek has had that helped him change his mind about Indonesia and weight lifting. I know you will love this interview.
AOA 048 | David Wood | Get Paid For Who You Are: Part 1 – Coaching
AOA 049 | David Wood | Make Money While You Sleep: Creating Products (Part II)
Do people ever ask you for advice? Have you been through any unique experiences? Do you like helping people? Have you ever considered becoming a coach?
David Wood has been a location independent life coach since 1998, before it was cool to be a digital nomad. I sat down with him at his villa here in Bali to record an epic two part episode to go through all the steps to first become a coach (Part I) and then start making money while you sleep (part II).
David is the author of Get Paid For Who You Are
In part I we go through all the steps to getting your first clients as a coach. All you need is some structure – the intake forms, the coaching format, some preparation, and a few clients, and you have yourself a coaching career!
If you want the simplest step by step process for getting your first product created and sold online, Part II is for you!
AOA 027 | Stephen Somers and Robert Rickey | Amazon Marketplace Superheroes 
“You have to fulfill demand, not create demand†– Stephen Somers on finding the right product
In this episode, for the first time on the Art of Adventure, I have not one, but two amazing guests: Stephen Somers and Robert Rickey join us from Belfast, Northern Ireland. These two lads are the creators of the Marketplace Superheroes course, which is a road map to help you do what they have done, which is sell millions of dollars in physical products on Amazon.com. We talk about the coincidences and opportunities that brought them together as business partners, their early business experience that set them up for success selling online, and some specifics about how you can make tens of thousands of dollars a month selling physical products on Amazon.com. Plus I’m sure you will enjoy their charming accents!
AOA 059 | Millionaire Mindset: Habits For A Rich Life Solo Round
This episode comes after a multi year study of dozens of books about millionaires and the rich. Now that I have the privilege of interacting with millionaires on a daily basis, I have distilled down some of the major commonalities from the top books and my mentors. These habits and themes are:
Mindset, You have to actually deserve it, Creative solutions, lots of ideas, Learn rich social skills, Setting good habits as a foundation, Your surroundings are important, Buy assets that pay you, Set short, mid, and long term goals with deadlines, When you are doing work on yourself you are doing work on the world, Gratitude, Know your value and how to talk about it, Build the right relationships. Full written explanations go along with the audio content in the shownotes of this episode.
AOA 046 | Linda Rottenberg | Crazy Is A Compliment: High Impact Entrepreneurship
Do you have a brilliant idea but people call you crazy or tell you how it won’t work? Do you want to start a new project but aren’t sure where to start or how much of yourself to put in?
Linda Rottenberg argues that we all need to be nimble, adaptive, daring, and maybe even a little crazy, or risk being left behind.
Named on of America’s best leaders by US News, Linda is co-founder and CEO of Endeavor Global, The first global organization dedicated to the scale up phase of entrepreneurship, helping dreamers and doers scale up their high impact projects. She is also the author of Crazy Is a Compliment
In this episode, we talk about what it means to Zig when everyone else Zags. Linda shares inspiring stories and an insider’s look from her experience as a “mentor capitalistâ€, and what specific skills and mindsets are needed to scale up your high impact venture. Also make sure you listen to the end, when Linda reveals why she agreed to be a guest on this podcast!
AOA 031 | Shane Snow | Smartcuts and Storytelling
For this episode, I caught up with entrepreneur and journalist Shane Snow! He is the founder of Content.ly, and author of Smartcuts (the title is a mashup for smart and shortcuts), that goes into how hackers, innovators, and icons accelerate success.
I first came across Shane snow from a guest post he did on Tim Ferris’ Blog (about living off a meal replacement drink), and I have been following the writing he does for media like Wired, Fast company and New Yorker since.
I know I am going to find some interesting new ideas and ways of thinking whenever I check out his work. Be sure to listen all the way through, because Shane share some exclusive insight into his newest projects!
AOA 042 | Cal Newport | Be So Good They Can’t Ignore You
Cal Newport gives us a compelling case as to why following your passion is bad advice! He wrote the book So Good They Can’t Ignore You
, which investigates just that. I have to admit, at first I was a little wary, but I think 
it’s really important to listen to the dissenting opinion sometimes – to consider that what you know (about work in this case) is not the complete picture.
Cal wrote this book because he was making a big life transition – should he move into professorship after finishing grad school – or choose another career path? With that question in mind he set out to find what makes someone love what they do for a living and feel fulfilled by their work.
This book follows a general trend of Cal’s: when he wants to learn something, he digs in and then writes a book about it. His former works include How to Be a High School Superstar
What he discovered by talking with people from a variety of careers, who love what they do, might surprise you.
If you are beginning your career or thinking about the next direction you want to take your working life, this is the episode for you!
AOA 067 | Matt Prior | Adventure Academy
Matt Prior is a world record holder for the Highest Altitude Reached by a Taxi – 17,143ft. A former fighter jet pilot, an adventurer, and photographer. He recently just completed the world’s first circumnavigation of Lake Baikal, in winter, on the ice, in a WWII era motorbike.
I really wanted to have him on the show to talk about his newest venture, the Matt Prior Adventure Academy, which is a new niche of adventure tourism that combines expert coaching with an over-land travel expedition in Indonesia.
In this episode, Matt and I find out that we have a lot in common, including a childhood obsession with staring at maps, exploring the extremes of earth, and the pursuit of curiosity.
In the episode we get into a lot of travel and expedition specifics including partnering with sponsors and navigating tricky border crossings. Then we get into how he started the adventure academy, how he tested it, and captures feedback, and how the whole trip is run. This is a great episode for anyone who loves adventure travel or wants to put on live events!
AOA 060 | Dave Cornthwaite | Say Yes To Adventure
Dave Cornthwaite is 11/25 of the way through his quest to complete 25 journeys of a thousand miles or more, each via a different mode of non motorized transport. I was really excited to hear that one of his favorite journeys so far ended in my hometown of St. Louis!
Dave has swum the length of the Missouri River and SUPed the Mississippi. He has also written three books, entertained audiences on six continents, broken eight world records, and is the founder of www.SayYesMore.com.
His new project “Out of Office†takes him around to amazing “office†locations around the world. The only stipulation is that he is not allowed to plan anything more than 10 days in advance, and he barters for all his lodging, food, and transport.
I caught up with Dave at Bambu Indah, a boutique luxury eco lodge here in Ubud where he was making a video about the place. Check it out, it’s pretty epic.
Dave is a really down to earth guy, and a great story teller, I appreciate how thoughtful and real he was in this interview.
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