Frank Wolf is an explorer, a writer, and one hell of an adventurer.  In this episode we cover what he learned about endurance and survival during his travels in the Arctic, Central America, and Antarctica. Check out his fantastic book Two Springs, One Summer anywhere you get books in including Indigo and Amazon. https://www.indigo.ca/en-ca/two-springs-one-summer-a-year-inside-the-life-of-a-chronic-adventurer/9781771606844.html https://www.amazon.com/Two-Springs-One-Summer-Adventurer/dp/1771606843 Please feel free to share this episode with that one crazy outdoor enthusiast in your life be ..read more

I've got something special for you today: a true adventure story set in the Far North featuring that I underwent a few years ago after a kidney transplant.  I ended up learning a LOT about mental toughness, resilience, and strategies for making progress when I was absolutely at the end of my rope, lessons that I think are universally applicable. The book out today in hardcover, Kindle, and Audible audiobook formats. Since this is a podcast, I thought I'd give you the first three chapters in audio form, including an incident so embarrassing that I almost didn't include it in the book at al ..read more

I was thrilled to have Jeff Nelson on the show to talk about Spartans, Samurai, Ninja, developing confidence through jiu-jitsu, fight scenes in movies that drive us crazy, and pro-training at some of the best BJJ schools in the world.   Follow Jeff on Instagram (@thoughtandmindjj) and check out his book Ninja Punks, @*&% OFF! on Amazon! Also check out my new book, Perseverance, Life and Death in the Subarctic on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Indigo, or your favorite local bookstore ..read more

Paul Kindzia describes himself as a "homeschooled, non-denominational, it takes a village black belt" and had a very unique route to getting his BJJ black belt.  He was a ronin, training at different schools and did a lot of his training in his home dojo. This paid off because he was a top IBJJF Masters competitor at blue, purple, and brown belt, before being awarded his black belt by a coalition of other black belts (myself included) in October of 2024. In this episode we talk about so many things, including - How to get really good if you don't train at a top-tier school - Key aspects o ..read more

Jost Kobusch is just back from Everest, where he is doing a multi-year project to climb the tallest mountain in the world... by himself... without oxygen... up the incredibly difficult West Ridge route in the middle of winter.   In winter, the effective altitude of Everest is over 9,000 meters, and the winds can reach 250 km/hour (155 mph).  And - on top of that - the mountain was hit by a powerful earthquake while he was on it.  Find out... How Jost Kobusch optimises his training The relative importance of physical vs mental attributes in extreme sport How he overcame a p ..read more

Tyson Larone is a BJJ belt, a Muay Thai teacher, TEDx speaker, and a strongman competitor. In this episode he and I dive  deep into exploring how BJJ can be used for self defense, including how context changes everything in self defense… adaptations that women and smaller people need to make…  the problems with the one time self defense seminar model… the need for force-multipliers and whether guns can act as that force multiplier…  the single biggest thing any man can do to keep the women in his life safe and more.  We also perceptions and expressions of masculinity, conse ..read more

The standard BJJ approach of throwing newcomers to the wolves may work for young and talented athletes, but it's definitely not optimal for most older, non-athletic, or female grapplers (otherwise known as the vast majority of people).  In today's episode I'm joined by Jesse Walker from Rough Hands BJJ in Louisville, Kentucky, to discuss the training methods and school culture that'll make jiu-jitsu accessible to (almost) everyone.   Check out Rough Hands BJJ training center in Louisville, Kentucky at https://roughhandsbjj.com/ and/or get in touch with Jesse on most social media plat ..read more

Rob Biernacki and his competition team are on a tear. Rob recently took gold in masters middleweight the Canadian ADCC Open, silver at the California ADCC Open, and gold in black belt M4 at the IBJJF No Gi Worlds. In this episode we talk about designing an effective training camp, dividing your conditioning and skills training, detaching emotionally from the outcome of the competition, why sharktanking and competition-style rolls are overused, 80/20 analyses of different rule sets, training athletes to think strategically while in matches, the central role of games and drills in his competitio ..read more

Brooke Binowski is a journalist specialising in debunking disinformation and misinformation.  She has worked for Snopes and is now the managing editor at TruthOrFiction.com. In this episode we talk about Elon Musk's takeover of Twitter, how disinformation campaigns are structured, white supremacists, why the wellness space is so prone to believing conspiracy theories, and how we can know what's actually true and what's not. Follow Brooke on Mastadon brooklynmarie@mastodon.lol, on Twitter (for now) @brooklynmarie, and check out what she's working on at truthorfiction.com/author/brooke/. &n ..read more

Kalle Beck has competed, coached and commentated in Strongman events and has helped thousands of people become much, much stronger. Here's how some of the lessons learned from Strongman apply to other sports... Check out Kalle's site at https://startingstrongman.com/ and the Facebook group he runs (the biggest strongman community in the world) at https://www.facebook.com/groups/startingstrongman/ Check out Stephan Kesting's latest jiu-jitsu instructional, No Gi Pin Escapes at https://www.grapplearts.com/PinEscapes and also his book, Perseverance, Life and Death in the Subarctic, with links for ..read more