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LOCALS SURF SCHOOL On today's episode, we're talking to Mike and Mike of Local Surf School. Longtime supporters of STOKED, Mike and Mike grew up in the Rockaways and have strong roots in the area. A rarity in New York, the surf scene in that area nurtured a deep passion and love for surfing in the Mikes. THEIR PASSION FOR A SURF SCHOOL After college, they both wanted to find a way to share their teaching skills and surfing passion. So they started a surf school, the perfect marrying of their surfing passion and career path! Their initial business goals were to start small, impact the community, touch people's lives, and hopefully not lose money! Soon enough, they hit those goals and started growing. Knowing that there's no feeling like your first wave, Mike and Mike love that they get to see and share what that first-time feeling is like for other people. For some, this is the feeling they've been looking for, for a long time. The Mikes also believe that surfing can be a way for people to get back in touch with themselves and sometimes discover a passion that they didn't even know that they had. Surf school students have changed their lives and careers just to move to the Rockaways and live a more surf-centered life. STARTING THE BUSINESS A degree is not necessarily the same as a step-by-step guide to running a business, and they learned this quickly by having to figure out a lot of things on their own. For example, the simple process of insuring the business involved quite a bit of research and phone calls. Since most insurance agents had never heard of a surf school, they would quote them at ridiculously high prices. Thinking outside the box and knowing they were going to have to be creative, their research led them to an insurance company in Hawaii that actually understood their business model. Of course, there were also the long days of work put in. As the only teachers, they were both in the water with the students up to 8 hours a day. Exhausted, they would step out of the water at the end of the day and head back into the office to run the administrative side of things. However, no matter how exhausted they got, the ability to reach people and make a difference in their community was worth it.   MARKETING In the beginning, Locals Surf School didn’t have the money to advertise in the traditional way that bigger companies do. So, they built up their clientele by building up their reputations as good men, good teachers, and great surfers. They continuously strove to bring their customers amazing surf experiences that would bring not only that customer, but their friends back, and their friend’s friends back. COMMUNITY Growing up in this community, Mike and Mike feel like they have every reason to want to give back. Holding free contests, beach cleanups, helping out with charity organizations such as STOKED, and holding kids camps are just some of the ways that they continuously give back to their community. This year, they’ll be working with the Rockaway Organization to put on events for kids that would like to be involved in competitive surfing. They also plan on joining the “Hands across the sand” group in protest against the William’s Pipeline. Being involved in the community and impacting lives for the better started as the foundation of Locals Surf School and continues to be their mantra. LINKS Website: https://www.localssurfschool.com/ Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/localssurfschool Instagram: http://instagram.com/localssurfschool

Background Starting as a writer with her Master’s Degree in Journalism, Giselle Wasfie found herself unfulfilled. She decided to take the scary step to go back to school and pursue her Master’s Degree in Chinese Medicine. With looming doubts concerning the cost and time that a master’s degree would take, as well as passing up a lucrative job offer in the journalism field, she still applied, got in, and never looked back. While at school, she felt very connected to what she was studying and that there was a voice inside telling her this was what she should be doing. Closing The Chapter At the same time Giselle was applying to go to school for Chinese medicine, she was up for a job as editor in chief, literally the top tier of where one would want to be in the journalism field. When she found out that she was in the finals for candidates it occurred to her that she had to make a choice. It was then that she wrote to the interviewer, thanked him for the opportunity, and then chose to fully commit herself to the pursuit of Chinese Medicine. Starting Her Business Giselle now runs a private practice in New York where she helps patients with acupuncture, reiki, and alternative medicine help. She helps her patients with everything from stress, digestion, and migraines, to infertility, colds, and flus. Really, anything that you would go to your normal family doctor, you could see her for. Growing the Business When she’s not working with patients, she’s focusing on her essential oil-based skin care line. She started playing with this idea and working on her own formulas while taking a dermatology class in school. Some of her first creations were sprays for anxiety and sleeplessness. After posting her products on Etsy, she was pleasantly surprised at her sales and soon realized that this was a business that she thoroughly enjoyed. Starting small and organically, Remix has started to grow. Giselle hopes to merge with retailers and have her own treatment room soon. To stay mentally sane during this process, Giselle surrounded herself with her supportive family, friends, and loving dog. As the people who know her soul and work ethic, they know that when she puts her mind to something, she does it. Aside from the support of those closest to her, she also prides herself on being independent and finding her own way, pushing through challenges to achieve what she wants. Stoked Lifestyle Giselle gains joy from seeing other people happy and from helping them. Whether it’s by giving advice or through Alternative Chinese Medicine, she feels driven to make the world a better place and tries to frame her life that way. As one with an artist’s personality, she feels a constant need to feel stimulated by life. Merging that need with finding ways of opening up to other people and helping them is where she finds her purpose. Making an impact on the world doesn’t have to be building a well in Africa or making a ton of money and then giving it away. It can be small “ripples”.  It’s about using your skills and natural talents to make people feel better. When people use products that you’ve created with your head and your heart, and you help them to be better in their lives because they feel better, that’s amazing. It’s these little ripples of helping the people around you that resonate and helps put them in a better headspace of being able to give and receive love from others. This ripple effect helps us to move collectively to make a change and create a lasting impact. Links Mentioned Website: http://www.remixlife.style/ Instagram: @REMIXBYGISELLE Skincare Line: http://www.remixbygisellewasfie.com/    

BackgroundMarc Hans is a man of many different hustles and talents. He finds himself doing a lot of different things, all of them strung together by the common thread of creativity. Educator turned design thinker, Marc plans his projects based on the level of help he thinks he can give. Finding The Path People tend to think of a career as a linear thing, go to college, get a career, etc. However, your career doesn’t have to be defined by the thing or career that you initially set out to do. Take Marc’s real-life example; As an adult, he had the realization that everyone learns differently, and sitting in a classroom for 6 hours a day doesn’t work for everyone. As a kid that struggled academically and socially, his past inspired him to look for ways to “hack the system for enjoyment and maximize output”. With this goal in mind, he started his life as a teacher. Moving on from teaching, but still wanting to educate and inspire, he started nonprofits that developed mentorships for youth in underserved communities. From there, he entered into the world of design thinking. Marc uses his background as a teacher, entrepreneur, and educator to help people to think differently. Sharing The Vision Design thinking spoke to Marc when he stumbled upon the idea while googling and doing research. He came across a design thinking firm and started reading their business model pdf. As he started to read their objective, chills ran through his spine as he realized that was the EXACT career and lifestyle model that he had been trying to achieve. They shared the same vision and dream that he was already trying to live!   Stoked LifestyleYou find your thing, you build a framework and a community around that thing, and then you run with it!   Design thinking, in a nutshell, is an idea built around someone else's needs. It’s important to remember that the idea isn’t just what you think they need, but what they actually need and what will actually help them to achieve their goals. This makes design thinking in an empathy filled way of thinking. One in which you find people's pain points, help them and provide value to the things that they care about.   When these opportunities to help people and businesses come, One of Marc’s personal requirements for himself is that he must be excited about the opportunity. If he’s not excited about the project or idea, how can he bring value to it? To make sure that he feels like he’ll bring value, he focuses on a personal rubric that he’s created for himself. One that helps him asses if the company or person aligns with his vision for living in a way that he can stay excited about the project.   LinksInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/marcdhans Website: www.marcdhans.com

Background Danny Gillcrist and Jordan Lutes have grown up traveling the world. They are now a creative  Photographer/ Video team duo. Their work includes shooting commercial products on locations around the world. A recent project had them on a location where they featured red bull swimming pools with high-divers as the photo subject. Danny and Jordan both are college graduates that have degrees in fine arts, film, and TV.  After spending a few years traveling the world, they’ve developed a great working and personal relationship, one in which they share the same eye for photography style as well as similar interests in the types of work that they like to focus on. Finding The Path Jordan says he got his big break with a traveling photographer that he constantly emailed.  He hired Jordan because he was easy to work with and he smiled all the time. He goes on to say you need to be prepared to hustle & always do as much research as possible. Danny says that seeing Jordan succeed in his freelance work gave her the confidence to take the leap and do the same. While it’s an exciting and fun life, it’s also a lot of hard work. The duo is always networking, researching, and looking for the next job. Sharing The Vision The team says software and social media is the best way to get your vision out there. Take advantage of all of the free online classes out there and stay up to date with the ever-changing technological world. There are plenty of online courses that can help you master any program within a few days.  Currently, they are working on a top-secret project that will be in the U.S. within the next couple months. The creative duo is also planning their wedding & a honeymoon to Norway.   Stoked Lifestyle Danny and Jordan embrace the freedom and empowerment that comes with working on what they want to work on. Even though there are constant challenges in the freelance world, they believe that it's worth it. Jordan says to make sure that you do your research and be well prepared before taking the leap. Leaving a steady paycheck is hard to do, but the rewards are well worth the cost!   Links Mentioned Instagram: @jordan.and.dani Website: https://jordandani.com/    

BACKGROUND Author Dev Aujla began his career running a Canadian non-profit called “Dream Now”. Dream Now organized several different clubs for Canadian youth, ranging in topic from climate change awareness to eating disorders to environmental awareness. As the kids of the program started to grow up, Dev realized that they needed direction on how to find their career calling and passion. It was during this time that he began researching all of the old “get a job” tactics. During his research, he realized that the advice hadn’t really changed in the past thirty years. Armed with this knowledge, Dev decided to try and find a new tactic that would actually help young adults find jobs that they weren’t just good at, but also passionate about. AUTHOR Out of this idea came Dev’s book, “50 Ways to Get a Job: An Unconventional Guide to Finding Work on Your Terms”. People are always looking for that “secret sauce” for finding a job that they love doing. However, Dev says that while there aren’t any shortcuts or secret sauce, there is a path and a way available through hard work and self-discovery. Aujla also talks about “Career Mapping”. He explains that the power of mapping out your career path is that it helps you to see the little hints that you’ve given yourself along the way. These hints speak more about where your career could or should go than you realize. For example, look at 10-15 career milestones in your life that have gotten you where you are. Now, write them down and think about each one. Remember the emotions that you were feeling in those situations and ask yourself- what was going on before, during, and after this milestone? Why did you move away or towards that path? Once you sit down and think through several of those life moments, you’ll find patterns that you never expected. These patterns can be the start of your own self-realization as to what you really want to be doing in your career and life. 50 Ways to Get a Job was tested on over 3,000 people, as well as used on online platforms and in schools. Dev loves hearing stories from people that read the book and then decided to “choose their own adventure”, meaning, they applied two or three of the 50 ways and then started to see their life perspective shift. FINDING YOUR PURPOSE Dev’s advice on finding your purpose is to pay attention to the questions that come into your head, and then pay special attention to the questions that keep coming back. If there are lingering questions for six months to a year, maybe you should really take the time to explore them.   LINKS MENTIONEDWebsite: 50waystogetajob.com Amazon: 50 Ways to Get a Job Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/devaujla/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dev.aujla

BACKGROUND Chip Thomas is a music executive and a performer. Chip has played the drums ever since he was in 5th grade. He knew he wanted to work in the music business, but he also had a passion for performing. After college, he took an internship at a company called Wind-Up Records. He gave himself a limit of 3 months to turn this low paying job into a full-time low paying job with benefits, which he aced in the first 6 weeks. From then, he’s worked for a lot of other record labels. He’s now a music executive, as well as a performer with the incredibly successful group Postmodern Jukebox Band. Postmodern Jukebox Band is a band that takes modern songs and plays them with a 30s, 40s, or 50s kind of vibe. In his day job, he does business development, which involves sales and strategic partnerships. As much as these tasks are challenging to balance, he’s refused to let go of either because he has a passion for both. After giving himself the permission to do both jobs, he’s visibly breaking the norm. A lot of companies and bands rejected that working model, but he was, and still is, committed to this goal of pursuing both of his passions. FINDING BALANCE Having his passions as his motivation, Chip was able to convince his company to allow him to go on tour for two months. In return, he would hold business meetings in the cities he would travel to and make deals there. At the time, he wasn't quite sure of his ability to carry out this promise but with self-confidence and will, he was able to strike deals for the company while continuing to be a full-time musician. While on tour, he hunts for spots with internet access and holds meetings, takes phone calls, etc. He would then put on his musician hat and head to sound check, have dinner, have a show, and call it a day. At one moment during a meet and greet session, he was able to take a picture with a little girl who was so happy and elated that he gave her his drumstick. The dad put the photo on Instagram captioning it as, "My child was so excited that you met her and gave her a drumstick, and she told me afterward, 'Now I'm going to be a drummer.'" Chip says that such stories motivate and encourage him, and it's what holds him together. PERSONAL AND PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT Chip says that if you can practice for a minimum of 10 minutes a day, you can improve as a musician. He takes 10-30 minutes to develop his skill a day. He’s currently learning how to play trumpet, and his skills are improving day by day.  After a tour, he tries his best to take time for himself to unwind. He goes snowboarding or skiing in the mountains and hangs out with loved ones. This helps him to recharge from all the exhaustion brought about by the tour. To develop himself, he has several mentors, but one of them has been with him since high school. This was his first music teacher, and he’s been mentoring him all along. He also has a business mentor who has given him a vast amount of advice which he always keeps in mind. Apart from that, some of his inspiration comes from Stevie Wonder, Barack and Michelle Obama, and his friends and family. STOKED LIFESTYLE Stoked has helped him learn not to sweat the small stuff and also that giving back gives a rewarding feeling. Any form of charity really makes you feel happy and content. He’s developed strong relationships and learned from amazing mentors just from his involvement with the Stoked community. FUTURE PLANS In the past few years, Chip has developed a new liking for writing, recording, and producing, of which, he’s just scratching the surface. His future plan is to continue developing this passion.   LINKS MENTIONED Website: www.dvandchipfunky.com Instagram: Chipfunky Snapchat: Chipfunky Facebook: Chip Funky

BACKGROUND Clare Healy is a 28-year-old communications mogul. She's currently based in LA where she works for an ad-tech agency called System1. Her main job is strategizing on how to reach consumers by engaging them and creating content that they want to read. STORYTELLING Clare’s love and passion for storytelling come through in her social media creations. As someone who majored in communications and social media, Clare notes the power that social media has gained and how it has evolved throughout the years. OUTDOOR EXPERIENCES & BENEFITS The other side of Clare’s interest shows up as a sponsored athlete. Her passion for the outdoors started when she was in 8th grade. Picking up a camera from her dad’s closet, she started taking pictures outside. This interest in photography led her to develop a love for the outdoors and athletics. As an adult, she has fostered her love by working for companies such as the Outbound Collective, North Face, Solomon, and other similar outdoor brands. OVERCOMING CHALLENGES Every challenge is different but in the past few years, she’s learned the value of talking to the people around her and asking for guidance instead of pushing through alone. Clare surrounds herself with positive people who are taking control of what they want to be doing and find themselves happy in that. SETTING GOALS Setting goals can be a hard task but Clare has discovered a way that works for her. She plans every fine detail regarding a goal. Starting from a big goal, she will break it into little finer details and tasks and set timelines and dates to achieve them on Google calendar. This has helped her accomplish many of her goals and she can’t think of any other simpler or better way. FUTURE GOALS She hopes to work more and more with Outbound Collective. Outbound looks into making the outdoors and the “unknown” adventure spots more accessible. She also plans to continue figuring out how to balance all of the things that she has going on in the different areas of her work and play life. Keep opening up and trying new things STOKED LIFESTYLE To Clare, the Stoked lifestyle means being stoked for and in everything that you do and if you’re not, take the necessary steps to change it!   LINKS MENTIONED Instagram: @Clarebhealy

BACKGROUND US Army Veteran, Stacey Barre, came home from Iraq in 2007 suffering from symptoms of PTSD and alcohol addiction. Then, in 2009 when a friend took him rock climbing, he had a moment where he felt free of all the guilt and bad feelings about the past. After the climb, an idea came to mind of how this type of activity would be great therapy for other people struggling with similar issues. Working in an outdoor-based program wasn't one that Stacey ever saw himself doing. But, opportunities presented themselves one step at a time and In 2009, while all he was trying to do was survive, This therapeutic rock climbing adventure led him to the outdoors industry. PREVIOUS WORK In 2010, Stacy and Nick Watson formed the Veterans Expedition and a couple of years later, they met Timmy O'Neill who introduced them to a small team working with NatGeo Adventure. NatGeo showed interest in their stories and wanted people to realize that adventure is also a community-driven process, and there are different ways to be adventurous. This is how they won the award, Adventure of the Year National Geographic, and it’s opened a lot of amazing doors for the company. CURRENT WORK He is now the Director of Sierra Club Outdoors. Sierra Club Outdoors helps 270,000 people a year adventure in the outdoors through 3 buckets of programming. They have local outings which are a community-based community and happen within 500+ different groups and 63 different chapters across the country and in places such as Puerto Rico, Washington DC, and the US Virgin Island. They also have a second multi outdoors program that connects veteran service members and their families to the outdoors. This program alone connects about 15,000 people a year. PASSION FOR ADVENTURE Stacey uses adventure to build bridges for people needing a helping hand out of depression and darkness. STOKED LIFESTYLE For Stacy, having a stoked lifestyle is really about being intentional and saying “There's good work to be done, my best days are in front of me, and there are goals, and adventures, and people out there that I want to meet. I want to keep dreaming and figure out how to do that”. LINKS MENTIONED Instagram: @Stacyabare Google: Stacy Bare

In 2003, Kelly was self-employed and working in the electric sign industry. As much as he was comfortable in this business, he wasn't quite fulfilled. His wife suggested that he put a resume on Craigslist and that’s exactly what he did. Shortly thereafter, he received a phone call from Mitchell Schwartz of BeCore Promotions. After listening to Mitchell describe the opportunities at BeCore, and then also doing research about Becore on his own, Kelly expressed the potential interest he had in becoming an owner of the company. In complete transparency, Mitchell stated that this was a possibility. With this objective in mind, Kelly started working for the company by producing events and helping with administrative work.  Kelly Vaught is now the CMO and Co-owner of BeCore, an experiential marketing agency based in Downtown LA. At the moment, their portfolio has expanded from working with their first client Red Bull, to now working with Nike, Microsoft, Harley Davidson, and a host of other clients. HOW TO TRANSFORM FROM A TOUGH SITUATION Life has not always been easy for Kelly. When he was 17, he had a fallout with his family that left him homeless. Kelly spent the next two years hitchhiking through California, daily on the hunt for food, clothing, and shelter. Instead of looking back on these years with resentment, Kelly finds the recollection of his experiences as fond ones. All of the interesting people and situations he found himself in, helped mold him into the person that he is today. One fateful day, he passed by the Huntington Beach Sign Shop. Kelly had always had an interest in graffiti and the graphic arts, and he found himself drawn to the store. He spent his days hanging out with the staff and helping out around the store. He did this for free for some time until the manager decided to officially give him a job and put him on the payroll. This was the beginning of Kelly learning to  put himself out there and trust in himself. Now, whenever he’s going through a tough time, he takes in a deep breath and assures himself that he’s not going to lose his life over what’s troubling him at that moment. Holding onto this positive and optimistic spirit enables him to believe that everything will always work out somehow.  ADVICE Kelly suggests that you should find the things that align with your interests and look for ways to incorporate those interests in your life. The most important thing, though, is to be grateful and have gratitude for whatever you currently have. MENTORS When he was in the sign industry, he had a boss who always encouraged him to have integrity and be honest in everything he did. He took this advice to heart and has held his former boss up as a great mentor. Also his wife, Sylvia, who has encouraged him to never limit what might come his way.  FUTURE Kelly’s enjoys mentoring the staff at BeCore as well as the students of Stoked. He’s currently looking forward to transitioning from handling the day to day duties of Becore, to instead focusing more on mentoring. 

"Being a fearless leader is about getting into someone else's head and seeing things from their perspective, let go of your ego and instead help move things forward in a big way" -Ryan Bukstein VP of Ace Hotel Group, Ryan Bukstein's journey began with an email from the company "Never Stop". Never Stop was an experiential marketing agency, and they were looking for an intern. Ryan looked the company up online and saw that they had started a chain of businesses which included the first Ace Hotel, nightclubs, a concert venue, and even a barbershop. As a musician, Ryan was excited about the opportunity to gain connections and responded to their inquiry quickly, letting Never Stop know of his interest, but also informing them that he was slated to be working in Japan for the next six months. Surprisingly, the head of the company, Alex Calderwood, personally responded to the email, telling Alex how he actually had an interest in launching an Ace Hotel in Japan and "could he please start his internship by researching the best way for him to go about that?" After finishing his time in Japan and flying back to Seattle, Ryan continued working multiple odd jobs for Never Stop. After some time, he started to feel the need to take some time off and re-focus himself.  However, he continued to keep in close contact with Alex and looked up to him as a mentor. Two years later, Alex and his team were opening up another Ace Hotel branch in Portland. He requested that Ryan handle the PR and marketing. Ready to get back to work, Ryan accepted the position and hit the ground running. FEARLESS LEADERSHIP As a mentor, Alex's advice to Ryan was this, "You have to put in the hours, trust your instincts, and then perfect your craft". He taught Ryan how to take the first fearless step and not to worry so much about failure. Instead, trust himself to figure things out. Part of being a fearless leader is to keep moving forward. MOVING FROM GOOD TO GREAT It's a challenge moving from good to great, especially when you're trying to scale a business. To inspire people within a business to go from good to great, they have to be welcome to the idea of opening themselves up to a "certain sense of urgency". Sometimes, letting people go with their instincts instead of taking the time to overthink, can lead to greatness.  DEVELOPING A COMMUNITY OF PARTNERS At Ace, the main purpose is to have conversations. The business and the transactions are a means to an end. Ace employs people that are curious and interested and want to have conversations centered around that curiosity.  COMMUNICATING A VISION At Ace, they try not to hold on too tightly to a concrete vision. Instead, they focus more on the important elements of learning what's involved in that vision. To get people on the same page as you, having a certain openness as to how the vision manifests itself is critical. If you hold too tightly onto your personal view of how something should be executed, creativity gets stifled. Instead, breaking a vision down into what the actual goals of the said vision are, while then putting more responsibility on individual people to achieve those goals in their own way, leads to creativity and greatness. LINKS MENTION Website: Acehotel.com Website: Afterliferevival.com  

Rick Alessandri is the Executive Vice President at Univision Communications. At a young age, he didn’t expect to be a media executive. In fact, he originally thought that he would be an attorney, but quickly realized he wasn't passionate about it. From a young age, his passions had been more centered around sports and music. While in college, he started working part-time for Sports Ticker. A year later, in 1983, he became a full-time employee. Slowly, this then morphed into the newsroom operator, sports reporter, and many other duties. As the business grew, and as he became more and more involved, he started learning all that he could about the sports business. The company grew and was eventually sold to ESPN in 1993. In 2000, Rick was asked to take a job with George Bodenheimer as his chief of staff VP. Here, he learned to communicate with people, manage staff and figured out how to get deals done. This earned him different job positions at ESPN, and now he’s at Univision running the corporate business development team.   MENTORS He believes mentors have been pivotal in his career but it was always coupled with hard work. You have to put the effort in, and have the willingness to learn in order to be successful. To attract a mentor, it's essential that you're passionate, committed, and also curious to learn. Some of his mentors are George Bodenheimer and Peter Bavasi. TAKING RISKS His first risk was taking a full-time job while he was still in college. At this time, he made a bet with ESPN, (even though it was just a start-up company with no defined success). Over the years, he’s taken risks in his career, but nothing as big as making the leap to lead a Spanish media company. This terrified him in the first few days, but it's been a remarkable journey and very rewarding. DEVELOPING LEADERSHIP SKILLS Rick has learned a lot of things from managers, both good and bad. However, he tries to be as transparent as possible in his leadership. Managers make a lot of tough decisions, and the only thing you can do is be honest with your employees. Handling downfalls hands-on and in the moment, spares you from a series of disappointment with the team members later on. Also, as a leader, It’s imperative to listen to your colleagues and bosses, synthesize the message, and take the best parts from it. Although some leadership skills are innate, you can still learn from the numerous resources available.  For Rick, he learned and enhanced his skills from supporting STOKED and Junior Achievement in New York. JA is an organization that focuses on financial literacy with youth. They’ve got incredible talent and he’s proud to be associated with such a group.   MAKING DIFFICULT DECISIONS. The most difficult decisions happen when you have to make decisions that involves and impacts other people’s lives. He vividly remembers the first person he fired, it was such a difficult moment for him that he cried. The most important job as a manager is to communicate a vision successfully. Let them know how you measure success and the understanding of why it's important to you. The critical thing for a leader is to encourage employees to be proactive and self-sufficient. Don't put employees in positions of responsibility and then sit on them constantly.   FUTURE PLANS Univision will be launching new products in development, as well language learning projects teaching Spanish and English. They’re also planning a soccer event in December where they’ll host 8 international soccer teams. This game will result in them crowning a USA champion and a global champion!   https://www.linkedin.com/in/rickalessandri/ https://twitter.com/rickalessandri?lang=en

  Jennifer Gonzalez had spent quite a bit of time working at her family’s insurance agency, but she always felt a little bit constricted. She felt that she had a different purpose in life, but what it was she couldn’t immediately pinpoint. In a bid to keep fit, she would run 5 miles every morning. This decision was short-lived as she developed some complications with her knees and hips. The next best idea was to follow a diet plan. On a recommendation, she went into a bookstore in search of a health book. What she found was The Raw Food Detox Diet. It sounded so radical to her, this book that was filled with important information about detox and health. Jennifer literally became obsessed with it. A colon therapist, Gil Jacobs, was who had recommended the book and has since become her mentor. Gil encouraged Jennifer to pursue colon hydrotherapy as a career. At the time, she was highly embarrassed to tell people she had colonic, but eventually, she embraced the idea. She is now a certified colon hydrotherapist and she’s been practicing for almost 10 years now.   BREAKING POINT In 2009, she went on a trip in Costa Rica. A trip that was initially supposed to be 2 weeks turned into 4 weeks as she didn’t want to leave. It was at this pivotal moment she knew that she didn’t love her job and needed to make an immediate change. This big leap for her was somehow uncomfortable to explain to her parents. Although they had always been supportive, she still felt like leaving the family business was letting them down. GETTING GROUNDED Yoga, meditation, and working out have been praised to helping keep you grounded and in tune with yourself, but this wasn't necessarily the case with Jennifer. She felt more at peace when socializing. She joined Meetup.com where she met amazing people from the different groups she joined. Something as simple as socializing completely changed her life. From this, she found out about Stoked, snowboarding, and many other activities that were going on around her. She realized getting out of her comfort zone helped to keep her grounded. She’s a donor as well as a mentor at Stoked, and she’s always around helping the kids to snowboard, surf, and skateboard. She says she volunteers for selfish reasons, as the kids make her feel good about herself and the friends that she’s gained in the network are awesome. BUILDING THE COMPANY Her passion for writing led her to start a blog, Doody Free Girl. She’d write interesting stories about ladies being uncomfortable pooping around their boyfriends, needless to say, this resonated very well with her client base. Post after post, she grew well enough to be approached by one of her clients who suggested she should move to Jersey City as there wasn’t a booming business in that area yet. Reluctantly, Jennifer went to Jersey where she completely fell in love with the city and space. She moved the business there, and it has since grown exponentially. She offers gravity colonics services. Gravity colonics is a painless process where the walls of your large intestines, which are roughly 5 feet long, are cleaned and cleared up of the toxins and harmful bacteria. This process results in a healthier metabolism. Unknown to many, cleaning up your colon can clear up many diseases which are hard to trace in a filled colon.     FUTURE She’s looking forward to writing a funny health book focused towards teenage girls, where she believes this process of a healthy lifestyle can start to be understood. LINKS MENTIONED Website: Doodyfreegirl.com

  Miki Reynolds is the executive director of Grid110, a company she co-founded in 2014. They're a community in economic development non-profit, which is in partnership with the Mayor’s office. The company mainly focuses on activating and supporting the start-up ecosystem in Downtown, Los Angeles by providing access to free space, mentoring, and resources to early stage entrepreneurs and startup teams. JOURNEY TO BECOMING AN EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR Miki had lost her job and was trying to figure out how to connect to a community or meet people who would later on hook her up with her next gig but she really struggled to find anything. Finally, she was able to connect to a group of 6 people and it’s here that they had the bright idea of how they could enable startups to want to move, grow and thrive in Downtown, LA. They had a common interest of helping building and supporting the community in the area because they felt that most of the start-up and tech activities centered around the west-side. This is how Grid110 was born. Everyone in the team volunteered for the first 2 years as it was just a side gig. Three years later, they were able to garner a lot of press interest but there wasn't anyone who really steered the ship in terms of long term strategy and making it a legitimate business. This prompted them to look for funding and they were able to properly staff the organization. It's at this time that the board appointed Miki to become the executive director. LEADERSHIP SKILLS Miki had always done things where leadership was involved but had never thought she was going to be a CEO or a Founder. Her jobs always required her to be a “badass right-hand person” who always gave ideas on how to accomplish and achieve visions. This executive director role is the first where she is required to make life changing decisions. She was able to gain confidence to do this by overcoming her fears and self-doubt. For her, it took an accumulation of experience and responsibility to get to be this kind of a person because she believes she is an introvert. Also knowing failure is inevitable has played a huge role in helping her succeed. ADVICE When the software development company she was working for shut down, she was devastated and didn’t know what the next step would be. All she knew was she was unhappy with what she was doing. She took that time to explore around, take in new experiences, try new things, and get out of her comfort zone. During this time, she met new people who have become and stayed her friends. She advises people to go out and explore even if it is by looking at job descriptions, or just talking to people. “You don't know what you don't know, so try new things.” CREATING BUSINESS RELATIONSHIPS For Miki, she’s always felt comfortable in the digital world because of her introvert personality and shyness. She was introduced to the digital world at 13 and has been obsessed ever since. Being and Introvert and shy, The digital world has enabled her to reach out to a lot of influential people for partnerships, speaking engagements, and sponsorships. Social Networking has become a great way for her to create relationships and opportunities as it feels very safe to her. FUTURE PLANS. They launched a program that is geared more toward idea stage entrepreneurs where they teach the fundamentals of entrepreneurship. They developed a 6-week program called Idea to Prototype which is an organized class one night a week. It also has a supplemental programming added. The program includes answers to questions like, what’s the problem you're trying to solve? How is your product the solution for that? What is your value proposition? How do you pitch? What are the different potential funding paths that you want to go down to? This will be run 5 times this year and the goal is to scale the number of entrepreneurs and teams that they work with. LINKS MENTIONED Twitter:@mikster Instagram: @Mikster Website: https://www.grid110.org/

HOW THE BUSINESS STARTED Hasan Piker has always had a passion for politics. After high school, he came to the United States to study and thereafter he got an Internship at The Young Turks (TYT). Eventually, he started producing on the side, He would sneak in as many extra hours as he could so that one day he could have his own show and segment which was a big dream. This thirst led him to ask his producers if he could fill in for them while they were away. They accepted his offer and this is how he grew his experience as well as audience. Impressed, the producers allowed Hasan to create a low cost alternative show in one of their YouTube channels and gave him control over their Facebook page where he created his now really famous show. He is responsible for The Young Turks Facebook page where he also has a show, The Breakdown. His day to day duties consist of looking for stories that really upset him, which unfortunately isn’t hard to find nowadays. The hard task for him is trying to make the show informational but also interesting, to be able to reach out to as broad of an audience as possible. POLITICAL INTEREST It is no surprise Hasan has immense interest in politics given his country of birth. He was born and bred in Istanbul, Turkey, a very political country. At a young age, he saw a dramatic change in the political state of his home country. This motivated his political interests even more. He applied, got accepted and started college at University of Miami. In college, he double majored in Political Science and Communication. His path to being a politics critic was not so easy, though. He worked his way through starting out in the entertainment industry, working other jobs like sales and eventually gained enough audience to share his political thoughts. PURPOSE Although he is not spiritual, he believes his purpose is to show people the ongoing realities in politics. It is quite hard to grasp people’s attention with news unless it is totally indecent or crazy. That’s why Hasan’s goal is to give power back to the people by informing them about certain realities and mobilizing them appropriately. All this is done through hard and work and he consciously surrounds himself with people who inspire him, who he respects, and who he believes are doing great things in the world. JOURNEY TO SUCCESS Social media gives people a platform to be authentic which is something that has been lacking for years in the media world. With social media around, he definitely wasn't looking forward to working with a producer who’ll dictate his shows. However, Hasan’s journey was not swift from the beginning. Looking back and watching his videos, he can’t believe the content he used to put out. He’s learned to be more and more fearless with his show as years go by. Although his remarks offend people a lot, he is committed to being authentic. FUTURE PROJECTS His goal is to get his message out on mainstream news, on TV, and to an older demographic who’ve not heard of him yet. He’s got interesting new ways of delivering his information and he is currently experimenting with different formats. LINKS MENTIONED Instagram: Hasandpiker Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/hasanpikerTYT/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/theyoungturks

Brian Atlas is the president and COO of Dyrdek Machine. Dyrdek Machine is a venture studio passionate about building brands and consumer media. Rob Dyrdek, who’s the founder and CEO, and Brian, met at only 20 years old and built Street League Skateboarding together which he ran for about a decade. Brian is totally passionate about skateboarding and entrepreneurship. PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT Brian’s hunger for knowledge is unmatched. This has increased over time as he tries to find out more about evolving as a person. In college, he realized if he applied himself to a goal to learn and evolve or progress as a person, the effort equaled to performance and he quickly started seeing results. His career also increased the habit of reading, having mentors, and finding resources. STAYING COMMITTED TO A VISION If you believe the world needs something or you could do something in a better way or you have what it takes, there's an energy that fuels you towards an action. Before starting Street League Skateboarding, they believed skating contests weren’t being done right and they had a thirst to change how things worked. They doubted themselves at first when building the brand, but this was an indication that there was more work to be done. FINDING YOUR STRENGTHS In college, Brian started a business which earned him numerous awards. One of the rewards he was given was for students that pushed their business furthest along by execution. It was at this time that he realized he’s a great executor. He sees a task to the very end by taking it and figuring out the problems that needs to be solved and putting it into action. Brian and Rob’s strengths really merge well together because Rob is passionate and has creative vision. Even though Brian is undeniably good at networking, he doesn't see himself as a networker. He’s passionate about creating genuine relationships with people and the term networking, according to him, doesn't seem to fit well with that. BUSINESS BLOCKS AND LESSONS Nothing teaches you how to run a company like running a company. In the first 5 years of business, Brian made a lot of mistakes mostly around communication. He never communicated to his employees his expectations around performance, never created a dialogue around feedback, or just communicating the company’s vision. His main lesson now is obviously being on top of communication as a manager. He’s also come to the understanding that meditation and getting enough sleep helps with having a successful business. Earlier on, he always looked stressed and to some extent angry, and people were scared to talk to him. But as time went by, he understood the importance of having some good rest and a clear mind. CAREER OFF YOUR PASSION Brian was lucky early on in his life to be presented with opportunities to hone his passion for skateboarding. It's important to know what your goals are, having faith, and executing them. Not everything will be handed to you on a silver platter and so it’s also paramount that you put in the work. WORKING WITH CELEBRITIES Having the right energy and being natural, definitely draws people. This is easier said than done but being self-aware and having an honest appraisal and an honest look at yourself is the first step. It's hard and it takes time and effort but your energy improves with time. Ask yourself questions like are you being honest with yourself, are you aware of your weaknesses, what do you want to improve in your life? If you have this honest dialogue with yourself, your self-development will massively improve, and you can therefore work with anyone, celebrity or not. GOAL SETTING 2018. Brian has a 5-year life plan that he breaks down into categories. These categories include finance, career, and social. Every morning before he starts his business, he looks at his personal to-do list because he believes his personal life comes first to everything else. He constantly checks to make sure his actions align with his goals. This influences his personal budget, his financial management, auditing at the beginning of each yea. He’s got no one to keep him accountable, though, but his focus and zeal keeps him grounded. HOW TO KNOW YOUR PASSION In your journey when trying to figure out your purpose and where you should be heading, if you're in tune with your intuition you get signals. Be aware of what your body, mind, and energy is around and be sure there's no mistakes in your journey. Your intuition always whispers and never yells so you have to pay attention to that smaller voice. Brian knew what his passion was because he gets the best feeling when he helps other people. LINKS MENTIONED Instagram: @Brian_Atlas Twitter: @Brian_Atlas Website: Dyrdekmachine.com Oprah and Gary Zukav interview

Today, we have Claire Lew. She’s the CEO of Know Your Company which is a software tool that helps CEO’s overcome growing pains. When companies grow, the CEO’s feel like they're losing touch of the company’s employees. Know Your Company helps CEO’s get the insights that they're looking for and create an open and honest environment for employees to be heard when the company grows and becomes too much to handle for the CEO alone. They have over 15,000 members in 25 different countries. Apart from that, she sits on the board for the Chicago Coalition For The Homeless which is an organization that advocates for eradication of homelessness in Chicago. She also sits on a board that promotes art and entrepreneurship. They have a fund that helps fund budding entrepreneurs.   HOW CLAIRE GOT HER START Claire has been an introvert all her life and the thought of being a CEO of a software company had never crossed her mind. She’d hoped to work in international politics or at the UN. In college, she studied organizational change which is a study of how people work together in groups. This study highly influenced her decision to learn how people work in groups. After graduating, Claire and a few of her friends decided to start their first company together, The Starter League. It was a beginner-focused school for people interested in learning coding in which she worked for only one and a half years. She picked up another job which she absolutely ended up hating because the work environment wasn't exactly engaging. Every time she had an idea or feedback about the working environment or the business as a whole, no one paid attention. After a year and a half, she ended up quitting and focused on creating a company where employees could freely share their ideas and feedback. Her idea came to life and she first created a consulting company to help CEOs get to know their company better. Luckily, the first client was from a big company, BaseCamp. Jason, the CEO, was amazed by the idea and hired Claire to be their consultant. Things worked out really well between the two and the Know Your Company idea later came to mind. It was such a huge company with its own ideas that they decided to make it a separate company with Claire as the CEO. BEING A FIRST-TIME CEO Just like any person who’d be given such a huge position at a young age, Claire was afraid. 24 years old at the time, she was simply overwhelmed with the task to run a whole company as the CEO. Know Your Company was associated with top companies such as Airbnb, Kickstarter, etc., and this gave her a case of imposter syndrome. She was always worried about what other people thought of her but all this changed when a woman in one of the networking events for high-profile women founders told her to stop selling herself short. This was such a defining moment in her career because she was able to see her true worth. DEVELOPING LEADERSHIP SKILLS Claire first developed her leadership quality from her personal vision of how leadership and positive work environment can exist. In college, she read The 5th Discipline by Peter Sangi. It pointed out that running a successful organization is an idea of personal mastery, which is about knowing exactly what you want and its truth and then focusing to make your vision work. Claire has a philosophy where she makes sure the environment of the company is something she would be comfortable being in first. Secondly, they check on the data they’ve collected over the past 3 years while working with CEOs and noticing what the biggest blind spots and common missteps in companies are and then creating their company’s environment with the best value. Her leadership qualities come from gut, intuition and personal belief, but it's also informed by data and observation.  Claire’s grandfather has been a huge influence in the way she feels and thinks about leadership because to her, he really exemplifies courage, humility, honesty, and unwavering commitment to serving things bigger than himself. You can always develop your leadership skills by looking for examples that are working really well. Always spend time with people you admire. You get to learn a lot of skills but it’s also important to offer value and not just be draining them of information. Be a leader at the moment, regardless of your title because leadership isn’t about title. HOW TO MAKE A COMPANY FULFILLING Having meaningful work is the top thing that motivates employees. This means it has to be something that they care about or the impact has to be something that they feel is worthwhile. If it's not meaningful, then they won't stick around with it for very long. Also, honesty and how things are communicated in an organization is very important. FUTURE PLANS They recently launched The Watercooler which is an online community for leaders who are looking to become better. The concept has really resonated with people and the topics have been amazing. They’re excited to see the future of this company because people are extensively looking to be better leaders.   LINKS MENTIONED Email: Claire@knowyourcompany.com Twitter: cjlew23 Claire also Writes on Medium and Inc.com    

EARLY BACKGROUND In this episode, we speak with Mike Smith. In elementary and high school, Mike was the rowdy kid who never sat down. He was actually prescribed some ADD medication and told he was a troubled kid but he was just full of energy and life. He always looked forward to memorable moments and fun experiences during the day. When he joined college, his basketball coach took all that energy and harnessed it in the right direction. Before he started his nonprofit and speaking stuff, he was in the social service industry. He was working with homeless and runaway teenagers helping them get back to school by providing resources. After some time he realized his community didn’t have a place kids wanted to go once school got out. This motivated him to come up with a plan. HOW  IT ALL STARTED He had always worked with youth since he was in college, from church organizations to social worker organizations. He believes being around kids really keeps him young and on his toes and that’s what he really likes. Growing up, he never knew what exactly he wanted to be but it was certain that he wanted to work with kids and help them. Mike feels he is a great product of adult relationships with his teachers, coaches, and people who were there for him when he needed them most. This influenced him to want to play the same role in young people’s lives in future. In school, he was always asked to speak and tell his story at the basketball gigs, youth groups, and camps as well as many other places. Mike Smith Live started when he was working as a social worker and starting  running his nonprofit at the same time. He was short of time and so he knew if he could speak to kids once or twice a month, then he wouldn’t have to pay himself from his nonprofit. He started speaking out of the space of wanting to speak to kids about what he was doing but he also wanted free time to be able to focus on his nonprofit. MENTORS Mike’s college basketball coach saw his potential more than Mike saw in himself. He was the first adult to hold him as accountable as anyone could hold another person. He made him see he wasn't more important than anyone else. The coach quickly became a very important person at that point in Mike’s life. Although he was tough to Mike, the coach helped him have his priorities straight and have obligations and stick to them. He was most definitely a father figure to Mike when he was in college. FIRST SPEAKING GIGS Since he had emails for a few principals he’d either met, seen, or known, he emailed every one of them. This earned him two gigs which were basically for exposure since the pay was peanuts. He continued emailing schools and luckily, a school in Chicago reached out. He was able to earn a decent amount of money from this which he invested in a website and a video. He printed out 500 DVD’s and he hand wrote a note to the 500 principals marketing his speaking ability. This idea helped him make his career. WHY PEOPLE INVITE HIM TO SPEAK. Part of the reason people call Mike for speaking engagements is because he doesn't look like the typical youth speaker with tattoos and snapbacks. He’s always dresses casually. Also, the message he conveys is pretty relevant to most schools because that’s what kids need to hear. His language is mostly slang and different every time, and schools appreciate the rawness of his message. Kids love to see his work since he is involved in a-lot of other businesses besides speaking. He created a video series called The Habor which is the most watched show in schools in America. It's a resource for teachers to show their kids how to start conversations. MIKE’S PURPOSE. Mike’s core message when he’s speaking is letting people know that they have to stop wishing and talking and start doing. He believes the people who make a difference in the planet have one thing in common which is they stand for someone or something other than themselves. In this age of social media, it's got to be about a bigger story and idea and someone other than you. You don't have to be a straight A student to make a difference in your school but just sit by the kid who’s having a rough day and help them out. Mike wants kids to understand this early in their lives. This is his main mission. It all began when he met a student in his school, Calvin, when he was in senior year and calvin was a freshman. Calvin was totally different from Mike. He struggled academically, emotionally, socially, and in his senior year, Mike took Calvin under his wing and focused all his attention on him. He fought for him throughout the year and they’ve kept in touch ever since. 2 years ago, Mike and his wife went to their home town and picked Calvin up. He now lives with them. Calvin is such a huge part of Mike’s story and possibly the beginning of Mike’s story. This has taught him that you can love people who are different than you. SKATE FOR CHANGE. Mike had built this indoor skate park and nonprofit organization and had a lot of skateboarders. Since he was always asking the community for help, he thought of changing that up by giving the kids a chance to give back and help as well. They then started skating around giving out socks and tried to do what they could to help the homeless. The kids were of all ages from 20’s, to high school kids who were 14. Most parents wanted their kids to do this so much that they would call the kids out of school to let their kids go for the skating challenge. Because of this, Mike had to move the cause to the weekends and they would skate around every Sunday. This has been going on for 6 years now. PROUD MOMENTS. He finds The Bay as a little hard to describe. They started a little skate park in a mall in 2010 and today it's a 40,000 ft2 warehouse. It's a skate park, coffee shop, concert venue, art gallery, resource center, and they also do music and art mentoring. They're also working on a program where the barristers in the coffee shops are women who were victims of domestic violence or sex trafficking and also homeless teenagers. They make the best of the best coffee. Mike is overly proud of The Bay but believes it could never be amazing as it is without the help of the amazing team and community.   ADVICE If you're stuck and want to make a drastic change, it's paramount to identify what you don’t love about what you're doing and at the same time, identify your strength. Write down everything in a journal and create a plan. But unless you're willing to drastically change your own world, you won't be able to personally change. Invest in your own world first so you can have an opportunity to go out and make a difference. FUTURE PLANS. Mike has a big tour coming up from September 5th called Find Your Grind Tour. It covers almost all the 50 states and thousands of schools will be present. DESCRIBE THE STOKED LIFESTYLE. The stocked lifestyle world be when you find that purpose and passion and you wake up every day and you do that, you're going to wake up stoked. If you wake up stoked, the world is going to be a better place off for it. LINKS MENTION Websites: Mikesmithlive.com, Findyourgrind.com.

Thank you so much for listening to our second season of the STOKED Lifestyle Podcast! In this recap episode, Steve talks about a few of his favorite moments of the past season and discusses plans for the future. Hope you enjoy. To learn more about STOKED visit: https://www.stoked.org/ https://www.instagram.com/stokedorg/ https://stokedlifestyle.co/home

Artist, designer, author, and educator, James Victore was born to be creative, but it wasn’t until he began designing posters in NYC that he truly discovered his calling. Years later, he has exhibited works at the MOMA, Palais du Louvre, and Library of Congress, by pouring his passion and opinions into each piece. Tune in to hear his journey. Hope you enjoy. To learn more about James Victore visit:http://www.jamesvictore.com/https://www.instagram.com/jamesvictore/ https://www.youtube.com/user/JamesVictore/ To learn more about STOKED visit:https://www.stoked.org/https://www.instagram.com/stokedorg/ https://stokedlifestyle.co/home

Sensing a need to showcase small entrepreneurs with big visions, April Francis founded Dose Market in 2011. Today this Chicago based, pop-up marketplace is in high demand for those in search of exceptional, locally-made clothes, jewelry, art, food, and other wares. Tune in to hear her journey. Hope you enjoy. To learn more about Dose Market visit: https://www.dosemarket.com/ https://www.instagram.com/dosemarket/ https://www.facebook.com/dosemarket To learn more about STOKED visit: https://www.stoked.org/ https://www.instagram.com/stokedorg/ https://stokedlifestyle.co/home