sethczerepak

NOTE: This episode was recorded on June 15th, 2022, and uploaded to Rumble and YouTube on June 15th, 2022. Connect With Seth Czerepak https://gettr.com/user/sethczerepak https://www.linkedin.com/in/sethczerepak/ https://sethczerepak.com?utm_medium=Video&utm_source=Rumble&utm_campaign=Experiments+With+Hope&utm_content=Episode+67

NOTE: This episode was recorded on March 4th 2022 and uploaded to Rumble and YouTube on March 4th, 2022. This final podcast recaps the purpose and success of this series and explains what I'm doing next and why. Connect With Seth Czerepak https://gettr.com/user/sethczerepak https://www.linkedin.com/in/sethczerepak/ https://sethczerepak.com?utm_medium=Video&utm_source=Rumble&utm_campaign=Experiments+With+Hope&utm_content=Episode+66

Frédéric Chopin was a renowned Polish and French composer who published his first composition at age 7 and began performing one year later. In 1832, he moved to Paris, socialized with high society, and was known as an excellent piano teacher. Frédéric Chopin is famous for his expressive piano playing and the innovative works he composed for that instrument. His piano compositions were highly influential during his time. Frédéric Chopin wrote 21 nocturnes (named after the French which meant nocturnal, from the Latin word: "Nocturnus") for solo piano between 1827 and 1846, of which this is the final (twenty-first). These nocturnes are generally considered among the finest short solo works for the instrument and hold an important place in contemporary concert repertoire. Although Chopin did not invent the nocturne, he popularized and expanded on it, building on the form developed by Irish composer John Field.

Frédéric Chopin was a renowned Polish and French composer who published his first composition at age 7 and began performing one year later. In 1832, he moved to Paris, socialized with high society, and was known as an excellent piano teacher. Frédéric Chopin is famous for his expressive piano playing and the innovative works he composed for that instrument. His piano compositions were highly influential during his time. Frédéric Chopin wrote 21 nocturnes (named after the French which meant nocturnal, from the Latin word: "Nocturnus") for solo piano between 1827 and 1846, of which this is the twentieth. These nocturnes are generally considered among the finest short solo works for the instrument and hold an important place in contemporary concert repertoire. Although Chopin did not invent the nocturne, he popularized and expanded on it, building on the form developed by Irish composer John Field.

Frédéric Chopin was a renowned Polish and French composer who published his first composition at age 7 and began performing one year later. In 1832, he moved to Paris, socialized with high society, and was known as an excellent piano teacher. Frédéric Chopin is famous for his expressive piano playing and the innovative works he composed for that instrument. His piano compositions were highly influential during his time. Frédéric Chopin wrote 21 nocturnes (named after the French which meant nocturnal, from the Latin word: "Nocturnus") for solo piano between 1827 and 1846, of which this is the nineteenth. These nocturnes are generally considered among the finest short solo works for the instrument and hold an important place in contemporary concert repertoire. Although Chopin did not invent the nocturne, he popularized and expanded on it, building on the form developed by Irish composer John Field.

Frédéric Chopin was a renowned Polish and French composer who published his first composition at age 7 and began performing one year later. In 1832, he moved to Paris, socialized with high society, and was known as an excellent piano teacher. Frédéric Chopin is famous for his expressive piano playing and the innovative works he composed for that instrument. His piano compositions were highly influential during his time. Frédéric Chopin wrote 21 nocturnes (named after the French which meant nocturnal, from the Latin word: "Nocturnus") for solo piano between 1827 and 1846, of which this is the eighteenth. These nocturnes are generally considered among the finest short solo works for the instrument and hold an important place in contemporary concert repertoire. Although Chopin did not invent the nocturne, he popularized and expanded on it, building on the form developed by Irish composer John Field.

Frédéric Chopin was a renowned Polish and French composer who published his first composition at age 7 and began performing one year later. In 1832, he moved to Paris, socialized with high society, and was known as an excellent piano teacher. Frédéric Chopin is famous for his expressive piano playing and the innovative works he composed for that instrument. His piano compositions were highly influential during his time. Frédéric Chopin wrote 21 nocturnes (named after the French which meant nocturnal, from the Latin word: "Nocturnus") for solo piano between 1827 and 1846, of which this is the seventeenth. These nocturnes are generally considered among the finest short solo works for the instrument and hold an important place in contemporary concert repertoire. Although Chopin did not invent the nocturne, he popularized and expanded on it, building on the form developed by Irish composer John Field.

Frédéric Chopin was a renowned Polish and French composer who published his first composition at age 7 and began performing one year later. In 1832, he moved to Paris, socialized with high society, and was known as an excellent piano teacher. Frédéric Chopin is famous for his expressive piano playing and the innovative works he composed for that instrument. His piano compositions were highly influential during his time. Frédéric Chopin wrote 21 nocturnes (named after the French which meant nocturnal, from the Latin word: "Nocturnus") for solo piano between 1827 and 1846, of which this is the sixteenth. These nocturnes are generally considered among the finest short solo works for the instrument and hold an important place in contemporary concert repertoire. Although Chopin did not invent the nocturne, he popularized and expanded on it, building on the form developed by Irish composer John Field.

Frédéric Chopin was a renowned Polish and French composer who published his first composition at age 7 and began performing one year later. In 1832, he moved to Paris, socialized with high society, and was known as an excellent piano teacher. Frédéric Chopin is famous for his expressive piano playing and the innovative works he composed for that instrument. His piano compositions were highly influential during his time. Frédéric Chopin wrote 21 nocturnes (named after the French which meant nocturnal, from the Latin word: "Nocturnus") for solo piano between 1827 and 1846, of which this is the fifteenth. These nocturnes are generally considered among the finest short solo works for the instrument and hold an important place in contemporary concert repertoire. Although Chopin did not invent the nocturne, he popularized and expanded on it, building on the form developed by Irish composer John Field.

Frédéric Chopin was a renowned Polish and French composer who published his first composition at age 7 and began performing one year later. In 1832, he moved to Paris, socialized with high society, and was known as an excellent piano teacher. Frédéric Chopin is famous for his expressive piano playing and the innovative works he composed for that instrument. His piano compositions were highly influential during his time. Frédéric Chopin wrote 21 nocturnes (named after the French which meant nocturnal, from the Latin word: "Nocturnus") for solo piano between 1827 and 1846, of which this is the fourteenth. These nocturnes are generally considered among the finest short solo works for the instrument and hold an important place in contemporary concert repertoire. Although Chopin did not invent the nocturne, he popularized and expanded on it, building on the form developed by Irish composer John Field.

NOTE: This episode was recorded on February 16th, 2021 and uploaded to Rumble and YouTube on February 16th, 2021. I, Seth Czerepak, am a proud Western Entrepreneur who refuses to apologize for creating the modern world. That's right, I said it. This is my official "coming out" podcast where I declare myself a proud apologist of the principles of Western Civilization. I have resisted going public about this for years now, but the time has come to make a stand. True, Western Civilization has had its problems. America has had its problems. However, like many Western Entrepreneurs, I have always believed that progress is more important than perfection. The only thing we can do with the past is to learn from it, plan for a better future, and work in the present to create that future. In spite of having been a critic of modern society, I still believe that those who make the biggest and most positive impact in the world are the people who can embrace imperfection, and work on in the face of adversity. When I was a teenager, I promised myself I'd never submit to people who don't respect my values, nor even attempt to understand them. That promise has been tested many times throughout my life. It's been tested by people I thought were my friends. It's been tested by my close family members, by women I've dated, and by dozens of other people who have sought to bring me to heel. Still, I have kept that promise for 45 years, and still consider this one of the most valuable and worthwhile victories of my life. Today, those values are being attacked by people who have an insatiable lust to rule over others, and to silence those who oppose them. I will never give in to such tyranny. I will die poor before I will allow myself to be spiritually and morally crushed by ignorant megalomaniacs. This is my public declaration that my life as an entrepreneur will be based on the foundations of Liberty, Justice, and Truth. If you're an entrepreneur who feels the same way, I'd love to meet you and form an economic alliance. Connect With Seth Czerepak https://gettr.com/user/sethczerepak https://www.linkedin.com/in/sethczerepak/ https://sethczerepak.com?utm_medium=Video&utm_source=Rumble&utm_campaign=Experiments+With+Hope&utm_content=Episode+65

The Gavin McInnes Show - Episode 161

NOTE: This episode was recorded on February 11th, 2019 and moved from YouTube on January 23rd, 2021. Failure is the greatest teacher…why do wise people say such things? Because they understand something ordinary people never learn…they understand the Universal Principle of Attrition. Jesus of Nazareth summarized this principle in this quote… “Many are called, but few are chosen.” Take any worthwhile goal, project, or venture, and I guarantee you’ll find ONE THING To be true about it. For every one person who persists in it, you’ll find, ten people, a hundred people, or even a thousand people who have started it, only to quit. This is called an “Attrition Rate.” And anything worth doing will always carry a high attrition rate. This is one of the lost secrets of success. This is one reason wise people believe that failure is the best teacher. Failure is a natural process that weeds out excess to create room for growth. Plant 100 seeds in the ground and only a few will make it to harvest time. Watch an animal give birth to a litter of its young, and only a few from that litter will survive into adulthood. These are examples of the Principle of Attrition as it works in nature. This might seem cruel to some. But those who try to defy the Principle of Attrition, either by avoiding failure themselves, or by sheltering others from the consequences of failure, are trying to violate one of the Universal Principles of Life. But, those who respect this law understand two seemingly paradoxical truths… First, they never think of themselves as being one who will fail, or quit. Second, and more importantly, if they do fail, they learn from it, and they try again. Sometimes, failure teaches us that we were pursuing the wrong goal in the first place. Other times, failure teaches us how to succeed. Wise people know this, and that’s why they say that failure is the best teacher. Connect With Seth Czerepak https://gettr.com/user/sethczerepak https://www.linkedin.com/in/sethczerepak/ https://sethczerepak.com?utm_medium=Video&utm_source=Rumble&utm_campaign=Experiments+With+Hope&utm_content=Episode+41

NOTE: This episode was recorded on April 1rst, 2019 and moved from YouTube on January 23rd, 2021. Are your customers being seduced by smooth-talking self-proclaimed experts? You’ve invested decades into becoming a real expert in your niche. Why should you compete with imposters? Because they’re out there whether we like it not, and some of them are damn good at fooling people. Thankfully, false experts have a few weaknesses which are easy to see and call out. First, self-proclaimed experts are usually people who suffer from what psychologists call The Dunning-Kruger Effect. The official definition of which is… “A cognitive bias in which people wrongly overestimate their knowledge or ability in a specific area. This tends to occur because a lack of self-awareness prevents them from accurately assessing their skills.” In other words, most self-proclaimed experts aren’t self-aware enough to realize how incompetent and/or dishonest they really are. If you’re familiar with my work, you know how passionately I preach self-awareness. It’s the key to self-discipline, self-actualization, and self-regulation. People who lack self-awareness are literally incapable of consistency in any of these basic life skills. This is not to excuse their behavior. But, it does give us an insight into how we can educate our prospective customers about the imposters in our niche. First, because of their lack of self-awareness, self-proclaimed experts typically can’t predict how they will behave under certain circumstances. This means they’re unlikely to follow through on their promises to themselves and/or to others. So, if you’re in a niche with a lot of self-proclaimed experts, my guess is, your customers have already been burned by a few of them. Talk to your customers and ask them how these scenarios played out. When you get a detailed response, ask your customer if they’ll write you an endorsement telling, in detail, how their experience with you was different than the experience with the false expert. When other prospective clients see these reviews, they’ll likely recognize these horror stories, and be glad to hear that your clients are having different experiences with you. The second thing self-proclaimed experts have in common is that they’re lazy as hell when it comes to sustained creative thinking. In other words, they never generate their own ideas. They just copy and repackage ideas from books they’ve read, or from other experts (true or false) in your niche. After all, creativity is the one thing you really can’t fake. While your customers won’t notice this trickery on their own, you can do your own investigations, and expose (or make fun of) these gimmicks in your marketing messages, in your blogs, and in your podcasts. Imagine how your would-be customers will react when you expose how the self-proclaimed experts in your niche are copying their ideas from other people. You’ll make them look like the fools that they are. This is especially effective if you apply creative thinking to your business by building your own unique brand. This is what some marketing enthusiasts call your “Unique Selling Position” or “USP.” But, that’s a topic for another podcast. Connect With Seth Czerepak https://gettr.com/user/sethczerepak https://www.linkedin.com/in/sethczerepak/ https://sethczerepak.com?utm_medium=Video&utm_source=Rumble&utm_campaign=Experiments+With+Hope&utm_content=Episode+40

NOTE: This episode was recorded on March 25th, 2019 and moved from YouTube on January 23rd, 2021. Shiny object syndrome…why are some so vulnerable to it, while others seem bulletproof? Aspiring entrepreneurs have a horrible habit of chasing from one business venture to another. One year, they’re promoting an MLM business. The next year, they’re working as some kind of coach or consultant. The next year, they’re selling “how to make money online” products. The next year, it’s on to eCommerce, affiliate marketing, or trading cryptocurrencies. Years of this behavior will inevitably lead you on a tiresome road right back to where you started: still broke, still unfulfilled, still worried about whether you’ll ever get to live your dream of being a self-made entrepreneur. Yet, other entrepreneurs find one thing and stick with it until they become super successful. It might take them ten years or more to get there. But when they finally do succeed big, scores of shiny-object-addicted people try their hand in the same business, thinking that will finally be their big break. What’s the difference between people who stay the course and succeed big and people who spend years, or decades even, chasing one business opportunity after another? In my experience, there are two reasons. The first is laziness. People seduced by shiny objects typically don’t want to do the work involved in starting a business. They don’t want to take personal financial risks or make sacrifices in their relationships. They don’t want to face the inevitable rejection that comes from marketing their product to strangers. The other reason, which is much more common is something I’ve talked about many times in past podcasts: perfectionism. People who chase shiny objects are often obsessed with finding the perfect business model. The perfect product to sell. The “recession-proof” widget that they can simply put up for sale on a website, and watch flocks of eager customers buy the product. If you’ve been this person, you can escape the tiresome purgatory of chasing shiny objects simply by accepting that this perfect business opportunity does not exist and that you have to work hard to succeed. You have to create it. This requires you to do what self-help author Wallace Wattles calls “the hardest work in the world.” That work is sustained and consecutive thought — thought which is not influenced by anything in your surroundings (positive or negative) but which is purely creative and designed to come up with a unique business idea, OR a unique way of positioning an existing product or service type. Sure, some people get lucky and happen to catch an exploding trend at the right time. I’d put people like Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg in that category. Even now, if you listen to either of these dudes talk, it’s clear they have no real entrepreneurial instincts. Hell, they’re not even smart if you ask me. But, they did happen to catch a wave on its crest, and while that doesn’t always require disciplined and creative thinking, it does require you to pick one thing and stick with it until it succeeds. Study the greatest entrepreneurs in history and you’ll find that they have one thing in common. They all applied their creative imagination to come up with an idea no one had come up with before. Today, this does not have to mean a brand new invention like the light bulb. It can simply be a unique way of positioning an existing product or service type. But, my experience has told me that very few aspiring entrepreneurs are willing to put in the MENTAL WORK to accomplish this. Instead, they prefer to continue their futile search for that perfect business formula that SOMEONE ELSE already came up with. Bottom line, if someone else’s diligent and persistent mental and creative efforts produced the idea, it’s going to serve them better than it serves you. Worse yet, someone is likely to prey on your obsession with perfection by selling you some stupid “how to get rich” product. Stop being lazy, drop the obsession with perfection, and start putting your mind to work. Not only will this cure you of shiny object syndrome, it could make you one of those enviably successful entrepreneurs who leaves their unique mark in the world. Connect With Seth Czerepak https://gettr.com/user/sethczerepak https://www.linkedin.com/in/sethczerepak/ https://sethczerepak.com?utm_medium=Video&utm_source=Rumble&utm_campaign=Experiments+With+Hope&utm_content=Episode+39

NOTE: This episode was recorded on March 18th, 2019 and moved from YouTube on January 23rd, 2021. Some people are really vulnerable to entrepreneurship scams. They've tried dozens of new business ideas, but they've spent more money than they've made. I've met people who have spent five and six-figure sums on entrepreneurial ventures, training courses, seminars and business opportunities, and made nearly nothing as a result. Why are some people so vulnerable to these entrepreneurial scams? In my experience, there are two reasons. First, because many of them are what I call "Entrepreneurial Tourists." In other words, they like all the positive things entrepreneurship offers: the uncapped income potential, the power to make their own schedule, and the opportunity to make a living doing what they love. But, Entrepreneurial Tourists are often in denial about the costs and risks involved in starting a business. They spend loads of money on training, and business opportunities like MLM because they're looking for some magic business formula that will dump boatloads of money into their lap with little or no effort on their part. Others are in too much of a damn hurry to go from making nothing to being a multimillionaire. They've been fooled by the "overnight success" myth, which ignores the incredible amounts of time, energy, and money entrepreneurs usually put into their business before it finally takes off. But more than any of these, Entrepreneurial Tourists are often obsessed with perfection. My 10,000+ hours of one-on-one coaching experience has taught me that many ambitious people have a warped and even masochistic view of perfectionism. They call themselves perfectionists and if it's something to be proud of. The truth is, perfectionism can get you to a certain level of personal achievement. But, at some level, perfectionism becomes the very thing which locks people into an income plateau and blocks them from achieving past a certain level. In the first book of my series Single Serving Wisdom, I say that today's stepping stones often become tomorrow's stumbling blocks and that what got you where you are today can often stop you from going where you want to go next. Perfectionism is one such example. Perfectionism can get you to a certain level of success, but at some point, it becomes the very thing which stops you from getting to the next level. To overcome this paradox, you have to become very specific about how you apply your perfectionism. If not, you'll become a ripe target for the scammers and snake oil salesman in the self-help and business advice world. You'll always be in search of the next perfect program for getting you past where you are now. When, in reality, your perfectionism has taken you as far as it can take you, and you can only get to the next level of success, not by doing more of what you've been doing, but by changing your beliefs about what it takes to get you past where you are now. Connect With Seth Czerepak https://gettr.com/user/sethczerepak https://www.linkedin.com/in/sethczerepak/ https://sethczerepak.com?utm_medium=Video&utm_source=Rumble&utm_campaign=Experiments+With+Hope&utm_content=Episode+38

NOTE: This episode was recorded on March 4th, 2019 and moved from YouTube on January 23rd, 2021. America was built by entrepreneurs. Now, panicked and ignorant bureaucrats and media bobbleheads (many of whom have never built anything from the ground up) are destroying small businesses with their short-sighted response to the Coronavirus Pandemic. Yes, something needed to be done to save lives. But, we MUST have a conversation about the livelihoods that are being ruined by our response to this crisis. There's a myth in the American consciousness that says "economies run on spending." This is one of the most ignorant and pervasive mantras in our society. Economies run on PRODUCTION. And entrepreneurs are the producers of the American economy. Yet, right now loads of ignorant and unbelievably stupid bureaucrats and political hacks in the media are shutting down small businesses, and, again, making the stupid mistake of assuming that government "stimulus" (aka, money-printing) will sustain our economy in this time. If you want to save the American Economy from this crisis, get the HELL out of our way and let us (the entrepreneurs who make economies work) do our damn jobs. Yes, there is danger in just "letting this thing rip," and I'm not saying we should do nothing. But, Americans are not children orcowards. We risk our lives to take care of ourselves and our family every time we leave the damn house to drive to our jobs.We risk our financial futures, our dignity and our relationships to build the products and to fulfill the services that make this economy work. That's our right as human beings.To lay it all on the line to fight for our dreams and for the people we love.Anyone who wants to take this right away and who assumes that they can build a healthy society using the vehicle of government is a moron and a tyrant. Those are today's thoughts on what the Coronavirus crisis is doing to the American economy. Yes, this is not a popular point to be making. But, my guess is that within the next 3 to 6 months, people will finally start to realize that we should have been talking about this from the start. Connect With Seth Czerepak https://gettr.com/user/sethczerepak https://www.linkedin.com/in/sethczerepak/ https://sethczerepak.com?utm_medium=Video&utm_source=Rumble&utm_campaign=Experiments+With+Hope&utm_content=Episode+36

NOTE: This episode was recorded on February 25th, 2019 and moved from YouTube on January 23rd, 2021. Entrepreneurs vs dreamers...what's the difference? Some would say that dreamers dream, while entrepreneurs act. But, there's more to it than that. In my experience, the most important difference between the two is that dreamers have unreasonable expectations about how hard it is to get a business off of the ground. They're mostly interested in the good parts of being an entrepreneur...the free time, the money, the ability to turn your passion into a profit. They're much, much less interested in the initial sacrifices of building a business. Hell, most of them aren't interested in that part at all. They're like tourists visiting other countries. They just want to see the pretty parts, without giving up the comforts and luxuries they enjoy in their own country. When I tell people that I work at home and for myself, nearly everyone says that I'm "lucky." I laugh. Sometimes, I tell them that it took a lot of hard work and it wasn't easy at all. But, it's interesting that their first response is to call me lucky. In my experience, this is how most ordinary people think about entrepreneurship. Especially when they hear about super-successful entrepreneurs who are making a lot of money. Ordinary people grossly underestimate the deep personal sacrifices, the long grueling hours, the epic failures, and the jaw tightening uncertainty that goes into building a business from the ground up. They only see the end result and assume that it must have been luck, or privilege, instead of hard work and sacrifice. Connect With Seth Czerepak https://gettr.com/user/sethczerepak https://www.linkedin.com/in/sethczerepak/ https://sethczerepak.com?utm_medium=Video&utm_source=Rumble&utm_campaign=Experiments+With+Hope&utm_content=Episode+35

NOTE: This episode was recorded on February 18th, 2019 and moved from YouTube on January 23rd, 2021. Some entrepreneurs blow right past income plateaus on the first try. Others struggle for years, or a lifetime, to break barriers to increasing their income. I’m talking about barriers like the $50k mark, or the $100k mark. This barrier often depends on how much you’ve made in a year. For example, if you’ve never made more than $30k a year working for someone else, the $30k market might be your income barrier. How do some entrepreneurs blow right through these barriers, even up to the six and seven-figure a year mark, while others struggle just to stay in business? It’s not just about creating and running a “scalable” business. Yes, that matters. And, in my opinion, most people who talk about scalability don’t have a practical grasp on how to achieve it. But if you’re already running a successful business, making passive income, and you’re not stuck by time saturation, your income plateau might have another, more bizarre cause… Your income plateau could be because of your beliefs about what income you’re capable of earning, or even what you deserve to earn. I know, a lot of New Age nutjobs think this is the only cause of income plateaus. That’s not true. Logistics do matter. But, one of my past coaching clients had a strange “habit” of being knocked off track the moment he was on the cusp of earning more than $40,000.00 a year. Incidentally, this was the exact amount of money he’d made at his previous job. When I say “knocked off track,” I’m not talking about by his own conscious behaviors. Instead, this dude would run into the strangest and most unexplainable streaks of “bad luck” I’ve ever seen in my life. Stuff would happen to him that, to the uninitiated observer, would appear completely out of his control. This bothered me for a few weeks, then I had an idea. I would ask him to accept responsibility for these spontaneous streaks of bad luck as if he were consciously causing them. Unless you understand the concept of action at a distance, or of non-linear cause and effect, this will seem completely illogical. But, the moment my client started accepting responsibility for the things he couldn’t control, something equally amazing happened. The streaks of bad luck started becoming less dramatic. Then, they started becoming less frequent. Eventually, they stopped altogether and his income shot up to over $100,000.00 a year within the next 18 months. What happened? He stopped what I call “Serendipitous Self-Sabotage” by accepting responsibility for his role in creating it. As it turned out, he already knew how to make more than $100,000.00 a year. He was doing everything he needed to be doing. He just had to get his foot off the brake by acknowledging his own contribution to the problem. Many entrepreneurs never get this far. They’re too caught up in trying to figure out the logical link between their behaviors and the seemingly last-minute streaks of “bad luck.” This would be like trying to figure out the cause of gravity (something which as of now, we still don’t definitively know) before trying to build an airplane. To go places you’ve never been, you must stretch your mind beyond it’s assumed limitations. This is how you strike a healthy balance between Faith and Skepticism and get beyond your own dogmatic beliefs about what you’re capable of earning, or what you deserve to earn. Are you stuck at an income plateau because of things that seem out of your control? Try consciously accepting responsibility for these things, and see what happens. You might be just as amazed as my client was. Connect With Seth Czerepak https://gettr.com/user/sethczerepak https://www.linkedin.com/in/sethczerepak/ https://sethczerepak.com?utm_medium=Video&utm_source=Rumble&utm_campaign=Experiments+With+Hope&utm_content=Episode+34

NOTE: This episode was recorded on February 11th, 2019 and moved from YouTube on January 23rd, 2021. Over the past seven days, I experimented with a raw, 7-day vegan diet. Veganism isn't new to me. Just the raw part. Below is a picture of me after one year of eating non-raw vegan. I was 38 years old and still in better shape than I'd been at 19 when I was an athlete, martial artist, and a meat-eater. This time, I decided to try it raw for seven days and see what the difference was. In this podcast, I talk about what I learned about myself, and, more importantly, about the myths we tell ourselves about the Western Diet. One very interesting observation is how brainwashed we are to accept the value of eating animal products. First off, you can get just as much protein (I'm talking on an ounce by ounce and/or calorie per calorie basis), from eating plant products as you can from eating meat. It's also a myth that you need milk for Vitamin D. Vitamin D is in all kinds of foods, including plant foods. The same is true for all the other nutrients meat-eaters often squawk about the moment you start talking about eating vegan. But, most importantly, are the cultural metaphors which are literally embedded into our consciousness. Metaphors which carry the subtle impression that meats are superior to plant-based foods. For example, when we talk about books, articles, letters, or presentations, we talk about getting to the "meat" of the topic. When we're reading something that's content-rich, we call it "meaty." But, we call an unconscious person living on life support a "vegetable." We call crazy people (or crazy ideas) "nutty" or refer to them as "nutjobs," "fruits" or "fruitcakes." I thought of several others, but the work of scientists like George Lakoff prove how our cultural metaphors color our attitudes towards things, and therefore our actions. Just try talking to any hard-core meat-eaters about being a vegan, and I bet half of them (or more) will bust out with an objection like... "Where do you get your protein?" This objection is so stupid, it's almost surreal. Look at this picture of me below and tell me whether it looks like I was getting enough protein. I was benching about 275 lbs, squatting nearly 400lbs, and I weighed only 185 lbs and was at 6% body fat. The truth is, the moment you start taking your diet seriously by reading the ingredients and nutritional information in foods, you realize that there's plenty of protein in plant products and that by combing beans and rice, you get all your essential proteins. The difference is you don't get all the extra bad cholesterol, excessive fats and other crap that comes from eating animal products. Yes, I know. This podcast is will offend the frail sensitivities of some dogmatic meat-eaters. And honestly, I'm still a long way from going back to being vegan myself. But, that's only because I'm not back in the mental and emotional shape I was once in. If I were, I'd go back to eating vegan in a heartbeat. Regardless of what the pro-meat dogma says, results speak for themselves. Connect With Seth Czerepak https://gettr.com/user/sethczerepak https://www.linkedin.com/in/sethczerepak/ https://sethczerepak.com?utm_medium=Video&utm_source=Rumble&utm_campaign=Experiments+With+Hope&utm_content=Episode+33

NOTE: This episode was recorded on February 5th, 2019 and moved from YouTube on January 23rd, 2021. One of my new writing students asked me about how to overcome imposter syndrome. I'll start by saying that imposter syndrome is mostly physiological. It has very little to do with your beliefs about what you're capable of or what you deserve. In other words, the anxiety is not the problem. That's normal and will only go away with experience. What matters is the STORY you tell yourself about why you're anxious. This determines whether you master your anxiety, or whether it masters you. Our left brain fears uncertainty. It likes labels. It NEEDS to put a label on our anxiety. The problem is, the labels are often wrong and even irrational. For example, in a previous podcast on The Science of Self-Sabotage, I cite scientific experiments that PROVE how the left brain is more likely to "lie" to you and mislead you. Imposter syndrome is one such rationalization. But, what if you simply treated your anxiety as a general, labeless physiological state? What if you didn't label it as a sign of Imposter Syndrome, or anything else specific and negative? What if you simply refused to give it a label, and accepted it as a normal response to doing something new? In the first book of my series Single Serving Wisdom, I say that our fears are almost never as bad as the stories we tell ourselves about them. This is true. When a state of fear, anger, loneliness, or anxiety comes, sometimes, it has a lesson to teach us. Sometimes, it tells us that we've been neglecting a tangible need. But, other times it's simply our natural response to doing something unfamiliar. Want to know how to overcome imposter syndrome? Accept your general anxiety about writing as a normal physiological response to doing something new, and leave it at that. Treat any additional interpretations as your left brain trying desperately to label the anxiety and make sense of it. Connect With Seth Czerepak https://gettr.com/user/sethczerepak https://www.linkedin.com/in/sethczerepak/ https://sethczerepak.com?utm_medium=Video&utm_source=Rumble&utm_campaign=Experiments+With+Hope&utm_content=Episode+32

NOTE: This episode was recorded on January 7th, 2019 and moved from YouTube on January 22nd, 2021. If there's one thing you should know about marriage and entrepreneurship, it's that you'll never turn your non-entrepreneur spouse into an entrepreneur. The harder you try, the more you'll ruin your marriage. This is because being an entrepreneur isn't just about running your own business. Hell, I've met business owners who weren't even entrepreneurs by the true definition of the word. They didn't think like entrepreneurs. They didn't even have entrepreneurial reasons for starting their business, and they sure as hell didn't RUN their business the way an entrepreneur would. Rather, they started their business because it was the most practical (or necessary) thing to do at the time. Entrepreneurs are a different breed than normal people. Non-entrepreneurs will never think like us, and they'll never fully understand us. Does this mean an entrepreneur and a non-entrepreneur can't stay happily married unless the entrepreneur gives up on their dreams? No, it doesn't. But the entrepreneur has to accept that their spouse isn't going to change their mind because what you're essentially asking your spouse to do is change who they are. Thankfully there's an alternative solution to this problem, and I talk about it in today's podcast on marriage and entrepreneurship. Connect With Seth Czerepak https://gettr.com/user/sethczerepak https://www.linkedin.com/in/sethczerepak/ https://sethczerepak.com?utm_medium=Video&utm_source=Rumble&utm_campaign=Experiments+With+Hope&utm_content=Episode+31

NOTE: This episode was recorded on January 21rst, 2019 and moved from YouTube on January 21rst, 2021. Working at home, by yourself, can create frequent fluctuations between depression and motivation. Sometimes, you're a whirlwind of activity and motivation.Other times, you just don't have the energy to do anything but sit there and stare at your to-do list.How can you cut out these "slumps" and be motivated and productive all the time? If you're asking this question, I want to challenge you to rethink your periods of "depression." Are you genuinely feeling depressed, hopeless, and sad?If so, check out my podcast on Dealing With Despair and see if you're creating these periods of depression DURING your periods of motivation. But, your "depression," might simply be your mind telling you to take a few days, or even a week, off.I know this sounds like a grave sin to an ambitious person.But, having spent 10,000+ hours coaching entrepreneurs, and having been one myself since 2009, I'm convinced that the typical eight-hour workday and five day work week model is completely unnatural.It's also the by-product of the industrial age work model, which is no longer viable in the new knowledge worker economy. There are inevitable rhythms in nature. Tides come and go, night follows day, the moon waxes and wanes, seedtime and harvest come and go.So, why should we assume that we, in spite of living in organic bodies and being a part of nature ourselves, assume that we can defy these natural laws by living in a perpetual state of hyperactivity? The truth is, you'll be happier AND much more productive if you work as hard as you can and as much as you can during your times of peak productivity, and use your "down periods" to rest,examine your plans and your results, and prepare yourself for the next wave of inspiration and motivation.Again, ambitious people typically think this is ridiculous the first time they hear it.I sure did. I spent years trying to defy The Principle of Rhythm, and I paid the price for it. But, since accepting these NATURAL fluctuations, I've become even more productive, and much, much happier, and healthier. So, if you have periods of motivation followed by periods where you just feel like stopping, don't assume you're depressed.Maybe you simply need to take a few days to relax your mind, do some meditation, examine your plans and goals, and prepare for your next wave of motivation to come. Connect With Seth Czerepak https://gettr.com/user/sethczerepak https://www.linkedin.com/in/sethczerepak/ https://sethczerepak.com?utm_medium=Video&utm_source=Rumble&utm_campaign=Experiments+With+Hope&utm_content=Episode+30

NOTE: This episode was recorded on January 14th, 2019 and moved from YouTube on January 21rst, 2021. Will artificial intelligence replace writers? People started asking this back in 2015. I saw the discussions on forums, on social media, and in blog posts. The debate is still happening. In my opinion, those who assume that A.I. will ultimately replace writers are morons who don't understand writing or human nature. My guess is, they'll be replaced first. But some writers will remain unaffected by the rise of Artificial Intelligence. Elbert Hubbard once said... “One machine can do the work of fifty ordinary men. No machine can do the work of one extraordinary man. ” If this isn't a foreshadowing of how we should think about Artificial Intelligence, I don't know what is. I've read a lot about Artificial Intelligence. I have software development experience and a good understanding of advanced math and of how the human brain works. First off, I am absolutely not convinced that machines can become "conscious" simply by increasing their data processing capacity. People who believe this are erroneously assuming that consciousness is a product of data processing. And yes, I've heard the arguments for this idea, and understand them very well. So spare me the snarky emails. True, artificial intelligence will most likely replace ordinary writers. People who simply write about topics, but who generate no creative or thought-provoking ideas. But a computer will never have the ability to generate ideas the way Stephen King, Kurt Vonnegut, Stephen Covey, Margaret Atwood, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and dozens of writers you've probably never heard of have done. These ideas come from our connection to the Universal Infinite Living Mind from which all things come. Wise people have known about this Universal Mind for thousands of years. Probably longer. They've written about it in the ancient wisdom texts and quantum physicists are discovering uncanny clues in the fabric of space and time that confirm what these writers knew ages ago. People who fail to understand this, or to accept it, fail to realize that great writing starts with great thinking. Thinking that generates ideas, rather than just repackaging what already exists. This creative, and thought-provoking style of writing is rare, and it takes hard work to develop it. But, those who understand this concept and put in the work will have nothing to fear from the rise of Artificial Intelligence. Well, unless the robots decide to go Age of Ultron on us. There's always that. Connect With Seth Czerepak https://gettr.com/user/sethczerepak https://www.linkedin.com/in/sethczerepak/ https://sethczerepak.com?utm_medium=Video&utm_source=Rumble&utm_campaign=Experiments+With+Hope&utm_content=Episode+29

NOTE: This episode was recorded on January 7th, 2019 and moved from YouTube on January 21rst, 2021. How to overcome anxiety and bad decision making....it's a fascinating topic. I used to tell coaching clients that some states of mind are so negative, or anxious, you should ignore even your own advice, your own reasoning and your own interpretations of circumstances while in such states. Too many times, we get anxious, or angry or depressed, and our brain looks for reasons to justify this state. Many times, these reasons are completely unrelated to our state and should be ignored until our state is normal again. It's also important to dedramatize these such states by being an observer of these states, instead of a participant. In my earlier podcast (called "The Science of Self Sabotage") I talk about how your left brain (what we sometimes call the conscious mind, the thinking mind, or the ego) is not in charge of your decisions. Rather, it's the narrator of your decisions and of your states of mind. In today's podcast, I explain how scientific split-brain experiments have proven that our left brain (which we ironically call our "rational" brain) is more likely to lie to use than our right brain (which we call our experiential brain). Yet, because we put so much emphasis on logic, labeling, and "reason," that we're predisposed to believe what our left brain tells us. True, sometimes our left brain can help us to remain objective in the midst of deception or in spite of our states. But I've found it much more common for people to be fooled by the stories told by their left brain. That's why, in this podcast, I talk about why it's important to reassess your reasoning about things while you're in different states of mind. If your reasoning isn't sound and consistent across multiple states (positive and negative), it's probably not worth taking seriously. The same with your decisions and with the stories you tell yourself about your life, other people, and the world. Connect With Seth Czerepak https://gettr.com/user/sethczerepak https://www.linkedin.com/in/sethczerepak/ https://sethczerepak.com?utm_medium=Video&utm_source=Rumble&utm_campaign=Experiments+With+Hope&utm_content=Episode+28