Alex Shalman.com

	Name	Description	Released	Price
1	AlexShalman.com Podcast #018 – Interviewing Mark Sisson	AlexShalman.com Practical Personal Development Podcast #18 Mark Sisson is the guy that puts the facts behind lifestyle, exercise, and nutrition claims. His current mission is to create the happiest, healthiest, leanest, most fit, and productive life that he can while he's here on earth. In the good ol' days Mark Sisson was a professional triathlete, endurance runner and finished in the top five of the US National Marathon Championships -- ultimately qualifying him for the Olympics. Following conventional wisdom, and exercising more than most human beings on this planet, Mark found himself to be unhealthy and overworked. This unexpected state of health beckoned Mark to ask the question of 'what do we do in the name of fitness?' He spent the rest of his life, up until now, doing research on diet, fitness, nutrition, and all the erroneous assumptions that have been surrounding these topics over the last several decades. Mark looks at our lives in the 21st century from an evolutionary perspective. Particularly, how our genes expect us to act and behave in a particular way, in order for us to be healthy. Unfortunately, we mismanage our genes, and Mark's life for the past 20 years has been centered on figuring out which genes we want to turn on/off to manifest good health, lean fit bodies, happiness, productivity, and all of the things that make us human. The Reluctant Crusader Against Conventional Wisdom Mark Sisson takes it upon himself to dispel many of the myths that we believe about science by investigating them back to the original source. Let's take a look at just five of the many myths that he's undertaken during his career. 1. Myth: "Your diet ought to be comprised of a largely carbohydrate based intake" The food pyramid has at it's base 6-11 servings of grains on a daily basis, which is something that humans never adapted to, and possibly the worst advice that the government could give us. Grains may be largely responsible for the obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and arthritis that we experience as a population. 2. Myth: "Saturated fat is bad for you" Saturated fat is a critical component of human cell membranes, and is what our bodies choose to store added fuel as. There's nothing inherently wrong with saturated fat, but combined with the high carbohydrate intake that increases insulin level and wreaks havoc on other systems within the body, saturated fat can become a bad thing. 3. Myth: "Cholesterol is bad for you" Cholesterol is one of the most important molecules in the body. 4. Myth: "Avoid the sun. UVA and UVB rays are causing cancer" Mark contends that staying out of the sun causes more cancer than it prevents. Human bodies need vitamin D, which is manufactured when the sun hits the body and converts cholesterol into vitamin D. Vitamin D is incorporated into the immune system in ways that prevents us from getting cancer. 5. Myth: "Drink 8 glasses of water a day" There's no rational reason to drink 8 glasses of water per day, because we get most of the water we need from the food we eat. Mark Sisson: #Primal vs #Vegan The human body is a very adaptable mechanism. For instance, some people have survived on seaweed and shoe leather during the great potato famine. However, surviving is not necessarily thriving, and Mark contends that there has never been a society in history that has survived on a meatless diet. Speaking extremes -- if you happen to be an adult that has already gone through the development stages, and go from a fried food and grain diet to a fresh fruits and vegetables based diet, you'll obviously see improvements and feel better for some time. The base of the Primal Blueprint foods pyramid has fruits and vegetables as the base of the diet. Cutting out the meats, fish, poultry, and other proteins may have it's consequences, but it doesn't mean that as a Vegan or Raw Foodist or Vegetarian you won't thrive and survive.	8/3/09	Free	View In iTunes
2	AlexShalman.com Podcast #017 – Interviewing Suzy Welch	AlexShalman.com Practical Personal Development Podcast #17 Suzy Welch graduated at the top of her class at Harvard Business School, wrote a column in Oprah's O Magazine, and was the editor of the prestigious Harvard Business Review. Since then Suzy ...	6/23/09	Free	View In iTunes
3	AlexShalman.com Podcast #016 – Interviewing AJ Jacobs	Audio Podcast at the very bottom. AJ Jacobs is a fascinating NY Times bestselling author, current editor of the infamous Esquire magazine, and what I would say is the "father of outsourcing." AJ Jacobs has written The Know-It-All, in which he documented his experience of reading the whole Encyclopedia Britannica from front to back in his journey to becoming the smartest man on earth. Another riveting book written by AJ Jacobs is The Year of Living Biblically, in which he followed all the laws of the bible as literally as possible. Some of the other wacky-genius things that AJ Jacobs has done include many one month experiments, known as immersion experiments, which we get into during our interview. AJ Jacobs: Immersion Experiments When AJ Jacobs gets interested in a subject, he likes to become immersed in it, and live it from the inside out. Sure enough, when AJ Jacobs became interested in religion and the bible, he decided that the best way to learn it would be to live it. After researching several versions of the bible, and recording a large list of rules, AJ Jacobs proceeded to follow every single rule in the bible - literally. This included not shaving his beard, following the 10 commandments, and stoning adulterers, as well as many other rules. This immerse way of learning is truly gripping, and life changing, as AJ Jacobs will testify. While he is no longer religious, the year of living biblically changed his psyche in such a way that the rules of gratitude have carried over into his secular life. Pressing the elevator button, AJ Jacobs is grateful that the elevator comes, and then once again upon arrival he is grateful that the elevator didn't plummet to the basement. AJ Jacobs: Creating a Bestselling Book Let there be no mistake, AJ Jacobs attributes some of his success to luck. Hundreds of great books do not become NY Times bestselling, so riding on the theme of gratitude, AJ Jacobs is very grateful to have made it onto this list (love the humility in this man!). AJ Jacobs started writing in a tiny newspaper in California about PTA meetings and sewage taxes. After about 15 years in the business, AJ Jacobs finally got to the point where he could write the book. AJ Jacobs took on topics that fascinated him, such as religion and the Encyclopedia (which pretty much covered everything, from advarks to zygotes). While AJ Jacobs does have narrow focus topics that he enjoys, such as the history of peppers, he decided to write on his more general topics of interest in order to break in in popularity. When writing The Know-It-All, AJ Jacobs first created a 20 page proposal, which included only 1 letter (A) of the Encyclopedia Britannica. Including the approval chapter, the entire book took approximately 2 years to write. AJ Jacobs: Outsourcing Your Life Following his love for immersion experiments, AJ Jacobs outsourced his entire life for one full month. When I say entire life, I mean it. He outsourced reading bedtime stories to his kids, arguing with his wife, shopping and beyond. In his upcoming book The Guinea Pig Diaries (coming September 2009), AJ Jacobs includes many of these immersion experiments such as My Outsourced Life (Esquire, 2005.), and uses outsourcing to get a lot of the research done for the book. This is 110% on my reading list (I'll be reviewing it here, and AJ, when you read this, I'd like to do coffee and an autograph!) So with everything outsourced, what does one do with all the free time? Nothing too out of the ordinary, just some TV, catching up on reading books, and just taking the month off. Following the article, an onslaught of people requested more information about outsourcing from AJ Jacobs. In response, a lot of these outsourcing companies created special departments for "personal life" outsourcing. (I even hear there was some hate-mail from people who thought that AJ Jacobs single handedly ruined our economy by encouraging mass outsourcing,	6/9/09	Free	View In iTunes
4	AlexShalman.com Podcast #015 – Interviewing Ishtar Alabina	AlexShalman.com Practical Personal Development Podcast #15 I'll be referring to the superstar singer Ishtar from the world famous group Alabina as Ishtar Alabina in this interview. Ishtar Alabina is a singer that is truly loved by fans all over the world. In the early 2000s Ishtar Alabina made millions in record sales worldwide, while performing for audiences in the hundreds of thousands. These days she does a lot of private shows for Oligarchy, and runs in some of the same circles as Edward Mermelstein (http://www.alexshalman.com/2009/03/02/alexshalmancom-podcast-012-interviewing-edward-mermelstein/). Ishtar Alabina is a great success story. She is someone who maintains a great marriage and family life as well as an overall sense of life balance. Most importantly, in my opinion, is that she's able to follow her passion for music as her first priority, and graciously accepts the money that comes pouring in with it as a bonus, not a destination. The many styles of Ishtar Alabina Ishtar Alabina sings in several languages including English, Arabic, French, Hebrew, Russian and Egyptian. Her early music influences were everything from middle eastern, rock, pop, and r&b, which is clearly seen in the musical style that she produces now. World-music would be the genre that she best fits in to, but even that is a bit hard to describe. It's a mixture of a lot of different cultures and instrument combinations, infused with modern beats, and middle eastern touches. Ishtar Alabina - Career Mistakes Like many success stories, Ishtar Alabina has a bit of a 'failure' story. When she first signed onto Sony records, they had her produce a completely french album with a totally melancholy feel. This was a complete disconnect from what her fans came to expect from her, and learned to love about her. While there are no regrets, Ishtar Alabina learned the importance of performing and catering to the fans, while standing by what she personally loves about music. She's since quit Sony, and produced 3 other albums solo. This philosophy has brought her much success. Ishtar Alabina - Superstar, Twins, and Family Life Ishtar Alabina's husband is also the producer, and he's been traveling by her side for the past 15 years. It makes the relationship much easier, considering she doesn't have to leave him often for extended trips. On the other hand, now that Ishtar Alabina has had twins, it is much harder to create new music, and take great care of the kids. There's not much sleep at night, and it's hard to concentrate on creation. She uses the night hours to think of new beats, melodies, and lyrics. When traveling, the twins are left back home with family, which makes traveling easier. The downside of course is that you tend to miss your kids when you're away. Ishtar Alabina - Advice for Independent Musician's There's no recipe for success. If there was a recipe, then everyone would be doing it, and the music industry would be so easy and so obvious. The only secret The only "secret" that Ishtar Alabina can share is: "Believe in what you do, and don't do something because you think others will love it. First you have to love what you do and believe in what you do." Ishtar Alabina - Online Promotions These days it's essential for an Artist to have online profiles such as Facebook, Myspace, etc. However, Ishtar Alabina does not personally focus on these mediums. Instead, her husband collects data, such as letters from fans, and hands it over to Ishtar Alabina to read. This gives Ishtar Alabina the freedom to concentrate on the important thing, which is the actual creation of the music. This is something to think about for people in any field who try to do everything themselves. Sometimes success comes when we concentrate only on the essentials. Ishtar Alabina - Getting In "The Zone" To Create Before, Ishtar Alabina would eat, breath, and sleep with her music in mind. After... after the twins were born that is,	3/30/09	Free	View In iTunes
5	AlexShalman.com Podcast #014 – Getting Excited About Working Out	AlexShalman.com Practical Personal Development Podcast #14 In this short episode of the Practical Personal Development Podcast, I talk about 4 fundamental principles that get me excited to work out. When we're passionate about fitness, we make time, we get energized, and we're able to take our day to the next level. Enjoying the Podcasts? Make sure you click the image above and subscribe to this podcast via iTunes. This ensures that you get the full repertoire of interviews in an easy to listen to format.	3/16/09	Free	View In iTunes
6	AlexShalman.com Podcast #013 – Interviewing Lewis Howes	AlexShalman.com Practical Personal Development Podcast #13 Lewis Howes, a good friend and fellow mutant, is an absolute sensation in the online social networking world. He's a record holding arena football player, author, networking event planner, ridiculously good networker, and now the owner of his own publishing company. Lewis Howes has become one of the leading LinkedIn consultants, helping people improve their profiles, connect and network with people in their field, and ultimately place themselves in careers that they love. Lewis Howes turned his passion for helping people, networking, and LinkedIn, into a book called LinkedWorking (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/098233320X?ie=UTF8&tag=alexshalcompr-20&linkCode=xm2&camp=1789&creativeASIN=098233320X), with co-author Frank Agin. The book goes into great deal on LinkedIn techniques, each one backed with a real-life success story from their clients. Lewis Howes: Football Record Holder to Social Media Tycoon A freak accident left Lewis Howes temporarily disabled. With a mangled wrist, and a full arm cast, Lewis Howes had to take a brake from sports and look for a creative outlet elsewhere. Instead of spending 6 hours a day training for sports, Lewis Howes would spend 6 hours a day, in bed, networking with sports professionals on LinkedIn. This wouldn't be much of a problem for most people, but as a world-class athlete limited from his physical activities, this was another big challenge to overcome. Luckily his wrist is all better now, and the invaluable experience that he gained from that time, when he turned adversity into opportunity, has gotten him a great career helping people achieve their very own professional goals. LinkedWorking: Teaches You To Make Real Moves Using Linked In "I'm on LinkedIn, but not getting any job offers, what am I doing wrong?" That's the question that Lewis Howes tackles in both his LinkedIn consulting business, as well as in his book LinkedWorking. Lewis Howes takes real life networking principles and teaches you how to apply them to the tools and applications within LinkedIn. Lewis Howes has one of the largest networkers on LinkedIn, particularly a sports centered network of individuals who are looking to meet other sports professionals. In the same way that Lewis Howes grew his network, and met all the top people in the sports industry, he consults, and illustrates in his book, how we can do the same thing. The point isn't just to make a pretty profile. Lewis Howes teaches us how to stop thinking in terms of old-fashioned resumes and enables us to portray our skills, talents, abilities, hobbies, interests and personality, ultimately creating the persona of the real person that we are, and getting us into the career that we dream of. What I like about LinkedWorking (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/098233320X?ie=UTF8&tag=alexshalcompr-20&linkCode=xm2&camp=1789&creativeASIN=098233320X) is that it is riddled with success stories for each of the tools that Lewis Howes presents. You begin to understand how everything that he teaches has been successfully applied time and time again with real people. 418 Publishing: Starting Your Own Publishing Company (Goodbye Middleman!) After looking at many publishing companies, and considering all their pros and cons, Lewis Howes decided that the best route to take his book from his computer and into our hands was by self-publishing. He then went ahead and created the 418 Publishing company. In order to self-publish, Lewis Howes had to front some money, find a printer that works with a lot of publishers, apply to work with them, buy ISBN numbers, have a cover designed, have an editor, have someone do the layout and design of the book, and then follow up with marketing efforts. He describes it as a challenging process at first, but well worth it for him, since he is in the process of doing a book tour, and doing a lot of self-promotion for the product.	3/9/09	Free	View In iTunes
7	Video Killer Productivity Software Duo for Macs	I hate to give too much of my personal power away to technology, but, getting the MacBook Pro last summer has totally changed my life. Mostly because it made me even more addicted to the internet, but also because it opened up many opportunities in the...	3/5/09	Free	View In iTunes
8	AlexShalman.com Podcast #012 – Interviewing Edward Mermelstein	AlexShalman.com Practical Personal Development Podcast #12 Edward Mermelstein, plays monopoly with properties all over the world, moving $300 million last year alone. With his largest deal to date in excess of $100 million, it's refreshing to find out how this real-estate juggernaut has reached his success, and maintained a down to earth demeanor at the same time. Edward Mermelstein's Three Careers (and Cornering the Market) Edward Mermelstein is a powerhouse that corners the real-estate market as a triple careerist. All tied under the real-estate umbrella, Edward Mermelstein is a lawyer, broker, and developer. Each specialty can be a full-time and lucrative career on it's own, but with the combined knowledge his firm is an unstoppable real-estate machine. With offices in Moscow and New York City, a firm that speaks 11 languages, and the desire to meet and exceed the needs of his clients, Edward Mermelstein, sets the standards on service and quality in the high-end real-estate market. The Importance of Language Edward Mermelstein used to speak 4 languages, including English, Russian, Hebrew, and German. While he let the Hebrew and German slide under the rug in the past years, his mastery of English and Russian has helped him tremendously in doing international business. While English is going to be the primary international language of choice, Edward Mermelstein believes that a couple of the Chinese dialects will make an excellent secondary language for anyone interested in getting the most bang for the buck. Of course, you will want to concentrate your language learning efforts on the geographical areas that are of most interest to you. High-Profile Clients Edward Mermelstein doesn't do $2 transactions, so his client-base involves some of the richest people in the world. A good chunk of his clientelle are the priveleged few of the Russian and Ukrainian origin. Some of them are actually known as Oligarchy, and control much of the power and government in their respective areas. At their prime, some of these clients commanded billions of dollars. Like everyone invested in the world-financial market, these clients have lost quite a bit of money, and are only worth hundreds of millions for the most part. Success In This Market With all the problems that exist globally, you have to look for the gem in all these terrible situations. It's just finding the opportunity and making the most out of it. ~Edward Mermelstein This market changes drastically, especially as of late, so flexibility is a key ingredient to success. While many people might be losing their homes and properties, these properties don't simply vanish, they go somewhere. The key is be ready for these day to day changes, and constantly put yourself in the position to cease these emerging opportunities. Edward Mermelstein's Passion For Real-Estate When everyone around you is into it, you eat, breathe, sleep real-estate, and then it gets into your blood, and becomes a very exciting part of your daily activities. ~Edward Mermelstein Edward Mermelstein's real-estate adventure started during his high-school days. His older brother had just started in real-estate rentals and sales, and would occassionally call upon him as an assistant. During the college days, Edward Mermelstein began to invest more time with real-estate people. During a trip with a college buddy, he became profoundly aware that his personal interests meshed very well with the opportunities available in the real-estate industry. This was even more pronounced by the fact that his wife's family were also very much into the business of real-estate. His biggest real-estate mentor would be his father-in-law, whom Edward Mermelstein respects tremendously. His father-in-law has succeeded in the business his whole life by taking the slow-and-steady approach. Unlike many people that we're currently hearing about, that making millions in real-estate,	3/2/09	Free	View In iTunes
9	AlexShalman.com Podcast #011 – Interviewing Rabbi Henry Harris	AlexShalman.com Practical Personal Development Podcast #11 Rabbi Henry Harris has one of the more fun positions on Wall Street - especially these days. As a religious man by occupation, earning a living mentoring the best and brightest on Wall str...	2/23/09	Free	View In iTunes
10	AlexShalman.com Podcast #010 – Interviewing Ronn Torossian	AlexShalman.com Practical Personal Development Podcast #10 Ronn Torossian, CEO of internationally acclaimed public relations firm 5WPR, is a devoted father, Jew, and all around decent human being. His company 5W Public Relations (http://www.5wpr.com/) has been a breath of fresh air in an otherwise old, passive, and slow industry, since he founded it in 2003. Since then, Ronn Torossian has taken the company to the Inc 500 list, as one of the fastest growing public relations firms in the country. 5WPR stands out as being diverse and aggressive, and continues to deliver excellent service to their clients, despite the bit of doom and gloom in these economic times. Ronn Torossian works with everything from small businesses to mega-corporations, which includes accounts with corporate, religion, and government groups. The mission is to work hard, and deliver the true essence of a company to the media, and ultimately to the hearts and minds of the general population. To name drop a bit, Ronn Torossian has served clients such as Evian Water, Snoop Dogg, Pamela Anderson, Marc Ecko, Bad Boy Entertainment, high powered Politicians, the Government of Israel, as well as 2 of the 50 richest people in the world. Successful People Seek Other Successful People One of the great things about Ronn Torossian's job is that he gets the opportunity to network with people that are highly successful. One such person is Marc Ecko, whom Ronn Torossian asked "what drives you every day?" 1. Never stop pushing. 2. Know when to make decisions -- whether they be good, bad, indifferent, ugly -- make a decision! ~Marc Ecko I'm a firm believer that we're a mix of the people that we surround ourselves with. We absorb their philosophy and adopt their behaviors. Ending a relationship with a co-worker, friend, or even worse, a family member, that is doing harm to our way of life can be a hard thing. Especially if there is a great deal of emotional attachment or interdependency. However, it can open up more opportunities, and more time and space to fill with more positive people, that will help us improve both our lifestyle, as well as our impact on the world. Most Significant Contributor to Ronn Torossian's Success God. His Mother. Working Hard. Ronn Torossian doesn't believe that people get lucky in business, or that people that don't work hard (http://www.alexshalman.com/2008/06/25/ask-the-readers-work-hard-or-work-life-balance/) will get ahead. People that think in terms of 9-6 don't have what it takes to be a successful entrepreneur. When you start to think in terms of "eating and breathing your company" you become success material. You bring your worries home to you at night, and into the weekend, and you do whatever it takes to keep your head above the water. Ronn Torossian's Day to Day (http://www.alexshalman.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/5wpr.jpg) The day to day work is not always glamorous. It's hard work, and clients can call at all hours of the day and night, depending on their specific needs and expectations. It's not all about celebrity parties, and living in the lime-light. There isn't an exact formula or certainty to a day in the life of Ronn Torossian. It's not like a scene from the Jetsons, where George Jetson comes in for his 3 hour day, and presses a single button repeatedly, while Mr. Cosmo yells at him. Ronn Torossian starts off early by waking up at 5:00am. He arrives at the gym at 5:15am, where he runs and works out until 7:00am. Talk about being in great shape, last time I saw Ronn Torossian, his neck was the size of a tree-trunk (that's a compliement). Today work starts at 7:45am, Ronn Torossian takes care of business, does the interview with me at 9:30am, takes a client meeting at 10:00am in the office, another one at 12:00pm out of the office, two interviews in the afternoon, speaking to a college at 5:00pm, and then dinner with a client/friend at 8:00pm downtown.	2/16/09	Free	View In iTunes
11	AlexShalman.com Podcast #009 – Interviewing Scott Young	AlexShalman.com Practical Personal Development Podcast #9 Scott Young has been a leader in the personal development field since his teenage years. He started his self-improvement blog nearly 3 years ago, cranking out hundreds of articles, as well as 5 personal development ebooks. To me Scott represents that feeling of "if I could go back in time, knowing what I know now, my experience of life would be significantly richer, more enjoyable, and much more fulfilling." Of course, it's never too late for a fresh start, and Scott Young is a great role model for what's possible when you take the time to think about your life, and where you want to go. Scott H Young and His Mission A blogger at ScottHYoung.com (http://www.scotthyoung.com/blog/) who writes for over 7,000 subscribers. His mission is to provide something that he finds to be really valuable to people. He does this by sharing his own experience, in the form of writing, at... you guessed it, his blog. His mission is very much aligned with mine, since what I like to do is take wisdom from successful people, that found in meaningful books, and that of my own experience, and write them out in simple to understand and practical to apply articles. Success at Life and Blogging It's all about self-improvement, and trying to be as successful as you can every day. The more people I interview, the more I realize how subjective the term success really is. I'm always fascinated to know how different people define it. To Scott success in life means having a lifestyle that is fulfilling to him, and consists of having meaningful goals as well as reaching out to people. Success is not about what you have, it's about how you live your life. In blogging, success means connecting with people and writing content that people find valuable. It's important to note that you will receive positive, and negative feedback, so you have to gauge it and 'temper it with your own value system'. The main question to ask yourself is, 'are you helping people?' Most Important Contributor to Scott's Success Scott believes that his daily habits (http://www.alexshalman.com/r/habit) are the number one most significant contributor to his success. This combined with cultivating proper behavior, and you have a day that may or may not seem fruitful in the grand scheme of things. However, when you take your daily habit, and run is through 365 days, you have made some considerably significant gains that you can look back at and admire. Like many of us, Scott's day to day tends to vary, and seeing how he is still a university student, his summer days are significantly different than the school year. During the summer he wakes up early, goes for a run, tackles a project until about 2pm, followed by some time at the gym, and finally caps it off by spending time with his friends and relaxing. He points out that a day doesn't have to be 12 hours long in order to be productive, and I'm willing to bet that he gets more work done before 2pm than most people do in a full days work. Motivation and Productivity Scott's primary way to stay motivated is to find a project with a heart in it. I call this defining what you want, and doing that which we love. Many people tend to neglect this very important step of figuring out how exactly they want to live their life, and what is significant to them. In order to stay on top of his productivity, Scott takes the most important thing, or the thing that he's least looking forward to doing, and gets it out of the way at the very beginning of the work day. Why? Because this eliminates that monkey on his back that distracts him all day long. Once you get this done, you're work day feels like it's on a down hill slope, and it's easier to enter into a state of flow. This could very well differ for your life and work situation. You may hate exercising, so it would be wise to do that first thing in the morning so that you don't dread it all day long.	1/5/09	Free	View In iTunes
12	AlexShalman.com Podcast #008 – Interviewing Muhammad Saleem	AlexShalman.com Practical Personal Development Podcast #8 Muhammad Saleem is known as a 'Social Media Maven', which means he's put news stories in front of millions of eyeballs using social networking sites such as digg, tip'd, and stumbleupon. If you've ever gotten off-track while surfing the internet, you could appreciate how Mu is able to stay focused while browsing for business. Always online, always on social news, social networking, and microblogging sites at the same time - probably researching ways to take over the world - Mu's day-to-day consists of a lot of social media consulting (stuff that's so hush-hush he has to sign Do-Not-Disclose agreements). Mu's consulting involves talking to people and figuring out what they're trying to do with their website/business, what their goals are, and helping to develop and market their content so they can reach their goals. You may not necessarily be interested in social media, but I know you're interested in the philosophy that makes successful people successful. Let's grind up Muhammad Saleem into powder, sift through his life, and extract the wonderful personality and success principles and see how we can apply them to our own success. The Secret Formula To Digg Front Page Mu is notorious for submitting over 2,000 (with as much as 250,000 readers per article!) Digg front page articles. To some people that's a pretty big deal. As bloggers we want our words to be read, and a digg front page guarantees many thousands of eyes looking at our masterpiece. In our interview, Mu is nice enough to reveal the simple formula for reaching a Digg front page. When you realize just how simple it is, you're going to kick yourself for not thinking of it yourself. The formula is: Become a part of the digg community. Learn about the trends and preferences of the demographic. Start or join a niche that would be of interest to this community. Be patient, and over time you will build a following. As your following grows, so will your articles exposure to digg traffic. That means the success ratio of articles that hit front page to articles submitted will increase. Urbanist, Ecoist and Manliness Muhammad Saleem is managing WebUrbanist (http://weburbanist.com/), WebEcoist (http://webecoist.com/), and the Art of Manliness (http://artofmanliness.com/) (you'll love this one if you like my site). Mu helps develop content, train writers, content ideas, promotion of content, and has a part in monetization of the sites. As someone that manages every conceivable area of his own site, I can definitely appreciate how much work Mu needs to put in to do this at 3 different websites. Each one can be a full-time job in and of itself. It's important to realize that effort is not necessarily correlated with success -- smart effort is. Tip'd - Digg For Economy & Finance (http://www.alexshalman.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/tipd.png) Muhammad's most recent project is Tip'd (http://tipd.com/), which is somewhat of a digg clone, but strictly for financial news. With the current economic issues being a hot topic, launching a website dedicated to the top financial news online is a great idea. If you're a news junkie, and finance is your poison of choice, than Tip'd will prove to be an invaluable source of information. I'm personally not big on news, but I'm really interested in what it takes to get a project of this magnitude from concept to success. For Mu this took a few weeks, $25,000, a super-star team of social medium experts, designers, and coders, and some good old fashioned elbow grease. The hardest part, after the project is built, is getting the world out and spreading it to both interested users as well as financial news website owners. The Art of Networking Online Actually building a website such as Tip'd is easy - relatively speaking - compared with the arduous task of attracting users to it. That's where networking is absolutely essential.	12/29/08	Free	View In iTunes
13	AlexShalman.com Podcast #007 – Interviewing Leo Babauta	AlexShalman.com Practical Personal Development Podcast #7 A special treat this week, as always, is our guest Leo Babauta of ZenHabits.net. He's a regular guy, married with 6 kids, likes to write, run, read and that's about it. Over the past couple of years Leo has quit smoking, ran several marathons, began waking early, became organized, began eating healthy, became a vegan, doubled his income, wrote 3 books, eliminated debt, and began commuting by bike. This is an extensive list of accomplishments, but it's only the tip of the iceberg in Leo's life. I think the most brilliant part is the ability to achieve. Arguably any person has the potential to achieve anything in life, but to know this about oneself, and to have proven yourself right time and time again, that my friends is priceless. 1. How To Make Time For It All Having 6 kids isn't easy, yet Leo manages to accomplish more than many people with only 2 kids, or no kids at all. When I say accomplish, I don't mean making time for 12 hours of work, 12 hours of family time, 12 hours of running, and 12 hours of reading - each and every day. That's not possible, is it? Leo takes one day, and makes that day be a total reflection of his priorities. He says that the 4 most important things in his life are family, writing, reading, and running. It follows that his day is divided amongst those priorities, and the unnecessary distractions are blocked out as much as possible. The truth is, you don't have to make time for it all, only for what's really important. The things that make life worth living, excite you, and make you happy. You can think of everything else as an enemy that tries to steal your time (my words, not his Leo's). Leo's main objective for Zenhabits was to share the knowledge that he was gaining in his life own life. I think this is the driving force for a lot of us, and it's certainly one of the reasons why I got started on this path. For Leo, quiting smoking for the seventh and final time, served as a catalyst to take massive action and form solid habits. 2. Did You Sell Your Soul For Success? Everyone always wonders what Leo's success strategy is. Many of us, including myself, started blogging around the same time as Leo. Despite of this, and with all his personal responsibilities in his way, Leo has blazed a trail and earned a well deserved awe of admiration. The question is 'How the heck did he do it'? Put out really great content, share things that you learn, be sincere and write with your voice. People want to see someone do the things that they want to do. Once they see someone else doing it, and how they did it, they're inspired to do it themselves. Be valuable, and remarkable, and people will come to you and remark about you to others. Now that's some practical advice you can take to the bank. 3. The Power of Less (http://www.alexshalman.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/powerofless.jpg) Leo Babauta's book is available on December 30th, 2008. It's called The Power of Less (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1401309704?ie=UTF8&tag=alexshalcompr-20&linkCode=xm2&camp=1789&creativeASIN=1401309704). Simplifying your life, focusing on the essentials, and in doing that making yourself more effective. This effects both your work and home life. The book shares powerful principles like 'creating new habits' 'setting limits for yourself' 'choosing the essential and simplifying' 'starting small'. The impact on the world, if everyone read this book, would be a global shift of people working less and enjoying life more. People can get more work done in a smaller amount of time, and then stop, and enjoy! We would get the same amount of work done, in less time. One of the first things the book asks us to do is to identify what is most important to us in our life. Just like Leo identified his four list of important things, it is our job to identify what is most important and go for it! The first part of the book is a series of six principles,	12/22/08	Free	View In iTunes
14	AlexShalman.com Podcast #006 – Interviewing Derek Sivers	AlexShalman.com Practical Personal Development Podcast #6 This week we're right on track bringing you a super successful speaker that you just can't miss. Derek Sivers is a dot com mogul, the likes of which you've never seen before. He is the CEO an...	12/15/08	Free	View In iTunes
15	AlexShalman.com Podcast #005 – Interviewing Tynan	AlexShalman.com Practical Personal Development Podcast #5 Tynan's life is amazing, because he does whatever he wants, whenever he wants. A retired world-renowned Pick Up Artist, and professional Gambler, Tynan now spends his time traveling the entire globe. The kicker is he does this with only one small back pack worth of stuff. This includes his laptop, which he uses to make money online and finance all his adventures. I first heard of Tynan a couple of years ago when I stumbled upon his blog www.betterthanyourboyfriend.com (http://betterthanyourboyfriend.com/) which discussed some awesome adventures and celebrity escapades. Tynan and I became "internet friends", which changed shortly after he launched his website www.lifenomadic.com (http://lifenomadic.com/). Life Nomadic records his traveling adventures, and I became his first official road guest when I visited with him in Panama. I actually did something REALLY stupid with a 5 Gallon water balloon on this trip, and the truth comes out in this Podcast. In the Podcast, Tynan discusses some of the equipment he brings along with him, and how he keeps in touch with family and friends while abroad. The cool thing is Tynan and his travel companion Todd named a couple of key phrases after me, which we discuss in the Podcast as well. You'll find out what a ShalPic is! It should be noted that Tynan is a vegan, and one of the healthiest people I know. He talks about some of his healthy habits, and what mentality he fosters in order to make such positive decisions. As per request, I asked him how he deals with family gatherings, and keeping a 100% strict diet. Tynan discusses some of the real social dynamics that are involved in picking up women, which is great to hear from a insider (I don't mean insider like as a women, but as a professional!) Tynan's success tip is that people should do whatever they want, and pay less attention to what society and "normal people" tell you to do. That's his secret to living an EXTRAORDINARY LIFE! Do what you want to do, no matter what. Enjoying the Podcasts? Make sure you click the image above and subscribe to this podcast via iTunes. This ensures that you get the full repertoire of interviews in an easy to listen to format.	12/7/08	Free	View In iTunes
16	AlexShalman.com Podcast #004 – Interviewing John Chow	AlexShalman.com Practical Personal Development Podcast #4 This week I interviewed John Chow, the internet mogul that makes $30-40,000 per month blogging at JohnChow.com (http://www.johnchow.com/), and 7 figures with his media empire The Tech Zone (http://www.thetechzone.com/). I've previously interviewed John Chow in the Happiness Project (http://www.alexshalman.com/2008/02/19/happiness-project-john-chow-of-john-chow-dot-com/), and got to know a bit about what happiness looks like for a person who is successful and financially independent. In this podcast interview I asked him about what success means to him, and what he does day to day to achieve it. One advantageous edge that John Chow has over the competition is that he was born in communist China, and then brought to Canada, a free capitalist country. Living in a slum community in his early years taught him a that if he ever wanted to make something of himself he will have to shape his environment as opposed to letting his environment him. You can also hear about what influence his father had over him growing up. Being at the helm of two super profitable companies would insinuate that John is a pretty busy guy, but this just isn't the case. He wakes up late, checks his e-mail, twitter, and blog comments, followed by playing with his wife and daughter, and then participating in top secret 'dot com mogul' activities, the hardest of which is figuring out what to have for lunch. One of the most evil things about John Chow is that he enjoys having his readers salivate over the savory restaurant reviews that he posts over on his blog. He goes to top-end restaurants, videos, reviews, and writes them off as tax deductible expense. In order to put his skills to the test, John Chow coached a 'no-name' blogger into making a good income online, and he gives a little spoiler as to who that might be in the Podcast. I found John's views of success very interesting, and I liked what he said about his various philanthropic ventures. One would even say that he has a very Bill Gates state of mind. One of my favorite parts of the interview is when John Chow shares his secret to building a successful and profitable online investment. You can hear this for yourself in the interview. John Chow's rules for happiness? Something to hope for, the ability to give and receive love, and something to do. His final message? The worth of a man is not how much he makes, but how much he gives. (../wp-content/uploads/2008/11/podcast6x1.jpg) Enjoying the Podcasts? Make sure you click the image above and subscribe to this podcast via iTunes. This ensures that you get the full repertoire of interviews in an easy to listen to format.	12/1/08	Free	View In iTunes
17	AlexShalman.com Podcast #003 – Interviewing Steve Pavlina	AlexShalman.com Practical Personal Development Podcast #3 This week I'm honored to have interviewed Steve Pavlina, a person that I greatly admire. Steve Pavlina has had a lot of influence on my life and personal growth, so I couldn't think of asked for a better person to interview. Steve Pavlina is the author of the best selling book Personal Development for Smart People (http://www.alexshalman.com/2008/10/31/book-review-personal-development-for-smart-people/), and the most popular personal development blogger in the world. The stats say that Steve Pavlina's website sees over 2 million visitors per month. The real power, however, is in the affect that Steve Pavlina has on an individual's life, and the way his ideas of Truth, Love, and Power spread virally throughout the world. For over 10 years Steve Pavlina has been passionate about learning personal development, applying it to his life in a variety of wacky growth experiments, and then sharing his findings with the world via his popular blog StevePavlina.com. In this interview we'll touch base on some of these experiments, and go into a wide variety of topics. Steve Pavlina: Mission in Life "To explore consciousness, and raise consciousness." Steve Pavlina is very passionate about the principles of Truth, Love, and Power. You can't make apple pie from scratch, unless you reinvent the universe, and in this way Steve Pavlina didn't "invent" these principles. He did, however, meditate on them and put them into a very practical format that can be applied to anyone, and any area of life. Truth is helping people become more aware, knowledgeable, and honest. Love is helping people connect with what they want, be happier and more joyful, while escaping from what they don't want. Power is helping people take action, become more disciplined, and create the reality that they want to experience and get things done. Steve Pavlina's goals are to align everyone with these three principles, which he gets into in great detail in his book. The Steve Pavlina blog, and resources are all aligned with helping people achieve consciousness and improve various areas of their lives. Steve Pavlina on Measuring Success The way Steve Pavlina used to go about goal-setting is by setting "smart goals," meaning goals that are specific, measurable, and action oriented. After much experience with this, Steve Pavlina now takes a different route in setting goals, based purely on that which most inspires him. Instead of thinking of a goal as a place to reach in the future, Steve Pavlina thinks about how a goal will affect him in the present moment. For example, if setting a goal of becoming a millionaire at a future date does not inspire you right this moment and get you taking some sort of action then it's a "lousy goal." My example of the opposite of this would be setting a goal to run a marathon a year from now, and then going right outside for a run, and subsequent training sessions in order to prepare for this. It must create a mental shift, in the now. Trying to be aligned with Truth, Love, and Power can be disempowering for Steve Pavlina when forced into a specific and measurable box. However, what does work for Steve Pavlina is when he thinks of the goal in terms of "what can I do right now to move people in this direction," which is when he starts generating ideas and taking action on them. Even for financial goals Steve Pavlina claims that he doesn't pay much attention to how much money he makes because it doesn't inspire him. He focuses more on the present moment, asking himself, "what am I doing right now?" and "what kind of vision can I create that will inspire me right now in this moment?" A trap that Steve Pavlina used to fall into was setting goals too often. He would fill up pages worth of goals, only to file them away and not look at them. Taking a glance back after six months or so would reveal that no progress has been made in these areas.	11/24/08	Free	View In iTunes
18	AlexShalman.com Podcast #002 – Interviewing Ask Dan and Jennifer	AlexShalman.com Practical Personal Development podcast #2 In this interview Dan and Jennifer from www.AskDanAndJennifer.com (http://www.askdanandjennifer.com/) tell us how they started their online relationship media empire. They tell us how they've managed a safe and comfortable place for people from all over the world to ask and get answers for their most personal sex-love-relationship related questions. Our friends also discuss their unorthodox relationship that is 9.5 years difference in age between the two of them with Jennifer being the older of the two. They also go into quite some detail about safe sex, to the point where I accuse Dan of working for Trojan/Lifestyles! The dating-duo discuss the tipping point of their site taking off, as well as their amazing success on YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/user/DanAndJenn) with their dating question and answer sessions. I then ask them the tough question of what will happen to AskDanAndJennifer if Dan and Jennifer break up! If you're currently dating, or interested in improving your already existing relationship, check out my free ebook, How To Get A Girlfriend (http://www.alexshalman.com/2008/11/07/free-ebook-how-to-get-a-girlfriend/). (http://www.alexshalman.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/podcast6x1.jpg) Enjoy the podcast and feel free to leave feedback in the comment box below. I'd like to know if there is anyone you would like me to interview for future podcasts.	11/16/08	Free	View In iTunes
19	AlexShalman.com Podcast #001 – Maxim Radio Dating Interview	AlexShalman.com Practical Personal Development podcast #1 Here is the very first AlexShalman.com "Practical Personal Development" podcast. This is an interview I did live on SIRIUS Satellite Radio, and edited for length and with commentary. The program I was on is called Game On (http://www.sirius.com/maximradio), and is a dating advice show sponsored by Maxim Magazine. The two co-hosts during this show were Joshua Pellicer (http://www.pickuppodcast.com/blog/authors/joshua/) and Kelly Kellam (http://www.windowshoppingforwomen.com/). Also, thanks to the other regular host, Jordan Harbinger (http://www.pickuppodcast.com/blog/authors/jordan/), for setting up the interview. I cut off the first 30 minutes of the radio show mainly because I wasn't in it, and it would have made this podcast too big. The guys were talking about the concept of Holding Court in dating, which basically means walking up to a crowd of strangers and getting the positive attention of the females in the group. If you're currently dating, or interested in improving your relationship, check out my free ebook, How To Get A Girlfriend (http://www.alexshalman.com/2008/11/07/free-ebook-how-to-get-a-girlfriend/). (http://www.alexshalman.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/podcast6x1.jpg) Enjoy the podcast…	11/9/08	Free	View In iTunes

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AlexShalman.com Podcast #018 – Interviewing Mark Sisson

AlexShalman.com Practical Personal Development Podcast #18 Mark Sisson is the guy that puts the facts behind lifestyle, exercise, and nutrition claims. His current mission is to create the happiest, healthiest, leanest, most fit, and productive life that he can while he's here on earth. In the good ol' days Mark Sisson was a professional triathlete, endurance runner and finished in the top five of the US National Marathon Championships -- ultimately qualifying him for the Olympics. Following conventional wisdom, and exercising more than most human beings on this planet, Mark found himself to be unhealthy and overworked. This unexpected state of health beckoned Mark to ask the question of 'what do we do in the name of fitness?' He spent the rest of his life, up until now, doing research on diet, fitness, nutrition, and all the erroneous assumptions that have been surrounding these topics over the last several decades. Mark looks at our lives in the 21st century from an evolutionary perspective. Particularly, how our genes expect us to act and behave in a particular way, in order for us to be healthy. Unfortunately, we mismanage our genes, and Mark's life for the past 20 years has been centered on figuring out which genes we want to turn on/off to manifest good health, lean fit bodies, happiness, productivity, and all of the things that make us human. The Reluctant Crusader Against Conventional Wisdom Mark Sisson takes it upon himself to dispel many of the myths that we believe about science by investigating them back to the original source. Let's take a look at just five of the many myths that he's undertaken during his career. 1. Myth: "Your diet ought to be comprised of a largely carbohydrate based intake" The food pyramid has at it's base 6-11 servings of grains on a daily basis, which is something that humans never adapted to, and possibly the worst advice that the government could give us. Grains may be largely responsible for the obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and arthritis that we experience as a population. 2. Myth: "Saturated fat is bad for you" Saturated fat is a critical component of human cell membranes, and is what our bodies choose to store added fuel as. There's nothing inherently wrong with saturated fat, but combined with the high carbohydrate intake that increases insulin level and wreaks havoc on other systems within the body, saturated fat can become a bad thing. 3. Myth: "Cholesterol is bad for you" Cholesterol is one of the most important molecules in the body. 4. Myth: "Avoid the sun. UVA and UVB rays are causing cancer" Mark contends that staying out of the sun causes more cancer than it prevents. Human bodies need vitamin D, which is manufactured when the sun hits the body and converts cholesterol into vitamin D. Vitamin D is incorporated into the immune system in ways that prevents us from getting cancer. 5. Myth: "Drink 8 glasses of water a day" There's no rational reason to drink 8 glasses of water per day, because we get most of the water we need from the food we eat. Mark Sisson: #Primal vs #Vegan The human body is a very adaptable mechanism. For instance, some people have survived on seaweed and shoe leather during the great potato famine. However, surviving is not necessarily thriving, and Mark contends that there has never been a society in history that has survived on a meatless diet. Speaking extremes -- if you happen to be an adult that has already gone through the development stages, and go from a fried food and grain diet to a fresh fruits and vegetables based diet, you'll obviously see improvements and feel better for some time. The base of the Primal Blueprint foods pyramid has fruits and vegetables as the base of the diet. Cutting out the meats, fish, poultry, and other proteins may have it's consequences, but it doesn't mean that as a Vegan or Raw Foodist or Vegetarian you won't thrive and survive.

8/3/09

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AlexShalman.com Podcast #017 – Interviewing Suzy Welch

AlexShalman.com Practical Personal Development Podcast #17 Suzy Welch graduated at the top of her class at Harvard Business School, wrote a column in Oprah's O Magazine, and was the editor of the prestigious Harvard Business Review. Since then Suzy ...

6/23/09

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AlexShalman.com Podcast #016 – Interviewing AJ Jacobs

Audio Podcast at the very bottom. AJ Jacobs is a fascinating NY Times bestselling author, current editor of the infamous Esquire magazine, and what I would say is the "father of outsourcing." AJ Jacobs has written The Know-It-All, in which he documented his experience of reading the whole Encyclopedia Britannica from front to back in his journey to becoming the smartest man on earth. Another riveting book written by AJ Jacobs is The Year of Living Biblically, in which he followed all the laws of the bible as literally as possible. Some of the other wacky-genius things that AJ Jacobs has done include many one month experiments, known as immersion experiments, which we get into during our interview. AJ Jacobs: Immersion Experiments When AJ Jacobs gets interested in a subject, he likes to become immersed in it, and live it from the inside out. Sure enough, when AJ Jacobs became interested in religion and the bible, he decided that the best way to learn it would be to live it. After researching several versions of the bible, and recording a large list of rules, AJ Jacobs proceeded to follow every single rule in the bible - literally. This included not shaving his beard, following the 10 commandments, and stoning adulterers, as well as many other rules. This immerse way of learning is truly gripping, and life changing, as AJ Jacobs will testify. While he is no longer religious, the year of living biblically changed his psyche in such a way that the rules of gratitude have carried over into his secular life. Pressing the elevator button, AJ Jacobs is grateful that the elevator comes, and then once again upon arrival he is grateful that the elevator didn't plummet to the basement. AJ Jacobs: Creating a Bestselling Book Let there be no mistake, AJ Jacobs attributes some of his success to luck. Hundreds of great books do not become NY Times bestselling, so riding on the theme of gratitude, AJ Jacobs is very grateful to have made it onto this list (love the humility in this man!). AJ Jacobs started writing in a tiny newspaper in California about PTA meetings and sewage taxes. After about 15 years in the business, AJ Jacobs finally got to the point where he could write the book. AJ Jacobs took on topics that fascinated him, such as religion and the Encyclopedia (which pretty much covered everything, from advarks to zygotes). While AJ Jacobs does have narrow focus topics that he enjoys, such as the history of peppers, he decided to write on his more general topics of interest in order to break in in popularity. When writing The Know-It-All, AJ Jacobs first created a 20 page proposal, which included only 1 letter (A) of the Encyclopedia Britannica. Including the approval chapter, the entire book took approximately 2 years to write. AJ Jacobs: Outsourcing Your Life Following his love for immersion experiments, AJ Jacobs outsourced his entire life for one full month. When I say entire life, I mean it. He outsourced reading bedtime stories to his kids, arguing with his wife, shopping and beyond. In his upcoming book The Guinea Pig Diaries (coming September 2009), AJ Jacobs includes many of these immersion experiments such as My Outsourced Life (Esquire, 2005.), and uses outsourcing to get a lot of the research done for the book. This is 110% on my reading list (I'll be reviewing it here, and AJ, when you read this, I'd like to do coffee and an autograph!) So with everything outsourced, what does one do with all the free time? Nothing too out of the ordinary, just some TV, catching up on reading books, and just taking the month off. Following the article, an onslaught of people requested more information about outsourcing from AJ Jacobs. In response, a lot of these outsourcing companies created special departments for "personal life" outsourcing. (I even hear there was some hate-mail from people who thought that AJ Jacobs single handedly ruined our economy by encouraging mass outsourcing,

6/9/09

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AlexShalman.com Podcast #015 – Interviewing Ishtar Alabina

AlexShalman.com Practical Personal Development Podcast #15 I'll be referring to the superstar singer Ishtar from the world famous group Alabina as Ishtar Alabina in this interview. Ishtar Alabina is a singer that is truly loved by fans all over the world. In the early 2000s Ishtar Alabina made millions in record sales worldwide, while performing for audiences in the hundreds of thousands. These days she does a lot of private shows for Oligarchy, and runs in some of the same circles as Edward Mermelstein (http://www.alexshalman.com/2009/03/02/alexshalmancom-podcast-012-interviewing-edward-mermelstein/). Ishtar Alabina is a great success story. She is someone who maintains a great marriage and family life as well as an overall sense of life balance. Most importantly, in my opinion, is that she's able to follow her passion for music as her first priority, and graciously accepts the money that comes pouring in with it as a bonus, not a destination. The many styles of Ishtar Alabina Ishtar Alabina sings in several languages including English, Arabic, French, Hebrew, Russian and Egyptian. Her early music influences were everything from middle eastern, rock, pop, and r&b, which is clearly seen in the musical style that she produces now. World-music would be the genre that she best fits in to, but even that is a bit hard to describe. It's a mixture of a lot of different cultures and instrument combinations, infused with modern beats, and middle eastern touches. Ishtar Alabina - Career Mistakes Like many success stories, Ishtar Alabina has a bit of a 'failure' story. When she first signed onto Sony records, they had her produce a completely french album with a totally melancholy feel. This was a complete disconnect from what her fans came to expect from her, and learned to love about her. While there are no regrets, Ishtar Alabina learned the importance of performing and catering to the fans, while standing by what she personally loves about music. She's since quit Sony, and produced 3 other albums solo. This philosophy has brought her much success. Ishtar Alabina - Superstar, Twins, and Family Life Ishtar Alabina's husband is also the producer, and he's been traveling by her side for the past 15 years. It makes the relationship much easier, considering she doesn't have to leave him often for extended trips. On the other hand, now that Ishtar Alabina has had twins, it is much harder to create new music, and take great care of the kids. There's not much sleep at night, and it's hard to concentrate on creation. She uses the night hours to think of new beats, melodies, and lyrics. When traveling, the twins are left back home with family, which makes traveling easier. The downside of course is that you tend to miss your kids when you're away. Ishtar Alabina - Advice for Independent Musician's There's no recipe for success. If there was a recipe, then everyone would be doing it, and the music industry would be so easy and so obvious. The only secret The only "secret" that Ishtar Alabina can share is: "Believe in what you do, and don't do something because you think others will love it. First you have to love what you do and believe in what you do." Ishtar Alabina - Online Promotions These days it's essential for an Artist to have online profiles such as Facebook, Myspace, etc. However, Ishtar Alabina does not personally focus on these mediums. Instead, her husband collects data, such as letters from fans, and hands it over to Ishtar Alabina to read. This gives Ishtar Alabina the freedom to concentrate on the important thing, which is the actual creation of the music. This is something to think about for people in any field who try to do everything themselves. Sometimes success comes when we concentrate only on the essentials. Ishtar Alabina - Getting In "The Zone" To Create Before, Ishtar Alabina would eat, breath, and sleep with her music in mind. After... after the twins were born that is,

3/30/09

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AlexShalman.com Podcast #014 – Getting Excited About Working Out

AlexShalman.com Practical Personal Development Podcast #14 In this short episode of the Practical Personal Development Podcast, I talk about 4 fundamental principles that get me excited to work out. When we're passionate about fitness, we make time, we get energized, and we're able to take our day to the next level. Enjoying the Podcasts? Make sure you click the image above and subscribe to this podcast via iTunes. This ensures that you get the full repertoire of interviews in an easy to listen to format.

3/16/09

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6

AlexShalman.com Podcast #013 – Interviewing Lewis Howes

AlexShalman.com Practical Personal Development Podcast #13 Lewis Howes, a good friend and fellow mutant, is an absolute sensation in the online social networking world. He's a record holding arena football player, author, networking event planner, ridiculously good networker, and now the owner of his own publishing company. Lewis Howes has become one of the leading LinkedIn consultants, helping people improve their profiles, connect and network with people in their field, and ultimately place themselves in careers that they love. Lewis Howes turned his passion for helping people, networking, and LinkedIn, into a book called LinkedWorking (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/098233320X?ie=UTF8&tag=alexshalcompr-20&linkCode=xm2&camp=1789&creativeASIN=098233320X), with co-author Frank Agin. The book goes into great deal on LinkedIn techniques, each one backed with a real-life success story from their clients. Lewis Howes: Football Record Holder to Social Media Tycoon A freak accident left Lewis Howes temporarily disabled. With a mangled wrist, and a full arm cast, Lewis Howes had to take a brake from sports and look for a creative outlet elsewhere. Instead of spending 6 hours a day training for sports, Lewis Howes would spend 6 hours a day, in bed, networking with sports professionals on LinkedIn. This wouldn't be much of a problem for most people, but as a world-class athlete limited from his physical activities, this was another big challenge to overcome. Luckily his wrist is all better now, and the invaluable experience that he gained from that time, when he turned adversity into opportunity, has gotten him a great career helping people achieve their very own professional goals. LinkedWorking: Teaches You To Make Real Moves Using Linked In "I'm on LinkedIn, but not getting any job offers, what am I doing wrong?" That's the question that Lewis Howes tackles in both his LinkedIn consulting business, as well as in his book LinkedWorking. Lewis Howes takes real life networking principles and teaches you how to apply them to the tools and applications within LinkedIn. Lewis Howes has one of the largest networkers on LinkedIn, particularly a sports centered network of individuals who are looking to meet other sports professionals. In the same way that Lewis Howes grew his network, and met all the top people in the sports industry, he consults, and illustrates in his book, how we can do the same thing. The point isn't just to make a pretty profile. Lewis Howes teaches us how to stop thinking in terms of old-fashioned resumes and enables us to portray our skills, talents, abilities, hobbies, interests and personality, ultimately creating the persona of the real person that we are, and getting us into the career that we dream of. What I like about LinkedWorking (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/098233320X?ie=UTF8&tag=alexshalcompr-20&linkCode=xm2&camp=1789&creativeASIN=098233320X) is that it is riddled with success stories for each of the tools that Lewis Howes presents. You begin to understand how everything that he teaches has been successfully applied time and time again with real people. 418 Publishing: Starting Your Own Publishing Company (Goodbye Middleman!) After looking at many publishing companies, and considering all their pros and cons, Lewis Howes decided that the best route to take his book from his computer and into our hands was by self-publishing. He then went ahead and created the 418 Publishing company. In order to self-publish, Lewis Howes had to front some money, find a printer that works with a lot of publishers, apply to work with them, buy ISBN numbers, have a cover designed, have an editor, have someone do the layout and design of the book, and then follow up with marketing efforts. He describes it as a challenging process at first, but well worth it for him, since he is in the process of doing a book tour, and doing a lot of self-promotion for the product.

3/9/09

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7

Video Killer Productivity Software Duo for Macs

I hate to give too much of my personal power away to technology, but, getting the MacBook Pro last summer has totally changed my life. Mostly because it made me even more addicted to the internet, but also because it opened up many opportunities in the...

3/5/09

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AlexShalman.com Podcast #012 – Interviewing Edward Mermelstein

AlexShalman.com Practical Personal Development Podcast #12 Edward Mermelstein, plays monopoly with properties all over the world, moving $300 million last year alone. With his largest deal to date in excess of $100 million, it's refreshing to find out how this real-estate juggernaut has reached his success, and maintained a down to earth demeanor at the same time. Edward Mermelstein's Three Careers (and Cornering the Market) Edward Mermelstein is a powerhouse that corners the real-estate market as a triple careerist. All tied under the real-estate umbrella, Edward Mermelstein is a lawyer, broker, and developer. Each specialty can be a full-time and lucrative career on it's own, but with the combined knowledge his firm is an unstoppable real-estate machine. With offices in Moscow and New York City, a firm that speaks 11 languages, and the desire to meet and exceed the needs of his clients, Edward Mermelstein, sets the standards on service and quality in the high-end real-estate market. The Importance of Language Edward Mermelstein used to speak 4 languages, including English, Russian, Hebrew, and German. While he let the Hebrew and German slide under the rug in the past years, his mastery of English and Russian has helped him tremendously in doing international business. While English is going to be the primary international language of choice, Edward Mermelstein believes that a couple of the Chinese dialects will make an excellent secondary language for anyone interested in getting the most bang for the buck. Of course, you will want to concentrate your language learning efforts on the geographical areas that are of most interest to you. High-Profile Clients Edward Mermelstein doesn't do $2 transactions, so his client-base involves some of the richest people in the world. A good chunk of his clientelle are the priveleged few of the Russian and Ukrainian origin. Some of them are actually known as Oligarchy, and control much of the power and government in their respective areas. At their prime, some of these clients commanded billions of dollars. Like everyone invested in the world-financial market, these clients have lost quite a bit of money, and are only worth hundreds of millions for the most part. Success In This Market With all the problems that exist globally, you have to look for the gem in all these terrible situations. It's just finding the opportunity and making the most out of it. ~Edward Mermelstein This market changes drastically, especially as of late, so flexibility is a key ingredient to success. While many people might be losing their homes and properties, these properties don't simply vanish, they go somewhere. The key is be ready for these day to day changes, and constantly put yourself in the position to cease these emerging opportunities. Edward Mermelstein's Passion For Real-Estate When everyone around you is into it, you eat, breathe, sleep real-estate, and then it gets into your blood, and becomes a very exciting part of your daily activities. ~Edward Mermelstein Edward Mermelstein's real-estate adventure started during his high-school days. His older brother had just started in real-estate rentals and sales, and would occassionally call upon him as an assistant. During the college days, Edward Mermelstein began to invest more time with real-estate people. During a trip with a college buddy, he became profoundly aware that his personal interests meshed very well with the opportunities available in the real-estate industry. This was even more pronounced by the fact that his wife's family were also very much into the business of real-estate. His biggest real-estate mentor would be his father-in-law, whom Edward Mermelstein respects tremendously. His father-in-law has succeeded in the business his whole life by taking the slow-and-steady approach. Unlike many people that we're currently hearing about, that making millions in real-estate,

3/2/09

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9

AlexShalman.com Podcast #011 – Interviewing Rabbi Henry Harris

AlexShalman.com Practical Personal Development Podcast #11 Rabbi Henry Harris has one of the more fun positions on Wall Street - especially these days. As a religious man by occupation, earning a living mentoring the best and brightest on Wall str...

2/23/09

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AlexShalman.com Podcast #010 – Interviewing Ronn Torossian

AlexShalman.com Practical Personal Development Podcast #10 Ronn Torossian, CEO of internationally acclaimed public relations firm 5WPR, is a devoted father, Jew, and all around decent human being. His company 5W Public Relations (http://www.5wpr.com/) has been a breath of fresh air in an otherwise old, passive, and slow industry, since he founded it in 2003. Since then, Ronn Torossian has taken the company to the Inc 500 list, as one of the fastest growing public relations firms in the country. 5WPR stands out as being diverse and aggressive, and continues to deliver excellent service to their clients, despite the bit of doom and gloom in these economic times. Ronn Torossian works with everything from small businesses to mega-corporations, which includes accounts with corporate, religion, and government groups. The mission is to work hard, and deliver the true essence of a company to the media, and ultimately to the hearts and minds of the general population. To name drop a bit, Ronn Torossian has served clients such as Evian Water, Snoop Dogg, Pamela Anderson, Marc Ecko, Bad Boy Entertainment, high powered Politicians, the Government of Israel, as well as 2 of the 50 richest people in the world. Successful People Seek Other Successful People One of the great things about Ronn Torossian's job is that he gets the opportunity to network with people that are highly successful. One such person is Marc Ecko, whom Ronn Torossian asked "what drives you every day?" 1. Never stop pushing. 2. Know when to make decisions -- whether they be good, bad, indifferent, ugly -- make a decision! ~Marc Ecko I'm a firm believer that we're a mix of the people that we surround ourselves with. We absorb their philosophy and adopt their behaviors. Ending a relationship with a co-worker, friend, or even worse, a family member, that is doing harm to our way of life can be a hard thing. Especially if there is a great deal of emotional attachment or interdependency. However, it can open up more opportunities, and more time and space to fill with more positive people, that will help us improve both our lifestyle, as well as our impact on the world. Most Significant Contributor to Ronn Torossian's Success God. His Mother. Working Hard. Ronn Torossian doesn't believe that people get lucky in business, or that people that don't work hard (http://www.alexshalman.com/2008/06/25/ask-the-readers-work-hard-or-work-life-balance/) will get ahead. People that think in terms of 9-6 don't have what it takes to be a successful entrepreneur. When you start to think in terms of "eating and breathing your company" you become success material. You bring your worries home to you at night, and into the weekend, and you do whatever it takes to keep your head above the water. Ronn Torossian's Day to Day (http://www.alexshalman.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/5wpr.jpg) The day to day work is not always glamorous. It's hard work, and clients can call at all hours of the day and night, depending on their specific needs and expectations. It's not all about celebrity parties, and living in the lime-light. There isn't an exact formula or certainty to a day in the life of Ronn Torossian. It's not like a scene from the Jetsons, where George Jetson comes in for his 3 hour day, and presses a single button repeatedly, while Mr. Cosmo yells at him. Ronn Torossian starts off early by waking up at 5:00am. He arrives at the gym at 5:15am, where he runs and works out until 7:00am. Talk about being in great shape, last time I saw Ronn Torossian, his neck was the size of a tree-trunk (that's a compliement). Today work starts at 7:45am, Ronn Torossian takes care of business, does the interview with me at 9:30am, takes a client meeting at 10:00am in the office, another one at 12:00pm out of the office, two interviews in the afternoon, speaking to a college at 5:00pm, and then dinner with a client/friend at 8:00pm downtown.

2/16/09

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AlexShalman.com Podcast #009 – Interviewing Scott Young

AlexShalman.com Practical Personal Development Podcast #9 Scott Young has been a leader in the personal development field since his teenage years. He started his self-improvement blog nearly 3 years ago, cranking out hundreds of articles, as well as 5 personal development ebooks. To me Scott represents that feeling of "if I could go back in time, knowing what I know now, my experience of life would be significantly richer, more enjoyable, and much more fulfilling." Of course, it's never too late for a fresh start, and Scott Young is a great role model for what's possible when you take the time to think about your life, and where you want to go. Scott H Young and His Mission A blogger at ScottHYoung.com (http://www.scotthyoung.com/blog/) who writes for over 7,000 subscribers. His mission is to provide something that he finds to be really valuable to people. He does this by sharing his own experience, in the form of writing, at... you guessed it, his blog. His mission is very much aligned with mine, since what I like to do is take wisdom from successful people, that found in meaningful books, and that of my own experience, and write them out in simple to understand and practical to apply articles. Success at Life and Blogging It's all about self-improvement, and trying to be as successful as you can every day. The more people I interview, the more I realize how subjective the term success really is. I'm always fascinated to know how different people define it. To Scott success in life means having a lifestyle that is fulfilling to him, and consists of having meaningful goals as well as reaching out to people. Success is not about what you have, it's about how you live your life. In blogging, success means connecting with people and writing content that people find valuable. It's important to note that you will receive positive, and negative feedback, so you have to gauge it and 'temper it with your own value system'. The main question to ask yourself is, 'are you helping people?' Most Important Contributor to Scott's Success Scott believes that his daily habits (http://www.alexshalman.com/r/habit) are the number one most significant contributor to his success. This combined with cultivating proper behavior, and you have a day that may or may not seem fruitful in the grand scheme of things. However, when you take your daily habit, and run is through 365 days, you have made some considerably significant gains that you can look back at and admire. Like many of us, Scott's day to day tends to vary, and seeing how he is still a university student, his summer days are significantly different than the school year. During the summer he wakes up early, goes for a run, tackles a project until about 2pm, followed by some time at the gym, and finally caps it off by spending time with his friends and relaxing. He points out that a day doesn't have to be 12 hours long in order to be productive, and I'm willing to bet that he gets more work done before 2pm than most people do in a full days work. Motivation and Productivity Scott's primary way to stay motivated is to find a project with a heart in it. I call this defining what you want, and doing that which we love. Many people tend to neglect this very important step of figuring out how exactly they want to live their life, and what is significant to them. In order to stay on top of his productivity, Scott takes the most important thing, or the thing that he's least looking forward to doing, and gets it out of the way at the very beginning of the work day. Why? Because this eliminates that monkey on his back that distracts him all day long. Once you get this done, you're work day feels like it's on a down hill slope, and it's easier to enter into a state of flow. This could very well differ for your life and work situation. You may hate exercising, so it would be wise to do that first thing in the morning so that you don't dread it all day long.

1/5/09

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AlexShalman.com Podcast #008 – Interviewing Muhammad Saleem

AlexShalman.com Practical Personal Development Podcast #8 Muhammad Saleem is known as a 'Social Media Maven', which means he's put news stories in front of millions of eyeballs using social networking sites such as digg, tip'd, and stumbleupon. If you've ever gotten off-track while surfing the internet, you could appreciate how Mu is able to stay focused while browsing for business. Always online, always on social news, social networking, and microblogging sites at the same time - probably researching ways to take over the world - Mu's day-to-day consists of a lot of social media consulting (stuff that's so hush-hush he has to sign Do-Not-Disclose agreements). Mu's consulting involves talking to people and figuring out what they're trying to do with their website/business, what their goals are, and helping to develop and market their content so they can reach their goals. You may not necessarily be interested in social media, but I know you're interested in the philosophy that makes successful people successful. Let's grind up Muhammad Saleem into powder, sift through his life, and extract the wonderful personality and success principles and see how we can apply them to our own success. The Secret Formula To Digg Front Page Mu is notorious for submitting over 2,000 (with as much as 250,000 readers per article!) Digg front page articles. To some people that's a pretty big deal. As bloggers we want our words to be read, and a digg front page guarantees many thousands of eyes looking at our masterpiece. In our interview, Mu is nice enough to reveal the simple formula for reaching a Digg front page. When you realize just how simple it is, you're going to kick yourself for not thinking of it yourself. The formula is: Become a part of the digg community. Learn about the trends and preferences of the demographic. Start or join a niche that would be of interest to this community. Be patient, and over time you will build a following. As your following grows, so will your articles exposure to digg traffic. That means the success ratio of articles that hit front page to articles submitted will increase. Urbanist, Ecoist and Manliness Muhammad Saleem is managing WebUrbanist (http://weburbanist.com/), WebEcoist (http://webecoist.com/), and the Art of Manliness (http://artofmanliness.com/) (you'll love this one if you like my site). Mu helps develop content, train writers, content ideas, promotion of content, and has a part in monetization of the sites. As someone that manages every conceivable area of his own site, I can definitely appreciate how much work Mu needs to put in to do this at 3 different websites. Each one can be a full-time job in and of itself. It's important to realize that effort is not necessarily correlated with success -- smart effort is. Tip'd - Digg For Economy & Finance (http://www.alexshalman.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/tipd.png) Muhammad's most recent project is Tip'd (http://tipd.com/), which is somewhat of a digg clone, but strictly for financial news. With the current economic issues being a hot topic, launching a website dedicated to the top financial news online is a great idea. If you're a news junkie, and finance is your poison of choice, than Tip'd will prove to be an invaluable source of information. I'm personally not big on news, but I'm really interested in what it takes to get a project of this magnitude from concept to success. For Mu this took a few weeks, $25,000, a super-star team of social medium experts, designers, and coders, and some good old fashioned elbow grease. The hardest part, after the project is built, is getting the world out and spreading it to both interested users as well as financial news website owners. The Art of Networking Online Actually building a website such as Tip'd is easy - relatively speaking - compared with the arduous task of attracting users to it. That's where networking is absolutely essential.

12/29/08

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AlexShalman.com Podcast #007 – Interviewing Leo Babauta

AlexShalman.com Practical Personal Development Podcast #7 A special treat this week, as always, is our guest Leo Babauta of ZenHabits.net. He's a regular guy, married with 6 kids, likes to write, run, read and that's about it. Over the past couple of years Leo has quit smoking, ran several marathons, began waking early, became organized, began eating healthy, became a vegan, doubled his income, wrote 3 books, eliminated debt, and began commuting by bike. This is an extensive list of accomplishments, but it's only the tip of the iceberg in Leo's life. I think the most brilliant part is the ability to achieve. Arguably any person has the potential to achieve anything in life, but to know this about oneself, and to have proven yourself right time and time again, that my friends is priceless. 1. How To Make Time For It All Having 6 kids isn't easy, yet Leo manages to accomplish more than many people with only 2 kids, or no kids at all. When I say accomplish, I don't mean making time for 12 hours of work, 12 hours of family time, 12 hours of running, and 12 hours of reading - each and every day. That's not possible, is it? Leo takes one day, and makes that day be a total reflection of his priorities. He says that the 4 most important things in his life are family, writing, reading, and running. It follows that his day is divided amongst those priorities, and the unnecessary distractions are blocked out as much as possible. The truth is, you don't have to make time for it all, only for what's really important. The things that make life worth living, excite you, and make you happy. You can think of everything else as an enemy that tries to steal your time (my words, not his Leo's). Leo's main objective for Zenhabits was to share the knowledge that he was gaining in his life own life. I think this is the driving force for a lot of us, and it's certainly one of the reasons why I got started on this path. For Leo, quiting smoking for the seventh and final time, served as a catalyst to take massive action and form solid habits. 2. Did You Sell Your Soul For Success? Everyone always wonders what Leo's success strategy is. Many of us, including myself, started blogging around the same time as Leo. Despite of this, and with all his personal responsibilities in his way, Leo has blazed a trail and earned a well deserved awe of admiration. The question is 'How the heck did he do it'? Put out really great content, share things that you learn, be sincere and write with your voice. People want to see someone do the things that they want to do. Once they see someone else doing it, and how they did it, they're inspired to do it themselves. Be valuable, and remarkable, and people will come to you and remark about you to others. Now that's some practical advice you can take to the bank. 3. The Power of Less (http://www.alexshalman.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/powerofless.jpg) Leo Babauta's book is available on December 30th, 2008. It's called The Power of Less (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1401309704?ie=UTF8&tag=alexshalcompr-20&linkCode=xm2&camp=1789&creativeASIN=1401309704). Simplifying your life, focusing on the essentials, and in doing that making yourself more effective. This effects both your work and home life. The book shares powerful principles like 'creating new habits' 'setting limits for yourself' 'choosing the essential and simplifying' 'starting small'. The impact on the world, if everyone read this book, would be a global shift of people working less and enjoying life more. People can get more work done in a smaller amount of time, and then stop, and enjoy! We would get the same amount of work done, in less time. One of the first things the book asks us to do is to identify what is most important to us in our life. Just like Leo identified his four list of important things, it is our job to identify what is most important and go for it! The first part of the book is a series of six principles,

12/22/08

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AlexShalman.com Podcast #006 – Interviewing Derek Sivers

AlexShalman.com Practical Personal Development Podcast #6 This week we're right on track bringing you a super successful speaker that you just can't miss. Derek Sivers is a dot com mogul, the likes of which you've never seen before. He is the CEO an...

12/15/08

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AlexShalman.com Podcast #005 – Interviewing Tynan

AlexShalman.com Practical Personal Development Podcast #5 Tynan's life is amazing, because he does whatever he wants, whenever he wants. A retired world-renowned Pick Up Artist, and professional Gambler, Tynan now spends his time traveling the entire globe. The kicker is he does this with only one small back pack worth of stuff. This includes his laptop, which he uses to make money online and finance all his adventures. I first heard of Tynan a couple of years ago when I stumbled upon his blog www.betterthanyourboyfriend.com (http://betterthanyourboyfriend.com/) which discussed some awesome adventures and celebrity escapades. Tynan and I became "internet friends", which changed shortly after he launched his website www.lifenomadic.com (http://lifenomadic.com/). Life Nomadic records his traveling adventures, and I became his first official road guest when I visited with him in Panama. I actually did something REALLY stupid with a 5 Gallon water balloon on this trip, and the truth comes out in this Podcast. In the Podcast, Tynan discusses some of the equipment he brings along with him, and how he keeps in touch with family and friends while abroad. The cool thing is Tynan and his travel companion Todd named a couple of key phrases after me, which we discuss in the Podcast as well. You'll find out what a ShalPic is! It should be noted that Tynan is a vegan, and one of the healthiest people I know. He talks about some of his healthy habits, and what mentality he fosters in order to make such positive decisions. As per request, I asked him how he deals with family gatherings, and keeping a 100% strict diet. Tynan discusses some of the real social dynamics that are involved in picking up women, which is great to hear from a insider (I don't mean insider like as a women, but as a professional!) Tynan's success tip is that people should do whatever they want, and pay less attention to what society and "normal people" tell you to do. That's his secret to living an EXTRAORDINARY LIFE! Do what you want to do, no matter what. Enjoying the Podcasts? Make sure you click the image above and subscribe to this podcast via iTunes. This ensures that you get the full repertoire of interviews in an easy to listen to format.

12/7/08

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AlexShalman.com Podcast #004 – Interviewing John Chow

AlexShalman.com Practical Personal Development Podcast #4 This week I interviewed John Chow, the internet mogul that makes $30-40,000 per month blogging at JohnChow.com (http://www.johnchow.com/), and 7 figures with his media empire The Tech Zone (http://www.thetechzone.com/). I've previously interviewed John Chow in the Happiness Project (http://www.alexshalman.com/2008/02/19/happiness-project-john-chow-of-john-chow-dot-com/), and got to know a bit about what happiness looks like for a person who is successful and financially independent. In this podcast interview I asked him about what success means to him, and what he does day to day to achieve it. One advantageous edge that John Chow has over the competition is that he was born in communist China, and then brought to Canada, a free capitalist country. Living in a slum community in his early years taught him a that if he ever wanted to make something of himself he will have to shape his environment as opposed to letting his environment him. You can also hear about what influence his father had over him growing up. Being at the helm of two super profitable companies would insinuate that John is a pretty busy guy, but this just isn't the case. He wakes up late, checks his e-mail, twitter, and blog comments, followed by playing with his wife and daughter, and then participating in top secret 'dot com mogul' activities, the hardest of which is figuring out what to have for lunch. One of the most evil things about John Chow is that he enjoys having his readers salivate over the savory restaurant reviews that he posts over on his blog. He goes to top-end restaurants, videos, reviews, and writes them off as tax deductible expense. In order to put his skills to the test, John Chow coached a 'no-name' blogger into making a good income online, and he gives a little spoiler as to who that might be in the Podcast. I found John's views of success very interesting, and I liked what he said about his various philanthropic ventures. One would even say that he has a very Bill Gates state of mind. One of my favorite parts of the interview is when John Chow shares his secret to building a successful and profitable online investment. You can hear this for yourself in the interview. John Chow's rules for happiness? Something to hope for, the ability to give and receive love, and something to do. His final message? The worth of a man is not how much he makes, but how much he gives. (../wp-content/uploads/2008/11/podcast6x1.jpg) Enjoying the Podcasts? Make sure you click the image above and subscribe to this podcast via iTunes. This ensures that you get the full repertoire of interviews in an easy to listen to format.

12/1/08

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AlexShalman.com Podcast #003 – Interviewing Steve Pavlina

AlexShalman.com Practical Personal Development Podcast #3 This week I'm honored to have interviewed Steve Pavlina, a person that I greatly admire. Steve Pavlina has had a lot of influence on my life and personal growth, so I couldn't think of asked for a better person to interview. Steve Pavlina is the author of the best selling book Personal Development for Smart People (http://www.alexshalman.com/2008/10/31/book-review-personal-development-for-smart-people/), and the most popular personal development blogger in the world. The stats say that Steve Pavlina's website sees over 2 million visitors per month. The real power, however, is in the affect that Steve Pavlina has on an individual's life, and the way his ideas of Truth, Love, and Power spread virally throughout the world. For over 10 years Steve Pavlina has been passionate about learning personal development, applying it to his life in a variety of wacky growth experiments, and then sharing his findings with the world via his popular blog StevePavlina.com. In this interview we'll touch base on some of these experiments, and go into a wide variety of topics. Steve Pavlina: Mission in Life "To explore consciousness, and raise consciousness." Steve Pavlina is very passionate about the principles of Truth, Love, and Power. You can't make apple pie from scratch, unless you reinvent the universe, and in this way Steve Pavlina didn't "invent" these principles. He did, however, meditate on them and put them into a very practical format that can be applied to anyone, and any area of life. Truth is helping people become more aware, knowledgeable, and honest. Love is helping people connect with what they want, be happier and more joyful, while escaping from what they don't want. Power is helping people take action, become more disciplined, and create the reality that they want to experience and get things done. Steve Pavlina's goals are to align everyone with these three principles, which he gets into in great detail in his book. The Steve Pavlina blog, and resources are all aligned with helping people achieve consciousness and improve various areas of their lives. Steve Pavlina on Measuring Success The way Steve Pavlina used to go about goal-setting is by setting "smart goals," meaning goals that are specific, measurable, and action oriented. After much experience with this, Steve Pavlina now takes a different route in setting goals, based purely on that which most inspires him. Instead of thinking of a goal as a place to reach in the future, Steve Pavlina thinks about how a goal will affect him in the present moment. For example, if setting a goal of becoming a millionaire at a future date does not inspire you right this moment and get you taking some sort of action then it's a "lousy goal." My example of the opposite of this would be setting a goal to run a marathon a year from now, and then going right outside for a run, and subsequent training sessions in order to prepare for this. It must create a mental shift, in the now. Trying to be aligned with Truth, Love, and Power can be disempowering for Steve Pavlina when forced into a specific and measurable box. However, what does work for Steve Pavlina is when he thinks of the goal in terms of "what can I do right now to move people in this direction," which is when he starts generating ideas and taking action on them. Even for financial goals Steve Pavlina claims that he doesn't pay much attention to how much money he makes because it doesn't inspire him. He focuses more on the present moment, asking himself, "what am I doing right now?" and "what kind of vision can I create that will inspire me right now in this moment?" A trap that Steve Pavlina used to fall into was setting goals too often. He would fill up pages worth of goals, only to file them away and not look at them. Taking a glance back after six months or so would reveal that no progress has been made in these areas.

11/24/08

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18

AlexShalman.com Podcast #002 – Interviewing Ask Dan and Jennifer

AlexShalman.com Practical Personal Development podcast #2 In this interview Dan and Jennifer from www.AskDanAndJennifer.com (http://www.askdanandjennifer.com/) tell us how they started their online relationship media empire. They tell us how they've managed a safe and comfortable place for people from all over the world to ask and get answers for their most personal sex-love-relationship related questions. Our friends also discuss their unorthodox relationship that is 9.5 years difference in age between the two of them with Jennifer being the older of the two. They also go into quite some detail about safe sex, to the point where I accuse Dan of working for Trojan/Lifestyles! The dating-duo discuss the tipping point of their site taking off, as well as their amazing success on YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/user/DanAndJenn) with their dating question and answer sessions. I then ask them the tough question of what will happen to AskDanAndJennifer if Dan and Jennifer break up! If you're currently dating, or interested in improving your already existing relationship, check out my free ebook, How To Get A Girlfriend (http://www.alexshalman.com/2008/11/07/free-ebook-how-to-get-a-girlfriend/). (http://www.alexshalman.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/podcast6x1.jpg) Enjoy the podcast and feel free to leave feedback in the comment box below. I'd like to know if there is anyone you would like me to interview for future podcasts.

11/16/08

Free

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19

AlexShalman.com Podcast #001 – Maxim Radio Dating Interview

AlexShalman.com Practical Personal Development podcast #1 Here is the very first AlexShalman.com "Practical Personal Development" podcast. This is an interview I did live on SIRIUS Satellite Radio, and edited for length and with commentary. The program I was on is called Game On (http://www.sirius.com/maximradio), and is a dating advice show sponsored by Maxim Magazine. The two co-hosts during this show were Joshua Pellicer (http://www.pickuppodcast.com/blog/authors/joshua/) and Kelly Kellam (http://www.windowshoppingforwomen.com/). Also, thanks to the other regular host, Jordan Harbinger (http://www.pickuppodcast.com/blog/authors/jordan/), for setting up the interview. I cut off the first 30 minutes of the radio show mainly because I wasn't in it, and it would have made this podcast too big. The guys were talking about the concept of Holding Court in dating, which basically means walking up to a crowd of strangers and getting the positive attention of the females in the group. If you're currently dating, or interested in improving your relationship, check out my free ebook, How To Get A Girlfriend (http://www.alexshalman.com/2008/11/07/free-ebook-how-to-get-a-girlfriend/). (http://www.alexshalman.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/podcast6x1.jpg) Enjoy the podcast…

11/9/08

Free

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