The Person You Want to Be, with Eric Teplitz

Kevin Kelly is a person of restless curiosity and an avid maker of things.

As a child, he built a model railway and a nature museum in his basement. Since then he has gone on to build a house, small mail-order businesses, and an adventurous life filled with travel and many unexpected twists and turns. He has taken innumerable photographs, co-founded WIRED Magazine, authored a number of books, and he creates a new piece of ...

If you love music, odds are you will love Robert Greenberg.

Greenberg describes music as “the best of what we are as human beings” – and you can learn much about it and some of its most accomplished composers, as I have, via his popular Great Courses.

In this interview, I had the opportunity to ask “Dr. Bob” about his own life's journey, as well as questions about history, great art, teaching, the determinin...

As a college student, Cory Muscara was headed toward a career in business/finance. 

One day, however, he had an experience that stopped him in his tracks and made him question not only his career path but the point of life itself.

Around the same time, he stumbled into experimenting with meditation.

This eventually led to a serious deep dive in which he meditated for 14 hours every day for over six months...

Gordon Marino taught philosophy for 27 years at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota, where he also served as Director of the Hong Kierkegaard Library.

Unlike most (all?) other philosophy professors, Gordon also had a parallel career in boxing: as a fighter, a trainer, a boxing correspondent for the Wall Street Journal, and a boxing coach to young men and women.

He has edited a number of philosophy texts incl...

How do you go about forging your own path when your dad happens to be a legendary comedian and cultural icon?

In this episode, I speak with Kelly Carlin, who ended up creating a solo show and eventually a memoir (both entitled "A Carlin Home Companion") to shed some light on this question for herself as much as for anyone else.

Kelly is wonderfully open and honest about her life, not to mention self-refl...

Alex Sanfilippo is perhaps the planet’s greatest friend to independent podcasts and podcasters.

He is the CEO and founder of PodPros, whose flagship product, PodMatch, is "like a dating app" connecting podcast hosts with their ideal guests for interviews.

In this interview, Alex shares the story of his entrepreneurship journey, filled with twists and turns and, crucially, developing a productive relation...

"The Person You Want to Be" Podcast, Episode 18: Season One Finale

For this episode, I have pulled clips from each of the interviews I did for Season One, and arranged them into five categories that highlight key aspects of becoming The Person You Want to Be:

Category #1: Tapping into your own inner wisdom.
Category #2: Declaring and stepping into what it is you want.
Category #3: Taking risks an...

Kara Nicole Bitar holds a J.D. from Duke University School of Law and practiced high-stakes corporate litigation at one of the largest law firms in the southeastern United States.

A personal crisis well into her law career, however, became a catalyst for personal reinvention.

Kara took same the dedication and commitment involved in becoming a successful attorney and applied it to searching for greater peace and ...

Nicole Angelique Kerr is an award-winning health and wellness expert who has worked in a wide range of sectors, including government, non-profit, military, academia, healthcare institutions, corporations, and in private consultation. Throughout her 30-year career, she has focused on supporting thousands of people from every walk of life to make realistic, meaningful choices for lifelong health and well-being.

A graduate of...

Daniel Maté is a New York-based composer, lyricist, and playwright for musical theatre. He is a recipient of the Edward Kleban Prize for Most Promising Lyricist in American Musical Theatre, a Jonathan Larson Foundation Grant, and the ASCAP Foundation's Cole Porter Award for Excellence in Music and Lyrics (for his song cycle "The Longing and the Short of It").

Daniel is also co-author - along with his father,...

Mark Matousek is an award-winning author, teacher, and speaker.

He is the author of eight books: Sex Death Enlightenment: A True Story; The Boy He Left Behind: A Man's Search for His Lost Father; When You're Falling, Dive: Lessons in the Art of Living; Ethical Wisdom: The Search for a Moral Life; Ethical Wisdom for Friends; Mother of the Unseen World: The Mystery of Mother Meera; Writing to Awaken: A Journey of T...

Ray Fauteux grew up in Vancouver, BC and now resides in Calgary, AB, Canada.

A heavy drinker and smoker for much of his youth, Ray was inspired by the 1976 Olympic Games in Montreal to take up the sport of running at the age of 27. The completion of his first marathon the following year was the beginning of a career in endurance racing that would last over three decades. During that time, Ray completed over 30 marathons, ...

Don Johnson graduated from college and lived as a monk in an ashram for ten years before a thirty-year career in the performance improvement industry as a leadership consultant and vice president of sales. He is a top writer on Medium.com, and has recently written a book with the working title "Be More Conscious: A Guide for Living, Learning, and Loving." He lives with his wife in a seacoast village in northeast Scotland....

Gregg Levoy is the author of two remarkable books: "Callings: Finding and Following An Authentic Life" and "Vital Signs: The Nature and Nurture of Passion".

He is a regular blogger for Psychology Today, former columnist and reporter for USA Today and the Cincinnati Enquirer, and has written for the New York Times Magazine, Washington Post, Omni, Fast Company, and many other publications.

He fr...

Jennah-Louise Salkeld is a mindset coach, human connection specialist, and host of the “To Be Human” podcast. On her show, she shares conversations with high achievers that get to the heart of who they are behind their personas and accomplishments, humanizing them in such a way as to challenge and inspire her listeners to get curious about and explore more of their own potential.

Jennah-Louise is also something of a high a...

Merle R. Saferstein has been journaling for 48 years, and has amassed a collection of 380 journals, the majority of which are the basis for her newly published book "Living and Leaving My Legacy, Vol. 1".

After 26 years as a Holocaust educator, wherein she worked with hundreds of Holocaust survivors, helping them share their stories with younger generations, she retired and created Living and Leaving Your Legacy...

Sisters Karissa and Sherise Schlaht grew up on a farm in southern Alberta, Canada.

Karissa is a self-described "finance nerd", transformational leader in the banking industry, mother of two, and a passionate advocate for diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Sherise is a student of the human psyche and condition, an addiction and mental health aficionado, a dog mother, and a highly sensitive empath.
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Known across the world on YouTube as "Piano Man Steve", Steve Lungrin is a singer/songwriter, independent recording artist, performer, and web-based piano teacher. Inspired by the great singer/songwriters of the '60s, '70s, and '80s - particularly Billy Joel and Elton John - Steve has been performing professionally for over 25 years.

Steve created the "Piano Man Approach" in 2011, where ...

Doug Chamberlin has, over the years, been an A-list Hollywood screenwriter, a university professor, a full-time investor, a hiking guide author, an independent publisher, an infopreneur, a nomad, and a "hilariously unsuccessful" house flipper.

He has written numerous screenplays, television episodes, sketches, and television scripts. Most notably, Doug co-wrote the screenplay for "Toy Story 2" - a film...