Build Your Utopia

Hello and happy Friday Utopians! Today Josh and Ben talk about Vickie Kerr's episode earlier this week. Ben and Josh think about a comment Vickie made about sacrificing now to have the time later in life to enjoy her time with her husband and when the time came, her husband had passed. Josh and Ben both have a hard time putting themselves in her shoes and dealing with a similar situation. Our hosts also discuss gender bias towards women, especially working women and expecting mothers. Josh understands the 'old school' gender roles, though he may not agree with them, and Ben is just confused by that mindset. We also find out that Josh was a guest on a show this week (that makes two for him and zero for Ben, so far Josh is winning). Hangouts that Convert Startup Dad HQ Josh and Ben then get into Vickie's three points, and dive into the first about negativity and negative people. Our hosts explore how to remove those people from your life, even if they are family or close friends. Josh's son turned six this we

We are very happy to release today's episode. Joining us is Vickie Kerr, the REAL Miss Vickie of Miss Vickie's Chips and the Arizona Language Center. Miss Vickie's utopia is being able to do what she wants, when she wants, and to do the best job that she can. She is living that Utopia now, and has earned it as she's been working towards it her entire life. Miss Vickie started Miss Vickie's chips as a healthy snack for her kids and she grew the business by having a fantastic product and by nurturing her relationships with retailers, customers, suppliers, and her employees. Listen to the show to hear it all strait from her. Miss Vickie left us with some valuable takeaways today Don't listen to negativity and negative people Get over false pride and find the courage to try Have humility and be humble If you want to keep up with Miss Vickie you can find her @RealMissVickie on Twitter @RealMissVickie on Instagram Miss Vickie's Kitchen Arizona Language Center As always, a special thank you to The Strand for our

Welcome to Build Your Utopia!  Happy Friday everyone!  Today Josh and Ben discuss this past week's show with Tony DiLorenzo of One Extraordinary Marriage.  Make sure you listen to Episode 44 or this show will spoil some of the stuff we talked about. How do you come back from the loss of a child?  We think Tony and Alisa handled it in the most positive, productive way possible.  Now we just need to get her on the show and hear her side of the story.  Someone take a note and get her on the calendar. Josh and Ben get sidetracked (big surprise there) and spend some time talking about movies.  Please let us know how you feel about the Andrew Garfield / Spider-Man situation.  And also Heath Ledger's performance in The Dark Knight The Amazing Spider-Man on Amazon andiTunes The Amazing Spider-Man 2 on Amazon and iTunes The Dark Knight on Amazon and iTunes Josh and Ben also talk about Tony's acheivement in hiking the Pacific Coast Trail.  It is a massive distance and our hosts talk about how you can take such a huge

Hello Utopians! We have a great show for you today. Tony DiLorenzo, half of One Extraordinary Marriage, co-author of the Seven Days of Sex Challenge (read on Amazon), and entrepreneur join us to share his story and drop some wisdom. Tony DiLorenzo walks us through his path from the loss of a child, the breakdown of his marriage, through relearning how he and Alisa (his wife) communicate and relate in the wake of everything. Alisa and Tony pick up the pieces, decide their marriage is worth it, and ultimately create a company helping couples improve and grow. Tony DiLorenzo also let's us know what he does for himself and how he finds the time for himself now that he and Alisa run a company. He's made time for learning parkour and even hiked the Pacific Crest Trail. Finally, Tony DiLorenzo shares his three value bombs: Live life in the present & enjoy it Build your life as if you are on the offensive Enjoy the folks around you Find more of what Tony and Alisa have to say at One Extraordinary Marriage. Mak

Happy Friday everyone! On today's episode of Build Your Utopia we talk about this week's interview with Hal Elrod of The Miracle Morning. Make sure you listen to Hal's interview, he provided all of us with a ton of valuable information. We go through a number of Hal Elrod's points today, starting with his previous thoughts on being a husband and a father to his current standpoint. Spoiler alert, he used to think very much as Josh does, very traditional, in that the man provides for the family. While we may have differing views on the traditional parenting roles, that isn't what we talked about. After having a conversation with a friend of his, Hal realized that his role is not a provider, but as a participant. We also talk about Hal Elrod's practice of goal setting, which he calls the CBAs. Clarity - What do you want, why do you want it, what might prevent you from achieving it, and what do you have to do daily to achieve it? Beliefe - What do you need to embody to achieve your goal? Accountability - Do you

Hello Utopians and welcome to Episode 42 with Hal Elrod! This show is jam packed with fantastic advice and he starts it with an amazing revelation, and very on point considering Josh & Ben's discussion on episode 41 (listen to it here). Hal Elrod also teaches us how to set and achieve your goals, and it's as easy as C-B-A! (not ABC, but just as easy to remember as Hal explains. Among all the value Hal provides us in this episode, it is also worth noting that he believes in something Ray Higdon called out in his top three lessons (listen to them here). Hal believes in his goals and he is 'committed until' he makes it. As a testament to Hal Elrod's drive and commitment, working "until" you make it, he shares his story of a horrific car wreck and his amazing recovery. With all the valuable information and inspiration Hal gave all of us, he wrapped up his 3 value bombs into one key idea Everything starts with a solid morning routine Find out more about Hal Elrod Achieve Your Goals Podcast Join the Miracle

Today on Build Your Utopia Josh and Ben reflect on Episode 40 with Ray Higdon.  Ray's episode inspired a few different feelings in both Josh and Ben.  If you haven't listened to episode 40, go listen now, we'll wait. Back?  Good, now let's get into it.  Josh and Ben were both inspired and impressed with Ray.  He was successful, but missed his kids, so he left his job.  He was fantastic in his new job until the market crashed and he lost everything.  After denial and depression, he pulled himself up and created his current business and he is rocking it now.  What is not inspiring about that? Then things get a little heavy with Josh and Ben.  Ray's story about getting rid of baggage (which frees you up for finding new opportunities) and reconnecting with his father impacted both Josh and Ben.  As they think about what his story means, both our hosts reflect on family, parents, kids, and making time for the people you love. Listen to the show and hear what happens. And if you haven't seen Office Space, check it

Ray Higdon is a two-time best selling author and founder of Top Earner Academy. Just a few short years ago Ray had lost it all in the real estate market and was in personal foreclosure and has since created a multi-million dollar a year coaching and training business. His focus is helping entrepreneurs with their home based business. Ray always had a solid work ethic and worked his way up corporate America. He was making a great salary at an insurance company at one point and he was spending more time looking at pictures of his kids then spending time with him. Ray left his job and went into real estate, did really well for a few years, then lost it all, became dead broke, went through a divorce, went into foreclosure, attended an event about building a business from home, inspired, started one, and the rest is history. Ray's Utopia? Being surrounded by people that you want to be surrounded by and doing things that inspire you. Doing stuff at your convenience, do thing that you want to do, not things that yo

Today Josh Marsden & Ben Thompson discuss their interview with Damon Moschetto on episode 38. One of the very first things that they review is the importance of continuing to learn. Damon is very aware of the times in his past professional career when his business stopped growing was exactly when he stopped keeping up with the advancement in his field. They relate this to Josh and how he continually learns the advancements in digital marketing. They also put themselves in Damon's shoes when it comes to having a plan and having that plan removed from you. Damon was injured in college ball and couldn't continue his plans as a professional athlete. What do you do when you can no longer perform at a professional level and your scholarship is lost as well? They explore the differences and challenges associated from moving from a physical location to the digital world. How does a coach correct your posture online? How does a coach motivate you when you're not in their office? The benefits of a digital world are

Damon Moschetto is a high performance coach, author, speaker  and host of the High Performance Living podcast. As a coach he has helped countless men and women transform their lives through his unique style of guiding people to transform themselves by living a high-performance lifestyle. Injuries cut his college baseball career short and the natural progression for him was into the health and fitness industry. After owning and operating his own personal fitness company, in 2001, Damon began working as an account manager and presenter for a national fitness company, traveling across the U.S. training trainers and consulting with club owners regarding their fitness programs. He's also originally from Portland, Maine and now lives in Naples, FL. Damon and his wife own a gym there, Florida Fitness Coaches. They also do online coaching through High Performance Living Online, and run a podcast that you can check out here. Damon believes in “Living life on your terms”. After working in corporate for 10 years, he de

This past week, we had an incredible set of guests.. yes... set of guests... We had John Lee Dumas AND Kate Erickson of Entrepreneur on Fire on the show. Cool story to share with you... Kate joined John at his company, Entrepreneur on Fire, at a time when the company wasn't making money. This was a massive gamble on Kate's part. Shortly after is when Entrepreneur on Fire started taking off and turning into the revenue-generating monster that it is today. During this past week's interview, you will hear a side of John and Kate that you don't get from other interviews or each of their respective shows, Entrepreneur on Fire and Kate's Take. For example, success takes sacrifice, pure hard work, and commitment. Entrepreneur on Fire is no exception. John admits to us during this past week's interview that he gives himself a D- for work-life balance during 2014! This goes to show that if you work hard and make sacrifices, great things can come out of it. In John's case.. 2.5 million great things... If you haven't ch

Build Your Utopia is both honored and excited to have John Lee Dumas and Kate Erickson from Entrepreneur on Fire, arguably the #1 podcast on iTunes. Entrepreneur On Fire, a Podcast interviewing today's most inspiring and successful Entrepreneurs 7-days a week.  Entrepreneur On Fire was awarded 'Best of iTunes 2013’ and generates over $250,000 a month in revenue. John and Kate have founded 3 amazing communities: Podcaster's Paradise, Webinar On Fire, and Fire Nation Elite. With over 950,000 downloads a month, Entrepreneur On Fire has inspired Fire Nation to take control of their life and make the Entrepreneurial leap. Kate Erickson is the Content Creator and Community Leader over at EntrepreneurOnFire. She's also the Host of Kate's Take and the author of The Fire Path. John's Utopia is being able to have the life that he has created for himself, which is something he is really proud of. Kate agrees with John but also believes in a Utopia where she can call her own shots and also have financial freedom. With al

In today's episode of Build Your Utopia, we review our latest reviews and discuss the impact that this week's episode with Jason Snell (you can listen to it here) has had on Ben and Josh. Josh also just spent this week in San Diego at Digital Marketer's Traffic and Conversion Summit, THE conference for the digital marketing industry. While he was at the conference, he also launched his newest venture, CVO Acceleration, a company with the value proposition of doubling sales in 6 months, guaranteed, or a full refund is offered. He discusses that a bit as well in today's episode. Ben felt giddy this week with this week's guest, Jason Snell. Ben is a big fan of Jason's work. Jason started his entrepreneurial path after he left Macworld magazine. Ben and Josh reflect on the difference between working in a struggling company or owning a struggling company and just how much control you have in either circumstance. Finally, Josh and Ben also touch upon the 3 Value Bombs dropped by Jason this past week. Be open to ne

Jason Snell was lead editor at Macworld for a decade, and recently left that job to start Six Colors, an independent web site about Apple and other technology companies. He's also the host of numerous podcasts on the Relay FM network as well as his own The Incomparable network. He left his company to take on a new challenge because he didn’t like his previous job, it was too much management and not enough creativity. Plus, the company was showing signs of sliding downhill. Jason and his former employer parted ways mutually right around the time that the company was going through layoffs. Luckily, Jason was planning ahead and was actively setting up the foundation of his entrepreneurial path. Jason has a great office set up in his garage and has worked with his family to create separation. Jason feels close to being in his Utopia. With his Utopia, he’s not looking for complete security but more challenges, freedom to make creative decisions, and a focus on content and web publishing. He also likes putting the

Great show today for you Utopians. We share with you our best review yet and a special thanks goes to TnT Family Farm. This leads to us reflecting on the review where we mention how important throughout life, business, pretty much all facets of life, to not focus on the past, leave it, and focus on what you can make an impact on: the present and the future. Josh and Ben delve into this in personal detail. Josh in particular shares an experience in management at a Fortune 500 company years ago. Josh and Ben also dive into how technology has impacted them personally and professionally. Josh in particular has felt overwhelmed at times from technologies, like his smart phone, and talks about his challenges there. I'm sure you all can relate with the prevalence of smart phones and tablets in today's society. Ben also just received a promotion! Congrats Ben! Finally, Josh and Ben also reflect on some of the powerful, seriously impactful, Value Bombs dropped by Rachel Martin in this past Tuesday's episode. As always

Today's guest really needs no introduction. Rachel Martin is truly a super-woman. She is a mom, entrepreneur, author, and speaker, that has some amazing accomplishments in entrepreneurship. Rachel Martin, is the writer behind the site FindingJoy.net, is a partner of BloggingConcentrated.com, cohost of the Amplify Podcast,  and a featured writer for The Huffington Post. If that wasn't enough, over the past several years Rachel has built a site with millions of visitors per month that boosts an active and engaging Facebook community, and has created a successful ebook campaign resulting in her first book publication to be released this spring. Her articles have been featured on Huffington Post, PopSugar, iVillage, SheKnows, Parents.com, Salt Lake City Deseret, WhattoExpect, Dr. Greene, Blogher, National Foundation for Celiac Disease, and more. As you can probably tell from her long list of accomplishments, Rachel believes in living each day intentionally and loves working with others to help cultivate vision an

In today's show, hear Josh's rap skills! Actually, more than that, Josh and Ben discuss this past week's episode with Marc Mawhinney . Marc has some powerful quotes in his episode and recommends plenty of books to Utopians, so if you haven't checked out that episode, go here to do so. Josh and Ben analyze some of the current challenges that Josh is dealing with in maintaining a work-life balance while preparing for the launch of his new brand that will serve as a silo of his business. Ben coaches Josh on how he can maintain his "Flow State" through current growing pains (harkening back to our episode with Performance Optimization coach Brandon Epstein) so he can manage the challenges that he is currently going through. Ben has a great exercise that he walks Josh through that truly surprises Josh and makes him realize how time consuming email management can be. As always, a special thank you to The Strand for our intro and outro music!

Great show today with Marc Mawhinney of Natural Born Coaches. With Natural Born Coaches, he helps other coaches build their businesses through his podcast and services. Utopia was hard for Marc to define. It has changed over the years. His Utopia is living a life that makes him happy and is on his terms. Utopian Quotes of the Show "A man is a success if he gets up in the morning, goes to bed at night, and gets up and loves what he wants to do" - Bob Dylan He has changed his life around to a more balanced life that is on his terms since he was younger. He started at 21 in real estate and for 20 years built up a successful real estate company. He used to work crazy hours and spent plenty of time working until late at night (does this sound like any of you?). He thought that’s what he wanted but has since realized that that wasn’t his Utopia. His son, who is now 6, changed his thought of what a Utopia is. He has always had the issue of “chasing the rainbow” and has always had a hard time to stop and appreciate w

Today's show touches upon how piercings, tattoos, and mohawks at work can help you achieve your Utopias. With all his hard work and commitment, Ben, who has tattoos and a mohawk, was able to get a promotion at work! Josh is excited for all the business objectives that he's working on right now, although he's a bit tired and overwhelmed. The show is going great and in today's episodes, we share with Utopians who is coming up on the show. We have some great names, like: Rachel Martin Jason Snell John Lee Dumas and Kate Erickson Ray Higdon And many others! We also talk about this past Tuesday's awesome episode with Morgan Paar, a phenomenal photographer and film director that has traveled the world. He also happens to be Ben's cousin. If you haven't listened to this past week's episode with Morgan, check it out here! To wrap up today's show, Josh and Ben discuss Morgan's 3 recommendations for Utopians and how they feel about them. Quick recap of what they are: Do what you love Be careful of distractions Be co

Today on Build Your Utopia, we have an exciting guest, someone who has traveled the world, produced film projects on several continents, and is just a remarkable human being, Morgan Paar. Morgan is a film director, still photographer, and teacher of film making. He has also published over 200 articles and columns in technology, pop culture, and travel. Morgan has 2 degrees in film and started his professional path into owning and running a film production company in 1986 after first experimenting with film equipment. Morgan lived in Taiwan for 2-3 years, came back to the states for Grad School to be able to teach, lived in the bay area for 12 years, completed film projects, music videos, and film work for the film industry during this time. Shortly after he traveled abroad, and as he traveled he realized he wanted to experience the world. It was during this experience that Morgan discovered one of his passions that he wanted to focus on for his path into entrepreneurship, travel. Morgan and his girlfriend now