Build A Bigger Life

I want to share with you the lessons I learned from one of the most impactful books I’ve ever read. I think everyone has that list of books that has changed their life in some way -- my list seems to grow all the time. It’s funny when someone asks, “What are the top 5 books I should be reading?” I’m always at a loss because I can’t limit the list to just 5. Instead I’m like, here are the top 50 books you should be reading… The book that I’m absolutely suggesting you should be reading on this episode is The Four Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss. Only 2 books hit me as hard and had as much lasting impact as this one and those would be the Bible and How To Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. The 4HWW was recommended to me by a very successful entrepreneur friend of mine back in 2007 when it first came out. I was in the middle of building a mortgage brokerage and was suffering from a bunch of the “busyness” challenges that Tim writes about in his book. But probable the one concept that really jumped o

Amanda Boleyn, on top of being the most photogenic woman on the planet, is the incredible host of the She Did It Her Way Podcast, a freelance consultant, a blogger, a conference planner, and an all around baller. After graduating from the University of Iowa, Amanda took a job with Target managing a $65M store. What she described as ‘drinking from a firehose’, and problematic management issues had her waiting until the very last minute to get out of bed in the morning. She and I had met shortly into her Target career and I suppose I introduced her to living a life by design. The rest, as they say.... What Amanda describes as the Lead Up, the Leap and the Land is what she went through over the next several years. The Lead Up is making that decision as to whether or not you’re going to jump ship and begin creating the life you’ve imagined. Around the 10:00 mark, Amanda talks about making the decision to get out of her comfort zone saying that the timing is never perfect, but the Universe was supporting her in a

Adam Carroll gives you the 411 on how he creates valuable and meaningful content for podcast, speaking, blogging and writing.

Anese Cavanaugh is the author of Contagious Culture, the founder of the IEP Method, and is living an intentional, on-purpose life. THAT is why she’s a featured interview on the Build A Bigger Life Podcast! At the ripe young age of 14, Anese was scooping ice cream at Baskin Robbins, going through some pretty heavy stuff, and had a full body realization that she had total control over how she felt at that moment. That realization has driven her to live a very intentional, passionately detached life doing what she loves to do. Anese’s career started in kinesiology, working with athletes, but after taping 400 feet she realized this would get very boring. Her advisor moved her to cardiac rehab which frustrated her because she was treating conditions that could’ve been prevented. That career choice moved her to corporate wellness, and eventually to what she’s doing today. Try as she may to ditch kinesiology as she transitioned to doing more individual coaching, movement kept coming back to her. That has become the

Kyle is all about the little things in life — hence the name of his uber-successful blog The Penny Hoarder. But don’t let the name fool you, Kyle has more than hoarded pennies, he’s clocked big dollars writing blogs and creating a site that is seen by nearly 8 million unique visitors a month! Kyle’s financial background started with his Mom giving him the reins to do the grocery shopping as a teen, a task he took on with gusto, getting the family grocery bill down to around $30 per week by stacking coupons. They did crazy contests like seeing how low they could get the utility bill — every day checking the meter to see if they beat the day before. In essence, his mom was teaching valuable lessons despite tough economics at home. While Kyle was a political science major in college, he’d drop out of school every time a politician got him fired up and work until they were either elected or not. As political jobs don’t pay a great deal, Kyle was always looking for additional money and one of his jobs was as a bee

Lisa Phillips is in the process of building a bigger life for herself through somewhat unconventional means… and it’s working remarkably well! In 2006, Lisa got her first job after graduating from school and in 2008, she was in her first round of a series of layoffs in her industry after having bought a home well above her means. That experience: of being unemployed, of looking for work, and of trying to keep a house while struggling to make ends meet taught her some valuable lessons. The job market took her to Ohio where Lisa was able to buy a condo for substantially undermarket and it showed Lisa that she could find affordable homes in virtually any market. And most key to the learning was people would live in these homes and pay market rents for properties bought substantially under market! Lisa ended up having to foreclose on her home in Las Vegas (the one that was too expensive to maintain during the recession), so was faced with having that on her credit report. As a result, the homes that she’s buying

Hey Life Architects, Adam Carroll with another Build A Bigger LIfe Solocast. On today’s show I thought I’d share with you a story about one of my earlier adventures, a surprise gift I received from a stranger and what that gift has done for me since then. I’ll share some stories, some lessons learned, and a book suggestion that may very well change your life. It did mine. Shortly after I graduated from college, I sold books door to door for a company called Southwestern Advantage. I spoke about it on Episode 38, The Hardest Job I’ve Ever Had. And while it was indeed a difficult job from an emotional and mental perspective, the rewards were pretty amazing. I met some of my closest friends doing this job, and also was presented with an opportunity to travel abroad with a friend of mine right after my last summer. Clint Taylor, known to his friends as CT, invited me to travel with he and a couple other guys to Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, and Hawaii to celebrate a successful summer on the book field. And, becau

The interviews I feature on Build A Bigger Life are generally people I’ve met in traveling around the country. Rocky Lalvani said one thing to me that stuck with me for days afterwards and THAT is the reason he’s on the show with me. Rocky is the founder and chief writer at RicherSoul.com. He’s a financial coach, an enrolled agent with the IRS, and a money savvy blogger who’s helping people live richer more contented lives. One of the things Rocky and I have in common is our desire to prepare our kids for the financial decisions they’re going to make in life. His stories about teaching his kids delayed gratification happen around the 13:00 mark, and I think you’ll be inspired to do the same things with your children. The strategies he uses are extremely intuitive, very simple, and incredibly effective. “Wealth is doing what you want, when you want, how you want.” According to Rocky, the definition of wealth is different for everyone. It’s not a number, it’s not an exact science. However, there are ways to red

Today’s show is on one of my favorite books of the past 5 years. The book is How To Think Like Leonardo DaVinci by Michael Gelb. Michael Gelb is an organizational development consultant, a professional speaker and seminar leader, and a pioneer in the fields of creative thinking, accelerated learning and innovative leadership. Leonardo DaVinci, if you slept through high school, was only the quintessential Renaissance man who was not only the leading artist of his time (you might recall paintings like the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper), but he was also an enormously talented inventor, musician, scientist, military engineer, and arguably one of the strongest athletes of his time. He lived in the late 1400’s and early 1500s. I’ve been fascinated by DaVinci’s work ever since seeing a traveling exhibit at our local science center which featured many of his drawings and some life-size replicas of what he had designed. DaVinci reportedly was a pacifist, yet designed many machines that were used in battle -- like our

Open any education industry magazine right now and you’ll read about the fact that education is in need of an overhaul. Leave it to an inspired 20-something to figure out how to redefine what it means to pursue higher education. Jules Schroeder would just like you to CreateU. Jules Schroeder is working in collaboration with the People and Planet Project with the United Nations to redefine education and how it’s delivered through CreateU.com. More on that in a bit. What you should know first about Jules is she is a serial entrepreneur, having launched her first 6 figure business in her teens and her first 7 figure business in her early 20’s. She’s a trailblazer and a pioneer when it comes to following businesses and paths that light her up. CreateU is a platform for re-imagining our educational delivery platform. The goal of the platform is to reverse engineer the process of educating young people as they look to what they want to do for a living. Today’s system has many graduates leaving in tens of thousands

On this Build a Bigger Life Solocast is the power of your network when it comes to accomplishing your vision of a bigger life. If you’re anything like me, and you’re listening to the podcast so I have to believe you’re somewhat like me, you have big projects happening on a regular basis. Maybe you’re working on the next big thing, or a book or video project. Maybe you’re even considering starting a business, getting involved in a charity of some kind, or just planning a major vacation. I’m going to share with you today an idea that has helped me immensely in the pursuit of my own bigger life. It’s a concept that came to me on a plane one day while flying to a speaking engagement on the West Coast. The idea that I’m referring to hit me like a ton of bricks and I’ve been somewhat obsessed with the idea of using this method ever since. Essentially, as I sat on the airplane, waiting on the tarmac, I began tracing back through the conversations I’d had with various people that led me to the engagement I was headin

Imagine being handed your diploma from Law School, eager to challenge the very fabric on legal society, landing a prestigious job with a corporate firm… then realizing that you’ll have to be chained to your desk for the rest of forever to pay off your student loans. Natalie Bacon found herself in this situation -- $206,000 in student loans and a career in law that wasn’t especially rewarding or fulfilling. Her response to the situation: she began to pursue what lit her up and got into fee based financial planning. The result has been a successful blog at TheFinanceGirl.com, and a growing number of followers who do almost exactly what Natalie suggests they do online. I uncover on the show that she’s a Delayed Gratification Expert (a status I’m going to trademark), and her ability to make, manage and direct money has her student loan balance down to the $124,000 mark in a very short amount of time. Natalie shares on the show how to side hustle your way to lower debt, how to face your student loans and tackle th

Hal Elrod is the best-selling author of The Miracle Morning, a book that is widely acclaimed as one of the most life changing books of all time. But most amazing about Hal’s story is the fact that he wrote the book at a low period of his life, but had a vision for the book that it would change the world in a massive way. A quote by Jim Rohn was the catalyst for Hal -- “Your level of success will never exceed your level of personal development.” So Hal went out to find what the most successful people in the world did on a daily basis to create their ideal life. In the end, it wasn’t ONE thing, but about SIX things that the most successful people in the world do every day. So Hal got up at 5am and started doing these six things every day and it profoundly changed his life. Around the 16:00 mark, Hal describes what happened when he was hit head on by a drunk driver at the age of 19 and woke up in a state of complete unknowing of what had happened. A week after the accident, the doctors were seriously concerned a

Bill Westrom is on a mission to help people save money in a slightly unconventional way. If you’ve been a listener to the podcast or read any of my posts on blasting away debt, you’ll know where he’s coming from. However, to the uninitiated, Bill’s advice may seem like it’s clear out of left field. To his credit, Bill has helped hundreds (if not in the thousands) of people get out from under their most oppressive debts and do it in record time. It’s by using a process known as equity optimization, something Bill and his partners have spent the last 12 years promoting through his company Truth In Equity. You’ll hear on the podcast that the reason we wrestle with debt most of our lives is a direct result of the way we bank and borrow in this country. In Bill’s book Master Your Debt he uncovers how to change your life by re-wiring your understanding of massive debt reduction. Bill and his team call their strategy Equity Optimization, but what he offers is primarily education and consulting on how to use the proc

Stefanie O’Connell is excited about her life. She’s part actress, part budgeting ninja, and all awesome. She’s also the author of the recently released book The Broke & Beautiful Life. Stefanie’s education path took her through New York University and majored in musical theater & psychology. For the past 8 years, she’s been working as a “starving artist” in the musical theater scene, but as of the past couple of years realized that she could work in tandem on projects she’s passionate about -- like living a broke and beautiful life! While on a bus & truck tour (where you travel with other entertainers on a bus from city to city doing a show per night), she realized that maybe this vehicle wasn’t the dream she was pursuing. She started a blog on her musings about life, money, and art in general, and within 6 months had developed a solid foothold on the interwebs. Around the 9:00 mark, Stefanie talks about what she’s been doing the past couple years -- mainly focused on growth and investing any extr

Cassandra Bodzak is a force to be reckoned with. A peaceful, loving, inspired force that is in the process of building a business helping others light up their lives through mindfulness, healthy eating, and connecting with their soul. What started out as sharing a recipe-heavy blog with occasional personal stories, Cassandra’s business took on a new life as a coach, a chef, an author, and now a bonafide celebrity. She has certifications as a holistic health coach which led her to Kundalini Yoga, Marianne Williamson, and Gabriel Bernstein -- all directing her down a path of helping people find their joy. Cassandra’s call from the Universe came from ABC when they were looking for people to be on the show The Taste. She had the realization that what she was doing on the show was what she was supposed to do. Not be a TV personality necessarily, but helping people on a grander scale live a grander life. “Stepping into it” is the advice that Cassandra gives when it comes to pursuing what you feel your calling truly