VCM: What sparked the idea to start a podcast?

Rich: I wrote a book called Finding Ultra, and I spent a lot of time pushing that book out into the world and in the aftermath of that, I was looking for the next creative outlet, and I wanted to continue the conversation. I had been a fan of podcasting in general. I had consumed hundreds, if not thousands of hours of podcasts when I was training for all these ultra endurance races. It was a time when podcasting was still very new, but I was so intrigued by the medium, and I had gotten so much out of the time that I had invested as a listener, and I thought perhaps I had something to contribute to this. And it did provide that opportunity to expand upon the themes and the topics that are raised in the book that I wrote. Although the sort of wrappings around the podcast have changed and evolved over time the sensibility of the podcast has remained the same, and that is to continue to find and identify ways of growing in mind, body and spirit to host domain experts and other people who have something to share that I can learn and in turn provoke my curiosity and serve the audience in their own journey towards growth, evolution, and self-actualization.

We are all capable of so much more than perhaps we allow ourselves to believe

VCM: Who do you envision as your audience?

Rich: I think every time I try to pin down who the average or typical listener or viewer of the podcast is, I'm always amazed at just how diverse the audience actually is, but, if I had to answer it succinctly, I would say that it is people who are looking to improve their lives, perhaps not dramatically or overnight, but ways in which they can, but ways in which they can incrementally grow. Ways in which they can be healthier, live more fulfilling, purpose driven lives. How to be a better parent, how to eat healthier, how to get fit and stay fit, how to embrace longevity and think differently about healthspan. And how can we give back the privileges and the gifts that we've been given? These are all recurring themes of the podcast and speak to different sectors of the audience.

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VCM: Do you have a favorite moment, story, or lesson learned from the show?

Rich: One of the recurring themes or favorite lessons from the show is this idea that we are all capable of so much more than perhaps we allow ourselves to believe that each and every one of us is sitting atop reservoirs of untapped potential. And I'm very conscious and intentional in the guests that I invite onto the show, because they are all examples of that and model that. And so the lesson being that as good as your life is, or as bad as your life is, there's always more.
There's always more growth. There's no destination to that. And the deeper we look, the deeper the reservoir reveals itself. And so I'm on a growth trajectory. I'm always trying to learn, and I'm always looking for my blind spots as to where perhaps I'm sitting on top of potential that I'm unaware of, and in turn, modeling that and and and encouraging the audience member to think about their own lives and trajectory in the same way.

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