#002 - Alex Hussain - Son of a Pastor Who Left the Church and Found God

#013 - Alaina Booth - The Death of Fun: Why Your Life Feels So Boring (And How to Come Alive Again)

When did your life start feeling so boring? Alaina Booth has built a following by pointing her camera at something the internet keeps telling us no longer exists: proof that the world is still good. She is a director, videographer, and storyteller whose found-footage videos of strangers, community, and everyday human connection have reached millions — including a series about six generations of women who all lived in the same college house, and a caption that accidentally started a war in her comments: "But what if most people are good?" A few lines that stuck with me: "Courage is a moment of decision where you say, I'm going to trust myself and try something new." "There is no amount of good energy that is ever wasted." "The easiest way to connect with someone is to expect nothing from them." "Never compromise who you are to get closer to the top of the mountain." In this conversation, we explore why life starts to feel boring the moment we automate the play out of it, why the top of courage is simply being seen trying, and what it takes to keep your childlike spirit alive in a world that punishes you for it. Alaina breaks down strangermaxxing, whimsymaxxing, and the difference between someone being unsafe and simply being different. We talk about the Honey House and why people keep finding her videos, why you can automate your entire life into total isolation, the discipline experiment that made her miserable, her Ten Commandments for living, and the Mary Oliver instruction she can't get out of her head: pay attention, be astonished, tell about it. Someone has to dance first so the rest of us remember we can. Alaina is that person. Chapters 0:00 A season of change is coming 3:09 What makes you feel most alive 4:23 Your spirit leaves before your body 6:25 Alaina's thesis on life 7:25 You should try more 9:12 What courage actually is 11:02 Raised by a single mom 13:30 Watching an adult give herself grace 14:46 Let yourself be new at this 15:09 The courage to do it bad 16:57 Whimsy maxing explained 17:49 The stranger maxing formula 19:17 Not safe vs just different 21:38 Life maxing is internal 23:06 Keeping your childlike spirit alive 24:44 The business baddie surprise 26:27 Make room for spontaneity 27:23 The discipline experiment that failed 28:08 The longevity scam 28:45 You never arrive at healed 29:47 Where is the line of enough 30:31 The oil on the spoon parable 33:15 The Honey House story 36:00 The video that went viral 38:31 Why we feel so alone now 41:19 The formula for connection 43:13 The 8 Mile secret 45:01 Stop being a chameleon 47:19 Code to download into humanity 49:34 The middle school sweatshirt 53:02 What if most people are good 55:51 No good energy is wasted 58:30 Integrity as the top value 1:01:28 Alaina's Ten Commandments 1:04:33 Pay attention, be astonished 1:08:54 Inspired by the real world 1:10:30 Keep joy visible Follow Alaina: https://www.instagram.com/lainabooth/ Read Alaina's Substack: https://substack.com/@alainabooth Follow Billy: https://www.instagram.com/billygartonjr/ Follow the podcast: https://www.instagram.com/youchoosepodcast

#012 - Blu of Earth - The Disease of Distraction: Why You Can't Hear God (And How to Finally Listen)

What would you do if you woke up tomorrow and the world had gone silent? Eight months ago, that's exactly what happened to Blu. After 34 years of hearing, she went deaf overnight — and instead of becoming a victim of the experience, she calls it the most sacred teacher of her life. Blu is an artist, mystic, and storyteller. Alongside her creative partner Lily Ashwell, she spent three and a half years hand-crafting "Heavenly Bodies Tarot" — a tarot deck of 78 original artworks made entirely by human hands, in a world drowning in synthetic noise. She is also the host of the Deja Blu podcast. A few lines from the conversation that stuck with me: "Comfort is the death of the evolution of the soul." "The most sacred thing is what is." "We're running ourselves dry, getting ourselves sick, and wondering why we can't hear God." "It's really inefficient to be an asshole." and...my overwhelming favorite: "The only disability is that of a bad attitude" (original quote from Scott Hamilton) In this conversation, we explore what it means to turn your greatest challenge into your greatest gift, why comfort is the death of the evolution of the soul, and how to tell the difference between synthetic and authentic in the age of AI. Blu shares the story of sending telepathic apologies from a treehouse in the Amazon jungle — and receiving two replies. We talk about why time isn't real, how ritual turns the mundane into magic, why the goal was never to be high vibe but to be honest with what's most alive, why all judgment is a confession, and what it actually takes to live a meaningful life. She went deaf so she could teach the rest of us how to listen. Enjoy! Chapters 0:00 Living with your soul wide open 3:31 Going deaf overnight 5:37 The most sacred thing is what is 7:00 Comfort is the death of the soul 8:46 The only disability is a bad attitude 11:39 When a sense gets taken away 12:38 Synthetic vs authentic 15:36 Three years making a tarot deck 18:27 Telepathy and the Amazon jungle 21:41 The two apologies arrive 26:10 Lazy or built into a system 27:44 Time isn't real 32:01 The hungry ghost inside you 34:08 Ritual and the bed making competition 36:44 The universe gives you who you are 41:39 Silence is psychedelic 43:42 Who you spend time with matters 48:59 The goal isn't high vibes 49:59 Grieving her old life 55:53 It's inefficient to be an asshole 57:17 How to be angry and graceful 1:00:55 Blu's relationship with embarrassment 1:05:24 All judgment is a confession 1:06:25 Jealousy is a roadmap 1:10:25 Creativity and the God pocket 1:16:39 No one is just talented 1:19:24 The demon Mother Mary painting 1:22:09 Your job is your joy of being 1:28:54 What a meaningful life means 1:37:11 Where to find Blu Get Blu's tarot deck "Heavenly Bodies Tarot": https://www.weareheavenlybodies.com [https://www.weareheavenlybodies.com] Follow Blu: https://www.instagram.com/bluofearth/ [https://www.instagram.com/bluofearth/] Follow Billy: https://www.instagram.com/billygartonjr/ [https://www.instagram.com/billygartonjr/] Follow the show: https://www.instagram.com/youchoosepodcast/ [https://www.instagram.com/youchoosepodcast/]

#011 - Ryan Moresby-White - Nice guys do finish last, no one trusts a man who can't say no and women as a man's greatest initiation.

Something is wrong with men. Not in the way the culture keeps telling us. Not too aggressive, not too dominant, not too much. Wrong in a quieter and far more devastating way. The boy inside never grew up. And nobody noticed. Nobody held a ceremony. Nobody said, that chapter of your life is over, this one begins now. So he kept going. Built the career. Got the girl. Accumulated the evidence. And still woke up every morning feeling like something essential was missing and having absolutely no language for why.Ryan Moresby-White noticed. And he has spent the last decade doing something about it.Born in South Africa, raised in Australia, Ryan walked away from a successful construction career after a breakup cracked him open in a way he didn't expect and couldn't ignore. What he found on the other side became his life's work. Today he has sat with thousands of men at the edge of themselves and helped them cross a threshold they didn't know they needed to cross.You'll hear:Why men keep sabotaging the women they love most. Why the nice guy always ends up alone. Why you can't speak your truth if you were never given the space to discover it. Why it is very easy to be secure when you're single. Why the most powerful men are not the most polished. And why the woman in your life is not the obstacle to your growth. She is the initiation.Chapters03:00 to 09:00 Why men never truly grow up09:00 to 11:10 The difference between trauma and initiation11:10 to 15:30 Why shame runs every male relationship15:30 to 20:00 How shame from childhood shows up in your adult relationship20:00 to 22:00 Ryan's story. The bathroom floor in Bali.22:00 to 25:20 How Ryan let the grief finally bring him to his knees25:20 to 28:00 You can't biohack your way around your grief28:00 to 31:30 Run clubs are just men running from their grief31:30 to 38:00 Ryan climbed to the top and his father still wasn't there38:00 to 41:30 Every man in prison is a hurt little boy41:30 to 44:00 The boy never wanted healing. He wanted holding.44:00 to 48:00 Why your woman is your greatest initiation48:00 to 52:00 Attachment vs authenticity. Why men lose themselves.52:00 to 55:00 The nice guy always loses the woman he loves55:00 to 59:37 No one can trust a man who can't say no59:37 to 01:05:00 What it actually means to be a safe man01:05:00 to 01:12:00 It is very easy to be secure when you're single01:12:00 to 01:18:00 Why men sabotage the love they want most01:18:00 to 01:24:44 Good Will Hunting and the wound that runs everything01:24:44 to 01:32:14 The four archetypes every man needs to integrateWatch Ryan's Documentary "A Rebirth Of The Safe Man":https://youtu.be/BKK9B0o6OAU?is=ozkBqHIMCacJlzjmFollow Ryan: https://www.instagram.com/ryanmoresbywhite/Follow Billy: https://www.instagram.com/billygartonjr/Follow the podcast: https://www.instagram.com/youchoosepodcast/

#010 - Cory Richards - I Risked My Life In Order to Save It. What I Learned About Creativity, Belonging, and Living a Meaningful Life.

If you have yet to subscribe to the show, please do so now. It is massively supportive in our ability to keep bringing you powerful conversations. Thank you for all your love!Cory Richards is a National Geographic photographer, world class mountaineer, and the first and only American to summit an 8000 meter peak in winter without supplemental oxygen. He was diagnosed bipolar at 15, dropped out of high school, placed in a psychiatric unit, and put on the street with nothing. He went on to build one of the most celebrated careers in adventure photography the world has ever seen. He also almost lost everything multiple times along the way. And a month and a half before this conversation, he didn't leave his bed for days.Is this a meditation on madness? A masterclass on creativity? A loving interrogation of every label, diagnosis, and story you have ever told yourself about who you are? For me, it was all three.One line in particular has not left me since we recorded this. Cory said that being buried and being planted are often the same thing. Sit with that for a moment.There is wisdom in abundance here, folks. I am grateful to Cory for his radical honesty, for the poetic precision with which he sees the world, and for being willing to go to places in this conversation that he told me he has never gone publicly before.Get ready to hear about why the wellness industry is in Cory's words also quite sick, what your diagnosis is actually giving you and what it is quietly taking away, why you cannot optimize your way out of a lonely life, what belonging really means and why most of what we call belonging is just manipulation with better branding, the story behind the avalanche selfie on the cover of National Geographic and what Cory has never said about it until now, why certainty kills creativity, where God lives in a life like Cory's, and the only thing in the human experience without a duality - love.I left this conversation with eyes more acutely attuned to the color of everything.It was a gift for me. I hope it serves you well. Chapters:03:00 to 08:30 Inspiration vs Compensation08:30 to 17:50 Living madly in order to escape madness17:50 to 23:28 Your ideology is not your identity23:28 to 29:15 Men are in profound struggle right now29:15 to 33:53 Biohacking is bulls**t33:53 to 46:12 We are pathologically self obsessed46:12 to 53:18 What belonging actually means53:18 to 01:02:32 Certainty kills creativity01:02:32 to 01:09:00 Cory was depressed a month ago01:09:00 to 01:23:27 Being buried and being planted are the same thing01:23:27 to 01:33:55 We are all actors playing roles01:33:55 to 01:42:53 Science saves the world. Art makes it worth saving.01:42:53 to 01:47:52 There is only one thing without a dualityBuy Cory's Book for Yourself or a Friend: https://www.amazon.com/Color-Everything-Journey-Quiet-Within/dp/059359679XFollow Cory: https://www.instagram.com/coryrichards/Follow Billy: https://www.instagram.com/billygartonjr/Follow the podcast: https://www.instagram.com/youchoosepodcast/

#009 - Mastin Kipp - Therapy is making you better at losing...

If you have yet to subscribe to the show, please do so now!! It is massively supportive in our ability to keep bringing you powerful conversations. Thank you for all your love!Mastin Kipp is a number one best-selling author, speaker and Creator of Functional Life Coaching™ for people who are seeking rapid transformation in their lives. He has been featured on the Emmy Award show, Super Soul Sunday, and recognized as a “thought leader for the next generation” by Oprah Winfrey.Mastin has built a highly successful international personal development company that helps people create rapid change, connect to who they really are and how to live their lives with passion and purpose. Through his writing, online courses, in-person seminars and international retreats, Mastin has worked with over two million people in over 100 countries around the world.Oprah recently also named Mastin “one of 100 awakened leaders who are using their voices and talent to elevate humanity,” alongside other teachers such as Tony Robbins, Caroline Myss, Deepak Chopra, Dr. Brené Brown, Marianne Williamson and Eckhart Tolle to name just a few.Is this a live coaching session? A masterclass on winning? A loving interruption to the part of you that is lying to yourself? For me, it was all 3. There is wisdom in abundance here, folks. One passage in particular that stuck out to me from Mastin - "I am more worried when I'm not afraid, because it means I'm not close enough to the edge."A potent and powerful calling card for a life of true empowerment, accomplishment, and fulfilling on the grand vision you hold for your life. I am grateful to Mastin for his piercing honesty, for choosing not to sugarcoat the topics most dance around, and for being willing to speak boldly into all the ways we prevent ourselves from the very thing we desire. Get ready to hear about why the healing industry benefits from keeping you disempowered, what to do about it, how to really win at anything, Mastin's goal setting framework, the skill that determines whether your relationships will survive, what a healthy relationship to fear looks like, what a "one sign disciple" is, the greatest challenge in the world today, and more...This one will challenge how you think about ambition, relationships, healing, and what it actually means to be a fully expressed human.Follow Mastin: https://www.instagram.com/mastinkipp/Follow the podcast: https://www.instagram.com/youchoosepodcast/Follow Billy: https://www.instagram.com/billygartonjr/Chapters 03:00 to 10:15 The greatest challenge in the world today10:15 to 18:30 Break up with the pattern, not the person18:30 to 27:00 Mastin coaches Billy27:00 to 36:00 Ambition...36:00 to 44:30 Building a healthier relationship to fear44:30 to 56:00 Staying calm while unraveling on the inside56:00 to 01:10:00 The part that saved your life01:10:00 to 01:22:00 Why you stop right before the breakthrough01:22:00 to 01:35:00 Therapy is making you better at losing01:35:00 to 01:47:00 Separate therapists are pulling your relationship apart01:47:00 to 01:56:00 Do what you love so you can do who you love01:56:00 to 02:20:54 You don't need any more signs...