Origin Story

That's the sound of a big deal At Wayfair. That sound happens a lot. Dream sofa for half the price. Big deal. New dining table you've been eyeing for months. Big deal. Finally picking up those last few pieces and finishing that bedroom. Now that's a really big deal. Whatever your home needs, Wayfair has the selection, the savings and over millions of five star reviews to back it up. Shop Wayfair.com today before someone else snags your big deal.

Wayfair Every Style, Every Home Living a life in full is a conversation you always wanted to have with that person who gave an amazing TED Talk or the author of one of your favorite books, or that inspirational Olympian you always wanted to know more about. It's graduate level conversations with those making a difference in the world and in the lives of others. This show brings you new ideas and approaches so that you can live a life in full. I'm your host, Dr. Chris Stout, and I hope you enjoy this episode. I've been fortunate to have met or worked with some pretty amazing people and I've been invited to participate in some pretty amazing conferences. Ted's south by Davos with the World Economic Forum, Renaissance Weekends and no, not Renaissance fairs, no mutton, no jousting or anything like that. If you enjoy the Tim Ferriss show or things like Freakonomics Radio, Rich Roll or James Altucher, even things like Dirtbag Diaries or Farnum street or Revival, yes, Revival motorcycles. If you enjoy Noah Kagan or Edge or Chris Gillibow or White Coat, black art or 99% visible. All of these are the kinds of podcasts that I think this show will be very similar to. And if you're a fan of those, then hopefully you'll become a fan of A Life in full. We'll cover productivity, we'll cover traveling the world. We'll cover startups and fitness and endurance sports of all sorts. Sounds a little Dr. Seussish there. Creativity, medicine and healthcare technology, climbing, land speed racing of course. What's a podcast without land speed racing? We'll cover film and documentaries. Big fan of those. Psychology, setting world records, leadership, big data, writing, relationships, accomplishment and basically everything in your life and probably a little smidgen more. If you're interested in traveling the world, getting really fit, being published, starting your own company, experiencing unique situations, doing unusual things, improving your clinical practice. If you're a practitioner, going on adventures, helping others and making a difference in the world. All the above. Then again, this is hopefully the podcast for you. I interview extreme athletes and astronauts, authors and Graffiti artists and martial artists, scientists and startup founders, even Nobel laureates. Really, anyone that's made a significant impact in the world and that we can learn from and be inspired by. That's how I selected these folks. My style of interviewing is more conversational than interrogation, and I think it was Bismarck who once said something along the lines of, anybody or any fool can learn from experience, but I prefer to learn from the experience of others. And while I'm not just any fool, I think this is kind of the ethos of what this podcast will be. So, you know, who am I? What's my cred? Why am I doing this show? Well, I'll just give you a quick little sketch of my origin story. I grew up not under the best of circumstances, pretty poor family. I was obese, which is particularly a drag when you consider my last name. I was the only child of divorced parents and had various health and learning issues, et cetera, et cetera. Woe was me. I kind of grew up in the hospital, not because I was sick, but because my mom and I lived with my grandmother and she became deathly ill. And for a year, every day after school, when school was in, I would go spend time with her, and I sort of became the de facto mascot on the oncology unit. And this was in an era when kids really were not widely accepted into hospitals for a couple of reasons. Kids tend to be little petri dishes of communicable bugs, and kids tend to be disruptive, and evidently I was neither of those, and really sort of became kind of taken under the wing of a lot of the docs and nurses and staff there and really felt like that was perhaps maybe one of the harbingers of growing up and having internships and practicum experiences and postdoc fellowships and things in medical settings and hospitals, and working in a hospital as a practitioner as well as an administrator and researcher, and been on faculty at Feinberg School of Medicine at Northern Northwestern and currently on faculty at the College of Medicine at University of Illinois. So a lot of those kinds of things, and then those had overlaps with, you know, really liking to teach and interviewing and things like that. So I think they all kind of came together and conspired to be the kind of person that likes to do a lot of interviews, trained to do interviews as a clinical psychologist, and really seems to, you know, kind of manifest in this way. And while things were tough and I had been heavy and all that good news is back when I was a teenager, I lost 64 pounds. And since then I've run ultras and climbed three of the seven summits, which gets us into the Dirtbag Diaries and we'll talk to some pretty cool climbers. And then I kind of went the opposite direction. Got scuba certified, did the Great Barrier Reef and the Blue Hole and all sorts of adventuresome things. I was the first in my family to go to college and thank you very much to scholarships on a full ride and so far the only one to go to graduate school and earn a doctorate, which is in clinical psychology and still licensed to this day. I've been fortunate enough. It was really a time saver and step saver. I've gotten four additional doctorates, honorary ones, and that's been really kind of crazy. We'll probably talk about some of those kinds of things. Like I mentioned earlier with the faculty appointments and things like that. I really do like to teach. I like to share information and communicate. I have written a lot. I published 36 books. Please do check them out and even more so buy them on Amazon. But four of them really were based on public published interviews with folks that from psychologists to world leaders and leaders of really some amazing nonprofits and things like that. So again, podcasting is not a far jump from that. And basically my philosophy, it's my belief that the way to change the world and to help others is to help them reach their potential. About 10 years ago I started a non profit center for global initiatives and that's sort of been the goal of that. It's a all volunteer organization and we've done a lot of things to help found programs and projects and stuff. So also check that out if that's something that's of interest to you. A lot of free goodies there, always and all the time. I've found ways to get out of poverty and I've committed my work and life and personal life to helping others get the kinds of things that they need. And I really feel like, you know, kind of at this point it's, it's kind of payback time for me to try and to give back. So it's my goal to help others to do what may have seemed impossible at other times in their lives and honestly to kind of live to the full aspect of living a life in full. So please do take a look at our website. It's simply a lifeinfull.org you can learn a lot more there. There's a lot of free tools that you can access there. You can get show notes and listen to past episodes and you can join in the conversation too. This is very interactive. This is. This is our tribe, this is our community. So there is a web page that we have or a Facebook page that we have a life in full. So check it out and please do feel free to join and weigh in and share on it. You can follow me on Twitter @Doctor CHR Stout. We have a lot of our tools and publications on issu. Issu. So check those out. You can also sign up for our free email newsletter and you can follow me. I'm a LinkedIn influencer and you can follow my blogs and I curate a lot of information in that area and I am kind of a content fiend. I'll warn you now. I have a variety of things that I curate from productivity and startup resources. I'm an angel investor and advisor. Career trip trips. Career trips. Go go somewhere and work. Travel hacks, career tips, issues on leadership. I'm real into again, kind of the sharing economy with a variety of things of tech tools and free apps and things like that. Work real hard to try and stay fit. So I share a lot of stuff around fitness and nutrition and exercises and sometimes kind of crazy routines and things like that. Book recommendations. Have to stay a psychologist, so always talk about relationships and networking and things like that too. So feel free to also, you know, connect with me. Let me know if you have someone that you'd recommend to be on the show. Once you get kind of a feel for the vibe that we have, it'll probably start to connect some dots for you and I'd love to hear from you. Also, do check out our Lifeless project in our 275 by 60 project. I'm going to be a little coy about that so that hopefully your interest will get up and you can google those or find out about them on SlideShare on our website. They're. They're kind of cool. I'd like to have you join in. So if all this sounds good, then I really encourage you to buckle up, take a listen. If you enjoy the show, I'd really appreciate if you'd share it and tell your friends and leave us your review on itunes. Thanks for tuning in and until the next time, I'm Dr. Chris Stout and this is Living a Life in Full. Living a Life in Full is a production of Stout Media, a subsidiary of Gordian Knot, llc. Assistant Gracie Wong Music Dan o' Brien Sam Rude Graphics Larry Newberry Executive producer and host, Dr. Chris Stout to learn more, stop by our website alifeinfull.org for show notes and please recommend us to your friends and leave us a review on itunes. Thanks.