Send us a text

C4 Leaders – the ONLY nonprofit to utilize the pizza making process to create space for our companions to be seen, heard, and loved. We work with businesses, sports teams, hospitals, churches…anyone looking to RISE TOGETHER. We also write children’s books and use the most amazing handmade, hand-tossed, sourdough pizza to bring out the best in each other. Please check out PIZZADAYS.ORG to support our important work.

Season 5 Episode #25 Brandi Acevedo is coming from Los Angeles, Ca (inform, inspire, & transform)

You can find Brandi via Instagram @zola_x_b

About our guest: Brandi is a proud graduate of UC Davis and USC with degrees in Biological Sciences and a Doctorate of Pharmacology from USC. In her pharmacist role, Brandi is a strategic and results-driven Clinical Manager with over 15 years of experience in hospital pharmacy, clinical program development, and cost containment. Brandi is a master of building cross-functional relationships with hospital leadership and clinical teams that drive innovation, compliance, and operational excellence.

Brandi’s expertise extends to many aspects of life including personal training, nutrition, mindfulness, resiliency work, discipline, and overall mental, physical and spiritual well-being.

Brandi, thanks for sharing your many gifts with people and patients, thanks for continuing to be a positive role model in the fitness and nutrition space and for being our guest on Life’s Essential Ingredients – welcome to the show!

TOTD – “I am rooted, but I flow.” Virginia Woolf

Build a habit - to create intention - to live your purpose!

In this episode:

What was life like growing up?

What are your life’s essential ingredients?

Polypharmacy

The body follows where the mind leads

Resilience and Discipline beat motivation

Every rep starts in your head

Athlete

Mindset

Reign Warrior

Health

Fitness

Nutrition

Polypharmacy

AI in your world..

ISSA Certified Personal Trainer

Legacy

Send us a text

C4 Leaders – the ONLY nonprofit to utilize the pizza making process to create space for our companions to be seen, heard, and loved. We work with businesses, sports teams, hospitals, churches…anyone looking to RISE TOGETHER. We also write children’s books and use the most amazing handmade, hand-tossed, sourdough pizza to bring out the best in each other. Please check out PIZZADAYS.ORG to support our important work.

Season 5 Episode #24 Jessica Danel is coming from Bakersfield, Ca (inform, inspire, & transform)

You can find Jessica via her website jesssaying.net

About our guest: Jessica Danel is an animated, bold, and unapologetically honest storyteller, entrepreneur, and podcast host. As the creator of the Jess Saying podcast, she’s known for mixing heart, humor, and raw truth in ways that resonate with audiences from all walks of life.

Jessica built a million-dollar preschool business from her living room while raising three children, two of whom have special needs. Choosing to step away from it all to prioritize her family was a turning point that led to her memoir, Bucket List from a Redneck Girl. The book pulls no punches, chronicling her small-town upbringing, the chaos and beauty of motherhood, and the journey to reclaim her voice after life’s toughest hits.

Through her writing and her podcast, Jessica creates space for real conversations about family, marriage, identity, and starting over, offering stories that are messy, funny, heartfelt, and deeply relatable.

Jessica, thanks for having the courage to keep telling your story, for creating space for others to tell theirs and for being our guest on Life’s Essential Ingredients…welcome to the show!

TOTD – “Because sometimes the past deserves a second chance.” Malcom Gladwell

Build a habit - to create intention - to live your purpose!

In this episode:

What was life like growing up?

What are your life’s essential ingredients?

Congrats on the book – Bucket List from a Redneck Girl…fighting, bullying…

Family – raising three children – two special needs…joys and challenges

Identity

Fresh Starts

Mindset

Growing through tragedy

Finding your voice

Transformational vs. Transactional stories/leadership/families/interactions

Last book or books you recommend?

Legacy

Send us a text

C4 Leaders – the ONLY nonprofit to utilize the pizza making process to create space for our companions to be seen, heard, and loved. We work with businesses, sports teams, hospitals, churches…anyone looking to RISE TOGETHER. We also write children’s books and use the most amazing handmade, hand-tossed, sourdough pizza to bring out the best in each other. Please check out PIZZADAYS.ORG to support our important work.

Season 5 Episode #23 Dr. Kate Lund is coming from Edmonds, Washington (inform, inspire, & transform)

You can find via her website katelundspeaks.com

About our guest: Growing up with Hydrocephalus took the ordinary out of her childhood. Numerous surgeries, countless doctor visits and relentless recovery periods had become the norm for Kate. But through it all, she found one thing that kept her thriving – the power of resilience in extraordinary circumstances. Building her life around finding incredible possibility on the other side of challenge kept her driven and ultimately helped Kate find her true calling.

Today, Kate is a licensed clinical psychologist of 15 years, peak performance coach, best-selling author and TEDx speaker. Her specialized training in medical psychology includes world-renowned Shriners Hospital for Children, Boston, Massachusetts General Hospital, and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, all of which are affiliated with Harvard Medical School. Kate uses a strengths-based approached to help her clients improve their confidence in school, sports and life while helping them to become more resilient and reach their full potential at all levels.

Thanks for sharing your many gifts, for putting your courage, thoughts, experience, and insight on paper (three times) and for guiding all people to see life’s adversities as opportunities for growth and understanding. Welcome to the show!

TOTD – “Your actions are your only true belongings.” Thich Nhat Hanh

Build a habit - to create intention - to live your purpose!

In this episode:

What was life like growing up?

What are your life’s essential ingredients?

What is Resilience

The power of managing our emotions – RULER…

Self-Awareness, Social Awareness, Self-Management,

Practical tools to use to help maintain homeostasis…

Mantra…

Friendship

Social Demands of being human

Books you recommend

Legacy

Send us a text

C4 Leaders – the ONLY nonprofit to utilize the pizza making process to create space for our companions to be seen, heard, and loved. We work with businesses, sports teams, hospitals, churches…anyone looking to RISE TOGETHER. We also write children’s books and use the most amazing handmade, hand-tossed, sourdough pizza to bring out the best in each other. Please check out PIZZADAYS.ORG to support our important work.

Season 5 Episode #22 Heather Colley is coming from London, England (inform, inspire, & transform)

You can find Heather via her website heathercolleyauthor.com

About our guest: Heather Colley is a PhD student in English Literature at the University of Oxford (Regents Park College). Her current research is focused on late 19th and early 20th century jazz and blues aesthetics in transatlantic modernist literature, with a particular emphasis on the impacts of musical forms and tropes on literary experimentation and cultural development. Heather completed her Master’s in Modern and Contemporary Literature with Distinction at St Andrews, where she studied lyric and form in the work of mid-twentieth century African American women novelists. She received her Bachelor’s in English Literature/Creative Writing and Sociology at the University of Michigan Ann Arbor. Heather’s writing won The Oxford Review of Books Short Fiction Prize, the Hopwood Award, and inclusion in the Desperate Literature anthology. The Gilded Butterfly Effect is Heather’s debut novel.

Thanks for sharing your many gifts and creativity with the world, having the courage to take your gift and put it on paper and for being our guest on Life’s Essential Ingredients…welcome to the show.

TOTD – “There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” Maya Angelou

Build a habit - to create intention - to live your purpose!

In this episode:

What was life like growing up?

What are your life’s essential ingredients?

What was your inspiration to study literature? And to go abroad…

50k students to use health services…what are some of the challenges that college students face in finding someone to talk to…

The importance of connection and where fraternities and sororities attempt to fill that gap…

The writing process…what is yours and how do you overcome the challenges and joys that come with it…

How great did it feel to finish your book and to receive the author’s copy…

October 21st…released your first book…Beautiful book cover…

Stella, Penny, Millie, Leah…Thoughts on substances to help with mental health challenges…

Study drugs that help enhance focus… what are your thoughts on the rewiring of our brain leading to needing drugs to help us focus, leading to emotional uncertainty…

What characteristics do college students need to be successful? What characteristics do colleges need to create success for their students?

What is the main takeaway you want the reader to take from your book? How do you want to be perceived as a writer?

Plans for book 2 and so on… dealing with the pressure or excited to get to writing…

Book you recommend?

Legacy

Send us a text

C4 Leaders – the ONLY nonprofit to utilize the pizza making process to create space for our companions to be seen, heard, and loved. We work with businesses, sports teams, hospitals, churches…anyone looking to RISE TOGETHER. We also write children’s books and use the most amazing handmade, hand-tossed, sourdough pizza to bring out the best in each other. Please check out PIZZADAYS.ORG to support our important work.

Season 5 Episode #21 Mitch Weisburgh is coming from Larchmont, New York (inform, inspire, & transform)

You can find Mitchell via his website https://www.mindshiftingwithmitch.com

About our guest: For over four decades, Mitch has been at the intersection of education, technology, and learning transformation, helping individuals, educators, and organizations rethink how we learn, teach, and grow. Recently Mitch authored Mind Shifting: Stop Your Brain from Sabotaging Your Happiness and Success.

Mitch is the creator of the Mind Shifting Method — a neuroscience-backed system helping high-achievers, coaches, and transformational leaders move beyond mindset alone to rewire their emotional operating systems for sustainable resilience, clarity, and self-trust. Mitch works at the root level, so resilience, creativity, and powerful leadership become automatic, not exhausting. When individuals stop fighting their own brain, growth stops feeling like survival — and starts feeling like freedom.

Mitch, thanks for sharing your many gifts with people all over the world, thanks for continuing to challenge yourself to learn, grow and teach. Thanks for being our guest on Life’s Essential Ingredients – Welcome to the Show!

TOTD – “A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old dimensions.” Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

Build a habit - to create intention - to live your purpose!

In this episode:

What was life like growing up?

What are your life’s essential ingredients?

What is Happiness and what is Success

Self-Awareness/Metacognition…

Self-Regulation…leading to general well-being and wellness…

Creating Harmony with Technology and Mindfulness…

Expectations vs. Standards… dealing with not meeting expectations or setting self up for failure…

Using Mindshift to transform life’s experiences that aren’t what we thought?

Igniting Human Potential

Rising Together… to embrace complexity…

Goals – reaching 5 million people with resourcefulness, resilience and collaboration…

What to do with Feedback…

Decision Making Process and what your brain is telling you…

Positive Self- Talk…

Mindshifting – Stop Your Brain From Sabotaging Your Happiness and Success – congrats on your book…

BOOKS - Conflict and Collaboration coming out in November…

Motivational Interviewing…

Styles of Conflict Resolution…

Books you recommend?

Legacy

Send us a text

C4 Leaders – the ONLY nonprofit to utilize the pizza making process to create space for our companions to be seen, heard, and loved. We work with businesses, sports teams, hospitals, churches…anyone looking to RISE TOGETHER. We also write children’s books and use the most amazing handmade, hand-tossed, sourdough pizza to bring out the best in each other. Please check out PIZZADAYS.ORG to support our important work.

Season 5 Episode #20 Joshua Fineman is coming from the North London area (inform, inspire, & transform)

You can find Josh via his website https://bemoremensch.com

About our guest: Josh is the founder of Mensch—a community helping men reconnect to purpose, presence, and a deeper sense of belonging. Josh’s methodology is through one on one coaching, men’s circles, and modern rites of passage. The technique isn’t the focus, Josh’s focus is on providing nourishment to men’s hearts and souls. Based in North London, Josh’s work blends nature, adventure, and honest conversation to support men in moving from simply functioning to living life with intention, meaning, and purpose.

Thanks for guiding men to develop their best versions of their current selves and therefore, building strong family, community, and social bonds. Your work is so needed, so valuable, and essential in moving us forward as a people. Josh, welcome to the show.

TOTD – “Owning our story can be hard but not nearly as difficult as spending our lives running from it. Embracing our vulnerabilities is risky but not nearly as dangerous as giving up on love and belonging and joy—the experiences that make us the most vulnerable. Only when we are brave enough to explore the darkness will we discover the infinite power of our light.” Brene Brown

Build a habit - to create intention - to live your purpose!

In this episode:

What was life like growing up?

What are your life’s essential ingredients?

Father of three children, husband, coach, facilitator…

Providing NOURISHMENT

The importance of TOUCH…

Tell us about Mensch and let’s start with telling the listeners what it means? Yiddish translation is to be a person of integrity and honor…How did it start?

What does it mean to take the ARMOUR off… what does that mean, why do men wear it and how do you help your clients learn how to take it off…

Nursing….SELF CARE… often so hard to care for ourselves over caring for others…

Life is a CARGO SHIP… explain…

The power of NO…

How important is commitment to building trust and comradery……

Reframing, reprogramming…what being a man means…

The POWER of a tribe… community- specifically the power of sharing…

One on one coaching…

Courage, Generosity, Fellowship, Presence

Living life with intention

Packs, Quests, Guides, Community Gatherings…

Books you recommend?

Legacy

Send us a text

C4 Leaders – the ONLY nonprofit to utilize the pizza making process to create space for our companions to be seen, heard, and loved. We work with businesses, sports teams, hospitals, churches…anyone looking to RISE TOGETHER. We also write children’s books and use the most amazing handmade, hand-tossed, sourdough pizza to bring out the best in each other. Please check out PIZZADAYS.ORG to support our important work.

Season 5 Episode #19 Jon Engelson and Joe Holtzberg coming from Brooklyn, New York

You can find Jon and Joe via their website joburgmeats.com. Please go to the website for a 15% discount and enter Jeff15 as the code. Enjoy!

About our guest: For over 30 years, Jon worked as an entrepreneur, business consultant, and holistic health coach. Jon founded You Are What You Eat, Inc., which earned a spot on the Inc. 500 list of fastest-growing companies. Jon currently serves as the Chief Strategic Officer for Joburg Meats.

In addition to his work with Joburg Meats, Jon has supported food and snack start-ups with a 21-point checklist that helps ensure successful launches. Jon has also led seminars and private coaching sessions on holistic health and healing, helping individuals and businesses create strategies for growth and well-being.

Jon, thanks for sharing your many gifts with countless individuals and businesses. Thanks for caring about our world and for developing processes and methodologies that result in efficiency, holistic health, and overall well-being. Thanks for being our guest on Life’s Essential Ingredients - Welcome to the show!

TOTD – “It is our choices that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.” Dumbledore

Build a habit - to create intention - to live your purpose!

In this episode:

What was life like growing up?

What are your life’s essential ingredients?

What is the best part of your relationship?

Where does the business name Joburg come from?

What does Kosher mean in relation to the meat you produce?

Metabolic Syndrome (increase risk of stroke, heart disease, type 2…)

Yuda is a energy healer…less than a year old…and son was choking…then became an EMT….

SHOW ME THE MONEY… CHEAPENING THE MARKET TO MAKE MORE MONEY..

Sustainability about your product

Grass raised or grass finished…

Pasture raised vs grain fed beef…

Regenerative farming = nutrient dense foods…

Legacy

Send us a text

C4 Leaders – the ONLY nonprofit to utilize the pizza making process to create space for our companions to be seen, heard, and loved. We work with businesses, sports teams, hospitals, churches…anyone looking to RISE TOGETHER. We also write children’s books and use the most amazing handmade, hand-tossed, sourdough pizza to bring out the best in each other. Please check out PIZZADAYS.ORG to support our important work.

Season 5 Episode #18 Jacquie Elliott is coming from Bend, Oregon (inform, inspire, & transform)

You can find via her website jacquieelliottclc.com

About our guest: In 1994, a spiritual awakening set Jacquie on a path of transformation. Jacquie built a successful business, prioritized fulfilling relationships, and pursued her education to become a certified Life, Relationship, and Spiritual Coach.

Coaching is her true purpose, through retreats and workshops, Jacquie helps others uncover their true selves and break free from limiting beliefs. Her focus is on helping her clients combat what she calls "Tornado Head of abusive brain chatter." Her spiritual coach training has helped others not only find a loving higher power, but how to walk a spiritual path.

Jacquie, thanks for sharing your many gifts with people all over the world, thanks for continuing to learn, grow and challenge yourself, and thanks for being our guest on life’s essential ingredients. Welcome to the show!

TOTD – “George Bernard Shaw stated, “Progress is impossible without change; and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.”

In this episode:

What was life like growing up?

What are your life’s essential ingredients?

What does a spiritual path mean to you?

Conquering ABCs – abusive brain chatter…

Has ABC gotten worse with technology?

Best part of being a mom to two beautiful sons..

What is normal…

Healing

Forgiveness

Grace

Mindfulness

Red Flag List…love it…

The importance of awareness, beliefs, and challenging core beliefs…

Loving Chatter

I will guide you to the stillness and a sanctuary to which you can retreat at anytime and be yourself. Don’t wait to step into the life you deserve!

Retreats

Legacy