Lifes Black Belts With Eric Alders

Today's Life's Black Belt is Amberly Lago.  What an honor it was to interview her and have her share her amazing story with our listeners. The advice, inspiration and incredible strength she shows in this interview is priceless.  This is a must listen to episode. Amberly was a professional dancer, fitness coach/model and even was featured in MC Hammer's "You Can't Touch this Video."  Having grown up in Texas in a small town dancing and eventually teaching dance, Amberly wanted to pursue her dreams, so at 18 she packed up her belongings and moved to California. Determined to succeed she found a lot of work traveling around the world.  Then tragedy struck.  Her life was deeply altered and her world completely changed in May 2010.  While riding her motorcycle in Woodland Hills, CA, she was hit by an SUV and thrown thirty feet down a busy street.  Her right leg took the brunt of the impact and was crushed almost beyond repair. After an arduous recovery process, lengthy hospital stay

Today's Life's Black Belt is Raana Zia.  Raana is corporate executive/CFO turned spiritual self-help author of the book "Your Hidden Light: A Personal Guide to Creating Your Desired Life."  Raana's passion for developing others and her own personal growth journey has led her to writing a book that synthesizes ancient spiritual wisdom into practical application today.  The purpose of the book is to awaken people up to the powers they already possess to fulfill what is in their heart.  When the book was launched in November 2017, it was immediately selected by a professor at the business school at Suffolk University in Boston to be on his class syllabus for the Spring 2018 Semester – Happiness: How to Get It.We discuss her journey through life as an Indian-American, Mom, Wife, Executive and then how she followed her passion to help others.  I found her story very relatable and inspirational on being ok with change, ok with trying something new and making sure what you do fills up your s

Today's Life's Black Belt is US Army Veteran, Author and Public Speaker, Richard Kaufman.Richard is now known at "The Comeback Coach" for all the work he is doing with helping veterans and people in general to overcome their addictions to drugs and alcohol.Richard and I had a very open and honest conversation about how he finally got sober at the age of 20.  He talks about growing up without a father, getting into trouble a lot as a child, getting hooked on drugs and alcohol by 12 years old and the battle to get and stay sober.He covers his many failures in life including dropping out of school, getting kicked out of the military and almost getting arrested for robbing a bar he worked at.  Instead at that time the arresting officer gave him a choice of going to jail or going into 90 days of rehab.  He chose the later and then went well past the 90 days and spent the next year in rehab, going almost every day.He got himself together but still battled his demons.  Then September 11th took pl

Today's Life's Black Belt is Candice Bakx-Friesen.  Candice is a successful real estate entrepreneur that manages 4 businesses, 4 children and a large portfolio of rental properties.  We talk about her life growing up as a career focused and independent woman that didn't focus on finding a husband or having children.  That all changed when she met her future husband and together they decided that having a family didn't hinder their goals or dreams but rather was an integral part of them. Candice also speaks about how her first child was born with a disability that is of course a part of their every day life.  How they continued to have more children and grow their family and businesses all at the same time.In addition to a very successful real estate portfolio, Candice helps to coach others in her industry. She also loves helping families to create a lasting improvement in their finances. Her goal is to leave a legacy that will change lives many years after she is gone.I really enjoyed our

Today's Life's Black Belt guest is Joel W. Hawbaker.  Joel is a Real Life Leader: husband, father, award-winning high school teacher and soccer coach in Alabama. In addition, Joel is a public speaker and the author of "Inverted Leadership:Lead Others Better By Forgetting About Yourself" which is available on Amazon https://www.amazon.com/Inverted-Leadership-Others-Forgetting-Yourself/dp/1983110167/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr= Joel talks about life, career and family.  Meeting his future wife young and then having his two daughters.   However he was a little too focused on his teaching career and coaching soccer.  He discusses getting divorced, which caused him to focus on improving himself, while learning how to balance his life out in a more productive way.  He stresses how important it was for him to maintain a healthy friendship with his ex wife so that the focus of their relationship could remain on what was best for their daughters. Both Joel and his ex are rem

Today's Life's Black Belt is Jeff Leisawitz.  Jeff burns with a mission— to inspire writers, artists, musicians, filmmakers, entrepreneurs (and everyone else) to amp up their creativity, heal their hearts and shine in the world.Jeff is an award-winning musician/ producer, a critically acclaimed author and internationally distributed filmmaker who has devoted his life to creativity. Not F*ing Around— the No Bullsh*t Guide for Getting Your Creative Dreams Off the Ground is Jeff’s first book and available here: https://www.amazon.com/Not-ing-Around-Getting-Creative/dp/0692899960/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1500397877&sr=8-1&keywords=leisawitzJeff and I discuss his life growing up in PA with his brothers and how lessons learned as a child still impact the man he is today.  He discusses how he first fell in love with music and how that started a passion within him that still burns to this day.  We review how to stay persistent through failures and let downs in life and to always go after what make

Today's Life's Black Belt is Mansu Edwards. Mansu is a prolific artist who continually challenges art forms with boldness and creativity. He talks about his life growing up and how he followed his passion, got up every day to promote himself and never gave up trying to reach his goals. In 2016, Mr. Edwards produced, wrote and directed his first short film, "Texting In New York City". A work inspired from people's responses to the street marketing of its paperback (text) edition. Later on in the year as a result of positive feedback from the Harlem Writer's Group to the movie script, he released a literary screenplay version of "Texting In New York City". A film trailer would soon follow. Past works by Mr. Mansu include: The Disappearance Of Hate (2009), Mental Diet (2010, 2011), Biscuits And Yogurt Vol. 1 (2014), Texting In New York City (2014, 2016), Exotic Ignorance: Ep. 8 Camouflage Pizza (2016), Emojis Vs. Punctuation Marks: Battle Of The Keyboard (2018), Emojis Vs.

Today's Life's Black Belt is Rachel Smets. Rachel is an expat coach, bestselling author, 2x TEDx speaker, professor and Cultural Trainer. In her work, Rachel is dedicated to help dynamic single expats who feel overwhelmed or homesick to gain clarity, plan the next steps and build a social network so that they can feel energized and truly enjoy their new home abroad. She has been living and working abroad in various countries, for many years and has learned to turn every challenge into a new opportunity. Through her experience abroad, she developed a passion for languages and cultural diversity. Rachel provides workshops in various international companies to increase their cultural competence in doing business with other cultures. Her bestseller ‘’Living abroad Successfully’’ is a complete and practical guide from deciding to live abroad to enjoying a successful stay abroad. Rachel loves to inspire people and help them to become their best selves! Links: Website: https://www.rachelsmets.com/ Facebook

Today's Life's Black Belt is Ken Schumacher. Ken has a great story of perseverance and constantly pursuing your passion in life. How to never be afraid to fail and to always try new things in your life. He learned this through his involvement in school sports, where he wasn't the natural athlete but found success through his hard work and surrounding himself by people that were better then him. School sports led to a love for music, where he had a natural gift, and eventually joined a band where he was 6-8 years their junior. Again through this experience Ken discusses how not being the best motivated him to work harder and prove himself, which he did. Ken does discuss some challenges he had goofing off in school and almost failing out of high school. Fortunately a school administrator recognized he wasn't living up to his potential and he challenged Ken to get all A's in order to graduate, which he did. From then on he had a consistent love for learning and bettering himself. He trie

Today's Life's Black Belt is Scott St. John. Scott's positive energy is contagious and after listening to this interview you're going to want to start setting and achieving your goals right away. Scott, along with his wife Laura, own Pearl Street Fitness in Colorado he is one of the top business leaders in Isagenix, he is one of the select few chosen to be on Team Isagenix (an elite group of athletic leaders), runs a very successful health and fitness group on Facebook called "Strong. Confident. Living" which has over 35,000 followers and puts out a daily and free, 15-minute World Wide Workout on Facebook. In addition to being a successful business owner, he is also a successful father, husband and community leader. We discuss his life growing up, important life lessons he learned from his grandfather, meeting his future wife in college and knowing he would marry her before they started dating and how he has grown his business over the years. Scott discusses his passion for givin

Today's Life's Black Belt is Cole "Magrinho" Miller. Cole is a 20x UFC Veteran, over the last 10 years in the UFC he has won the Submission of the Night 4x and Knockout of the Night 1x. He was a cast member of Season 5 of The Ultimate Fighter, which featured other future UFC stars such as Gray Maynard, Joe Lauzon and Nate Diaz to name a few. Cole is the owner of Miller Martial Arts and Fitness in Bonaire, GA. You can visit his school's website at www.ATTWarnerRobins.Com We discuss Cole's life growing up, his love for baseball, college life, getting into fighting, joining American Top Team, getting in the UFC, becoming a father, opening his martial arts school and his goal to return to the Octagon in 2019. Cole also has an incredible new online, MMA and BJJ training website, partnered with 10th Planet BJJ and Eddie Bravo Black Belt Brandon Mccaghren. You can subscribe on a month-to-month basis for only $20/month, which is an incredible value. You can follow Cole on Facebook under

If you’ve listened to past episodes, you know that my podcast focuses on an individuals story. How their life’s journey is similar to the martial artist’s journey towards Black Belt and beyond. Through these episodes I’ve highlighted stories that have shaped my guests into the people they are today. I thought it would be interesting to offer episodes in addition to our full interviews that go more into more detail of these impactful events. Stories of the past or present that substantially stand out and have a deep impact on your life. In martial arts these lessons often come from hard work, consistency, overcoming adversity and learning more about yourself in each class. As the instructor sees that you have learned the next set of lessons that they set out for you, that’s when you earn a stripe. Get enough stripes and you move up in rank. If you look at your timeline in life you can probably pick out multiple “bookmarks” of moments and memories that stand out to you. The moments that shape us, that we can re

Today's Life's Black Belt is Jeff Eisenberg. Jeff is the best selling author of "Fighting Buddha - Marital Arts, Buddhism, Kicking Ass and Saving it" as well as "Buddha's Bodyguard - How to Protect Your Inner V.I.P." He is currently working on his 3rd book which is due to be released next year. In addition to holding several Black Belts in a variety of marital arts, he is also a Brown Belt In Brazilian Jiujitsu under Professor Bill Scott of BJJ Shore Academy in Point Pleasant, NJ. In this conversation, we review Jeff's family life growing up. The impact that his father's style of parenting had on the child he was then and the man he has since become. How martial arts entered his life, as well as the study of Buddhism. Jeff and I discuss his philosophy on life and how he continually focuses on being grateful everyday. Jeff talks about how he ran a martial arts school that he eventually closed, how he got into becoming a bodyguard, private investigator and eventually

Today's Life's Black Belt is Ricardo Liborio. Master Liborio is a legend and pioneer in the martial arts. An original member of Team Carlson Gracie, the very first World Jiu Jitsu Champion in the super heavyweight division back in 1996, an original co-founder of Brazilian Top Team and original co-founder of American Top Team. He has been featured on tons of magazine covers, TV, radio and more. You can learn more about him here: https://www.bjjheroes.com/bjj-fighters/ricardo-liborio In most of his prior interviews, the focus is clearly often about his MMA and BJJ career both as a competitor and coach. However on this podcast we want to learn more about then man behind the legend. We discuss his life growing up in Rio de janeiro, Brazil, how he got first introduced to BJJ and how he balances out his commitments in his career with his family life as a husband and father. I really enjoyed speaking with him and reviewing more about the man himself. I hope you enjoy the episode. Please share and repost! Y

Today's Life's Black Belt is Stephane D'Amour. Stephane is the owner and head instructor of Mixed Martial Arts and Fitness Academy in Kanata, Ontario Canada. His school is also the only certified American Top Team MMA school in the country. Stephane takes us through his childhood growing up in Ottawa. How bullying early on in school led to him starting martial arts training. He talks about being adopted, growing up as an only child, trying to figure out who he is in life and some challenges along the way. Eventually seeing his dream of owning his own martial arts school become a reality, finding true love and getting married. Stephane works with some of the best coaches and fighters in the world. In addition to being a Black Belt, Stephane is a Brown Belt in BJJ. I hope you enjoy our talk with today. You can learn more about Stephane by visiting his website at www.mmafa.ca or @mmafacoach on social media. 

Today's Life's Black Belt is Gabe Cohen. He reviews his life growing up in NY and Colorado. How at a young age he fell into hard drugs and crime and wound up in and out of jail 7 times. He's since turned his life around and teaches Krav Maga, mentors our youth, tours around the world doing seminars and also works with the Sheriff's Department to do public speaking/motivational talks with inmates. His story is very motivational, raw and real. I appreciated his openness, honesty and vulnerability. I hope you enjoy the lessons in his story as much as I did. Gabe also runs American Krav Maga in Colorado. If you are interested in working with Gabe or learning more about his, you can visit his website www.gabecohendefense.com

Today's Life's Black Belt is Bonnie Carolan. Bonnie is a close family friend that has inspired my wife and I a lot over the years as a friend, mother and overall with her approach to life. I think her real story and outlook on life will inspire you as well. We start her story growing up in the 60's and 70's, meeting her future husband on her first day of college when she was 18. We review how life was then, the importance of friends and family. Their adventure as a couple from NJ to California and becoming parents. Bonnie then takes us through the most traumatic event of her life, the loss of her husband John. How the day impacted her, how she continued to raise their 3 children since then and maintain her beautiful outlook on life. Bonnie talks about her life now as both a mom, Grandmother and founder of the John C. Rodriguez Scholarship fund (in honor of her husband). You can find more information on applying for this scholarship (for high school seniors in Monmouth and Ocean County, NJ)

Today’s “Life’s Black Belt” is Dave Gerber. I sit down with the President and founder of Synergy Development and Training, Published Author and Certified Krav Maga Black Belt, Mr. Dave Gerber. As always we discuss his early childhood filled with memories of being bullied, moving to new schools and cities, starting college, finding out out he had Graves disease, how he overcame divorce, a variety of obstacles in life and much more! Dave’s story and outlook on life is inspirational to say the least. He has dedicated his life to helping those around him, from the personal to the corporate level. More of his bio and contact information is below. DAVID A. GERBER, M.Ed., CAMF 5617 Bellington Avenue ▪ Springfield, VA 22151 ▪ Gerber@Synergydt.com ▪ www.Synergydt.com ▪ www.DaveGerber.info Dave Gerber – “The Conflict Healer” Dave Gerber, President and Founder of Synergy Development and Training, LLC is a change catalyst, motivating people to become the best version of themselves. Known as “The Conflict Healer,” Dave in

Today I sit down with my big brother who also happens to be a world renowned artist. We cover more then just his art career. We start at the beginning and go through Jay's story of overcoming insecurity, learning to turn his talent into a business, overcoming failures and more. We discuss his time in high school, college, Theta Xi fraternity, his wife and children and of course we go into how his art career took off to the point it is at today. Introducing our next Life's Black Belt, Jay Alders. Jay’s work has been featured in Galleries from New York City to California, Art Tours in Brazil, Surf Exhibitions on the North Shore of Oahu and 2008 X-Games. Organizations like Emergen-C, Billabong, Donavon Frankenreiter and Original Skateboards all have licensed Jay’s Art for their Internationally distributed Product lines. In November 2009, Jay was described as “The Artist who is Everywhere” by ESPN in recognition of Jay’s routine globe trotting and impressive industry involvement. Alders has collaborated

On today’s episode I sit down with Shilamida Kupershteyn. She is the best selling author of "31 Days of Gratitude - Create The Life You Desire", a motivational speaker, acupuncturist, mother of 3 boys and stepmother of 2 and overall one beautiful human being both inside and out. We talk about Shil being born in Russia and coming the the USA with her parents when she was only a few months old. They had very little money and didn’t speak any English but wanted to provide a better life for Shil and her brother. She covers the many trials and obstacles in her life such as losing her father at a young age, becoming a mother, overcoming drugs and alcohol, starting businesses and much more. She discusses how she used to be completely unhealthy, overweight, poor and felt completely helpless at times. From that she takes us along her awakening that began with her start in holistic healing, massage and accupuncture. That along with Kabbalah helped to lead her on a spiritual journey. From vision boards of her