Take It Uneasy

Arianna Huffington is the founder and CEO of Thrive Global (in 2016) and the founder of The Huffington Post (in 2005). She is the author of fifteen books, most recent two being Thrive and Sleep Revolution, both international bestsellers. These books explore how to both work hard and keep a lifestyle that seeks well-being, wisdom, wonder. We got a chance to sit down for this quick chat after a conference we both spoke at and got right into the big topics of mortality, obsession, meaning, happiness, and love.

Dan Gable is one of the greatest Olympic athletes of all time. Bigger than records and medals, to millions, he is a symbol of guts, spirit, mental toughness, and relentless hard work. As a wrestler, he was undefeated in high school. Undefeated in college until his very last match. And having lost that match, he found another level. And became a world champion and an Olympic champion. He did not surrender a single point at the 1972 Olympic games. As a coach, he lead the Iowa Hawkeyes to 15 national titles and 21 Big Ten championships. He coached 152 all-Americans,

Jimmy Pedro is a World champion, 3x World medalist, 2x Olympic medalist; we talk about his father (Big Jim Pedro Sr), his early career, the times he wanted to quit, overcoming a neck injury, coming back from retirement, the life of an athlete vs the life of a coach, a system for developing elite-level judoka, Japanese vs Russian judo, periodization, a weekly program for an elite-level judoka, toughest moment as a coach, watching Travis Stevens lose the semifinals at the Olympics, mental game, visualization, IJF, judo as a spectator sport, the future of judo in the United States and the rest of the world, and

Ryan Hall is a BJJ black belt, head instructor of 50/50 BJJ, an ADCC bronze medalist with a long career in high level competition throughout which he has beaten many of the top grapplers in the world; we talked about moral victory, maintaining a stoic expression, a unified theory of grappling, the value of competition, a lifelong pursuit of a singular goal, best martial art for self defense, cultivating ego, and much more.

Ido Portal is a movement artist, researcher, and teacher; we talked about specialization, his journey in becoming a movement generalist, the sacrifice of specialists, improvisation, coaching, criticism, dealing with complainers, difference of mentality in different countries, perfect practice, Marcelo Garcia, learning new things versus perfecting old things, building work capacity, mentor/disciple relationship,  moving alone and in a community, moving through injury, antifragile, Nassim Nicholas Taleb, paleo diet, technology, Tom Waits, Charles Bukowski, cultivating the weird, etc.