Chris Waddell Living It
79 episodes - English - Latest episode: 10 months ago - ★★★★★ - 11 ratingsOur greatest risk is taking no risk at all. Hall of Fame Paralympic athlete and the first "nearly unassisted" paraplegic to summit Mt Kilimanjaro in a handcycle Chris Waddell interviews people, who had been dropped into a situation that forced them to confront everything they'd thought to be true. "Experts in the Experience of Being Human," Paralympians, artists, athletes, entrepreneurs, share their fight/struggle/strategy to succeed in the face of adversity.
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Episodes
Julie Foudy - Iconic Women’s Soccer Player, Journalist, and Trailblazer
July 14, 2023 16:21 - 46 minutes - 64.6 MBI tried to match Julie’s legendary energy in this podcast. You’ll have to be the judge of whether I was successful or not. She’s famous from her team’s history changing Women’s World Cup Title in 1999. Learn how as athletes they were the best in the world, but also how they took upon themselves to ensure that the Women’s World Cup in the US would be successful and that they could fill the 92,000-seat Rose Bowl. She talks about the We versus Me mission of the team and passing that ba...
John Maclean - Ironman Champion, English Channel Swimmer, Former Professional Rugby Player, and Paralyzed Athlete Who Has Completed a Triathlon without a Wheelchair.
July 05, 2023 18:17 - 1 hour - 78.1 MBJohn was a professional rugby player and aspiring triathlete during the off-season when an eight-ton truck hit him as he trained on his bike. Medical experts set his chances at “pine or mahogany” and told the family not to expect him to make it through the day. John made it through that day. When he emerged from the coma, he asked about his bike, which had lost significance since he’d now use a wheelchair. Months of treatment and therapy eventually brought him to rebuilding his form...
Dan Egan - Pioneering Extreme Skier of “Egan Brothers” Warren Miller Fame and the Business Mind to Make it a Career
June 22, 2023 21:43 - 1 hour - 85.5 MBDan followed his brother John, six years older, into Warren Miller movies. They skied the steepest and gnarliest, but also went where the news was happening. Dan said, if it’s happening on CNN, that’s where I want to be, which meant skiing the Berlin Wall, sneaking into Lebanon, and almost dying in a storm on Europe’s tallest mountain, Russia’s Mt Elbrus. He hitchhiked with his skis strapped to his back, slept on couches, and made good on the relationships that he forged as a young ...
Lori Frisher - Game Changing Disability Rights Advocate
June 15, 2023 20:18 - 58 minutes - 53.7 MBLori played Division I tennis player even though she couldn’t hear the racket hit the ball. Relying on lipreading to communicate, COVID’s masks rendered the world quiet and alone. She was the first person in the world to receive an Esteem implant (an invisible hearing device) with her Cochlear implant. Suddenly the song of the world came alive then she went deaf after ten years. She fights the fight for those who’ve been left on the outside by letting you walk in their shoes and by...
Scott Wolf - Actor, Producer, Director
June 08, 2023 21:54 - 1 hour - 64.4 MBThose of you of a certain age, will definitely remember him as Bailey from Party of Five. He has tons of acting credits in film and television and has been part of some long running shows like the aforementioned Party of Five, Everwood and now Nancy Drew. He made his directorial debut on Nancy Drew during the third season with the “Voices in the Frost” episode. He’s also a friend and a Park City resident.
Ivan Blumberg - Sports Agent Who Leveraged the Power of the Athlete to Make the World a Better Place.
May 26, 2023 19:11 - 1 hour - 69.7 MBIt was Arthur Ashe, who made Ivan recognize the power of the athlete. Arthur had just been diagnosed with AIDS as a result of a tainted blood transfusion during heart by-pass surgery. He was dying and he could have hidden, but he asked, how can we use this? The resulting widely viewed, highly attended televised event the day before the US Open in what would eventually become Arthur Ashe Stadium put a face on the AIDS epidemic. After twenty-five years in the agent business, Ivan star...
Laurel Sander - Chinese Medicine Doctor, Shaman, Healer and so much more
May 12, 2023 18:57 - 1 hour - 66.9 MBLaurel might enjoy her job, some of which includes colonics, which she cheers, more than anyone I know. Her passion is to heal and to help and her motivation is both personal, she had to take charge of her health after numerous surgeries, antibiotics and opioid painkillers, and it’s rooted in the historical, the traditional and the spiritual. As she says, the most common refrain from her patients is, “that makes sense.” And it does make sense on a personal, emotional and cellular le...
Stephani Victor - Paralympic Skiing Champion, who filmed her story from the moment she lost her legs in a freak car accident.
April 12, 2023 14:32 - 1 hour - 60.8 MBStorytelling consumed Stephani as a film student at USC, but one of her professors told the class that they didn’t know anything because they lacked life experience. When a car careened out of control and trapped her against her boyfriend’s car in his driveway, she lost her legs, gained life experience and turned the camera on the journey from a near death experience. That journey became a love story that led her to the top of the Paralympic skiing world.
Marc Harrison - Healthcare CEO changing the system to serve everyone in wellness.
April 06, 2023 15:27 - 53 minutes - 49.7 MBMarc jokingly says that he’s been the one to ask the difficult questions from the time that he got kicked out of Sunday School as a kid for questioning why we as oppressed people would oppress others? Equity and agency have only grown in priority throughout his career as a Pediatric ICU Doctor and leader in the healthcare space. In addition to his role as CEO, Marc has confronted cancer twice, the second of which is incurable, but in remission. Despite or possibly in spite of job an...
Jill Orschel - Emmy Award Winning Independent Filmmaker
March 28, 2023 22:55 - 1 hour - 57.9 MBJill spent nine years building trust, friendship and the story of Cora’s escape from an abusive, polygamist marriage through her artwork. Snowland will be Jill’s first feature length film. Her journey has gone from shooting stills as a middle-schooler, to being a Mountain Dew girl in a series of commercials that paid her college tuition, to running the film projector in what she called a truly great job, to premiering Sister Wife at Sundance and winning the Jury Award at SXSW, to th...
Retired Rear Admiral Mike Hewitt - Nuclear Power as a Green Solution
March 15, 2023 20:42 - 1 hour - 67 MBEnergy Sovereignty, Authoritarian Regimes, Climate Change, Green Solutions, Decarbonization, Climate-Neutral Future, Energy Poverty, Reliable Energy, US, China, Russia, EU, Developing Countries. For Retired Rear Admiral Mike Hewitt, all people deserve energy, food and clean water. In a world that has a gross inequity of power, he sees nuclear as a clean, cost efficient, consistent and convenient solution. Gone are the reactors of our past, soon to be replaced by Small Modular Reacto...
Brad Snyder - Navy Explosives Ordnance Disposal Officer who lost his sight to an IED. Paralympic Champion. World Record Holder. Princeton PhD candidate.
March 02, 2023 17:29 - 1 hour - 73.1 MBIt’s easy to see Brad as a superhero because he’s achieved things about which most of of us just dream: Naval Academy graduate, explosives expert, breaker of a thirty year old world record, gold medalist in his second Paralympic sport, husband, father and Ivy League PhD candidate, but his success is the product of his struggles. He was about to quit the swim team at Navy to concentrate on his studies before his teammates voted him Captain for his senior season. He had to talk his wa...
M.C. Antil - Author of Floor Burns: Love, Passion and the 1967 Syracuse All-City Championship.
February 22, 2023 20:43 - 1 hour - 80.9 MBM.C.’s professional career started, or attempted to start when he sent message to Ted Turner that he would walk from Syracuse to Atlanta to get hired by the Braves. As the process took a bad turn, M.C. slipped a dime into a pay phone and was immediately connected with the only Major League Baseball owner who would appreciate his initiative, the iconoclastic and insightful genius Bill Veeck. From the White Sox to the fledgling cable industry, to sports behemoth ESPN, to his own weekl...
Matt Ounsworth - Award-Winning Chainsaw Artist!
February 15, 2023 20:23 - 1 hour - 60.3 MBMattochainsaw is my cousin. After dangerous years of climbing trees as an arborist/tree trimmer, he started down a different path when his wife asked him to carve a bear for the front yard. Chainsaw art–taking a piece of wood, a section of tree, or the extended stump of a felled tree and turning it into a figure and a story. Matt attends competitions, sometimes with creation time limits as short as an hour, carves images from his imagination and does commissions with chainsaw in han...
Lonnie Mayne - Red Shoes Living Founder
February 03, 2023 18:31 - 1 hour - 63.7 MBLonnie’s father was a second generation pro wrestler–a villain, who turned kind, soft and human with his fans after the match. His uncle was a turnaround executive leading several companies from distress and treating everyone with respect. Lonnie followed his uncle’s path, working to right companies in difficulty for thirty years until he started Red Shoes Living to create the kind of culture in companies that he’d learned in his youth. Red Shoes stresses the basics that we know and...
Gregg Garfield - COVID Patient Zero in LA Given 1% Chance of Living
January 25, 2023 22:39 - 1 hour - 60.4 MBAlong with twelve buddies on a skiing trip to Val Gardena in Italy, Gregg contracted COVID before anyone knew what to make of it. He’d spend thirty-one days in a coma, waking to an entirely new world, and sixty-four days in the hospital, having to learn to swallow as well as walk. He lost all the fingers on his right hand and all to the one knuckle on his left as the drugs tried to save his internal organs, leaving the extremities vulnerable. He had MRSA, sepsis, kidney failure, live...
Bryan Fletcher - Two-time Olympian in Nordic Combined who was diagnosed with Leukemia when he was three years old.
January 05, 2023 20:37 - 1 hour - 61.6 MBWhile he was still in Chemotherapy, Brian convinced his parents to hit the Nordic jumps at his home in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. With each bigger jump he was more and more hooked. Then he convinced them to let him join the program. Nordic Combined became his sport when he followed his friends not realizing that it meant the pain of Cross-Country skiing, but he soon realized that he had a talent for that pain and was rewarded for being tough the way that he had been as a little ki...
Odessa Jenkins - Founder and CEO Women’s Football Conference
December 21, 2022 16:16 - 50 minutes - 46.6 MBOdessa is a Hall of Fame Running Back and the President of Emtrain, a revolutionary eLearning and analytics company that goes beyond compliance to create inclusive workplaces. It’s all of that and a movement to help others find the voice that she shares so beautifully. It’s not about clamoring for equality, but earning equity. It’s about breaking the glass ceiling and empowering others to break the next one. OJ shares so naturally what it means to be a human on a journey with a very ...
Steve Brosnihan - resident cartoonist at Hasbro Children’s Hospital, Providence, Rhode Island
December 16, 2022 21:50 - 1 hour - 57.2 MBI kept Steve’s title lowercase because he usually does and because he doesn’t take himself too seriously, even though he’s undertaking the serious work of brightening the day of children, often with long term stays in the hospital. Steve cashed the $8 check for his first published cartoon, he met his hero and mentor Dr Seuss by arriving at his door mostly unannounced, he dressed up with girlfriend and then wife Diana Golden, the most influential adaptive skier in US history, for her ...
Kara Goucher - First woman or man to stand on a World Championship 10,000 meter podium, Boston and New York podiums, NBC analyst, battling Repetitive Exercise Dystonia
November 30, 2022 16:33 - 1 hour - 68 MBKara is one of the most respected, beloved and outspoken members of the running community. She was a historic performer and continues as a huge proponent of clean racing both with regard to performance enhancing drugs and technology. With Olympic, Track and Marathon television analysis, she’s a voice of running while also battling Repetitive Exercise Dystonia to continue to enjoy the sport she loves so much.
Peter Holmes à Court - Businessman, Author, Environmentalist and Rugby team owner
November 09, 2022 16:59 - 1 hour - 64.5 MBIn Riding with Giants, Peter Holmes à Court demonstrated the honesty and vulnerability to be human, fallible and curious as he searched for his path. His father Robert is credited with being Australia’s first billionaire. His mother Janet was more successful than his father. As their oldest child, Peter was involved in investment banking, music and comedy promotion, cattle, trains, finance, Sydney business promotion, writing and he co-owned the South Sydney Rabbitohs rugby team with ...
Jeremiah Core - Athlete, Special Forces, Actor
November 03, 2022 16:11 - 1 hour - 57 MBBack in ninth grade, I knew that Jeremiah was a performer when he was break dancing for the other team before our soccer games during a school trip to what was then the USSR, but at the time, he was really known as the best athlete in school. September 11th and sense of responsibility for our freedom sent him to the Army, Special Forces and three tours in Iraq. Mental health remains a huge issue for our returning Veterans. Even though a difficult divorce met him at home, volunteering...
Beck Castle - Farm to cone ice cream with social change bent!
October 26, 2022 22:22 - 1 hour - 56.6 MBBecky Castle has been in social change her whole working life, starting her career with the Carter Center and working with the Gates Foundation among others to try eliminate the biggest threats to life in the developing world. She’s also the mother of the three daughters, hence the Mother of Anarchy for Sisters of Anarchy Ice Cream, which goes from their Fisher Brothers Farm to your cone with some select, hand-chosen partners to create a delicious experience and community. Sisters o...
Eduardo Garcia - The Bionic Chef and Host of Big Sky Kitchen with Eduardo Garcia
October 15, 2022 23:11 - 1 hour - 64.1 MBEduardo is a chef. He’s also an entertainer, a philosopher, a son and a husband. Most significantly, he’s a man, who lives in concert with his world, and seeks ways to bring its beauty to those around him. Art and cooking, the simple and the complex lead to connection. He’s known abandonment and renewal, selfishness and selflessness, and he greats the world with an inviting smile.
Erik Weihenmayer - Totally Blind Adventurer: Summitted highest peak on all seven summits. Kayaked the Grand Canyon
October 05, 2022 17:22 - 1 hour - 63.5 MBErik has achieved the incomprehensible, climbing the world’s highest mountains and kayaking some of its biggest rapids, but he’s also a thoughtful guy who builds community and shares the beauty that he feels interacting with climbing pitches, rivers and a variety of other places. I think you’ll be amazed at the aesthetic that a blind guy sees in the world.
John Moffet - Two-Time Olympian, Three-Time Emmy Winner!
September 29, 2022 18:20 - 1 hour - 71.5 MBJohn broke the World Record for the 100 meter breaststroke at the 1984 Olympic Trials. He broke the Olympic Record in the Prelims, but also told his abductor muscle. Was not winning the gold medal in front of 15,000 fans at home in LA a crushing defeat or a gift? Join us for John’s ride from the top of the world in swimming to the top of the world in entertainment. There are some sliding door moments along the way.
Clayton Frech - Co-Founder and CEO of Angel City Sports
September 22, 2022 17:47 - 54 minutes - 50.4 MBThis was a far-ranging conversation that started with Clayton’s wife’s role in the movie Crash. I couldn’t help but think that the race, class, family and gender issues in the movie could easily be applied to the disabled community, even though the film premiered before their son Ezra, an amputee, who is one of the top Paralympic athletes in the world, was born. Through Angel City Sports, an LA-based non-profit co-founded with Ezra, Clayton provides year-round free adaptive sports op...
Denis Coleman - Music Pop Star Heading to the Ivy Leagues
September 15, 2022 13:32 - 1 hour - 64.2 MBWhen Denis and I skied together with his father and a family friend, he searched for a flow on the mountain. A quiet, smiley determination pointed to a sense of curiosity that belied his lack of time on skis. He wanted to get it right. Skiing is my expertise, but I see that same sense of searching for energy’s heart in Denis’ music. It’s fun with a sense of the essential, the fundamental and the flow. His take on the creative process seemed well beyond his eighteen years, but then ag...
Mike Marolt - The Humble 8,000-meter Climber and Skier
September 12, 2022 18:39 - 1 hour - 77.2 MBMike’s is a story of evolution from doing the brashest of things climbing and skiing 5,000–8,000-meter peaks (always within their ability and the bounds of good decision making according to Mike) to recognizing that commitment to the moment, the little things and being a great teammate were the victories and not the very top.
Donna Volpitta - Neuroscience you need and can understand!
August 31, 2022 19:55 - 1 hour - 59 MBI’ve known Donna Volpitta approaching thirty-five years. She has always been one of the kindest and most compassionate people. When she said that her parents knew that she was going to be a teacher in the first grade, it just made sense. Now, she teaches the brain, specifically mental health literacy, so that we can understand how the often jumbled mess of impulses, desires, responsibilities, fears, guilt, planning, empathy and more, make sense. Donna helps us create a plan for our m...
Bill Walton - One of the greatest basketball players, sports broadcasters, Deadheads, and a guy in search of happiness!
August 17, 2022 16:09 - 1 hour - 61.2 MBBill’s parents gifted him curiosity. He took it to basketball, music, books and almost anything else. A crippling stutter rendered him almost mute as a child, but he was able to follow Chick Hearn, the Lakers announcer who made him understand how to think about basketball, to become one of the greatest commentators of all time. His friends defined sports, the arts, music, literature, and are almost anyone he meets.
Kawser Amine - Former Afghan Women’s National Team Soccer Player. Current Women’s Rights Advocate.
August 15, 2022 22:59 - 1 hour - 58.8 MBKawser started with the Afghan Women’s National Soccer Team when she was in second grade because there was a window of opportunity for women–or really in her case, young girls. That window, along with employment and rights for women has closed. She’s in the US now working to start a soccer academy for refugee women and improve the rights in her home country so that both she and her daughter can return safely and be fulfilled. She currently works as a NorCal Refugee organizer with CHI...
JV Crum III - Enlightenment and Financial Security: The Conscious Millionaire
August 01, 2022 04:07 - 1 hour - 62.8 MBPersonal, spiritual growth and money often seem at odds, but they are best when they work in concert and that’s exactly what JV Crum does.
Matt Ellenthal - Just Add Ice. Co-Founder of Award-Winning Barrelsmith Ready to Pour Cocktails
July 19, 2022 16:09 - 1 hour - 77.3 MBMatt has always been a great storyteller, I didn’t realize how much depth the stories had (speakeasys and moonshine is in the family’s bloodlines) and how much they applied to bringing award-winning cocktails to a discerning public.
Erin Weed - Erin can crystallize purpose to one word!
July 07, 2022 22:12 - 46 minutes - 42.5 MBErin’s super power is getting your purpose to one word, but there’s a lot more: teaching self-defense, coaching Tedx speakers and mostly pursuing and facilitating unabashed authenticity.
Amanda Stoddard - Director of One Revolution Documentary and Emmy-Award Winning Director/Producer.
June 30, 2022 19:38 - 1 hour - 63 MBAmanda has been one of the most influential people in One Revolution and telling my story.
Joanne Pasternack - Co-Founder of Athletes’ Voices: The Premier Program for Athletes’ Seeking to Increase Their Influence and Social Impact.
June 22, 2022 00:29 - 1 hour - 76.8 MBAfter a career of high-level positions in sports social responsibility and philanthropy for the San Francisco 49ers and the Golden State Warriors, Joanne increased her efforts to amplify impact and inspire change both with her high-touch consultancy company Oliver+Rose and Athletes’ Voices. These have been some of the most important voices in our history, Joanne is insuring that they will be more profound in the future.
Connor Fields - From BMX Olympic Gold Medalist to one of the worst accidents ever in the Games.
June 09, 2022 15:55 - 1 hour - 73.7 MBThe sport of BMX is a massive, all-out sprint over bumps and jumps with inches separating competitors. In that tumultuous world, Connor knew that he was the best, but in a moment he almost lost it all. He’s recovered miraculously and has an amazing story to tell.
Beth Levison - Emmy and Peabody Award winning Producer/Director
June 01, 2022 17:33 - 1 hour - 61.7 MBCo-Director of Peabody Award Nominee Storm Lake, Beth does a great job of communicating the essential voice and character of her documentaries and she’s not scared to take on the difficult stories.
Alex Smith - #1 NFL Pick, 3 x Pro Bowler. Lost his job twice and almost lost his leg!
May 24, 2022 18:36 - 1 hour - 83.8 MBAlex might be the most humble superstar you’ve ever met. He talked about how success came from staying in the moment, maintaining focus and letting go of worry while three hundred pound guys were trying to take his head off. He returned to football and the playoffs after almost losing his right leg–and he has the scars to prove it.
Steven Nyman - Alpine Skiing 3x Olympian, 3x World Cup Winner and 11x podium finisher in Downhill
May 04, 2022 19:49 - 1 hour - 65.3 MBHow did a Junior World Slalom Champion become a 3x Olympian, 3x World Cup Winner and 11x podium finisher in Downhill? It all started with a $10 pair of stretch pants from the ‘90’s. At forty years old, through the injuries and the disappointment, Steven still prepares so that he can ski with conviction on the razor’s edge, speeds approaching 100 mph and jumps approaching 300 feet, that is Downhill skiing.
Melissa Stockwell - Triathlon Champion tries the Boston Marathon!
April 25, 2022 15:02 - 43 minutes - 40.2 MBIn 2004, Melissa Stockwell was the first woman to lose a limb in combat. By 2008, she was a Paralympic swimmer. In Rio 2016, she and her teammates swept the first Para-Triathlon podium. Training before the Tokyo Games, she broke her back in a bike accident, but still finished fifth. Now she’s ready to take on the oldest annual marathon, Boston.
Susannah Scaroni - Paralympic Wheelchair Racing Gold Medalist and Marathoner!
April 19, 2022 01:36 - 39 minutes - 36.1 MBWith seven laps to go in the Paralympic 5000 meters, Susannah Scaroni went to the front of the pack. When she looked at the big screen she had almost 100 meters on the field. In “no man’s land” she could either wait for the pack or keep going. She kept going, saving a bit in reserve in case they caught her. They didn’t. She won the gold, a second off the World Record. Heading into marathon season following the Games, she was ready to make her mark on her favorite race when a car hit ...
Marcel Hug - World record holder, he is the man to beat in wheelchair racing!
April 16, 2022 15:29 - 27 minutes - 25.4 MBA wrong turn kept Marcel Hug eight seconds from breaking the course record at the Boston Marathon under less than ideal conditions last year. He’s since eclipsed the twenty-two year old wheelchair marathon World Record and taken ten seconds from the 5000 meter record. He’s back for the Boston record, but had a case of COVID just before the race.
Bryon Friedman - Former US Ski Team Member, Entrepreneur and Musician
February 02, 2022 20:26 - 1 hour - 83.3 MBBryon Friedman–World Cup Downhill Ski Racer, turned award-winning musician, turned entrepreneur and environmentalist. How a horrific crash led to another career and so much more.
Duke Beardsley - Painting the modern cowboy and cowgirl, while imagining their position in this ever changing world.
January 11, 2022 15:23 - 1 hour - 71.1 MBSixth generation Coloradan, Duke Beardsley has been drawing and painting the American west for as long as he can remember. Raised both in Denver, and on a 1000 acre cattle ranch in eastern Colorado, Duke's "duel/dual" upbringing is the foundation for his unique blend of traditional western iconography and contemporary art sensibilities. An unapologetic fan of all "things cowboy" Duke spends much time on horseback, joining his many friends and family on some of the West's greatest ra...
John Lawrence - Actor, Doctor, and Author of Playing Doctor Part 1 and 2
December 22, 2021 11:04 - 1 hour - 71.6 MBJohn Lawrence Playing Doctor, Part Two, the second installment in bestselling author John Lawrence's medical odyssey drops December 27th. John is so supremely talented that he could have done anything, but from the time he started on the path to becoming a doctor, he knew that it wasn't what he was supposed to do. Join us for the hilarious escapes of starting med school with head injury and no short term memory to the trauma of trying to replace dentures in the first patient he ever ...
Ben Eaton - Iron Sculptor, Paraglider, Skier and all around expert on being a happy human!
December 15, 2021 18:03 - 1 hour - 71.8 MBBen is a lover of life, who makes beauty for a living. He’s one of the nicest guys you’ll ever meet and you’ll leave wishing you could be like him.
Mike Augspurger - Inventor of the One-Off Off Road Handcycle
August 12, 2021 15:57 - 53 minutes - 49.6 MBMike called me one day out of the blue to see if I would be a test pilot for his new off-road handcycle. He’d seen me in a local newspaper article. Returning to the woods sounded awesome. His idea was revolutionary--rear wheel drive, kneeling position, dual steering, even if the prototype was exactly that in the beginning. I thank Mike for being able to imagine the One-Off Handcycle, which transformed my world and provided the platform for me to climb Kilimanjaro.
Daniel Romanchuk - The Men's Wheelchair Racer in Tokyo to beat
July 23, 2021 21:10 - 51 minutes - 47.7 MBIt’s exciting to see when everything comes together for an athlete. Daniel makes going fast look really simple and that’s when you know that it’s going great. He’s humble and respectful, but is also striking fear in the hearts of his competitors. Check it out.