Stoked Lifestyle

LOCALS SURF SCHOOL On today's episode, we're talking to Mike and Mike of Local Surf School. Longtime supporters of STOKED, Mike and Mike grew up in the Rockaways and have strong roots in the area. A rarity in New York, the surf scene in that area nurtured a deep passion and love for surfing in the Mikes. THEIR PASSION FOR A SURF SCHOOL After college, they both wanted to find a way to share their teaching skills and surfing passion. So they started a surf school, the perfect marrying of their surfing passion and career path! Their initial business goals were to start small, impact the community, touch people's lives, and hopefully not lose money! Soon enough, they hit those goals and started growing. Knowing that there's no feeling like your first wave, Mike and Mike love that they get to see and share what that first-time feeling is like for other people. For some, this is the feeling they've been looking for, for a long time. The Mikes also believe that surfing can be a way for people to get back in touch wi

Background Starting as a writer with her Master’s Degree in Journalism, Giselle Wasfie found herself unfulfilled. She decided to take the scary step to go back to school and pursue her Master’s Degree in Chinese Medicine. With looming doubts concerning the cost and time that a master’s degree would take, as well as passing up a lucrative job offer in the journalism field, she still applied, got in, and never looked back. While at school, she felt very connected to what she was studying and that there was a voice inside telling her this was what she should be doing. Closing The Chapter At the same time Giselle was applying to go to school for Chinese medicine, she was up for a job as editor in chief, literally the top tier of where one would want to be in the journalism field. When she found out that she was in the finals for candidates it occurred to her that she had to make a choice. It was then that she wrote to the interviewer, thanked him for the opportunity, and then chose to fully commit herself to the

BackgroundMarc Hans is a man of many different hustles and talents. He finds himself doing a lot of different things, all of them strung together by the common thread of creativity. Educator turned design thinker, Marc plans his projects based on the level of help he thinks he can give. Finding The Path People tend to think of a career as a linear thing, go to college, get a career, etc. However, your career doesn’t have to be defined by the thing or career that you initially set out to do. Take Marc’s real-life example; As an adult, he had the realization that everyone learns differently, and sitting in a classroom for 6 hours a day doesn’t work for everyone. As a kid that struggled academically and socially, his past inspired him to look for ways to “hack the system for enjoyment and maximize output”. With this goal in mind, he started his life as a teacher. Moving on from teaching, but still wanting to educate and inspire, he started nonprofits that developed mentorships for youth in underserved communitie

Background Danny Gillcrist and Jordan Lutes have grown up traveling the world. They are now a creative  Photographer/ Video team duo. Their work includes shooting commercial products on locations around the world. A recent project had them on a location where they featured red bull swimming pools with high-divers as the photo subject. Danny and Jordan both are college graduates that have degrees in fine arts, film, and TV.  After spending a few years traveling the world, they’ve developed a great working and personal relationship, one in which they share the same eye for photography style as well as similar interests in the types of work that they like to focus on. Finding The Path Jordan says he got his big break with a traveling photographer that he constantly emailed.  He hired Jordan because he was easy to work with and he smiled all the time. He goes on to say you need to be prepared to hustle & always do as much research as possible. Danny says that seeing Jordan succeed in his freelance work gave

BACKGROUND Author Dev Aujla began his career running a Canadian non-profit called “Dream Now”. Dream Now organized several different clubs for Canadian youth, ranging in topic from climate change awareness to eating disorders to environmental awareness. As the kids of the program started to grow up, Dev realized that they needed direction on how to find their career calling and passion. It was during this time that he began researching all of the old “get a job” tactics. During his research, he realized that the advice hadn’t really changed in the past thirty years. Armed with this knowledge, Dev decided to try and find a new tactic that would actually help young adults find jobs that they weren’t just good at, but also passionate about. AUTHOR Out of this idea came Dev’s book, “50 Ways to Get a Job: An Unconventional Guide to Finding Work on Your Terms”. People are always looking for that “secret sauce” for finding a job that they love doing. However, Dev says that while there aren’t any shortcuts or secret

BACKGROUND Chip Thomas is a music executive and a performer. Chip has played the drums ever since he was in 5th grade. He knew he wanted to work in the music business, but he also had a passion for performing. After college, he took an internship at a company called Wind-Up Records. He gave himself a limit of 3 months to turn this low paying job into a full-time low paying job with benefits, which he aced in the first 6 weeks. From then, he’s worked for a lot of other record labels. He’s now a music executive, as well as a performer with the incredibly successful group Postmodern Jukebox Band. Postmodern Jukebox Band is a band that takes modern songs and plays them with a 30s, 40s, or 50s kind of vibe. In his day job, he does business development, which involves sales and strategic partnerships. As much as these tasks are challenging to balance, he’s refused to let go of either because he has a passion for both. After giving himself the permission to do both jobs, he’s visibly breaking the norm. A lot of comp

BACKGROUND Clare Healy is a 28-year-old communications mogul. She's currently based in LA where she works for an ad-tech agency called System1. Her main job is strategizing on how to reach consumers by engaging them and creating content that they want to read. STORYTELLING Clare’s love and passion for storytelling come through in her social media creations. As someone who majored in communications and social media, Clare notes the power that social media has gained and how it has evolved throughout the years. OUTDOOR EXPERIENCES & BENEFITS The other side of Clare’s interest shows up as a sponsored athlete. Her passion for the outdoors started when she was in 8th grade. Picking up a camera from her dad’s closet, she started taking pictures outside. This interest in photography led her to develop a love for the outdoors and athletics. As an adult, she has fostered her love by working for companies such as the Outbound Collective, North Face, Solomon, and other similar outdoor brands. OVERCOMING CHALLENGES E

BACKGROUND US Army Veteran, Stacey Barre, came home from Iraq in 2007 suffering from symptoms of PTSD and alcohol addiction. Then, in 2009 when a friend took him rock climbing, he had a moment where he felt free of all the guilt and bad feelings about the past. After the climb, an idea came to mind of how this type of activity would be great therapy for other people struggling with similar issues. Working in an outdoor-based program wasn't one that Stacey ever saw himself doing. But, opportunities presented themselves one step at a time and In 2009, while all he was trying to do was survive, This therapeutic rock climbing adventure led him to the outdoors industry. PREVIOUS WORK In 2010, Stacy and Nick Watson formed the Veterans Expedition and a couple of years later, they met Timmy O'Neill who introduced them to a small team working with NatGeo Adventure. NatGeo showed interest in their stories and wanted people to realize that adventure is also a community-driven process, and there are different ways to be

In 2003, Kelly was self-employed and working in the electric sign industry. As much as he was comfortable in this business, he wasn't quite fulfilled. His wife suggested that he put a resume on Craigslist and that’s exactly what he did. Shortly thereafter, he received a phone call from Mitchell Schwartz of BeCore Promotions. After listening to Mitchell describe the opportunities at BeCore, and then also doing research about Becore on his own, Kelly expressed the potential interest he had in becoming an owner of the company. In complete transparency, Mitchell stated that this was a possibility. With this objective in mind, Kelly started working for the company by producing events and helping with administrative work.  Kelly Vaught is now the CMO and Co-owner of BeCore, an experiential marketing agency based in Downtown LA. At the moment, their portfolio has expanded from working with their first client Red Bull, to now working with Nike, Microsoft, Harley Davidson, and a host of other clients. HOW TO TRANSFORM

"Being a fearless leader is about getting into someone else's head and seeing things from their perspective, let go of your ego and instead help move things forward in a big way" -Ryan Bukstein VP of Ace Hotel Group, Ryan Bukstein's journey began with an email from the company "Never Stop". Never Stop was an experiential marketing agency, and they were looking for an intern. Ryan looked the company up online and saw that they had started a chain of businesses which included the first Ace Hotel, nightclubs, a concert venue, and even a barbershop. As a musician, Ryan was excited about the opportunity to gain connections and responded to their inquiry quickly, letting Never Stop know of his interest, but also informing them that he was slated to be working in Japan for the next six months. Surprisingly, the head of the company, Alex Calderwood, personally responded to the email, telling Alex how he actually had an interest in launching an Ace Hotel in Japan and "could he please start his internship by researchi

Rick Alessandri is the Executive Vice President at Univision Communications. At a young age, he didn’t expect to be a media executive. In fact, he originally thought that he would be an attorney, but quickly realized he wasn't passionate about it. From a young age, his passions had been more centered around sports and music. While in college, he started working part-time for Sports Ticker. A year later, in 1983, he became a full-time employee. Slowly, this then morphed into the newsroom operator, sports reporter, and many other duties. As the business grew, and as he became more and more involved, he started learning all that he could about the sports business. The company grew and was eventually sold to ESPN in 1993. In 2000, Rick was asked to take a job with George Bodenheimer as his chief of staff VP. Here, he learned to communicate with people, manage staff and figured out how to get deals done. This earned him different job positions at ESPN, and now he’s at Univision running the corporate business devel

  Jennifer Gonzalez had spent quite a bit of time working at her family’s insurance agency, but she always felt a little bit constricted. She felt that she had a different purpose in life, but what it was she couldn’t immediately pinpoint. In a bid to keep fit, she would run 5 miles every morning. This decision was short-lived as she developed some complications with her knees and hips. The next best idea was to follow a diet plan. On a recommendation, she went into a bookstore in search of a health book. What she found was The Raw Food Detox Diet. It sounded so radical to her, this book that was filled with important information about detox and health. Jennifer literally became obsessed with it. A colon therapist, Gil Jacobs, was who had recommended the book and has since become her mentor. Gil encouraged Jennifer to pursue colon hydrotherapy as a career. At the time, she was highly embarrassed to tell people she had colonic, but eventually, she embraced the idea. She is now a certified colon hydrotherapist

  Miki Reynolds is the executive director of Grid110, a company she co-founded in 2014. They're a community in economic development non-profit, which is in partnership with the Mayor’s office. The company mainly focuses on activating and supporting the start-up ecosystem in Downtown, Los Angeles by providing access to free space, mentoring, and resources to early stage entrepreneurs and startup teams. JOURNEY TO BECOMING AN EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR Miki had lost her job and was trying to figure out how to connect to a community or meet people who would later on hook her up with her next gig but she really struggled to find anything. Finally, she was able to connect to a group of 6 people and it’s here that they had the bright idea of how they could enable startups to want to move, grow and thrive in Downtown, LA. They had a common interest of helping building and supporting the community in the area because they felt that most of the start-up and tech activities centered around the west-side. This is how Grid110 wa

HOW THE BUSINESS STARTED Hasan Piker has always had a passion for politics. After high school, he came to the United States to study and thereafter he got an Internship at The Young Turks (TYT). Eventually, he started producing on the side, He would sneak in as many extra hours as he could so that one day he could have his own show and segment which was a big dream. This thirst led him to ask his producers if he could fill in for them while they were away. They accepted his offer and this is how he grew his experience as well as audience. Impressed, the producers allowed Hasan to create a low cost alternative show in one of their YouTube channels and gave him control over their Facebook page where he created his now really famous show. He is responsible for The Young Turks Facebook page where he also has a show, The Breakdown. His day to day duties consist of looking for stories that really upset him, which unfortunately isn’t hard to find nowadays. The hard task for him is trying to make the show information

Brian Atlas is the president and COO of Dyrdek Machine. Dyrdek Machine is a venture studio passionate about building brands and consumer media. Rob Dyrdek, who’s the founder and CEO, and Brian, met at only 20 years old and built Street League Skateboarding together which he ran for about a decade. Brian is totally passionate about skateboarding and entrepreneurship. PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT Brian’s hunger for knowledge is unmatched. This has increased over time as he tries to find out more about evolving as a person. In college, he realized if he applied himself to a goal to learn and evolve or progress as a person, the effort equaled to performance and he quickly started seeing results. His career also increased the habit of reading, having mentors, and finding resources. STAYING COMMITTED TO A VISION If you believe the world needs something or you could do something in a better way or you have what it takes, there's an energy that fuels you towards an action. Before starting Street League Skateboarding, they be

Today, we have Claire Lew. She’s the CEO of Know Your Company which is a software tool that helps CEO’s overcome growing pains. When companies grow, the CEO’s feel like they're losing touch of the company’s employees. Know Your Company helps CEO’s get the insights that they're looking for and create an open and honest environment for employees to be heard when the company grows and becomes too much to handle for the CEO alone. They have over 15,000 members in 25 different countries. Apart from that, she sits on the board for the Chicago Coalition For The Homeless which is an organization that advocates for eradication of homelessness in Chicago. She also sits on a board that promotes art and entrepreneurship. They have a fund that helps fund budding entrepreneurs.   HOW CLAIRE GOT HER START Claire has been an introvert all her life and the thought of being a CEO of a software company had never crossed her mind. She’d hoped to work in international politics or at the UN. In college, she studied organizational

EARLY BACKGROUND In this episode, we speak with Mike Smith. In elementary and high school, Mike was the rowdy kid who never sat down. He was actually prescribed some ADD medication and told he was a troubled kid but he was just full of energy and life. He always looked forward to memorable moments and fun experiences during the day. When he joined college, his basketball coach took all that energy and harnessed it in the right direction. Before he started his nonprofit and speaking stuff, he was in the social service industry. He was working with homeless and runaway teenagers helping them get back to school by providing resources. After some time he realized his community didn’t have a place kids wanted to go once school got out. This motivated him to come up with a plan. HOW  IT ALL STARTED He had always worked with youth since he was in college, from church organizations to social worker organizations. He believes being around kids really keeps him young and on his toes and that’s what he really likes. Gro

Thank you so much for listening to our second season of the STOKED Lifestyle Podcast! In this recap episode, Steve talks about a few of his favorite moments of the past season and discusses plans for the future. Hope you enjoy. To learn more about STOKED visit: https://www.stoked.org/ https://www.instagram.com/stokedorg/ https://stokedlifestyle.co/home

Artist, designer, author, and educator, James Victore was born to be creative, but it wasn’t until he began designing posters in NYC that he truly discovered his calling. Years later, he has exhibited works at the MOMA, Palais du Louvre, and Library of Congress, by pouring his passion and opinions into each piece. Tune in to hear his journey. Hope you enjoy. To learn more about James Victore visit:http://www.jamesvictore.com/https://www.instagram.com/jamesvictore/ https://www.youtube.com/user/JamesVictore/ To learn more about STOKED visit:https://www.stoked.org/https://www.instagram.com/stokedorg/ https://stokedlifestyle.co/home

Sensing a need to showcase small entrepreneurs with big visions, April Francis founded Dose Market in 2011. Today this Chicago based, pop-up marketplace is in high demand for those in search of exceptional, locally-made clothes, jewelry, art, food, and other wares. Tune in to hear her journey. Hope you enjoy. To learn more about Dose Market visit: https://www.dosemarket.com/ https://www.instagram.com/dosemarket/ https://www.facebook.com/dosemarket To learn more about STOKED visit: https://www.stoked.org/ https://www.instagram.com/stokedorg/ https://stokedlifestyle.co/home