Hero World

Rena Flacco was a state taekwondo champion, a soccer player headed for a scholarship, and a master colorist who could bang out ten highlights a day. Five concussions ended the first dream. A bodybuilding show, a two-week trip to Italy with a mortadella sandwich always in her hand, and 60 pounds ended the second. She looked in the mirror and asked who she was.The answer came in a car on October 20, 2020. Four scoops of pre-workout, 60 milligrams of Adderall, a steroid cycle, and a voice telling her she had 30 seconds to say goodbye. Reena left her body, watched her life as a movie, and was pulled back by her mother screaming "Hold On a Little Bit Longer" — because she didn't want vomit on her new car.We talk about losing an identity built on a body, the dark night of the soul, a gun in North Philly at 4 AM, and the 20-hour drive to Florida that started her second life. This is the Belly of the Whale and the Resurrection: the stage of the Hero's Journey where the old self has to die before the real one can return. Rena then wrote her book, Guided Back to Myself, in three months.For more of Hero World click link in Bio!

Alison Thompson rollerbladed eight miles into the smoke of 9/11 with a medical kit strapped to her back, gave CPR to a stranger on the street, and dove under a UPS truck as the North Tower came down above her. She lost 64 friends that day. She has not stopped running toward disasters since — Sri Lanka, Haiti, Ukraine, Maui, and now Venezuela and Colombia — and hasn't taken a salary in 25 years.Alison and I talk about trading whiskey for oxygen tanks with UN troops in Haiti, teaching thousands of Ukrainian soldiers combat medicine as "girls with little hearts on our hats," and the discipline of releasing the ego when a grieving mother is crying, or hitting, the only person who showed up to help. This is Atonement — the stage of the Hero's Journey where you stop needing the story to be about you.Topics: disaster relief, 9/11, humanitarian aid, releasing the ego, purpose, the Hero's Journey.For more of Hero World click link in Bio!

Alison spent almost two decades moving through corporate assignments across the Netherlands, Slovenia, and Venezuela, becoming the first woman general manager in her entire industry there. Then, alone at a park in the Everglades on her bike, she watched an alligator surface with a Burmese python's head still down its throat — and the video she filmed on her phone went viral.Alison and I talk about the five-year relationship that ended over the phone and sent her on a solo trip to Botswana with nothing but a backpack of books, the small plane where a pilot handed her the wheel mid-flight, and the fear of snakes she had to dismantle piece by piece before she could become the wildlife photographer she is today. This is the Belly of the Whale — the stage of the Hero's Journey where an old identity has to dissolve completely before a new one has anywhere to stand.Topics: corporate reinvention, solo travel, wildlife photography, executive coaching, fear and courage, the Hero's Journey.Follow Alison here: alisonjoslyn / everythingevergladesFor more infos about Hero World: theheroworld.com

Christina rode her bike to elementary school in Parkland, Florida, made the Miami Dolphins cheerleading squad on her 18th birthday, and later became a federal-court attorney who once won a $2 million case by reciting a procedural rule from memory. What she didn't expect was that her two lives — the dancer and the lawyer — would refuse to sit quietly next to each other.Christina opens up about deleting her own Facebook in law school to hide that she'd been an NFL cheerleader, the bar exam panic attack that nearly sent her running out of the room, and a coworker who once asked, point blank, "Is she even serious?" This is the Road of Trials — the stage of the Hero's Journey where the world keeps testing you before it lets you become the Master of Two Worlds instead of forcing you to pick one.For more about Christina: https://www.christinahimmelesq.com/Watch her youtube Interview:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-iepwLAfco&t=4sFor more infos about Hero World: theheroworld.com

Before I hosted a podcast, I worked night shifts at a hostel front desk in Florence, washed dishes at a restaurant in Australia, and slept in my own car in Palm Beach. Ten of the stories I wrote during those years — some born out of pure boredom — are now a book.In this solo episode, I break down the real, lived origin of every story in my debut collection: the Florence night shift that produced "Lucid Dream," the homelessness in Palm Beach behind "The Lighthouse," the podcast about hypothermia that became "Iceman," and the insecure manager who tried to sabotage me and unknowingly gave the book its title. This is Return with the Elixir — the stage of the Hero's Journey where everything you survived finally becomes something you can hand to someone else.Watch the youtube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kvmk4izqFGE&t=1989sBuy my book: https://www.amazon.com/But-Maybe-Not-Matteo-Scaletti/dp/B0HL9KCQTJ/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0For more infos about Hero World: theheroworld.com

Chris Clark built his name behind the decks in Miami's underground house scene — from a broke intern at Revolution 935 to headlining sets at Club Space. But this conversation isn't about the music. It's about what happens when the ego runs the show, and what's left once it finally breaks.Chris opens up about losing himself at eighteen, being thrown in the fire with no mentor, and building two record labels — both of which collapsed under the weight of ego before he understood his real why. We talk imposter syndrome in the DJ booth, the mask that comes off the second the stage lights do, and Funue, the Chinese energy practice that helped him meet who he actually is underneath the persona.This is a Hero's Journey conversation in the truest sense: rock bottom, a mentor who appears exactly when needed, and the slow work of rebuilding an identity that isn't built to impress anyone.Follow Chris: @chrisclarkofficialFor more infos about Hero World: theheroworld.com

He left Caracas at 19 for the coldest city in Canada, thinking he'd never be able to make films back home. Andres talks about the mentor who proved him wrong, the farmer who swears there's a ten-meter alligator in his lake, and the friend whose worst tragedy became his most beautiful album. A conversation about leaving, returning, and what it takes to keep believing in your own stories.Follow Andres: https://www.instagram.com/lesestrades/For more infos about Hero World: theheroworld.com

My therapist finally sat down as my guest. Darren has been in my life longer than almost anyone on this show — the man who taught me tools I still use today. In this episode: growing up surfing Long Island, 27 years in mental health and addiction counseling, being in the water on the morning of 9/11 while his brother worked above the impact zone in the North Tower, what grief if you don't let it out, and Quantum Recovery — his own framework for turning uncertainty into possibility. A full-circle conversation between a therapist and the client who became the storyteller.Follow Darren: https://www.instagram.com/quantumrecoverycounseling/Watch Youtube Interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3o9srwXuLw&t=3826sFor more infos about Hero World: theheroworld.com

He's 101 years old, and he remembers everything. Hal grew up in Brooklyn during the Great Depression, became a Navy officer at 19, served aboard a battleship at Normandy and Okinawa, and built a medical career in Miami from nothing. In this conversation: the deal he made with God under kamikaze fire, the Prohibition loophole that fed his family, and what a hundred and one years has taught him about staying grateful. A rare, full conversation with someone who has lived through nearly all of the twentieth century and is still here to tell it..For more infos about Hero World: theheroworld.com

In August 2005, Desmond Meade stood in front ofrailroad tracks waiting for a train.He was homeless. Addicted to drugs. No ID. No onewho would come to his funeral. He had asked a pastorto pray for him the night before — and she told himto make an appointment. He walked out saying evenGod had turned his back on him.The train never came.What happened in the next few hours — the questionhe asked himself after crossing those tracks, theconnection he made to Rosa Parks' funeral ontelevision, the walk two blocks to a drug treatmentcenter — became the foundation of one of the mostsignificant civil rights stories of our time.Desmond Meade is a former convicted felon whobecame the architect of Amendment Four — the2018 Florida ballot initiative that restored votingrights to 1.4 million people with prior felonyconvictions. TIME Magazine named him one of the100 most influential people in the world. TheMacArthur Foundation awarded him a Genius Grant.His organization was nominated for the Nobel PeacePrize by the same committee that nominatedDr. Martin Luther King Jr.In this conversation, Desmond takes us through thefull arc: the Virgin Islands, the military, thecourt martial, the three years of confinement, thedeath of his mother, the railroad tracks, thedrug treatment program, Rosa Parks, the homelessadvocacy movement, and the 2018 landslide thatchanged Florida forever.He closes with this: "We are the heroes we havebeen waiting for. Tap into it."Follow Desmond: @desmondmeade44Website: https://desmondmeade.comFor more infos about Hero World: theheroworld.com