David's Recent Favorites

So, since I put my fitness transformation out the world I’ve been getting a LOT (huge understatement) of questions (literally getting close to a thousand) ranging from the funny “Did you photoshop the fitness photo?” to the more practical such as “What the heck did you eat?” or “Can you share some fitness/tips/insights, etc.?”\

(NOTE: Before anyone freaks out, business content isn’t going anywhere. RISE Fitness is on top of…not replacing what you are used to on the site which is interviews, tips and more designed for mediapreneurs/bloggers/Internet Marketers. Cool?)

Beyond the ego boost of so many nice comments (and thanks for all the kind words, you have me so pumped up that sometimes I just high-five random people walking down the street), my favorite comments were from folks who were inspired to make a change (either big, small or both) when it comes to health and fitness in their lives.

Some of you said you want to start eating better. Maybe lose a few (or more than a few pounds). Many of you jumped onto the program that I used Jet Set Body (affiliate). One former guest said after he read my story and saw the photos, he hired a personal trainer right away.

Tips, Tricks, Motivation, Recipes, Interviews All Centered Around A Healthy Lifestyle

First of all, I’m overwhelmed…in a good way. I never expected such a big time response to my journey and story…especially inspiring so many of you. It is humbling and exciting.

I’m MORE THAN PUMPED by the incredible community we have here and I want to help and share the passion for health and fitness that I’ve developed.

Now, I’ll be the first to tell you that I’m by no-means a “fitness” “nutrition” or “health” expert but I have been in the trenches soaking up information, testing it, and hitting my goal of getting into fitness-model shape in 90 days. Along the way I’ve met all kinds of interesting people as well who help mortals like us achieve our fitness and health goals. And you know my motto is fun and this will be no different…yes fitness/health/nutrition can be and should be fun.

Fitness has always been a passion/interest of mine and I wanted to bring more of it to The Rise To The Top in the past (in fact, even thought about it way before The Rise To The Top), but I guess it is one of those timing things. I wanted to be feeling awesome before I started creating fitness content. And the time is now.

I want to share what I’ve learned/am learning/experienced to help you (and make it freakin’ fun). Never before has there been such a tremendous amount of feedback/questions/excitement for ANYTHING on The Rise To The Top since the beginning in 2008.

It just feels right.

And before the question is asked, for now, business and fitness are going to co-exist on TheRiseToTheTop.com. Perhaps a slightly awkward marriage for the time being, but it will work itself out. I remember Gary Vaynerchuk once revealed his wished he would have kept all his passions on one website (wine and business) as opposed to two separate sites and instead simply used tabs to separate to topics at the top of the site. I’m thinking of doing the same. For awhile, everything will be mixed on the site, but eventually I hope to sort of “tab it out” so you can find business easily and fitness/health easily. Sound good to you?

A Few Questions For You:

What would YOU like to see? Tips, tricks, videos, recipes, interviews, articles?

What are your major questions you want answered?

How can I motivate you?

And of course if you haven’t already, you can subscribe to updates right here to stay posted on the new content as it rolls out.

Excited to help you look awesome and feel awesome.

-David

image credit: Daily Mail

Alright, you talked me into it.

I would say about 139394995969679 times per week (on average, give or take one or two), I get questions about interviewing and the interview business. Example FAQ’s:

-How do you find amazing people to interview?

-What is the business model you use for monetizing and how does it work?

-How do you come up with great questions to ask people?

-How do you shoot, edit, produce, post, yadda, yadda (and all that technical biz?)

-How do you market and promote the interviews so people actually watch/listen?

And the list goes on. And I love it because I’m ridiculously passionate about interviewing and would love to see you guys and gals do them on your websites. So, here is what I’m going to do about it for ya. I’m going to create an extremely useful interviewing course to help answer all of these questions based on my experience of 300+ interviews.

Now, to make this as awesome as possible, I would love to hear what YOUR burning questions are via the form below so I can make sure they are answered. Chance to ask questions has now expired. Thanks for all the amazing questions!

If you want to hear about the course FIRST, you can sign up below and you will be notified even before my mom (well maybe right after I tell my mom)

Some quick thoughts above on trying to appeal to everyone. What is your take?

A quick little behind-the-scenes update (and we have been talking about this on Facebook over the last day or so…feel free to hop into the conversation over there as well).

Working on a new series for the show where I’ll be bringing on folks to teach us something cool and specific so we can be all be awesome at everything.

Why? Because, I bet like me, you are a curious cat (aren’t we all) and have some kind of skill or topic you want to learn more about (and perhaps learn things you didn’t even know you wanted to learn about). And then we can dominate the world with our knowledge (muhahahaha).

For example, here have been some suggestions so far of things RISE nation wants to learn (topics and specifics):

-How to read faster
-Fitness tips/how to lose weight/how to get in better shape
-Tips on dominating poker and blackjack
-Tips on traveling (world travel a big topic)
-Learning about the latest gadgets and tech goodies
-How to say simple phrases in Mandarin Chinese
-Dating and relationship advice (perhaps how to plan a really romantic date or who knows what, dating mistakes, etc.)
-How to select a wine at a restaurant without looking like an idiot
-Simple recipes and cooking tips
-How to be great in any social situation

What do you want to learn? Leave your thoughts/suggestions/ideas below (it can be a specific topic and also if you have a suggestion for a person who is the MASTER of that topic let me know as well especially someone that can talk from experience and not fluffy bunny theory). I will track ‘em down.

Together we can become smarter…at everything. And dominate life (and cocktail parties or whatever). Sound good?

The two big questions:

#1: If shows were posted at the SAME TIME every time a new show is posted (i.e. 10 AM CST) would you be more likely to check the site more often because you knew when the episodes were going to be released?

#2: Right now, RISE is on a Tuesday/Thursday schedule, but debating stepping up to Monday, Wednesday, Friday as there are SO many great upcoming guests. Your thoughts?

Hugs and kisses,

David

So…a little update from inside The Rise To The Top trenches. Wanted to let you in on some of the upcoming guests coming on the show. Some are already shot & others are being shot over the next few weeks and then I’ll get ‘em up for you.

Hard to believe next week will be episode #200 (on Thursday) of The Rise To The Top and interview #300 (for those playing math master, the reason there are more interviews than shows is because the 200 episodes doesn’t include the 36 episodes of the show that were on ABC in St. Louis, but the interviews in those shows are counted towards the running total).

A big massive thank you to you. Without you, The Rise To The Top wouldn’t exist. It is hard to believe that we are closing in on 200 episodes. I’m humbled and honored that I get to this for you. My goal, as you know, is to deliver you super interesting & entertaining conversations with a variety of awesome people ranging from athletes to entertainers to newsmakers to all kinds of cool peeps.

Here are a few upcoming (subject to change of course):

Roy Elghanayan: One of the top martial artists and master of self defense in the world. Don’t believe me? Check this out.

Jeff Glor: CBS News anchor/correspondent (currently anchor of CBS News’ “The Early Show”).

Shaun Assael: Sportswriter who goes into the deepest, darkest corners of sports. His books include: Steroid Nation, Sex, Lies & Headlocks, and Wide Open.

Chemda Katg & Keith Malley: Creators and hosts of one of the longest-running and most popular comedy podcasts: Keith & The Girl.

Jeff Serowik: Former NHL hockey player who has overcome a career-ending head injury to create an incredible hockey camp which this summer will have over 4,500 kids attend from around the world.

Ralphie May: Amazing comedian. Seriously, freaking hilarious.

Michael Buckley: YouTube celebrity and creator/host of the insanely popular (over 1,000,000 SUBSCRIBERS) What The Buck show on Youtube.

John Shahidi: Co-Founder of RockLive who has created such huge mobile gaming hits as Mike Tyson Main Event

Boxing Special (in conjunction with the upcoming fight on HBO June 25th): Ryan “The Irish Outlaw” Coyne will be discussing his undefeated record, his rise to success and his first world title shot. Devon Alexander “The Great” will also be joining me to talk about his huge upcoming headline fight on HBO & much more.

Amy Martin: One of world’s top marketers, master of social media and the person responsible for getting Shaq onto Twitter.

Jason Calacanis: Serial entrepreneur and co-founder of the innovative ThisWeekIn web tv network.

Michael Stelzner: Second appearance by the founder of Social Media Examiner to talk about his new book.

George Watsky: Writer, performer, rapper, comedian and hilarious poet . George’s video Pale kid raps fast has over 10,000,000 views on YouTube.

Ryan Bader: Professional MMA fighter in the UFC. Won Season 8 of The Ultimate Fighter. Has only 1 loss in 13 professional fights.

….and oh so much more. Keep an eye out for new episodes and always your thoughts are welcome below in the comments (who are you most excited for?)

To the top,
David

I get lots of questions all the time about podcasting and creating an online show.

Maybe you want to create a show about birds or monkeys or sausages or whatever. And you need a little help with everything.

Here is the secret. There is someone that is the absolute master at this. It is Cliff Ravenscraft aka The Podcast Answer Man. And he rocks. Big time. If there is one guy to learn from on how to do your own show, it is him.

Cliff has a class coming up starting on July 11th back by pop demand called, aptly named, Podcasting A-Z. This will answer all of your questions.

I was able to kidnap Cliff and torture him until he gave a promo code to RISE nation. All you have to do is check it out right here and enter the code “risetothetop” and you will get $99 off. Boom.

Enjoy!

Step right up kids. Welcome to David’s Big Ass Video Equipment & Other Cool Stuff Sale.

Why do I have all this stuff and why am I selling it?

This video equipment was used when I was producing my show for ABC in St. Louis and other video shoots we did. It was MUCH less expensive (and fun) to buy all the equipment and hire freelancers do the show (usually shot out of my condo in those days or on location with guests) as opposed to using a big, expensive studio.

But, now, I don’t need the equipment as I shoot my entire show on a laptop/other equipment, but you might as it is really, really, really good stuff and barely used (was used to shoot 12 episodes and a few other random shoots).

Here is what I’ve got for ya (cue those girls from The Price Is Right going over the showcase showdown):

-JVC Showcase Camcorder HD-GY100  Purchased For: $4,999 Selling For: $3,500
-JVC Camcorder HD-GY200 ENG/EFP w/ 16x1Lens/Ac-Adapter: Purchased For: $5,799 Selling For: $4,200
-JVC Hard Disc Recorder & Hard Disc Rear Bracket Purchased For: $1,834 Selling For: $1,400
-Kit of 4 softboxes Purchased For: $1,395 Selling For: $900 (including tripods!)
-Ikan Teleprompter Purchased For: $900 Selling For: $700
-Soft Padded Carrying Case (for camera) x2 Purchased For: $265/ea Selling For: $200/ea
-Libac Tripods x2 Purchased For: $194.95/ea Selling For: $140/ea

+ Shipping (if you are outside of St. Louis)

What to do next?

Options:
#1: Buy something individually by emailing us here
#2: Buy it all for $11,000 (over $15,500 worth of equipment) by emailing us here

Happy shopping!

-D

A little spoiler alert.

On the show this week…..

Tuesday: Daymond John – CEO & Founder of FUBU, currently on the Mark Burnett business show Shark Tank on ABC Fridays at 8 PM.

Great guy (and very funny by the way) joining me to chit-chat about the show, where he is going with his career and he comes bearing a gift for everyone. Yes, everyone. Tune in to claim it (it is a good one).

UPDATE JULY 7th: Learned my lesson on this one!
So, exciting news today. I’ve been keeping this under wraps for a little bit as there has been a bunch of behind-the-scenes organization.

I have this saying: You are either changing and evolving, or you aren’t really living. To me, life is about reinvention.

The Rise To The Top is moving beyond business interviews and will now be focusing on a wide variety of interviews with interesting folks in a variety of industries ranging from entertainment to sports (and there is a heck of a lineup on its way).

It was just that time and I couldn’t be more pumped to tell you about it. After 2.5 years of doing purely business interviews with great people, I could feel it in my bones that it was time to evolve. Time for something new.

Does this mean I’ll never again interview entrepreneurs or talk business? Not at all. My goal is to bring you interesting interviews with awesome people and that is going to continue to happen in a HUGE way.

For example you might be seeing interviews from:
-Best-selling non-business authors
-Comedians
-Musicians
-Entertainers
-Performers
-Athletes
-Artists in all types of fields
-Wresting superstars from the 80’s.

…and more. MANY more.

I’m shaking a bit as I write this. Not out of nervousness, but out of anticipation. When I started The Rise To The Top in 2008, we had maybe four viewers/listeners including Dad, Mom, Grandma and myself. Now, well over 100,000+ are tuning in on computers, mobile phones, tablets, and even TV’s (through Roku and Connected TV) which is extremely humbling and I’m excited to grow even further.

Let the new era begin! None of this would be possible without you.

The fun starts Tuesday, May 3rd….with best-selling author and rock&roll/pop culture journalist Neil Strauss.

-David