The Pursuit of Something: Recent Episodes
Ali Jafarian
The Pursuit of Something is not your typical podcast. There’s no theme or simple focal point, but rather an attempt to pursue what’s currently in focus. It’s a podcast for people with questions. We go deep on a wide range of topics with the intent to analyze and break down the human experience.
New episode with my good friend and fellow Front Row Dad, Les McDaniel. Les is a man of love and compassion. He’s on a life mission to help people find oneness.
This episode blends some awesome thoughts around chaos, faith, control vs surrender, and Les’s unique concepts of fusion. He shares ideas around the space we create, occupy and hold for ourselves, with powerful perspective on realizing self love and transformation.
Les coaches people through his “MESS to Mastery” framework, which covers the mental, emotional, and spiritual state. He’s helping people find greater meaning and purpose in their lives.
I appreciate Les for the love and curiosity he’s shining into world. He has a huge heart and is serving the world in a beautiful way.
This is a recap of a recent retreat I led out here in Colorado. It was a men’s retreat through Front Row Dads, which I designed and led with my good friend and FRD brother, Chris Emick. Chris and I started planning this retreat last year when we were hiking a 14er together, then earlier this month we put things in motion with the FRD team.
The theme of the retreat was two-fold:
- First, we wanted men to have an opportunity to disconnect and experience time with no demands. Time away from normal life and responsibilities. This is a concept we picked up from John Wineland's book - From the Core.
- Second, we wanted men to discover their wild, primal self. Chris and I believe that nature is a natural playground, and the perfect environment to come back to who we are at our core. It's inviting us to rediscover our wild, primal self. The self that was designed from nature.
Eight men committed to the retreat and helped co-create an extraordinary experience.
This episode offers some powerful insights around letting go, showing up and living boldly. Brent shares some background into his story, identity, choice, the mind games of writing a book, balancing masculine and feminine energy, the power of delusions, learning to surrender and more.
Brent just finished his book - Paper Cuts, The Art of Self-Delusion - which explores some of the deeper aspects of inner work. Now he's committed to his new group, The Bold Men Fellowship, where he can guide and mentor others on a similar path.
Powerful new episode with my Colorado friend and fellow coach, Mike Brown. Mike is a man of accomplishment, humility and wisdom. He’s had a profound impact on my life since meeting him.
This episode offers some deep insight around showing up authentically. Mike shares insights around wealth, achievement, failure, self worth, resiliency, reaching elevated states of consciousness and more.
Mike has unique experience across different facets of life. He flew jets for the Navy, founded multiple businesses, realized success as an investor and prioritizes being a family man. He was also semi retired for several years. Now he’s committed to coaching and mentoring others with his gifts.
I appreciate Mike for the way he shows up. He’s an inspiration and true source of courage. He’s also really fun to be around! I’m grateful for having Mike in my life and the space he created on this episode.
What's up, folks! I've got a new solo episode for you today around a recent family adventure to Europe. We visited 4 countries over a 23 day span including Norway, Germany, Italy and Greece. It was a full adventure with beauty, chaos, fun, stress, sprinkles of peace, and a lot of quality family time.
This episode is packed with vulnerable insights. Jourdan shares context into her fitness story, social media, speaking to fear, grieving an old identity, empowering others through leadership and building community.
This episode is packed with insights including Chris's view of "work," our spiritual connection to nature, awareness around ego, the powerful lessons nature can teach us and so much more. Chris also shares some of his personal stories and realizations from various adventures.
Jon and I have a very open conversation about healing, deep self discovery and true humility. I'm very grateful for the space Jon created in this episode. You won't find a more authentic dialog.
This group episode is filled with connection, insights from nature, plus our collective learning from fear and uncertainty. We share everything from hiking and fishing to getting lost in the dark at 10,000 feet elevation.
In this episode Matt and I explore a variety of topics that yield positive energy, including his unique story and how it shaped who he is today. We discuss fear of other peoples' opinions, morning routines, family first leadership, old identities, and so much more. Matt is the type of person who inspires greatness in others.
In this episode Aaron and I explore the hot topic of psychedelic therapy. We navigate through identity, emotions, childhood, trauma and how plant based medicines play their role in a modern healing process.
This solo episode is about death and perspective, as it relates to what I learned from the recent passing of my dog Raja.
In this episode Erik and I explore the topics of creativity, education and self exploration. We discuss his story and a variety of his pursuits that have helped him reclaim his creativity. His book and life lessons are a powerful inspiration for how we all might reclaim our own creativity, analyze our being, and then ultimately understand ourselves better.
In this episode Ned and I explore a variety of his pursuits and projects around fatherhood. He's on a relentless mission to help fathers find their role. Not just an ordinary role that society expects, but their authentic and important role as fathers.
Ali shares his first experience with somatic breathwork at a recent Front Row Dads retreat.
We focus this discussion on Ryan's connection with nature from early childhood, through college, and into modern day as he leads one of the most established online communities in the backpacking world. We also cover some interesting ground on national parks, authentic journalism, and the importance of building trust on the internet.
Ali analyzes the topic of physical vs digital work, plus some recent experiences and insight on how we might balance them.
We focus this discussion on Matt’s swimming journey from athlete to coach, the impact sports can have on family legacy, and how it helped shape his perspective of leadership. We also discuss Matt’s powerful 3 question framework for coaching your children through just about any activity.
How often do you play in your life? Enjoy this short episode on the power of play, and how we can learn from our children.
We focus this discussion on Josh's recovery from being CEO, the realizations he had around success and happiness, and what fulfillment really means. Josh also shares some inspiring thoughts on his new journey into Jazz music and helping others reach their full potential.
How often do you push the "reset" button in your life? Enjoy this short episode on why and how we can benefit from resets.
This episode is focused on one of the almighty questions – finding our purpose. Mike shares his unique perspective on vision based living and how he’s navigated his own purpose journey.
Solo episode where Ali talks about the choices we make and how they impact our qualify of life. Hard choices, easy life. Easy choices, hard life.
In this episode we discuss a variety of pursuits including training, coaching, the science of myelination, and what motivates us to improve. Kyle shares his perspective on all of this and more!
This is a quick episode to recap my recent hut trip experience with 7 other Front Row Dads. It gave me an opportunity to unplug, embrace nature, and connect with other fathers. This will be the first of many similar experiences!
In this episode we discuss a variety of pursuits including identity, team building, the psychology of real estate / inflation, and how to better understand the media. Scott shares his perspective on all of this and more!
Quick solo episode with Ali on creating new commitments for the new year. Ali shares his process around vision, goals and commitments to set 2022 up for success.
Eric shares his unique and simplified approach to experiencing life. We uncover how this relates to business, hobbies, meditation and starting new things.
In this episode Ali breaks down our personal freedoms as it relates attachments, mind and choice.
We discuss getting to the next level of life with 75 HARD, coaching/mentors, hobbies, and freedom related to our choices.
What is up folks. Welcome Ali here. This is the first episode, the start of it all. As such, I'd like to take a little bit of time to introduce myself and provide a bit of context for what's to come. My quick background - I'm currently a father of two amazing young children Everest who's five and Sepia who's three.
I'm a husband to my best friend and life partner, Gabrielle Jafarian. I'm half Iranian and half American. My family and I currently live in Denver, Colorado. We are rooted in deep values around nature, extremely eco-conscious. We're also currently striving towards minimalism and we spend a lot of time outdoors.
I personally pursue an active lifestyle that includes high discipline around health, fitness and personal growth. I've also been submerged in psychology these last few years to really understand the human mind and our patterns. Professionally, I'm a technologist and an entrepreneur with almost two decades in software development.
And now the impetus for the podcast. So why am I doing this? First and foremost, it's a personal project. I'm in a phase of life where I'm intentional about creating space for creativity and curiosity. I really want to let things flow organically back into my life with less agenda. It's also going to be an open-ended podcast, meaning this is designed to be fun and exploratory.
I don't have all the answers. I don't even have a crazy plan, but I do know that I'm doing this for myself and for others. And I want it to stay that way. In doing so there's going to be a lot of variety of topics. So I want to bring diversity here. We're going to talk about everything from family life, to business, to health, to relationships, to the mind, like I said before. I'm very curious and, I've spent a lot of time studying different things these last several years.
And so I want to have the freedom of flexibility to talk about a variety of things. So with that said, there's going to be a duality of content. For the most part, there'll be a lot of personal recordings from me where I'm just entertaining or analyzing different thoughts. And then there will be guest recordings where I'm going to have friends, mentors, thought leaders, and other people that I want to bring on.
And. Discuss things with, I also intend to ask hard questions. So I want this to be a podcast that really does get to the root of things, where we go deeper than normal, perhaps entertain some discomfort. I would love to bring some new content that really helps inspire people to think more , or take action on something, or see a different perspective.
Lastly, it's an audio diary. So this is a personal vehicle for me to share my narrative, to interview interesting guests, and I've very much, enjoyed being on podcasts and listening to them the last several years. So it's my turn to give back, you know, I want to, I want to do this for myself, but I also want to do this for others, and this is going to be a legacy asset for my children.
I want them to be able to look back on something timeless, you know, what was dad thinking about or talking about with others and they'll very likely be a part of this podcast. So this is something that I hope they can get value from in years to come. And I'm also new at this. So I'm coming into this with a growth mindset.
I definitely don't have all the tips and tactics and strategies. I just want to start recording and see where it leads me very open to learning and experimentation as I go. And finally, I really appreciate you listening. I recognize that attention and focus are expensive today. So thank you for joining me.
I hope you enjoy the content.