Decision-making is one of the most important aspects of our life. Whether good or bad, every choice we make can create a massive impact on our lives. The same is true with our guest Nika. In her early 20s, she suffered from depression, suicidal thoughts, experienced symptoms of PTSD and struggled to stay in school. She tried to reach out and sought therapy, but it didn't work. Then, she discovered the power of making her own choices.

In this episode, Nika talks about our choices and how it affects our life. She shares her personal story of how making decisions helped her move forward. Nika discusses the reasons people feel stuck, the importance of making their own choices and shares her view about imposter syndrome and social networks.

Nika Kabiri teaches decision science at the University of Washington and is the founder of Kabiri Consulting, LLC. She is a decision science specialist who helps people move forward and minimize regrets on their choices. Nika has been featured on Yahoo News as a top 10 coach in LA Weekly, has contributed to media sources such as The Hill, Huffington Post, and Inside Sources, and is the co-author of the bestselling book Money Off the Table: Decision Science and the Secret to Smarter Investing.

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There is no easy way to part with someone you love. The pain can be overwhelming, and you may feel all kinds of difficulty and unexpected emotions. But what if it happens to you not just once but twice. Emily lost two husbands and suffered loss, grief and didn’t know where to get help.

Emily Thiroux Threatt is the author of Loving and Living Your Way Through Grief: A Comprehensive Guide to Reclaiming and Cultivating Joy and Carrying on in the Face of Loss, winner of the Bookauthority Best New Grief Book and the Silver Medal for the Living Now Book Awards. She is the Founder of the Grief and Happiness Alliance and hosts the Grief and Happiness podcast. She helps people like her put their emotions into writing and find ways to move forward in their life.

In this episode, Emily shares her own story of grief when she lost her two husbands, how she uses writing as her weapon to overcome the negative emotions from death and live in the moment. She also talks about creating a writing and happiness practice to help people deal with grief and loss. Emily has much experience in the grieving process and has learned to face life with love, optimism, and joy. Her mission is to comfort and support those dealing with grief and loss, focusing on happiness.

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Want to build a business, pursue your passion, and work a 9 to 5 job simultaneously? If you wonder how you can transition calmly and confidently from employee to entrepreneur, this podcast is for you!

Vanessa Zamy is an international business consultant, owner of Your Vision's Catalyst, a speaker, and best-selling author that helps her clients grow their business while still keeping up with their day jobs.

In this episode, Vanessa talks about her experiences in the corporate world, the reason she decided to leave, and how she transitioned from 9 to 5 to a full-time entrepreneur. She talks about the importance of mental shift and how reading a book transformed her outlook on life.

Vanessa believes in multiple sources of income, happiness and that time is not an issue. She shares how she guides her clients who are building their business and still want to remain in the corporate jobs without being overwhelmed and stressed. Vanessa discusses how your business's success can be affected by setting up the right strategy and so great tip.

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How do you celebrate life? How about death? According to Jessica Wertz, an artist, the ceremony of death should be sacred and restorative for the families and communities rather than painful and fearful. She came up with this realization when she was living in the woods of Oregon where she found a new connection between life and space through her ceramic craft.

She eventually transformed her work to creating a death space complete with a personalized package including urn, candles, and book guides for emotional aftercare ceremonies and rituals that values time, space, mood, and people who will be present in the gathering. The company called Spirit Vessel services pre-planning, living memorial, and funeral ceremonies that spark meaningful conversations to honor the life of the deceased and to guide those people who are left behind.

In this episode, Jessica shares the social structure and fear around death and how to overcome it, comparison of the older generations to the current generation when it comes to conversations about death, and how artists like her can support the dying and the living by creating.

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What’s easier to control: your dreams or your life? What if there is a way to control them both while sleeping?

Cordell Jacks, a dream coach, takes us to this new level of dreaming called the dream works where there is active participation and control over your dreams. 

His passion for dream works started when he dated a woman whose mother is a dream psychologist, one of the few in the world. She introduced Cordell to the academic field of dreams where he was instantly hooked to gain more knowledge, practice dream works, and share his acquired wisdom with others. 

He has been a well-known dream coach for 20 years, helping CEOS overcome fears and encode ideas from dreams, interpreting his grandmother’s dreams about the afterlife, and educating his own child about the importance of unique expression when it comes to dreams and nightmares.

In this episode, we will take a deep dive into dream works: how it can navigate a space for yourself, how it can assist in healing, processing grief, depression, and moving on, and how it can aid in making conscious choices whether you are asleep or awake. Cordell talks about lucid dreaming and its beauty and how Ayahuasca, psychedelics, and dreaming are interrelated with each other. 

He also shares some of his personal experiences on transitioning from corporate to dream works, how dreamwork helped him found a profound healing experience from a trauma he had when he was 11 years old and how it helped him to recover from a bad knee injury that hampered his life as a triathlete.

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Carmen Rosas is an estate planning attorney and woman’s empowerment coach. Her road to being a lawyer isn’t smooth sailing—she never wanted to be one. She tried to drop out of law school twice due to her self-doubt because she knows that isn’t what she’s meant to do. But when her grandmother passed away and saw the difficulty in processing the legal documents, she realized that law is her calling and there are other people who need her help, too. This is what brought her closer to pursue estate planning and practice family law especially for women and people of color.

In this episode, Carmen talks about her personal experience that led her to teach women how to empower themselves by providing financial tools and legal advice without relying on a man. She also shares the importance of estate planning not only to the person passing but also to the people who’ll be left behind. As an advocate of women empowerment, she encourages women to be true to themselves and never asks for permission in whatever they do—just do what you love, make money, and have fun doing it.

Carmen is a globally recognized thought leader, business advisor, CPA, and financial expert and the #1 National Bestselling Author of The Entrepreneur’s Solution. She has been an affluence, wealth & money mentor to top thought leaders and entrepreneurs. Her podcast, The Affluent Entrepreneur Show is ranked the #2 Most Powerful Business Podcast by Social Entrepreneur.

Carmen is the creator of multiple entrepreneurial training programs that provide the keys to business growth and success based on road-tested and proven processes and systems. She has advised entrepreneurs from startups to multi-million dollar and billion-dollar companies as to what drives value and how to build their dreams. She created and implemented growth strategies including taking a company from $50 million to over $200 million and assisted in numerous high-stakes negotiations, settlements, and transactions.

And she's also a super cool mom.

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Dr. Mark “Merriwether” Vorderbruggen, Ph.D. grew up being around nature, taking daily strolls in the forests with his parents. With his background and solid foundation about science, he decided to take up chemistry with a primary focus on natural products. After getting sidetracked on his career, he found himself in another state, dealing with a different ingredient. Feeling the urge to be around nature and doing outdoor activities, he pursued his passion and ended up opening a lot of doors that led him to who he is today. In this episode, Dr. Mark talks with Kristen Elliot about his childhood, the events that happened throughout his career, the importance of plants, and the benefits they give to us. 

Dr. Mark “Merriwether” Vorderbruggen, Ph.D., most commonly known as Dr. Merriwether, is the chemist and plant man behind The Medicine Man Plant Co. Falling in love with nature since he was a child, Dr. Mark’s dream is to share the true healing powers of nature with others. Taking up chemistry as his profession, Dr. Mark was able to travel around the world, earning 15 chemical patents. Since 2014, Dr. Mark is nationally recognized as an expert in wild edible and medicinal plants and continues to teach people about the miraculous plants nature has to offer through foraging classes, medicine making workshops, doing daily plant posts on social media, appearing on his weekly, live internet show “Merriwether’s World!”, and so much more!

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Let’s face it: it’s easier to talk about life rather than the end of it. But the reality is, we’re all going to face it at some point in our lives. What if there’s a platform that can guide you step-by-step to your journey through the dying process? 

For this episode, we speak to Jane Butler, founder of the online planning platform for end-of-life navigation called Near. She started being aware of the importance of end-of-life conversations when her fiancé (now husband) was diagnosed with brain cancer at the age of 23 and was given 2 years to live. Now her husband is cancer-free, Jane researched more about non-profit organizations focused on end-of-life care, health, and awareness and came up with the idea of founding Near. 

NEAR focuses on patients and caregivers of patients who have a terminal illness and serves as a platform and self-care home for them while navigating through paperwork and health care appointments. The Near Navigators or end-of-life doulas also provide one-on-one emotional support even for families to help understand what is happening during this difficult time. 

Sign up on staynear.co to know more about their services and offers and get more updates on their upcoming app soon.

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