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Episodes
Tuesday Mar 04, 2025
Tuesday Mar 04, 2025
Ascent Life Ep. 14 - Embrace Discomfort
Welcome to Ascent Life LIVE, I’m your host, R. Brandon Long, here with the mission to inspire 1 million people a day to live their best lives, and be the best version of themselves. That is living an Ascent Life
Join us LIVE Monday’s - Thursday’s 4pm MST:
𝕏 || https://x.com/r_brandonlong
YT || https://www.youtube.com/@r.brandonlong
Inspiration & Motivation:
IG || https://www.instagram.com/ascentlife/
TT || https://www.tiktok.com/@r.brandonlong
Ep. 15: Fly Eagles Fly with INNER EXCELLENCE
The Philadelphia Eagles dominated play in last night’s Super Bowl, and the book Inner Excellence even made the camera’s. They showed Philly wide receiver, AJ Brown with the book. Later when asked about it, Brown said, he didn’t need the book last night, his teammates were just giving him crap.
But, the book made an appearance, and the Eagles won the Super Bowl. First, weekly updates on my Fitness & Finance goals:
WISDOM FROM THE PAGES: Diving into Chapter 5 of Inner Excellence: Code of the Samurai My takeaways: Embrace discomfort
Tuesday Mar 04, 2025
Tuesday Mar 04, 2025
Ascent Life Ep. 13 - Three Pillars of Extraordinary Performance
Welcome to Ascent Life LIVE, I’m your host, R. Brandon Long, here with the mission to inspire 1 million people a day to live their best lives, and be the best version of themselves. That is living an Ascent Life
Today, I want to talk more about the book Inner Excellence by Jim Murphy. I read Chapter 4 today, and there’s some really good nuggets about focusing on your purpose, the process, and what Murphy calls the Fearless Four.
Again, as I’m reading books, and learning how to become the best version of myself, I’m here to pass along the information and highlight what is helping me and hopefully it will help you as well.
Chapter 4 of Inner Excellence: The Daring and The Twilight - Three Pillars of Extraordinary Performance- The 3 most powerful resources in the world: love, wisdom, and courage…
Tuesday Mar 04, 2025
Tuesday Mar 04, 2025
Live a FULFILLED Life Using the Greek Term “ZOE”
Ascent Life Ep. 12 - Love, Wisdom & Courage with Photographer, Austin Luckett
Join us LIVE Monday’s - Thursday’s 2pm MST:
𝕏 || https://x.com/r_brandonlong
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Inspiration & Motivation:
IG || https://www.instagram.com/ascentlife/
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Zoe, Z.O.E. not Zooey Deschanel, the actress & musician, but zoe, the Greek word associated with being your true self as you serve others and live with fullness of life. Zoe.
Jim Murphy, author of Inner Excellence describes Zoe as “the state of being possessed of vitality, with absolute fullness of life, real and genuine, active and vigorous. It’s the full potential of your inner life, the generator of intense beauty and passion.
Zoe is the full expression of love, wisdom, and courage.
Murphy continues… “Most people don’t actually know what they want most, besides material success.”
To live your best life, Murphy suggests living Zoe:
Love is fearless.
Wisdom creates the best long-term decisions.
Courage does it all with boldness & grace under pressure.
Murphy says, “To be whole-hearted is to seek to learn and grow in love, wisdom and courage above all else.”
And finally, “If you want to live an extraordinary life, you cannot let other people’s words or actions take you out of your rhythm or flow.”
Welcome to the show, I’m your host, R. Brandon Long and this is Ascent Life LIVE! We’re here with the mission to inspire 1 million people a day to live their best lives, and be the best version of themselves. That is living an Ascent Life
Reminder, we are LIVE 4 days a week. Episodes are then uploaded as a podcast to all your favorite podcast outlets including Spotify & Apple Podcasts as The Ascent Life podcast.
If you are watching LIVE, play along with us, and drop your questions / comments in the chat! We’ll get to some of those before we close the show.Our guest today is… Photographer, Artist, Austin Luckett
Tuesday Mar 04, 2025
Tuesday Mar 04, 2025
Ascent Life LIVE Ep. 11 - Becoming the Author of Your Life with Kase Johnstun
Join us LIVE Monday’s - Thursday’s 4pm MST:
𝕏 || https://x.com/r_brandonlong
YT || https://www.youtube.com/@r.brandonlong
Inspiration & Motivation:
IG || https://www.instagram.com/ascentlife/
TT || https://www.tiktok.com/@r.brandonlong
Become the author of your life. We all have agency. According to Psychology Today, Agency is the Highest Level of Personal Competence
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/getting-proactive/202203/agency-is-the-highest-level-personal-competence
In the psychological sense, agency entails a category of beliefs, a mindset. More profoundly, genuine agency includes the strategies and actions that accomplish what we want and bring us what we need.
Feeling that you have agency is nice. But feeling agentic falls far short of exercising agency—thinking and behaving competently and making real progress toward your desired goals.
To exercise agency is to acquire significant control over your outcomes in life’s various arenas, including school, work, sports, physical health, and psychological well-being.
The Four Pillars of Personal Agency
Full-fledged agency requires believing you can achieve your goal and engaging in the following activities:
1. Forethought: deciding to take on a challenge, thinking ahead, setting goals, and making plans.
2. Implementation: taking first steps, enacting plans, and persisting toward success.
3. Self-management: taking care of yourself, dealing with emotions and stress, and maintaining good health to sustain your efforts.
4. Learning and adapting: monitoring progress, rethinking strategies and tactics, and making effective adjustments.
Thoughtfully executing all four pillars of agency contributes to your personal and professional growth while helping you perform over time. Agency is thus a vital source of power, a capability, a competence that can contribute to your overall well-being.
Welcome to the show, I’m your host, R. Brandon Long and this is Ascent Life LIVE! We’re here with the mission to inspire 1 million people a day to live their best lives, and be the best version of themselves. That is living an Ascent Life
Please subscribe to the show on YouTube be at my page: R. Brandon Long
Follow me on X & TikTok under R. Brandon Long
For daily visual inspiration, follow Ascent Life on Instagram
Reminder, we are LIVE 4 days a week. Episodes are then uploaded as a podcast to all your favorite podcast outlets including Spotify & Apple Podcasts as The Ascent Life podcast.
If you are watching LIVE, play along with us, and drop your questions / comments in the chat! We’ll get to some of those before we close the show.
Our guest today is… Author, and Manager for the Utah Center for the Book & Utah’s Representative to the Library of Congress, Kase Johnstun
Bio: http://kasejohnstun.com/about
Tuesday Mar 04, 2025
Tuesday Mar 04, 2025
Inner Excellence is already messing with me. I’m only on Chapter 2, “Where the Wild Things Are: Pride and Fear and the Center of the Universe,” and I’m learning my fear comes from self-centeredness — which nobody wants to hear that.
My fear of rejection in SALES for instance comes from ego. Murphy (the author), writes:
“I’ve found that fear stifles our freedom and hurts our performance more than anything else. Fear of failure, fear of rejection, fear of not being enough. Fear, however, is only the symptom of a more complex issue. The root cause of fear is a virus of the heart: self-centeredness
”He continues…
“Fear is the opposite of love. It separates you from your true self.”
So, that’s a tough one. I’ve never really considered myself “self-centered.” I care deeply about others, without judgment, I want others to live their best life! That’s the point of this podcast. I want to help influence as many people as possible to live their best life, and that doesn’t sound overtly self centered. However, I do have fears. Those fears revolve around how others perceive me, especially if I fail. And, what Murphy is saying is that THAT fear comes from the ego.
More on that as I continue grinding through Inner Excellence…
Welcome to the show, I’m your host, R. Brandon Long and this is Ascent Life LIVE! We’re here with the mission to inspire 1 million people a day to live their best lives, and be the best version of themselves. That is living an Ascent Life
Please subscribe to the show on YouTube be at my page: R. Brandon Long
Follow me on X & TikTok under R. Brandon Long
For daily visual inspiration, follow Ascent Life on Instagram
Reminder, we are LIVE 4 days a week. Episodes are then uploaded as a podcast to all your favorite podcast outlets including Spotify & Apple Podcasts as The Ascent Life podcast.
If you are watching LIVE, play along with us, and drop your questions / comments in the chat! We’ll get to some of those before we close the show.
Our guest today is… IFBB Pro Bodybuilder & Coach, Dan Saunders “Trainer Dan”
Tuesday Mar 04, 2025
Tuesday Mar 04, 2025
Ascent Life 9 - Affluence
Your daily dose of success motivation exploring what it means to live your best life - an Ascent Life
What is your defininte major purpose?
How do you define success?
Join us LIVE Monday’s - Thursday’s 2pm MST:
𝕏 || https://x.com/r_brandonlong
YT || https://www.youtube.com/@r.brandonlong
Inspiration & Motivation:
IG || https://www.instagram.com/ascentlife/
TT || https://www.tiktok.com/@r.brandonlong
Tuesday Mar 04, 2025
Tuesday Mar 04, 2025
Ascent Life LIVE Ep. 8 - Ascent Life LIVE with Founder & CEO of Biznis Resource
Guest: Michael Westover, CEO Biznis Resource
https://biznisresource.com/
Join us LIVE Monday’s - Thursday’s 2pm MST:
𝕏 || https://x.com/r_brandonlong
YT || https://www.youtube.com/@r.brandonlong
Inspiration & Motivation:
IG || https://www.instagram.com/ascentlife/
TT || https://www.tiktok.com/@r.brandonlong
Intro Notes:
What is success?
How do you personally define success?
I ask every guest on this show the same question—How do you define success?
Answers vary. So, I wanted to go to the experts. I have a book my sister gave me, “The Book of Positive Quotations.” I pull from this book often.
There is a chapter on Success. Here are some of the notable quotes that stood out to me about success:
“The successful person is the individual who forms the habit of doing the what the failing person doesn’t like to do —Donald Riggs
“Nature gave men two ends—one to sit on, and one to think with. Ever since then man’s success or failure has been dependent on the one he used most.” —George R. Kirkpatrick
“If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imaged, he will meet with success unexpected in common hours.” —Henry David Thoreau
“Success follows doing what you want to do. There is no other way to be successful.” —Malcolm Forbes
“Always bear in mind that your own resolution to success is more important than any other one thing.” —Abraham Lincoln
“He did it with all his heart, and prospered. —2 Chronicles 31:2
“Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.” —Robert F. Kennedy
“Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it.” —Henry David Thoreau
“Try not to become a man of success, but rather a man of value.” —Albert Einstein
“I realized early on that success was tied to not giving up. Most people in this business gave up and went on to other things. If you simply didn’t give up, you would outlast the people who came in on the bus with you.” —Harrison Ford“
The secret of success is constancy of purpose.” —Benjamin Disraeli
“Success is peace of mind, which is a direct result of knowing you did your best to become the best that you are capable of becoming.” —John Wooden
Hope that clears up the definition of success for you. Hint: it varies.
Welcome to the show, I’m your host, R. Brandon Long and this is Ascent Life LIVE! We’re here with the mission to inspire 1 million people a day to live their best lives, and be the best version of themselves. That is living an Ascent Life!
Tuesday Mar 04, 2025
Tuesday Mar 04, 2025
Our guest today is… Real Estate Broker for MTN Buff and amateur bodybuilder, Paden Anderson
After bragging about crushing my morning yesterday, this morning’s routine was rough. Not a great morning in the Long house.First, I slept in until after 6. Not ideal, because this shifts my whole morning routine to later.Second, the 10-year-old woke up and chose resistance! He didn’t want to do anything that was asked of him which is unusual. He’s normally really good at getting ready for school. Not today.So, this put us parents in a parenting situation, and I’m already late to start my morning routine, and now I’m stalling even more, just to make sure crazy lil’ man gets his shit together. It didn’t go well. Once the kids were all off to school, I should have started my morning routine, and got things done, but I jumped on social media, and that took me out, for about an hour. I mean I did “work.” I uploaded a SHORT to 5 different platforms. It’s a delay tactic. Finally, I worked out, got ready, read 30 minutes, and started work (show prep, editing, etc.), but I wasted a lot of the day this morning. So, I tell you this because, living an Ascent Life means living up to the best version of ourselves, and I’m learning how to do that on a consistent basis. We’re going to have rough mornings, rough days, rough years, but two things:1 - You can always start over2 - Do what you can to keep the daily promises to yourself.I got my workout in. It wasn’t the best workout, but it got done. I got my reading in. I wasn’t as focused on it because it was later in the morning, and my head was busy. In my reading this morning of The Greatest Mindset by Lewis Howes, he talked about his system he uses to be productive in life. He calls it his GPS or Greatness Performance System. Great name.He breaks his goals and attention into 3 areas: Business (income, influence, impact); Relationships (personal, professional, community); and Wellness (physical, mindset, emotional health)A little corny. But, at least it’s a guide or a structure to start from. Then he asks himself 3 questions pertaining to each area:1. What do I want?2. Why do I want it?3. What’s the next step?He goes into detail obviously in the book, so if this all interests you, I suggest you pick up the book, but I found his GPS structure for living a productive life interesting, and something you all may benefit from.
Welcome to the show, I’m your host, R. Brandon Long and this is Ascent Life LIVE! We’re here with the mission to inspire 1 million people a day to live their best lives, and be the best version of themselves. That is living an Ascent Life!
Today’s Wisdom From the Pages
Atomic Habits by James Clear: On showing up…“If you show up at the gym five days in a row—even if it’s just for two minutes—you are casting votes for your new identity. You’re not worried about getting in shape. You’re focused on becoming the type of person who doesn’t miss workouts. You’re taking the smallest action that confirms the type of person you want to be.”“It’s better to do less than you hoped than to do nothing at all.”
Monday Feb 24, 2025
Monday Feb 24, 2025
Ascent Life Ep. 6 - Morning Routine with Ski Guide J.T. Robinson
Guest: Skier, Guide, Entrepreneur, J.T. Robinson: http://www.jtrobinson.com/
Intro: Wake up, do hard things. What are you doing today to be the best version of yourself?
Today, I woke up at 5:30, prayed and gave gratitude, read “The Greatest Mindset” for 30 minutes, made some goals for the remainder of the week, lifted weights for 15 minutes, then walked on the treadmill for an hour.
I then showered and got ready for the day, and was at my desk doing focused work by 8am.
That is basically the morning routine goal. I rarely hit it. I often sleep in until after 6:30am, which, I have my phone locked out of apps until 6:30am, so when I wake before then, I have to manually unlock any app I want to use. That’s a pain in the ass, so it allows me to focus on gratitude, reading, working out…
When I wake up after 6:30, I jump on my phone, and BAM!!! There’s social media, and all the notifications, and an hour later I’m like, damn, I need to workout and get my day going… and I’m behind on the day for basically the day.
I have no boss. I have few real deadlines. The deadlines I have are mostly self-imposed.
So, what’s my motivation to get up at 5 or 5:30 in the morning, and be disciplined? It really is to just be the best version of me I can be.
Morning quotes: “Snow endures but for a season, and joy comes with the morning.” — Marcus Aurelius
“The morning is wiser than the evening.” — Russian proverb
“Each day the world is born anew for him who takes it rightly.” — James Russell Lowell
“God had infinite time to give us… He cut it up into a near succession of new mornings, and, with each, therefore, a new idea, new inventions, and new applications." —Ralph Waldo Emerson
Carpe diem.
As poet Robert Herrick wrote:
Gather ye rosebuds while ye may, Old time is still a-flying; And this same flower that smiles today Tomorrow will be dying. Welcome to the show, I’m your host, R. Brandon Long and this is Ascent Life LIVE! We’re here with the mission to inspire 1 million people a day to live their best lives, and be the best version of themselves. That is living an Ascent Life!
Tuesday Feb 18, 2025
Tuesday Feb 18, 2025
Yesterday’s show with Cam McLeod, and our two hour conversation about many things, was a great second episode of Ascent Life, and really challenged me to think about what it means to live our best life, and why? So, I encourage you to go back and watch that, and maybe put it on 1.25 speed to burn through a little faster. We went full Joe Rogan, as far as length.
But after we stopped recording. Cam encouraged me to share more of my personal journey with you all, and I agree. But, I’m also hesitant. Despite my forward appearance with podcasting, and hosting shows, I’m a fairly private person. Most of my social media posts are to promote our shows along with the occasional funny meme, or an accomplishment or celebration of one my kids.
Outside of that, I rarely share personal thoughts and opinions on social media, because it’s a hell-hole of judgement. I think…
But a blog.
Or, in this case a podcast / vlog where the point is to learn about ourselves, and learn how to become the best version of ourselves, I feel Cam was right to share more of that personal process with you.
So, first, a couple things I’m working to improve on this year.
My health / fitness - I need to lose 50lbs.
My personal income - I need to increase my income to a number where I can again save & invest. Since becoming self-employed in October ’22 (27 months), I haven’t replaced the income I was making at my job.
I decided last night, to use Monday’s as a recap of my week, and how I personally performed to hit my goals, so that you, the audience can follow along, and offer any tips, suggestions, razz me.
But, more importantly, you’re front row to my transformation into living an Ascent Life
I would like to hear from you and your successes…
So, welcome to the show!
I’m your host, R. Brandon Long.
Please subscribe to the show on YouTube at my page: R. Brandon Long
Follow me on X under R. Brandon Long
For daily visual inspo, follow Ascent Life on Instagram
Reminder, we are LIVE 4 days a week. Each episode will then be uploaded as a podcast to all your favorite podcast outlets including Spotify & Apple Podcasts as The Ascent Life podcast.
If you are watching LIVE, play along with us, and drop your questions / comments in the chat! We’ll get to some of those before we close the show.
Our guest today is… artist, Real Estate Developer, Thaine Fischer
Bio: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thainefischer