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The Dose: Daily Summaries Delivered
by Mike Diamond and Daniel Boyer
Welcome to "The Dose" – your go-to podcast for unlocking your full potential & elevate your mindset! Hosted by Mike Diamond, TV personality, interventionist, & bestselling author. With their wealth of experience and passion for INSPIRE people, MOTIVATE people, & EDUCATE people, Mike is dedicated to helping you unleash your full potential. So, grab your favorite coffee, get cozy, join Mike & Daniel to take massive action toward creating your desired life. Enjoy!
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- 2 days ago48 min
#50 - From Drinking to Die to 10 Years Sober: Savannah Rae Glynn on Growing Up in an Alcoholic Home, Losing Her D1 Dream, and Building a Fitness Empire in Recovery
Mike Diamond found Savannah Rae Glynn through an Instagram post shouting her out for eight years of sobriety. He messaged her, liked what she was doing, and watched her build something extraordinary. This is the full story.Savannah was born in 1986 in California, where her father was stationed at Camp Pendleton as a Marine. From the outside — well-respected family, sports, structure. Behind closed doors, a verbally and emotionally abusive alcoholic. When Savannah was seven, her mother gave him an ultimatum: stop or leave. He stopped cold turkey. For six years those were the happiest of her childhood — a tomboy, a multi-sport athlete with a feeling that something big was meant for her life.At thirteen, her father brought home a case of beer. Within a week, the liquor followed. The abuse returned — targeting her image, her weight, her worth. She internalized every word until the tape player ran on its own. To earn his love she stopped eating, reached 98 pounds. His response: now you're skin and bones, no man will ever want you. There was no winning.But there was softball. She became a catcher — one of the best in her region — with a D1 scholarship as her exit plan. Her senior year her father started smoking crack. The home exploded. The dream slipped away. No college, no direction, and she started partying.Ages 21 to 26 were the worst five years of her life. She needed alcohol from the moment she woke up — keeping mini bottles in her apron, shots in the bathroom every hour just to take orders. She got a DUI, woke up in a jail cell on Easter Sunday. She passed out in bars, alleyways, bathroom stalls. She drank hoping she would not wake up. She kept waking up in hospitals.Her last binge: $300, three nights at the Vista Motel in Port Orchard. Night one — bar across the street, passed out, ambulance, ER, back to the motel. Night two — bowling alley next door, same thing. Night three — a blackout call to her mother she has no memory of making. Her mother came. If she hadn't, Savannah believes she would have died in that room.At the ER for the third night running, she saw the look on her mother's face and something shifted. She asked God for help for the first time. She went to Kitsap Recovery Center and begged for a bed. Month-long waitlist. Three days in detox. On day three her counselor came around the corner with tears in her eyes: you got a bed.A counselor in treatment told the group: look around — only one or two of you is going to make it. Savannah wanted to be one of those two. She stayed three months. Breathalyzers, buses, meetings, court fines, no license, no car, a bag of clothes. She moved her feet forward every single day.Ten years later she runs a virtual fitness community at savannahraefitness.com, raises two daughters, navigated her husband's relapse, and is rebuilding her relationship with her father as he battles stage four cancer. She can see color now. She's in reality. She is never going back.About Savannah Rae Glynn Savannah Rae Glynn is a fitness entrepreneur, recovery advocate, and mother of two based in Washington State. Sober since May 21st, 2012, she is the founder of Savannah Rae Fitness — a virtual boot camp community built on the same principles she learned in recovery: one day at a time, one step at a time, keep moving forward. She is a former competitive fast-pitch softball catcher and a passionate voice for sobriety and women's wellness. About Mike Diamond Mike Diamond is Director of Engagement and Intervention Services at American Addiction Centers, a featured Interventionist on A&E's Intervention, and the bestselling author of A Dose of Positivity (BenBella / Matt Holt Books) and 7 Steps to an Unbreakable Mindset. Sober since April 16, 2006. Resources mentioned Savannah Rae Glynn — savannahraefitness.com (virtual boot camp) Savannah’s Instagram Mike Diamond — A Dose of Positivity (BenBella / Matt Holt Books) Mike Diamond — 7 Steps to an Unbreakable Mindset
- 1 weeks ago43 min
#49 - From a Gun to His Head at 19 to a Billion-Dollar Real Estate Portfolio: Charlie Smith on Surviving a Violent Childhood, Building an Empire While Drinking, and Taking the Pen Back in 2008
Mike Diamond has called Charlie Smith one of the most complete human beings he knows. Charlie grew up on the cover of Catholic Digest as the model Catholic family of Scarborough, Maine. His father was a college professor. His mother, a first-grade teacher. Behind closed doors, his father beat him from age six to nineteen — the last time with a .45 caliber pistol leveled at Charlie's head.He buried it. Went from special ed to honor roll to Fairfield University to a $22,500-a-year analyst job in California. Twenty years later he was running one of the state's most active ground-up retail real estate companies — nearly four million square feet of shopping centers, 35 employees, a portfolio touching a billion dollars. He was also drinking himself to death.Charlie calls it destination disease: the belief that enough accumulation — houseboats, sport courts, three cars, the big house — would make the internal pain go away. It doesn't. It makes it worse. Because the gap between the life you're showing and the life you're living keeps growing. He calls that the integrity gap: when your beliefs and your behaviors fall out of alignment.His rock bottom came on December 31st, 2007. An altercation. Vicodin. Cold turkey. Forty-five days later, one glass of wine at a business dinner in Hawaii unraveled everything — a missed state meeting, a missed flight, a wife and kids who didn't wait at the airport. His therapist told him: it's over unless you make radical changes.He built his own rehab. Couldn't go residential — 35 employees, dozens of active deals. Twice-weekly therapy, group therapy, a 12-step accountability partner, regular meetings. He threw himself into sobriety the same way he'd thrown himself into every other high-stakes challenge in his life — all-in, resourced, relentless. Fourteen years sober at the time of this recording.What followed wasn't a clean triumphant arc. It was imposter syndrome — the abused kid from Maine whispering he didn't deserve any of it. The foundation he rebuilt on wasn't self-confidence or affirmations. It was self-acceptance: the honest acknowledgment of who he actually was, strengths and weaknesses both, without constant self-judgment.Now Charlie coaches mental performance — self-talk, visualization, internal advertising, self-image management — working with athletes and entrepreneurs on being their best when it means the most. And he lives by the mantra that changed everything: In 2008, I took the pen back to the story of my life. It's my life. It's my pen.About Charlie Smith Charlie Smith is an entrepreneur, real estate developer, and mental performance coach. Over a 20-year career, he built one of California's most active ground-up retail real estate companies, developing and managing nearly four million square feet of shopping centers across the state. He has been sober since 2008. He is the founder of My Life My Pen, a mental performance coaching practice working with athletes and entrepreneurs on self-talk, visualization, self-image management, and performance under pressure. He grew up in Scarborough, Maine, and is based in California.About Mike Diamond Mike Diamond is Director of Engagement and Intervention Services at American Addiction Centers, a featured Interventionist on A&E's Intervention, and the bestselling author of A Dose of Positivity and 7 Steps to an Unbreakable Mindset. Sober since April 16, 2006. Resources mentioned ● Charlie Smith — My Life My Pen (mental performance coaching) ● Mike Diamond — A Dose of Positivity ● Mike Diamond — 7 Steps to an Unbreakable Mindset
- 2 weeks ago57 min
#48 - From Crack Pipes to Tennis Courts: Erika Sandor-Zur on Losing a Full Scholarship to Crack Cocaine at 17, 22 Years on the Streets, and Rebuilding Her Life as a Pro Athlete in Recovery
Mike Diamond heard Erika Sandor-Zur's story through Rob from Recovery Today magazine. He immediately called Charlie Smith: "You've got to hear this story. It's out of control — in a good way. Erika grew up in Cleveland, Ohio. Both of her parents escaped illegally from a communist country, met on their very first day in America, and built a 50-year marriage. No drugs. No alcohol. Her mother still has the same bottle from their wedding in the bar. Her father told her early on — with respect to tennis — "don't waste the money on this one." She had no hand-eye coordination. She found the sport anyway, fell in love with it, and became the number-one ranked junior player in Northeastern Ohio from 12-and-under through 18, with a full scholarship to Indiana State University waiting for her — where she intended to study broadcast journalism, because she wanted the whole world to know who she was.She smoked crack for the first time at 17, during her senior year of high school. A busboy at the coffeehouse where she worked invited her to a birthday party across the street. She had never heard of crack. There were only a few people there. Within two weeks of that first hit, she had sold her 1997 Mitsubishi Eclipse for $20 and her $700 Nikon camera for $30. The scholarship was over. Tennis was over. She was on the streets within months.What followed over the next 22 years is one of the most raw and comprehensive first-person accounts of addiction ever told on The Dose. Survival sex as a teenager — she describes it without flinching, because honesty, she tells Mike, is the entire foundation of her sobriety. Homelessness across multiple states, driving from California to Florida with no money, no plan, just a geographic cure and the hustle of finding another hustle. Arrests in so many jurisdictions her attorney asked which state. Crack houses where she witnessed things that still don't leave her. She also got pregnant. Twice. Her older son was conceived when she was seven months sober. Her second pregnancy happened while she was actively smoking crack. She describes calling hospitals, begging anyone to help her stop — not because she wanted to die, but because she couldn't stand living like that anymore and she didn't want to harm her child. Through 19-plus rehabs, she kept trying. Half-measures, she admits — honest enough to get validated, not honest enough to actually change. Until the last round. She was in a crack house. She had been up for what felt like a year. Something shifted. She came out. And this time it stuck.Today, Erika is almost five years sober. She is 43 years old, training on a tennis court as a professional athlete, raising her two kids — now 8 and 11 — and is the subject of a documentary series in development. She tells Mike that what she puts herself through physically now isn't that hard. Because of what she already survived.About Erika Sandor-Zur Erika Sandor-Zur is a professional tennis player, entrepreneur, and recovery advocate. Almost five years sober, she is now competing professionally at 43, raising her two children, and is the subject of a documentary series currently in development.About Mike Diamond Mike Diamond is Director of Engagement and Intervention Services at American Addiction Centers, a featured Interventionist on A&E's Intervention, and the bestselling author of A Dose of Positivity (BenBella / Matt Holt Books) and 7 Steps to an Unbreakable Mindset. Sober since April 16, 2006. themikediamond.com · IG @themike_diamondResources mentioned ● Erika Sandor-Zur — documentary series in development ● Recovery Today Magazine — where Mike first heard Erika's story ● Mike Diamond — A Dose of Positivity (BenBella / Matt Holt Books) ● Mike Diamond — 7 Steps to an Unbreakable Mindset
- 3 weeks ago31 min
#47 - From Korn to Compassion: Wesley Geer on Music as Medicine, Getting Sober in the Music Industry, and Founding Rock to Recovery
Mike Diamond sits down with Wesley Geer — guitarist for Head P.E., touring guitarist for Korn (replacing the late Shane Gibson), founder of Rock to Recovery, and co-author (with Dr. Constance Scharf) of the book Rock to Recovery — for one of the most honest conversations on this feed about how a music career and sobriety can coexist.Wes traces his arc from a 14-year-old in Fullerton, California obsessed with Eddie Van Halen and East Bay Ray, to becoming the first rock band signed to Jive Records (which had Tribe Called Quest and almost no rock acts), to flying to New York "high as hell on meth" to close that record deal, to walking away from Head P.E. after three records and ten years of touring, to working at his brother's pro-audio company, getting fired, getting into prayer and meditation — and getting a text from Korn ten days later.The conversation pivots to Rock to Recovery, the nonprofit Wes founded on 12/12/12. Now in its tenth year with 15 staff and roughly 600 sessions per month inside treatment centers, Rock to Recovery is the opposite of MusiCares — instead of helping musicians get treatment, they bring music into treatment. They have a contract with the Department of Defense and have been flown to Ramstein, Germany to write songs with wounded veterans and their caregivers. The annual fundraiser at the Fonda Theater in LA puts about 1,300 people in the room — half from active treatment centers — with past performers including Stone Temple Pilots, Dave Navarro, Moby, Mike Ness of Social Distortion, and Katey Sagal.Wes also opens up about his late friend and former business partner Scott Weiland, the Joshua Tree Airbnb he renovated last year, and his new band Human.About Wesley GeerWesley Geer is the founding guitarist of Head P.E., the former touring guitarist for Korn, and the founder of Rock to Recovery, a nonprofit that brings songwriting sessions into treatment centers, VA programs, and Department of Defense facilities. Co-author of Rock to Recovery (with Dr. Constance Scharf). New band: Human. Find him on Instagram @wesgeer.About Mike DiamondMike Diamond is Director of Engagement and Intervention Services at American Addiction Centers, a featured Interventionist on A&E's Intervention, and the bestselling author of A Dose of Positivity (BenBella / Matt Holt Books) and 7 Steps to an Unbreakable Mindset. Sober since April 16, 2006. themikediamond.com · IG @themike_diamondResources mentionedRock to Recovery (book) — Wesley Geer with Dr. Constance Scharf — available on AmazonWayne Dyer — I Can See Clearly Now / "awe meditation for manifestation"Robert Greene — Mastery (Mike references this concept of "inclination" multiple times across the feed)Rock to Recovery annual fundraiser — The Fonda Theater, Los AngelesWes's new band — Human
- May 5, 202637 min
#46 - The Neuroscience of Self-Compassion: Dr. Shauna Shapiro on Mindfulness, the "Good Morning, I Love You" Practice, and What the Brain Actually Does When You Get Kind
Mike Diamond met Dr. Shauna Shapiro the way most people did — through her TED Talk. He had just survived a near-fatal episode in 2017 (burst appendix, septic shock, ulcerative colitis, doctors recommending colon removal). He sent the talk to everyone he knew. Years later, when his co-host Dave Mills booked her on their show, Mike opens this episode by telling her: "You don't understand the impact this person had on my life."Dr. Shapiro is a clinical psychologist, the author of the bestselling Good Morning, I Love You (and the companion Good Morning, I Love You Journal), and one of the most-cited researchers on mindfulness and self-compassion in the world. The episode is her full origin story — and a master class in how the brain actually changes.She traces her arc: a teenage volleyball captain with a Duke University scholarship, an orthopedic crisis where her spine threatened to puncture her lungs, six months in a hospital bed, and the book her father gave her almost by accident — Jon Kabat-Zinn's Wherever You Go, There You Are. The first paragraph reframed her future: "Whatever's happened to you, it's already happened. The only question that matters is now what?" That question put her on a plane to Thailand and Nepal three years later, into the monasteries, and eventually into the PhD program where she's now spent more than 25 years studying the field.The conversation goes deep on the gap between what most wellness culture claims about positive thinking versus what neuroscience actually shows. Affirmations in a beta brainwave state don't reach the subconscious. Forced positivity doesn't work because "your brain and nervous system are not stupid." But authentic kindness — even when you don't feel it — bathes the system in dopamine and oxytocin, turns on the learning centers, and creates the conditions for actual healing.She walks Mike through her own three-step practice for handling the inner critic: name the emotion (UCLA research shows naming brings the prefrontal cortex back online), place a hand on the heart with kindness (oxytocin floods the system), and send strength out to others struggling with the same thing (common humanity defeats isolation).The episode closes on her two foundational daily practices: "Good Morning, I Love You" in the morning (when the brain is in a theta state and most trainable), and a one-minute gratitude journal entry at night (your evening mood predicts telomere length, mitochondrial health, and sleep quality, per the research). And if you're ready to commit to more: seven minutes of meditation, five days a week is the empirically-validated sweet spot.What we coverThe TED Talk that changed Mike's life — and how she ended up on his podcast years laterVolleyball captain → Duke scholarship → spinal surgery → six months in a hospital bedHer father, Jon Kabat-Zinn's Wherever You Go, There You Are, and the first paragraph that reframed her futureThree years later: Thailand, Nepal, the monasteriesWhy she didn't believe in "magic" — and pursued a PhD to understand what had happened25+ years of research at the intersection of mindfulness, neuroplasticity, and traumaWorking with breast-cancer patients and military veteransPost-traumatic growth (Marty Seligman) — and why she's hesitant to call suffering "a gift"The neuroscience of why forced positivity doesn't workWhy kindness produces dopamine + oxytocin (the actual chemistry of healing)Her three-step inner-critic practice: name → kindness → common humanityGood Morning, I Love You — the theta-state morning practiceWhy your evening mood predicts your telomeresThe empirical sweet spot: 7 minutes of meditation, 5 days a weekMike pitches her on Project One-Eighty — his documentary concept
- Jun 7, 202417 min
#45 - The Dose on Balancing Academic and Street Education for Success
In this episode of "The Dose," hosts Mike Diamond and Daniel Boyer dive into the intriguing topic of balancing traditional academic education with street smarts. They explore how these dual forms of education can coexist and lead to success. They discuss the real value of education, the importance of learning critical thinking and problem-solving skills, and how structured systems can be navigated and utilized effectively. They also provide insights into making informed decisions about career paths and the significance of continuous learning. Tune in for an engaging conversation that challenges conventional views on education and success.
- May 29, 202419 min
#44 - The Dose on The Importance of Mastering Focus
In this enlightening episode of The Dose, "The Dose," hosts Mike Diamond and Daniel Boyer dive deep into the crucial topic of "Focus." They discuss the significance of mastering focus in today's fast-paced world and explore how a lack of focus can severely impact various aspects of your life. They share strategies to improve concentration and productivity through engaging conversations and practical advice, helping you achieve your personal and professional goals. Tune in to discover how sharpening your focus can lead to a more fulfilling and successful life. Don't miss this essential episode packed with insights and actionable tips!
- May 23, 202420 min
#43 - The Dose on Importance of Breaking Limiting Beliefs
On this episode of "The Dose," hosts Mike Diamond and Daniel Boyer delve into the powerful topic of breaking limiting beliefs. They explore how these self-imposed barriers can hold us back from reaching our full potential and share practical strategies for overcoming them. Whether you're struggling with self-doubt or simply looking to elevate your mindset, this episode offers valuable insights and actionable tips to help you break free from limiting beliefs and unlock new possibilities in your personal and professional life. Tune in for an enlightening discussion that will inspire you to challenge your inner critic and embrace a more empowered perspective.
About The Dose
Welcome to "The Dose" – your go-to podcast for unlocking your full potential & elevate your mindset! Hosted by Mike Diamond, TV personality, interventionist, & bestselling author. With their wealth of experience and passion for INSPIRE people, MOTIVATE people, & EDUCATE people, Mike is dedicated to helping you unleash your full potential. So, grab your favorite coffee, get cozy, join Mike & Daniel to take massive action toward creating your desired life. Enjoy!
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