Episode 49: From football dreams to a champion's mindset with Luis Rivera
On Adventure Podcast with Josh Self
Release Date: 05/16/2025
Episode 75: Hard Things Are Worth Doing with Justin Smith
On Adventure Podcast with Josh Self
Episode Description What happens in the dark hours before sunrise on day two, when your body starts asking what exactly you are doing out here? Justin Smith teaches high school in Santa Cruz, California, where his classroom is a working bike shop. By day he runs a Career Tech Ed program through Project Bike Tech, teaching teenagers to fix bikes, build resumes, and solve real problems with their own hands. On his own time, he is an ultra-endurance athlete who has finished the 2,700-mile Tour Divide from Banff, Canada to the Mexico border in 16 days straight, raced the Fiji...
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Episode 74: Carrying a Language Home with Gil Jackson
On Adventure Podcast with Josh Self
Episode 74: Carrying a Language Home with Gil Jackson Episode Description What does it mean to be so connected to a place that even your name carries it? Gil Jackson, known by the Cherokee name Dohi, meaning outside or outdoors, was born in Robbinsville, North Carolina in 1951 and today lives on 30 acres just 200 yards from the spot where he came into the world. He is a fluent Cherokee speaker, one of roughly 130 left, an elder of the Snowbird community, and an educator who has taught at Stanford, UNC Asheville, and Duke. In 2014, he thru-hiked all 2,200 miles of the Appalachian Trail,...
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Episode 73: Running is Life with Aaron Saft
On Adventure Podcast with Josh Self
ON ADVENTURE PODCAST | EPISODE 73 Episode 73: Running is Life with Aaron Saft As a species, we only do things if there is truly a reward on the other side. So when the reward is pain, struggle, suffering, and danger, what exactly keeps driving us back out the door? Aaron Saft has spent his life chasing that answer. A five-time ACC champion at NC State whose teams finished third at the NCAA Cross Country Championships, he traded the track for the trail, ran his first 100-miler in 2016, and has since become one of the most experienced ultrarunners in the Southeast. Today he coaches...
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Episode 72: Risk in Every Form with Greg Winchester
On Adventure Podcast with Josh Self
ON ADVENTURE PODCAST | EPISODE 72 Episode 72: Risk in Every Form with Greg Winchester Episode Description What does it take to keep saying yes to risk, in the boardroom, on the trail, and across all seven continents, for forty years and counting? Greg Winchester calls himself an armchair explorer, but the title sells him short. Over a 40-plus-year career in commercial real estate, he has worked through the savings and loan crisis, the 2008 financial crisis, and COVID, first as a banker, then as a co-owner, and today as an investor through his family office, Summit...
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Episode 71: Solo Female Travel, Real Risk, and the Belonging We All Crave with Amanda Black
On Adventure Podcast with Josh Self
ON ADVENTURE PODCAST | EPISODE 71 Episode 71: Solo Female Travel, Real Risk, and the Belonging We All Crave with Amanda Black Episode Description What does it actually take to step on a plane alone, head somewhere most people would call risky, and come home a different woman? Amanda Black is the founder of the Solo Female Traveler Network, a community of more than half a million women that started as a small Facebook group during her expat years in Australia. Ten years and roughly thirty tours a year later, she leads women into places...
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Episode 70: Saying Yes to the Right Invitations with Colin Stroud
On Adventure Podcast with Josh Self
ON ADVENTURE PODCAST | EPISODE 70 Episode 70: Saying Yes to the Right Invitations with Colin Stroud Episode Description What if your next great adventure is not a destination at all, but a willingness to say yes to the breadcrumbs life keeps dropping in front of you? Colin Stroud is a 26-year-old credit card rewards consultant, founder of Go Somewhere, and one of the fastest growing voices on...
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Episode 69: No One Was Waiting at the Finish Line with Madison Blagden
On Adventure Podcast with Josh Self
ON ADVENTURE PODCAST | EPISODE 69 Episode 69: No One Was Waiting at the Finish Line with Madison Blagden Episode Description What would it take to walk 10,000 miles in a single calendar year? Not across a lifetime. Not spread over a decade. One year. Madison Blagden is a long-distance hiker and content creator from Massachusetts who went from a pre-med student with zero backpacking experience to one of the most prolific endurance hikers in the country. After completing the full PCT (2022), the Eastern Continental Trail from Key West to...
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Episode 68: Who You Become When There's No Way Out with Robbie Lenfestey
On Adventure Podcast with Josh Self
Season 4 kicks off with a return visit from Robbie Lenfestey, who you may remember from episode 21. Robbie lives on Mandala Springs, a 67-acre retreat center in the mountains outside Asheville, North Carolina, and he was right in the middle of Hurricane Helene. What followed was months of disaster relief, community leadership, and eventually a very long-overdue exhale. In this conversation we get into what it actually looks like to be the calm person in a room full of panic, how a lifetime of pushing physical and mental limits builds a...
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Episode 67: How to find God in Solitude, Silence and Wilderness with Bishop Mark Beckman
On Adventure Podcast with Josh Self
In this final installment of our series on spirituality and adventure, I sit down with Bishop Mark Beckman, the 4th Bishop of the Diocese of Knoxville, to explore what happens when faith is formed not just in quiet rooms, but in wild places. From hiking solo through old-growth forests to walking hundreds of miles on pilgrimage, Bishop Beckman shares how discomfort, silence, and physical effort can open us to something deeper than words. We talk about the moments that push us to the edge of our capacity—storms in the backcountry, long days of walking, fear at high elevations—and how those...
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Episode 66: The Adventure Within - Finding Strength, Meaning, and Hope through Adversity with Hilal Kanaan
On Adventure Podcast with Josh Self
In today’s episode, I sit down with Dr. Hilal Kanaan - neurosurgeon, son of Palestinian immigrants, and someone whose daily work places him in the quiet but profound landscapes of human suffering, endurance, and compassion. While he isn’t chasing adventure in the traditional sense, Hilal spends his days navigating a different kind of wilderness: the emotional and spiritual terrain of walking with people through their hardest moments. We explore the kind of toughness that’s forged not on trails or mountaintops, but in operating rooms, hospital corridors, and the inner worlds shaped by...
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Hey friends — Josh here. In this episode of On Adventure, I sit down with Luis Rivera, whose story is one of raw grit, reinvention, and the kind of adventure that doesn’t just test your body, but transforms your mind.
From a childhood on a remote island off Puerto Rico to stepping into the unknown of upstate New York at age 12, Luis shares what it really means to navigate cultural shifts, language barriers, and personal setbacks. What begins as a sports story quickly turns into a full-on life odyssey — from a football injury that threatened his future, to an unexpected path in collegiate track and field, to ultimately becoming a national champion and training alongside Olympic athletes.
Luis’s journey is a powerful reminder that the hardest parts of the road are often the ones that reveal who we are. If you’ve ever faced a season of uncertainty or questioned your direction, this conversation offers both perspective and fuel for your own adventure forward.
⏱️ Timeline Highlights
[4:02] – From Puerto Rico to Rochester: The culture shock of middle school in America
[7:58] – How sports became Luis’s universal language of belonging
[13:45] – Earning the nickname “Mean Machine” and learning the power of hard work
[20:55] – The injury that ended his football dreams — and started something unexpected
[24:10] – A fateful meeting with a track coach and the start of a new athletic journey
[38:00] – Becoming a national champion and rewriting what success looks like
[47:00] – Life after elite athletics and applying the athlete’s mindset to real life
[56:22] – Luis’s powerful reframing of failure and why the “middle ground” matters most
🔗 Links & Resources
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Follow Luis Rivera
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Instagram: @luis4real
- LinkedIn: Luis Rivera, MBA
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Learn more about Nazareth University Track & Field: nazathletics.com
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🙌 Final Thoughts
If you enjoyed this episode, take a moment to rate, follow, and review the show — it’s one of the best ways to help more people discover these stories. And if Luis’s journey inspired you, share it with a friend who needs a reminder that the adventure isn’t just about the destination — it’s about how we grow through the climb.