Respark Your Life

Hosted by Raymond Aaron

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388

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Oct 2026

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Welcome to RESPARK YOUR LIFE, the world's foremost podcast to respark the fire within you to live life on your terms. Dust off the cobwebs of life on automatic, and grab the excitement and changes you desire but have been hesitant to reach for. No, you likely won't fly faster than a speeding bullet nor leap tall buildings in a single bound, but you will indeed be moved powerfully, day by day, with increasing ease, to take those little steps that will lead to huge changes. If you are driving a motorboat fast due south and you want to go in a different direction, don't yank the steering wheel. Make a tiny change and, within moments, you are traveling safely in a totally resparked direction to live life on your terms. Your host for this Podcast is Raymond Aaron, author of a New York Times Bestseller plus 143 other published books. You will hear stories and learn lessons from his extraordinary life to respark the fire within you to live YOUR life on your terms.

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October 22, 2026Episode 39128 min

EP391: Chinmai Swamy - From Broken Life to Beautiful Life

"The book is just a finished product. The real transformation was that big person I became in the process of becoming an author." — Chinmai Swamy Chinmai Swamy arrived in the UK with a master's degree in rocket engineering, a £30,000 student loan, and a clear picture of the life he had emigrated to build. What he found was a visa that locked him out of the space industry, an IT job that didn't quite meet immigration salary requirements, and six months of midnight kitchen shifts, 11 PM to 2 AM, cooking for stock workers, just to qualify on paper. He was accomplished by every external measure. And he was exhausted, frustrated, and watching his marriage deteriorate under the weight of the gap between who he knew he was and how he was actually living. The turning point was a sprint to the back of a conference room in London, where he had just watched Raymond Aaron hold an audience of four thousand people. Raymond's book writing program runs ten weeks; Chinmai had his first book published in six, had left his corporate job, and had begun building a consulting business around the systems thinking his engineering background had given him all along. Three more books followed. So did work with Virgin Active, Bentley, Suzuki and ISRO, India's space agency. His marriage was repaired. The child he and his wife had longed for arrived. Today the three of them choose together, with equal votes, including their young daughter, where in the world they want to live next. Learn more and connect: Chinmai Swamy: https://www.chinmaiswamy.com Resources mentioned: Raymond Aaron's 10/10/10 Platinum Book Writing Program: https://www.aaron.com/101010platinum Respark Your Life Podcast: https://www.resparkyourlife.com Raymond Aaron: https://www.aaron.com --- Raymond Aaron has shared his vision and wisdom on radio and television programs for over 40 years. He is the author of over 100 books, including Branding Small Business For Dummies, Double Your Income Doing What You Love, Canadian best-seller Chicken Soup for the Canadian Soul, and he co-authored the New York Times best-seller Chicken Soup for the Parent's Soul. Raymond's latest, co-authored book is The AI Millionaire's Path: Discover How ChatGPT-Written Books Become Bestsellers and How They Can Make You a Millionaire Author! https://www.aaron.com ---

October 15, 2026Episode 39024 min

EP390: Jim Hetherington - Fix A Broken Marriage

"They complete me. No, they don't complete you. You don't need anybody to complete you. You need someone to complement you, but not to complete you." — Jim Hetherington Twelve years into his marriage, Jim Hetherington was ready to walk away. Every complaint he had was directed outward — at his wife, at what she wasn't doing, at what she should be different. Then something shifted. He turned the finger around. Forty-four years later, he still opens the car door. His wife still stands there waiting for him to remember. Jim is a relationship coach and the author of Swipe Left on the Frogs, a book built on the premise that most relationship problems begin long before the wedding — with conversations that never happened about children, money, friendship, and what each person actually values. He met a couple four years into their marriage who had never once discussed whether they wanted kids. Neither had brought it up. Raymond adds the story of Dr. John Gray — who made a navigation video from his hotel room so his wife wouldn't feel anxious walking to the meeting room alone, and who drove out in the cold for milk at midnight without a groan or a counterproposal. Jim has a name for what both men are practicing: necessity of effort. It's the same energy you brought when you were trying to win someone over. The argument here is that it never stops being the requirement. Learn more and connect: Jim Hetherington: Swipe Left on the Frogs, available on Amazon Resources mentioned: Swipe Left on the Frogs by Jim Hetherington The 200% Marriage (authors interviewed separately on Respark Your Life) Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus by Dr. John Gray Respark Your Life Podcast: https://www.resparkyourlife.com Raymond Aaron: https://www.aaron.com --- Raymond Aaron has shared his vision and wisdom on radio and television programs for over 40 years. He is the author of over 100 books, including Branding Small Business For Dummies, Double Your Income Doing What You Love, Canadian best-seller Chicken Soup for the Canadian Soul, and he co-authored the New York Times best-seller Chicken Soup for the Parent's Soul. Raymond's latest, co-authored book is The AI Millionaire's Path: Discover How ChatGPT-Written Books Become Bestsellers and How They Can Make You a Millionaire Author! https://www.aaron.com ---

October 8, 2026Episode 38938 min

EP389: Norm Gordon - Make a Fortune in Real Estate

"People overestimate what they could do in a year, but they highly underestimate what happens in a decade." — Norm Gordon Norm Gordon was given a riddle as a boy by one of his father's business partners: how do you buy something for a dollar, sell it for 90 cents, and still make a profit? It took him decades to figure it out. The answer — elegant, counterintuitive, and entirely practical — turned out to be the foundation of a real estate career that grew to over 1,000 units. Norm started as Raymond's student in 1991. The first building he bought after taking that course cost $515,000 with $42,000 down. He still owns it today. It's worth somewhere between $5 and $6 million and throws off $100,000 to $150,000 a year in cash flow. In this conversation, he shares the two things every landlord must master — holding on financially and holding on psychologically — and the single criterion he uses to find buildings with hidden upside. He also answers Raymond's honest question: can you actually still do this today? His answer, backed by a deal he closed in 2020, is a clear yes. Learn more and connect: Out of the Norm by Norm Gordon — https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Out+of+the+Norm+Norm+Gordon Resources mentioned: Out of the Norm by Norm Gordon — https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Out+of+the+Norm+Norm+Gordon ; Respark Your Life Podcast — https://www.resparkyourlife.com ; Raymond Aaron — https://www.aaron.com --- Raymond Aaron has shared his vision and wisdom on radio and television programs for over 40 years. He is the author of over 100 books, including Branding Small Business For Dummies, Double Your Income Doing What You Love, Canadian best-seller Chicken Soup for the Canadian Soul, and he co-authored the New York Times best-seller Chicken Soup for the Parent's Soul. Raymond's latest, co-authored book is The AI Millionaire's Path: Discover How ChatGPT-Written Books Become Bestsellers and How They Can Make You a Millionaire Author! https://www.aaron.com ---

October 1, 2026Episode 38824 min

EP388: Dr. Robert Wolf - Beating Anti-Semitism

"If passion is the tool to fight antisemitism, you've got all the ammo you need." — Raymond Aaron Dr. Robert Wolf's father was a four-time escape artist. He survived Nazi Hungary, Communist Hungary, forced labor camp, and a final daring escape in 1956 — sneaking into a Soviet office the night before he fled to read his own dossier. What the Soviets wrote there gave the book its name: Not a Real Enemy. They thought he was no threat. He left the country the next day. Wolf converted his father's autobiography into a biography and has spent years taking that story — twenty miracles, a dentist hiding gold with Christian neighbors, a priest who sheltered the family and received donations from them for decades — into Holocaust museums, university campuses, and conversations exactly like this one. His method is simple: education, one person at a time, no invitation turned down. Raymond, who is Jewish and has experienced no antisemitism personally, brings his own warmth and candor to a conversation about why hatred of any group injures everyone, what it takes to change a single mind, and why passion may be the most powerful weapon available. Learn more and connect: Dr. Robert Wolf — https://www.robertjwolfmd.com ; Not a Real Enemy on YouTube — https://www.youtube.com/@NotaRealEnemy Resources mentioned: Not a Real Enemy by Dr. Robert Wolf — https://www.amazon.com (search: Not a Real Enemy Robert Wolf); United States Holocaust Memorial Museum — https://www.ushmm.org ; Respark Your Life Podcast — https://www.resparkyourlife.com ; Raymond Aaron — https://www.aaron.com --- Raymond Aaron has shared his vision and wisdom on radio and television programs for over 40 years. He is the author of over 100 books, including Branding Small Business For Dummies, Double Your Income Doing What You Love, Canadian best-seller Chicken Soup for the Canadian Soul, and he co-authored the New York Times best-seller Chicken Soup for the Parent's Soul. Raymond's latest, co-authored book is The AI Millionaire's Path: Discover How ChatGPT-Written Books Become Bestsellers and How They Can Make You a Millionaire Author! https://www.aaron.com ---

September 24, 2026Episode 38733 min

EP387: Donna Hartley - Past Life Regressions

"You have stuff locked in there that's stopping you from being the full person you are meant to be in this lifetime." — Donna Hartley Raymond Aaron spent 60 years unable to touch his right collarbone. Chiropractors, psychiatrists, every kind of specialist — none of them could touch it. One past life regression session changed that permanently. Donna Hartley, former Miss Hawaii, international speaker, and author of the Fire Up series, arrived at the same work by a completely different path. She reads the Akashic Records directly — seeing the past life patterns quietly shaping your health, your relationships, and your sense of worth. She did five such readings in the 70 minutes before this conversation. The two compare their methods, swap stories, and find they've been working the same territory from different directions. Donna shares the medieval life she uncovered during open heart surgery that explained three cardiac procedures — and a surname she didn't decode until her fifties. They discuss soul clusters, the veil that lifts around age six, Hitler's karmic future, and what it looks like when someone finally decides to stop carrying a pattern forward into another lifetime. Learn more and connect: Donna Hartley — https://www.donnahartley.com Resources mentioned: Donna Hartley — past life sessions, videos, and the free Zip It, Pay Attention video — https://www.donnahartley.com ; Chicken Soup for the Soul (Jack Canfield) — https://www.jackcanfield.com ; Respark Your Life Podcast — https://www.resparkyourlife.com ; Raymond Aaron — https://www.aaron.com --- Raymond Aaron has shared his vision and wisdom on radio and television programs for over 40 years. He is the author of over 100 books, including Branding Small Business For Dummies, Double Your Income Doing What You Love, Canadian best-seller Chicken Soup for the Canadian Soul, and he co-authored the New York Times best-seller Chicken Soup for the Parent's Soul. Raymond's latest, co-authored book is The AI Millionaire's Path: Discover How ChatGPT-Written Books Become Bestsellers and How They Can Make You a Millionaire Author! https://www.aaron.com ---

September 17, 2026Episode 38627 min

EP386: Amber Abila - The Secret Ingredient Causing You To Overeat

"Sometimes we taste the flavor of that food and we get a reward, and then sometimes we taste that flavor and we don't — we don't get the nutrition. So this drives over-engagement and overeating on the food and more of a hyper-obsession, because our brain is simply trying to figure out: where is my nutrition coming from?" — Amber Abila There is a four-word phrase on the back of almost every packaged food in your kitchen. It sounds reassuring. It sounds natural. And according to binge eating expert Amber Abila, it may be the single most underappreciated driver of overeating in the modern food supply. Natural flavors. Not sugar, not artificial additives — the ones labeled natural. Amber explains that flavor-isolated molecules create a specific neurological trap: your brain tastes orange and predicts nutrition is coming. When none arrives, it triggers the same intermittent reinforcement loop that drives gambling addiction. The result is not weakness or lack of discipline. It is your brain doing exactly what it was designed to do — and being systematically deceived. Raymond, who lost 50 pounds by cutting sugar and salt entirely, connects deeply with Amber's central argument: the problem was never willpower. It was a decision, and then an understanding of what the food was actually doing. They also cover why Ozempic produces the same 95% weight-regain rate as traditional dieting, how taste buds recalibrate when processed flavors are removed, and Amber's simple 100-year test for deciding whether something is actually food. Amber's free guided audio — a 7-minute tool to get through a craving before it becomes a binge — is linked below. Learn more and connect: Amber Abila — Stop a Binge Before It Starts, free guided audio — https://www.theconfidenteater.org/urge ; Confident Eater Program and coaching — https://www.theconfidenteater.org Resources mentioned: Amber Abila — Free Craving Audio — https://www.theconfidenteater.org/urge ; Amber Abila — Coaching and Programs — https://www.theconfidenteater.org ; Become a Confident Eater Podcast — search "Become a Confident Eater" on your podcast app; Respark Your Life Podcast — https://www.resparkyourlife.com ; Raymond Aaron — https://www.aaron.com --- Raymond Aaron has shared his vision and wisdom on radio and television programs for over 40 years. He is the author of over 100 books, including Branding Small Business For Dummies, Double Your Income Doing What You Love, Canadian best-seller Chicken Soup for the Canadian Soul, and he co-authored the New York Times best-seller Chicken Soup for the Parent's Soul. Raymond's latest, co-authored book is The AI Millionaire's Path: Discover How ChatGPT-Written Books Become Bestsellers and How They Can Make You a Millionaire Author! https://www.aaron.com ---

September 10, 2026Episode 38527 min

EP385: Dr. Alena Candova - Claim Your Inner Authority

"We don't need to get rid of anything. We just need to cultivate enough inner safety for our nervous system and our psyche for these patterns to finally realize that life's different now. We can start dissolving, and the authentic, powerful self can step forward." — Dr. Alena Candova Dr. Alena Candova is a doctor of chiropractic turned applied neuroscience practitioner, and she came to this work the way most honest practitioners do — by needing it herself. Repeated toxic relationships, a spiritual life that looked whole from the outside, and a meditation retreat that broke her open when the instruction shifted from sending loving kindness to others toward sending it to herself. That moment became the beginning of something. Her framework, the Grace Over Grit Method, is built on a deceptively simple insight: the patterns that quietly run our adult lives were not designed to hurt us. They were designed to keep us safe, built before our brains were fully formed, wired into the nervous system as protection. And you cannot willpower your way out of a protective programme — because the part of you running it thinks that's still what survival requires. Raymond brings something rare to this conversation — the story of spending sixty years as the person he became to survive his own childhood, and the specific moment at 75 when he felt that pattern leave his body. Between the two of them, the episode becomes something more than a framework for change. It becomes a quiet argument for grace. Learn more and connect: Dr. Alena Candova — https://www.sattva-integralhealth.com Resources mentioned: Grace Over Grit: The Neuroscience of Claiming Your Inner Authority — Dr. Alena Candova — https://www.sattva-integralhealth.com ; Respark Your Life Podcast — https://www.resparkyourlife.com ; Raymond Aaron — https://www.aaron.com --- Raymond Aaron has shared his vision and wisdom on radio and television programs for over 40 years. He is the author of over 100 books, including Branding Small Business For Dummies, Double Your Income Doing What You Love, Canadian best-seller Chicken Soup for the Canadian Soul, and he co-authored the New York Times best-seller Chicken Soup for the Parent's Soul. Raymond's latest, co-authored book is The AI Millionaire's Path: Discover How ChatGPT-Written Books Become Bestsellers and How They Can Make You a Millionaire Author! https://www.aaron.com ---

September 5, 2026Episode 38425 min

EP384: Mario Lamarre - The Investor Edge

"My dad committed suicide when I was 14. I left school and never went back. Then in my 20s, early 30s, I went bankrupt, lost everything, and got divorced the same year. I rebuilt myself again. And now at 46, I've been through a lot, and I think I'm there. I think I'm ready." — Mario Lamarre Mario Lamarre returns to Respark Your Life — one of very few guests Raymond has ever welcomed back — and the reason becomes clear within minutes. He leads with his failures, not his wins. His first business idea flopped. His early 30s brought bankruptcy and divorce in the same year. His father died when he was 14. He shares all of it without drama, because he has learned that the hard path he walked is exactly what prepared him to do what he now does well: bring ambitious people together and create conditions where real things happen. The business he has built around that gift, the Investor Edge Ecosystem, is part curated coaching directory, part intimate experiential retreat, part global business growth summit — and it grew directly from understanding what he was genuinely good at and building everything around that, rather than around what he thought he should be doing. Along the way, Raymond adds something most people have never heard: the real reason Henry Ford named his breakthrough vehicle the Model T. It is a small piece of history that reframes failure entirely. Mario also shares a three-part networking framework — network up toward mentors, tend the relationships you already have, and never stop expanding outward — that he credits as the turning point of the last four or five years of his life. Learn more and connect: Investor Edge Academy — free access — https://www.investoredgeacademy.ca Resources mentioned: Think and Grow Rich — Napoleon Hill; Investor Edge Academy (free access) — https://www.investoredgeacademy.ca ; Respark Your Life Podcast — https://www.resparkyourlife.com ; Raymond Aaron — https://www.aaron.com --- Raymond Aaron has shared his vision and wisdom on radio and television programs for over 40 years. He is the author of over 100 books, including Branding Small Business For Dummies, Double Your Income Doing What You Love, Canadian best-seller Chicken Soup for the Canadian Soul, and he co-authored the New York Times best-seller Chicken Soup for the Parent's Soul. Raymond's latest, co-authored book is The AI Millionaire's Path: Discover How ChatGPT-Written Books Become Bestsellers and How They Can Make You a Millionaire Author! https://www.aaron.com ---

August 27, 2026Episode 38327 min

EP383: Ken Kunken - World's First Quadriplegic Lawyer

"You can't always control what's happening to you, but you can control how you react to it. That was the biggest lesson I learned." — Ken Kunken On Halloween 1970, twenty-year-old Cornell engineering student Ken Kunken tackled a ball carrier during a football kickoff and broke his neck. The rehabilitation pamphlet his family was handed listed one possible future for someone with his injury: selling magazine subscriptions by telephone. Ken couldn't dial a rotary phone. What happened next took five decades, three Ivy League degrees, a passed bar exam, a courtroom with doors too narrow for his wheelchair, and more than 200 mailed-out resumes before a single employer said yes. Ken Kunken became the world's first quadriplegic lawyer — and eventually a Deputy Bureau Chief supervising 25 assistant district attorneys — not because adversity left him alone, but because he learned something essential: you can't control what happens to you, only how you respond. His story is a reminder that the people who help us matter as much as the determination we bring ourselves — and that one person willing to give you a chance can change everything. Ken's book, I Dream of Things That Never Were: The Ken Kunken Story, is available in hardcover, ebook, and as an audiobook narrated by Ken himself. Learn more and connect: I Dream of Things That Never Were: The Ken Kunken Story — available in hardcover, ebook, and audiobook — https://kenkunken.com Resources mentioned: I Dream of Things That Never Were: The Ken Kunken Story — Ken Kunken; The Viscardi Center (formerly Abilities Incorporated) — https://www.viscardi.org ; Rusk Rehabilitation, NYU Langone — https://www.nyulangone.org/locations/rusk-rehabilitation ; Respark Your Life Podcast — https://www.resparkyourlife.com ; Raymond Aaron — https://www.aaron.com --- Raymond Aaron has shared his vision and wisdom on radio and television programs for over 40 years. He is the author of over 100 books, including Branding Small Business For Dummies, Double Your Income Doing What You Love, Canadian best-seller Chicken Soup for the Canadian Soul, and he co-authored the New York Times best-seller Chicken Soup for the Parent's Soul. Raymond's latest, co-authored book is The AI Millionaire's Path: Discover How ChatGPT-Written Books Become Bestsellers and How They Can Make You a Millionaire Author! https://www.aaron.com ---

August 20, 2026Episode 38227 min

EP382: Dr. Ona Love Brown - The Les Brown Legend Continues

"It's hard to see the picture when you're inside of the frame. So having someone that's willing to get in the trenches of your life with you, and be present with you and be able to extract and see some of the things that have helped you to become who you are — that's a powerful process." — Dr. Ona Love Brown She went to a Come Out and Vote rally in Columbus, Ohio not knowing anything unusual was about to happen. She'd invited her mother along as a nice outing. When she mentioned the speaker's name — a former state rep, former disc jockey, now a motivational voice people were talking about everywhere — her mother went still as a ghost. And then said the words that changed everything: I know very well who he is. In fact, he is your father. That is how Dr. Ona Love Brown met Les Brown. In her twenties. At a rally. With a notepad in her hand and her whole life about to shift direction. What followed was a journey that took her from the Ohio legislature to a receptionist's desk at Les Brown Unlimited in Detroit — a pay cut she took without hesitation, because what she was gaining was worth far more than what she was giving up. Over the years that followed, Les handed her some of the toughest clients he had — attorneys, surgeons, athletes, people carrying extraordinary stories they had no idea how to tell — and walked out of the room. What Ona discovered in those sessions became her life's work: she is what her clients now call the Message Midwife, someone who helps people give birth to the unique story they were always meant to share. Raymond contributes his own extraordinary memory — the Atlanta event where Les arrived in unbearable pain, was lifted onto the stage in a wheelchair, then lit up the room so completely that when he finished, ten thousand people stood and walked out, leaving Raymond next on stage with forty. He would make the same choice again. Whether you know your story or suspect you might have one you've never said quite right, this conversation is an invitation to look more carefully at what you already carry. Learn more and connect: Mastering My Story: https://www.masteringmystory.com Resources mentioned: Mastering My Story (Dr. Ona Love Brown's coaching program): https://www.masteringmystory.com Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell (the 10,000-hour mastery principle): https://www.amazon.com/Outliers-Story-Success-Malcolm-Gladwell/dp/0316017930 Respark Your Life Podcast: https://www.resparkyourlife.com Raymond Aaron: https://www.aaron.com --- Raymond Aaron has shared his vision and wisdom on radio and television programs for over 40 years. He is the author of over 100 books, including Branding Small Business For Dummies, Double Your Income Doing What You Love, Canadian best-seller Chicken Soup for the Canadian Soul, and he co-authored the New York Times best-seller Chicken Soup for the Parent's Soul. Raymond's latest, co-authored book is The AI Millionaire's Path: Discover How ChatGPT-Written Books Become Bestsellers and How They Can Make You a Millionaire Author! https://www.aaron.com ---

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