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Chester is a “leadership geek” by his own description. He is an educator, college director of disability services, and former legislative aide who helped co-author Tennessee’s “Dyslexia is Real”. He  believes that when something is broken, and needs fixing, someone needs to step up and do what they can to find a solution.

As director of disability services on his campus, he hosted an ongoing film festival (one movie was  “Lars and the Real Girl”) and it was poorly attended. But because of his “dog with a bone” attitude, he stuck with it. Several weeks later, he learned that an anonymous community member had attended the festival and agreed with what he was trying to accomplish. That anonymous audience member started an endowment ($500,000) to support his work with disability services. He was reminded that you never know when that “one right person” will hear your message at the exact right time. Never despair if initial successes are not overwhelming, but keep working toward your goals!

He wrote a book, soon to be released, which tries to find the unity of spirit that is currently missing in the halls of governments as well as among the people. Life and politics have become devisive and Chester believes that greater good will result by changing from “red states” and “blue states” but by blending, combining and collaborating and becoming “purple states.”

Chester suggests that you try Dr. Enuf soda when you next visit Tennessee!

Some books that he reads and recommends are:

My Homemade Artisanal Bread :

My recipe (for 4 one-pound loaves)

Whisk together:

3 cups tepid water (95-105F)

1 tablespoon yeast (any dry yeast)

1 tablespoon salt (any type)

Stir in 6.5 cups of flour. Any flour works, but 100% whole wheat is a challenge. Mixing white with whole wheat and/or rye work well. I usually use at 4 cups general purpose white with 2.5 cups of whole wheat. As long as you use a total of 6.5 cups of flour, you will end up with bread.

Stir just until everything is wet and combined. Do not knead–ever. Cover loosely, and let rise on the counter for 2-3 hours (if you forget overnight, don’t worry, it will not ruin the bread.) Place in the refrigerator overnight.

The next day, cut 1/4 of the dough out. Dust with flour. Working quickly, form the dough into a ball. Let the dough rise for 40 minutes. These make free-form round loaves, not rectangles.  Do not bake in traditional bread pans.

Preheat oven and baking stone to 450. Boil 2 cups of water, and pour into an oven safe dish and place in the oven while pre-heating. (The water creates steam to help develop a very crunchy crust. It will work without the steam, but the crust isn’t as nice.)

When the dough has risen, make several shallow cuts in the surface of the dough. Sprinkle corn meal on baking stone and place dough on the corn meal. Bake for 35 minutes.

The dough will keep in the fridge for up to 14 days and as it ages, the flavor develops into more of a sour dough character. When the last of the dough is used, do not wash the container. Immediately refill with the ingredients for more bread (this will quickly develop that wonderful sour dough flavor.

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Music composed and performed by Jason Shaw, courtesy of Audionautix.com

Voiceover courtesy of Matt Young. Matt is a professional voiceover artist. If you have any need of voiceover work, for your podcast, radio spot, or whatever, you can reach Matt by a variety of methods.

He is on LinkedIn. On Twitter. And Google+. And you can read his really nice, contemplative blog.

I occasionally guest blog for other people. It’s not too often, but it is fun to reach a new audience. This week I was asked to provide a post for LoseIt! Rather than simply copy it, I will encourage you to go there and read my words. (Then, if you feel that maybe your weight is an issue, you can take the app out for a test drive. It is free!)

Here is a link directly to my blog post.

Also, the podcast is a bit delayed. I won’t make my April 1 goal, but it is getting close! Keep watching here. I have seven great interviews recorded and this podcast is going to be awesome! I guarantee it, or your money back!

Oh, wait. It’s free!

Wow!

I am 4 weeks from launching my first podcast. My podcast will be focused on goal achievement–revolving around my weight loss success, but expanding to any goal and success story. And that work–combined with my full time teaching job, and being a husband/father/son–is keeping me from blogging a lot. But my inactivity here is not a sign of total absence.

I’ve had this blog for over two years, and listened to podcasts for even longer. Starting the bog was simple. But why start a podcast? That seems so challenging. The reason “why” is the exact reason I listen to podcasts instead of reading blogs: time! I can listen to a podcast while doing something else. And when I realized that, I knew that I needed to transition to a podcast. But how?

I was absolutely stumped, until I found the right teacher. Meron Bareket of the Inspiring Innovation podcast invited me to be one of his beta-testers for his podcast-developing bootcamp. He created a course with detailed and simple (I needed simple!) instructions, video tutorials and comprehensive check lists. With his help, I am excited to be so close to launching my own.

Have you ever thought about creating your own podcast? Here is a link to the bootcamp that I tested (and successfully tested, I might add!)

Oh, did I mention: his entire bootcamp is free?

If you are even just curious about what it would take (and it doesn’t take much!) go to the bootcamp page and take a look. The “take a look” costs nothing–but the entire bootcamp also costs nothing, so what do you have to lose?

Please note: this blog is NOT going away. Never. But it will evolve to become a part of a larger platform. I will blog and podcast and both will help each other be even more relevant and helpful.

Do me a favor: After you go to the bootcamp site and take a look (or even sign up?) post a note here in the comments. I’m curious: what are your thoughts about his bootcamp? Are you going to give it a try? Let me know here.