You don't have to almost die to truly live. Holly Porter said it in her guest interview, and Rob hasn't stopped thinking about it since.

Rob breaks down the biggest lessons from his conversation with Holly Porter, a 15-time international best-selling author who spent 70 days on a ventilator in 2021 and came out the other side with two new companies, a finished book, and a clarity she says most people never find.

He walks through the unglamorous stretch that followed, two years of long COVID fog, a shelved manuscript, and a missed opportunity with a billionaire-backed company, before landing on the single question that kept Holly moving forward.

Rob then connects her daily practice to the Prime Performance Process, making the case that clarity starts with an honest internal check-in, not a five-year plan.

What we cover:

- Holly's 70-day hospitalization, her near-death experience, and what she describes as the Stadium of Light

- The slow, unglamorous recovery: going from 20 percent function to 70, and the two years she called hell

- The book Near Death Shift, the year it sat untouched, and why she eventually took it back

- The better is better motto and how a single morning question replaced the need for a big strategy

- Gratitude as an active discipline, not a feeling to wait for, and serving others as an energy reset

- Why Holly walked away from a deal backed by a billionaire based on what she was told in her near-death experience

- Rob connecting Holly's daily self-check to the clarity principle inside the Prime Performance Process

- Holly's Linktree, her nonprofit the Adventure Bucket Wish Foundation, and the International Retreat Association she is building

Chapters:

00:01 Opening quote and introducing Holly

00:50 Who Holly is: author, founder, nonprofit builder

01:45 The 70-day hospitalization and the Stadium of Light

02:24 What happened after the hospital: new companies and the book

02:55 The honest low points: long COVID, fog, and two years of hell

04:14 The better is better motto

04:49 Gratitude as practice and serving others to shift energy

05:30 Connecting Holly's approach to the Prime Performance Process

06:20 Clarity as the core principle: internal calibration before action

07:10 Where to find Holly and her book Near Death Shift

07:55 Closing reflection and the one question to sit with

Links:

Holly Porter Linktree (book, website, social, retreat association, nonprofit): https://linktr.ee/hollyporter

Hear the full conversation with Holly on episode 203, and catch every guest interview and Friday recap at SurvivingtheSideHustle.com.

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In this episode, Holly Porter returns for part two of her conversation with Rob. A 15-time best-selling author and founder of more than a dozen businesses, Holly shares what has happened since her near death experience and how that experience continues to shape every decision she makes.

Holly walks through the writing of her book Near Death Shift, from a working title she sat on for two years to the moment the chapters clicked into place. She then explains how, mid-manuscript, she received the idea for the International Retreat Association, an organization she is now building from nothing in an industry that has never had one.

The conversation covers imposter syndrome, the habit of comparing yourself to who you were yesterday, and why gratitude starts to change what you notice.

What we cover:

- How a COVID hospitalization of 70 days produced out of body and near death experiences that redirected her business decisions

- Why she walked away from a billionaire-backed partnership based on what she was told during the near death experience

- The stop-and-start process of writing Near Death Shift, including handing the project off and then taking it back

- How the acronym SHIFT emerged after the title change and how it connected to a personal development program she had built five years earlier

- The gap she found in the retreat industry: an estimated two to three million retreat leaders with no association to belong to

- How she incorporated the International Retreat Association in December, set founding member pricing at 111 dollars per year, and filled half the leadership council before the landing page was even live

- Why she told her attorney they did not need everything figured out before launch, drawing a parallel to how Apple and PayPal update their terms over time

- The difference between imposter syndrome before her experience and the absence of it now with the association

- Her recovery motto, better is better, and how asking what you can do today to be better than yesterday applies beyond health

Chapters:

00:01 Welcome back and guest introduction

01:31 Holly reacts to the intro

02:20 The near death experience and what changed

04:45 Two years of illness after the hospital and finding resilience

05:32 Why she listened to the calling over the billionaire deal

07:25 The gift of all knowing in the stadium of light

08:02 How the idea for Near Death Shift arrived

10:06 Taking the manuscript back and finishing it

11:58 Finding the title and the SHIFT acronym

13:54 Connecting the book to a five-year-old program

14:20 The idea for the International Retreat Association arrives

16:36 Building an industry structure from a blank canvas

18:29 Professional standards, values, and the founding member model

19:25 Why she told her attorney they do not need all the answers first

20:35 Pricing at 111 dollars and the 11-11 connection

21:17 Imposter syndrome before versus the absence of it now

22:12 Questions she asked herself while dying in the hospital

23:18 Comparing yourself to who you were yesterday

25:46 Attracting negativity versus noticing the good, and the better is better motto

Links:

Holly Porter link tree (book, website, social, email): https://linktr.ee

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In this Friday recap episode, Rob revisits his conversation with Adam Torres, founder of Mission Matters and host of nearly 7,000 interviews, to pull out the lessons that matter most. Adam went from managing over 200 million dollars in finance to building one of the most prolific media companies in podcasting, and he did almost none of it on purpose.

Rob breaks down how Adam Torres built Mission Matters through a series of reluctant starts, hidden identities, and unpolished outputs, including a self-published book handed out like a business card and a podcast recorded as unedited phone calls.

The recap connects Adam's story to three core principles Rob returns to repeatedly: clarity, resilience, and opportunity. The central takeaway is that the gap between knowing and doing is where most people get stuck, and Adam's career is a case study in refusing to live there.

What we cover:

- Adam spent nearly 14 years in finance managing over 200 million dollars before any of his media work began

- A mentor pushed him to write a book he did not want to write, which he called his ugly duckling and handed out like a business card

- That imperfect, self-published book led to speaking tours in China and real business from cold LinkedIn connections

- His first podcast was unedited phone recordings uploaded directly from his phone, no production, no polish

- He hid behind an early show called The Gratitude Show and shut it down when the audience growth scared him

- Adam's pattern of acting before conditions are perfect is strategic underneath, not reckless

- He compares today's podcasting landscape to YouTube when it had roughly one million channels, arguing the opportunity is early and the data says move now

- Rob maps Adam's story onto three prime performance principles: clarity, resilience, and opportunity

- The episode closes on one idea: your version one does not have to be good, it has to exist

Chapters:

00:00 Introduction and who Adam Torres is

02:24 First 300 episodes as unedited phone recordings

02:44 Fighting his own resistance at every stage

03:10 The Gratitude Show, hiding, and shutting it down

03:40 Shameless rough audio and deflecting feedback

04:10 Starting before ready as a trained habit

04:43 The podcasting opportunity compared to early YouTube

05:10 Clarity as the first prime performance principle

05:40 Resilience as the second prime performance principle

06:00 Opportunity as the third prime performance principle

06:20 Awareness before action creates momentum

06:35 Where to get Adam's book and follow his work

07:11 Closing thought: version one has to exist, not be good

Links:

One Billion Podcasts (free book): https://1billionpodcasts.com

Adam Torres on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/askadamtorres

Hear the full conversation with Adam Torres at SurvivingtheSideHustle.com.

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