April 12, 2026

100th "Driven For Health" Podcast episode with Special Guest

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Season 1

Welcome to this truly special landmark as we celebrate the 100th episode of Driven For Health.


For this milestone, we are doing something completely different. In a special role reversal, my daughter has taken the interviewer's chair to ask me a series of silly questions. If you have ever wondered what goes on behind the scenes when I am not coaching, this is the episode for you.


We might not talk much about nutrition or business performance here, but you will certainly get a look at the personal side of Coach Brian and a fresh, very personal perspective on work-life balance.


After the fun, we want to revisit what this podcast is fundamentally about. This show is specifically for ambitious entrepreneurs, dedicated business owners, and high achieving, driven men over 40 who want to operate at their absolute peak performance.


We continue our core mission: bridging the gap between optimal men's health and elite business success. We believe reclaiming vibrant energy and sharp mental focus is essential to scale your online business.


We are passionate about helping you stop feeling sluggish and providing practical, sustainable strategies for fat loss, energy improvement, and essential stress management, without letting your fitness and nutrition take a back seat to your professional ambition.



Main Topics in This Episode

  • A fun, role reversal interview featuring my daughter and her list of silly questions.

  • Getting a behind the scenes look at the personal life of Coach Brian.

  • A fresh perspective on work-life balance from a family standpoint.

  • Revisiting the core mission of Driven For Health for men over 40.

  • The essential connection between a business owner’s personal vitality and their professional productivity and business performance.

  • The importance of sustainable nutrition and fitness habits for peak energy and fat loss





    The Call To Rise is a 100-day Fat Loss Transformation Experience designed for driven men ready to get back to a healthy body, boost their energy, and lead as a powerful man. If you are struggling with some form of chronic illness such as high blood pressure, cholesterol or even Type 2 Diabetes - this program is designed for you too. Through a proven system of strength training, personalized nutrition, and radical accountability, you’ll drop 20–30 pounds and rebuild confidence from the inside out and even improve chronic illness issues. It’s more than a fitness program, it’s an body transformation experience with a Brotherhood of like-minded men committed to showing up, leveling up, and leading in a body they are excited about. This is your wake-up call to rise. www.thecalltorise.com

Want help applying this to your own health, weight, energy, or lab numbers?

Coach Brian Parana offers Health Hot Seat coaching segments for men who want a clear next step with nutrition, fitness, weight loss, blood pressure, cholesterol, A1C, or daily consistency.

Learn more about The Call To Rise, a 100-day coaching program for driven men over 40 who want to lose weight, improve their health, and rebuild confidence:

www.thecalltorise.com

To connect with Coach Brian:
brian@brianparana.com

Disclaimer: This podcast is for education and coaching support only. It is not medical advice. Always work with your physician before changing medication, treatment, or medical care.

  • Live today, coach Brian with the 100th episode of Driven Broad Health Podcast. It's been just over 6 months. I had a 2-week delay with Peru, but man, I can't believe I've gotten here. Most podcasts don't even make it past 10, and I'm celebrating the 100th episode today. And I wanted to bring on a special guest to enjoy a celebratory podcast.
  • Sure, we'll talk about health, fitness, nutrition, all those things later, but today, get to know me, get to know my family, get to know just a little bit different storyline here on our podcast episode. I'd like to bring on and introduce my lovely daughter, Emeline Verona. And here she is. Fantastic. So, today's conversation is going to be us dancing around, having a good time, and she's going to ask me a bunch of different questions.
  • Okay. So, you guys might not know the answers. Hold my banana. So, you guys might not know the answers. I might not know them. Let's see what he says. Okay. Number one. What is something funny that I do that makes you laugh? Something funny that makes me laugh that you do. Well, the silly first thing that comes to mind is you tickle my chin hair that I don't have.
  • Amber is not here, and so I'll usually get a a mustache whenever she leaves because she travels a lot. We just got back from 2 weeks of Peru, and she's off in Croatia. And I get to have the joys of all four of my kids, and she's going to spend some time with Emeline in New York City in May, and then also Maxwell in Orlando in May for their birthdays.
  • And I'm give myself a mustache, but I digress. So, she tickles my chin hair. She tells silly stories. She Last night, she was jumping on me and wrestling with me, and I was laughing. I got him down so good. This This is And the jokes. You tell silly jokes. And we dance. And we sing. So, you might see a couple of dance parties during this episode. So.
  • Okay. Second question. What is one thing people would be surprised to know about you? Oh, shoot. I don't like olives. That's one of the few foods that I don't like to eat. I have ran up a mountain, Pikes Peak. That's something I haven't really talked too much about. I What else? Speak to the mic. I just started reading Batman comics.
  • I really enjoy Batman, and instead of I I would do Sudoku at night, and instead I decided, "Hey, I'm actually just going to read and do something not work-related, cuz I work a lot." And reading Batman comics and it's been really fun to do, to learn more about Batman, cuz I love him. He's my favorite superhero character.
  • Okay. That was really long. Yep. Okay. Next question, which is the third question, by the way. If you had to eat only one food for the rest of your life, what would it be? I think we both know which one this would be. Sushi. Yes. She's my honorary sushi date. Uh Emery doesn't really like sushi, but you do. Yeah, go ahead.
  • >> Okay. So, whenever we go on like we get sushi together, I always make him get stuff I want to try, so then I know if I like it. Go on. That is very true. We've had some wonderful sushi dates. I'm due for another one, right? I can take you on a sushi date again. So, we'll see if we can do that while Mom's away or something. Yes.
  • My belly wants some sushi. Okay, next question. What was your favorite toy or game when you were like 10? My age. Oh, I don't know if I was exactly 10, but we'll go rewind a little bit. My grandma's house is about a mile that way if you if we look in the space. So, I'm inside my barn in my backyard. My grandma's house is that way and she had this mound of dirt in the back of her yard and we would go back there and drive cars on it and make roads and and different things.
  • And we had Tonka trucks. Uh the actual metal ones, a yellow Tonka truck and then we had a a a uh it was a um Hey. earth mover and then it one had one of with a backhoe in it. So, we loved doing that. I played basketball. >> Yeah, yeah. That was >> heard of that. Tonka truck? Nope. No. I don't know what that is. And they were uh awesome. They were just awesome.
  • I'd play with X-Men uh action figures, G.I. Joes. Do you remember any of those? And and what else? I'd ride my BMX bike around my buddy Genji and I and my brother Jeff. We'd go build ramps and jump them and we had trails at the end of our house or at the end of the road on Craner Avenue and we'd bike up there and go ride through the trails.
  • And we had the that was a around 10 or 12, 15-ish in that time frame. So, there you go. >> Dance party. Okay, next question. If you could have any superpower, what would it be? A superpower, I would fly for sure out of all of them because then I could get to places faster without any problems. And you know how much we love to travel.
  • Or you could just teleport. Teleport. Oh, mind blown. Yeah, teleporting would be even faster. My power would probably be telekenesis. Okay. All right. How about we ask you a question about what would you eat if you only had to eat one thing the rest of your life? I would eat fettuccine. Fettuccine? Yes. Yeah, that's it.
  • >> favorite pasta. Ah, it's very good. It's very good. It's high calorie, people. You got to watch those portions. Ooh, I got a good one. All right. The next question's really good. All right. If our family was in a movie, what movie would it be, who would you play, and who would I play? All right.
  • I am going to go with Harry Potter. Harry Potter has been historically throughout our family for years now. Uh right? Cuz your mom read all the books to you four kids. Yeah, you were there, too. You sat on the couch. Yes. Yes. No, she was there. Don't let her fool you. You were there on the couch and she read it to all four you. You just weren't old enough to remember.
  • This was about four or five years ago. Then we would go down to Harry Potter World in Orlando, right? We've been there so many times. I mean, Hogwarts, Hogsmeade, movie Diagon Alley. I I Alley, excuse me, Diagon Alley with the with the the fire-breathing dragon, right? Yeah, I have a picture of me being um underneath it, right? As it's shooting fire? Yeah.
  • >> Or how about Oh, I know you have this one fun picture of you with the wand, Hermione. You'd be Hermione and I'd be I'd be Harry Potter. That's it. This was my pose. Exactly. Now Now the other thing we've been to London and we toured the studios where they actually filmed. That.
  • We've had butterbeer in Orlando and London and New York City. We have countless amounts of paraphernalia. Yes, but Paris doesn't have I don't care about Paris. This is beautiful in the best place. Yeah, you really do like Paris. So that's that's the movie and characters. By the way, fun fact, if you go ever go to Paris and you see the Eiffel Tower, it like sparkles and glows up like every now and then. It's really cool.
  • 5 minutes on the hour Yes. after 9:00 p.m. until midnight or 1:00. And it's really cool, so you should go. Yeah. Watch it. We went last summer and we went to the Eiffel Tower twice, two nights to see that, right? No, wait. We went more than two nights. Well, we had we were there for three nights. We saw it all three nights.
  • We did all Okay. Cuz the first one, remember, we had our dancing party. We walked an hour plus to get close to it because we went from our apartment Airbnb that we rented. Yeah, we walked for an hour basically to get close to it and then we turned around cuz we saw an hour walk back. That's where we had pizza on the way there. Yes.
  • Yep, that was the last night we had pizza. Cuz we were walking from the Louvre. We left the Louvre and then we found pizza. Remember our dance party in front of it? We danced. Yeah. We're dancing all Okay. Next question. What is the weirdest healthy food you actually like? Weirdest healthy food. Huh. Um um um um um I guess the weirdest combination would be frozen broccoli in a smoothie.
  • That's pretty odd. You've drinking it before though. Yeah. You have. You've enjoyed it too. No way. >> All four of my kids. Some of the super shake, if you're interested I got I've got a super shake guide and part of it is you have a protein, you have some fruit, you have some vegetables and maybe a starch depending on how many calories you need.
  • And therefore, I would put frozen broccoli into it and I eat a lot of frozen broccoli as you know. And I've talked about it at least on my post I think and I don't know how much I talked about it on the podcast. Frozen broccoli. I like bananas. By the way. If you didn't know cuz I was holding a banana at the beginning of this.
  • Right, exactly. Okay, next question. What is one thing you always say to your clients that you would also need to remind yourself? To be persistent. To always strive to reach your goals and don't let anything get in the way. And even if something is hard or challenging, you still have to persevere and push through to do it.
  • Just even like this podcast. This podcast is 100 episodes old now. Which I'm super excited. I'm going to release this immediately so I can get back to production. We had a three-week time out. But it was super important to to keep working towards your goals. It and I have to remind myself of that all the time. Okay.
  • And I remind you too, right? She's lovely that she has a coach for a live for a father and I put my coaching wisdom on her. She loves it. Okay. Next question, Jamal. You're not drumming. Okay. What is the funniest thing that has ever happened to you while traveling? I know the answer to this. If you don't say it, then I'm pretty sure I think we both know this one.
  • We were in Florida at SeaWorld and I they were wrapping up the sea lion show and Yeah. Shh. Don't spoil it. I'm just >> So, no. No. No. No. No. No. No. It was a sea lion show and at the end they're celebrating and clapping and hurraying all the sea lion and the effort and fun. It was great. Sea lions are hilarious.
  • We actually swam with sea lions, right? We just got done swimming with them, which was wild. Now So, I I I'm pointing at my boys, Levi, Everett, Maxwell, to go up and then the lady points at me. And then I end up going down and I don't know if you ever see any pictures of my fanny pack in today's actual Facebook post on April 12th, I actually released an image that has me in uh in Miami.
  • No, I was at Miami, yeah. It's at Miami Airport or Atlanta. Maybe it was Atlanta. I was in Atlanta sitting in front of the Southwest sign and I have my patented uh classic dad fanny pack cuz I I have fanny pack and I wear every place that we go. No, it still works. No, it's racing stripe. It's white and black racing stripe. So, I had this thing with me and then I I I went down there, twirled it around my back.
  • And the ladies totally a setup. She's getting me to clap and I'm I'm a ham. I'm just I'm an extrovert. I'm high-energy. I love it. Being in front of the show. That's why this podcast isn't really that hard at all. I can do this all the time. What happened was I'm clapping. She has me bend down like this.
  • My back's to the the stage and the wall of water that's there. And they start clapping and then it to my surprise a mountain of water came over the ledge from OH, WALRUS. >> YES, a walrus and it it killed my iPhone 10. That's to give you a time frame of about when it was. An iPhone 10 got killed and we walked around SeaWorld rest of the time and people were having a blast.
  • Like, oh, you were that guy in the the sea lion show. And I'm like, yeah, it was funny and then my phone didn't work. He got splashed, really. It was a mountain of water. It was a tsunami of water that came over the top. This is an impression of the wall. Yeah, exactly. Just like that. If you're seeing on the video, it's exactly exactly what it looked like. Okay.
  • So, enough explaining. Okay, next question. If you were not a health coach, what would you be? I'd be a marine biologist, speaking of walruses and sea lions, but more importantly sharks. Great white shark. That's what I would that that would be one thing I'd do. Either that or I would be a DJ to EDM, electronic dance music.
  • Or I'd be able to shred a guitar like Slash from Guns N' Roses. You totally know who that is, right? You know who Skrillex and Slash are, right? What? That yeah, those would totally be people that I would be. Just came out. Don't show your butt to the camera. They don't want to see that. Okay. I don't know who that people are.
  • But, I want when I grow up, I want to be either a fashion designer. So, you wanted to be a mermaid ballerina dancer teacher. Who's just going to say that? But, yeah. Jeez. I know some karate. Hold this. Let me show off my moves. If you're listening in, she's doing a crane, the classic karate kid crane, and she's karate chopping.
  • All right. >> Isn't that like a movie or something? Karate Kid? >> a bunch of them. There's a bunch of karate kids. All right. I've never watched that. Yeah, well, maybe one day we will. Okay. Next question. We're on question 11. Okay. I think. Who is more stubborn, you or me? Of course I'm going to say you are.
  • I am go-with-the-flow, and smooth as water. So, that's an obvious question. Answer to the question. I disagree, but okay. What is something silly or embarrassing your listeners would never expect about you? Something silly, embarrassing? Uh what I don't know. This one's tough one. What would you say? That would be embarrassing.
  • I talk A LOT. >> OH, NO, I KNOW something really good. >> Oh, gosh. Okay. You're going to have to edit this out of the podcast. I think I can do that. >> shows up at like our sports and stuff, and then he just stands there so awkwardly. There's one time Yes. >> on your parent and you >> No. One time, I was at soccer practice and this dude took me and he was just standing on the side.
  • Like being just He was just walking around And that's on a call being annoying like always. I guess that would be a I take client calls at the side of soccer games sometimes because >> know. Would you guys expect that from him? I mean, that's just a a way to manage a life with being a father of four kids and having to be very active.
  • You don't have to stand awkwardly. I don't And be weird and then you go Oh, that's it. That's the the embarrassing thing for you is that I always wave. Uh Everett was running the other day and I was just like, "Hi Everett." And No, this is what I So, when he goes, Yeah. over exaggerated waves at my kids when they're at sporting events or other activities.
  • That would be Yeah, the embarrassing thing for you. Sure. Okay. If Wait. If we made up a dad and dad holiday, what would we do on that day? What? Uh we'd definitely travel, you'd have ice cream, you'd have a dance party. We would >> do? What? We'd take a No, yeah. That, too. But >> Sushi for lunch, ice cream, and dessert.
  • >> Okay. So, we would take a selfie and with our tongues out we'd go Uh we'd we'd have a couple >> so many pictures. YEP. WHAT? OKAY. IS THAT IT? Uh we still want maybe two more. So, you I I on the holiday. Oh, yeah, yeah, totally. Yeah, one or two more questions and then we'll wrap it up. Did you ever get in trouble in school? I was a good kid in school.
  • I had I was top 10 in my class and I got really good grades. I was I ran, I did track, I was in the band. I played clarinet. That's how I met your mother. I just asked did you get in trouble? I never got in detention. Ever. What were your grades in the school? I just said I was top 10. I got almost basically straight A's.
  • I was in honor classes. I got all straight A's on all my report cards. >> Yes, you sure have. Maxwell, though, you got a name minus on Maxwell, didn't you? So, it's still an A. >> Yeah, yeah. Yep, you still get the extra >> A on all my other report Yes, you have and he did not. They they get all the kids get a dollar for an A, 50 cents for B, and then if they get all A's, they get a $5 bonus.
  • Yep, so I got to pay you actually, that reminds me. You and Maxwell. Okay. Wait, let's see what question $14 for that. What is one thing No. Yeah, I guess it just has to be one thing that I do better than you. That you do better than me. I will Okay, I'll just have to admit that dancing, you literally went to dance school and did dance for years.
  • >> Like over >> Six years or something like that? Yeah, it was a lot. You did ballet and tap and hip-hop. I didn't So, dancing. But, I do know how >> do hip-hop. Oh, it was a long >> But, you were really young. Wasn't I the flower girl? Yep. Yeah, you were two or three or something like that, so you wouldn't really remember.
  • Something like that. >> I was very tall, though. I remember. I was like right here. Yeah. >> I've always been tall. Yeah, you have been. >> I'm going to be taller than this dude. No way. Okay. >> one more question. If I was a coach and you were the client, what would Wait. What would I tell you to work on? You would tell me to work on keeping it easy on the kids, right? Being No, I would tell you to get stronger so you could actually beat me at an arm wrestle.
  • Oh, that's a mic job, huh? She has beat me a couple times. Wait, I got one more question. This is the last one. It's really >> right. All right. What cartoon or kids movie do you secretly like? Oh, I don't secretly like it. I've actually I think I wore it during some of the the shows, but uh Turtles. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
  • Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Heroes in a Half Shell. Turtle Power. Yeah. Totally. That'd be it. Or Batman. That was something. Thank you. >> better than you at singing. Uh yeah. Yeah. We should do a song to wrap us up. >> Oh, yeah. What is that going to be? I don't know. Mystical. Magical, oh baby.
  • Won't you know, won't you know my love is so mystical, magical, oh baby. Won't you know, won't you know. This kid. Benson Boone. Well, that wraps us up for the 100th episode of Driven for Health podcast. We'll be back at it with, I believe, Brandon Day talking about flow state on our next episode and what that actually means with Matt, the harnessing your energy, talk about my gluten injury, and all sorts of good stuff.
  • So, thank you so much for joining me through all these episodes and I hope that you get tons of value. Comment, like, subscribe, leave a review, share with a friend. Do you have any closing statements? This is a lot of fun. I'm glad that I had this idea. He is an okay dad. >> An okay dad? What do you mean? You're 10 years old and you've been to all 50 states.
  • >> That's cuz of mommy. >> I Who do you think drove you around? >> So, mommy planned all of them. Huh? Yeah, she she did that, but it's a teamwork thing. >> You're joking. That's what I absolutely love about our family. >> not stronger than me. All right. Off we go. Bye-bye. Let's dance it off. All right.