Sam and Parker are officially in the thick of the summer tour: ~1k miles, three days, and fourteen hours behind the wheel. Before they hit the road, they get into what these long hauls really do to your head and how they stay sharp without driving each other crazy. Plus some rapid fire and fire questions to kick the whole thing off.

Sam and Parker came across a warning from author Cal Newport: our ability to think deeply is eroding, and almost nobody is talking about it.

If a TikTok is just a digital Dorito and AI is writing, speaking, and problem-solving for us, what happens to the most important muscle we have?

The guys get into why deep thinking is the one thing AI can't replace, plus simple ways to start exercising your brain again.

The Knicks are in the NBA Finals for the first time this century, and Sam has a front row seat to the story. He grew up playing high school ball with Jalen Brunson, and he shares what it was like watching a kid who wasn't the biggest or the most talented outwork everyone in the room. From the goals taped to his bedroom wall to the mantra that shaped his entire career, we dig into the mindset that took Brunson from second round pick to the NBA finals.

Parker and Sam are days away from the busiest month in Elevation Nation history - a summer speaking tour across five states, multiple camps, and a whole lot of time in a rental car together.

Parker's pumped. Sam's a little tired. And somewhere in between those two feelings is the real conversation: how do you stay present when everything is moving at once? The guys get honest about anxiety, perspective, and why sometimes the suck is exactly where you need to be.

Elevator 249: Morgan Raum is a New York-based food media creator, community builder, and the founder of Shabbat Club — a Jewish dining series bringing young adults together over food at Jewish-owned restaurants and bars across NYC and beyond. She's also the creator behind ToooMuchFoood, where she's been sharing her love of food for over 12 years across Instagram and TikTok.

In this episode: Morgan shares how getting laid off from her dream job as a food journalist at People Magazine became the catalyst for building something entirely her own. We talk about the power of food as a community connector, what it really takes to build an audience from scratch, and how Shabbat Club became a home for Jewish young professionals who never quite felt like they fit into traditional Jewish spaces.

Elevator 248: Joseph DiMeo is a motivational speaker from New Jersey. In July 2018, at 20 years old, he fell asleep at the wheel on the drive home from a shift he picked up for overtime. The accident left him with 80% burns, burnt eyelids, and amputated fingers. After waking from a three-and-a-half month coma, Joe went on to become the first successful face and double hand transplant recipient in the world.

In this podcast: Joe takes us back to the moment he woke up from that coma and the first thing he asked about was his rims. We talk about how humor became a survival tool, what it actually felt like to hear his diagnosis at 5am through a haze of painkillers, and how he's built a full life — traveling the world, chasing good food, and showing up every single day with two mental mottos that say everything about who he is.

Bill Villafranco is a trustee of the Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation, a private philanthropic organization that has distributed over $100 million in grants supporting women in the arts, medical research, underprivileged youth, and humanitarian initiatives around the world. He also serves as Executive Director of myFace, a nonprofit supporting individuals with craniofacial differences, and brings decades of experience from his career in wealth management.

In this podcast: Bill takes us inside the nursing school he helped build in Thailand that has now graduated over 550 young women out of trafficking and poverty. He opens up about losing his son at birth at 28 years old, the 15 years it took him to make sense of that grief, and how the question "why not me?" became the through-line for the people he now surrounds himself with. We dig into legacy-driven giving, intergenerational mentorship, and why young people are starving for the kind of perspective only someone older than them can offer.

The WSJ publisehd a piece this week showing that the backlash against AI has been bigger than expected. Sam and Parker upack what the rebellion says about society today, talk through their fears with the advancement of AI, and what they plan to do about it.