Megan Ashton is the founder of Unity Breathwork and a leading advocate for raising safety standards in the breathwork industry. After fifteen years of trying to heal childhood trauma through hypnotherapy, yoga, talk therapy and six ayahuasca ceremonies, one conscious connected breathwork class in Bali gave her the breakthrough none of them had, and she has spent the decade since training trauma-informed facilitators and leading retreats in Sayulita, Mexico. In this conversation she explains what happens in the brain and nervous system when you remove the pause between inhale and exhale, why the first fifteen minutes feel like resistance, how to integrate a session so the change lasts, and where the real dangers lie. It is a grounded, honest guide to a practice that is growing fast and not always practiced well.

• Why connected breathing deliberately activates the sympathetic nervous system, and how that opens access to what the body has stored
• The one thing behind every hypoxic blackout Megan has seen: breath holds added to the end of a connected breathwork session
• How to find a safe facilitator: trauma-informed, at least 400 hours of training, no promises, no sensationalized social media
• Why one big breakthrough is not enough, and how often to practice for lasting change

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Connect with Megan:

https://unitybreathwork.com/breathwork-facilitator-training/
https://unitybreathwork.com/
https://www.instagram.com/unitybreathwork/

Connect with Brad:

https://www.instagram.com/bradhook
https://www.linkedin.com/in/bradleyhook
https://flame.live
https://bradleyhook.com
https://values.institute

Does your immune system have more say over your thoughts than you realize? Dr. Aoife O’Donovan, Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at UCSF and director of the THRIVE Lab, has spent nearly two decades studying how psychological stress gets under the skin and into the brain. In this conversation, she explains why humans mount a full stress response to events that are long past or may never happen, how inflammation sharpens the brain’s threat detector while loosening its brakes, and why trauma can leave the body on alert for years. She also shares early findings from the UCSF Translational Psychedelic Research Program, where psilocybin therapy was linked to lower inflammation and mitochondrial stress in patients with Parkinson’s disease, and research showing that biological aging in immune cells can move in reverse. A candid, hopeful guide to working with a nervous system that evolved for short-term survival rather than long-term flourishing.

In this episode:

• Why the stress response protects you today at the expense of your long-term health, and why that isn’t your fault
• Inflammation and threat sensitivity feed each other: what happens between the amygdala and the prefrontal cortex under stress
• Pessimism and perceived threat predict shorter telomeres, yet immune cell aging turns out to be reversible
• “Figure out what kind of nervous system you have, then build your environment around it,” plus why starting absurdly small works

Aoife’s lab (THRIVE Lab, UCSF): https://odonovanlab.ucsf.edu
Aoife’s UCSF profile: https://profiles.ucsf.edu/aoife.odonovan

Connect with Brad:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bradhook
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bradleyhook
• Attend a live experience: https://flame.live
• Discover Brad’s work: https://bradleyhook.com
• Values Institute: https://values.institute

Dr. Chloe West is a psychedelic neuroscientist who studies how psychedelics change the way the brain processes information and updates its beliefs about the world. Her path began at age ten, when her family moved from a small town in Georgia's Bible Belt to Kawakawa in New Zealand's Northland, and she encountered atheism, evolution and ayahuasca in the same disorienting year. Brad and Chloe explore why beliefs absorbed in childhood are so hard to shift, how psychedelics raise neural entropy and soften the brain's certainty in its own predictions, and why the weeks after an experience matter as much as the experience itself. They also consider mystical states reached without substances, the risks of a challenging trip, and whether psychedelics helped shape the world's religions.

• Psychedelics act like fresh snow on a sledding hill, letting the mind carve new paths beyond the rigid grooves of PTSD, depression and addiction.
• Perception is a "controlled hallucination," and psychedelics temporarily loosen the brain's predictions so old beliefs can update.
• Chloe's research suggests a window of openness in the weeks after an experience, when setting and support shape what takes hold.
• Breathwork, meditation and flicker light can open similar states without any substance at all.

Dr. Chloe's Links

• Born Again Again (Substack): https://drchloewest.substack.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chloewestjacobs
• Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=HGfgbJMAAAAJ&hl=en

Brad's Links

• Brad Hook on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bradhook
• Brad Hook on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bradleyhook
• Attend a live experience: https://flame.live
• Discover Brad's work: https://bradleyhook.com
• Values Institute: https://values.institute

Don Mann spent 21 years in the Navy SEAL Teams, retiring from SEAL Team Six, then another 25 as a CIA contractor. He is a New York Times bestselling author, host of the TV series Surviving Mann, and a veteran of more than 1,000 endurance events, including a double Ironman he finished after passing out at mile 32 of the run. In this conversation with Brad Hook, he describes the combat mindset that got him through a night dive with no oxygen, the leaders who taught him to leave ego at the door, and the four daily habits from his new book, Navy SEAL Playbook, that he offers to anyone who wants more from their life. He is also frank about what twenty years of continuous war has done to the people who fought it, why the wars being fought today keep him up at night, and why he now puts being a good person ahead of being a warrior.

• Why most people set their goals too low, and how to choose a macro goal and micro-goal your way up
• Four daily rules: get stronger, get faster, get smarter, and do something good for somebody
• Leading without ego, from the SEAL Team Six leader who made every man on the team feel needed
• Visualize it worse than it will be: the mental practice that got Don through BUD/S

Get the book: https://navysealplaybook.com/the-navy-seal-playbook-don-mann

Connect with Don:

https://www.usfrogmann.com

Connect with Brad:

https://www.instagram.com/bradhook
https://www.linkedin.com/in/bradleyhook
https://flame.live
https://bradleyhook.com
https://values.institute

What happens when the striving that built your career stops working? Fabrice Desmarescaux, McKinsey partner, leader of Aberkyn in Southeast Asia and author of The Art of Retreats, joins Brad to explore the "second adulthood": the unnamed life stage that begins around 45, when raw problem-solving gives way to wisdom, judgment and the ability to hold paradox. Drawing on decades of coaching CEOs and C-suite teams, Fabrice explains why control doesn't scale, why midlife is an awakening rather than a crisis, and why silence, solitude and stillness are the most underrated leadership tools of all. A warm, quietly radical conversation about presence, letting go, and finding your new game.

In this episode:

• Fluid intelligence peaks in your 30s, but crystallized intelligence keeps growing into your 70s and 80s
• Why senior leadership is an adaptive challenge: influence, nudging and holding space instead of control
• The lost rites of passage, and why we need elders to guide life's biggest transitions
• How to build a retreat into a busy day through silence, solitude and disconnection

Get The Art of Retreats: https://www.amazon.com/Art-Retreats-Leaders-Journey-Clarity/dp/1544526369Fabrice's website: https://www.desmarescaux.comFabrice on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/fabrice-desmarescaux

Connect with Brad:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bradhookLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bradleyhookAttend a live experience: https://flame.liveDiscover Brad's work: https://bradleyhook.comValues Institute: https://values.institute

Ellen Hunter Gans is a writer, 41-time marathoner, Ironman triathlete, and the first person with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome to run seven marathons on seven continents in seven days. In this conversation she takes us inside the Great World Race — from a packed-snow course in Antarctica's White Desert to a heat-index scorcher in Cartagena — complete with a venomous spider bite, a stolen wallet, and a plane once used by the Rolling Stones.

Along the way she shares the stories behind her new book, Seven Marathons: lung cancer survivors running with one lung, a Welsh firefighter racing in full kit, and elite women choosing collaboration over world records. It's a warm, funny, and quietly profound look at resilience, shared purpose, and why the time to chase your big goals is now.

• Camaraderie is a performance tool: research shows shared struggle literally reduces the experience of pain
• Treat big goals as commitments, not options — sign up first, then figure out how
• Rest matters: Ellen qualified for Boston by running less, not more (three focused runs a week)
• If not now, when? Don't wait for a diagnosis or a deadline to do the thing

Get the book: https://sevenmarathonsbook.com

Connect with Brad Hook:
https://www.instagram.com/bradhook
https://www.linkedin.com/in/bradleyhook

Explore more:
https://flame.live
https://bradleyhook.com
https://values.institute

Joey Klein is the founder and CEO of Inner Matrix Systems and the author of The Inner Matrix and Relationship Alchemy. After a near-death experience at 19 pulled him out of a destructive lifestyle, he spent two decades blending ancient wisdom traditions, psychology, and neuroscience into a practical system for personal mastery — one he has now taught to more than 90,000 people, from Fortune 500 executives to professional athletes. In this conversation, Joey and Brad explore why lasting change starts with the nervous system rather than the mind, and how emotional mastery can be trained like any other skill.

• Why you can't think your way out of anxiety: regulate the nervous system first, manage emotion second, then train the mind
• The three emotional competencies: awareness, switching off fear, and switching on love-based states
• A simple morning check-in and four-sided breathing practice you can start today
• The four steps behind every real transformation

Free for FLAME listeners — both of Joey's books plus a complimentary training session with a certified IMS trainer:https://joeyklein.com/flamepodcast

Follow Joey:YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@JoeyKleinIMSInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/therealjoeyklein/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joeyklein/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JoeyKleinIMS/TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@officialjoeyklein

Connect with Brad:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bradhookLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bradleyhook

Attend a live experience: https://flame.liveDiscover Brad's work: https://bradleyhook.comValues Institute: https://values.institute

In this episode, psychologist and bestselling author Fiona Murden explores why identity—not skills—may be our greatest challenge in the age of AI. We discuss resilience, identity coherence, storytelling, parenting, leadership, and why understanding who you are is becoming one of the most important human capabilities.

In this episode:

• Why AI is creating an identity crisis
• Identity by osmosis and the people who shape us
• How leaders create certainty through storytelling
• Raising children with a stronger sense of self
• The connection between identity and resilience
• Practical ways to better understand yourself

Connect with Fiona:
Website: https://www.fionamurden.com/
Substack (Still Human): https://fionamurden.substack.com/about