Eighty percent of Gen Z say they've felt lonely in the past year, despite being the most digitally connected generation ever. Sam and Parker dig into why more connection hasn't meant less loneliness, and how comfort zones, phones, and false assumptions about what strangers will think people stuck.

Elevator no. 247: Eric Zalewski is the c-founder of Acru, a social fitness app built to track and share every workout, from lifts to classes to runs. A former S1 basketball player at Northwestern, Eric walked on to the team as a manager and earned his spot on the court through relentless preparation. He's spent the past two-plus years coaching fitness in NYC on top of his finance day job, and outside of work he's chasing marathons, HYROX race, hooping, golfing, and slowly leveling up his cooking beyond chicken and rice.

In the Elevation Nation Podcast: Eric breaks down the mindset that got him from team manager to walk-on, why anybody can lead regardless of title, and how he channels a "more to give" mentality into everything from fitness coaching to endurance training. We get into the power of a portfolio life, why the hardest goals are the ones worth chasing, and Sam makes a bet he may come to regret.

Elevator 254: Brian Helfman is the founder and Chief Experience Officer at Third Nature, where he runs adult summer camp retreats, leadership trainings, and community experiences designed to help people reconnect with their authentic selves. He's also a longtime volunteer and now part-time staff member with Experience Camps, running adult grief camps for people who lost a parent young.

In this podcast: we dive into how his father's death at 55 completely rewired Brian's relationship to work and time, why 93% of Americans spend their lives indoors and what that's costing us, the accidental path from CBS ad sales to ski instructor to building Third Nature, and his mental motto Memento Mori — remembering you will die as a way to actually live.