Teach, Coach, Mentor
Teach, Coach, Mentor
Podcast Description
Welcome to Teach Coach Mentor, the podcast for anyone who believes learning is a lifelong mission, not a one-time event.
Whether you're a student trying to find your footing, a professional chasing your next edge, or someone who's been called to teach, lead, or guide others, this show was made for you.
Every week, we sit down with exceptional teachers, coaches, mentors, and learners from every walk of life: classroom educators, athletic coaches, business leaders, military instructors, and everyday people doing the hard work of growth. Together, we unpack what it really means to teach with clarity, coach with purpose, and mentor with heart.
If you've ever asked yourself:
How can I learn faster, remember more, and actually apply what I know?
How do I motivate my students or team when the fire fades?
How do I mentor someone without giving all the answers?
What do the best teachers, leaders, and guides do that others don’t?
You're in the right place.
Each episode blends research-backed strategies with real-world stories, because learning isn’t just about knowledge, it’s about people. We go deep on:
Learning science, habits, and memory techniques
Communication and connection
Building trust and accountability
Creating transformative experiences for students and teams
The mindset, methods, and mistakes that shape great educators and leaders
Hosted by Mike Wish, Marine Corps officer, teacher, and founder of Velle Logos. This show is born from a lifelong obsession with helping others grow. Mike brings humor, heart, and a teacher’s clarity to every conversation, challenging guests and listeners alike to dig deeper, think harder, and never stop becoming.
No matter your role, age, or stage, this podcast is here to equip you, challenge you, and inspire you to be better at what matters most: the people you serve.
Podcast Insights
Content Themes
The podcast focuses on themes of lifelong learning, teaching efficacy, coaching strategies, and mentoring dynamics, with episodes covering topics such as learning science, communication methods, building trust in education, and real-world applications of memory techniques and transformative experiences.
Welcome to Teach, Coach, Mentor: the podcast about what it actually takes to reach people.
We sit down with teachers, coaches, and mentors who are doing the work and we dig into their methods. How they teach so it lands. How they coach so it sticks. How they mentor so it matters.
If you care about getting better at developing others — whether that’s in a classroom, on a field, in a workplace, or across a lifetime — this show is for you.
I’m your host, educator and coach, Mike Wish. Let’s get after it.
PJ Milani built a 450,000-follower audience by drawing ideas most people scroll past. In this episode of Teach Coach Mentor, the 23-year film and animation teacher behind Milani Creative breaks down how a single boat-and-lighthouse visual on management versus leadership kicked off a movement, and how he still builds an “aha” into every metaphor he makes.
Key takeaways:
📌 Why “efficiency doesn’t equal efficacy,” and what a 20-slide Japanese presentation style taught PJ about earning attention
📌 The Zeigarnik effect and Feynman’s 12 favorite problems, and how PJ primes his brain on his commute to solve creative problems on autopilot
📌 The “curiosity gap”: why PJ never fully closes the circle on an idea, and lets the audience take the last step themselves
📌 Why PJ refuses to call his visual work a “side hustle,” and what that reframe means for anyone building something outside their day job
📌 The difference between a metaphor and an analogy, and why AI can hand you the drawing but never the thinking
Timestamps:
00:00 Welcome and PJ’s 23 years teaching film and animation
02:17 The pandemic identity crisis that pushed PJ online
08:31 The boat and lighthouse visual that started it all
10:27 The day Adam Grant reposted PJ’s work
20:47 The “aha-ness factor” and selective attention bias
36:46 Feynman’s 12 favorite problems and PJ’s creative process
PJ Milani is a career educator and the creator of Milani Creative, teaching the cohort-based course “Thinking in Visual Metaphors” to help others communicate ideas visually.
Subscribe for more conversations on teaching, coaching, and mentoring, and check out PJ’s course if you want to start thinking (and communicating) in visual metaphors.
More PJ:
LinkedIn: 💼 https://www.linkedin.com/in/pejmanmilani/
Website: 🌐 https://www.milanicreative.com
More Mike:
LinkedIn: 💼 https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelwish0802/
Podcast Site: 🎧 https://teachcoachmentor.org/
Company Website: 🏫 https://vellelogos.com
Personal Website: https://michaelwish.com
Disclaimer
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