Better Thinking

In this episode of Better Thinking, Nesh Nikolic speaks with Scott Harris about the physical and mental challenges of living with an injured brain.

Scott B Harris is a keynote speaker, author, and resilience expert.

In 2008, Scott was involved in a motorbike accident that caused lasting injuries including a Traumatic Brain Injury.

This was due to a severe Closed Head Injury, which resulted in extensive facial fractures, requiring a facial reconstruction. To reconstruct his face, 11 titanium plates were bolted to his skull. The Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) was so severe that he sustained extremely severe Frontal Lobe Damage and shearing of the brain.

This has left Scott with paralysis on the right side of his body from shoulder to toes, causing major instability issues. He also has a Brachial Plexus injury to his right arm involving three severed nerves.

After the accident, rehab became Scott’s full-time job – a job he took very seriously.

The intense physical and mental rehabilitation which he continues to this day is the reason he is still alive and has achieved so much.

Scott has discovered that setting and achieving goals, both mental and physical, keeps you looking forward rather than backwards and fills you with purpose.

Episode link at https://neshnikolic.com/podcast/scott-harris

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In this episode of Better Thinking, Nesh Nikolic speaks with Gaj Ravichandra about developing mental toughness and increasing mental resilience.

Gaj Ravichandra is a mindset and leadership coach, organizational psychologist, and co-founder and Managing Partner at Kompass Consultancy.

Gaj is a highly sought-after performance coach recognized for his effective leadership training techniques and passion for helping clients reach higher potential. For 20 years, Gaj has worked with leading organizations and individuals to enhance productivity, maximize performance, and accelerate growth.

As a registered psychologist, Gaj leans on his psychology training to deliver the most effective evidence-based solutions to his clients. Gaj leads individuals, sporting teams, and educational institutions to success with cutting-edge learning techniques and disruptive growth strategies that are proven to enhance potential and performance.

Recognized as an authority in peak performance and mental toughness, Gaj has spearheaded and contributed to countless programs, including executive coaching, career transitioning, mental toughness performance coaching, talent management and executive talent acquisition, employee engagement, and mentoring.

Gaj has extensive global experience, having delivered best-in-class training to clients in Australia, Middle East, Levant, UK, Europe, and Asia. His industry experience covers a wide range of sectors, including telecom, finance, healthcare, aviation, technology, industrial, consulting, retail, education, government, and oil and gas. 

Episode link at https://neshnikolic.com/podcast/gaj-ravichandra

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In this episode of Better Thinking, Nesh Nikolic speaks with Dr Christopher Love about Erectile Dysfunction and how much this condition can take a toll on men’s mental health.

Dr Christopher Love is one of Australia’s most experienced Urological Surgeons, and the foremost Penile Implant and Peyronie’s Disease Surgeon in Australia. With over 35 years’ experience, Dr Love is known throughout the industry and by his patients as a caring, thoroughly professional and experienced surgeon with exceptional outcomes.

Dr Love specialises in Erectile Dysfunction Treatment including Penile Implant Surgery, Peyronie’s Disease and Penile Curvature, Enlarged Prostate (BPH) treatment including Minimally Invasive Surgical Therapies (MIST), and other urological conditions and issues related to sexual health, prostate, bladder, kidneys, no-scalpel vasectomy, and general urology issues like urinary bleeding, stones and scrotal problems.

Dr Christopher Love graduated from Monash University, Australia, in 1978. He spent his early training years in Melbourne, Australia before moving to Sydney, Australia to commence training as a urologist. He completed his Urology training in Melbourne in 1986, and then did post-fellowship training in San Francisco., USA.

He became involved in Men’s Health in 1987 and has been a major penile implant surgeon in Australia since that time and is now the highest volume implant surgeon in Australia. He is regarded as a leading national expert in the field of prosthetic urology.

Dr Love is a mentor for International urologists who choose to come and do a post-graduate Fellowship programme with Dr. Love. Dr Love has trained urologists from USA, Canada, Israel and England. These urologists spend one year with Dr Love and his colleagues learning about the latest treatments and operations in his sub-speciality field.

Episode link at https://neshnikolic.com/podcast/christopher-love

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In this episode of Better Thinking, Nesh Nikolic speaks with Dr Jon Lieff about how it’s our cells communicating with each other that causes feelings, sickness, thoughts, and diseases in our bodies.

Dr. Jon Lieff is a neuropsychiatrist with a BA in Mathematics from Yale University and an MD from Harvard Medical School. He pioneered the creation of integrated treatment units that focus on complex patients with combined medical, psychiatric, and neurological problems.

For ten years, Dr. Lieff has produced a weekly blog, called Searching for the Mind, where he summarized the latest scientific findings in brain science, immunology, molecular biology, animal intelligence, plant intelligence, microbes including viruses, and cellular intelligence.

Dr. Lieff has written and edited multiple books and has lectured widely over the years on a variety of subjects. His recently published book, The Secret Language of Cells, is the result of his years of work researching scientific literature for his blog. The book has received excellent reviews and endorsements, including Andrew Weil, MD who called it "a new paradigm for health and disease" and Ray Kurzweil who said "it is a must-read for anyone to understand modern biology and advanced medical science"

Furthermore, he is an expert and innovator in developing specialized, innovative treatment programs for brain-injured patients and is able to make complex scientific information easy to understand.

Episode link at https://neshnikolic.com/podcast/jon-lieff

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In this episode of Better Thinking, Nesh Nikolic speaks with Prof Angela Martin about promoting workplace positivity and how we can actively manage mental health issues in the workplace.

Angela Martin is a Professorial Research Fellow of Work & Mental Health, Menzies Institute for Medical Research, and an Adjunct Professor of Management, School of Business and Economics, at the University of Tasmania.  She is also a Director and the founder of Pracademia, a knowledge translation consultancy organisation.

Her PhD is in the area of industrial and organisational psychology and she is well known nationally and internationally for her research on mental health in the context of working life and for developing mental health management capabilities in leaders, managers and employees.

She has authored over 100 peer-reviewed publications and been an investigator on several nationally competitive funded research grants for studies of interventions that aim to create healthier working environments. Her consulting work has been undertaken in diverse settings including government, small businesses, large corporations, blue collar occupations, first responder and not for profit organisations. 

Episode link at https://neshnikolic.com/podcast/angela-martin

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In this episode of Better Thinking, Nesh Nikolic speaks with Michael Ronin about masculinity and the challenges of the modern men.

Michael Ronin is an interdisciplinary cultural commentator, pulling together the threads of an unraveling world to provide clarity amidst all the Crazy. If there is a single objective truth, then it is found between many different trains of thought. Therefore, he generates insights that shed light onto that “truth” from diverse angles and viewpoints.

He’s spent a large proportion of his adult life trying to see the world as it really is and coming to his own conclusions. Conclusions about everything he’s been told or have learned from others.

Most people, especially nowadays through their social media preferences, live in an echo chamber. Strangely, he finds there aren’t enough groups or people out there whose thinking is closely mirrored by his own. He finds himself constantly and intentionally challenging his thinking by reading and reviewing stuff from all over the informational map. He digests as much as possible from as wide an array of rock-solid sources as he can, picking and choosing those that make the most sense to him, and then synthesizing it all into something coherent.

As he ingests information and perspectives, he tries to accept and acknowledge his own limited ability to fully understand everything and, instead, embrace a growth mindset, however flawed or imperfect he might be at any moment. He is at war with his level of ignorance. He’s deeply concerned with society and our shared journey together as a species and in particular how it affects men.

Even in western cultures, society is “not fit for human consumption.” It in no way works for the benefit of the vast majority of people. He’s both fascinated and disturbed about how the world is screwed up, how it got to be screwed up, how he got to be screwed up, and the parts we all play in creating the best conditions for people and planet.

Something seems to have reached a tipping point in our collective consciousness, and people are becoming distressingly polarized and hysterical, if not basket cases. The causal factors for our predicament are, for the most part, available for those who care to look but are largely relegated to the fringe. More than this, he’s speaking out because so many people don’t know they’re being lied to. And they don’t know that they are being manipulated and conditioned in such a way that distracts themfrom realizing their true nature and living harmoniously with each other.

Michael feels bereft at the state of the world right now. He feels the cruelty of unconsciousness in this world and the harm it causes. This is the creature from the Black Lagoon that lurks unrecognized by most. He’s also here to speak the truth which, by its very nature, is belligerent— because it stands squarely against a world built on comfortable misperceptions, mild deceptions, and outright lies. The uncomfortable truth stands squarely at the side of the conscious man as his ally in life.

Episode link at https://neshnikolic.com/podcast/michael-ronin

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In this episode of Better Thinking, Nesh Nikolic speaks with Dr Michael Leiter about improving work engagement and combatting burnout.

Dr. Michael P. Leiter is Professor of Organisational Psychology at Deakin University in Melbourne Australia. He previously held the Canada Research Chair in Occupational Health at Acadia University. He has published widely on job burnout, work engagement, and workplace civility.

His recent initiatives have focused on improving the quality of worklife through enhancing the level of civility and respect among colleagues. His intervention work on improving respect and civility at work has demonstrated a close link of improved collegiality with greater engagement with work. His most recent book with Cary Cooper is the The Routledge Companion to Wellbeing at Work.

Episode link at https://neshnikolic.com/podcast/michael-leiter

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In this episode of Better Thinking, Nesh Nikolic speaks with Dr Arnold Bakker about work engagement, job crafting, playful work design, job stress and burnout, strengths use, and topics about work life balance.

Arnold Bakker, PhD. is Full Professor at the Department of Work and Organizational Psychology at Erasmus University Rotterdam, the Netherlands. He is President of the European Association of Work and Organizational Psychology, and a fellow of the American Psychological Society. In addition, he is Adjunct Professor at Lingnan University (Hong Kong), Distinguished Visting Professor at the University of Johannesburg (South Africa), and Extraordinary Professor at North-West University (South Africa).

His research interests include positive organizational behavior (e.g., job crafting, playful work design, flow and engagement at work), job demands–resources theory, burnout, work-family balance, and crossover of work-related emotions.

Episode link at https://neshnikolic.com/podcast/arnold-bakker

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In this episode of Better Thinking, Nesh Nikolic speaks with Dr Roy Sugarman about the role of biological perspective in psychology and how those two worlds are coming together.

Dr Roy Sugarman is a Fellow of the Australian Psychological Society's Colleges of Clinical Neuropsychology and Clinical Psychology, member of the Royal Charter of Psychologists in the UK, an Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society, Member of the British Psychological Society’s Division of Neuropsychology and Faculty of Paediatric Neuropsychology, and a member of the American Psychological Association. 

In the USA he is on the advisory boards of several USA-based entities: as Neuroscience lead with Social Health Innovations and Transhuman Inc, (Sydney and Delaware), Mind Experts International (Fla), as well as directing Applied Neuroscience in the Performance Innovation Team of EXOS (Az).  In this last capacity he served as a mindset coach with the USA National Men's Soccer Team, as well as providing support for various Olympic and Club level athletes in multiple sporting settings including the USF athletes and US Military Special Forces personnel. He served as an advisor to FC11 in Australia and Neurodynamic Vision in Atlanta USA. He is a foundation member and Head Neuroscientist for education technology company BoxMedia in the UK and USA. In his role with Social Health Innovations, he is co-creator of Be A Looper, and Looper Enterprise, two award-winning apps addressing the issue of suicide in mental health settings. With Mobecom Ltd in Sydney, he developed the neuroscience model behind LifeIQ, SeventeenHundred, Centre for Diabetes and Endocrinology Club, Altius Life, FiiTR.me and related health apps. 

He is the author of two acclaimed books, “Saving your life one day at a time”, and  "Client-centred coaching: A trainer and coach's guide to motivating clients" (3rd ed), the latter with commentary by PTAGlobal in the USA, now their standard textbook for training their clients in engagement skills. He is a contributor to various other works, including The Hecht Effect by Steve Hecht, and Every Day is Game Day, by Mark Verstegen and The Road to Nowhere by Allan Munn. He has had input into major corporations' corporate health including programs at IBM, Intel, Sheraton, Walgreens, Cisco, Sony, SAP, Wesfarmers, Google, Johnson and Johnson, Optum/United Health Group, Union Pacific Railroad, KFC, Qantas, Australian Rehabilitation Providers Association and others, historically including Aviva and Singapore Armed Forces, Sun Life in Manila and Orix in Japan, as well as FWD, Cigna, Ogilvy, Mazlo, Fitness First, Primal Fitness, Department of Education and the Environment, and other corporates and organisations worldwide.   

Dr Sugarman's clinical work continues in traumatic brain injury, trauma, mood and anxiety, and autism spectrum disorders in children and adults, and he serves as an Adjunct Clinical Lecturer in Psychiatry at UNSW, assisting with the assessment of candidates for medicine and research into best practice in medical education.  With numerous publications, Dr Sugarman has developed an integrated approach to achieving peak performance in both body and brain, contributing to the current state of the art in both rehabilitation and peak performance circles: showcased in his books and in the well received TV series, Body and Brain Overall on OneHD and Channel 10.  His online program "The neuroscience of Peak Performance", produced by EXOS Presents in the USA, has received critical acclaim.  He has contributed to other EXOS Works presentations promoting best practice in professional coaching circles and is currently developing a novel approach to using Values-based methodology in coaching in both deprived and professional communities in the US with his colleagues at EXOS.

Episode link at https://neshnikolic.com/podcast/roy-sugarman

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In this episode of Better Thinking, Nesh Nikolic speaks with Dr Anthony Biglan about his book, The Nurture Effect, which offers evidence-based interventions that can prevent many of the psychological and behavioral problems that plague our society.

Anthony Biglan, Ph.D., is a Senior Scientist at Oregon Research Institute. He has been conducting research on the development and prevention of child and adolescent problem behavior for the past 30 years. His work has included studies of the risk and protective factors associated with tobacco, alcohol, and other drug use; high-risk sexual behavior; and antisocial behavior. He has conducted numerous experimental evaluations of interventions to prevent tobacco use both through school-based programs and community-wide interventions. And, he has evaluated interventions to prevent high-risk sexual behavior, antisocial behavior, and reading failure.

In recent years, his work has shifted to more comprehensive interventions that have the potential to prevent the entire range of child and adolescent problems. He and colleagues at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences published a book summarizing the epidemiology, cost, etiology, prevention, and treatment of youth with multiple problems (Biglan et al., 2004). He is a former president of the Society for Prevention Research. He was a member of the Institute of Medicine Committee on Prevention, which released its report in 2009 documenting numerous evidence-based preventive interventions that can prevent multiple problems. As a member of Oregon’s Alcohol and Drug Policy Commission, he is helping to develop a strategic plan for implementing comprehensive evidence-based interventions throughout Oregon.

Episode link at https://neshnikolic.com/podcast/anthony-biglan

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