Kintsugi Heroes

Susan’s story is a harrowing and detailed account of an intense period in her life involving the U.S. medical system. Susan grew up as the daughter of the only doctor in a rural western Kansas town. After being a caregiver for her husband and a breast cancer survivor she has seen health care from three different angles. This has led to a passion to help doctors form better connections in all their relationships creating more balance in their lives and better outcomes for their patients.

Biography

Susan Bloom, a horsewoman for over fifty years is the owner and founder of Connection and Synergy™ is a Master Equine Gestaltist and an Equine Assisted Playshop Facilitator. Connection and Synergy’s mission is to help doctors create stronger relationships with themselves, their families, and their patients. This will bring more balance to their lives and help relieve stress. By having the tools to combat stress we can all live healthier lives.

Contact

Business Name: Connection and Synergy

https://connectionandsynergy.com/

Social Media

https://www.facebook.com/ConnectionAndSynergy

https://www.linkedin.com/in/susanbloom-connectionandsynergy/

https://www.instagram.com/connectionandsynergy/

[email protected]

*****

We hope that you enjoyed this episode of Kintsugi Heroes.

Please take care: if you have been triggered by listening to this episode we recommend you get in contact with someone who can help keep you safe and give you the support you need. This may be Lifeline, AA, a friend, a counsellor, or some other support group.

If you’d like to share your story on Kintsugi Heroes, please get in touch by contacting us via the website here - https://www.kintsugiheroes.com.au/contact

We hope you continue enjoying the heroes stories!

Warmly,

The Kintsugi Heroes team

YouTube || Facebook || Instagram || LinkedIn || Website

Theme Song: "Broken" by Colin Lillie

This episode of Kintsugi Heroes was made possible with support from the Community Broadcasting Foundation. Find out more at cbf.org.au.

Mentioned in this episode:

Support Kintsugi Heroes

Kintsugi Heroes is a not-for-profit, and every story we share is free for the people who need it. If this show has meant something to you, you can help us keep going. Visit kintsugiheroes.com.au and click donate. Every contribution helps us keep telling these stories, and it's tax-deductible.

Thank You For Listening

Follow the show, share it with someone who needs it, or share your own story at kintsugiheroes.com.au. Your story matters.

The first part of Francois’ story is a gripping account of his life changing experience in the 2004 tsunami in Indonesia. Losing friends there and elsewhere caused him to take the decision to accept his own mortality, live every day to the fullest, to inspire others to do the same and live their best life.

He advises seeking professional help when its required is one of the most powerful things you can do. But you don’t need others to keep validating your pain or to keep suffering. Everyone has pain and copes differently with learning how to navigate adversity, his way was to help others and write a book to share his extraordinary story.

Biography

I have been living a nomadic lifestyle for the past 7 years.

I hunted crocodiles in Papua New Guinea.

I am soon going to be dropped on a deserted island to survive for 7 days with nothing more than a knife.

François is a former commando-paratrooper, a husband, an adventurer, an entrepreneur, and a tsunami survivor. He is the author of ‘The Illusion of Time: 11 lessons how not to suck at life’. As a High-Performance Coach & speaker, he helps entrepreneurs, CEOs, and executives to show up in a way they’ve never done before to achieve greatness.

Contact

Business Name: Chasing Excellence LLC

https://www.francoisdeneuville.com

[email protected]

https://www.linkedin.com/in/françois-de-neuville/

*****

We hope that you enjoyed this episode of Kintsugi Heroes.

Please take care: if you have been triggered by listening to this episode we recommend you get in contact with someone who can help keep you safe and give you the support you need. This may be Lifeline, AA, a friend, a counsellor, or some other support group.

If you’d like to share your story on Kintsugi Heroes, please get in touch by contacting us via the website here - https://www.kintsugiheroes.com.au/contact

We hope you continue enjoying the heroes stories!

Warmly,

The Kintsugi Heroes team

YouTube || Facebook || Instagram || LinkedIn || Website

Theme Song: "Broken" by Colin Lillie

This episode of Kintsugi Heroes was made possible with support from the Community Broadcasting Foundation. Find out more at cbf.org.au.

Mentioned in this episode:

Thank You For Listening

Follow the show, share it with someone who needs it, or share your own story at kintsugiheroes.com.au. Your story matters.

Support Kintsugi Heroes

Kintsugi Heroes is a not-for-profit, and every story we share is free for the people who need it. If this show has meant something to you, you can help us keep going. Visit kintsugiheroes.com.au and click donate. Every contribution helps us keep telling these stories, and it's tax-deductible.

Dinesh Palipana is an extraordinary human being. He was the first quadriplegic medical intern in Queensland and is a doctor, lawyer, disability advocate, and researcher. Halfway through medical school, he was involved in a motor vehicle accident that caused a cervical spinal cord injury.

Biography

Dinesh has completed an Advanced Clerkship in Radiology at the Harvard University.

He works in the emergency department at the Gold Coast University Hospital and is a senior lecturer at the Griffith University and adjunct research fellow at the Menzies Health Institute of Queensland.

Dinesh is a researcher in spinal cord injury. He is a doctor for the Gold Coast Titans physical disability rugby team. Dinesh is a senior advisor to the Disability Royal Commission. He is an ambassador to the Human Rights Commission’s Includeability program. He was a 2021 International Day of People with Disability ambassador. He is a founding member of Doctors with Disabilities Australia. He is an advisory board member to HealthyLife.

Dinesh was the Gold Coast Hospital and Health Service’s Junior Doctor of the Year in 2018. He was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia in 2019. He was the third Australian to be awarded a Henry Viscardi Achievement Award. He was the 2021 Griffith University Young Alumnus of the Year. Dinesh was the Queensland Australian of the Year for 2021. In 2022, Dinesh was listed as number 33 in the Courier Mail’s top 100 power list for Queensland’s most influential in health and wellbeing. His autobiography, Stronger, was published by Pan Macmillan in 2022.

Contact

[email protected]

Social Media

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dineshpalipana/

Instagram: http://instagram.com/dinesh.palipana/

*****

We hope that you enjoyed this episode of Kintsugi Heroes.

Please take care: if you have been triggered by listening to this episode we recommend you get in contact with someone who can help keep you safe and give you the support you need. This may be Lifeline, AA, a friend, a counsellor, or some other support group.

If you’d like to share your story on Kintsugi Heroes, please get in touch by contacting us via the website here - https://www.kintsugiheroes.com.au/contact

We hope you continue enjoying the heroes stories!

Warmly,

The Kintsugi Heroes team

YouTube || Facebook || Instagram || LinkedIn || Website

Theme Song: "Broken" by Colin Lillie

This episode of Kintsugi Heroes was made possible with support from the Community Broadcasting Foundation. Find out more at cbf.org.au.

Mentioned in this episode:

Support Kintsugi Heroes

Kintsugi Heroes is a not-for-profit, and every story we share is free for the people who need it. If this show has meant something to you, you can help us keep going. Visit kintsugiheroes.com.au and click donate. Every contribution helps us keep telling these stories, and it's tax-deductible.

Thank You For Listening

Follow the show, share it with someone who needs it, or share your own story at kintsugiheroes.com.au. Your story matters.

Joanne talks about her inspiring journey into becoming a true entrepreneur beginning with a conventional bank job after school as decided by her father, then an early marriage as was expected of her. She moved up through promotions in the banking and finance world that made her a role model for women, breaking the glass ceiling of that time as she developed and refined her skills. When she suffered the sudden loss of her husband in an accident and became a single mum, she began a solo business.

She describes a series of business successes and failures. She demonstrates her courage, resilience, and ability to pivot into new challenges that continue to the present day.

About our Guest:

Joanne helps professional women feel that their sacrifice has been worth it and avoid the situation of being invisible to key decision-makers. 

Her vision is to inspire a reawakening of belief in self to create a movement of purposeful female leaders.

Having owned over fifteen businesses in the last twenty years with a mixture of great success, she shares what she has learnt with a ‘No BS’ approach. Her journey has not been smooth, but it has undoubtedly been exhilarating, and she wants to share what she has learnt with others. 

Having launched her sixteenth business as she turned sixty, she is determined to shake up the university space with overseas Masters degrees like no other in Australia.

Contact:

YT: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_AFoQ5xxZ8JwGDVxCStc7A,

FB: https://www.facebook.com/navig8Biz

I: https://www.instagram.com/navig8biz/

LI: https://www.linkedin.com/company/navig8biz/?viewAsMember=true

*****

We hope that you enjoyed this episode of Kintsugi Heroes.

Please take care: if you have been triggered by listening to this episode we recommend you get in contact with someone who can help keep you safe and give you the support you need. This may be Lifeline, AA, a friend, a counsellor, or some other support group.

If you’d like to share your story on Kintsugi Heroes, please get in touch by contacting us via the website here - https://www.kintsugiheroes.com.au/contact

We hope you continue enjoying the heroes stories!

Warmly,

The Kintsugi Heroes team

YouTube || Facebook || Instagram || LinkedIn || Website

Theme Song: "Broken" by Colin Lillie

Mentioned in this episode:

Support Kintsugi Heroes

Kintsugi Heroes is a not-for-profit, and every story we share is free for the people who need it. If this show has meant something to you, you can help us keep going. Visit kintsugiheroes.com.au and click donate. Every contribution helps us keep telling these stories, and it's tax-deductible.

Thank You For Listening

Follow the show, share it with someone who needs it, or share your own story at kintsugiheroes.com.au. Your story matters.

Ian was born in Hamilton, Canada, a poor working-class steel town. His childhood was extremely challenging as his mother’s partner was president of an outlaw motorcycle gang. He tells his story of the violence and criminality which traumatised him in his early years.

He describes how he survived and later thrived because of his placement with exceptional foster parents and his positive contact with several churches. This led him to have a deep and abiding Christian faith in his life.

Once he escaped his childhood home and went to university in Canada, then later in Australia, he began to heal. As well as his Church activities he is part of Mentoring Men Australia.

About our Guest:

Born in Canada, he moved to Australia in 1994, married a local, and they settled here in 2004, after returning to Canada for a spell so he could complete his first two degrees.

He is an avid ultramarathon runner and motorcyclist. In addition, he enjoys cooking, travel, and adventure, some planned but most not.

He is a father, speaker, life and Leadership Mentor and Church and Community Leader.

He is encouraging and equipping those who are good at being men to be good men. He wants to serve men and their families by creating safe spaces to talk through issues related to men and manhood, life and meaning. Also, to guide and mentor men in a life of discipleship. As well as to establish a Fresh Expression of Church with men and their families.

Contact:

FB: http://www.facebook.com/ianfj

I: https://www.instagram.com/ianfojo/

LI: https://au.linkedin.com/in/ianfj/

T: https://twitter.com/IanFoJo

*****

We hope that you enjoyed this episode of Kintsugi Heroes.

Please take care: if you have been triggered by listening to this episode we recommend you get in contact with someone who can help keep you safe and give you the support you need. This may be Lifeline, AA, a friend, a counsellor, or some other support group.

If you’d like to share your story on Kintsugi Heroes, please get in touch by contacting us via the website here - https://www.kintsugiheroes.com.au/contact

We hope you continue enjoying the heroes stories!

Warmly,

The Kintsugi Heroes team

YouTube || Facebook || Instagram || LinkedIn || Website

Theme Song: "Broken" by Colin Lillie

Mentioned in this episode:

Thank You For Listening

Follow the show, share it with someone who needs it, or share your own story at kintsugiheroes.com.au. Your story matters.

Support Kintsugi Heroes

Kintsugi Heroes is a not-for-profit, and every story we share is free for the people who need it. If this show has meant something to you, you can help us keep going. Visit kintsugiheroes.com.au and click donate. Every contribution helps us keep telling these stories, and it's tax-deductible.

Melissa’s story is very inspiring. She shares with us how she grew up in a dysfunctional family in California and suffered childhood trauma, undiagnosed ADHD and alcoholism as a teenager. Despite this adversity, her courage and determination led her to meet amazing support groups, healers and mentors and eventually become sober and live an authentic and productive life. She has a long and successful marriage and a diverse career as a lawyer and coach in service to others in many different ways.

About our Guest:

Melissa is a purpose and mindset coach, mindfulness teacher, lawyer, podcaster and facilitator. She uses deep inquiry, mindfulness, and somatics principles to create space in the mind and uncover our true, whole, integrated selves.

She has been a mindfulness practitioner for over 25 years, learning at Spirit Rock Meditation Center and later certifying through Dallas Yoga Center. In addition, she is a certified coach in life design and trained in somatics. She has been leading mindfulness practices for several years. Melissa earned her B.A. from U.C. Berkeley in English Literature and her J.D. from Lewis & Clark Law. She lives in Oregon, where she roams the mountains with her husband, teenage daughter, and chihuahua pug.

Contact:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/melissa-chureau-a8763810/

*****

We hope that you enjoyed this episode of Kintsugi Heroes.

Please take care: if you have been triggered by listening to this episode we recommend you get in contact with someone who can help keep you safe and give you the support you need. This may be Lifeline, AA, a friend, a counsellor, or some other support group.

If you’d like to share your story on Kintsugi Heroes, please get in touch by contacting us via the website here - https://www.kintsugiheroes.com.au/contact

We hope you continue enjoying the heroes stories!

Warmly,

The Kintsugi Heroes team

YouTube || Facebook || Instagram || LinkedIn || Website

Theme Song: "Broken" by Colin Lillie

Alan’s remarkable story describes overcoming the challenges that go with building relationships. He raised three young boys after his first marriage broke up. This was followed by business failure, then another failed marriage. 

His life began to change when he discovered his healing gift. Then he met a group of Aboriginal Elders for a year around a campfire. Because he wanted to learn, not to help, he was invited to go through an initiation into manhood.

Alan shares how successful relationships begin with yourself and letting others come to you. He helps others by listening, understanding and helping them heal themselves. This led directly to the Campfire Project, where people tell their stories without criticism, counselling, or judgment. 

About our Guest:

Alan Stevens is an International Profiling and Communications Specialist and has appeared on TV and media worldwide. 

He has worked with international clients, like Disney Films and Gillette, and high-profile organisations, like the Australian Federal Police, to help them to understand how people tick. Alan works with business owners and executives, helping them to understand and engage their clients and prospects, enhancing their presentations and negotiation skills. And with parents and teachers to help children to reach their full potential while improving the experience of parents, teachers, and students.

His courses are Certified Learning Solutions, and he is a Fellow of the Institute for Learning and Performance Asia Pacific. 

He is focused on creating and training his own competition to the highest level and as quickly as possible. He believes “We need more people with the skills, but they have to be well trained”, and he has a moral obligation to find and train the best coaches to become the leaders in their fields.

He also created the #WeTogether initiative and The Campfire Project, a safe place for men and women to give themselves permission to tell their stories. And share their experiences and wisdom from around the world. Alan is also a Director of The Business of Smiles, helping raise Mental Health awareness in the workplace and worldwide.

Contact:

LinkedIn  https://www.linkedin.com/in/readingfaces

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/CelebrityProfiler

Facebook Business page https://www.facebook.com/ReadingFaces/

Instagram https://www.instagram.com/face_profiler 

*****

We hope that you enjoyed this episode of Kintsugi Heroes.

Please take care: if you have been triggered by listening to this episode we recommend you get in contact with someone who can help keep you safe and give you the support you need. This may be Lifeline, AA, a friend, a counsellor, or some other support group.

If you’d like to share your story on Kintsugi Heroes, please get in touch by contacting us via the website here - https://www.kintsugiheroes.com.au/contact

We hope you continue enjoying the heroes stories!

Warmly,

The Kintsugi Heroes team

YouTube || Facebook || Instagram || LinkedIn || Website

Theme Song: "Broken" by Colin Lillie

Don Mathewson is a true champion who shares his extraordinary story of courage, determination, a passion for athletics, and overcoming major physical challenges alongside a life of service to others. 

He is a Masters track athlete who has been World Champion on three occasions across different age groups and received fifteen other medals. During his pursuit of excellence, he has completed World Masters Athletics Championships in Finland, USA, France, Brazil, Spain and Australia. As well as holding several Australian and State records across different distances, he cycles with an early morning group three days a week and supports others through several forms of volunteering.

About our Guest:

Don joined the Royal Australian Navy at sixteen in a new scheme introduced by the Navy to provide more education for sailors to handle the technology in a modern navy. 

At twenty-one, he was promoted to Petty Officer. Two years later, he undertook Naval Officers training in the UK, winning the sword of honour for top candidate. 

He left the RAN after twenty-one years and began a career as a Field Director with World Vision International in the South Pacific. 

He became Senior Manager with a large talent management group as Senior Executive Coach. 

He worked there well past retirement age and then left to undertake volunteer roles.

These include Mentoring Men, teaching English as a second language, being on the National Committee of Endeavour Foundation, a large disability support organisation and running a coffee mates group for older men. 

He teaches English to speakers of other languages and is passionate about mature age fitness and health.

He has a keen interest in Politics, Climate and First Nations people and endeavours to keep across these issues through intentional reading.

*****

We hope that you enjoyed this episode of Kintsugi Heroes.

Please take care: if you have been triggered by listening to this episode we recommend you get in contact with someone who can help keep you safe and give you the support you need. This may be Lifeline, AA, a friend, a counsellor, or some other support group.

If you’d like to share your story on Kintsugi Heroes, please get in touch by contacting us via the website here - https://www.kintsugiheroes.com.au/contact

We hope you continue enjoying the heroes stories!

Warmly,

The Kintsugi Heroes team

YouTube || Facebook || Instagram || LinkedIn || Website

Theme Song: "Broken" by Colin Lillie

Today Traci shares her very personal journey helping save her mom’s life… and colon… from Crohn’s disease, which doctors said was impossible, as well as her own experience with a terrifying combination of lead paint poisoning and toxic mould sickness that challenged her will to live. These struggles put everything she thought she knew to the test and drastically changed the course of her life. And she now helps many people worldwide achieve optimal health.

About Our Guest:

Dr. Traci Potterf, PhD, is on a mission to revolutionize care for people feeling overwhelmed by chronic anxiety and complex health conditions, which many don’t realize share the same underlying causes. She received her PhD from the University of California, Berkeley, where she participated in a joint program with the University of California San Francisco Medical School. 

Her unique perspective comes from her early start as a Medical Anthropologist. She was fascinated with traditional wisdom and deeply concerned by the impacts of industrialization on indigenous communities. She realized that we are so mentally and physically ill because we live in ways that don’t work with our evolutionary biology. In other words, we work against and not with the intelligence of nature.

Now a Functional Medicine expert and Patient Advocate, she has devoted her life to empowering everyday people with science-backed solutions that work with the genius of nature. Instead of covering up symptoms and continuing to decline, she promotes finding and addressing root causes, so we can thrive in living lives we love. She wants the world to see that we are nature, and we all have an inner genius that knows how to heal... from cell to soul.

Contact:

I: https://www.instagram.com/drtracipotterfphd/

FB: https://m.facebook.com/innergeniushealth/

YT: https://youtube.com/c/InnerGeniusHealth

LI: https://www.linkedin.com/in/traci-potterf-phd/

*****

We hope that you enjoyed this episode of Kintsugi Heroes.

Please take care: if you have been triggered by listening to this episode we recommend you get in contact with someone who can help keep you safe and give you the support you need. This may be Lifeline, AA, a friend, a counsellor, or some other support group.

If you’d like to share your story on Kintsugi Heroes, please get in touch by contacting us via the website here - https://www.kintsugiheroes.com.au/contact

We hope you continue enjoying the heroes stories!

Warmly,

The Kintsugi Heroes team

YouTube || Facebook || Instagram || LinkedIn || Website

Theme Song: "Broken" by Colin Lillie

Gregory’s story begins in a violent and destructive home environment fuelled by anger and alcohol. He describes in graphic detail a life of neglect and trauma through his years as uncontrollable child in an orphanage.

When he left at nineteen, he had no life skills and eventually ended up living as a recluse living alone in a rainforest in Northern NSW.

He shares his experiences, the wisdom he accrued and his suffering as he explored himself and his family lines.

Eventually he made a remarkable turnaround and ended up at university where he graduated and began his successful career.

Gregory had his first tenured position at the age of 64, became a father at the age of 67 and enjoys the tranquillity of peace of mind.

About Our Guest:

Dr Gregory P. Smith is a Forgotten Australian born in Tamworth, NSW in 1955. He and four of his siblings were surrendered to an orphanage in 1966. He was considered a problem child (‘uncontrollable’), diagnosed as a ‘sociopath’ with mid-range intelligence, and was in and out of child ‘care’ institutions until 1974.

Following his release from ‘care’, Gregory searched in vain for the skills to live a fruitful and rewarding life but became increasingly disillusioned with society and lived on the fringe as a recluse in a Northern NSW rain forest where he spent his time reflecting and reading important authors such as Douglas Adams.

In 1999, through catharsis and serendipity, Gregory decided to give society one more chance, walked out of the forest and began to explore life from a different perspective. His life was transformed. In 2007 he completed a degree in Social Science, obtaining an Honours (1st Class). Gregory completed his PhD in 2015. His dissertation concerned how institutional childcare leavers experienced a sense of belonging, place and self as they aged.

Today Gregory is a lecture and social researcher working to improve outcomes for the homeless and most vulnerable in Australian society. He is a Director for the End Street Sleeping Collaboration and a Special Consultant for the Global Advisory Council for CareSource USA. He is the author of the best seller Out of the forest (2018) published by Penguin Random House, the subject of two Australian Broadcasting Corporation documentaries and a successful TEDx.

Contact:

FB: https://www.facebook.com/authordrgregorysmith/

*****

We hope that you enjoyed this episode of Kintsugi Heroes.

Please take care: if you have been triggered by listening to this episode we recommend you get in contact with someone who can help keep you safe and give you the support you need. This may be Lifeline, AA, a friend, a counsellor, or some other support group.

If you’d like to share your story on Kintsugi Heroes, please get in touch by contacting us via the website here - https://www.kintsugiheroes.com.au/contact

We hope you continue enjoying the heroes stories!

Warmly,

The Kintsugi Heroes team

YouTube || Facebook || Instagram || LinkedIn || Website

Theme Song: "Broken" by Colin Lillie

Mentioned in this episode:

Support Kintsugi Heroes

Kintsugi Heroes is a not-for-profit, and every story we share is free for the people who need it. If this show has meant something to you, you can help us keep going. Visit kintsugiheroes.com.au and click donate. Every contribution helps us keep telling these stories, and it's tax-deductible.

Thank You For Listening

Follow the show, share it with someone who needs it, or share your own story at kintsugiheroes.com.au. Your story matters.