The Heroic Minds Podcast

Noah is a behavioural ecologist and published author. He is the founder of The Best Bees Company, a top to bottom bee keeping service. The company also functions as a means to raise funding for scientific research to improve honey bee health.

Did you know that investing into the health of honey bees we can enhance our environment, secure sources of food and improve our economy?

Before we get to the bees we unpack Noahs empowering journey through life as a young boy that went from insect avoiding to insect studying and the life/business lessons learnt along the way.

Bees. We begin with what we can learn from bees when it comes to our own survival both physically and socially. We then move into what bees do for us, why some bees survive better in the city, and last but not least how you can help strengthen the bee population with your own garden or balcony.

Did you know that scientists can track exactly where and what plants your honey came from?

During the 2008 recession Kevin found himself 1 million dollars in debt. Not only did he venture through and learn from the recession, he came back stronger and prepared for this 2020 Pandemic.

Kevin is an innovative developer. He creates revolutionary, rule-bending buildings that double as social experiments and subsidized housing to help fight the homeless issue.

Kevin is the Owner of Guerrilla Development in Portland Oregon. Everyone in Kevins company makes the same amount of money AND earns shares in the company.

Kevin completed architecture school at U.C. Berkeley. He was a Loeb Fellow in 2007-2008 at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design and spent a 2-year stint building schools and homes for the Peace Corps in Gabon, Africa.

In this episode we answer the question, what is enough? We talk about the issue with the ‘American Dream”, how to run a business in a pandemic, how to only have high calibre employees and how to keep them. How to earn respect from the people you do business with and how to make sustainable income while making a massive impact on society.

Guerrilla Development

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Dada is a yogic monk. He has taught meditation all over the world for 20+ years. He teaches the lifestyle and philosophy of the system of life known as yoga or tantra, the core practice of which is meditation.

Dada delivers in such an eloquent way the issues of our world and why they exist. He then explains how we can fix those issues by peeling back the layers that are blurring our intentions. What we are left with is purpose, a sense of hope or as Dada would say the “default” mode of wanting to help others because we know we are all in this together.

Meditation is about finding the essence of yourself within yourself and realizing that essence as the inner self of all beings and the entire universe. Dada believes this will lead to the greatest happiness and fulfilment for everyone and the whole society, and that's why his mission is to teach meditation to as many people as possible.

https://www.consciousfrontier.org/

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Alanna holds an MPH in international health from Boston University and brings twenty years of program design, management, and assessment experience spanning the humanitarian relief and development sectors including writing for UN Dispatch and TED as well as providing social media support to NGOs.

First Half: We break down the (hopefully temporary) present issue of COVID-19.

Second Half: We move into the interconnected global healthcare system and how the answers to fix things are right in front of us.

Why weren’t we prepared for COVID-19?
How do we prepare for the inevitable return of another Virus?
Who can we help to limit the spread of disease?
What changes can be made to improve our global health care & What is standing in our way?
What is the heroic mindset when dealing with a pandemic?

All that and lots more discussed in this episode.

Alanna Shaikh TED Talk

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Work Cited:

https://cm.jefferson.edu/learn/dna-and-rna/

Phil received the highest civilian medal for bravery in Canada.

This Niagara Regional Police officer nearly lost his life trying to rescue a woman trapped in a murder-suicide with her son. He entered the house to find a man and his mother doused in gasoline… There was a pivotal point in Phils challenge with PTSD where he felt he was in danger and was looking for his gun for protection… it was very much irrational thinking and this lead him to get the help he needed.

Phil shares how he has tapered off so many medications and discovered how medicinal marijuana has made a big difference for him. Needless to say, Phil has ventured through a lot. Today he is still living with, learning about and helping others with PTSD, while working towards a PhD in Psychology.

His approach is that he refuses to lose against PTSD. Which is also the name of his organization, Refuse to Lose. Refuse to Lose raises money for first responders to access care needed to treat PTSD. Why? Because right now the cost for the standard care is too expensive for most people Especially when it is not covered by insurance.

Today Phil is helping others refuse to lose against PTSD.

Refuse To Lose

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Before he jumped, Joshua believed he could never have positive feelings ever again, not mentally or physically.

In quoting Josh himself, “The impulse to survive that I had overcome above the bridge now takes control. With broken bones, I begin to swim.

At the age of 22, Joshua Beharry attempted suicide.

After surviving the nine story drop Josh willingly turned his life around. So much so that he began a website resource for men dealing with depression and suicidal thoughts. I will say this again in the episode but this website is outstanding, It is the best resource for this topic that I have ever seen, with online stress tests, help with symptom recognition, a step by step recovery process with recommended resources, a page with real life success stories and even resources for friends and family on how they can support someone in this situation.

This episode is an extremely powerful example of the ability the human mind has. The ability to literally give us power we didn’t know we had. This episode is not just about suicide but about how understanding, maintaining and improving our mental well-being can change our lives drastically in the most incredible of ways.

HeadsUpGuys

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Kevin Briggs spent 18 years stopping 200+ Golden Gate Bridge suicides.

Kevin has story after story, tactic after tactic, lesson after lesson.

In this episode we cover A LOT. Kevin shares what he learnt in his years both saving and sometimes losing lives on the bridge.

What is the first thing Kevin would say? It is probably not what you expect. What about the things you should avoid saying, well, Kevin has his four comments that he always avoids.

Even though Kevin became educated and trained on deescalation it wasn’t those skills that allowed him to help guide over 200 people back onto the safe side of the bridge. It was listening, it was understanding, it was patience and authenticity. It was being honest and true, staying away from cliches and talking human to human allowing the individual to clear the darkest thoughts possible and think with some instance of clarity and rationale.

Kevin doesn’t consider himself a hero. I will let you hear his story and decide for yourself.

Pivotal Points

Guardian of thee Golden Gate - Book

Kevin Briggs TedTalk

Heroic Clothing

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Kathryn Bouskill is a social scientist at the RAND Corporation and associate director of the RAND Center for Global Risk and Security. She is also professor of core coursework at the Pardee RAND Graduate School. She has a Ph.D. in anthropology and an M.P.H. in epidemiology from Emory University. 

An anthropologist by training, Bouskill draws on qualitative and quantitative methods to study a range of sociocultural- and health-related issues. Her topical areas of focus include: the role of emerging technologies in health and wellbeing, issues in cancer prevention and survivorship, military mental health, social cohesion in a globalizing world, and global health.

In this episode we talk about the unforeseen consequences of a fast paced world. We talk about the effects of a fast paced world on groups in society and on us as individuals. We point out the differences in countries that are deciding to push the pace and those that aren’t.

This is a powerful conversation that is and will continue to affect everyone in society today.

Research Discussed

Bio

Kathryn on Twitter

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Dr. David Williams; ER doctor, astronaut, aquanaut, hospital CEO and author dreamt of going to space as a young boy. He fulfilled this dream twice, both times along not only a bumpy flight but a bumpy road

From failing his first attempt at Med school and finding himself on the side of the road hitch-hiking to beating cancer, Dr. Williams overcame a lot to be the space dreaming, retired astronaut that he is today.

We touch on the science behind space travel, defining your success, maintaining peak performance, thoughts that come to mind when looking down at the earth, the Canadian record he has for the longest space walk at 17 hours and 47 minutes… oh ya and we laugh about personal hygiene in space.

Dr. Williams dreams about floating freely in space, tethered to the International Space Station, moving 25 times the speed of sound, looking down at the earth in amazement.

First Trip to Space

In April 1998 Dave Williams participated in STS-90 as Mission Specialist 3 aboard Space Shuttle Columbia. During the 16-day flight, called Neurolab, the seven-person crew served as both experiment subjects and operators for 26 individual life science experiments. Columbia orbited the Earth 256 times, covered over 10 million kilometres and spent over 381 hours in space.

Second Trip to Space

Williams was a mission specialist on STS-118 (August 8 to 21, 2007), the 119th Space Shuttle flight, the 22nd flight to the International Space Station, and the 20th flight for Endeavour. During the mission, the crew successfully added a truss segment, a new gyroscope and an external stowage platform to the Station. The mission successfully activated a new system that enables docked Shuttles to draw electrical power from the Station to extend visits to the outpost. Williams took part in three of the four spacewalks, the highest number of spacewalks performed in a single mission. He spent 17 hours and 47 minutes outside, a Canadian record. Endeavour carried 2,280 kilograms of equipment and supplies to the station and returned to Earth with 1,800 kilograms of hardware and used equipment. Travelling 8.5 million kilometres in space, the STS-118 mission was completed in 12 days, 17 hours, 55 minutes, and 34 seconds.

Dr. Dave Williams Bio

Book: Defying Limits - Lessons from The Edge of the Universe

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Dr. Judith Andersen is a health psychologist at the University of Toronto whose research focuses on the biopsychosocial mechanisms by which stress impacts health and occupational performance.

Dr. Andersen has conducted field research on the psychophysiological responses in people who experience trauma and severe stress. Through her findings Dr. Andersen has been able to conduct/test resilience training and the outcome of psychophysiological stress intervention (techniques for civilians, police and military personnel to increase high stress resilience/performance.)

In this episode we discuss:

- The most ideal psychophysiological way of being
- It is NOT “mental health” it is “Human Performance”
- How to work within “Fight or Flight”
- How to redirect your thought
- How to restore your reserves
- Discipline vs Punishment
- How to tailor your message to make change

Resources

Paced Breathing Practice

App and Heart Monitor Bio Training

The Hart Lab

The Unease Modulation Model (Incredible Read)

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