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In this episode of the ChinaPower Podcast, Dr. Joel Wuthnow and Dr. Phil Saunders join us to discuss their new book on the People's Liberation Army (PLA): “China's Quest for Military Supremacy.” They begin by explaining the motivations behind their book and the growing demand for a comprehensive resource on the PLA among students, policymakers, and defense practitioners. Dr. Wuthnow then outlines how the PLA has entered a “new era” under Xi Jinping, characterized by greater confidence, structural reforms, and an expanding operational reach. Dr. Saunders then highlights how the PLA is increasingly being used to shape the Indo-Pacific region, citing China's recent live-fire exercises near Australia and New Zealand as an example of its more assertive posture. Both experts also delve into key challenges facing the PLA, from Xi Jinping's efforts to tighten party control to persistent corruption and political reliability issues. They also assess how the PLA's rigid command structure and political indoctrination could undermine effectiveness in a crisis. Finally, the two experts assess the PLA's progress becoming more joint, its nuclear modernization efforts, and the broader implications for U.S. and regional security. They conclude by discussing their views on how a second Trump administration could impact PLA behavior and China's strategic calculations. Dr. Joel Wuthnow is a senior research fellow in the Center for the Study of Chinese Military Affairs within the Institute for National Strategic Studies at NDU. His research areas include Chinese foreign and security policy, Chinese military affairs, U.S.-China relations, and strategic developments in East Asia. In addition to his duties in INSS, he also serves as an adjunct professor in the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. Dr. Phillip C. Saunders is Director of the INSS Center for the Study of Chinese Military Affairs. Dr. Saunders previously worked at the Monterey Institute of International Studies, where he served as Director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program from 1999-2003. He also serves as an adjunct instructor at the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University.

[00:00:00] Alberto Huerta: If I were to get a do over in life, I would have more consistently put family above my professional life. I would say a disproportionate commitment to my professional growth ended up not being the best choice when it came to prioritizing family. I think on a day-to-day basis, we can also suffer from long days or lots of travel and my do over would really center around being able to still strive for excellence, strive for impact, but to more consistently be able to do that both in my marriage and with my kids and in my community, as well as professionally. ++++++++++++++ [00:00:42] Alberto Huerta: Our guest today is Alberto Huerta. Alberto has brought his expertise in brand strategy and management, marketing and fundraising strategy, product development and innovation, and donor insights and analytics to such organizations as Visa, Kraft, Procter Gamble, Compassion International, and World Vision. [00:01:03] Tommy Thomas: He's skilled in turnaround, startups, and global enterprise operations. Alberto, welcome to NextGen Nonprofit Leadership. [00:01:11] Alberto Huerta: Thank you so much, Tommy. It's a pleasure to be with you today. [00:01:14] Tommy Thomas: Before we go too deep into your professional experience, I always like to explore someone's childhood.  So take me back to your childhood.  What do you remember as being formative? [00:01:28] Alberto Huerta: Certainly, the people in my life. Tommy, I had a mom who was always there for me. Unconditional love for sure. My dad modeled honesty and hard work and respect for others. An amazing brother who modeled kindness and generosity. And I have to highlight my grandma who modeled Jesus for me. And it took me a while, but she certainly planted some seeds that sprouted later in my faith walk. Besides just the great people in my life, English was always a part of my life growing up in Mexico. My mom loved the U.S. She traveled to the U.S. when she was really young. [00:02:04] Alberto Huerta: And instilled that in our family. I developed a taste for other cultures and languages living outside of the U.S. and in Europe and then back to Mexico where I chose to study industrial engineering. I never really practiced it, but it ended up being a really great school and a really great skill set for what I ended up doing. [00:02:26] Tommy Thomas: What was high school like in Mexico? [00:02:29] Alberto Huerta: High school in Mexico … I was in Colorado Springs for a couple of years with my uncles. They were kind enough to receive me and my brother for 9th and 10th grade. So when I got back to Mexico, it'd been about seven years. I'd been away in Europe with my mom. And then, as I said, with my uncles in Colorado, and so getting back to Mexico to finish high school was, a really different experience. It was almost a reverse cultural shock getting back and getting acquainted with Mexico again. I had the fortune of being in an upper middle class family where I had access to really great schooling, which led to the opportunity to go to the Monterey Institute of Technology to be able to study there. So really grateful for the opportunities my parents opened. [00:03:17] Tommy Thomas: What's something that people are always surprised to know about you? [00:03:24] Alberto Huerta: Oh boy!  That I have only spent 15 years of my life in Mexico. I'm 52 this year which means that I've been around a lot of places, both in Europe and Canada, where my two daughters were born and then a variety of different places in the U.S. where different opportunities both with P&G and Kraft and Visa. So, I would say the amount of exposure to different cultures and different cities. I just love languages. I love different cultures. I've really gravitated to global roles over the years because I really appreciate and enjoy the company of people from other countries and the friendships that I've been able to develop.  So that's a big part of what has shaped me. And I credit my mom for that. [00:04:05] Tommy Thomas: So, you spent the first 15 years of your career with P&G. What went into your decision to go with P&G? [00:04:12] Alberto Huerta: The friend that introduced me to Brenda, my wife of 27 years, was the same friend who said to me one day, last semester of industrial engineering school, he said Procter & Gamble is on campus. It's really hard to get in. We ought to go try. And so, we did and that was my introduction P&G and brand management. This whole idea of, at a very early stage in your career, being given a business to run and managing it from a brand and marketing viewpoint. So, the process itself, Tommy, was extraordinary and had multiple steps in it. The highlight for me was a three-day weekend in a hotel where they cooped us up, all 40 candidates of us, and just put us through the ringer. [00:05:02] Alberto Huerta: Late nights being evaluated on our leadership skills. I made it somehow and was able to enter the P&G family. I am so grateful for my years there. The leadership that they teach. And enable you to practice the mastery, the collaboration across various functions and up and down the management chain. I am really grateful for my time with P&G, which actually started in Mexico, but then continued in the Czech Republic. That in and of itself is a long story. And then Canada, and then all roads lead to Cincinnati when you're at P&G. And so, I did my last year's working on fabric care, or more simply said, detergents. [00:05:46] Tommy Thomas: Thinking back to your first management job when you actually had somebody reporting to you, what do you remember about that? [00:05:55] Alberto Huerta: I'm still in touch with the three, four people that were with me in my first assignment. That was brand manager for Folgers up in Canada. And it was just such an honor to be able to recognize that I had the opportunity, even if just for a year or two or three an opportunity to shape the career of people with such talents and energy and deeply complex personal lives. So, for me to look for that opportunity to develop and play a valuable role in people's development has always been super, super motivating for me. [00:06:31] Tommy Thomas: So, let's fast forward to today and if I had the privilege to come out to Compassion or World Vision and you let me talk to your direct reports, what would they say would be the most challenging aspect of working with Alberto?  And then what would they say would be the most rewarding part of working for you? [00:06:49] Alberto Huerta: The most challenging part, I would say my favorite movie is Rocky. And aside from my lack of true film knowledge, you could say, Rocky is relentless, and he doesn't give up easily. And sometimes that can be tiring because there's always a higher bar. There's always the next goal. Taking no for an answer but working together to find ways to get around it. I think in a sense, I think that can be tiring. And I am very driven. [00:07:21] Alberto Huerta: I am very high energy. So, one of the things that I've learned is to think about the way I was taught. What gear do you enter a conversation with? If you're always in 4th gear, 5th gear, 6th gear that can be unnecessary sometimes and that generally is my default. So, what does it look like to enter a conversation in first gear or second gear? And really being able to connect and engage in a variety of ways based on the situation and the person. [00:07:50] Alberto Huerta: Now about what might be exciting or fun for people to work with me, it's always the strength and the other side is the opportunity, isn't it? And for me it's exciting to see how people respond to the energy I can bring towards what is possible. What are we building over time? What are we building over time together? That is meaningful. So, you can imagine that coming into Christian nonprofits has been particularly motivating because it takes it from something that can be very exciting and what you're doing with a package good or in financial services, but to be able to have that same kind of energy and transformational dream for us to work towards and against, I think is something that is motivating. [00:08:33] Alberto Huerta: Based on the feedback that I receive in helping people find their particular way of contributing towards the greater transformation that we're aiming for as a team. And so, I think that's probably what services to the top. When I think about the feedback I've received over the years. ++++++++++++++++ [00:08:51] Tommy Thomas: Tell me a little bit about the mentors in your life.  Who has been the most influential mentor? [00:08:57] Alberto Huerta: I'll give you a person as well, a regular human being, but I do value the teaching of the Bible around praying continuously and being able to be sensitive to the Spirit is something that I strive for every day in this very conversation, what am I, why am I saying, what is helpful, what is not helpful, what is imbued with the direction and love of Jesus.  He's my moment-to-moment mentor. And I love him for that. I would say the second would be my brother. He knows me through and through, the highs and the lows. And what I appreciate about him the most is his listening and his ability to demonstrate unconditional love to tell me what I need to hear, whether it's easy to hear or not.  And so, I appreciate him for that. I think he would be my longest-term mentor, I would say. [00:09:46] Tommy Thomas: In 2015, you left what was probably a financially lucrative job with Visa to go to work with Compassion. Tell us about that move. [00:09:58] Alberto Huerta: It's a move that really had its beginnings in 2010, five years earlier. I realized in my faith walk, for me, it was not going to make sense to think about retiring in a for profit job. And so, I began conversations with Christian nonprofits that would value mass marketing skills, mass brand building skills. And that led me to start a conversation with organizations like World Vision, like Compassion and it was not an easy decision, but it was one that I felt really great about the point in time where this decision became most pressing was when I was working at Visa, and at the same time, my wife and I were co pastoring a small Hispanic congregation and I sensed a need a calling to integrate more of my lifestyle and be able to work for an organization that was in and of itself dedicated to advancing the purposes of Jesus. And so ultimately that's what made that decision, although a big one, a very natural and easy one for me when the day came. [00:11:13] Tommy Thomas: What's the most significant difference you've observed between the private sector and the nonprofit sector? [00:11:24] Alberto Huerta: Oh, there's a lot of similarities, but there's certainly some differences. Probably at the heart of it, when I think about differences, I truly value the focus on a mission that is so clear and so compelling and really goes above any financial metrics. Now, I know that's also true of some for-profit organizations. In fact, probably some of the ones that are most profitable and most successful over time are ones that do see beyond just the financial. But that is obviously much more common, I would say, and much more natural for a nonprofit to be able to value their mission to value the impact that they're making, and it truly changes how one contributes to it because it's not enough to be a marketer. [00:12:12] Alberto Huerta: It's not enough to be a fundraiser. It's about truly understanding the impact that is being made. How is that impact made? What are the actions that drive that impact? How effective are we making that impact? I think that is so crucial in being a successful and an effective marketer within a nonprofit. Being able to build a very strong bond and tight relationship with the programmatic leaders. So that would be one that I would highlight, Tommy, and that leads to the importance of end-to-end solutioning with programs which I've enjoyed a whole lot. It's one thing to solve for a supporter or a donor. [00:12:52] Alberto Huerta: It's another in the much more complex model that the nonprofits have where there's more stakeholders in play to be able to solve for the whole and to be able to really value and understand the needs, not only of the end beneficiaries in the case of Compassion and World Vision would be the children in the communities around them, but also the various stakeholders, both near and far from the beneficiaries.  And I found that particularly interesting and motivating. [00:13:22] Tommy Thomas:  What was your greatest adjustment in coming from Visa to Compassion? [00:13:30] Alberto Huerta: Oh boy!  A common understanding is that for a believer's first move into a Christian nonprofit, whether you like it or not you just imagine that you're stepping into heaven, right? A little piece of heaven. It's all believers. We're all following the same God. We're all following the same biblical principles.  It must be heaven there. You might not say that overtly, but you expect it, and you have a very high bar and imagination and then slowly, but surely you realize, hey, there's people like me in this organization. So, there's a bit of a high. As you first step into an organization like this, and then there's a realization that we're all a work in progress as individuals, as couples, as families, and as organizations as churches. So that's definitely one of the key important realizations walking into Compassion. More broadly I would say it is true both of Compassion and World Vision that these are longstanding, mature organizations working within mature sectors, certainly from a product or fundraising perspective. [00:14:39] Alberto Huerta: And what I particularly relish was, the intrapreneurship that that I was able to push into the opportunity to identify ways that the organization could change and grow and being able to help the organization embrace change from within, which, in my view, is particularly meaningful because it then leverages the strengths of the organization and it's able to operate and grow in a way that is relevant. And it continues to stay fresh and both for the supporters as well as for the beneficiaries. [00:15:13] Tommy Thomas: In terms of a leadership role, how do you assess what's right for you? [00:15:22] Alberto Huerta: And the way I'm understanding your question, Tommy, is how do I assess what's right as I think about leadership roles that I'm evaluating for myself? Is that the essence of your question? [00:15:31] Tommy Thomas: What makes a good fit for Alberto? I want to work for an inspirational leader – a true visionary. [00:15:35] Alberto Huerta: I have several criteria. There's one that I added. Or I would say I moved up the list in recent weeks is working for an inspirational leader, a true visionary. [00:15:49] Alberto Huerta: I think that's something that's particularly motivating for me right now. I feel if the energy and the big idea is coming from the very top that can really spell tremendous progress and success and accomplishment. So that's one that's really important for me. [00:16:05] Alberto Huerta: The other one I would say it's certainly culture.  A culture of understanding what the mission is and being able to be focused on accomplishing the mission. Being able to for there to be a sense within the organization that we can pour ourselves into the mission and the organization will take care of us as individuals. [00:16:26] Alberto Huerta: That's a little bit idealistic potentially, but I saw that even at P&G and certainly at Compassionate and World Vision. So, I value culture and that selflessness to pour oneself into the mission as another key criteria. And if I were to pick a third one, I would say learning a learning organization, one that does not rest on their laurels. [00:16:48] Alberto Huerta: One that is continuously finding ways to experiment. It can be so tempting to be hand to mouth, like in the performance engine, just producing, and it can suck the life out of experimentation and innovation and just even being able to bring one's full skillset into the job. I want to work for a learning organization - one that doesn't sit on its laurels. [00:17:08] Alberto Huerta: So that'll be a third one, but it's great question, Tommy. And I think it's a learning journey, isn't it? What is the best fit for us? Depending on the season as well. +++++++++++++++ [00:17:17] Tommy Thomas: At what point in your career did you get comfortable in your leadership skin? Did you accept the fact that God had given you certain leadership abilities and it was your responsibility to steward those? [00:17:34] Alberto Huerta: Wow, that's a great question. I gravitated to leadership because I'm driven. I tend to be more of a futurist. So I see where we might be headed. I like to see the big picture and integrate the various pieces as far as getting comfortable with it. I think that came fairly naturally. I think over time. And it doesn't happen immediately, does it? Just realizing that the biggest job of a leader is, in fact, developing leaders. And it wasn't until the jobs started to get large enough that I just had no choice. As an example, my last job at Compassion comes to mind where I had anywhere between eight and 10 direct reports leading particular marketing disciplines. [00:18:21] Alberto Huerta: It became so natural for me to be able to really focus on developing leaders because there was no way that I could be investing myself into that many different disciplines but rather really investing myself in my team, investing myself in my leaders and being able to carve a path for the whole. So, I would say that the various roles invite new levels of leadership for each of us. And that's certainly been an exciting part of the journey for me. [00:18:50] Tommy Thomas:  Let's go to change and innovation for a minute. I read a recent Harvard Business Review Survey that said 37 percent of companies had energy for change but lacked focus. 20 percent were skeptical of change because of past failures. 24 percent were stuck because of a lack of energy and direction, and 19 percent were struggling to change. If anything is certain, it is that change is certain. The world we're planning for today will not exist in this form tomorrow. (Phillip Crosby) [00:19:15] Tommy Thomas: Phillip Crosby said, if anything is certain, it is that change is certain. The world we're planning for today will not exist in this form tomorrow. Talk a little bit about how you've led organizations through change and what that's looked like. Organizational change is easy when there is no choice – not so much so when the need for change is not obvious. [00:19:34] Alberto Huerta: When change is unavoidable it's so much easier, isn't it? I remember working on the P&G laundry portfolio. There was an economic crisis at the time. There were 2 or 3 competitors, both on the private label side, as well as value detergents that were eating our lunch in certain channels. And so, change was inevitable at that point. And so, it became really clear. The energy was there. The expectation was there. We created awesome solutions. It was still really hard to create the right solution to fit the bill. But the need for change, I think, was felt. And that led to P&G really embracing the full scope potential of Tide as a mega brand playing across various categories and subcategories, but also and mostly the importance of the detergent laundry portfolio for P&G and being able to develop the various brands to be able to compete effectively in the marketplace. [00:20:35] Alberto Huerta: However, when change is not obvious I think it is that much more rewarding when we can make it happen, but also that much harder because our organization will resist change that doesn't feel eminently needed because it's working and it's profitable and the momentum is there. [00:20:57] Alberto Huerta: And it can lead organizations in my experience to a sales and fundraising mindset that starts to put to the side where the product should be going, where the brand should be going, where the marketing strategy should be going and it can start to, to let a problem continue to fester and ultimately become a problem that that, as we know, has buried organizations. So, I feel that being able to clarify the case for change and build really strong unity around that case for change. I'm a big proponent of Cotter's eight steps to really seeing change through. I think those are so wise and so true, particularly when change is not obvious or well accepted. [00:21:49] Tommy Thomas: Last year, Bed Bath & Beyond filed for bankruptcy and later will be purchased by Overstock. One writer attributes their financial woes to their failure to innovate. Is there a lesson there for the nonprofit sector? [00:22:05] Alberto Huerta: Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. There's certain mechanisms and approaches that work and we tend to get enamored by them. And we all know the most visible examples of disruption of sectors and those are real and those are accelerating. And so, I think it's particularly important for organizations that are starting to get stale or starting to experience a certain comfort level to be clear on what is truly foundational of the organization and what is going to be a consistent truth that they can live into. [00:22:45] Alberto Huerta: And what are things that do need to be revisited and sometimes broken and rebuilt? It reminds me of Jeff Bezos talking about Amazon and saying there are a few things that are not going to change, and we can bank on those people who are going to want more assortment. People are going to want to lower the price. People are going to want to get it fast. Now, everything else can change, but let's anchor on those key pieces. I think particularly mature nonprofits that that have some strong foundational pieces that you should continue to push into should be very clear on what those are, and then start to innovate and differentiate and break down walls and barriers where they should be broken. [00:23:27] Alberto Huerta: One of the common products across both Compassion and World Vision is the child sponsorship product. Such a beautiful product and so relevant to today. I think about subscription. So that is obviously a problem. We all have way too many subscriptions and we need apps to be able to manage our subscriptions. And it's also a very relevant product because of the connection to a local team who's working locally, who's committed to that particular community. There are so many aspects of sponsorship that are so powerful. And yet it's been difficult for the sector to innovate at the rate that it could have. [00:24:09] Alberto Huerta: It is encouraging though, to see organizations with both Compassion and World Vision, I would say really pushing into ways of bringing truth from supporters into the building and being able to work through those. World Vision's chosen sponsorship, I think, is a really great example of that one where there's a real empowerment of the child, the real listening to the supporter on the kinds of things that would be more motivating and make their connection to the child in, in a property context, more real and more meaningful to them. It is not easy for organizations to innovate in such ways. It takes true commitment, and it can be very heavy lifting, but it's worth it. +++++++++++++++ [00:24:55] Tommy Thomas: Let's go to something maybe a little bit lighter. If you were a judge on a nonprofit version of Shark Tank, what are the questions you would have to have solid answers to before you would open your pocketbook? [00:25:08] Alberto Huerta: That's an easy one because I've been thinking about that in this season and that is would you invest your own money into that nonprofit and why I found that it is so interesting to think about the big shift that we've seen over the decades and years where it used to be that one would give to an organization purely because of their beliefs, their values, their trust in the organization. They think like me. They value what I value. I'll put my money in their pockets. That's not today's world. I think donors are very sophisticated, increasingly sophisticated. We are very visible about the organization. And so, it is so important that we, particularly in the marketing and fundraising departments, are completely soaked in all things program. [00:25:58] Alberto Huerta: We need to not be the flashy, smart, cool marketers only, we really need to be the representatives of amazing work that's happening in the field with our beneficiaries. And that we're able to represent that we know why it's believable. We know why it works. And one of the ways that I think is particularly powerful is we know what needs to get better even in our program. And that is what donors I believe are looking for these days is transparency. To be able to know that it is not perfect. It is well built. It is yielding results. And it is improving just like we would expect for profit to be improving. [00:26:44] Tommy Thomas: Let me get you to respond to two quotes from Steve Jobs. You can have a great product, but if communication fails, it's like watching a stand-up comedian do a gig in a completely different language (Steve Jobs) [00:26:59] Alberto Huerta: That is so true, isn't it? The picture that comes to mind is the front of the TV and the back of the TV for anybody to or, in a more modern way, would be our beloved iPhone, right? It's one thing to experience the iPhone. It is simple. You pinch your fingers, you drag your fingers, you click that's what the person cares about. [00:27:21] Alberto Huerta: What we care about is both sides, right? The back of the iPhone and the insides of the iPhone and we fall in love with it. We love to delve into the complexities of it, but if we're not able to present it in a way that is relevant to who the user is be it in communication, be it in, from a UI perspective then we will fail. [00:27:43] Alberto Huerta: And it's certainly something that Steve jobs modeled for all of us with his products. [00:27:49] Tommy Thomas: His second quote. It's a complicated and noisy world, and we're not going to get a chance to get people to remember much about us. No company is. So, we have to be really clear about what we want them to know about us. (Steve Jobs) [00:28:09] Alberto Huerta: It's a powerful one, isn't it? And he went on to talk about values and that led to communication from Apple, such as the very famous think different campaign with Gandhi and Einstein and Charles Chaplin and all these geniuses who are crazy enough to think they could change the world. [00:28:27] Alberto Huerta: And so, they were the ones who did. And so, I think he walked that really well. I think it is so important for organizations to know who they are and also to know who they're becoming for whom, right? Who they are becoming, how, what value they bring and how that really is in some ways the way to materialize their values, right? [00:28:51] Alberto Huerta: It's the way to materialize their values. And I think organizations like Compassion and World Vision are ones that understand their essence very well, and they're able to bring it across in ways that truly connect. We see Jesus, for example.About a dozen times in the New Testament being moved with compassion, right? [00:29:11] Alberto Huerta: He saw something and he was moved with compassion in such a way that he was going to bring such strength and love and really throw themselves at whatever that need was because their heart had been moved with compassion and I think that's such a beautiful essence of Compassion and why it's so easy for people to feel such a connection to it similar with World Vision. [00:29:35] Alberto Huerta: We think about seeing the world differently and seeing our ability to reach beyond our own walls and see the world differently. The need around the world and being able to work as a whole for those that are in most need for those that are hardest to reach. So, I think being able to be clear on one's essence is really critical to be able to be successful in an environment that is so noisy, as you said. [00:30:02] Tommy Thomas: Let's try to bring this thing to a close. I have two questions that I often ask at the end. And the first one would be, if you could get a do over in life, what would it be? [00:30:15] Alberto Huerta: Oh boy, that's a big one. If I were to get a do over in life, I would have more consistently put family above my professional life. [00:30:17] Alberto Huerta: If I were to get a do over in life, I would have more consistently put family above my professional life. And the way that it would have played out, there's deeper, more day-to-day ways, but one very simple one is following the very best job to whatever country or city it happened to be placed in. [00:30:39] Alberto Huerta: So that's one way that I would say a disproportionate commitment to my professional growth ended up not being the best choice when it came to prioritizing family. I think on a day-to-day basis, we can also suffer from long days or lots of travel and my do over would really center around being able to still strive for excellence, strive for impact, but to more consistently be able to do that both in my marriage and with my kids and in my community, as well as professionally. [00:31:14] Alberto Huerta: God has been graceful. And 27 years later I'm so glad to have such a wonderful wife and family that I can enjoy every day and be able to take action on that learning as I look to the future. [00:31:29] Tommy Thomas: If you could give a younger version of yourself a piece of advice, what would it be? [00:31:39] Alberto Huerta: It's not about you. God says that we are to die to ourselves and be able to live for him. And I think that is really at the core of a lot of our issues, whether it's looking disproportionately for ourselves, whether it's making happiness and comfort the overarching search for our lives. And we all know, especially those that are past their twenties, Tommy, like you and I, that there are tough circumstances in life. And one can't control or make life the walk in the park that we would want it to be, or the peak after peak adventure that we want it to be. [00:32:24] Alberto Huerta: And so being able to make it about God, about Him and about His glory and about how our lives can be a reflection of the love that He's shown us and the grace that He's shown us. That'll be my biggest piece of advice. [00:32:40] Tommy Thomas: Thank you for joining us today. If you are a first-time listener, I hope you will subscribe and become a regular. You can find links to all the episodes at our website: www.jobfitmatters.com/podcast. [00:33:05] Tommy Thomas: If there are topics you'd like for me to explore, my email address is tthomas@jobfitmatters.com.  Word of mouth has been identified as the most valuable form of marketing. Surveys tell us that consumers believe recommendations from friends and family over all other forms of advertising. [00:33:28] Tommy Thomas: If you've heard something today that's worth passing on, please share it with others. You're already helping me make something special for the next generation of nonprofit leaders. I'll be back next week with a new episode. Until then, stay the course on our journey to help make the nonprofit sector more effective and sustainable.   Links & Resources JobfitMatters Website Next Gen Nonprofit Leadership with Tommy Thomas The Perfect Search – What every board needs to know about hiring their next CEO   Connect tthomas@jobfitmatters.com Follow Tommy on LinkedIn   Listen to Next Gen Nonprofit Leadership with Tommy Thomas on: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | Google Podcasts

In this episode of Women Who Protect, host Dr. Marisa Randazzo, Ph.D., sits down with Anna Lepingwell, the Vice President for Global Operations at Exlog Global. Based in London and part of the robust European contingent of the company, Anna brings her extensive expertise to the fore, discussing the intricate world of risk management security practices.Anna shares her journey from university to the security sector, detailing a career securing organizations against threats. Anna highlights day-to-day responsibilities and insights on crisis response, emphasizing preparedness and technology-human balance. Anna empowers women in security - and anyone seeking a career in security - with mentorship advice and industry foresight, offering practical wisdom for listeners seeking global security insights.Whether you're an aspiring security professional, a seasoned analyst, or simply a listener eager to understand the complexities behind global security strategies, this episode promises a mix of practical wisdom, industry foresight, and actionable advice. Listen to this episode to learn from the expertise of Anna Lepingwell as she navigates the dynamics of global operations.Tune in to this episode to hear Lepingwell discuss:Geopolitical Dynamics and Security: Anna discusses how understanding global political movements is crucial for predicting and mitigating risks in the security sector.Technology in Risk Management: The conversation explores the dual-edged sword of technology in security efforts, emphasizing the need for a synthesis between technological tools and the human element.Mentorship and Professional Growth: Insights into the importance of mentorship, professional networking, and continuous learning for individuals seeking to carve out a successful career in security and risk management. Anna is responsible for providing worldwide capabilities around organizational resilience, protective intelligence, and crisis management to clients and partners. Anna leads a team of risk advisors and other specialists that provide around-the-clock global threat and incident awareness, critical advice, and rapid response to people and organizations as part of dedicated global risk programs. In addition to planning and managing high-threat security or natural disaster evacuations, Anna has extensive experience in assessing risk and implementing appropriate mitigation measures.Prior to joining the Exlog, Anna was the Director of Crisis Management for WorldAware. She speaks German and French and has a BA in International Studies and an MA in International Policy Studies with a Terrorism Studies Specialization from the Monterey Institute for International Studies.Connect with Anna on LinkedIn.

Produced by KSQD 90.7, 89.5 &89.7FM (See below post-show note from Congressman Farr) “Be Bold America!” Sunday, October 22, 2023 at 5:00pm (PDT) “How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.” – Anne Frank America is at an inflection point! We never thought authoritarian forces could take hold here, right? Wouldn't our democracy live forever? The US has the longest standing democracy in the world …nearly 250 years old. Yet, losing the oldest democracy in the world is possible and, believe it or not, the loss is happening right now.  Former Congressmember Sam Farr served in the House of Representatives for 24 years. What were those years like and what changes has he seen since his retirement in 2017?What are his observations of the Democratic Party, Republican Party, the Supreme Court? Is money in politics the death knell for democracy? How would our lives change if an authoritarian leader uses democratic processes to kill our republic … as happened in Hungary?  Interview Guest:  Congressmember Sam Farr was born in San Francisco. He grew up in Carmel where he still lives with his wife, Shary.  Sam was educated at Willamette University, Santa Clara University, and the Monterey Institute of International Studies. Congressmember Farr's public service career began in the California Assembly, where he worked as a staffer on budget issues for a decade.  In 1975, he ran for and won a seat on the Monterey County Board of Supervisors.  In 1980 he was elected to the California State Assembly, where he became a champion for the organics industry and wrote one of the country's strictest oil spill liability laws. He served in the Assembly until his election to Congress in 1993.  Congressmember Farr was elected to the House of Representatives in 1993 through a special election when former Congressman Leon Panetta resigned to become President Clinton's budget director, defeating Republican Bill McCampbell.  Post show note from Congressman Sam Farr: I am sure that those who needed to hear what we were saying don't listen. Suggest you encourage your listeners to seek out those who support Trump. Ask them to speak to them gently and politely inquiring where they are getting their information. The discussion ought to be around listening to opposites and suggest good listening, watching and reading responsible reporting. Angry conversations never result in change. Think of interventions where friends and family politely suggest alternatives with a plan the patient voluntarily accepts. In our case listens to or watches. Hardest part is remaining calm while listening to so much BS. The professional calming listens and suggests positive alternatives. If you don't enjoy being a teacher, don't get mad, get even!Get your side to vote. Voting the the bad guys out is the only solution and winning that contest is very satisfying. Best wishes. Thanks for asking me to participate. Sam Farr

In this episode of the ChinaPower Podcast, we are joined by David Logan and Phil Saunders, who've recently co-authored a new report titled Discerning the Drivers of China's Nuclear Force Development: Models, Indicators, and Data. They lay out the six models developed in the report and explain which models are the most compelling for explaining China's behavior. Dr. Logan dives into the expansion in size, structure, and capabilities of China's nuclear stockpile in the last 10 years but highlights the fact that there has been no official announcement on China's reasoning for this build-up. In the context of this expansion, Dr. Saunders points out that China is showing signs that its nuclear strategy could be shifting, and he notes that the prospects of strategic arms control have become more complicated. Dr. David Logan is an Assistant Professor of Security Studies at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. He previously taught in the National Security Affairs Department at the Naval War College and conducted research for the Center for the Study of Chinese Military Affairs at the National Defense University, the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, and the Office of Net Assessment. His research focuses on nuclear weapons, arms control, deterrence, and the U.S.-China security relationship. Dr. Phil Saunders is Director of the Center for the Study of Chinese Military Affairs at the National Defense University. He previously worked at the Monterey Institute of International Studies, where he served as Director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program and taught courses on Chinese politics, Chinese foreign policy, and East Asian security. He has conducted research and consulted on East Asian security issues, as well as Asia policy issues.

Matt Osborne has been fighting the crime of human trafficking in some form since 2006. He currently serves as the President and Chief Operating Officer at Operation Underground Railroad. Previously, Osborne served a 12-year career with the Central Intelligence Agency and US Department of State, where he worked issues related to terrorism against the homeland, illegal narcotics, organized crime, and human trafficking. He regularly provided secrets and analysis to US Presidents, senior cabinet officials, and the National Security Council.  Osborne served overseas tours in Madrid, Spain; Caracas, Venezuela; and Mexico City, Mexico.   With Operation Underground Railroad, Matt has led a total of 27 undercover rescue operations that resulted in the liberation of 211 human trafficking victims and in the arrest of 72 suspected traffickers.   Matt holds a B.A. in International Studies from Miami University in Oxford, OH, and a M.A. in International Policy Studies from the Monterey Institute of International Studies in California. He has been married for 25 years and has two college-aged daughters who give him the drive to fight child exploitation and human trafficking.  Please go watch Sound of Freedom: https://www.angel.com/watch Contact information below National Antihuman Trafficking Hotline: 1-888-373-7888  Help fight THE FIGHT: https://ourrescue.org Follow them here: https://twitter.com/ourrescue https://www.facebook.com/OURrescue/ https://www.youtube.com/ourrescue https://www.instagram.com/ourrescue/ https://www.tiktok.com/@ourrescue

Matt Osborne has been fighting the crime of human trafficking in some form since 2006. He currently serves as the President and Chief Operating Officer at Operation Underground Railroad. Previously, Osborne served a 12-year career with the Central Intelligence Agency and US Department of State, where he worked issues related to terrorism against the homeland, illegal narcotics, organized crime, and human trafficking. He regularly provided secrets and analysis to US Presidents, senior cabinet officials, and the National Security Council.  Osborne served overseas tours in Madrid, Spain; Caracas, Venezuela; and Mexico City, Mexico. With Operation Underground Railroad, Matt has led a total of 27 undercover rescue operations that resulted in the liberation of 211 human trafficking victims and in the arrest of 72 suspected traffickers. Matt holds a B.A. in International Studies from Miami University in Oxford, OH, and a M.A. in International Policy Studies from the Monterey Institute of International Studies in California. He has been married for 25 years and has two college-aged daughters who give him the drive to fight child exploitation and human trafficking. Please go watch Sound of Freedom: https://www.angel.com/watch Contact information below National Antihuman Trafficking Hotline: 1-888-373-7888  Help fight THE FIGHT: https://ourrescue.org Follow them here: https://twitter.com/ourrescue https://www.facebook.com/OURrescue/ https://www.youtube.com/ourrescue

Matt Osborne is a real life hero; the kind that stories are written about and the kind that you cannot forget. Brave, driven, focused and committed, Matt continues to blaze a trail in the fight against modern day slavery. As Senior Vice President for Rescue and Rehabilitation at Operation Underground Railroad (O.U.R.), Matt rescues and ensures rehabilitation for children trafficked and sold into sexual slavery in the U.S. and around the world. Since joining O.U.R., Matt has led a number of rescue operations that have resulted in the liberation of some 120 trafficking victims and the arrest of almost 40 suspected traffickers. Matt's commitment and passion for guarding others from harm became clear after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Matt felt strongly about protecting his country and began working in national security, a decision that led to a twelve-year career with the CIA and later the Department of State. During that time, Matt worked with issues of terrorism against the U.S., chemical and biological proliferation and the war in Iraq, and ensuing insurgency and political transition after the fall of Saddam Hussein. Matt joined O.U.R. in August of 2014 and the vision became clear: the O.U.R. jump team could be what he calls a “force multiplier.” Matt felt that those in the U.S. government and in select countries around the world were doing exemplary work saving kids, but with more resources from O.U.R., these officials could simply do more to fight child exploitation. Matt is a native of Dallas, Texas and holds a B.A. in International Studies from Miami University in Oxford, OH, and a M.A. in International Policy Studies from the Monterey Institute of International Studies in California. He is married and has two daughters, who he says give him the drive to fight child exploitation and human trafficking every day. Matt says he feels blessed to be helping kids, and that there is simply no higher cause. Find out more about Matt at: Website: https://ourrescue.org/ LinkedIn Matt: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matt-osborne-a411435/ LinkedIn OUR: https://www.linkedin.com/company/operation-underground-railroad/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/OURrescue/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ourrescue/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/ourrescue YT Channel: https://www.youtube.com/ourrescue TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ourrescue Check out our YouTube Channel:Jeremyryanslatebiz See the Show Notes:https://www.jeremyryanslate.com/1111 You may watch the FULL Video Episode also via my Rumble channel: https://rumble.com/c/JeremyRyanSlate

Matt Osborne is a real life hero; the kind that stories are written about and the kind that you cannot forget. Brave, driven, focused and committed, Matt continues to blaze a trail in the fight against modern day slavery. As Senior Vice President for Rescue and Rehabilitation at Operation Underground Railroad (O.U.R.), Matt rescues and ensures rehabilitation for children trafficked and sold into sexual slavery in the U.S. and around the world. Since joining O.U.R., Matt has led a number of rescue operations that have resulted in the liberation of some 120 trafficking victims and the arrest of almost 40 suspected traffickers. Matt's commitment and passion for guarding others from harm became clear after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Matt felt strongly about protecting his country and began working in national security, a decision that led to a twelve-year career with the CIA and later the Department of State. During that time, Matt worked with issues of terrorism against the U.S., chemical and biological proliferation and the war in Iraq, and ensuing insurgency and political transition after the fall of Saddam Hussein. Matt joined O.U.R. in August of 2014 and the vision became clear: the O.U.R. jump team could be what he calls a “force multiplier.” Matt felt that those in the U.S. government and in select countries around the world were doing exemplary work saving kids, but with more resources from O.U.R., these officials could simply do more to fight child exploitation. Matt is a native of Dallas, Texas and holds a B.A. in International Studies from Miami University in Oxford, OH, and a M.A. in International Policy Studies from the Monterey Institute of International Studies in California. He is married and has two daughters, who he says give him the drive to fight child exploitation and human trafficking every day. Matt says he feels blessed to be helping kids, and that there is simply no higher cause. Find out more about Matt at: Website: https://ourrescue.org/ LinkedIn Matt: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matt-osborne-a411435/ LinkedIn OUR: https://www.linkedin.com/company/operation-underground-railroad/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/OURrescue/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ourrescue/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/ourrescue YT Channel: https://www.youtube.com/ourrescue TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ourrescue Check out our YouTube Channel:Jeremyryanslatebiz See the Show Notes:https://www.jeremyryanslate.com/1111 You may watch the FULL Video Episode also via my Rumble channel: https://rumble.com/c/JeremyRyanSlate

"With faster payments comes faster fraud"   In the long awaited episode on Faster Payments I sit down with Julie Conroy from Datos Insights (Formerly Aite-Novarica Group) to talk about the world of Faster Payments with names you've all heard like FedNow, RTP, and Zelle. What are they really though and what do they each mean. Payments being faster is something we have asked for for a long time and here we talk about the different types of rails, how they work, who is using them, and of what it means for consumers and businesses alike.  And, of course, we talk the fraud that comes along with it! Enjoy! Julie Conroy: https://www.linkedin.com/in/julie-conroy-6997/ Julie is the Head of Risk Insights and Advisory at Aite-Novarica Group. Prior to time at Aite-Novarica Group, Julie spent a number of years leading the product management team at Early Warning Services, and prior to that was in product and process management roles at a large credit card issuer and as well as an ACH, wire, and SWIFT processor. Julie is fluent in Spanish, holds an M.A. from the Monterey Institute of International Studies and a B.A. from the Michigan State University Honors College.   About Datos Insights: https://www.linkedin.com/company/datos-insights/ Datos Insights are the advisor of choice to the banking, insurance, securities, and retail technology industries—both the financial institutions and the technology providers who serve them. The Datos Insights mission is to help our clients make better strategy and technology decisions so they can protect and grow their customers' assets. ------------ Today we welcome on newest sponsor Darwinium! The Darwinium platform unifies security with fraud prevention to create complete visibility of customer journeys across every digital touchpoint – Web, Apps and APIs. Darwinium's unique integration point, running on the perimeter edge via content delivery networks (CDNs), is privacy preserving and low latency. Businesses have a holistic view of customer behavior, from pre-authentication, through account creation, login, change-of-details and payments.  Businesses are better equipped to separate human and automated traffic, protect customers from account takeover, identify scams and social engineering behaviors, block content and promo abuse, and detect fraudulent payments. Darwinium is implemented once, and then covers every interaction a user makes on your website or mobile app. What's more, these user journeys can be fully configured within the platform and adapted at the click of a button, based on trust and risk. Please give them a warm welcome and visit www.darwinium.com to learn more about their revolutionary product!   

Ever hear of a soup swap? It's like a cookie swap but for soup, and it's a fun and meaningful way to get people together around nourishing food.  Ellie attended one for the first time recently that was organized by friends who both happen to be community-focused health professionals. Vera Ruangtragool and Andrew Goldstein. In this episode they talk about why a soup swap has more layered wellness benefits than you might think, and how to go about organizing one. Vera Ruangtragool is the founder and director of Truly Well, a non-profit that helps individuals and communities build happy, healthy, and meaningful lives.  Vera leads guided meditation in English and Spanish and brings people together through events that foster meaningful social connection in the US and abroad. She has a Bachelor's degree in Political Science and Spanish from UC Berkeley, a Master's degree in Spanish Translation and Interpretation from the Monterey Institute of International Studies, and a Master's degree in Public Health from Columbia University. Through her work and everyday interactions, she is committed to advancing peace and justice through individual, community, and systemic change. Andrew Goldstein is a public hospital primary care doctor focused on activism and organizing for a variety of health justice issues. In the food arena, he believes access to healthy, delicious food is a right and has worked against cuts to food programs like SNAP, campaigned for taxes on ultra processed foods, and fought against the often harmful policy agendas of big food corporations. At the more personal and community levels, he organizes biking foodcrawls, food swaps, and pantry shares, and has supported food-related mutual aid efforts. Andrew was part of a college eating club whose motto was "Food = Love," which has stuck with him to this very day and which he tries to have his relationship with Vera embody, whether in their food explorations and cooking together, or in sharing food with their loved ones and neighborsSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Dr. Bird has served as President of The Kozai Group, Inc. since 2001. He is also Senior Professor at the Goa Institute of Management in Goa, India.  From 2009 to 2019 he was the Darla and Frederick Brodsky Trustee Professor in Global Business at Northeastern University. Prior to joining Northeastern, Dr. Bird was the Eiichi Shibusawa-Seigo Arai Professor of Japanese Studies and also served as Director of the International Business Institute and Director of the International MBA program in the College of Business at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. He has previously been a Visiting Professor at Rikkyo University in Japan, Columbia University, Monterey Institute for International Studies, Seinäjoki University of Applied Sciences in Finland, Osaka International University and Japan's National Self Defense Academy. He has also served on the faculty of the Summer Institute for Intercultural Communication. He teaches courses in global leadership development, intercultural management, international negotiations, and intercultural and global leadership assessment. He has authored, co-authored, or edited nine books, over 40 book chapters, and more than 60 journal articles. His most recent book (with M.E. Mendenhall, J.S. Osland, G.R. Oddou, M.L. Maznevski, M. Stevens, and G. Stahl) Global Leadership: Research, practice, and development (3nd Edition) was published in 2019.  The second edition won an Award of Merit for Research Scholarship and was a finalist for the University of San Diego's Leadership Book of the Year Award in 2013. His articles have appeared in the Journal of International Business Studies, Academy of Management Journal, Academy of Management Executive, Strategic Management Journal, Journal of Organizational Behavior, Journal of World Business, Journal of International Management, Journal of International Human Resource Management, Human Resource Management, International Studies of Management and Organization, International Journal of Intercultural Research, Journal of Managerial Psychology, Advances in International and Comparative Management, and Advances in Research on the Sociology of Organizations. Visit https://www.aib.world/frontline-ib/allan-bird/ for the original video interview.  

Natasha Bajema joined the Center for the Study of Weapons of Mass Destruction in October 2008. Dr. Bajema currently serves as Director of the Program for Emerging Leaders (PEL). From 2010 to 2013, Dr. Bajema held a long-term detail assignment serving in various capacities in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, Acquisitions, Technology and Logistics, Nuclear, Chemical and Biological Defense Programs and in Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation at Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration. Dr. Bajema is a subject matter expert in nuclear nonproliferation, cooperative threat reduction and WMD terrorism. Prior to joining the Center, Dr. Bajema was a Research Associate at the Center on International Cooperation at New York University, where she supported research staff of the High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change established by the UN Secretary-General. She has also served as a Junior Political Officer in the Weapons of Mass Destruction Branch of the Department for Disarmament Affairs at the United Nations. Her publications include two co-edited volumes entitledTerrorism and Counterterrorism and Weapons of Mass Destruction and Terrorism, both of which were published by McGraw Hill. She holds an M.A. in international policy from the Monterey Institute of International Studies and a PhD in international relations from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/evinweiss/support

In this episode of Lowy Institute Conversations, Hervé Lemahieu discusses the continuing threat of nuclear weapons, global efforts at arms control and Australia's interactions with the global non-proliferation regime around its proposed acquisition of nuclear submarine technology under the AUKUS agreement. He speaks with Australia's Ambassador for Arms Control and Counter-proliferation Ian Biggs, Program Officer for Nuclear Materials Security Jessica Bufford and Dr Geoffrey Shaw, Director-General of the Australian Safeguards and Non-proliferation Office (ASNO). Ian Biggs was appointed Ambassador for Arms Control and Counter-Proliferation in January 2022 and leads Australia's international advocacy on global arms control, non-proliferation and disarmament. He has previously served as Australia's Ambassador to Iran (2016-19), Turkey (2011-14) and Saudi Arabia (2005-08) and has previously served in postings in Iraq, India, Austria and Syria. Ambassador Biggs has also served as Secretary of the International Commission on Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament, Chair of the Australia Group, Special Assistant to the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency and Chair of the Nuclear Suppliers Group's Dual Use Regime. He holds a Master of Arts (International Relations) from the Australian National University and a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) from the University of Sydney. Jessica Bufford serves as a program officer in the Nuclear Material Security team at the Nuclear Threat Initiative - a nonprofit, nonpartisan global security organization focused on reducing nuclear and biological threats imperiling humanity. Prior to joining NTI, she worked in the Division of Nuclear Security at the IAEA. She has also worked on materials management and minimization at the US Department of Energy National Nuclear Security Administration, and worked previously at NTI as a Herbert J. Scoville Fellow. She received a master's degree in nonproliferation and terrorism studies, with a certificate in conflict resolution, from the Monterey Institute of International Studies and a bachelor's degree in political science and French from Austin College. Dr Geoffrey Shaw was appointed to the position of Director General, Australian Safeguards and Non-proliferation Office (ASNO) in 2022. He is responsible for Australia's implementation and compliance with regard to the Nuclear Non‑proliferation Treaty, Chemical Weapons Convention and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. Prior to this appointment, Dr Shaw has most recently served as Australia's High Commissioner to Pakistan, Australia's Ambassador for People Smuggling and Human Trafficking and the Representative of the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to the United Nations. Previously, Dr Shaw served as the Special Assistant for Policy to the Director General of the IAEA and Australia's Deputy Permanent Representative to the Conference on Disarmament.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Anna Schlegel is VP of Product, Global Infrastructure, International Markets, and Globalization at Procore Technologies, co-founder of Women in Localization, a non-profit based on 30 worldwide sites with 7000 global members, and the author of "Truly Global '', awarded as the best book on international markets by Book Authority for the past 3 years. Anna has led globalization teams at top technology companies in Silicon Valley, including Cisco, VeriSign, VMware, Xerox, and NetApp. Her work has been published in Forbes, Fortune, the European Union, Gala-Global, Multilingual, and many other industry forums. Anna has consulted for Google's International Product Team throughout her career and is a requested speaker at the Berkeley Haas Institute, Monterey Institute of International Studies, and Stanford University. In December 2021, Anna was awarded the "Creu de Sant Jordi" Medal of Honor by the Catalan Government for her leading efforts in Technology and Business, considered the highest honor as a Catalan national. You can reach Anna's first episode here: https://apple.co/3CX8uSf KEY TAKEAWAYS The process of globalization can be long and tedious, but with patience, you will find that it is worth your time. You should hit the right tone for each company so they know what kind of approach would work best in their situation; this could depend on many factors such as business goals and objectives. BEST MOMENTS “Who wants you prepared the product or the solution or the idea? How are you going to make it known? Because you can make something beautiful to go into another country. But if you don't announce it, and you don't learn also from the feedback of the local customer or consumer, you're not going to improve that product.” “Globalization teams tend to be typically under marketing or under engineering or under product, many, many teams are under product. And that's, to begin with, but that we want these globalizers to not stay in one team to either do rotations or to be at the level of a CMO or chief product officer or a chief data officer or whatever.” “One huge mistake is to localize everything that moves if there's not enough of a machinery to start the pilot going to a beta and then go to a general availability. You can pilot things, but I'm sometimes against piloting themes that you can already see that nobody's going to be able to support to go global. So these are business decisions.” “After you've done it a few times, I think it's to remain steady to play the guardrails. And something that can be hard is the amount of times you have to explain it or evangelize or try to redirect where the conversation is going. Because a lot of people have the title of global and they've seen it done one way or a couple of ways. And so you need to align a lot of different opinions.” ABOUT THE HOST Sıla Erol started her journey at TTC wetranslate Ltd as a Project Coordinator and has been continuing as a Key Account Manager after graduating from Translation and Interpreting Department at Ege University in Izmir/Turkey. CONTACT METHOD https://www.linkedin.com/in/sılaerol https://ttcwetranslate.com/ ABOUT THE GUEST Anna Schlegel is VP of Product, Global Infrastructure, International Markets, and Globalization at Procore Technologies, co-founder of Women in Localization, and the author of "Truly Global ''. CONTACT METHOD www.trulyglobalbusiness.com Twitter/Instagram:  @annapapallona https://www.linkedin.com/in/annanschlegel/ VALUABLE RESOURCES Do you have any questions about translation, localization, or international growth? Visit TTC website: https://ttcwetranslate.com/ Are you curious about how ready you are to go global? Take TTC wetranslate's Scorecard: https://global.scoreapp.com/ Take your business global with the 5-step LINGO modal! Purchase 'Good Business in any Language' on Amazon now: https://cutt.ly/2ORR

Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: "A Creepy Feeling": Nixon's Decision to Disavow Biological Weapons, published by ThomasW on September 30, 2022 on The Effective Altruism Forum. I wrote this paper for a class in December 2021. I had been meaning to put it up on the forum for a while, but only just now got around to it. I found this research useful for my own understanding of the kinds of events that can contribute to dramatic policy changes. At the end I mention the obvious relevance to autonomous weapons regulation, but I think that lessons learned apply to all kinds of regulation of dangerous technologies. In September of 1950, a ship sailed by the Golden Gate Bridge. It carried a stockpile of Serratia marcescens bacteria, which it released in a huge plume over the city of San Francisco. Those onboard hoped to expose as many people as possible to the bacteria. Their mission was a success, and most of the city's residents were exposed. The ship was not operated by a hostile foreign government or terrorist operatives, but by the United States Navy. Though Serratia marcescens is a “simulant” bacterium not known to cause harm, the test showed the potential for attacks with more deadly forms of bacteria. Despite the “benign” nature of the bacterium, Stanford University doctors reported several bizarre cases of urinary tract infections at the time, leading eventually to one death. The test was far from the only biological weapons test conducted in secrecy by the U.S. government from World War II until as late as 1968. On November 25th, 1969, President Richard Nixon gave a speech to the American public following a briefing to Congress. He announced the United States would renounce the use of biological weapons, destroy its stockpiles, and research only what was necessary to defend against possible attacks from enemies. He also voiced support for a United Kingdom initiative to ban biological weapons internationally, which would eventually become the Biological Weapons Convention. How did the United States go from biological weapons testing on its own population to leading the world in opposition to biological weapons? Historians have offered many possible explanations. One common argument is that public pressure forced Nixon's hand. In a 2002 paper, Jonathan B. Tucker, a CBW expert and then a researcher at the Monterey Institute of International Studies, specifically emphasizes television reports in early 1969 and their contribution to increased awareness of the weapons. Brian Balmer and Alex Spelling of University College London conducted a 2016 analysis of contemporaneous newspaper articles about biological weapons, finding that they routinely portrayed biological weapons as dangerous even if they presented mixed messages about their effectiveness. Robert W. McElroy, a prelate of the Catholic church, included a discussion of CBW in a 1992 book, stressing in particular the idea that the public viewed such weapons as morally repugnant. I will argue that public pressure was a significant factor behind Nixon's decision, but that it was not sufficient to convince Nixon that renouncing biological weapons would be safe. A second argument is that international pressure created an environment where the American position was untenable. James Revill, a research fellow at the University of Sussex, wrote in a 2018 article that international arms control was a major factor, while also suggesting that the renunciation may have been an attempt to deflect attention from the Vietnam War as well as a response to the advocacy of international organizations. McElroy also discussed international opposition, again from a moral perspective, and Tucker acknowledged it as well. I will argue that while international developments were important in shaping Nixon's decision, they were not his primary motivation. A third argument was ...

This week on Breaking Battlegrounds, Chuck and Sam are joined by the founders of two incredible organizations. First, Tim Ballard calls into the show with a look at how Operation Underground Railroad is rescuing children from the horrors of sex trafficking. Later, Marcee and Lance Foster of REACH Humanity join us to share how they are helping Ukrainian refugees.-Timothy Ballard is the Founder and President of Operation Underground Railroad (O.U.R.). He is also CEO of The Nazarene Fund which seeks to save oppressed religious and ethnic minorities in the Middle East. Ballard spent over a decade working as a Special Agent for the Department of Homeland Security where he was assigned to the Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Task Force and deployed as an undercover operative for the U.S. Child Sex Tourism Jump Team.He has worked every type of case imaginable in the fight to dismantle child trafficking rings. Ballard has worked undercover in the United States and in multiple foreign countries to infiltrate child trafficking organizations. In this effort, he has successfully dismantled dozens of these organizations and rescued countless children from slavery and exploitation. He is an expert at managing Internet investigations, particularly those dealing with file-share networks where pedophiles and traffickers go to trade child sexual abuse material (CSAM). He has trained hundreds of law enforcement officers and has testified before the United States Congress on best practices to liberate children from sex slavery.In 2013, Ballard and a team of former government operatives left their careers to go about the work of saving children as a private foundation, Operation Underground Railroad.After serving a church mission to Chile, Ballard graduated Cum Laude with a BA in Spanish and Political Science from Brigham Young University. He went on to graduate Summa Cum Laude with an MA in International Politics from the Monterey Institute of International Studies. He resides in California with his wife and children.-Lance and Marcee Foster have always had a passion for Humanitarian work.  For years; they have taken their family to the far corners of the world serving.  They have long had the dream of starting a non profit to provide humanitarian aid to those most in need. While REACH Humanity has been in the works for years; the timing has been right to start it now.   The goal of REACH Humanity is to raise funds and awareness and then travel right into the heart of the crisis; those parts of the world that have been ravaged by war, natural disasters, political unrest or extreme poverty.  We want to lift and serve where the need is acute and the impact immediate. Following an overwhelming feeling to travel to Poland to help with the Ukrainian refugees; the Foster family realized with absolutely clarity that the need is overwhelming.  Women and children are fleeing with the clothes on their backs to a place that really isn't equipped to handle them.  Generous donations have poured in from friends, family and strangers.  But the need remains vast.Now; REACH Ukraine has become the first project of REACH Humanity.  While we are learning and adapting our mission in real time.  The impact that we have had through generous online donations and an amazing army of boots on the ground volunteers has been overwhelming.   We hope to continue our efforts as we build out our infrastructure and fundraising ability past our own community.  The structure is being put in place to create a lasting organization that will be able to impact those in need for years to come.  Please join us on this journey.  We have been able to serve many but there are SO many more in need of help. Our help.-Connect with us:www.breakingbattlegrounds.voteTwitter: www.twitter.com/Breaking_BattleFacebook: www.facebook.com/breakingbattlegroundsInstagram: www.instagram.com/breakingbattlegroundsLinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/breakingbattlegrounds This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit breakingbattlegrounds.substack.com

A long way from Big Sur! Reading the book Atomic Steppe: How Kazakhstan Gave Up the Bomb is an amazing adventure of international intrigue, extremely high drama, and a unique history lesson about some very important aspects of the latter part of the twentieth century. I hope you will enjoy hearing some of Dr Kassenova's story in this conversation as well as when you read her book.Thank you to  Margarita Kalinina-Pohl of the Monterey Institute of International Studies for connecting me with Dr. Kassenova and for recommending her important book to me.Links below to some of what we are talking of. (including recommendations from Dr. Kassenova) Togzhan Kassenova website.Roza Rymbayeva - Zaman-ai   The Silent Steppe: The Story of a Kazakh Nomad Under Stalin  Apples Are From Kazakhstan  Dimash Kudaibergen   Otyrar Sazy Dombra, the InstrumentSemipalatinsk Test SitePlease let us hear from you. email us with any comments, critique, suggestions, we'd love to hear!Support the show

Natasha Bajema joined the Center for the Study of Weapons of Mass Destruction in October 2008. Dr. Bajema currently serves as Director of the Program for Emerging Leaders (PEL). From 2010 to 2013, Dr. Bajema held a long-term detail assignment serving in various capacities in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, Acquisitions, Technology and Logistics, Nuclear, Chemical and Biological Defense Programs and in Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation at Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration. Dr. Bajema is a subject matter expert in nuclear nonproliferation, cooperative threat reduction and WMD terrorism. Prior to joining the Center, Dr. Bajema was a Research Associate at the Center on International Cooperation at New York University, where she supported research staff of the High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change established by the UN Secretary-General. She has also served as a Junior Political Officer in the Weapons of Mass Destruction Branch of the Department for Disarmament Affairs at the United Nations. Her publications include two co-edited volumes entitledTerrorism and Counterterrorism and Weapons of Mass Destruction and Terrorism, both of which were published by McGraw Hill. She holds an M.A. in international policy from the Monterey Institute of International Studies and a PhD in international relations from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/evinweiss/support

Quantum Tech Pod Host Chris Bishop today interviews Eden Figueroa. Eden Figueroa is an Associate Professor, Stony Brook University. He is jointly appointed between Stony Brook University as faculty and quantum information technology research leader and Brookhaven National Laboratories researcher in the computational sciences initiative in the instrumentation division. Eden Figueroa has long been fascinated with quantum mechanics. He discusses his path to his quantum information career. "Very happy journey of mine. . I was born in Mexico, " he recounted.  From there he studied at the Monterey Institute of Technology for Bachelor's degree.  Dr. Eden was already  thinking of becoming an experimental physicist, then a masters in optical engineering and his path was working with photons.  He was accepted for PhD at U of Constance in Germany, at that time the center of quantum optics in Europe.  That's where I started my journey in quantum optics and quantum memories. IQT hopes that our conversation with Dr. Eden Figeuroa will make this an interesting, informative and worthwhile talk for you.

When it comes to Russian politics, public discussion tends to zero in on either Russia's unique history and culture or the omnipotence of Vladimir Putin, who has held positions of power in the country since 1999. But based on over 30 years of research and first-hand experience, scholar Timothy Frye's latest book, Weak Strongman, suggests that Russian politics extend far beyond the authority of Putin. Thanks to decades of experiences that offer a rare glimpse into the many complexities of Russian politics, Frye brought forth a unique understanding of what works and what doesn't in Russia. He has worked as an “information warrior” for the U.S. government in the Soviet Union, consulted for the Russian Securities and Exchange Commission in the 1990s, bore witness to Russia's response to the collapse of the Twin Towers in 2001, and has co-headed a research institute at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow since 2011. In addition to his experiences and research, Frye also drew from a largely untapped body of scholarly work that points to how Russia, while powerful, is not unique; it's one of many autocracies across the globe, and recognizing this illuminates the inherent limits to Putin's power. Powerful as Putin's leadership might appear, Weak Strongman challenged the conventional wisdom and assumptions about Russia and reframed a narrative that leads to a richer picture of contemporary Russian politics. Timothy Frye writes and teaches about the politics of corruption, autocracy, and economic development usually with a focus on Russia and Eurasia. He is the Marshall D. Shulman Professor of Post-Soviet Foreign Policy at Columbia University and a research director at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow. His books include Property Rights and Property Wrongs: How Power, Institutions, and Norms Shape Economic Conflict in Russia and Building States and Markets after Communism: The Perils of Polarized Democracy. Michael Rawding is the Founding Partner of GeoFusion, a cross-border advisory firm that helps U.S. & European technology companies. He has served as the President of Microsoft Greater China, Microsoft Japan, and Microsoft Asia. Rawding is currently an Executive Committee Member of the Board at the Washington State China Relations Council, a member of the National Committee on U.S. China Relations, and an Executive Committee Member of the Microsoft Alumni Network. He previously served on the Board of Governors at the Monterey Institute of International Studies and as a Board Member of Town Hall Seattle. Buy the Book: Weak Strongman: The Limits of Power in Putin's Russia (Hardcover) from Elliott Bay Books Presented by Town Hall Seattle. To become a member or make a donation click here. 

Protecting our Children from Human Trafficking with Tim Ballard. Listen is as we talk liberty, slavery, and how our country is one generation away from losing its freedom all together. Tim is also making a huge announcement for the first time right here on The Bull Pen. Timothy Ballard is the founder and CEO of Operation Underground Railroad (O.U.R.). He also serves as O.U.R.'s jump team commander for rescue operations. Ballard began his career at the Central Intelligence Agency where he worked cases dealing with terrorism and Latin America. He has spent over a decade working as a special agent for the Department of Homeland Security where he was assigned to the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force and deployed as an undercover operative for the U.S. Child Sex Tourism Jump Team. He has worked every type of case imaginable in the fight to dismantle child trafficking rings.Ballard has worked undercover in the United States and in multiple foreign countries to infiltrate child trafficking organizations. He is an expert at managing internet investigations, particularly those dealing with file-share networks where pedophiles and traffickers go to trade in child pornography. He has trained hundreds of law enforcement officers at home and abroad in best practices to liberate children from sex slavery.After serving an LDS Church mission to Chile, Ballard graduated cum laude with a bachelor's in Spanish and political science from Brigham Young University. He went on to graduate summa cum laude with a master's in international politics from the Monterey Institute of International Studies.Subscribe to The Bull's YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCeJKFFE1iqI_OzfK5dPuaASubscribe to The Bullpen podcast on iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-bullpen/id1588663242Subscribe to The Bullpen podcast on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6BnmfXofFG0x0bdrzpNfcn?si=7220fabe105c40b9&nd=1#TheBull #TheBullevans #TheBullpen #AlphaInfluence►Follow Jeremiah on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thebullevans/?hl=en►Follow Jeremiah on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jeremiah.evans.906►Follow Jeremiah on Twitter: https://twitter.com/thebullevans?lang=en►Follow Jeremiah on Tik Tok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thebullevans?lang=en

Welcome to episode 291 of The Outdoor Biz Podcast with Matt Bennett and ECHOS Brand Communications. In our wide-ranging conversation, we talk about how Matt got into the Outdoor Biz, the REVEAL Global Media Conference, Sobriety, Sustainability, and plenty more. Facebook Twitter Instagram   The Outdoor Biz Podcast   Please give us a rating and review HERE   Show Notes ECHOS Brand Communications Matt Bennett How were you introduced to the Outdoors Yeah, it's funny, I think there's this idea that if you grow up in Boulder, Colorado, you're just by nature, an outdoor kid. And that's not really the case, there's a lot of people here that just that's not their thing. And it's just a place to live and it was. As a little kid, you think everybody's staring up at the flat irons like you are. And you just take it for granted, but yeah, I grew up pretty close in south Boulder just to the mountains. We would just walk out and that was the entertainment. You'd walk out and you'd hike up and goof around and you build a Fort or whatever it was. And so that was part of being a Colorado kid. And my folks were into camping and I started skiing at a young age, doing Nordic and then downhill. And obviously downhill, really the speed and the fun of it really caught me. And then I started like gen one mountain biking when that took off. I was going to mountain bike camps as a little kid, pre-suspension, right? And as a kid going up to Crested Butte for mountain bike camps in the eighties or whatever it was, I had a lot of different experiences. And I love it. It's changed over time. Now the focus is on my kids and getting them out there, but I still have to get my fun in as well. You have a lot of experience in communications in PR how'd you get on that path? It's interesting, cause I went to school for international affairs, Undergrad. And then I did a master's degree at the Monterey Institute of International Studies, which is a really small school in California. And so I was on this track for, diplomacy. A lot of the people go into government agencies or the department of defense or whatever it was. And I was on that track and I got my degree and I moved out to DC and was interviewing for jobs. And then I ended up connecting with a public affairs firm out there. And that's really what kicked my career off. They hired me as a writer and I'd always been into the writing and the communication side of it. They say, your first job really sets your career in some ways. And it sure did for me, because I'd been on one track and it took me on a totally different track where all of a sudden, I was like in this, more of a government. Circle doing communications around governments, whether it's legislation or initiatives and obviously that's DC. So I worked for that firm for eight years and two years as a writer and then I started managing programs. We had teams in Mississippi and Arkansas, New York and Vermont. So it was all these different things going on and a great experience for sure. But it was one of those burn hot types of jobs. Couldn't do it forever, but you could go like hell for 10 years, right? From an experienced standpoint, it was amazing. Tell us about ECHOS Communications We are a public relations agency specializing in outdoor and active lifestyle brands. Media relations are a huge part of what we do. We do storytelling, we also do affiliate marketing when it's assigned to that social media, the gamut of communications. affiliate marketing. It's assigned to that social media, the gamut of communications. We look at what our clients need and come in and design a program, tailored to them depending on where they are. I would say the core, the brands that we really specialize in are those that capture something beyond what would be seen as their endemic audience. So if they're outdoor they also have this broader audience. In lifestyle or in streetwear her or whatever that is. And so we really specialize in brands that have, or want to transcend beyond what would be seen as their endemic audience. Sobriety has been a pretty important part of your life. Tell us a little bit about that. I wasn't a huge drinker, but it was consistent, and it was one of those things that I just I needed to change. I've been sober for going on four years and change now. And, it's interesting because I didn't realize how deep it was in my life until it went away. The family side of it has obviously been the biggest thing, just because I'm more present. I'm here with my family helping where I necessarily wasn't before. And then on the professional side of course I can show up as I've never shown up before. I think it's an important thing for us to talk about in the industry, especially now that inclusivity and everything is just such a focus. I do think there's a lot of what we do in the outdoor industry that revolves around drink. I'm not here to change anybody's mind or try to change anybody's mind. This is my choice and my choice alone. And I can't tell anybody else what to do, but I just, I guess my thing is. I've been to some of the events and I'm like, Hey, do you have anything else? And they say there's a drinking fountain over there. And I guess that would be my first thing is just provide something else. Just provide an option. Cause I do think that's so important in this industry where it's nice to see the conversation happening. How about the industry events like trade shows, how do you think those are changing and what do you think that means for the future? As an agency, we fully appreciate and enjoy the industry events, Outdoor Retailer of course. That's been the core. I just think it's going to change a little bit and we're already seeing it with The Big Gear Show. There've been others in the past, whether it's Outpost or others that have created an alternate and very appealing experience for people. And I do think the cost at the end of the day is a huge thing that, especially after this year is going to come up. What did it look like last year? And now we're going back? And I think there are a lot of brands that are going to have to really look at that and evaluate, and that by necessity is going to change things up. Where do we go? Where do we allocate these dollars? But at the end of the day, people love to go to. And it's a great place to have a brand presence. So I don't think it's going anywhere. I just think it's going to look a little different. Let's talk a little bit about sustainability. That's another thing that seems like we're walking the line of creating a bunch of stuff and calling it sustainable or creating the same stuff, what can we do about that? I think it starts with the term itself. I think we're getting desensitized to the term sustainability because it's so broad. What does it mean anymore? What I've heard lately is this, if we're creating something, whatever it is how could that be sustainable? Take LIVSN, I've chatted with Andrew and it's fascinating to hear his thoughts on it. Cause he's just straight up and I know he doesn't have 500 skus and that's by design. But how do we cut some of the products that just don't need to exist in the first place and stop making stuff? I love new stuff, I love it when our brands launch new stuff that's music to our ears because we didn't get to go out there and talk about it. But at the same time, from a sustainability standpoint, it's tough to continue to do that cycle. And that's a hard conversation to have. Can it ever be successful? Can we call it sustainable? Maybe we start talking about something else, responsibility or whatever that is that takes a different, more realistic tack about if we are creating a bunch of products, whatever those products are at the end of the day, will they ever be sustainable? What other outdoor activities do you still do? I'm a huge cyclist. I do road, gravel, and mountain biking, and I just absolutely love that. That's my kind of day-to-day thing. It keeps me feeling great. I run if I have to if I don't have a bike but then skiing, I do Downhill and Nordic. I started doing backcountry last year. Do you have any advice or suggestions for folks wanting to get into the outdoor business? I'm looking at the skills more than necessarily the experience in our industry. If you can write, if you can communicate, if you get what we're doing, then that's more important and worked in the outdoor industry before. I think and I think for employers, we should be more open to hiring people outside the industry for sure. I know it's tough you get someone with great potential, coming from a similar brand or agency, and that's very appealing. But I do think there are a lot of people who want to be in this industry that would be fantastic. They just don't have experience in what would qualify, roughly as outdoor experience. But I have no problem, in fact, I think it appeals to me for someone that's really excited and wants to be part of this. What's your favorite outdoor gear purchase? Under a hundred. Hacky Sack This probably nails me as a quintessential Boulder kid, but a hacky sack. I have a $10 hacky, and it travels well, it's small and it is just the source of more fun. Whether you're traveling or backpacking or at the campsite or wherever it's just great. You bust it out, people start playing other people join. It's just a riot. Follow up with Matt Email: matt@echoscomm.com Twitter  Instagram Snippets 02:56 - 03:29 Matt's Introduction to the Outdoors 27:21 - 27:58 Matt's advice for those folks looking to get into the Outdoor Biz 29:33 - 30:04 Matts favorite piece of gear under $100

'Subject To Interpretation' is a weekly podcast that deep dives into the topics that matter to interpreters.

 Dr. Natasha Bajema, is a subject matter expert in nuclear nonproliferation, cooperative threat reduction and WMD terrorism, and currently serves as Director of the Converging Risks Lab, at The Council on Strategic Risks, a nonprofit, non-partisan security policy institute devoted to anticipating, analyzing and addressing core systemic risks to security in the 21st century, with special examination of the ways in which these risks intersect and exacerbate one another. The Converging Risks Lab (CRL) is a research and policy development-oriented program designed to study converging, cross-sectoral risks in a rapidly-changing world, which brings together experts from multiple sectors of the security community, to ask forward-thinking questions about these converging risks, and to develop anticipatory solutions. Dr. Bajema is also Founder and CEO of Nuclear Spin Cycle, a publishing and production company specializing in national security, entertainment, and publishing. Prior to this, Dr. Bajema was at the Center for the Study of Weapons of Mass Destruction at the National Defense University, serving as Director of the Program for Emerging Leaders (PEL), as well as serving long-term detail assignments serving in various capacities in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, Acquisitions, Technology and Logistics, Nuclear, Chemical and Biological Defense Programs and in Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation at Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration. Prior to joining the Center, Dr. Bajema was a Research Associate at the Center on International Cooperation at New York University, where she supported research staff of the High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change established by the UN Secretary-General. She has also served as a Junior Political Officer in the Weapons of Mass Destruction Branch of the Department for Disarmament Affairs at the United Nations. Dr. Bajema's publications include two co-edited volumes entitled Terrorism and Counterterrorism, and Weapons of Mass Destruction and Terrorism, both of which were published by McGraw Hill. She has also published the novels Bionic Bug, Rescind Order, Genomic Data, and Project Gecko. Dr. Bajema holds an M.A. in international policy from the Monterey Institute of International Studies and a PhD in international relations from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. 

 "Wu Wei, It means following the flow of the Dao, of the way, and you can see that in nature. Watch the birds and bees behave and let nature take its course. Now, in the case of human beings, for example, Western medicine interferes with drugs, chemicals, vaccines, and is yet to learn that the best defense against disease is a strong immune system. It's built into us". -Daniel Reid    There's something about the energy and spirit of Daniel Reid that makes you want to sit, listen and experience his wisdom. A bestselling author, leading expert on eastern philosophy and medicine, Reid has written several books and memoirs on Asian self-health, self-healing practices, Daoism, and his journey on this path. Living in Taiwan for 16 years studying and writing, Reid's international reputation stems from a deep understanding of traditional Chinese culture, Chinese medicine, and ancient Taoist health and longevity systems. In this conversation with Mason, Reid discusses how western medicine is failing society and will continue to as long as it tries to overcome nature. Contrastingly, he details the beauty and simplicity found in all aspects of the Daoist philosophy and spirituality, the way of respecting nature, and our innate ability to heal ourselves. Tune in for wisdom and healing.   Mason and Dan discuss:  Doaist thought. The Dao De Jing. Qigong and tea-gong. The Dao principle of Wu Wei. The three powers of Daoism. Following the flow of the Dao. Personality types of the five Daoist elements. The principle of Yin Yang and the five elements. Quantum physics, Daoism and energy. Drawing wisdom from essential nature. Daoism on facing mortality/immortality.   Who is Daniel Reid? Daniel Reid is a bestselling author and a leading expert on eastern philosophy and medicine. He has written numerous books and magazine articles on various aspects of Asian self-health, self-healing practices, and has established an international reputation for the practical efficacy of his traditional approach to modern health problems. Daniel Reid was born in 1948 in San Francisco and spent his childhood in East Africa. After completing a Bachelor of Arts degree in East Asian Studies at the University of California, Berkeley in 1970, and a Masters of Arts degree in Chinese Language and Civilization at the Monterey Institute of International Studies in 1973, Reid moved to Taiwan, where he spent 16 years studying and writing about various aspects of traditional Chinese culture, focusing particularly on Chinese medicine and ancient Taoist longevity systems. In 1989, he relocated to Chiang Mai, Thailand, where he continued his research and writing until 1998 when he immigrated with his wife Snow to the Byron Bay region of Australia. In 2017, they moved back to Chiang Mai, where they now make their home.   Resources: Dan Reid website Oolong Tea.org The Art and Alchemy of Chinese Tea - Daniel Reid The Tao of Health, Sex and Longevity - Daniel Reid Shots From the Hip. Sex, Drugs, and The Tao - Daniel Reid Memoir  Energy, Light, and Luminous Space - Daniel Reid Memoir  Q: How Can I Support The SuperFeast Podcast? A: Tell all your friends and family and share online! We’d also love it if you could subscribe and review this podcast on iTunes. Or  check us out on Stitcher, CastBox, iHeart RADIO:)! Plus  we're on Spotify!   Check Out The Transcript Here:   Mason: (00:00) Dan, thanks so much for joining me on the podcast.   Dan Reid: (00:03) Thanks for inviting me.   Mason: (00:05) Absolute pleasure. My wife, who runs the company with me, when I first met her, the first book I noticed on her book shelf that I have was The Dao of Health, Sex and Longevity.   Dan Reid: (00:20) My flagship.   Mason: (00:22) Your flagship, and I just said to her, "I'm just jumping on with Dan now," and she was like, "Ah, that was the first book on Daoism I ever bought," and since then [crosstalk 00:00:30].   Dan Reid: (00:30) And also put the word "sex" on the cover.   Mason: (00:34) I mean, I kind of got to agree that that's definitely a draw.   Dan Reid: (00:41) You know when you see books and they're all well-thumbed in that section.   Mason: (00:46) It's a good trio. Health, Sex, and Longevity. That must be ... because that was '89. Is that right?   Dan Reid: (00:53) Actually, it was '87, I think.   Mason: (00:56) Oh, '87, and yeah, did it become a cult classic as it went along? I can't remember. I think you mentioned it in your biography.   Dan Reid: (01:09) It took off really quickly. First of all, it took two years to sell it. I had an agent in New York. He couldn't get anyone interested. He got all these wise guy rejection slips, so he took it to London and sold it immediately, and brought it back, and then of course New York took it, and then it took off pretty quickly, yeah.   Mason: (01:33) Yeah. I mean, I imagine back then ... because it must be interesting for you now to see Daoism and Daoist practises and Daoist sexual practises, and semen retention, and the concept of longevity become all trendy. I mean ...   Dan Reid: (01:47) Yeah. Nobody knew anything about it back then, and the editors didn't know why this might be important. They didn't even know how to pronounce the word Dao. Yeah. But I was sure it would take root, because I just know that's what people want. I mean, anyone who does any kind of practise wants to be healthy, everyone wants sex, and we don't want to die young.   Mason: (02:18) How do you relate now to ... because at that time, you were in Taiwan, right, and really you were immersed, and you'd gone to university and learnt ...   Dan Reid: (02:29) I spoke Chinese, I could read and write, so I could read first, original sources, and I had Daoist friends. I just gravitated toward them. It was nothing formal. I never went to a Chinese medical school or anything. I did do a few qigong classes, but mostly it was friends who were into various aspects, Chinese friends, of Daoism, and because I could speak Chinese, it became very easy to become friends. But most of the learning took place around the tea table. It was very informal, and the Chinese are very practical people, so that's the aspect of Daoism that I got into, that I got first introduced to. Later I started reading some of the classical texts and things that had the background theory.   Mason: (03:24) So you were in ... I think it must have been the original time, when there was a bridging of that classical Daoist and Chinese medical information coming over to the West. Were there some people before you that were maybe doing some other ground work I'm not really aware of? It seemed like that was the period, that mid-'80s to late '80s, when it was actually happening.   Dan Reid: (03:52) Yeah, it was. Of course there were some people. I read a lot of books by an English writer named John Blofeld, who lived in China for 18 years, and he was interested in Daoism, Buddhism, and all that, and he was in China from 1930 to '48, and I read most of his books, and then I finally met him. Actually, he was dying that year. I didn't know that, but it turned out he was living in Bangkok, so I flew down there to meet him, and he was in the middle of writing his memoirs, in Chinese.   Mason: (04:31) Wow. You covered that in your book, right, Shots From the Hip, your biography.   Dan Reid: (04:35) Yes. You read that?   Mason: (04:37) Yeah, yeah, I read that. I loved it. I don't love biographies a lot of the time. I think I was turned off by Kelly Slater's.   Dan Reid: (04:49) Oh, yeah. Kelly Slater's a real fan of the Dao of Sex, Health and Longevity.   Mason: (04:55) Is he? Awesome.   Dan Reid: (04:57) Oh, yeah. Always talks about it. But I can't get in touch with him. I wanted to thank him for all the promotion he's done.   Mason: (05:05) Well, that's interesting. Well, I'll see eventually if I can get him on. I know he likes mushrooms and tonics. If we can get him on to the Di Dao tonic herbs, I'll make sure I ...   Dan Reid: (05:14) Tell him you interviewed me. Yeah.   Mason: (05:16) Yeah.   Dan Reid: (05:17) What were we talking about there?   Mason: (05:20) Well, we were talking about the-   Dan Reid: (05:23) Oh, I was going to ask you about the memoir. Have you read just the first one or the second one?   Mason: (05:25) No. Is the second one Energy, Light and Luminous Space?   Dan Reid: (05:28) Yeah.   Mason: (05:28) Is that the ... No. I actually wanted to talk to you first. I don't know why I felt ... I finished Shots From the Hip, and then I was like, cool. Once I've spoken to you in an interview, I'll start Energy, Light and Luminous Space, so now I'll go and ... I've just got Shots From the Hip to my Kindle. I might do the same with the other one, so I don't have to wait now.   Dan Reid: (05:47) Yeah. I just gave it a final polish about two months ago, so it's good that you haven't read it.   Mason: (05:51) Oh, good. I knew there was a reason.   Dan Reid: (05:54) Yeah.   Mason: (05:56) How are you feeling, having been ... I see it. It was like you took the foundation of work that those that had done a lot of the translation and actually bridged it over to the West, so you did a lot of that bridging.   Dan Reid: (06:11) That's the place where it usually falls apart, because many translators or people who've studied Chinese medicine formally, they get too literal in the way they present it to the West, and it just doesn't make sense to people, and I think this is too esoteric, or maybe this isn't really well, and so I made an attempt, and apparently I have an ability to do that, to make it sensibile and enjoyable to Western readers, in a way that they'll keep reading, and I guess that's why my books stay in print. It's more than translation, it's interpretation.   Mason: (06:56) How do you communicate that to people? Obviously I think I agree. You've got obviously the knack because you can discuss poetry, you can discuss the character, and you can sit in that world and not try and explain that way of thinking as it being metaphoric, or ... You don't try and explain it with Western concepts, you just sit in and live within that way of thinking, which is from an Eastern philosophical standpoint.   Dan Reid: (07:27) Yeah, but I try to find aspects of Western culture, and particularly contemporary. I mean, I came from this, you read by book, the hippy age, and the new age, and all this stuff, so I tried to find ... and explaining things which I can understand from reading original Chinese texts, and from Chinese masters and all that, but then I try to find something in the Western world that links. Western science, maybe cutting edge medical science, nutritional science. It's not mainstream stuff, but it's getting more and more. Organic food, and food combining. There's links to all that in ancient Daoist thought and in what we're doing now in the West. It's just finding how to thread them together.   Mason: (08:20) Yeah, make it relevant in the Western way of thinking, right?   Dan Reid: (08:23) Yeah.   Mason: (08:23) Is that where you stand, that you're happy to bridge so that people can stay more so within their Western framework and-   Dan Reid: (08:32) Absolutely.   Mason: (08:33) ... integrate some of the wisdom, or is there a party that's like, you're going to have to step out of your way of thinking and start integrating with the Eastern way of looking at the world?   Dan Reid: (08:44) Oh, not at all. I consider myself internally Chinese. What do they call that? An egg. White on the outside and yellow on the inside. But there's really nothing new under the sun. The Dao is probably the most ancient integrated system of thought that makes sense, and it's focused on practical things. Western people are practical, so I am very content to be a bridge. It's interesting you use that word because my wife calls me a bridge. She's Chinese, and so I'm a bridge to her going the other way.   Mason: (09:29) Is your wife ... Is it Snow?   Dan Reid: (09:31) Yeah, Snow. She's from Taiwan. [crosstalk 00:09:34].   Mason: (09:34) How long have you guys been together?   Dan Reid: (09:35) She's Jo-Jo in the memoir.   Mason: (09:37) Jo-Jo. Oh, yeah. Of course. Okay. Okay. Jo-Jo. How long have you guys been together?   Dan Reid: (09:42) We've been married 30 years next year.   Mason: (09:47) Wow. Congratulations.   Dan Reid: (09:49) Talk about longevity.   Mason: (09:50) Yeah. I know there's elements of Daoism that's not ... The non-sexy kind of aspect of Daoism, which is the longevity, and being able to go along in your psychological development, and reflect upon yourself so that you don't project on others, and have a healthy relationship, or have healthy friendships. It's one of those things. It's I guess one of those kind of those under-themes. It's maybe there, maybe coming to the surface a little bit more, but not overt. What I wanted to ask, because there was a bit of a ... I can imagine that we didn't have long to talk about it in the book, like, where this sudden ability, in my eyes sudden, for you to put together these intensely complex dishes and meals together, but I think I remember there was a friend. You were with your friends in a castle. You were somewhere in America, in-   Dan Reid: (10:53) Yeah, yeah, yeah. Cooking, you mean?   Mason: (10:55) Yeah, yeah, cooking.   Dan Reid: (11:01) The three things I like best are cooking ... writing first, cooking, and gardening, and they all fit together. I learnt to cook early on in my life from my aunt and my mother. They taught me things, and then my Chinese teachers started teaching me in California, when I was studying Chinese, how to cook Chinese food, and I started to see all the principles of the yin, the yang, and the five elements become the five flavours, and how everything works in balance and harmony. The basic Daoist principles run right through it, and so how am I able to do that? I think I was younger. I had a lot of energy, and I still cook. I still cook for my wife and myself. We don't have very many dinner guests here anymore, but yeah.   Mason: (11:55) It is a way to take it out of the theoretical and apply it. I mean, that's quite often ...   Dan Reid: (12:02) But that's the whole point. China, I mean, they are practical, earthly people. They're not really into so much ... The ones who really want to go full spiritual, they just leave society. They go into the mountains, and there's still Daoist hermits, men and women, up in the mountains, who don't even know who Mao Zedong was.   Mason: (12:27) Amazing. What a world.   Dan Reid: (12:28) Yeah. There's a guy named ... an old friend of mine from Taiwan named Bill Porter. His pen name is Red Pine, and Red Pine is probably the foremost translator now of classical Daoist and Buddhist texts, and he's still working, and he's 78 now, and I'm still in touch with him. He went to China. He's got a book called Road to Heaven, because he said, "Well, I want to see if I can find these Daoists," and this is when it was just after the culture revolution, you know, but he managed to get up to those mountains, and he met Daoist hermits.   Dan Reid: (13:12) Now, those are the ones who are really taking the spiritual side of it, the esoteric side of it, to the max. They live in caves or in cabins. They never come down off the mountain, but other than that, Chinese society uses Daoist principles, Daoist science, for medicine, Chinese medicine, cooking, sex, overall health practises, painting, the way they do their landscape paintings, the perfect balance of space and ink. It's the same principle applies, but for China, it's basically a Confucian society. They think that, well, okay, we're here on Earth. We have this life. Let's just focus on this, and we're going to find out what happens next anyway, so why focus in on that now? Confucius said, "Pay respects to all gods and demons, but stay clear of them all."   Mason: (14:23) I like it. It's an interesting thing, because in Daoism, and all through Chinese society, there are deities used to represent something in ... but never a real worshipping .   Dan Reid: (14:41) No, not like that. Exactly, because they're like ... Also Buddhism too, or Hinduism. No-one denies that there's gods. They just say there's not one almighty one above all the others. There's an almighty state, not an almighty god, but a state of mind, a state of spirit, which we look for. Where the Buddhists call it enlightenment, in China they just call it the Dao, the way, and you want to go that direction. You're not going into a religion that then you have to just take all these orders from God and from the clergy. Instead you want to cultivate that supreme state, which is beyond the human condition.   Mason: (15:34) From where you're sitting, and watching the world, and watching Daoist principles now roll out further and further, where are you at with ... Are you feeling like there's an authenticity and a grounding-ness in the way in which that philosophy is rolling out into the West, whether it's through businesses and just people integrating those practises? More and more, qigong starts to move out there, more and more Chinese medicine starts rolling out there. Are you kind of feeling like it's staying connected to the old way mostly?   Dan Reid: (16:11) As long as they are following the basic science and the basic philosophy of the Dao, the yin and the yang, the five elements. You have to be able to see how those principles apply to different aspects of life, but if they stick to those principles, then it's on course. I mean, there's also the nonsense, the commercialization, the Dao of Winnie the Pooh, and all these things. Okay. That's not what we're talking about, but the principles are solid. It's quantum physics also. I mean, the binary, yin and yang. Isn't that how computers work? There's this two, and then there's five, and then it goes on from there. It's all in the Dao De Jing, if you know how to read the Dao De Jing. It's all there.   Mason: (17:03) Yeah. Difficult one. I mean, I've got a few translations, and they're all so different [crosstalk 00:17:09].   Dan Reid: (17:09) I like Arthur Waley. He was an English translator of Chinese poetry, but he did one. He never went to China. He taught himself Chinese in the British Museum during World War II, and he's my favourite translator. He calls the Dao De Jing, his translation, The Way and Its Power, so if you find the way, then you get its power. Dao De Jing means, okay, Dao is the Dao, the way. First De means virtue, and Jing is a classic book, so the classic of the way and its power. If you follow the way, the way of nature, basically, because the biggest manifestation, the most obvious manifestation of the Dao on Earth, is nature.   Dan Reid: (18:06) Only humans go against nature. We have all kinds of weird things we do, that animals, and flowers and bees don't do. The underlying thing is we all eat, we all have sex for procreation and all that, and beyond that, humans take it. They try to conquer nature, and so by not following nature and trying to conquer it or twist it, as we can what's happening now in the world, with this whole viral thing, it doesn't end well that way.   Mason: (18:42) Yeah, I mean, there always seems to be something which I think the West isn't programmed for, which is a simplification versus coming up with complex solutions to something. So you're like, that's ... Is that just basically, from your perspective, and understanding the Dao ... I mean, like you've just talked about, first of all, not voiding yourself from nature. Is a simple solution which takes observation and ...   Dan Reid: (19:10) Yeah. Well, one of the things in the Daoist practice ... It's quite well known for people who follow Daoism and Dao De Jing, is the term wu wei. Wei means to do. Wu means no, not. Not doing. But not doing doesn't mean just kicking back, doing nothing, and smoking a joint, and being lazy. It means non-interference, really. It means following the flow of the Dao, of the way, and so you can see that in nature. Watch the birds and the bees behave, and let nature take its course. Now, in the case of the human being, for example, taking medicine as an example, Western medicine interferes, with drugs, chemicals, vaccines, and the best defence against disease is a strong immune system. It's built into us. It's built into our genetics, but how many people have a strong immune response anymore?   Dan Reid: (20:14) And so when you do need medicine, the Chinese principle first is use food. We all have to eat, and if that doesn't work or that's not good enough, or the problem is too great, then go to the herbs, the medicinal herbs, the mushrooms, and take it from there, but that all comes from still taking your lead from nature. Instead of trying to overcome it, I'm going to fix this by ... Because I got a new chemical that I made from petroleum, and I got a patent on it, and this is going to kill the virus or the bacteria, and then, in the process of doing that, it causes other problems.   Mason: (20:56) I think that's always my mind. I've got a nice Western mind as well, you know, so I quite often will constantly go looking up like, all right, what have I got to add in? What have ... But ultimately, I think ... There's a Chinese practitioner we've had who's talked about the colonisation of Chinese medicine on the podcast before, Rhonda Chang, and basically, quite often, if I say ... if I'm decolonizing my mind so I can come up with simple solutions, which is, one, it's ultimately simple. It's like, first of all, you're going to have to yield and come back into effortless effort, or at least I think that's-   Dan Reid: (21:35) Exactly. Wu wei, non-interference, but you want to understand the principle [crosstalk 00:21:40].   Mason: (21:40) That's it. The principle. Yeah. That's where I think it's one thing to try and add in Daoist practises, which have kind of, in a Western way, have been cut out of the entire philosophy and injected into Western world in order to act as a symptom, verse decolonizing in a sense of just coming back and understanding what that principle of wu wei is, and what the principle of yin yang is, so-   Dan Reid: (22:14) And the five elements. All the traditional cultures, basically, have these five elements. I call them the five elemental energies. They're really associated with the five elemental colours, and they all have a different vibrational rate on the electromagnetic spectrum, and it all comes down to very simple things, but then you have to see how, in a complex situation, how those simple principles can be applied to correct the problem, rather than try to come up with a even more complex solution. You know what I mean? Which is the Western medical approach, it's the Western scientific approach. Yeah. It gets way too complex, the technology.   Mason: (23:00) Okay, so a lot of people listening, they're constant ... because that's what I've tried to do with the business in order ... I kind of always talk about things like, I move my business in the direction so I can sleep at night, and one of the things that started coming up was I know that seasonal living is ultimately ... or observing the seasons is ultimately going to solve the problem in which a lot of people come to us for herbs in the first place, and so it's an unfair thing to be talking about herbs without talking about these fundamentals.   Mason: (23:36) But a lot of people listening are aware that they're still undergoing a process of just being able to comprehend that continuing to understand and implement what you're talking about as these basics is worth it, one. Isn't healing some symptom. It's a way of kind of almost re-educating the way, re-informing the way you build your own little family culture, so on and so forth, so just from that perspective, because I'm sure many people have heard it before, and you've probably said it many, many times, but just talking about these basic principles again, hearing it from you, in terms of living seasonally, understanding the principles of yin yang and the five principles, and how ... Can you just explain, for those people listening that are striving to be able to sink their teeth into and feel it so that they can move their family and themselves in that direction more, just maybe a few little pieces of how they can understand the principles further.   Dan Reid: (24:42) Well, you can use the principles to understand and adapt to weather, extreme weather conditions. Well, there's heat, and dampness, and then there's the combinations of heat and damp together, which can be very damaging to human health. Lots of rain and snow. There's the water element coming up. If you look into the traditional Daoist science of how the five elements relate, once cycle is that one, where they say conquers the next or suppresses the next, and then there's the other cycle where one element nurtures the next one, so water is good for earth and all that, but if you go the other way, fire will burn down wood, and all these things.   Dan Reid: (25:37) If you can learn the basic principles, why it's useful to understand the basic principles of Daoism, or I call it Daoist science, because it's not a religion. There is a Daoist religion, a popular religion with temples, and god, and all that, but we're not talking about that here. If you understand those basic principles, then in your daily life, in all aspects, you can find links, starting with yin and yang, positive and negative, male and female, or the five elements and their relations to flavours, salty, sweet, sour, pungent. There are some very obvious ways in daily life, and in your family life and in your living situation, where you can start to ... If you can start to see how it all comes down to a few basic principles, then you can apply it to more complicated things and more complicated situations, including the way people interact with each other.   Mason: (26:47) How would we get informed about the way that we interact with one [crosstalk 00:26:53].   Dan Reid: (26:52) Well, I mean, there's personality types. There's the fire. There is a whole Chinese ... what they call fortune telling or astrology, but it's much deeper than that. There's a science behind it. Personality types, which I don't know if it's genetic or if it's the way you're brought up or something, but there's the fire personality, the person who explodes and is impulsive, and then there's the really easy-going, flowing water element, then there's the very earthy type of person, and there are a lot of texts on all these aspects, and a lot of them have been translated. I don't think there's anything where these principles don't apply.   Mason: (27:45) Yeah. The personality one's always interesting, because I've been looking for ... I've found a few people saying that they've got little online questionnaires, but it doesn't seem ... I don't know if you've got one. It always seems to miss the mark just a little bit, based on ... Because sometimes you get where the deficiency is currently and maybe not tracked back to where your constitutional deficiency or constitutional element lies, and so sometimes I will be like, yep, I'm definitely fire, and now I'm definitely water. Nah, actually ... and I just go round and round.   Dan Reid: (28:25) I mean, you may have your basic personality type, but other things happen in life. Situations arise where you're reacting to another kind of person, either in a good way or an adversarial way, and then that person's energy is then starting to mould yours and change yours, and you're responding, and suddenly you're shifting to some other, from fire to water, or to earth or some other element. There are many factors involved there.   Dan Reid: (29:03) I think that our experience in life is more important than your genetic background, and there's a lot in DNA, obviously, but the idea of free choice is something that humans have, whereas animals and plants will basically just follow their genetic pattern, but humans have the choice to go against the grain sometime. We're seeing a lot of that now in the current situation. How many people are following the agenda that's being pushed now, and then there's a lot of people who aren't, and to do that, you have to sometimes just go against what you've been brought up with.   Mason: (29:58) This is an interesting conversation, because I think the thing with Daoism I like is you come to ... as you observe nature and you observe ... coming from a place of realities, let's say, yin yang, it seems to me like a reality, as is science. However, a lot of the time science doesn't have the foundations of guiding principles that are grounded in reality. Can run off on its own tangent.   Dan Reid: (30:25) Yes, indeed. There's no underlying thing in that, but some science that's coming out ... I mean, quantum physics is basically verifying that, ultimately, and the Daoists say this too, that there is no such thing as solid form. Everything is just energy, but it's slowed down. It's light that's slowed down so much, with our coarse sensory organs, we take it to be a solid form. In fact, it's not, because with modern technology, with electron microscopes, you keep going further and further down. Suddenly the atom just disappears and becomes a waveform, and those are the basic energies. Basic energies like that, and the thing that's interesting is that, in quantum physics, when something, an electron or subatomic particle just sort of disappears and then becomes a waveform, the observer, using intent, using intent, mind, can make it come back, or move somewhere else, or transform into something else. There's something about that. There's the physical level, there's the energetic level, and then there's the mind.   Mason: (31:52) Which are the principles in which Daoism is based on, understanding that reality.   Dan Reid: (31:59) Absolutely. Essence, energy, and spirit. Body, breath, and mind. There's all different ways, but my favourite ideogram, my favourite Chinese character, is the one for intent, and that consists ... On the top, there's the symbol for sound, also means vibration, and underneath that is heart. It's a vibration that comes from here, not here. Here we think. Thinking is very structured. We think in terms of words, and concepts, and all that, but your real intention, what you intend to do, what you want to do in life or in a particular situation, is always from here, which in Chinese we'd call spirit. That's spirit. Something above all the differences in form and in energy and all that. The different permutations can come in combinations, but you have one thing, is your intent is the strongest force.   Mason: (33:13) So many things swimming through my head there. I think what you've just talked about there is coming back to a reality. You mentioned not going off into the religious ... Religion quite often can come with gods, and let's create wrong and right through a set of rules, and once again, because it's easier to, I guess, spread, easier to commodify something that you write down in a book, and you just go, here's how you know right and wrong, verse here's a principle of living in a particular way, which I feel like the Dao and other ways of following these traditions of wisdom, which puts you in reality where you can feel and get informed of, say, morals, ethics, right and wrong, from a place of truth, not being driven by a dogma, and that's why what you're talking about is at some point coming down to a heart space, and not because the religion told you to, not because ...   Dan Reid: (34:17) Religion says you don't have it.   Mason: (34:20) Yeah.   Dan Reid: (34:20) They say you're a boring sinner and you're bad, and so you need god, a god, one of many. How can there be 10 different gods representing 10 different truths? There's only one truth, and then you need this intermediary, which is the guy in the robe, yeah? And that's it, otherwise you're doomed, and you got to sign up for one of these clubs called religions. I mean, religion I think in Latin sort of means something like reunite. You've been separated from the divine, but in Daoism and Buddhism, and the non-theistic, especially Tibetan Buddhism, we've got that. It's just that we don't know it, and even if we know it, we haven't found it.   Dan Reid: (35:15) Everybody has that, and spirituality and religion are totally different. In religion, you're going to obey a certain god and a set of rules, and then the clergy get involved in it, whereas in spirituality, you're just trying to discover a certain aspect of yourself. [inaudible 00:35:36]. Yeah, so you ... Yeah.   Mason: (35:41) Do you think all of Daoism is deriving to that ... Daoist thought. Is that driving to that reality, being present for the individual practising .   Dan Reid: (35:54) Oh yeah, because you got to be present no matter which aspect of the Dao you practise, including semen retention. If you're not present, you're going to go out of control, and it's all over. Cooking. If you don't pay attention, you're not present, you're not going to get the flavours just perfect, just right, and so, in the spiritual tradition of Daoism, you're just trying to be present in your basic nature, your basic state, which is not something you can really describe, but you can experience it.   Mason: (36:38) Which is then the, I guess, the leading intent behind, say, qigong practise or a tea ceremony. Is that correct?   Dan Reid: (36:47) Yes, yes. Okay, so there's three ... There's so many things that are done in trilogy or in trinity. The basic one ... I mean, and at this level, Buddhism and Daoism agree, okay? I think the most basic one is ... You've heard this translated as emptiness many times. Essential emptiness is simply the fact that there is no solid form. It's all empty, so everything that we take for solid is temporary, impermanence, and all that, so what you really want to know is to understand everything's essential nature, which is formless, and from that you can harvest something. Wisdom. Why get attached to impermanent things? How about following things which are eternal? So therefore, we're not so attached to all these little toys and things that we've got so much. Okay? So that's emptiness.   Dan Reid: (37:56) Then the next one. We hear this a lot too. Light. We're in the light. What's the light? Light's spirit, and the nature of spirit and the nature of light, it manifests unconditional love. They talk about unconditional love, compassion, and people get it a bit wrong. They think, oh, this is like this goody two shoes, love everybody, love your neighbour. It's not that. It's also what heals. A real healer is really using herbs and techniques, breathing things, but behind that is the intent, the light of love, which is ... Without that, the thing doesn't have any power.   Dan Reid: (38:45) And then the third level ... Okay, you've got your essential emptiness, you've got your natural light, your luminosity, you might call it. The next level is energy, just energy. The yin and the yang energy, the five elements, and millions of different kind of smaller energies, all of which are sort of refracted out from your clear light of your basic spirit, and if you use that energy in accord with the wisdom and the compassion of your other two aspects, the energy has power, creative power. You can create something, art. You can heal. You can do positive things. That energy doesn't have what we call power, the power to create, unless it's done in accord with the wisdom and the compassion of your other two aspects.   Dan Reid: (39:54) It's hard for people in daily life to keep in mind that, yeah, well, essentially we're formless, and we're just bundles of energy, and we've got this light, because you can't live in the world without an ego and without a house, and a roof over your head, and you got to wear clothes, so it's just a matter of the relative priorities that you give things. By having understanding of the basic nature, then other things become relative, only relatively important.   Mason: (40:24) Yeah, I mean, it's always an interesting process when you start reading about these concepts, and a book can sometimes blow people's minds, and it becomes fantastical. I think that's why a lot of the time, the spiritual communities of the world, and Byron Bay, where everyone's just discovering these principles for the first time, and it makes you very counterculture because it's hard to land in the grind of everyday life, yet most of the time, that's where you do end up, and having the discipline to walk between those two worlds, embody the chop wood, carry water.   Dan Reid: (40:59) Yeah. I mean, I like Byron Bay a lot. I Enjoyed living there. But some people, they take it too far the other way. Everyone's the healer because they had a workshop in Sydney 10 years ago for two weeks, and there it is, but they're not really living like a healer would or manifesting that kind of energy, and some people just don't want to do anything, so sleeping on the beach or stuff like that. It can go overboard that way. There has to be a balance always.   Dan Reid: (41:37) Again, going back to Daoism, the three powers. [inaudible 00:41:41]. What does that mean? Heaven, Earth, and humanity in between. Heaven, okay, the spiritual stuff, the ancient principles of the Dao. Earth, food, sex, shelter, and in between is the human, and the art of life is correctly balancing those two, and this is what the Chinese are so good at. Most people cannot go into a cave and sit there for 50 years and become enlightened, although some can. There was a teacher, a woman, female teacher, my Tibetan teacher, who spent 56 years in a dark retreat. Came out when she was 106, taught for one year, including my teacher, and then went back, and then achieved the rainbow body. You may have heard of that, but ...   Mason: (42:44) Yeah.   Dan Reid: (42:44) Not many people who can do that.   Mason: (42:45) No.   Dan Reid: (42:45) But you don't have to go out and run a gambling den either, or go way the other way too. There's a balance between. But as long as you stick to the basic principles, it's going to go all right. Going into wu wei simply means don't interfere with the basic ... not only with nature, but with the basic nature of things. Don't rub it against the wrong way, because then it's going to bite back.   Mason: (43:23) It seems to be the biggest thing, going against the grain. I can speak for within myself, is that there is a requiring of faith, and for me, having gone to Catholic school, and not to rip on Catholicism. I know there's a lot of people here who might still be ... not a lot, but maybe might be in that world, so it's not about ... But my experience was I was getting this ... it was this false faith jammed down my throat, and so even the concept of having faith got quite muddied up, and for me I'd say taken into the synthetic, verse where you talk about all these principles of flowing with the way, there is this organic faith that's an organic quality within myself.   Mason: (44:09) Because I was thinking about, what's the antidote for me of the fear that I have that I'm going to run out? You know, the greed that comes up. No, I'm not going to go down that path, because it seems like I'm going to have to give up too much. I might as well just work lots, and all that kind of reptilian kind of way, excessively in that earth energy of like, it's not good enough to just have my shelter.   Dan Reid: (44:35) I know what you mean, because I've spent my entire life, except for two years when I worked in a hotel in Taiwan, as a freelance writer, and there's a lot of thin times when you're a freelance writer. But if you're on the right path, in the sense of your basic way of life ... Again, there's that word again. Way. Dao. That's what Dao means. It means way or path. If you just follow it, and you do no harm to others and all those things, well, then, magic happens. Not miracles, magic. It's the magic of life, and I'm not talking about a magic show, but if you're present and you pay attention, you see opportunities happen everywhere, including in things that you might normally think is a real problem or there's adversity there, but if you just sit with it for a while and watch it develop, whoa. There's an opportunity.   Mason: (45:23) You're right. I mean, when I think of that ... That's my counter to that colonised part of myself, which I do love. It helps me stay in this world. When I feel that come up, and want more now rather than ... It's like you plant a tree and you want that tree to grow into something incredible. You're either going to be able to do that synthetically or make it look bigger or have it go along quicker and further than it actually is, and I know there's a Daoist adage in ... I can't remember which classic, but talking about the fact, like a tree, if you just be patient and let a tree grow in the way that it's meant to grow, eventually it will become a tree that the carpenters won't touch. It'll become iconic.   Dan Reid: (46:34) That's right.   Mason: (46:35) And actually have longevity, and actually become something beautiful.   Dan Reid: (46:38) Yeah, and it'll adjust to its environment, in a way that it will grow better than maybe you trying to make it grow in a particular way you want. Yeah.   Mason: (46:48) Patience is a virtue, I guess.   Dan Reid: (46:50) I'm impatient, basically. Well, I have been. I'm getting more patient now because there's nothing much I can do with my impatience anymore.   Mason: (47:05) Well, it's good medicine. I mean, already, I can feel my stress from the last two weeks clear as day right now in this conversation of whether it's how far along our house is, our new house, and getting our ... you know, the plans of what we're going to do as a family, where the business is at, blah, blah, blah. It's the impatience. I feel it stunting and moving into a non way of being. I can feel like the only way I'm going to take it, if I don't have this faith and patience, and I don't engage in flow, is I'm going to have to use synthetic means.   Dan Reid: (47:45) Yeah, I know. I know what you mean. It's letting things take their course, and if you want to accomplish a particular thing, you have to do it in harmony with the way nature is flowing. You have to make some adjustments. You cannot overcome nature. You can only work with it. It's the way. It's the way it works, and so if you go against the way it works because you think you've got technology, or you can throw money at it or something, something else is going to go out of whack.   Dan Reid: (48:23) I mean, look at the condition of the world today. Look at the oceans. Full of plastics, and the air is ... I mean, I don't need to harp on that. It's just all going ... and it doesn't have to be that way. There are natural ways of handling things which are slower. Slower. This thing about space travel, and maybe eventually you don't need a spaceship. You don't need to be Elon Musk or something. You can teleport yourself. I mean, I think that's how the aliens go around other universes, and dimensions, and solar systems. They teleport themselves. It's scientifically possible.   Mason: (49:10) Yeah, I agree with you there. I feel that one coming.   Dan Reid: (49:16) You become a vibrational breath, which then goes, through intent, to where you already had planned, and when you get there, then you re-materialise.   Mason: (49:29) Don't know if it's within the same conversation, or whether it just came to mind. In terms of one of the elements of Daoism being facing your mortality and then therefore immortality, and almost this presence being in preparation for death without there being an attachment to what happens on the other side, perhaps, or perhaps in certain Daoist traditions, they do have an intention, where do you sit with that, and the relevance of ...   Dan Reid: (50:00) I'm sitting a lot with that lately.   Mason: (50:02) Oh, really?   Dan Reid: (50:05) Yes. Yeah, I'm 72 now, and that guy, Arthur Waley, the translator of the Dao De Jing, who .. he's my favourite. He says one of the things he likes about the Dao is their lyrical acceptance of death. Almost a poetic acceptance, because all it really is is a matter of not being attached to something that's going down the tube. It's going down the drain. Why be attached to your bathwater? You've just had a bath. The water's dirty. You let it out. Right? Your body is the same thing. We get old. The water gets dirty, no matter what you do and no matter how well you eat, or how much qigong you do every day. It's going to expire, and so at that time, or later in life, it really is time to start focusing more on what doesn't disappear. It may not be visible, spirit or awareness, but it's eternal, and it's indestructible, and we all have it, and this idea of religions.   Dan Reid: (51:32) All right, well, if you behave yourself, and you come to church and everything, you'll get a ticket to Heaven, and the other one, you get a ticket to Hell, and this kind of thing. That's not what it's about. You create your own Heaven or Hell, and usually it's on Earth, in life. What you want to do is focus more on that which lasts, which is always there, and you may be back again in another body or even in another dimension, or whatever. But the basic core light of what you really are, the energy and the light, is always going to be there. I discuss this quite a bit in the last chapter of the second book, the second volume of my memoir. That thing, I had to write five times.   Mason: (52:29) Yeah. Yeah. I'm really feeling it right now. I really felt you slow down and sink in there, and ...   Dan Reid: (52:43) Yeah. Yeah. It's absolutely true. Life rushes by very fast if you're living fast, and jumping around, and yet if you slow down, then it can be the same amount of time, the same number of years, but seem a lot longer.   Mason: (53:04) [inaudible 00:53:04] that's an element that really I got I feel a few years ago, and I started to get a bit fearful about life being short, which I felt was relevant. I was like, okay. Great. It's something [crosstalk 00:53:21].   Dan Reid: (53:20) Well, that's good that you feel that way, because life is short.   Mason: (53:24) Well, then as soon as I stopped resisting it ... Because I feel like that's, to be honest, why I got into the Daoist herbs, and then practises, and the concept of immortality, is from a place of fear of the inevitability of death, and because I was young enough and in my 20s, I could convince myself that, for a time, I could a bandaid of immortality over that fear, and then thankfully I think, for myself, and continuing to read, whether it's your books or just from other traditions, it was like, okay. Maybe I keep on going with that thought, and I finally started having the feeling of like, well, life's pretty long, at the same time, which that ... and that was probably the first time I'd experienced I guess an intellectual ... a real yin yang.   Mason: (54:26) It really created two magnetic poles, that first time I felt that, and started recalibrating myself and the way that I approach life, which was one of the most significant times I feel like I've gone, wow, that's ... and being in the perception of yin and yang really does all of a sudden creates these magnetic poles where I don't have to have the answer, but I can orient myself around them, and that's cool.   Dan Reid: (54:50) Yeah.   Mason: (54:50) It's just getting all of that. I'm aware we've been going for about an hour. I think, just in the tradition, the way it's gone, I read one of your biographies, and we jump on for a podcast. I think that would ... If you'd be up for coming back on.   Dan Reid: (55:07) You want to read the second volume, huh?   Mason: (55:10) Yeah, I'm going to go ... I know you said you just updated it, and I assume that'll be ...   Dan Reid: (55:14) Well, I can send it to you as a PDF file if you want.   Mason: (55:19) Yeah. That'll be cool. Let's do that.   Dan Reid: (55:21) I just sent the PDF to my guy at Amazon to upload into the text, but it's very readable, so I'll just send it to you.   Mason: (55:32) Perfect. We'll do that, and I think there's a ... I have got The Art and Alchemy of Chinese Tea as well, which is something I've found ... When I was reading your book, and I know I said we're going to finish up, but I might throw this out there, just as we-   Dan Reid: (55:52) That's okay. I got nothing but time now.   Mason: (55:55) Beautiful. Yeah. It's a long life. I'm sure there was struggle behind the scenes in terms of dedicating yourself to certain practises, to an extent, but your capacity for discipline ... I mean, it was like it's the way ... I guess I can see ... Your biography's name is Sex, Drugs and the Dao, and you do have that character which you throw yourself into the deep end.   Dan Reid: (56:33) Yeah. I think people should. That's okay to do when you're young.   Mason: (56:34) Yeah. But it meant that, off the back of the sex and the drugs, you threw yourself into qigong practise and the tea ceremony practise, and I think I read it at a time where I was-   Dan Reid: (56:47) Cooking. And cooking.   Mason: (56:50) Exactly, and I think I was reading the book at a time ... and it got me reflecting on ... I was exiting a phase of my life, especially with a young child and a business to run, where I wasn't able to get quite as immersive, and I actually remember getting a little bit nostalgic about that part of my life, and maybe you know what I mean.   Dan Reid: (57:16) I do.   Mason: (57:16) And possibly feeling a bit guilty or going down on myself. Getting down on myself. Going down on myself. That's a funny way to put it. Getting down on myself about it, but for you and the concept of discipline, where does it sit now in terms of the discipline around sexual practise, semen retention, qigong practise, tea ceremony, et cetera? How do you relate at this point in your life to the concept of your consistent practise, students-   Dan Reid: (57:53) I was doing some teaching in Byron. I had some qigong classes I did while I was there, and I had a small one going here, but now with the shut down and everything, I got no students here, so I'm not doing any teaching right now. I'd like to but I'm not. For me, personally, I find that it boils down to just the basic things that work best, because like I said, as you get older, you know your time is going to be up at the one point, so there's no more need to ...   Dan Reid: (58:28) You have the knowledge, you can hold an intelligent conversation with people on all sorts of things, but what do I do at home? I'm not asked that a lot. Qigong. I don't practise as much as I used to, but I always do some every day, because it works, and I don't feel comfortable if I don't. I feel my body's tight. I can feel my tendons behind my knees, and I can ... You know, my organs don't seem to be sitting in the right place, the spine isn't quite right, so the qigong works, and I'm getting older, and so it works in an important way. It makes my body work better, and now what I call tea-gong.   Mason: (59:14) Nice.   Dan Reid: (59:14) Which is what the tea is, the Chinese way of tea, and that particular tea, that high mountain oolong tea from Taiwan, is just unbelievable. Do you drink tea?   Mason: (59:27) Yeah. Not that much, though.   Dan Reid: (59:31) Well, you should go and see Snow's brother.   Mason: (59:34) Oh, cool.   Dan Reid: (59:35) He lives in Mullumbimby and-   Mason: (59:37) Oh, amazing.   Dan Reid: (59:38) Yeah, and he's got tea there, and teapots. I mean, you go and visit him and he'll make tea for you, and you'll see. He makes good tea, and you-   Mason: (59:46) Do you want me to give him a plug, or is it a private ... Is it a private thing or is he open to the public?   Dan Reid: (59:52) Absolutely, yeah, because we have a tea website, and it's run out of Taiwan, and it's one of Snow's sisters that mails it out and all that, but we have a lot of people in Byron who like the tea, and so she supplies him, and so he's always got some tea, and some teapots, and some cups available, so you don't have to order it online. You can just go buy it at his house.   Mason: (01:00:17) What's the easiest way to find him? Should we get contacts later from you and I can put it in the show notes? That's easy.   Dan Reid: (01:00:26) Let me see if I can ...   Mason: (01:00:29) Might as well give him a shout out, and what's the website as well?   Dan Reid: (01:00:34) Oolong-tea.org. Oolong, O-O-L-O-N-G, dash.   Mason: (01:00:45) Yep, got it.   Dan Reid: (01:00:46) Okay, now, his number is ... His English name is Dexter.   Mason: (01:00:53) Dexter. Yeah.   Dan Reid: (01:01:00) 0421502811.   Mason: (01:01:03) Awesome. I will reach out to him prior and make sure he's happy with me putting his number on a podcast.   Dan Reid: (01:01:10) I think he will be. I think he will be, because, I mean, people buy tea from him. That's part of what he does for a living, and he's got a food thing in the Mullum farmers' market on Friday.   Mason: (01:01:23) Oh, I probably went past him.   Dan Reid: (01:01:25) Yeah, his stuff always sells out by 10:00.   Mason: (01:01:28) Oh, cool. We'll make it 9:30 now.   Dan Reid: (01:01:33) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, okay, back to what I do. Qigong and tea-gong. I mean, and the tea is the same thing. I love the taste of this tea. When you taste it, when he makes it for you, it's really good, but more than that, it really works for me, especially on my nervous system, my brain. It wakes me up, but not in a way like coffee races you a bit, and it just makes me feel good in a way that sometimes is hard to describe, and there's a whole organic feeling which goes very well with the tea, so I do the tea-gong and the qigong basically more or less at the same time. Speaking of which ...   Mason: (01:02:14) Oh, yeah. Nice mug as well.   Dan Reid: (01:02:19) So that. What else do I do? I still read books on spiritual subjects that I find of interest. Maybe I already know about them, but then I'm just reading a new book on the same subject, and when it comes to health problems, I go with nature. Organic, and same with food, but beyond that, I'm not writing anything right now. The place we live here is just too noisy for me to focus on writing, and I can't teach because I don't have any students here.   Mason: (01:03:06) Hopefully we can spark your online teaching career.   Dan Reid: (01:03:09) Yeah, that might work. That might work. That might work.   Mason: (01:03:14) Well, I mean, it's something ... is fascinating, having read your books for so many years, having read just how much has gone into your own self-education, and just reading about the kinds of conversations that you're having around different aspects of Daoism and Chinese culture and philosophy, just through your books. I can feel how much is simmering under the surface [crosstalk 01:03:46].   Dan Reid: (01:03:46) Yeah. For me, it always had to be something that you could actually go in and get your hands dirty, you know? To actually have contact with people who do those things, who know those things, Daoists or whatever. To do it all from academic sources just doesn't make sense to me. It really doesn't. I mean, I read books by academicians to get background information, but to understand how anything works, you got to try it.   Mason: (01:04:14) Yeah. I think the difference in what you ... what I like about you delivering and talking about the academic side of it, or the classics, is that I think lots of people are going to take ... whether it's yoga or Daoism, and teach it. They don't leave a track of where they've gotten the concepts for because then that leads to accountability and actually having to know your shit, whereas a lot of people don't want to be accountable to that.   Dan Reid: (01:04:41) That's right. Also you'll notice, in my writing, in my books, I don't put a lot of footnotes and references to ... I mean, because my readers trust me. Over time, they trust me, and I say I don't write for academicians. They want to know where I got this fact, or is this true. I say go fact check it if you want. I've never been challenged on anything. I've had editors who don't like some things I write, and I said, "Either you put that in or I'm not going to sign a contract," and I've never had a problem.   Mason: (01:05:16) Yeah. Principles.   Dan Reid: (01:05:17) I don't want to write something that's not true.   Mason: (01:05:21) Yeah. It's not good. I mean, you've definitely got longevity in your Daoist career, anyway, so that's saying something. I mean, and that's always proof in the pudding. There's those names. Yeah. It's really good to connect, because you're one of the names that constantly comes up. As we were chatting about just beforehand, I think, yeah, I came six years ago to Byron, and you'd just left, and it was interesting when I talked about what we did, and they were like, "What are you up to here?" And I was like, "Oh, I'm bringing my company up here, and we talk about Daoist herbalism [crosstalk 01:05:55]."   Dan Reid: (01:05:56) Who'd you talk to?   Mason: (01:05:57) Oh, I mean, it's like a number. I mean, I think maybe it was Si Mullum was the first [crosstalk 01:06:02].   Dan Reid: (01:06:02) Oh, yeah, Si Mullumbimby. He's one of my best friends. He's a didg player.   Mason: (01:06:07) Yeah, didg player, and, I mean, just the general conversation. Nick Cane, who's ... he works here and knew of you, and just your name pops up, and so it's really great to make the connection, and then read your books, and having had your books for over a decade. I look forward to reading the Shots From the Hip: Energy, Light and Luminous Space.   Dan Reid: (01:06:33) Okay.   Mason: (01:06:34) Thanks for sending that my way, and, I mean, yeah, just recommend everyone to go over to Dan Reid, R-E-I-D, .org. Your website's got lots of awesome info there.   Dan Reid: (01:06:46) Yeah.   Mason: (01:06:47) Is there anywhere else you'd like to send people?   Dan Reid: (01:06:49) The tea website.   Mason: (01:06:51) Again, tea website. Oolong-tea.org.   Dan Reid: (01:06:55) Yeah.   Mason: (01:06:55) And then also go in and see Dexter if you're up this way, if you're around Byron Shire.   Dan Reid: (01:07:02) Yeah, do that for sure. You'll get a good cup of tea.   Mason: (01:07:06) Yeah. Yeah. I'm looking forward to it. Thanks so much for coming on and taking the time. Beautiful.   Dan Reid: (01:07:12) All right. Well, I liked doing this with you.   Mason: (01:07:16) Likewise.   Dan Reid: (01:07:17) So if you want to do more [crosstalk 01:07:21].   Mason: (01:07:21) Yeah, I think it'll be great to do ... Yeah, I mean, especially for yourself, if there's anywhere where you're particularly getting any new insights, or you think it's relevant for the current way that the world's working, we can either do that or we can just either come on and have another jam. Both ways work. We'll connect and see what's flowing.   Dan Reid: (01:07:44) Okay.

THIS WILL BE THE MOST IMPORTANT PODCAST EPISODE YOU'LL EVER LISTEN TO! Timothy Ballard is the Founder and CEO of Operation Underground Railroad (O.U.R.). He also serves as O.U.R.'s Jump Team Commander for rescue operations. Ballard began his career at the Central Intelligence Agency where he worked cases dealing with terrorism and Latin America. He has spent over a decade working as a Special Agent for the Department of Homeland Security where he was assigned to the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force and deployed as an undercover operative for the U.S. Child Sex Tourism Jump Team. He has worked every type of case imaginable in the fight to dismantle child trafficking rings. Ballard has worked undercover in the United States and in multiple foreign countries to infiltrate child trafficking organizations. In this effort he has successfully dismantled dozens of these organizations and rescued countless children from sex slavery. He is an expert at managing Internet investigations, particularly those dealing with file-share networks where pedophiles and traffickers go to trade in child pornography. He has trained hundreds of law enforcement officers at home and abroad in best practices to liberate children from sex slavery.Ballard has been featured on many national news outlets to discuss his efforts to combat child trafficking. He has appeared on Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace, The Meredith Vieira Show, CBS Nightly News, ABC Nightline, and CNN Headline News, MSNBC, The Glenn Beck Program, as well as many local news shows. Ballard is the best-selling author of The Covenant: One Nation Under God and is the author of the sequel to that work, The Covenant, Lincoln, and The War. He has taught American and International Politics courses at Imperial Valley College, San Diego State University and American Heritage School. He has been featured regularly on both local and national TV and radio programs to discuss American history and politics and the role America has played in defending liberty at home and abroad. He has often commented on how his academic work in American history has provided him the inspiration and motivation to rescue children--to carry on the American tradition of liberating the captive. He recently received the distinguished George Washington Honor Medal from the Freedoms Foundation at Valley Forge.After serving a church mission to Chile, Ballard graduated Cum Laude with a BA in Spanish and Political Science from Brigham Young University. He went on to graduate Summa Cum Laude with an MA in International Politics from the Monterey Institute of International Studies.Support Tim and O.U.R help end Human Sex Trafficking: Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/timballard89/Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/officialtimballard/O.U.R - https://www.facebook.com/OURrescuehttps://www.instagram.com/ourrescue/https://ourrescue.org/Follow The Story Box on Social MediaInstagram - https://www.instagram.com/thestoryboxpodcast/ Facebook Page - https://www.facebook.com/thestoryboxpodcast Website - https://thestoryboxpodcast.com/The Story Box on Podcast Platforms & Subscribe for more! Apple Podcast - https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/the-story-box/id1486295252 Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/7h8Qv3r2ZV29f7ktJOwmgM?si=FXxYC1JFSHesBv7_d1WtNQ Watch The Full Episode Here: YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/c/TheStoryBox If you enjoyed this episode please subscribe to YouTube & Apple Podcasts, and leave a 5-star positive rating and review over on Apple Podcasts. Share it around with your friends and family.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

How we see ourselves often is shaped by the many voices of our experience —- intersecting identities, some which may be aligned, others in conflict with one another. The voices we internalize may come from our parents or other influential adults from our childhood, or our religions and cultures more broadly. Still, other voices may be those of our ancestors, whom we have never met, but whose experiences have been imprinted in our bodies. In this conversation I speak with the inspiring Dr. Tammy Sanders, a self-identified, Black, gay woman raised in the Black Baptist Church of the deep South. She realized at an early age that in order to survive, she needed to escape parts of herself or perish. Come listen to her incredible journey to wholeness — a holistic approach towards uncomfortable growth surrounded by deep connection with others.Intersectionality.pngAbout Tammy Sanders, Ph.D.Tammy Sanders headshot B&W.pngFor nearly 30 years, Tammy's life and work have been an active commitment to self-awareness, healing and growth. Her professional life has focused on behavioral development for leaders and managers, while her personal emotional, mental and spiritual growth has leveraged 12-step, therapy, and entheogenic experiences to move beyond addiction, depression, complex PTSD and transgenerational trauma. With expertise grounded in experience and research, Tammy remains committed to holistic and accessible mental wellness in service of a stable and just world. Where there are initiatives, efforts and people who share this commitment, she's keen to connect and is best reached via www.linkedin.com/in/tammyssanders. Professionally, she is a seasoned strategist, advisor, facilitator and coach with an MA Anthropology of Media from the University of London, an MBA from the Monterey Institute of International Studies, and a PhD in Education and Technology from Florida International University. Tammy's evolutionary career in media, tech, management, and professional development includes guiding the behavioral growth of leaders at all stages in their careers, from a variety of cultural backgrounds, and across a wide range of industries. Personally, her emotional, mental and spiritual growth has leveraged 12-step, cognitive and somatic therapies, and entheogenic experiences to move beyond addiction, depression, complex PTSD and transgenerational trauma. With expertise grounded in experience and research, Tammy remains committed to holistic and accessible mental wellness in service of a stable and just world. Where there are initiatives, efforts and people who share this commitment, she's keen to connect and is best reached via www.linkedin.com/in/tammyssanders. For more information on this episode please go to https://www.sallyspencerthomas.com/hope-illuminated-podcast/78

Brian C. Wilson is a Professor of American Religious History in the Department of Comparative Religion at Western Michigan University. He has a BSc in Medical Microbiology from Stanford University, an MA in Hispanic Studies from Monterey Institute of International Studies, and an MA and a PhD in Religious Studies with the University of California. Brian … Continue reading "New Age Tycoon: The Life and Legacy of John E. Fetzer with Brian C. Wilson" The post New Age Tycoon: The Life and Legacy of John E. Fetzer with Brian C. Wilson first appeared on School for Good Living Podcasts.

Luis Gonzales is a master facilitator and a global communications expert. We have some fierce hacks from Luis today which include: How his multicultural upbringing shaped his corporate career positively Why cultures play a significant part in your communication Paying attention to one conversation at a time enriches relationships Why noticing how your intuition informs conversations is critical Plus lots more hacks Join our Tribe at https://leadership-hacker.com Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA Transcript: Thanks to Jermaine Pinto at JRP Transcribing for being our Partner. Contact Jermaine via LinkedIn or via his site JRP Transcribing Services Find out more about Luis: Fierce Inc. Website: https://fierceinc.com Luis on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/luisgonzales/    Full Transcript Below:   ----more----   Steve Rush: Some call me Steve, dad, husband or friend. Others might call me boss, coach or mentor. Today you can call me The Leadership Hacker.   Thanks for listening in. I really appreciate it. My job as the leadership hacker is to hack into the minds, experiences, habits and learning of great leaders, C-Suite executives, authors and development experts so that I can assist you developing your understanding and awareness of leadership. I am Steve Rush and I am your host today. I am the author of Leadership Cake. I am a transformation consultant and leadership coach. I cannot wait to start sharing all things leadership with you.   We're joined on the show today by Louis Gonzales. He's a master facilitator and a global communications expert. But before we get into conversation with Luis, it's The Leadership Hacker News.   The Leadership Hacker News   Steve Rush: Did you know that in every language, there are more negative words than there are positive ones. It seems we need lots of words to describe my negative feelings, but we're content with a handful of ones to describe positive feelings. Researchers have found that most cultures have words that describe seven basic emotions. They are joy, fear, anger, sadness, disgust, shame, and guilt. So that's one positive emotion and six negative emotions. It's no wonder so many of us have a hard time keeping our negative comments in check. Over the last 10 years, I've been working with language and communication, and I've noticed a bunch of words in our vocabulary that are unhelpful and could adversely impact on you and your team's outcomes. In the news today, I've called out five that I think are most limiting negative words, and really could be avoided so that we don't hurt, belittle and intimidate those around us. Let's get into them. The first word is can't. When you tell somebody they can't do something, oftentimes they'll end up in believing you, whether you are right or wrong. This is particularly true if the person has come to trust you and to respect you and can often then limit people's behaviours. No, the word no is a mother and father all negative words and no can impact us down to our very core. In fact, research tells us that we rap more slowly to the word no than we do to the word yes. And that our brains respond differently when we're told no. This is a great reminder for us to use this word sparingly and to be thoughtful when we do use it. Failure as in you're a failure, is that ever really a reason to use this word in relation to another person? Until a few years ago, I actually used this on my website and I used the phrase failure isn't an option. Now I put success is your only option. And lo and behold, when people read it, they stay on the page longer. They recognize this as more of a positive enabler. It also stimulates better thinking. Positive beats negative, of course, in every situation. Wrong, the word wrong has its place. And sometimes there's no doubt that something is wrong. However, constantly telling someone they're doing something wrong or that their opinions are wrong are likely to drive a wedge between the two of you. Using this word assumes that only, you know, best. You have the monopoly on what's classed as a truth. So, reserve this word for when there is absolutely no doubt that it is wrong and it's accurate. And finally, the word never. Using generalizations, like always never. Often indicates that you feel very strongly something. However, it may not be an accurate analysis of the situation at all. If you want to intimidate or hurt someone, i.e. You failed everything you try then using generalizations is a great technique, but of course, if that's not your intention, it's probably best to take a different approach and get more specific. That's been The Leadership Hacker News. We'd love to hear your stories and insights, so please get in touch.   Start of Podcast Steve Rush: Luis Gonzales is a special guest on today's show. He is a master facilitator. He's an expert in workplace performance, productivity and communications. Luis welcome to the Leadership Hacker Podcast. Luis Gonzales: Thank you, Steve. It's great to be here. Steve Rush: So, you've got really fascinating backstory. Having now worked as a master facilitator at Fierce, you didn't start out life that way and a very multicultural upbringing in the city of Compton, South of LA. Tell us a little bit about the journey to Compton to where you are now? Luis Gonzales: Well many of your listeners may have heard of the city of Compton. Right now It's known for rap music and extreme gang violence, but I'll say that it was quite not like that back in the sixties and seventies, when I was growing up there, it was a very diverse community. So, I'm very fortunate to have grown up in such a diverse community as Compton. People of different colours and shades, et cetera. It also provided some challenges that I needed to work through as a young person, which made me who I am today, made me a much stronger person who I am today. It's a very working-class community. And I think what sparked me to get into what I'm into now, which is, you know, all about communication, effective communication, or as we say, fierce communication, I used to observe as a child, the different styles of communication that people from different backgrounds and races had all in the same community of Compton. And I used to kind of study that from a very I guess, immature way, you know, why do they talk like that? How is it they're communicating? And what's the actual message they're trying to deliver? How is it being received, et cetera? And again, this is in a multicultural environment. So, you could say it could be between Latin Americans, Mexican Americans, and the way they communicate and communicating with African-Americans perhaps. So, there's two different communication styles there. So, I'm really grateful that I grew up in a diverse world, a diverse neighbourhood with lots of support. Were there challenges? Absolutely. But that has also caused me to become a better communicator today. And I would say a better person overall as well in terms of my outlook on diversity, being more accepting of differences in people, et cetera. So that's a little bit about Compton, my background and how that kind of propelled me into what I'm doing now. Steve Rush: And I wonder if that time that you were growing up, Luis, you had an awareness of the different types of communication because you would have not only had the multicultural language communication was physical, but I suspect that there were a number of different nonverbal communication styles and attitudes that were playing out. It's almost like a communications apprenticeship, right?   Luis Gonzales: Absolutely. Absolutely. I'll give you a perfect example of that Steve. When I was very young, probably second grade, maybe I was seven or eight years old, one of the kids in school who was a Mexican American kid, like myself, was being scolded by the teacher, by the way, I went to Catholic School, but that's neither here nor there, but in those days there were some scolding when you misbehaved or were not behaving as you should. And the teacher was scolding this young Mexican American kid, my classmate. And I remember him looking down and looking down while he was being scolded. And the teacher kept saying, look at me, stop looking down, look at me. And he was getting in trouble because he refused to look at the teacher. And I remember telling my parents that when I went home and it was probably not at that time, I may have been too young, but later I came to understand, and my father helped me understand that's a cultural difference. That's a cultural communication style. That's nonverbal, as you said. So, I'll say in our culture and what I mean by that is, I identify as a Mexican American. So, in my Mexican background, my Mexican family culture when someone is scolded, you don't look that person in the eye, you remain humble and you tilt your head downward. In a US American context, however, that might be seen as disrespectful. And you need to look the person in the eye, who's scolding you, the older person, the elder, whoever it is. So that's one example right there of different communication style, all in English, all in the same country, all within the same overarching culture if you will. Here in Southern California. And yet there's a miscommunication that caused a breakdown in a relationship, and nobody really understood why. Steve Rush: And it's the subtle nuances and those cultural communication styles that you become successful at adapting and learning about, and indeed sharing those lessons. And we'll get onto that in a little bit more detail in a moment. Luis Gonzales: Sure. Steve Rush: When it comes to your corporate career, though, you have a great kind of story of evolution and transformation, your corporate career in the hospitality business. Just tell us a little bit about that? Luis Gonzales: Sure, I started with the Ritz Carlton Hotel, proud to say that. At the ripe age of, I think it was 20 or 21, and it was based here in the Los Angeles area, that hotel property at the time. And so, we receive a lot of high-profile guests, a lot of celebrities, princes and royalty from all over the world. You can imagine that this five-star hotel, the Ritz Carlton in the Los Angeles area, all the people that came through there, I was exposed again to all kinds of cultures and communication styles. And of course, with the Ritz Carlton, they set a very high standard for guest satisfaction, wowing the guests and all of that. And so, in order to exceed the expectations of a guest. That requires communication, that requires effective communication. And so, I was in the school, if you will, while working for the Ritz Carlton, I was in my own school of learning how to communicate across cultures, even within the Ritz Carlton, across departmental cultures, what to speak of. The various cultures that pass-through hotel that I had to interact with. And please, if you will, or, you know, exceed their expectations as we used to say. So, I learned very quickly, not a lot of people were very interested in that. But for me, I took a deep interest in that. And so, for example, one example of an aha moment, if you will, that I had. Was when I was welcoming a wedding party, I had been with the Ritz probably about eight years, by that time and a big Indian wedding party, or what I thought was an Indian wedding party was coming in, everyone dressed to the hilt, all the beautiful clothing they were wearing and all that. And when the bride and her family entered the main doors of the Ritz Carlton, and I was standing there to greet them, I folded my hands in a Namaste fashion and greeted them with Namaste. And, oh my gosh, that was one of the most embarrassing moments. And one of the best learning moments I've ever had, don't assume, they were not Indian, they were Pakistani. Steve Rush: Alright, yeah. Luis Gonzales: They were not Hindu. They were Muslim. And what an aha moment that was for me. Now anybody else, any of my colleagues at that time, might've just said, oh, sorry about that. And then moved on, but I ruminated on it. Like, what's the difference? And what made me assume that they were Indian and how can I now clue into the differences before I put my foot in my mouth and embarrass myself. So that's an example of just one example of some of the learning, the intercultural communication style, intercultural communication learning that I had just by my exposure working at the Ritz-Carlton, exposure to so many cultures. Steve Rush: And I guess, you almost have a conveyor belt of different cultures and different languages that on top of your diverse upbringing, it was just another layer of learning all the way through your career, right? Luis Gonzales: That's right, absolutely. And then not to mention on top of that communication style of the Ritz Carlton itself, they have such a genteel way, I guess this is the best way I can describe it, of communicating, whether it be hard messages to deliver, or, you know, celebratory messages or just your basic memos, just that communication style that is so smooth and gracious and concise. And I learned from that as well, in terms of, you know, another way to communicate in a business setting. Steve Rush: I'm sure you won't mind me mentioning you started out as a bus boy with the Ritz Carlton and ended up as a senior leader for the organization. Luis Gonzales: I did. Steve Rush: And at what point did you make the transition from the hospitality business to being a master facilitator? Luis Gonzales: Yeah, that's a great question. I'm glad you asked that. I was with the Ritz Carlton for a total of about 18 years. I had worked my way through the ranks, as you mentioned, starting as a bus boy slash therapist banquets, waiter, parked cars, did all kinds of things and ended up as a guest services manager, meaning in charge of all the valets and the bell persons, et cetera, and the front of the house as we used to call it. And I had reached a point where I wanted to dive more deeply into this whole idea of intercultural cross-cultural communication, global communication, something peaked my interest at that moment. And I thought to myself, okay, I've put in 18 years in the hotel industry, where is this career going? And is this what my passion is? And I think it just boiled down to that was no longer my passion. I had developed another passion and that was effective communication across borders, across cultures. Within a year, I decided to go back to grad school or go to grad school and complete my education, which I had not done. So, I quit the Ritz, and I remember when I gave my notice, they were dumbfounded. They meaning my managers at the time, my leaders, who I respected at that time, their jaws dropped like you're going to ditch a career, this awesome career that you built for yourself. Okay, good luck. I proceeded to go to the Monterey Institute of International Studies. I got my bachelor's degree in International Studies. I got my master's degree in International Relations with a focus on culture and area studies. And so, I just spearheaded into this whole world of intercultural cross-cultural communication. And that's how I got into that. One of my mentors was my professor. He owned a consultancy company, still does. Called Aperian Global. They do cross-cultural consulting. They did, at that time, I got under his wing. Long story short, that's how I got here to where I am today. I began to start training effective communication. And in particular global cross border cross-cultural communication. I eventually ended up at Microsoft in India, where I worked for two years, coaching and training, the software engineers that were at the customer help desk, if you will, when the cloud has gone down and companies need quick help with that, they would reach my team in India. And I trained them and coach them on their communication styles with US Americans and Canadians. And from there long story short, connected, a few more dots after that and got me to where I am today with Fierce Conversations. Been with them for five years. Love what I do, because it's all about effective communication in so many aspects. In so many different angles, if you will, but that's the short story, Steve. Steve Rush: That's a great story. And I love the fact that all the while through your growing up in your corporate career, and I guess it may have even been completely unconscious. You already had the foundations for a bachelor's and a master's degree right there. Luis Gonzales: Yeah, I did. But I didn't realize. It is now I'm realizing it, but yes, you're right at the time, you don't realize what you know, I guess. Steve Rush: And it's a great story. Thank you for sharing that. Luis Gonzales: Absolutely. Steve Rush: So, tell us a little bit about the work that you do with Fierce, so Fierce Conversations as you called it. Luis Gonzales: Yeah, Fierce Conversations. Let me just start with our starting point. This is a firm belief that we have, and I believe this to be true. I've witnessed and experienced this in my own life. Our careers, our companies, our relationships, heck even our lives, they either succeed or fail and it happens gradually then suddenly. And it happens one conversation at a time. So, conversations are the linchpin, the key to achieving the results that we want, achieving the relationships that we want, the goals that we want or whatever it is we say we want, it starts with a conversation and highly effective people like us. I'll include you there, Steve and I do my best to be a highly effective individual. We track the trends of our lives and we look, and we can adjust. Who do we need to have conversations with to help us achieve our goals? Where are conversations missing that need to happen to avoid any kind of mistakes or perhaps disasters? Where am I not being as candid or as forthright as I could be, or as I should be in a particular situation to help me achieve whatever goals I want. So, at the core we are all about at Fierce paying attention to our individual conversations. Because as I mentioned already, one conversation at a time, we're either moving towards the results we say we want or away from those results. We're either enriching relationships or flat-lining them, or hopefully not, but sometimes damaging them. All happening one conversation at a time. So that's our foundational belief. And from there, we take that idea and we branch out into confrontational conversations, all kinds of leadership conversations, how to have delegation conversations, how to confront when behaviour needs to change now. We talk about the idea of building emotional capital and why relationships, why strong relationships are so important to achieving our organizational goals and results. And so, we branch off in so many different directions, and now we are getting involved with effective conversations, effective communication, as it relates to diversity, equity and inclusion, because those are now topics that have bubbled up to the surface of the public discourse here in the United States, at least. Steve Rush: Great stuff, there's one thing that I'd love to dive into with you. And it's this whole principle of candid and why we struggle with having candid conversations, giving your experience in the corporate world as leaders can play out. What's the reason you find that most leaders struggle with that candid? Luis Gonzales: Most leaders in my experience, and I'm speaking from personal experience as well. In addition to my 30 plus years of just work experience, it boils down to fear-based. If I'm candid, I fear that I may be wrong. I fear that I may damage some relationships. I fear that I might be wrong and look incompetent. So many fears, if you will hold us back from being candid. From saying what we really feel and want to say. Now oftentimes, again. I'll speak for myself. Many of us, we say what we feel is expected of us, to say what we should say. What people want us to say. If you're a people-pleaser like me, you will definitely say what you think people want you to say, but that may not be the real truth. So, where that gets us into trouble is if I'm not having a candid conversation with use Steve, for example, and there are pieces missing because I'm not taking the conversation to a deeper level where it needs to go, and there are pieces missing. In other words, there are pieces of the conversation that I'm not sharing with you as I'm not being so candid with you, that leads you to perhaps start assuming. You start filling in the blanks in your own mind with your assumptions and those assumptions are often wrong. And so that leads us to more in an organization that leads us to mistakes, rework, loss of clients, duplication of efforts, and all of those have a dollar sign cost to them. So back to your question, it's fear, fear of something that holds us back from being candid. Steve Rush: It's also, sometimes, not even intentional, isn't it? Some people will, most of the time, we'll try to land some things so that they don't choose somebody else. They don't upset somebody, but in doing so run a massive risk of that kind of whole waterfall effect of other things playing out as a result of it. Luis Gonzales: Yeah, I like to say by trying to avoid, you know, whatever the issue it is that you're trying to avoid and not being candid about it, you're actually exacerbating it because it's going to explode later. I've never had an experience of not addressing an issue or a problem, and it got better on its own. So, by ignoring that, and by not being candid by withholding what we really think we should say or feel that we need to say, we're actually accelerating that undesired result that we're trying to avoid. Does that make sense? Steve Rush: Right, yeah, definitely so. there's a little part of our brain that kind of gives a little bit of a wobble when we sense somebody not being as honest as they could be with us, there is a little shift in dopamine. And that's triggered in our, what often is referred to as gut feel is its intuition, isn't it? Luis Gonzales: Yeah. Steve Rush: How do you encourage your clients and colleagues to pay attention to that intuition and to challenge where they recognize somebody is not being as candid as they should? Luis Gonzales: By getting curious. That's where I always go to. So, if you're having a conversation with someone and your intuition, your sense is telling you there's more to the story here. I feel that there's some things being withheld here. I don't feel this person is being completely honest or what have you, ask questions, do not be satisfied on the surface. And when I say ask questions, it could sound something like, tell me more about that. Help me understand how you're seeing that. I'm not sure I'm clear what I'm hearing you say, is that right? I'd like to know more about that so that you can get a more complete picture of how they're seeing things. If they're withholding being candid from you. So, you can learn more, you can provoke learning by what I call interrogating reality, interrogating their reality, not interrogating the person, but by really staying with asking questions to find out more. And I always say with leaders, I've trained, don't be satisfied on the surface. Don't be satisfied with the first response you and I will say across the board, even if someone is being candid with you and they are being forthright and you know, on the surface with you, levelling with you. Still get curious, ask questions because there are details that may come out that they may not have thought of or purposely withholding from you. So, it's always good to just start with curiosity. Steve Rush: Defiantly, I suspect also at the same time in asking more questions, you get less assumptions, right? Luis Gonzales: That's exactly right. I love that you said that because again, like I mentioned before, we, human beings tend to fill in the blanks. We make up stories and most of the time, those stories are not accurate. But we do that. It's human nature. And so, when I ask the questions, it alleviates those assumptions because now I have clarity on what's actually really going on here. I'm not making it, so you're absolutely right. Steve Rush: So, if I'm a leader and I'm communicating across a global business. How can I get more aware of how to adapt and change and modify my communication approach across a wider business? Luis Gonzales: The first thing I would recommend is if you have the opportunity to observe how different people from different cultures are communicating, that's the first step. And that's how I learned is just to sit back and watch and observe and observe how the communication is going back and forth. And then I would say, I don't know if this holds true today. And I say this because we're in a pandemic, we're all working remotely now. And I have a feeling I don't have data to back this up, but I have a feeling, our communication styles are all shifting. Even our global and cultural communication styles may be shifting as a result of us all working remotely and all being connected now on Zoom calls, et cetera. But prior to COVID I would say the second thing that I would start with is just by exploring at a very high level, what are some of the general ways or themes that cultures generally use in their communication? Are they high context? Are they low context? How do they view time? And when I say low context or high context you know, are there a lot of explanations? Do they give a lot of context? And you have to ask questions to help them get to the point or like us, US Americans, are we direct? We just get right to the point. So, it's helpful to understand that because from my experience, for example, working with Indians in India, very high context culture very averse to telling a client, a customer or a boss, no. And so you have to find out ways again, getting curious. Tell me more about that. Ask more questions to get the real answer. For example, I learned the hard way that when I was communicating with some of the Indian members of my team back in India, at Microsoft. If I would ask a question such as, will you have that ready by Friday end of day? Some of the answers I might get would be something like, we'll do our best, sir. Well, as a US American, I take that as a positive. We'll do our best. Sounds good. It sounds like they're going to pull this off, but I know I had to learn this, that's actually a no. Steve Rush: Yeah, right. Luis Gonzales: That's a subtle way of saying no. And so back to your question, first of all, observe how these conversations are going on. Anyone has an opportunity to join in that kind of a conversation via conference call or what have you to observe it, and then just do a little research on your own on the internet. There's plenty of resources out there to just see on a very high general level, what are those different communication styles that different cultures have? And especially if any of your listeners who are hearing this know that they're going to be working with or interfacing with people in a particular culture, then of course, zero in on how that culture communicates. And I will say, I don't paint a wide brush, generally speaking. That's the culture communication style, but not everybody in that culture may follow that style. So, you know, we don't want to stereotype, but those are my two suggestions. First of all, see if you can observe and see the dynamics of the conversation between people from different cultures and start doing a little exploration and research on your own into those different communication styles. Last thing I'll say is most importantly, and I almost forgot to say it Steve. It's important for us to look at our own selves. What's our communication style personally, and what's our own cultural communication style. In other words, where were we born? I was born here in the United States. I'm a very direct communicator, but I also have my own personal way of communicating. So, it's important for us to know our own communication styles and our own values that back up those communication styles, and then take a look at the other ones. Steve Rush: Whilst I suspect stereotypes on the whole people feel a little bit uncomfortable with, there are pockets of behaviours that aren't quite consistent culturally and internationally, and it's a good starting point if nothing else, right? Luis Gonzales: I agree, and you know, I think this kind of reminds me of what I mentioned a minute ago where cultural communication styles may be shifting and maybe kind of unifying. I remember it was just 10 years ago, 9 years ago at Microsoft in India, there was this term Global English. There was a thought that at some point we would all in business be speaking the standardized what they called Global English. And it was almost forced in a way, I guess you could say, you know, we're going to you know, there was a strong push for everyone across cultures, especially within Microsoft and the teams that I was working with to use this, you know, model of the Global English. Now, as I mentioned with COVID and all of us kind of communicating even more. Now, frequently, more frequently across cultures, cross borders, et cetera. I suspect again, and I don't have research to back it up, but I suspect it's accelerated that. I don't know if I'd call it Global English, but we're all settling into some norm, I guess you could say in how we gain more of, it's more of an internet communication style, I guess you could say. Steve Rush: Yeah, I observed that too. One of the things that's quite interesting that I'd love your view on right now is that we're often speaking to folk around the world now via Zoom or WebEx or MS Teams and through our laptops and devices. Do you see that being a barrier to communication? Or do you see that as an enabler? Luis Gonzales: Well, I think it's a little bit of both. At first, it's kind of a barrier and I still see the barrier, it's just a technology thing. People are still trying to understand how the technology works, what are all the buttons they need to push and the video, getting comfortable with video on all of that. So, I see it as initially a little bit of resistance perhaps, a little bit of a hindrance, and there are some challenges, but I see this as a wonderful opportunity for the world at large, for humanity to be able to now increase our understanding our cross-cultural understanding and a humanness and communication. So, I see it in the bigger picture as a plus, as a definite boon to us on the planet. But right now, I think we're still in the transition period. I did a webinar yesterday where I'm still helping people understand where the raise hand icon is, and please put your phones on mute and where the camera button is and all that. So, I think once this becomes more normal in however long of time that takes, I think we're going to see a lot more benefits than challenges. Steve Rush: I wonder also if this could be a crutch to enable some of those more candid conversations, because I'm not having to worry about the physical environment, I'm in now, I can just rely on my communication and I'm safe. Luis Gonzales: Yeah, and that's the tricky part. And I'm glad you mentioned that. I'm noticing that in the webinars that I deliver, et cetera, that some people, for whatever reason, maybe they have valid reasons for it, but see this as an opportunity to sit back, be quiet, do my work, not really engaged and just deliver what I need to deliver. I noticed that on my webinars, when people, you know, don't turn on their cameras and they don't participate. And I sense that some people may feel that this is great. This is an easy way for them to just stay below the radar, do the need full and get on with it. But I don't see that as a benefit because I know that we, as human beings are hard wired emotionally. There's research, there's Nobel prizes that have been awarded to those researchers that prove that at the core were emotional beings. We need to connect with one another and with COVID happening and us working remotely and being physically separated and being physically distance, I suspect that it's even more important for us now to really communicate, to really turn on our cameras, to really ask questions and to try our best, to give eye contact and communicate with people in as much, a way as possible that we used to when we weren't separated physically like this. Steve Rush: Yeah, and I think it's a really great observation by the way, too. It starts of course, and ends with what we've started to talk about a little earlier on, which is just conversations and the more conversations you have as you call it, your linchpin unlocks the rest of communication. Luis Gonzales: Yes. Steve Rush: So, the next part of the show, Luis, we get to turn the lens on you now and we get to hack into your leadership mind. So, first thing I'd like to ask of you is what would you say your top three leadership hacks are? Luis Gonzales: Oh, the first leadership that I have that works for me that I want to share with anybody else. We just talked about it. Connect with others, your team members, your colleagues, The people who report to you, the people who don't report to you, your leader. Connect with them on a human level. And what do I mean by connect? What do you mean by connect Luis? Just what I was saying a few minutes ago, if you're on a Zoom call, if you're on a conference call, when you have the opportunity to do so, when the kids aren't running around in the background, when your spouse is not asleep on the couch or whatever reasons you have for not turning on your camera, when you have the opportunity to do so, turn on your camera, give eye contact and connect with others around you in the organization, on your team, and get curious as I've said earlier, but not the business as usual. Get curious, not the agenda. Here's what we're here to talk about today. It's an investment in time. I know we're all busy, but spend some time at the beginning of your calls to just check in personally, just as we used to do in the office, in the coffee room, how was your weekend? How are things going with everything on your plate? What's keeping you up at night? How are the kids, all that stuff, right? Well, that's been missing. Now that we're kind of new reality. So, I encourage people to do that, connect on a human level. And we all know what that connect means with the individuals that we're connecting with. Remember the conversation is of equal value to the relationship. So, what I mean by that is. if I withhold something from the conversation, if I withhold cantor from the conversation, if I withhold curiosity from the conversation, if I will withhold going deep in our conversations, if I keep my conversations surface at a surface level, my relationship will also be surface. My relationship will not be very candid. If I'm having unreal conversations with people around me, fake conversations around me, saying what I don't really feel. Saying what I don't really think. Well, then my relationship will also be unreal. So that's my first leadership hack, connect with people. Number two, model accountability, model vulnerability. As leaders we all want our people to be accountable. We want people to take responsibility for what they're supposed to take responsibility for, but it's been my firm belief and my experience over these many years, accountability, this idea of accountability cannot be trained and it cannot be mandated. It's a personal choice that we have that we make. If it's to be it's up to me, given the current unfortunate situation, I find myself in. Given the current situation, whatever it is I find myself in, what can I do to move this in a positive direction, that is accountability, that can't be trained. It can't be mandated. It can be observed and people can see leaders model it and follow through with it. So, leaders and everybody for that matter. Model accountability, own up to where you make mistakes, jump in where you know, something needs to be done. And don't ask whose job was this? Who's accountable for this, oh, this isn't my job. This isn't my lane, stay in your lane. None of that, go for it. Do the needful, do what needs to be done. And when you model it, people will observe it. And most people will follow along with that. Third is give ownership and accountability to your people. When I say your people, this is for leaders, of course. Give ownership and accountability. And I learned that way back at the Ritz-Carlton. For example, when we were at the Ritz, if we had a dissatisfied, yes, we would call that a guest opportunity. Even when I was a bus boy, or even when I was a waiter, if a guest came up to me complaining about something, they were unhappy. I could take care of that situation and turn that guest around right then and there, it didn't matter my rank, it didn't matter my title. It didn't matter my role. That's ownership and accountability. And we were able to turn those guests around on our own without having to call a manager, going through any necessary unneeded steps, I should say. So, in the corporate world, we all have teams. We're all part of teams. If you're leader of a team, give ownership to your people, let them shine, let them rise. And sometimes even let them fall on their knees. Sometimes my leaders let me do that, but I learned that way. But celebrate the successes, give ownership, give accountability to your people, allow them to have accountability and celebrate the successes. That builds trust, that strengthens the relationship. And that is an investment in returns later on down the road. Steve Rush: Some super learning in there Luis, particularly that whole one around accountability and ownership because it doesn't cost anything, does it? Luis Gonzales: No. Steve Rush: To take on that responsibility, to get things fixed and all too often organizations handed off to somebody else. And that's where you lose impact and you lose customer relationships. Luis Gonzales: That's right, absolutely right. Steve Rush: So, the next part of this show, we call it Hack to Attack. You affectionately just referred to it as maybe fallen on your knee. So, a time in your life or your career or your work where something hasn't gone well, it's maybe not gone to plan, but as a result of the experience, we know use that as a lesson in our life that serves as well. What's your Hack to Attack? Luis Gonzales: Well, my Hack to Attack, not too long ago, I worked for an organization. It was in the last 10 years. I had a very large shoes to fill, large boots to fill, a lot of responsibilities. I was in charge of learning and development for North America and South America. Living in India, my team in the United States. So, I was reluctant to delegate. I was taking everything on my own and I was not managing my time wisely. And consequently, my health suffered after about a year and a half of that, I reached, you know, I had been burning the candle at both ends. It was awful in terms of the stress that I went through, the headaches I got, the weight that I gained, the bad skin problems that I got through all of that. But now, as I reflect on that, what have I learned from that? And what do I do differently now to avoid that? Especially with the role I have with Fierce is I delegate. There are two reasons why I delegate. Number one, obviously, to free my plate up so that I can, you know, add, you know, different types of projects or more important things onto my plate, making time for those things. But also, the flip side of that is I'm developing the people around me by delegating, giving them more responsibility. So, it's not just taking it off my plate, but it's actually with an interest to develop others. And so now I delegate a lot more than I used to. I used to be afraid to delegate. Didn't like it, but now I know how to have that conversation with people around me, they're willingly, hopefully will you know, accept what I'm offering to them as it, you know, will help them in their career. And then of course the time management falls into that as well. And that was a big challenge for me. I would say for up until about five years ago, when I joined Fierce, learn how to have a delegation conversation. Steve Rush: And sometimes it's getting into that burnout zone. That is the learnings, the real learning to make you realize that there are things that are still within your control that you can fix. Luis Gonzales: Yeah, and if I can just say this really quickly, we have so many justifications for not delegating. Some of them are valid. Like I can just do it quicker myself. It'll take time to train them to do it. So, I might as well just do it myself. They may make mistakes and I'm responsible for it. So, I might as well just do it myself and more. Steve Rush: And that not sustainable though, isn't it? That's the thing. Luis Gonzales: Nope, absolutely not. I found that out the hard way. Steve Rush: The last thing that we're going to do with you today, Luis is we're going to give you an opportunity to do some time travel and you get to go back to bump into Luis at 21 and give them some advice. What's your advice to him? Luis Gonzales: Wow, you know, I often do this, a very reflective person. So, my advice to my 21-year-old self, imagine I'm applying for a job at the Ritz Carlton man, and I'm just a young chap and I'm a little nervous about this. Here's what I would tell myself. Number one, follow your heart. Well, you know what? I always follow my heart, Steve, but I'm going to add to that. Follow your heart and don't forget, use your logic. You have logic there for a reason. So why I'm giving myself advice? My 21 self-advice on this is because I've been like a Peter pan all my life, you know, flitting about the planet and that's been great. I've had some awesome experiences. I got a great career, but I often made decisions solely based on my emotions and I didn't use logic wisely. So there has to be a balance there, at least for me. So, number one, follow your heart. But remember use your head too, heart and head are your best friends. They go together. Steve Rush: They do. Luis Gonzales: Two, stop thinking and caring about what others might think. I've always been a people pleaser and people wouldn't even think that would be advice that I would give myself because people see me as just someone who always does what he wants to do. But deep down inside myself, I know, you know, I'm always concerned about what other people might think about my decisions, my actions, et cetera. So, stop that. Just follow your passions, use your logic and go for it. The third one is you can't please everyone. So be okay with that. Steve Rush: Yeah, exactly.   Luis Gonzales: Not every everyone's going to like your decision, not everyone's going to back you up. Not everyone's going to agree with you. It's part of life. Get over it. Steve Rush: Great advice, Luis. So, I would love for our conversation to last longer and carry on. And we've had a number of conversations over the last few months and then have enjoyed immensely speaking with you. The folk, listening to us today who want to carry that conversation on with you. Where's the best place we can send them? Luis Gonzales: Please, first go to our Fierce website to the podcast tab. That's where this podcast will be hosted and others there. That's a good place to start. So, the website is www.fierceinc.com F.I.E.R.C.E.I.N.C.com from there, you'll see the resort resources tab. We have tons of resources that are free, where you can take a deeper dive into everything we've been talking about today. The second way is I'd love to connect and expand my network. Our network on LinkedIn, you can find me on LinkedIn, linkedin.com/in/Luis Gonzalez, all one word, L.U.I.S G.O.N.Z.A.L.E.S Those are the ways to connect and continue the conversation. Steve Rush: We'll make sure they're in the show notes too Luis, so that people can head straight over. Luis Gonzales: Awesome, thank you, Steve. Steve Rush: I just wanted to say, thank you ever so much, Luis for taking some time out of what is a busy time for you to join us today on the podcast. So, thanks for being on The Leadership Hacker. Luis Gonzales: Thank you for having me, Steve. It was a real pleasure. I enjoyed it. Thank you. Steve Rush: Thanks Luis.   Closing Steve Rush: I genuinely want to say heartfelt thanks for taking time out of your day to listen in too. We do this in the service of helping others, and spreading the word of leadership. Without you listening in, there would be no show. So please subscribe now if you have not done so already. Share this podcast with your communities, network, and help us develop a community and a tribe of leadership hackers.   Finally, if you would like me to work with your senior team, your leadership community, keynote an event, or you would like to sponsor an episode. Please connect with us, by our social media. And you can do that by following and liking our pages on Twitter and Facebook our handler their @leadershiphacker. Instagram you can find us there @the_leadership_hacker and at YouTube, we are just Leadership Hacker, so that is me signing off. I am Steve Rush and I have been the leadership hacker.    

Dr. Kathleen M. Bailey is professor of Applied Linguistics at the Monterey Institute of International Studies joins us to talk about teachers attitudes towards development, why much of what happens in our classrooms is unknown to teachers and what to do about these issues.For more podcasts, videos and blogs, visit our website Support the podcast – buy us a coffee!Develop yourself! Find more about our teacher training courses Watch as well as listen on our YouTube channel

Sheila Barry is CEO and Co-founder of SC Creative Innovations, a Northern California start-up whose mission is to enable the dreams of fellow inventors. A former non-profit bilingual Community Relations Director and Grant Writer, Sheila developed her cold calling skills when contacting corporate “social responsibility” C-level executives for her organizations. Based on trial and error, she developed a system of successful, timesaving techniques from her years in the public sector. This work and persistence have now enabled her to “cold call” several hundred manufacturers and potential licensees to get her company's product and those of her fellow inventors through the doors of Corporate America. She is an active member of the Inventors Alliance and enjoys the creative process of inventing. She holds a BA in Hispanic Studies and a MA in Linguistics (TESOL) from the Monterey Institute of International Studies. Sheila speaks fluent Spanish and has been recognized by Rotary International and other nonprofit organizations for her numerous contributions locally and to international communities around the globe.

Lesson 6.1: 2 Nephi 1-5"We Lived After the Manner of Happiness"Book of Mormon Evidence Podcast - Come Follow Me Supplementary StudyHosted by Rod Meldrum - Author & International Speaker - The FIRM FoundationGuests in this episode: Timothy Ballard Founder and CEO of Operation Underground Railroad (O.U.R.).Tim Ballard spent over a decade working as a Special Agent for the Department of Homeland Security where he was assigned to the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force and deployed as an undercover operative for the U.S. Child Sex Tourism Jump Team. He has worked every type of case imaginable in the fight to dismantle child trafficking rings. Ballard has worked undercover in the United States and in multiple foreign countries to infiltrate child trafficking organizations. In this effort, he has successfully dismantled dozens of these organizations and rescued countless children from sex slavery. He is an expert at managing Internet investigations, particularly those dealing with file-share networks where pedophiles and traffickers go to trade in child pornography. He has trained hundreds of law enforcement officers and has testified before the United States Congress on best practices to liberate children from sex slavery.Ballard has been featured on many national news outlets to discuss his efforts to combat child trafficking. He has appeared on Fox & Friends, Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace, The Meredith Vieira Show, CBS Nightly News, ABC Nightline, and CNN Headline News, MSNBC, The Glenn Beck Program, as well as many local news shows.Ballard is the best-selling author of “The Covenant: One Nation Under God,” and is the author of the sequel to that work, “The Covenant, Lincoln, and The War.” He has taught American and International Politics courses at Imperial Valley College, San Diego State University, and American Heritage School. He has been featured regularly on both local and national TV and radio programs to discuss American history and politics and the role America has played in defending liberty at home and abroad. He has often commented on how his academic work in American history has provided him the inspiration and motivation to rescue children–to carry on the American tradition of liberating the captive. He recently received the distinguished George Washington Honor Medal from the Freedoms Foundation at Valley Forge.After serving a church mission to Chile, Ballard graduated Cum Laude with a BA in Spanish and Political Science from Brigham Young University. He went on to graduate Summa Cum Laude with an MA in International Politics from the Monterey Institute of International Studies. He resides in California with his wife and children.Official WebsiteBallard’s LDS Living InterviewThe Abolitionist Movie WebsiteMormon Channel InterviewSupport the show (http://www.bookofmormonevidencestreaming.com)

Find out more below... This interview was conducted by Micheál O'Mathúna who is a Journalist, Author, Filmmaker, Media Relations Consultant and Radio Show presenter. He also conducts one-to-one coaching, group coaching and delivers transformative workshops in various areas of health and wellbeing. He is also the founder of The Health Zone, which an inspiring, motivational and educational platform to empower people to be healthier, happier, more authentic and realise their true potential in their lives. You can find out more about Micheál O'Mathúna and The Health Zone here. You listen to every episode of The Health Zone here ------> http://www.thehealthzones.com/ Follow us on Instagram here ---> https://www.instagram.com/dhealthzone/ Follow us on Facebook here ----> https://www.facebook.com/thehealthzoneshow/ Follow us on Twitter here ---> https://twitter.com/dhealthzone Subscribe to our YouTube channel here ---> https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkbZXDYJF_ypdjEmQk-BEIg ---> Join our Facebook Group here ---> https://www.facebook.com/groups/thehealthzone/ Daniel tells us how: ----more----   ✓ The way that can be spoken...is not the real way. ✓  Everything gets accomplished by doing nothing. ✓  Fasting is nature's way of healing and is a great method of maintaining your health. ✓  Important proper breathing is for your health. ✓  Everything is connected on the energetic level. ✓  The Tao of sexual health can be used to improve your relationship. Daniel Reid is a bestselling author and a leading expert on eastern philosophy and medicine. He has written numerous books and magazine articles on various aspects of Asian self-health and self-healing practices, and has established an international reputation for the practical efficacy of his traditional approach to modern health problems. Daniel Reid was born in 1948 in San Francisco and spent his childhood in East Africa. After completing a Bachelor of Arts degree in East Asian Studies at the University of California, Berkeley in 1970, and a Masters of Arts degree in Chinese Language and Civilization at the Monterey Institute of International Studies in 1973, Reid moved to Taiwan, where he spent 16 years studying and writing about various aspects of traditional Chinese culture, focusing particularly on Chinese medicine and ancient Taoist health and longevity systems. In 1989, he relocated to Chiang Mai, Thailand, where he continued his research and writing until 1999, when he immigrated with his wife Snow to the Byron Bay region of Australia, where he now makes his home. Daniel Reid's published books include: The Tao of Health, Sex, and Longevity, The Complete Book of Chinese Health and Healing, Handbook of Chinese Healing Herbs, Complete Guide to Chi Gung, Shambhala Guide to Traditional Chinese Medicine and The Tao of Detox.   

Welcome to the 2019 IIEX North America Conference Series. Recorded live in Austin, this series is bringing interviews straight to you from exhibitors and speakers at this year’s event. In this interview, host Jamin Brazil interviews David Wolfe, Prinicipal at Inguo. Contact David Online: LinkedIn Inguo [00:00] David Wolfe.  Inguo is the name of the company.  They’re an NEC spin-out of the AI laboratories at NEC Corporation in Japan.  David’s got a really interesting background, including Olympic-level wrestling in the United States for those of you who are fans of that.  We don’t actually dive into it, but it was certainly worth mentioning. I thought that was fascinating seeing that kind of background and then coming into market research.  They have AI-empowered insights discovery tool. It’s the first of its kind in the data science industry; it’s got a ton of automation and value that it can bring. They’re very early in their inception, and I think it’s a great time if you’re looking for AI-empowered insights and discovery that you’d take advantage of at least picking up the phone and having a conversation with David.  Enjoy. [00:48]   My guest today is David Wolfe, principal of Inguo. [00:51]   So, I started my career after grad school in international policy.  So my original background is linguistics, cultural anthropology, and international policies.  So, I have an M.A. in international policy from the Monterey Institute, now known as the Middlebury Institute.  I worked for a firm in Washington, D.C., focusing on the Kashmir dispute where I was working with India and Pakistan, but basically trying to give a voice to the people of Kashmir because they are just basically innocent by-standers caught in the middle of nothing.  But I will leave it at that ‘cause that’s a touchy subject and don’t want to scare people away. [01:27] I hear you.  I think that’s great.  That’s an interesting...  There are a couple of things there that are really interesting there for me.  One is that you’re talking about adding voice to a subset of the population that doesn’t have voice, which in a lot of ways is the fundamental core tenet of market research.  So it’s about uncovering the hidden truth, sometimes the ugly truth, so that brands can better deliver on their customer promise. [01:52] That’s correct, 100%. So, I also in my studies studied mass communications, but mass communications from a critical theory point of view.  So looking at things like for urban planning and information cities and how we can utilize technology to make us better as a society. But not looking at societies as a “one size fit all” because we are a big, diverse world.  So how we can utilize this to ingratiate each other without imposing our culture or someone else’s culture whatever on someone else but meeting in the middle and finding understand, which I think market research now is really trying to do that and find the humanity within market research.  And so, that was what drew me into this. [02:36] At a macro-level brands are doing the same thing.  So, this is what I find so interesting, and I’ve said this before:  It used to be the case of brands were who they said they were and now they are who their customer says they are.  So this paradigm shift that happened when Facebook started really... And now it’s at scale inside of our world, and everybody is aware of it.  And so, if you’re going to outperform the indices, your peer group, as an organization, the question is really how good are employing and activating insights inside of your decision-making.  So you’ve GOT to be empathetic towards what the customer’s needs are in order to win in today’s marketplace. [03:21]   That’s right, that’s right.  So you really need to understand the humanity level, rather than just seeing someone as a number or as a consumer, as a dollar sign, or a yen or something like that,

In this episode of Globally Speaking, Max Troyer talks about his work as a professor at the Monterey Institute of International Studies (MIIS). Their curriculum, including technology, language, and business management courses, trains students for exciting careers in the ever-expanding localization industry. Tune in to hear his expertise!

I recently sat down with Hillel Schenker, co-editor of the Palestine-Israel Journal, to discuss recent events in Gaza. Hillel Schenker is co-editor of the Palestine-Israel Journal, a Jerusalem-based independent English-language quarterly, initiated and maintained by a group of prominent Israeli and Palestinian academics and journalists. It aims to shed light on, and analyze freely and critically, the complex issues dividing Israelis and Palestinians. Schenker served for 13 years as editor of New Outlook, the Israeli peace monthly founded in the spirit of Martin Buber's philosophy of dialogue, that served as a vehicle for understanding Israeli-Arab affairs and as a catalyst for dialogue and initiatives for peace. He has written for The Nation, Los Angeles Times, L.A. Weekly, Tikkun, Israel Horizons, In These Times, the Israeli-Hebrew-language press and many other print and electronic outlets. He was an activist and co-founder of the Peace Now movement and has served for many years as spokesperson for the Israeli branch of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War. He is an International Advisory Board member of the Global Majority center for non-violent conflict resolution based at the Monterey Institute of International Studies.

Event recording from 19th of May 2017 Dr Patricia M Lewis is the Research Director, International Security at Chatham House. Her former posts include Deputy Director and Scientist-in-Residence at the Center for Non-proliferation Studies at the Monterey Institute of International Studies; Director of UNIDIR; and Director of VERTIC in London. Dr Lewis served on the 2004-6 WMD Commission chaired by Dr Hans Blix; the 2010-2011 Advisory Panel on Future Priorities of the OPCW chaired by Ambassador Rolf Ekeus; and was an adviser to the 2008-10 International Commission on Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament (ICNND) chaired by Gareth Evans and Yoriko Kawaguchi. She holds a BSc (Hons) in physics from Manchester University and a PhD in nuclear physics from the Birmingham University. She is a dual national of the UK and Ireland. Dr Lewis is the recipient of the American Physical Society’s 2009 Joseph A Burton Forum Award recognizing 'outstanding contributions to the public understanding or resolution of issues involving the interface of physics and society'.

The Terrorism Lectures, 2nd Edition, is a collection of timely and engaging lessons directly from the classroom of terrorism expert James J. F. Forest. The book and accompanying online materials delve into the history of terrorism, its root causes, its many forms and organizations, as well as the frameworks that analysts use to determine the scope of terrorist threats.Review''… one of those rare books that actually delivers what it promises… [it] has great utility as a college text, a handy reference for the layperson, or a quick memory refresher for the long-time analyst.'' --Mark Roberts, Journal of Strategic Security''… an enormous service to students and teachers of terrorism alike.'' --John Horgan, Professor, Georgia State University''Forest has an excellent grasp of a very complex subject. ... [The Terrorism Lectures is] a well-written account that covers most of the main basis relevant to terrorism.'' --W. R. Matchett, Democracy and Security''This guided tour through the intellectual landscape of terrorism studies provides an accessible road map for the new-comer and some open-road for the journeyman to explore.'' --Bill Braniff, Executive Director, National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, University of Maryland''Comprehensive, logically structured, up-to-date, and highly accessible, The Terrorism Lectures is a fantastic work of synthesis, massive in both scope and insights.'' --Assaf Moghadam, Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) Herzliya, and author of The Globalization of Martyrdom''Forest has created a comprehensive yet incredibly accessible resource--one that serves as an exceptional learning tool while also providing the reader with a conversational experience that stretches across the various dimensions and aspects of terrorism.'' --Jennifer Giroux, Center of Security Studies, ETH Zurich''Dr. James Forest is one of the most prolific contemporary authors on terrorism and counterterrorism topics and his latest offering--The Terrorism Lectures--is his best. ... [It] provides the reader with a personal tutorial delivered by one of the nation's most articulate and gifted lecturers.'' --Russell D. Howard, Brigadier General (Retired) and Adjunct Professor and Senior Research Fellow at the Monterey Institute of International Studies''This is a great, very accessible overview for students of terrorism studies!'' --Annette Idler, Doctoral Candidate, University of Oxford --ReviewsAbout the AuthorJames J.F. Forest, Ph.D., is Professor and Director of the Security Studies program at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. He is also a Senior Fellow with the U.S. Joint Special Operations University, and was previously the Director of Terrorism Studies at the U.S. Military Academy, West Point. He has taught courses and seminars for a broad range of civilian, law enforcement, and military audiences in several countries. He has also published 20 books and dozens of journal articles, served as an expert witness for terrorism-related court cases, and testified before members of Congress.

Don Watson joins Professor Bates Gill in conversation to discuss his new Quarterly Essay, 'Enemy Within. American Politics in the Time of Trump' which takes the reader on a journey into the heart of the United States in the year 2016. Watson, with characteristic wit and acuity, places Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders in a larger frame. He considers the irresistible pull - for Americans - of American exceptionalism, and asks whether this creed is reaching its limit. He explores alternative paths the United States could have taken, and asks where its present course might lead Australia as a dutiful ally. "The best book by an outsider about America since - forever," David Sedaris, on Don Watson's American Journeys. Don Watson is a historian, author and public speaker. After writing political satire for Max Gillies and speeches for the Victorian premier John Cain, he became Paul Keating's speechwriter in 1992 and wrote the award winning biography Recollections of a Bleeding Heart: Paul Keating Prime Minister (2002). His Quarterly Essay, Rabbit Syndrome - Australia and America, won the inaugural Alfred Deakin essay prize in the Victorian Premier's literary awards. His other books include Death Sentence: The Decay of Public Language, American Journeys and Bendable Learnings: The Wisdom of Modern Management. Dr Bates Gill is Professor of Asia-Pacific Strategic Studies, Coral Bell School of Asia and Pacific Affairs, ANU. From 2012 to 2015 he was CEO of the United States Studies Centre at the University of Sydney and from 2007 to 2012 served as the Director of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. Dr Gill has also led major research programs at US public policy think tanks, Brookings Institution and Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, DC and the Monterey Institute of International Studies.

Juls Bindi, the CEO and Founder of ZuGoPet joins Host Deirdre Breakenridge on Women Worldwide. ZuGoPet is a brand of innovative and fashionable pet products, which includes a signature, multifunctional pet carrier. With a passion for animals and her entrepreneurial spirit guiding her, Juls designed a way to help pets that suffer from separation and travel anxiety. On the show, Juls discusses her inspiration behind ZuGoPet, what she learned from her research about animals and travel, and how social media is a great way to raise awareness about pet safety. Just a little more about Juls … Prior to founding ZuGoPet, she answered a true calling to be a mental and physical healing life force. Juls studied at the Monterey Institute of Touch in Carmel Valley and earned a massage degree. Soon after, Juls founded Awake and Living, a website dedicated to educating readers on health, wellness and self-awareness. You can learn more about ZuGoPet on the website  A little more about Your Host, Deirdre Breakenridge … Deirdre Breakenridge is an author, entrepreneur and CEO of Pure Performance Communications. A 25-year veteran in PR and marketing, she is the author of five Financial Times Press books including her latest titles, “Social Media and Public Relations,” and “Putting the Public Back in Public Relations.” Breakenridge speaks nationally and internationally on the topics of PR, social media and marketing. She's an adjunct professor at NYU and UMASS at Amherst, a recognized blogger at PR Expanded, and also the co-founder of #PRStudChat, a dynamic twitter chat with PR professionals, educators and students.    

For our first show in December, the Women Warriors special guest is Geva Salerno.  Join us on Wed, Dec 3rd at Noon ET when Geva will share her insights on “Manifesting Your Passion.”  How can you take your passions and really make a difference?  Listen to find out!Geva Salerno is an author, artist, musician and speaker. She started her spiritual journey at the age of 15 as both a creative and technical writer. Passionate about understanding the world, she seeks to inspire others through her writing. Ms. Salerno possesses both a bachelor’s degree in biochemistry from the University of Massachusetts and a master’s degree in international policy from the Monterey Institute of International Studies. She is a member of the Gulf Coast Writers Association of Lee County Florida, the National Association of Professional Women and the Female Entrepreneur Association. Ms. Salerno has lived in both India and Mexico.

For our first show in December, the Women Warriors special guest is Geva Salerno.  Join us on Wed, Dec 3rd at Noon ET when Geva will share her insights on “Manifesting Your Passion.”  How can you take your passions and really make a difference?  Listen to find out!Geva Salerno is an author, artist, musician and speaker. She started her spiritual journey at the age of 15 as both a creative and technical writer. Passionate about understanding the world, she seeks to inspire others through her writing. Ms. Salerno possesses both a bachelor’s degree in biochemistry from the University of Massachusetts and a master’s degree in international policy from the Monterey Institute of International Studies. She is a member of the Gulf Coast Writers Association of Lee County Florida, the National Association of Professional Women and the Female Entrepreneur Association. Ms. Salerno has lived in both India and Mexico.

In May, India completed the largest democratic election the world has ever seen. Over the course of five weeks, more than 800 million people turned out to cast their votes. The election of Narendra Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) came as a surprise to many, especially since the incumbent Congress Party has held power for the majority of India's democratic history.The overwhelming support for the BJP may be a sign of changing priorities among voters. Rather than voting along religious, caste and other identity lines as has historically been the case, Indians voted for Modi's promise of economic reform and growth. However, religion remains a strong influence in Indian politics. Only 9% of Muslims voted for the BJP, which may reflect lingering concerns over the 2002 ethnic riots that took place in Gujarat while Modi was chief minister of the state.What does India's new leadership mean for the country's economic and foreign policy outlook? What are the implications of lingering religious and ethnic tensions in this vast democracy?The panel of speakers include: Pradeep Chhibber, Professor and Indo-American Community Chair in India Studies, University of California, Berkeley, Thomas Blom Hansen, Reliance-Dhirubhai Ambani Professor of South Asian Studies, Professor of Anthropology and Director, Center for South Asia, Stanford University, and Sunder Ramaswamy, President and Frederick C. Dirks Professor of International Economics, Monterey Institute of International Studies.The panel discussion will be moderated by David Arnold, President, Asia Foundation.For more information about this event please visit: http://www.worldaffairs.org/events/event/1314

"Every second breath comes from the ocean," said Mary Hagedorn, a research scientist with the Smithsonian Institution and the Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology. Many people don’t realize how much we depend on the ocean for food, health and jobs. With climate change and pollution altering seas and coastlines, the speakers agreed we need to do a better job of monitoring these systems. Scientists and businesses have to work together, according to Michael Jones, president of The Maritime Alliance in San Diego. “There’s always going to be uncertainty with climate change, but uncertainty can’t be an excuse for inaction,” said Jason Scorse, Director of the Center for the Blue Economy at the Monterey Institute of International Studies. "This is immediate, this is now, this is accelerating, and the good side is people realize that." Jason Scorse, Director, Center for the Blue Economy, MIIS Mary Hagedorn, Research Scientist, Smithsonian Institution/Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology Michael Jones, President, The Maritime Alliance, San Diego This program was recorded in front of a live audience at The Commonwealth Club in San Francisco on October 28, 2013

This week: CAAM Fest is here! Formerly the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival, the revamped CAAM Fest is a celebration of food, music, and, of course, films. Thursday night's opening film is Linsanity, and the program over the next 10 days looks to be exciting. Contributor Preeti Mangala Shekar brings us interviews with two influential filmmakers Mira Nair, and Deepa Mehta. This year, Mira Nair brings The Reluctant Fundamentalist to CAAM Fest: Deepa Mehta renders Salman Rusdie's Midnight's Children to the screen: This is a scan of a photograph taken by me during the Communal riots on Ahmedabad in February/March 2002. The photo shows the skyline of Ahmedabad filled with smoke as buildings are set on fire. (Wikimedia Commons) We talk to Professor Pushpa Iyer of the Monterey Institute of International Studies, and her student Raymond Aycock about a recent trip they undertook to the western Indian state of Gujarat to investigate the real story behind the most modern state in India. With Hosts Preeti and RJ. The post APEX Express – March 14, 2013 appeared first on KPFA.

The Heritage Region of the International Association of Business Communicators will hold its 2012 conference, “Find your bridge,” in Pittsburgh October 12-14. This is the latest in a series of podcast conversations with top presenters from the conference discussing the topics they will cover in their conference appearances. James Cerruti, Senior Partner, Strategy and Research, Brandlogic In this program, we speak with James Cerruti, senior partner for strategy and research with Brandlogic. His presentation at the Heritage Region Conference will focus on “Sustainability and Corporate Reputation: The Keys to Leadership.” James will report on BrandLogic's second annual Sustainability Leadership Report, a landmark study of real vs. perceived sustainability performance for 100 leading global companies. You can learn more about how to “Build Your Bridge” to communications success by attending the IABC Heritage Region Conference, Oct. 14 -16, at the Westin Conference Center, Pittsburgh.  Register at: www.iabcheritageconference.com. Biography James Cerruti brings to his senior role with Brandlogic over 20 years of experience in leading strategy, marketing, and brand consulting engagements, in North America and worldwide. His consulting career includes executive posts as the president of Vivaldi Partners, a New York City-based marketing and brand consultancy; as one of the founding partners of FutureBrand, and as a director with Coopers & Lybrand. His numerous brand strategy clients have included: Allianz, Bank of Montreal, CarlsonWagonlit Travel, CNA Financial, Deloitte, Deutsche Telecom, Dun and Bradstreet, First Union, FleetBoston, Hyundai Kia Motors, KPMG, MasterCard International, Merrill Lynch, Olympus, PNC Bank, PricewaterhouseCoopers, RBC Financial Group, Remy Cointreau, Scudder Investments, Siemens, State Street Corporation, Telefonica, US Bancorp and Zurich Financial Services. James holds an M.B.A. in International Business from the Monterey Institute and a B.A. in Greek Archeology from Antioch University. He is fluent in Greek and conversational Spanish and French. His work has been published in the Journal of Business Strategy, among others. Subscribe to the RSS feed in a reader Subscribe to the IABC Heritage Region Conference Podcasts in the Apple iTunes Music Store.

Dr James Martin, Founder of the Oxford Martin School and founder of the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Monterey Institute of International Studies. the largest nongovernmental organization in the world devoted exclusively to research and training to stop the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

Dr. Patricia Lewis, Deputy Director and Scientist-in-Residence, James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies (CNS), was the keynote speaker at the International Nuclear Safeguards Policy and Information Analysis Course held May 23 -27, 2011 at the Monterey Institute of International Studies (MIIS). The course was sponsored by MIIS, CNS, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL). Dr . Lewis provides ideas for moving forward with the establishment of a nuclear weapon free zone in the Middle East by thinking beyond the limitations and seeing over the hurdles. She goes through the reasons why the Middle East is such a challenge in terms of verification and safeguards and offers some ideas for the ways forward on the verification regime. For more information on International Safeguards Policy and Information Analysis summer course, visit http://cns.miis.edu/edu/course_nucsafe.htm. For other nonproliferation seminars, visit CNS Nuke Tube at http://nuketube.tv

Has NAFTA been beneficial for Mexico and has it really been a good thing for her citizens?  Will opening the U.S. to cross border trucking help the people of Mexico and the U.S. to build a better life as the media and governments claims?  What are the benefits of NAFTA for truck drivers from both sides of the border? Our special guests are Professor William Arrocha of the Monterey Institute of International Studies in Monterey, California. An expert in U.S.- Mexico relations, he teaches courses in international political economy, international relations, comparative politics (US, Canada and Mexico) and trade policy.  He also assisted in the drafting of the North American Free Trade Agreement, pursuant to the Provisions of Article 1904.  Joining us from Mexico City, Mexico is DiegoDelgado González, a documentary film director and co-director at Totora Films and a graduate in Licenciatura, Communications from the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana.  As a producer, cameraman and correspondent in Mexico City at IPS Inter Press Service, he knows first-hand of the quality of life experienced by the Mexican people.  We'll take you inside Mexico City and the NAFTA Cross Border Agreement and report on who is really benefiting from NAFTA and who is not.

Ferenc Dalnoki-Veress, PhD, Research Scientist & Adjunct Professor, James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies (CNS), Monterey Institute of International Studies (MIIS) reviews basic concepts of radiation, radioactivity, particles, etc. at the "Radiation and You: From Myths to Medical Facts" seminar, held at the Monterey Institute of International Studies (MIIS) on May 10, 2011. The seminar was presented by the Monterey County Health Education Consortium and made possible by the following organizations: California State University Monterey Bay, Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula, Monterey County Health Department, Monterey County Medical Society, Monterey Institute of International Studies (MIIS), Natividad Medical Center, and Salinas Valley Memorial Healthcare System. The James Martin Center for Nonproliferation at MIIS is a member of the Preparedness and Emergency Response Research Center (PERRC) and also conducts activities as part of the Centers for Public Health Preparedness (CPHP) program. For more information, please visit the Chemical & Biological Weapons Nonproliferation Program at http://cns.miis.edu/programs/cbwnp/index.htm

Patrick Feehan, PhD, Radiation Oncologist at the Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula lectures participants of the "Radiation and You: From Myths to Medical Facts" seminar, held at the Monterey Institute of International Studies (MIIS) on May 10, 2011, on the health effects that may happen in Japan and the United States after the Fukushima disaster. He also talks about radiation threshold doses for cancer, lessons learned from Chernobyl, and unexpected exposures to radiation. The seminar was presented by the Monterey County Health Education Consortium and made possible by the following organizations: California State University Monterey Bay, Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula, Monterey County Health Department, Monterey County Medical Society, Monterey Institute of International Studies (MIIS), Natividad Medical Center, and Salinas Valley Memorial Healthcare System. The James Martin Center for Nonproliferation at MIIS is a member of the Preparedness and Emergency Response Research Center (PERRC) and also conducts activities as part of the Centers for Public Health Preparedness (CPHP) program. For more information, please visit the Chemical & Biological Weapons Nonproliferation Program at http://cns.miis.edu/programs/cbwnp/index.htm

Richard Rupp, MD Radiologist at the Natividad Medical Center addresses concerns about radiation exposure to healthcare workers at the "Radiation and You: From Myths to Medical Facts" seminar held on May 10, 2011 at the Monterey Institute of International Studies. The seminar was presented by the Monterey County Health Education Consortium and made possible by the following organizations: California State University Monterey Bay, Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula, Monterey County Health Department, Monterey County Medical Society, Monterey Institute of International Studies (MIIS), Natividad Medical Center, and Salinas Valley Memorial Healthcare System. The James Martin Center for Nonproliferation at MIIS is a member of the Preparedness and Emergency Response Research Center (PERRC) and also conducts activities as part of the Centers for Public Health Preparedness (CPHP) program. For more information, please visit the Chemical & Biological Weapons Nonproliferation Program at http://cns.miis.edu/programs/cbwnp/index.htm

Dr. William Perry, former U.S. Secretary of Defense and currently a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and "Maichael and Barbara Berberian" Professor at Stanford University, was the keynote speaker at the workshop "Preparing for Nuclear arms Reductions, Technical Transparency and Monitoring Challenges", sponsored by the Institute of Nuclear Material Management (INMM) California Chapter and the Nonproliferation and Arms Control Technical Division Standing Committee on International Cooperation on May 5, 2011. The workshop was organized by the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies (CNS), Monterey Institute of International Studies (MIIS) and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL). Dr. Perry played a vital role in the implementation and strengthening of the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction Program and joined with senator Sam Nunn, George Shultz and Henry Kissinger to promote a vision of the world without nuclear weapons and practical steps towards its achievement. For more videos on nonproliferation, please visit the CNS Nuke Tube site at http://nuketube.tv

Dr. Reza Aslan, author of the International best seller "No god but God", scholar of religion and creative writing and activist - visits the Monterey Institute of International Studies on November 4, 2010. He gives a talk about Islam in America today to a packed Irvine Auditorium and is introduced by MIIS president Dr. Sunder Ramaswamy.

Guest: Lt. General Robert G. Gard, Jr., U.S. Army-retired, Chairman, Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation Lt. General Robert G. Gard, Jr. is Chairman of the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation http://www.armscontrolcenter.org where his policy work focuses on nuclear nonproliferation, missile defense, Iraq , Iran , military policy, nuclear terrorism, and other national security issues. During his military career, Gard saw combat in both the Korea and Vietnam wars, and served a three year tour in Germany . He also served as Executive Assistant to two secretaries of defense; the first Director of Human Resources Development for the U.S. Army; Special Assistant to the Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs; and President of National Defense University (NDU). After retiring from the U.S. Army in 1981, after 31 years of distinguished service, Gard served for five years as director of the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies Center in Bologna, Italy, and then as President of the Monterey Institute of International Studies from 1987-98. Since 1998, he has been an active consultant in Washington , D.C. , on national security issues. Gard has written for well-known journals and periodicals that focus on military and international affairs and lectured widely at U.S. and international universities and academic conferences. He serves on the board of eight non-profit organizations and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Gard holds a B.A. from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and both an M.P.A. and Ph.D in Political Economy & Government from Harvard University . He can discuss the new START agreement, Obama’s Global Nuclear Summit in D.C. April 12-13, threat reduction and keeping nuclear weapons out of the hands of terrorists, role of the U.S. in non-proliferation efforts.

Ambassador James Goodby, Hoover Institution, Stanford University is a guest lecturer at the "U.S.-Russian START Plus Arms Control Simulation" at the Monterey Institute of International Studies. Ambassador Goodby talks about his involvement with various U.S.-Russian nuclear negotiations, including the Start I treaty between 1981 and 1983, and the Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) Program. The class, taught by Dr. William Potter, Director of the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, is a simulation of U.S.-Russian strategic arms reduction talks. Students assume the role of U.S. and Russian arms control officials in charge of negotiating a follow-up accord to the current START Treaty which will expire in December 2009.

Ambassador James Goodby, Hoover Institution, Stanford University is a guest lecturer at the "U.S.-Russian START Plus Arms Control Simulation" at the Monterey Institute of International Studies. Ambassador Goodby talks about his involvement with various U.S.-Russian nuclear negotiations, including the Start I treaty between 1981 and 1983, and the Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) Program. The class, taught by Dr. William Potter, Director of the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, is a simulation of U.S.-Russian strategic arms reduction talks. Students assume the role of U.S. and Russian arms control officials in charge of negotiating a follow-up accord to the current START Treaty which will expire in December 2009.

Resources * Philosophy for Children (http://www.mtholyoke.edu/omc/kidsphil/stories.html) — Philosophical questions for students based on children’s books. Each book has a link to the philosophical issues covered in the book and another link with discussion questions. Great way to do HOT with younger students! * HippoCampus (http://www.hippocampus.org/) — (from the site) HippoCampus is a project of the Monterey Institute for Technology and Education (MITE). The goal of HippoCampus is to provide high-quality, multimedia content on general education subjects to high school and college students free of charge. * Google Earth 5 (beta release) (http://earth.google.com/) * Historical imagery from around the globe * Ocean floor and surface data from marine experts * Simplified touring with audio and voice recording * Mars included; still missing Moon * Cool Math (http://www.coolmath.com/) — Lots of math resources–LOTS! * BibMe (http://www.bibme.org/) — (from site) Free fully automatic bibliography maker that auto-fills. It’s the easiest way to build a works cited page. * OttoBib (http://ottobib.com/) — Bibliography by ISBN; several formats; auto alphabetize! * Lexipedia (http://www.lexipedia.com/) — Word power visually (definition, antonyms, synonyms, etc) * Be the Boss! (http://www.principalspage.com/theblog/archives/people-want-a-boss) — Blog post from Principal’s Page. Even if you’re not the principal, find some good leadership ideas here. * iEar (http://www.iear.org/) - I Education Apps Review iFaves * Toddler Teasers — ($1.99 for all four or $.99 each in iTunes store) Learn letters, numbers, shapes, and colors! * TextLater — ($.99 in iTunes store) Schedule SMS to be sent when you want it sent–need we say more?

Ambassador Richard Butler, former head of the United Nations Special Commission on Iraq (UNSCOM) and Australian Ambassador to the United Nations, talks about his views on reaching international consensus for the elimination of nuclear weapons. This was a public event sponsored by the Graduate School of International Studies and the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Monterey Institute of International Studies.

Voices from 2020, Vol. 7, Published April 11, 2007. In this seventh episode of our Voices series, the four founders of the Monterey Institute for Social Architecture, including our podcast regulars plus Mike Thomas and Peter Gaarn, host a roundtable discussion on how the essence and aims of corporations have evolved since 2007 – and up to the “present day” of our current podcast – brought to you from the year 2020. Competition has been replaced by strategic partnerships as “the order of the day” throughout most business ecosystems as of this time, and it is the goal of each business to actively ensure proper care and attention to each of its stakeholders – even more so than in the past.

On September 10, 2001, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told Congress that waste in the Pentagon is "a matter of life and death." He said some estimates show "we cannot trace $2.3 trillion." Then came September 11. Though Pentagon waste is hardly news, a new study has business leaders dropping their jaws. They say the Defense Department's financial management would put any civilian company out of business. "No one is accountable"... and nobody cares. The US spends more on defense than the rest of the world combined, but nobody knows if GI's in Iraq receive the equipment they need or whether it's ever been paid for. Has the War on Terror replaced the war on waste? We hear from experts in international relations, a former national security advisor and two members of the House Government Reform Committee. Making News: Bodies of Two Abducted American Soldiers RecoveredThe remains of two kidnapped American soldiers are being returned to the United States after Iraqi authorities said they showed signs of "barbaric" torture. Major General William Caldwell told reporters the area where they were found was booby-trapped. Rod Nordland, Newsweek magazine's chief foreign correspondent, joins us from Baghdad.Reporter's Notebook: Why Would North Korea Launch a Long-Range Missile?Satellite photos reportedly show that, for the first time since 1998, North Korea has fueled a ballistic missile system in the eastern part of North Korea. There's disagreement about whether it will have to be fired within a day or two or up to a month from now. The Taepodong-2 is thought to have the capability of reaching American shores. Daniel Pinkston directs the East Asia Program at the Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Monterey Institute in California.