Seize the Moment Podcast

On episode 193, we welcome Al Snow to discuss the Netflix documentary series ‘Wrestlers’, what makes Ohio Valley Wrestling special, the trajectory of Al Snow’s wrestling career, why his earlier WWF characters weren’t appealing, the creation of Al Snow and Head and how a severely mentally ill character became popular, the current trend of wrestlers focusing more on their in-ring skills rather than emotionally connecting with the crowd, his struggles with younger wrestlers on his roster, why the WWE and AEW aren’t as idealistic as they appear to be, and the importance of long-term and emotionally-driven storytelling for success. Al Snow  is an American professional wrestler and actor. He is best known as one of the co-owners of Ohio Valley Wrestling, and as a former wrestler for Smoky Mountain Wrestling, Extreme Championship Wrestling, and World Wrestling Entertainment. Al has also held various backstage positions for professional wrestling promotions. He  worked as a road agent for Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA, later Impact Wrestling) from 2010 to 2017 and has owned and then co-owned Ohio Valley Wrestling since 2018. His experiences as an owner and the story of Ohio Valley Wrestling are featured in the hit netflix documentary series, Wrestlers.  | Al Snow | ► Twitter | https://twitter.com/TheRealAlSnow ► Instagram | https://twitter.com/TheRealAlSnow ► Facebook | https://www.facebook.com/RealAlSnow ► OVW Live |  https://ovwrestling.com ► OVW Academy | https://ovwacademy.com ► Wrestlers on Netflix | https://www.netflix.com/title/81592264 Where you can find us: | Seize The Moment Podcast | ► Facebook | https://www.facebook.com/SeizeTheMoment ► Twitter | https://twitter.com/seize_podcast ► Instagram | https://www.instagram.com/seizethemoment ► TikTok | https://www.tiktok.com/@seizethemomentpodcast    

On episode 192, we welcome Eric Gosselin to discuss the Netflix show ‘Wrestlers’, the history of Ohio Valley Wrestling, the documentary series as a human interest story and microcosm of capitalism, succeeding in wrestling and why being great is often not enough, Al Snow’s journey in the WWE and pivoting after being released, the documentary exhibiting the complexities of its characters, why the best wrestling shows and rivalries have some elements of truth, HollyHood Haley J and her rivalry with her mom, why the crowds boo her despite her being a sympathetic character, and what season 2 could potentially look like. Eric Gosselin is a multifaceted talent in the entertainment industry, known for his diverse roles as a producer, actor, writer, director, and cinematographer. He’s also the co-host of the Kill Streak podcast. Notably, he has contributed significantly to the world of documentary filmmaking. Eric has been involved in the production of 'Last Chance U,' a  Netflix documentary series acclaimed for its deep and empathetic portrayal of junior college football players and his most recent work includes production on the critically acclaimed Netflix documentary series 'Wrestlers.' This series, delving into the raw and intricate world of professional wrestling, highlights his ability to capture and present compelling narratives. | Eric Gosselin | ► Twitter | https://twitter.com/EricTheGosselin ► Kill Streak Podcast | https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/kill-streak/id1515038799 ► Wrestlers on Netflix | https://www.netflix.com/title/81592264 Where you can find us: | Seize The Moment Podcast | ► Facebook | https://www.facebook.com/SeizeTheMoment ► Twitter | https://twitter.com/seize_podcast ► Instagram | https://www.instagram.com/seizethemoment ► TikTok | https://www.tiktok.com/@seizethemomentpodcast    

On episode 191, we welcome Dannagal Young to discuss our susceptibility to misinformation, how she fell for and later abandoned conspiracy theories, the hidden incentives behind the media’s extreme partisanship, Covid as an indicator that most people form their beliefs based on their tribes, the clout chasing behind the extreme stances in the Israel/Palestine conflict, the types of misinformation various political groups are susceptible to, why conspiracy theorists are “losers,” the necessary harmony between rational and intuitive reasoning, how the US political parties became polarized, and utilizing local politics to begin cultivating a collaborative mindset. Dannagal Goldthwaite Young is a professor of communication and political science at the University of Delaware. She is an award-winning scholar and teacher, a TED speaker, an improvisational comedian, and the author of Irony and Outrage: The Polarized Landscape of Rage, Fear, and Laughter in the United States. Her newest book, available now, is called Wrong: How Media, Politics, and Identity Drive Our Appetite for Misinformation. | Dannagal G. Young | ► Website | https://sites.google.com/view/dgoldyoung/home ► Twitter | https://twitter.com/dannagal ► Mastodon | https://mastodon.social/@dannagal  ► Bluesky | https://bsky.app/profile/dannagal ► Wrong Book | https://amzn.to/47kfogQ Where you can find us: | Seize The Moment Podcast | ► Facebook | https://www.facebook.com/SeizeTheMoment ► Twitter | https://twitter.com/seize_podcast ► Instagram | https://www.instagram.com/seizethemoment ► TikTok | https://www.tiktok.com/@seizethemomentpodcast    

On episode 190, we welcome Claire Jean Kim to discuss affirmative action and the arguments for and against it in recent Supreme Court cases, the history of Asian minorities in the US being weaponized against Black minority groups for political ends, if institutions should be considered as contributing to a racist society if some minority groups prosper within them, the economic ceiling of non-white groups in the US, the flaws of diversity programs and the superiority of reparations programs, the denial of systemic anti-Black racism, the conservative backlash against Critical Race Theory, the legal concept of strict scrutiny and the societal benefits of creating racial categories, and the myth of meritocracy. Claire Jean Kim is Professor of Political Science and Asian American Studies at University of California, Irvine. She is the author of two previous books, Bitter Fruit: The Politics of Black-Korean Conflict in New York City and Dangerous Crossings: Race, Species, and Nature in a Multicultural Age, both of which earned best book awards from the American Political Science Association. Her writing has appeared in The Los Angeles Times, The Nation, and Ms. Magazine, and she has been a guest commentator on MSNBC and NPR.  Dr. Kim has been a fellow at the University of California Humanities Research Institute and The Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. Her new book, available now, is called Asian Americans in an Anti-Black World. | Claire Jean Kim | ► Website | https://faculty.uci.edu/profile/?facultyId=2453 ► Asian Americans in an Anti-Black World Book | https://amzn.to/3ry3twE Where you can find us: | Seize The Moment Podcast | ► Facebook | https://www.facebook.com/SeizeTheMoment ► Twitter | https://twitter.com/seize_podcast ► Instagram | https://www.instagram.com/seizethemoment ► TikTok | https://www.tiktok.com/@seizethemomentpodcast  

On episode 189, we welcome Roy Richard Grinker to discuss the cultural differences of conceptions of mental illness, the WEIRD model of mental health and its limitations in helping us understand it, the false dichotomy of the social/cultural and biological models of psychological disorders, the limits and benefits of using the DSM, how the model of neurodivergence doesn’t negate the existence of emotional struggles, Roy’s grandfather undergoing treatment with Sigmund Freud and why he considered him to be a poor psychotherapist, how Nepali concepts of mental illnesses focus more on their physical elements and why this affects treatment, and the promise of epigenetics in helping to treat trauma-related, generational disorders. Roy Richard Grinker is professor of anthropology, international affairs, and human sciences at the George Washington University. He is a cultural anthropologist specializing in ethnicity, nationalism, and psychological anthropology, with topical expertise in autism, Korea, and sub-Saharan Africa. He is also the director of GW's Institute for Ethnographic Research  and editor-in-chief of the journal Anthropological Quarterly. He is the author of several books, including Unstrange Minds: Remapping the World of Autism. His newest book is called Nobody's Normal: How Culture Created the Stigma of Mental Illness. | Roy Richard Grinker | ► Website | https://anthropology.columbian.gwu.edu/roy-richard-grinker ► Twitter | https://twitter.com/roygrinker ► Nobody’s Normal Book | https://amzn.to/48u09mC Where you can find us: | Seize The Moment Podcast | ► Facebook | https://www.facebook.com/SeizeTheMoment ► Twitter | https://twitter.com/seize_podcast ► Instagram | https://www.instagram.com/seizethemoment ► TikTok | https://www.tiktok.com/@seizethemomentpodcast    

On episode 188, we welcome Wendy Dio to discuss her marriage to and career managing Ronnie James Dio, Dio’s relationship with Ritchie Blackmore and time in Rainbow, moving on to Black Sabbath and whether he was intimidated by replacing Ozzy Osbourne, his refusal to write commercially focused music and how that caused him to form his own band, the meaning of Dio’s music and the themes of magic and good and evil, creating music for the underdogs of the world and his songs about mistreated children (including trans kids), why ‘Hungry for Heaven’ is Leon’s favorite song, Wendy’s favorite songs of his, Dio inspiring Jorn and Johnny Gioeli, Sebastian Bach discovering Dio’s version of Black Sabbath, working with Jack Black and Ronnie’s voice overpowering Tenacious D’s microphones, the contrasting parts of Ronnie’s personality (including his perfectionism), and what Wendy wants Ronnie to be remembered for. Wendy Dio is the President and Owner of Niji Management. Over the past thirty years, she has been involved in many aspects of the music business, receiving awards from Performance and Pollstar for stage set design and concert video production, along with serving as executive producer on numerous gold and platinum albums. She was the wife and manager of the iconic Ronnie James Dio. In 2010, she co-founded the Ronnie James Dio Stand Up and Shout Cancer Fund, which has raised over $2 million for research, education, and early detection screenings. She helped contribute to the posthumous release of Ronnie James Dio’s book, Rainbow in the Dark: The Autobiography. Wendy was also one of the producers of and prominently featured in the amazing documentary Dio: Dreamers Never Die. | Wendy Dio | ► Website | https://www.ronniejamesdio.com ► Website 2 | https://diocancerfund.org ► Twitter | https://twitter.com/officialrjdio ► Facebook | https://www.facebook.com/OfficialRonnieJamesDio Where you can find us: | Seize The Moment Podcast | ► Facebook | https://www.facebook.com/SeizeTheMoment ► Twitter | https://twitter.com/seize_podcast ► Instagram | https://www.instagram.com/seizethemoment ► TikTok | https://www.tiktok.com/@seizethemomentpodcast  

On episode 187, we welcome Katie Palmer to discuss the lack of social funding for the arts, theater as philosophy and how it teaches us to become better thinkers, how the visceral theater experience cultivates empathy and a sense of belonging, theater as a necessity for a flourishing democracy, the Federal Theatre Project and how it’s national director Hallie Flanagan shaped it, why governments should support art, the Matthew Effect and how it stifles untapped talent, the message of the play ‘The Nobodies Who Were Everybody’, the red scare of the 1930s and whether suppressing art was actually about Communism, and theater as a representation of the aspects of our lives we normally choose to avoid. Katie Palmer is the co-director of the Theater in Asylum production, The Nobodies Who Were Everybody. She is a graduate of NYU's NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts with a BFA in Drama. She is the founding co-Artistic Director of Theater in Asylum. Theater in Asylum joyfully pursues a rigorously researched and ensemble-driven approach to theater-making. They create performances to investigate our past, interpret our present, and imagine our future. They prize space to process, space to question—asylum. Katie has co-created all 13 of their original 13 productions, which have been presented across New York City and the East Coast and internationally in London and mainland Europe. | Katie Palmer | ► Website | https://www.theaterinasylum.com ► Instagram | https://www.instagram.com/theaterinasylum ► Facebook | https://www.facebook.com/theaterinasylum Where you can find us: | Seize The Moment Podcast | ► Facebook | https://www.facebook.com/SeizeTheMoment ► Twitter | https://twitter.com/seize_podcast ► Instagram | https://www.instagram.com/seizethemoment ► TikTok | https://www.tiktok.com/@seizethemomentpodcast  

On episode 186, we welcome Krista Thomason to discuss the ways we tend to address our negative feelings, using techniques in positive psychology and stoicism to suppress them, psychotherapy’s divergent stance in seeking to manage them instead, the shame we experience about feeling them, the myth of harmonizing and unifying our emotional and rational sides, why it’s difficult and maybe even erroneous to distinguish the rational emotions from the irrational ones, the beliefs and worldviews underlying negative emotions and why perspective taking is a daunting remedy for them, whether feeling your negative feelings actually prevents them from getting worse, and what professional wrestling teaches us about our emotions. Krista K. Thomason is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at Swarthmore College. She was the Philip L. Quinn Fellow at the National Humanities Center. Her areas of expertise include philosophy of emotion, moral philosophy, history of philosophy, and political philosophy. Some of her publications appear in Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, European Journal of Philosophy, Kantian Review, and The Monist. She is the author of the book Naked: The Dark Side of Shame and Moral Life. She has been interviewed by the Wall Street Journal, NBC News, and CNN. Her newest book, available October 31st, is called Dancing with the Devil: Why Bad Feelings Make Life Good. | Krista K. Thomason | ► Linktree | https://linktr.ee/kristakthomason ► Twitter | https://twitter.com/kkthomason ► Instagram | https://www.instagram.com/profkkthomason ► Tiktok | https://www.tiktok.com/@kristakthomason ► Dancing with the Devil Book | https://bit.ly/4801sJV Where you can find us: | Seize The Moment Podcast | ► Facebook | https://www.facebook.com/SeizeTheMoment ► Twitter | https://twitter.com/seize_podcast ► Instagram | https://www.instagram.com/seizethemoment ► TikTok | https://www.tiktok.com/@seizethemomentpodcast  

On episode 185, we welcome David Samson to discuss our current understanding of how tribes form, tribalism as political polarization, why the Bloodline storyline in the WWE is so popular, why some of the smartest people are also the most irrational, the consequences of our tendency to prioritize group loyalty over truth, the label of ‘critical thinker’ and why it’s another cognitive trap, our tendency to favor broader groups over those closest to us, what to do when you’re loyal to opposing groups, how group pride both supports self-esteem and conflict, and the role of mental immunity in combatting the toxic aspects of the tribal drive. David Samson is an Associate Professor of Evolutionary Anthropology at the University of Toronto and Director of the Sleep and Human Evolution Lab (SHEL). David’s research has been internationally profiled in venues such as BBC, Time, the New York Times, The Smithsonian, CBC, NPR, and National Geographic. He is also a part of the Mental Immunity Project and CIRCE (Cognitive Immunology Research Collaborative), which aim to advance and apply the science of mental immunity to inoculate minds against misinformation. His new book, available now, is called  “Our Tribal Future: How to Channel Our Foundational Human Instincts into a Force for Good.” | David Samson | ► Website 1 | https://davidrsamson.com ► Website 2 | https://mentalimmunityproject.org ► Twitter | https://twitter.com/Primalprimate ► Instagram | https://www.instagram.com/primalprimatologist ► Youtube | https://www.youtube.com/@MentalImmunityProject ► Research Gate | https://www.researchgate.net/profile/David-Samson-7 ► Our Tribal Future Book | https://read.macmillan.com/lp/our-tribal-future Where you can find us: | Seize The Moment Podcast | ► Facebook | https://www.facebook.com/SeizeTheMoment ► Twitter | https://twitter.com/seize_podcast ► Instagram | https://www.instagram.com/seizethemoment ► TikTok | https://www.tiktok.com/@seizethemomentpodcast

On episode 184, we welcome Barry Mauer to discuss using the medical model of metastatic cancer to explain how false beliefs spread, Barry's view that institutions are more important than personal responsibility in inoculating minds from delusional beliefs, the tumor as a metaphor for denial and its growth as symbolizing its transformation into a delusion, free speech absolutism and whether debates are good protections from propaganda, the issue with platforming bad faith actors and Ice Cube's flirtation with Tucker Carlson, the argument that gatekeeping is inherently corrupt, the gradual spread of Q Anon, and why  de-platforming isn't necessarily the same as infantilizing the audience. Barry Mauer, Ph.D., is on the cutting edge of research into cognitive immunity  and the threats posed to it by the intersection of illiberal forces and electronic media. Barry is the author of Deadly Delusions: Right-Wing Death Cult and “The Cognitive Immune System: The Mind’s Ability to Dispel Pathological Beliefs.” Barry collaborated on the DARPA-funded project, “Deep Agent: A Framework for Information Spread and Evolution in Social Networks.” Barry teaches symposiums on cognitive immunity including “The Age of Mass Delusion,” “Why Are People Fooled?” and “Propaganda and Pseudoscience.” He is also part of the Mental Immunity Project and CIRCE (Cognitive Immunology Research Collaborative), which aim to advance and apply the science of mental immunity to inoculate minds against misinformation. | Barry Mauer | ► Website 1 | https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Barry-Mauer ► Website 2 | https://mentalimmunityproject.org ► Linkedin | https://www.linkedin.com/in/barry-mauer-5319871b3 ► Deadly Delusions Book | https://amzn.to/3OGRDYz Where you can find us: | Seize The Moment Podcast | ► Facebook | https://www.facebook.com/SeizeTheMoment ► Twitter | https://twitter.com/seize_podcast ► Instagram | https://www.instagram.com/seizethemoment ► TikTok | https://www.tiktok.com/@seizethemomentpodcast