Jack joins us from his home in Atlanta, Georgia. Jack grew up as Albrecht Dittrich in post-WW2 East Germany in “The Valley of the Clueless”. He was a youth leader for the communist party and a promising young academic when he was approached by the KGB and recruited as an espionage agent. Armed with a sharp curiosity, a penchant for learning languages and a strong sense of adventure, Jack’s changed his life forever when he agreed to take on his mission. After several years of training in Europe, he was posted in New York City as a “sleeper agent”. He spent many years working and educating himself as a regular dutiful US citizen would and eventually built a legitimate career and had a (second) family while living his American life. He found himself deciding between choosing to leave his new family and return to the KGB fold in Europe or leave the KBG at great expense and live out his life as an IT executive and father (spoiler alert: the FBI eventually caught up with him). We discuss what belief systems, elitism, “slow decontamination”, fear, narcissism, cowardice and heroism all mean to him. We ruminate about the immense power of (a lack of) a mother’s affection and the moving love of a daughter and how those two forces book-ended his intensely unique human experience. To DONATE to the Behind Greatness podcast, please visit here: https://behindgreatness.org. As a charity, tax receipts are issued to donors. Behind Greatness IG: @behindgreatnesspodcast & @inspire_north Podcast Series “The Agent”: https://open.spotify.com/show/5DToOunQsM18OmGD5eVRXR Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jackbarsky/ Website: https://jackbarsky.com/ FB: https://www.facebook.com/spybarsky  

Jason is a partner at McMillan LLP and joins us from his office in Toronto. He is a recognized top construction lawyer in the country – with soft hands, no less. But, that’s not where we go with this conversation. We go instead where Jason lives: in the exploration of his essence. We start with family … Modesta and Eugénio, kitchen-Portuguese, the menu-reading child within and his grandfather’s “I get it” moment. We discuss his tendency to throw himself into something fully when he’s impassioned by it, and demanding more of himself with that little bit of a chip on his shoulder. We chat about the importance of thinking about your existence, the Buddhist concept of flow and interconnectivity with others and the illusion of our own perceptions. We discuss the importance of challenging and wrestling with mystery. He also muses about recognizing the bravery of a faith/belief that compels those in it to make sense of it only to risk having those come out the other side shedding those same beliefs. A treat of a conversation.    Bodybuilding, manes, gypsies and golf-commentating all had honourable mentions.   To DONATE to the Behind Greatness podcast, please visit here: https://behindgreatness.org. As a charity, tax receipts are issued to donors. Behind Greatness IG: @behindgreatnesspodcast & @inspire_north   Jason, Website: https://mcmillan.ca/people/jason-annibale/ Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jason-annibale-26911322/    

Kenneth joins us from his home in Toronto. He is an award winning and best selling author of numerous novels for young readers. He is famed for writing Airborn, the Silverwing Trilogy and now his latest novels, Bloom and its sequels, Hatch and Thrive. This was a fun conversation. He grew up on Vancouver Island on the Pacific coast and spent a few uncomplicated, happy pre-teen years in Halifax, on the Atlantic. Kenneth wanted to be a writer from a very young age, being pig-headed about his vocation from the very beginning. We naturally delve into themes that are important to us on Behind Greatness. Kenneth explains how childhood experiences run parallel throughout our lives, informing also our decisions today. He chats with us about taking pleasure in creation and the quiet, solitary, undramatic process that he invests in to find that pleasure. We discuss the power of encouragement as a lifeblood to pursuing creation and the importance of listening to dreams (encouragement: so easy a word and so elusive for many of us). And, we hark back to a reference from episode 24 with Mike Narducci regarding creativity – to Kenneth existing as a simmering well.   “There are fewer things more powerful than an idea.” Indeed.    To DONATE to the Behind Greatness podcast, please visit here: https://behindgreatness.org. As a charity, tax receipts are issued to donors. Behind Greatness IG: @behindgreatnesspodcast & @inspire_north   Kenneth, Website: www.kennethoppel.ca FB: www.facebook.com/kennethoppelfan YT: www.youtube.com/user/kennethoppel TW: @kennethoppel

We have an exciting conversation with Avi Loeb. Avi is a philosopher and farm-boy at his core. He has spent the past several decades as a leading Astrophysicist, including a most recent decade-long stint as a department head at Harvard, having published over 700 papers and written 8 books . Avi became wider known outside of scientific circles for his stance on scientific and space exploration after the discovery of the famous interstellar object called “Oumuamua” in 2017. He subsequently also founded The Galileo Project in 2021, which is focused on researching evidence of alien civilizations on earth and beyond. We discuss what is important to Avi in this discussion …. (and take a deep breath before you read): the need for humans to attach themselves to nature, rather than to their egos … searching for the pimples on the face of nature … the danger of echo-chambers and keeping young scientific minds within the herd … the risks of being beholden to awards, honours and prestige … giving power back to young innovating scientists (see: Einstein, Galileo etc.) to encourage exploration rather than putting them in career “house arrest” … project Lyra … the metaphor of jogging with light footwear ... and dark chocolate. We also hear about how viewing the frontier of new knowledge and exploration should inspire the child in us all – a person we all were when ego and self-importance where not a factor in how we pursued truth.   Honourable mentions by the way to one of history’s most courageous philosophers, mathematicians, cosmologists, martyrs and truth seekers: Giordano Bruno. And Brad Pitt. “Aumm Aumm”   To DONATE to the Behind Greatness podcast, please visit here: https://behindgreatness.org. As a charity, tax receipts are issued to donors. Behind Greatness IG: @behindgreatnesspodcast & @inspire_north   Avi: The Galileo Project: https://projects.iq.harvard.edu/galileo/home Commentaries: https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/~loeb/Opinion.html Video Clip – Miami, Florida: https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/~loeb/Bit22.mp4 Harvard Bio: https://lweb.cfa.harvard.edu/~loeb/  

We have the privilege of sitting down Safiya, who only recently fled from her native Ukraine with her daughter. We are also joined by one of our favourite past guests on the podcast, the marvelous Joan Koenig (ep 79). Joan helps facilitate the conversation. Joan and her friends (Janice Giarracco & Michael Clancey) have been instrumental in helping Safiya find safe haven in France over the last month. A trained psychologist, Safiya ran a special school for children in the Donbas region before the war in 2014 forced her to relocate. After a brief stay in Moscow her vocation had her return to her Ukraine, this time in Kyiv – until she once again lost everything after the start of the war in February 2022. She recounts the experience of living under the real threat of missile attacks and bombing throughout the day and night and her eventual exodus to the Polish border. She describes the emotional episode watching men separated from their families as they left them to cross the border. And we learn so much more from this extraordinary woman. We listen to her recounts of her multiple near death experiences over her lifetime so far and what particular gifts each of those experiences have left her. Spoiler alert: one of them is healing. There are too many take-aways from this discussion: the value of empathy, of teaching through play, of fairy-tale therapy, of learning to see your ancestral program … and the ultimate value of the pursuit to help others.   During our talk, Safiya gave an impromptu numerological reading of your host and his recent ancestral lineage and she was bang-on with her entire diagnosis. We decided to edit most of this out as they are of a personal nature. But, we may very well divulge some details in future episodes…   Kindly see below information on the Foundation set up to help Safiya – so that she can help others who are in the same boat during this time:   ·        For donations that do not require a fiscal receipt, or a French receipt: https://www.fondation-enfance.org/creer-ma-fondation/fondations-et-fonds-abrites/koenig-foundation-2-2/   ·        For fiscal receipts in the USA: donors must donate to CafAmerica.org, and indicate they want the funds to go to the above link (in France). Main USA Link: CafAmerica.org & https://www.cafamerica.org/give-now/   ·        For fiscal receipts in Canada: donors must donate to CafCanada.ca and indicate they want the funds to go to the above link (in France). Main Canada link: CafCanada.ca & https://www.cafcanada.ca/givenow/

We speak with Lisa Good in Toronto. Lisa started out in the mail-room of an ad agency in Toronto to eventually become an Ad Exec and Managing Director of a leading and award-winning ad agency in Canada. We chat with Lisa about losing a parent at a young age, mental health and acting out against suppressed grief as a young adult. We discuss workaholic-ism and the importance of finding the ok in quiet time. More importantly, we chat about her family and lessons we give to our kids about “doing” vs being, boredom and creativity, flying slippers, empathy … but not too much empathy … and the advantages and pitfalls of restlessness. We stretched it, but we found nuggets of truth in tying food preparation and the artform of sculpting.   … and we get to meet “restless” Lisa in action during the recording.   To DONATE to the Behind Greatness podcast, please visit here: https://behindgreatness.org. Tax receipt issued to donors. Behind Greatness IG: @behindgreatnesspodcast & @inspire_north     Lisa: Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lisaaraujo/ Website: https://www.bensimonbyrne.com/about  

Bayo joins us from his home in Chennai India but grew up in Lagos, Nigeria. Losing his father as a young teen had him start a search for knowledge and meaning – a search that has intensified throughout his life. As a teen he hustled to make a living in the street to help support his family and save for university studies. At university, he was destined to be “The Total Man” until he unfurled his mind and his beliefs. The conversation goes to exciting depths and hidden corners … we discuss our Entanglement (oh, our entanglement!), the seditiousness of writing, the “bible and a pencil”, the act of making his father through his daughters, being “dire-whelmed”, seeing death as a soundscape, the act of creation – and shiny dishes. So. Much. Goodness. To DONATE to the Behind Greatness podcast, please visit here: www.behindgreatness.org. Tax receipt issued to donors. Behind Greatness IG: @behindgreatnesspodcast & @inspire_north Bayo: Website: https://www.bayoakomolafe.net/ Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bayoakomolafe/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/bayoakomolafe Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/bayoakomolafeampersand

Jill joins us from her home state of Indiana where she grew up. Jill graduated from Harvard and embarked on a career as a neuroanatomist, motivated in part by her desire to understand her brother’s schizophrenia. She soon became known throughout the world through her widely viewed and viral TED talk back in 2008, entitled “My Stroke of Insight”. And so we giddily sit down together and have fun exploring the depths of her experience. Jill had a stroke and became the patient, the observer and the pilot of her own case study in one fell swoop – which changed her forever. She describes her experience of living through a stroke – the left hemisphere not able to process and the right hemisphere floating its own way – and the ensuing 8 years of recovery. We discuss her experience living in a world free from judgement and intellectual primacy and existing as an entity free from the shackles of a Left Hemisphere dominant life. We delve a bit into her new book Whole Brain Living and the Four Characters of both the left and right hemispheres – and her decision to live a Right Hemisphere dominant life. We talk about make belief, the role of the actor, the Great Gigi, empathy, living with more order, but less order, great whales, timelessness of the artists’ endeavour, our training of children to discount the importance of connection, creativity, earning your mother power, proprioception, the present moment…. and the desire to be awake when consciousness finally shifts and she Glides back into the Sea of Silent Euphoria.   We dare you not to listen.   To DONATE to the Behind Greatness podcast, please visit here: www.behindgreatness.org. Tax receipt issued to donors. Behind Greatness IG: @behindgreatnesspodcast & @inspire_north   Jill:   Website: https://www.drjilltaylor.com/ Book: https://www.drjilltaylor.com/whole-brain-living/ TED Talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyyjU8fzEYU&t=2s FB: https://www.facebook.com/DrJillBolteTaylor IG: @drjillboltetaylor  

Athena is originally from Johannesburg, South Africa. Athena was a highly intuitive child and learned not to demonstrate this with most, believing that there was little acceptance of these abilities in her circles. As a young adult she was trying to understand her place in the world when she had a dream that had a profound impact on her life’s direction. We move on to discuss the importance of the “divinity within” and how we may have been shut off from our own sacred knowledge. We learn about Athena’s experience in confronting a psychological shadow/demon, and in the middle of discussing the idea of malevolence beings we face a power outage in our conversation (not joking). But this doesn’t thwart our determination. We discuss the dismissive nature of modern Western culture on the exploration of the dream realm and we discuss what might be brewing underneath anyway … a yearning from each of us to be awake.    FYI - the Jaguar made another surprise cameo in this discussion … and we highly recommend our discussion with Amy Jo Johnson in episode 92 as an accompaniment to this episode with Athena. To DONATE to the Behind Greatness podcast, please visit here: www.behindgreatness.org. Tax receipt issued to donors. Behind Greatness IG: @behindgreatnesspodcast & @inspire_north Athena: Website: www.athenalaz.com Book: The Alchemy of Your Dreams - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0593327799/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0593327799&linkCode=as2&tag=alchemy063-20&linkId=f770ebbcffddfeb2d152796a17c048b4 IG: @athena_laz TW: @athena_laz

Sharon joins us from her home in Virginia. Sharon grew up in a Christian-centric upbringing and was home-schooled at her request. After having gone away for post-secondary to NYC, she found that her new secular environment was not the fit that she expected. However, after having experienced grad school in Paris, the secular view on life became more attractive to her … until it didn’t. She brings us through a couple of personal experiences of “coincidences” and becoming more of herself as she explores the “weirdness” of paranormal. We discussed the importance of paying attention to the paranormal – starting with synchronicities and dreams – to help us to see deeper layers of ourselves. We talk about freedom, the importance of love to learn about interconnectedness, the shedding of beliefs and the importance of being puzzled. For good measure we threw in a chat about the number 33. To DONATE to the Behind Greatness podcast, please visit here: www.behindgreatness.org. Tax receipt issued to donors. Behind Greatness IG: @behindgreatnesspodcast & @inspire_north Sharon: Website: https://sharonrawlette.wordpress.com/about/ Books: https://sharonrawlette.wordpress.com/books/beyond-death/ Psychology Today blog Mysteries of Consciousness BICS award-winning essay Beyond Death: The Best Evidence for the Survival of Human Consciousness