Behind Greatness by Inspire North

We have a delightful conversation with Elisabetta, who joins us from her abode in the Apennine mountains in Abruzzo in central Italy. Elisabetta is the foremost expert on the Marsican Bear in Italy. Originally from Rome, Elisabetta has spent over 20 years living in the mountains observing, researching, writing about, and storytelling on the famous Marsican bear. Elisabetta was an aspiring actress as a teen. As she developed her love for emotional channelling that acting provided, she also began to experience the exact same energy in her nature walks as a biology student. Eventually, she decided to “break up” with acting to pursue a life studying, researching and living with wildlife – but not before learning the lifelong lesson of feeling with her gut. A scientist by trade and a storyteller by heart, Elisabetta brings us through her thoughts on the majesty of wildlife, the importance of empathy, fear and respect and the timelessness of nature and of art. And forest school. And tracking wolves alone in the Arctic. And a playful and frightening close encounter with her beloved bear. To DONATE to the Behind Greatness podcast, please visit here: www.behindgreatness.org. Tax receipt issued to donors. Behind Greatness IG: @behindgreatnesspodcast & @inspire_north   Elisabetta: Website: https://www.orsoeformica.it/?lang=en FB: https://www.facebook.com/elisabetta.tosoni.1

Today we are joined by Cat Criger in Toronto. Cat has had a life so far filled with experiences in following his curiosities. He is an Elder of the Cayuga Nation, Turtle Clan and has German and English ancestry. His father was a “disenfranchised” Indigenous man, which meant that his children were protected from the “scoop” of government authorities that took children away to residential schools. His father decided to pursue his career for the Department of Defence working on military aircraft. This imbued a young Cat with an interest in high tech machinery, which served him well later in his career. And then Cat pivots again in the 1990s after rediscovering the ancient philosophies of his Indigenous roots. Not shy of professing his passion of racing bikes, Cat discusses with us the importance of “always exploring” and living with the “twisty-roads-only” gps setting. We talk about the majesty of felines, the purpose of February, hot-pink deer, portable record players and Mr Baird, dream-catchers, swamps as both transition and as home and the gift of music from our mothers.   A winding discussion filled with metaphors - and lesson sharing. To DONATE to the Behind Greatness podcast, please visit here: www.inspirenorth.com/podcast. Tax receipt issued to donors. Behind Greatness IG: @behindgreatnesspodcast & @inspire_north Cat:  Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cat-criger-371a097a/  

We are joined this week by Julie Church on her rear porch. Our backdrop is the night sky over her backyard in Nairobi, Kenya. Julie brings us through a magically-weaved story about growing up in Kenya, with secondary and post-secondary schooling in Europe and South Africa and a life-long commitment to the magic and mystery of the sea. While working with the WWF she created an eco-friendly project where she created jobs and skills centres for the community through the collection of ocean refuse (ie. flipflops) and creating art from it. This kick-started her entrepreneurial approach to creating ocean and marine awareness. We also learned about a childhood filled with exploration of the land and the sea, her family’s deep love of cultural and linguistic diversity, a horrific, near fatal and a fatal buffalo attack and the magic of witch-doctor guidance. We discussed her life as one filled with the beauty, the blessings and the danger of deep interconnectedness with nature’s flow. Reminding us that we know more about our solar system that we do our ocean … which is a diverse, rich, mystical and charismatic story that she strives to share with the world. We explore how perhaps our human story is dependent on and rooted in our one ocean …. in fact, in our blue consciousness. To DONATE to the Behind Greatness podcast, please visit here: www.inspirenorth.com/podcast. Tax receipt issued to donors. Behind Greatness IG: @behindgreatnesspodcast & @inspire_north Julie: Website: https://www.seas4life.com/ Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/julie-church/ IG: @seas4lifesafaris IG: @jules_church Video: https://www.grida.no/resources/8456  

George joins us from his abode in LA where he hosts his own Music Radio Show on Apple that is broadcast to over 120 countries. Originally from Toronto, George grew up with a no-nonsense single mom who taught him the importance of being of service to others. As a young boy, his backdrop was a life filled with daily library visits, a senior’s home, rough neighbourhood streets, cinema and a growing affection for those anti-establishment music genres: punk and metal. We discuss the flawed artists who George says helped shaped him as he grew into a national media personality – with a unique edge. We go on to discuss the importance of doing “the interior work”, living a life with space, refusing to be limited and clearing a path for others. We learn about a muse of his – Raine Maida – who taught him an important lesson on exploring the “what if” at an important juncture in his life. Throughout the chat, we come to understand the important things that really matter to George … and making your mark is not one of them. Listen in. And rock on.   To learn more about George’s muse, feel free to have a listen to Raine’s talk on Behind Greatness. Episode 65.      To DONATE to the Behind Greatness podcast, please visit here: www.inspirenorth.com/podcast. Tax receipt issued to donors. Behind Greatness IG: @behindgreatnesspodcast & @inspire_north   George: Website: https://www.music.strombo.com/ Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/strombo/ IG: https://www.instagram.com/strombo/ TW: https://twitter.com/strombo House of Strombo (YT): https://www.youtube.com/user/TheStromboShow

Amy Jo is originally from Cape Cod and spent many years as an actor in Hollywood before packing up her bags and leaving for Montreal. After several years, she left for Toronto where she lives currently – devoting herself to film directing, writing and creating music. For 12 years, she, her siblings and her mom lived in a religious cult, with her only outlet for self-expression being gymnastics and story-telling. At age 15, her beliefs suddenly collapsed when her mother took her family out of the cult. From that point Amy Jo set upon a life of continued creative exploration. We discuss escaping rules and judgment, quieting inner voices, investing in story-telling and tapping into the creative flow. But we don’t stop there … We explore some of her more reoccurring and lucid dreams and how they are a connective tissue to her sense of creative expression. We listen to a vivid account of “opening of doors” in her dream state and how this has shown itself through her sense of “seeing” beyond the physical. And it’s the metaphorical doors to rebirth and to the creative realm that are just as relevant to this discussion as are the literal doors to the same.   During our chat, we invoke a past discussion we had with Carl Ruck (ep 73) about dreaming and an elevated state of consciousness.   To DONATE to the Behind Greatness podcast, please visit here: www.inspirenorth.com/podcast. Tax receipt issued to donors. Behind Greatness IG: @behindgreatnesspodcast & @inspire_north   Amy Jo: Website: https://www.amyjojohnson.com/ IG: https://www.instagram.com/atothedoublej/ TW: https://twitter.com/_amyjojohnson FB: https://www.facebook.com/atothedoublej/ YT: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFxfa3EuLCSA7_zUzWtBkOw?view_as=subscriber IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0005057/

Today we are joined by Edoardo Ghignone, who lives in The Hague, Netherlands. He is the founder of a consultancy named LTx that works with C-Suite leadership teams of large corporate organizations across Europe. Originally from Milan, Edoardo was brought up in a family that ran a manufacturing business in the city for 75 years. He describes his parental influences: an artisan father and a mother too fast for the world. He lived an early adult life devoted to learning languages, travelling, working in different countries and having fun. He brings us to the point in his life where he decided that he needed to put his “soul on the table”. From there, we explore his thoughts on the beauty of caressing your ideas, trusting your intuition, and the importance of feeling. We also discuss a unique psychic ability that he uncovered later in his life and how he incorporates this into his understanding of inter-relatedness. And we hear about how wasting time is a direct input for learning and the creative process … playing cards, sipping wine and listening to elders through mountain side trips.   This episode is best listened to with a Campari on the rocks.   To DONATE to the Behind Greatness podcast, please visit here: www.inspirenorth.com/podcast. Tax receipt issued to donors. Behind Greatness IG: @behindgreatnesspodcast & @inspire_north Edoardo:   Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/edoardoghignone/ Website: www.LeadershipTeamX.com  

We connect with Rune, who lives in Copenhagen. Rune is a leading expert in pre-Christian Nordic Religions & Animism. Born and bred in rural Denmark, Rune explains how hints of Nordic pre-Christian tradition was woven into songs that his grandmother used to sing. This spurred a life-long quest: his need for unearthing and attaining long-lost knowledge of Nordic Indigenous culture. He started with travelling and living as a teen to Norway and learning how the Sami (the last Indigenous peoples of Northern Europe) lived. He soon found that current scholarship in the field was too mundane for him. So, he decided to spend considerable time studying animist religions in West Africa and Brazil and he saw that the peoples from where he was born held similar ancient beliefs, long before the spread of Christianity. Rune brings us through a discussion on relation and connectedness to the “other”: the landscape, the animals, other peoples, cycles of the seasons etc. We discuss how death and the dead were uniquely perceived by his Indigenous ancestors and the “carnivalesque” nature of this perception. Just fascinating. We’re not going to lie: “Valhalla” was uttered at least once.   DONATE to the Behind Greatness podcast, please visit here: www.inspirenorth.com/podcast. Tax receipt issued to donors. Behind Greatness IG: @behindgreatnesspodcast & @inspire_north   Rune: Website: https://nordicanimism.com/ YT Channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/Runehr Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rune-hjarn%C3%B8-rasmussen-4626b010/  

Marie joins us from Toronto. Marie is inarguably one of the country’s most public and most sought after criminal defence lawyers. She was born of Middle Eastern parents and grew up in Toronto within a tight knit family. Being a serious and studious girl from the get-go, she decided early in life that fighting for the underdog was what she wanted to do. Her deep affection for her uncle brought her to spend much time in NYC as a young adult. It was a world in full contrast to her own life in Toronto and her own cultural upbringing – but it was a world that felt comfortable for her just the same. Laser-focused and with sharp instincts, she also learned to navigate the world with an open mind through her uncle Sami’s mentorship. We discuss the perennial battle between objectivity and subjectivity in human-made systems. We hear about her thoughts on toughness, boredom, passions, the dangers of compartmentalizing, therapy, winning, losing and a little about artistic endeavours. And, home-made pasta. To DONATE to the Behind Greatness podcast, please visit here: www.inspirenorth.com/podcast. Tax receipt issued to donors. Behind Greatness IG: @behindgreatnesspodcast & @inspire_north Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marie-henein-bb35b936/ Website:  https://hhllp.ca/ Book – Nothing But The Truth: https://www.amazon.ca/Nothing-But-Truth-Marie-Henein/dp/0771039344/ref=sr_1_1?gclid=Cj0KCQiA8vSOBhCkARIsAGdp6RTW5lPEHW3gOemFHDKlw1sSVBGifrsNlF7iZZ1w34ZZ1SQZPzc2MFAaAiNSEALw_wcB&hvadid=362236155796&hvdev=c&hvlocphy=9000799&hvnetw=g&hvqmt=b&hvrand=12251961253226623843&hvtargid=kwd-297270459522&hydadcr=22426_9261600&keywords=marie+henein&qid=1641930990&sr=8-1

Antonia joins us from Vancouver, Canada. Antonia brings us through her experience in an idyllic US Midwest setting as a little girl, as a curious PhD student at Harvard and as a mother of four moving to Northern British Columbia and living with her adoptive Indigenous family. In the 1980s, Antonia met Dr. Ian Stevenson, an American psychiatrist from the University of Virginia. She became interested in his pioneering work on reincarnation research and the afterlife and she took it on herself. Already having a deep connection to the Beaver, Gitxsan and Witsutit'en peoples in BC she began researching reincarnation within these tribes. This soon had her join Ian Stevenson in becoming a pioneer in her own right in North America on the subject. We discuss the last dreamer/prophet (Charlie Yahey) of the Dane-zaa peoples and her first-hand experience witnessing one of his travels. We chat about the role that the child has in their society as a bridge between the past and the future, the Catholic Church’s changed stance on reincarnation and how the Canadian government currently actively funds studies like hers (!). And we hear about a wonderful early life transcendental experience of her own as a little girl. A purely enchanting discussion. To DONATE to the Behind Greatness podcast, please visit here: www.inspirenorth.com/podcast. Tax receipt issued to donors. Behind Greatness IG: @behindgreatnesspodcast & @inspire_north Antonia: Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/antonia-mills-0b151222/ Website: https://www2.unbc.ca/first-nations-studies/faculty Upcoming Book: That’s My Chair: Rebirth Experience of the Gitxsan and Witsutit'en Other Books: Eagle Down Is Our Law: Witsuwit'en Law, Feasts, and Land Claims  

Suzanne joins us from Hilton Head, South Carolina. She grew up admiring her older brother’s career in the Air Force and dreamed of a military career as well. After becoming a Naval Commanding Officer and travelling around the world, she was invited to serve as the aide to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. For several years she was privy to top secret files, she was meeting kings and presidents and she was sitting in meetings with the President of the United States. During the tragic day of 9/11 she flew over Manhattan on Air Force 2 - which was the last aircraft in US airspace. She tells us of her walk through the wreckage at the Pentagon (her home-base) that same day with her superiors. Soon thereafter, she retired and her life changed forever. And soon after, her young stepdaughter Susan was killed and her life changed forever - again. Suzanne awakened eventually to her abilities to see connection with the unseen. We discuss training yourself in untraining … in getting away from the philosophy of “sucking it up” and “stuffing it down”. Questioning belief systems was/is key to Suzanne for re-awakening to the reality of expansion and inter-connectedness. “Going from an emptiness that can’t be filled to a fullness that can’t be contained”. This is a must listen back to back with episode 67 with Federico Faggin.   To DONATE to the Behind Greatness podcast, please visit here: www.inspirenorth.com/podcast. Tax receipt issued to donors. Behind Greatness IG: @behindgreatnesspodcast & @inspire_north Suzanne: Website: https://www.suzannegiesemann.com/ Books: https://www.suzannegiesemann.com/books/ Youtube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGU9Lw6sITU4kvjqJ2gzaQw