Mark speaks with Jennifer Fraser, best-selling author, award-winning educator with a PhD in Comparative Literature. Through personal experience and extensive research, Jennifer uncovered how bullying affects the brain and how the brain can heal, which she details in her new book, The Bullied Brain: Heal Your Scars and Restore Your Health. Today, Commander Divine speaks with Jennifer Fraser, best-selling author, award-winning educator with a PhD in Comparative Literature. In the episode, Jennifer shares how bullying affects the brain and how the brain can heal—detailed in her newest book, The Bullied Brain: Heal Your Scars and Restore Your Health. Key Takeaways: The brain science of abuse. A bullied brain is an unhealthy brain, displaying neurological changes whether the bullying is physical or emotional. We can analyze this on brain scans, brain mapping technology, and correlate it to psychological manifestations in the brain. The psychology of bullying: the Victim and the Favored. Jennifer shares the psychology of the bully stories such as Larry Nassar, which feature bully normalization, co-opting parents into being complicit, and the extensive damage caused in athlete victims AND those witnessing the abuse. Child abuse is indicative of later chronic illness. Child abuse comes in many forms (emotional, physical abuse and sexual, emotional, and physical neglect). Jennifer shares insights from Rolland Summit and Alice Miller’s work that discovered child abuse of all forms accounts for half of the main indicators of later midlife chronic illness. Astounding! You can train your brain out of abuse, like Tom Brady. He’s one of the first premier athletes to publicly share that he trains his brain as much as he trains his body, leveraging a platform called Brain HQ. As one of the best quarterbacks in history, it’s fair to say Tom knows a thing or two about being elite, with compassion and courage. There are solutions, and Brain HQ is one of many.

Mark speaks with Josh Peck, author and one of Hollywood's rising acting talents that made the seamless transition from child actor to leading man. Originally being known for children’s series Drake and Josh, he became fascinated with the process of child stardom, weight loss, recovery, and fatherhood, leading him to publish his own memoir, Happy People Are Annoying. . Today, Commander Divine speaks with Josh Peck, actor and author of Happy People Are Annoying. In the episode, Josh shares his experience with child stardom, weight loss, recovery, fatherhood, and the story of writing his memoir about finding happiness. Key Takeaways: Transitioning takes reinvention. Mark and Josh discuss the power of starting from scratch and not resting on your laurels when it comes to successful transitions. Whether it be from the military or taking on your next acting plateau, the skills of humility and honor are your best friends. You must act your way into right thinking. Josh shares his battle with food addiction, alcohol and drugs, and recovery - detailing his darkest moments and how he was lucky enough to shake himself out of it. It was through action, not thinking, that he was able to shift. Trying new things gives us the material to form lasting change. Happy people are annoying… to unhappy people. Happiness is a fleeting feeling, and is not found through joyful moments. It’s through doing your best and finding contentment in doing it that way. The inspiration for Josh’s book title has less to do with finding happiness and more to do with authenticity amidst the facade of it. Hard work pays off. Josh shares his constant craving for challenge, his love for acting, and how his hard and disciplined work has shaped his career for the better. He also values rest and taking time for himself, his friends and family. As with all things, moderation is key. As Josh’s friend says, “Even too much sunshine can bring about a desert.”

Mark speaks with Julia Boorstin, CNBC’s Senior Media and Tech Correspondent and creator of CNBC Disruptor 50. Throughout her on-air career, Julia became fascinated with entrepreneurship and closing the equality gaps in our business leadership circles, leading her to author her book, When Women Lead, out October 11th. Today, Commander Divine speaks with Julia Boorstin, CNBC’s Senior Media and Tech Correspondent and newly published author of When Women Lead. In this episode, Julia shares her experience of interviewing over 60 passionate female CEO’s in the startup space and what we can all learn from their leadership. Key Takeaways: Women lead more profitable startups. Female founded VC-backed companies yield higher and faster returns than their male founded counterparts. However, every year 10’s of Billions of dollars go into venture capital, and women only draw about 3% of all VC funding. Julia’s working to change that. Communal leadership is the future, and it’s female-driven. Of the 60+ female CEO’s she interviewed, Julia found that almost all of them approached decisions from a communal perspective. Meaning, they involve those at the ground floor and gain as many perspectives as possible before taking committed action. This, she believes, is a concept many men find difficult to embody. People can smell inauthenticity a mile away. Julia and Mark converge on the topic of men and women’s leadership styles, agreeing it’s not about men or women being better leaders… but about different leadership styles. And our future is dependent on more men softening their walls and more women making it into positions of leadership. Authenticity, as Julia describes, is a hallmark of female founder leadership. Gratitude isn’t a guy thing. As studies have shown, women are more likely to feel comfortable with feelings of gratitude, and in turn they think more long-term when they plan and execute their businesses. Gratitude is deeply linked to long-term planning and bigger picture thinking - something that can often get lost in targeting quarterly earnings performance.

Mark speaks with Ryan Holiday, an author, modern Stoic, public-relations strategist, bookstore owner and host of the podcast The Daily Stoic. Ryan became fascinated with Stoicism in college and dropped out at age 19 to apprentice under Robert Greene, author of The 48 Laws of Power. One illustrious marketing career and 11 books later, Ryan lives on a ranch outside Austin, Texas where he writes, works, and raises cattle, donkeys and goats. His newest book Discipline is Destiny comes out in September 2022. Today, Commander Divine speaks with Ryan Holiday, Stoic author, PR strategist, and host of The Daily Stoic podcast. In this episode, Ryan shares his passion for how Stoic philosophy can be practical and useful in real life, and how discipline is key to destiny. Key Takeaways: Discipline is a practice of moderation. As Seneca would say, “Live immediately.” Yet, also know the importance of planning and investing as though tomorrow may happen. Furthermore, discipline does not need to be sacrificial. You can enjoy the fruits of the present without that enjoyment impacting your future enjoyment. The high performance paradox. It’s a fantasy to think there is such a thing as balance. Finding balance is like jumping into the music of life. And while many aspirers believe that more work will get them where they want to go, in fact stillness and calmness and security are what paradoxically allow you to do whatever it is that you do so much better. Zen and Stoicism, cut from the same cloth. It’s said in Zen that sometimes the best action is inaction. And the best inaction is action. Yin and Yang. Ryan and I discuss in depth the paradoxes of equal opposites and the beauty of living in the tension between the poles of life. Real philosophy takes practice. Ryan shares candidly about the West’s version of Zen monasteries… academia. There has never been a more needed time to bring the practice of leadership to fruition in our world and our nation. Discipline (temperance), one of the four cardinal virtues. The others are prudence, justice, and fortitude - all of which counterbalance and interweave themselves into each other. One cannot be truly just without proper wisdom (prudence). One cannot be well temperate without proper fortitude.

Why You SUCK at Relationships (with Eric Barker) Mark speaks with Eric Barker, Wall Street Journal best selling author and former Hollywood screenwriter. Eric left Hollywood and scripted a new challenge: organizing the counterintuitive nature of relationships, vulnerability, and cognitive biases. Key Takeaways: Do you have friends? Do you smoke? The two biggest determinants of your mortality one year after a heart attack. Eric shares the surprising science by Robert Garfield at University of Pennsylvania detailing how not being open and vulnerable in relationships leads to prolonged minor illnesses and even increased lethality from a second heart attack. He also shares effective strategies for forming deep friendships to counteract these data. Friendships are our most coveted relationships, taking the cake over our romantic partners (by 5%). While romantic partnerships are backed by a legal document, as are colleagues with job descriptions, friendships are different. They’re indefinite… which might be just what makes real ones so special. Think about The Scary Rule, which Eric coined. If it feels scary, say it. Start small, but opening up and sharing something that could be used against you is what builds trust, says Diego Gambetta’s research. It starts with you. The placebo effect is in your hormones. Contrary to popular belief, the placebo effect isn’t just in your head… it’s actually in your endorphins, which are what carry the signal of the placebo effect. If we shut down the exchange of endorphins, we lose the mystical placebo. What’s more, placebo effect goes up when we experience trust in not only the medication and treatment, but in the doctor’s bedside manner and empathy. Your first impressions barely beat a coin flip. It turns out, 70% of first impressions are drawn correctly. The trouble is, that 30% of assumptions are what create unhelpful biases, the ones we must confront and try to unlearn.

Mark speaks with Mike Coots, shark conservation activist, photographer, shark attack survivor, and all-around inspiration. Mike became an amputee when he lost his right leg in a tiger shark attack at 18 years old while bodyboarding, but he didn’t let that stop him from getting back in the water. Today, Commander Divine speaks with Mike Coots, shark conservation activist, photographer, and shark attack survivor. In this episode, Mike discusses his incredible shark attack survival story and journey as an amputee, as well as the unsung role sharks play in the ocean’s ecosystem. Key Takeaways: Sharks are the garbagemen of the sea. Think about what would happen if you didn’t have someone collect your trash. Your house would get unlivable pretty quickly. This is what sharks do: they get rid of the sick, the dying, the diseased, and the trash in the ocean. If we lose our sharks, we lose our oceans. The scourge of shark fin soup. One of the biggest dangers to sharks is shark fin soup. It’s supposed to be a delicacy, but it has no nutritional value and very little cultural value. Shark flesh of a shark has very little commercial value, whereas a shark fin commercially can go for hundreds and hundreds of dollars a pound. So fishermen just keep the fins only because they have limited space out at sea. They dump the rest of the shark overboard, still alive, and it will swim in circles for a couple of days and end up dead on the seafloor. You're taking such a little part of an animal that's much needed, all for a soup that isn't needed at all. De-scarifying the shark. Mike’s underwater photography is a little different than other photographers… he shoots sharks as if they were humans. When he edits photos, he emphasizes attributes of the shark that humanize it; maybe a slight smirk, or a catchlight in its eye. His goal is to have people see a bit of themselves in the image. He says, “If you can relate to something, it makes you want to learn more about it and protect it.” The tides are changing. Through social media and the younger generation, people are starting to realize the value of whales and sharks in our oceans and are urging the older generation to make changes. There are so many good organizations out there that are doing such good things. We hear all this doom and gloom about our oceans, but to see all these different nonprofits, and especially so many young people actively involved, it gives us hope.

Commander Divine speaks with Kevin Bethune, Founder & Chief Creative Officer of dreams • design + life, a "think tank" that delivers design & innovation services using a human-centered approach. In this episode, Kevin discusses the power of design and innovation, and how it can help us face the challenges we have today. Key Takeaways: How to mitigate conflict in diverse teams. We all come from different disciplines with varying thought processes. When leading diverse teams, the very first step is to get everyone to openly talk about where they’re coming from, how they like to work, and what their triggers are. Finding a balance in servant leadership. The leader of any team has to strike a balance between articulating the vision and making sure the team feels like they’ve helped inform the vision. It’s up to the leader to carve up the work that needs to be done to give the team the runway, role clarity, and license to own the pieces of that collective vision. The power of quiet leadership. Leadership isn’t always about carrying forward as a facilitator to constantly serve and unblock a team. Sometimes the team needs to see the leader do the work, too. There are many opportunities to provide quiet leadership while you get your hands dirty alongside your team. These are the moments that build better trust and enable the team to hit the ground running on their own. What does growth look like for your business? Every organization has to think about what growth actually looks like for them – it’s not one-size-fits-all. There might be parts of the business that are maturing or are out of date, and they need to be refreshed, renewed, and rejuvenated. This can lead to a new source of business growth. Ideally, that growth is respectful and considerate of both the environment and the people who are part of the engine. Design is young at the strategy table. Strategy is currently still predominantly biased toward business and technology. When considering building more multidisciplinary teams moving forward, design needs to be prioritized and meshed into problem-solving culture. We should appreciate where we've come from, but be honest...

Today, Commander Divine speaks with Charles Eisenstein, writer, speaker, and author of The Coronation, his new book that searches for ??meaning as we emerge from the troubled time of Covid. In this episode, Charles talks about why reality isn’t working anymore for most people, his philosophy about the emerging economy, how to take back our sovereignty, and more. Key Takeaways: Reality isn’t working anymore for most people. The implicit promise is that if you do certain things (like climbing the corporate ladder, buying a house, following the latest diet trend, etc.) then you'll be healthy and happy. But nowadays, people who obey the formula are running headlong into a sandstorm of confusion – whether it's chronic health problems, or dead end careers, depression, or divorce. Something has to change. Considering sovereignty. Lately, the capacity to experience life has become increasingly dependent on technology. For example, most parts of the US are addicted to air conditioning, and to comfort in general. The more comfortable we become, the less tolerant we are to any conditions outside of that small range. This extends to our addiction to the intense stimuli of the virtual world. This trend has accelerated in the last few years, but it's nothing new. It’s time for us to think about what the alternative is…. and to consider this: What is the vision of humanity that underlies this movement toward more and more dependency on things outside of ourselves? The Emperor has no clothes. The elites govern not so much through everybody's agreement with them, but through the perception that everybody agrees with them. It's like the Emperor's new clothes – the Emperor is naked, but everybody else is acting as if he's not. But everybody's thinking it. Charles argues this is why it's so important now to come out about things that go against the status quo, whether it's psychedelics or paranormal experiences, or health. On building a parallel society. You don't change things by fighting existing reality – you build a new model that makes the old one obsolete. We’re currently doing this in many areas of society, from Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies (a parallel financial system), to holistic health modalities (a parallel healthcare system). We're recreating all of these institutions, but also...

Mark speaks with Lynne Cox, a long-distance open-water swimmer, writer and speaker. Lynne holds over 50 world records and firsts, including setting the record for swimming the English Channel (twice). Lynne was also the first and only person to ever swim between the United States and the Soviet Union in the Bering Strait. This effort took her 11 years to coordinate during the height of the Cold War, and it helped the world to see that there was a very short distance between these two nations (just 2.7 miles). Today, Commander Divine speaks with Lynne Cox, a long-distance open-water swimmer, writer and speaker. Lynne holds over 50 world records and firsts, including setting the record for swimming the English Channel (twice). Lynne was also the first and only person to ever swim between the United States and the Soviet Union in the Bering Strait. This effort took her 11 years to coordinate during the height of the Cold War, and it helped the world to see that there was a very short distance between these two nations (just 2.7 miles). In this episode, Lynne discusses what it takes to make record-breaking swims, the fascinating process of greatness, and her incredible interactions with dogs, whales, and other creatures in the water. Key Takeaways: Find the others. When asked why she was compelled to embark on such unprecedented swims, Lynne said it’s because swimming is her “song in the world.” When you follow your song in the world, you tune into who you are and are driven to figure out what you're capable of doing. But more importantly, finding your song in the world almost always involves other people. How do you get a team of people around you that can complement your passion? Together, you can do something that's never been done. How do people become who they are? Throughout all her varied interests (swimming, history, exercise physiology), Lynne says that her common thread of inspiration is figuring out how people become who they are, and how they influence change in a positive way. Who was Gandhi before Gandhi? Who was Amelia Earhart before she became who she was? The interesting part is found in the in-between. Everyone is a genius. Lynne owes much of her contributions to the amazing help of other people, from the teams who helped her on her swims, to those who gave her advice about book publishing. There are so many different little worlds out there that you can tap into through others. And if you can just connect at one point, it leads you to directions you couldn’t have dreamed of on your own.

Mark speaks with Jeremy Pollack, a social psychologist and conflict resolution consultant. Jeremy’s company, Pollack Peacebuilding Systems,  teaches leaders and employees how to communicate more effectively and rebuild mutual trust through coaching, training, and conflict resolution services. His company has helped dozens of other companies, large and small, in all varieties of industries around the world, to resolve conflicts and foster greater peace. Key Takeaways: Care comes first. People need to feel safe, respected, and accepted at an identity level. To be able to solve a conflict with a person, you need to find out what’s threatening them. People have to know that you hear them, you care about them, and are actually considering what they're saying. As soon as they feel heard, their defenses come down, they can breathe a little bit, and they're more able to have a conversation about solutions. The connection between martial arts and peacebuilding. If you're learning from a good teacher, martial arts is not about violence. At its core, martial arts is built on embodying a level of humble confidence that allows you to feel confident, grounded and present wherever you are. This is so translatable to conflict resolution, because as a peacebuilder, you have to be humble, but you also have to be confident enough to hold a neutral space so that people can feel safe to express and explore. Conflict resolution vs. peacebuilding. Conflict resolution is about being able to solve an acute problem, whereas peacebuilding recognizes that there are presenting problems that could be resolved, but there's a larger system-wide structural or cultural situation that's allowing these types of conflicts to emerge. When we peacebuild, we address both the acute conflicts and the long-term structural elements that are causing these types of conflicts over and over again. Breaking free from conflict identities. Many people form identities around being victims, being in conflict, or being in control. And if that identity is threatened, it leaves a large gap in the way people see themselves. When someone finally decides...