No Barriers

Penny Melville Brown's passion is cooking. However, for a career she chose the Royal Navy. Yes she’s British. During her service in the Royal Navy she became the first female barrister there; it’s a type of lawyer, the ones that wear those wigs. Then as it happened to all of our guests on this podcast, she had a life altering moment. In Penny’s case, she lost her sight and had to leave her 20-year career with the Navy. The next chapter of her life get’s real interesting. With an eye towards her cooking roots, she sets her mind on a culinary focused worldwide journey to learn and teach the concepts of baking blind. In the process she’s shattered assumptions about the capabilities of blind chefs. In this episode we jump from the Australian outback, to the streets of Paris, to a small Malawian village, and more.

SAM'S SOCIALS: Instagram - BionicKickVIDEO: Muay Thai and MeWEBSITE: https://www.samanthatokita.com/

Polar adventurer, expedition guide, dog musher and educator, Eric Larsen has spent the past 15 years of his life traveling in some of the most remote and wild places left on earth. He traversed 550 miles of shifting sea ice and open ocean to get to the North Pole. That wasn’t enough, so off he went to the South Pole. 600 frozen miles and 41 days later he made it. Then back to the North Pole in winter, then up to the top of Mt. Everest… shall I go on? The curveball arrived. Did these journeys of isolation and endurance prepare him for the ultimate battle; one for survival in the face of an unexpected cancer diagnosis? In this episode Larsen's shares his honest and thoughtful insights; honed from the mental gymnastics practiced during the the isolation experienced in expanses of snow and ice.

To kick off 2023 we want to take a trip down memory lane from 2022. This episode showcases some of our favorite highlights from guests we spoke to in 2022. Enjoy! Listen to the full episodes referenced in this episode. EPISODE 136: 500 MPH WITH FORMER BLUE ANGELS PILOT JOHN FOLEY EPISODE 148: OVERCOMING TRAGEDY WITH SEBASTIAN “ZUKO” CARRASCO EPISODE 152: MINDSETS WITH MATT LEWIS, NAVY SEAL AND COO EPISODE 159: LONNIE BEDWELL FEAR SLAYER EPISODE 161: DR> HOBY WEDLER AND HIS SUPER SENSES EPISODE 162: SEEING SILENCE WITH PETER MCBRIDE

A long or arduous search for something. The act of seeking. The idea of a quest is littered throughout history with 1000s of famous examples. Right now? humans want to go to mars AND return to the moon. The quest to solve climate or energy crisis is happening in real time. What do these have to do with the… Disastrous and Heroic Voyage of the 1913 Canadian Arctic Expedition …. the life of the famous Apache leader Geron-imo …a 16th century explorer’s death defying navigation of the Amazon … or the The Real-Life Adventures of David Crockett. In the words of our guest today, Buddy Levy, who’s authored books with those titles, he says, “Humankind’s quest for knowledge and understanding has set many a historical precedent. And these historical models provide a sort of connective tissue for today’s innovators and thought leaders who will show us the way to do the things we need to do in the future to survive on this big rock.”

Patrick Kane needed a prothetic arm. Would he rather have one that looked quite natural, with real looking skin or one that was ‘machine beautiful’ with exposed titanium, carbon fiber, alloys, and the like. . Prosthetics have been around for 1000s of years. They’ve been found in Egyptian tombs. There’s a story about a German soldier who lost his arm in war, but that didn’t stop him from returning to the battlefield. He had a suit of armor made with a metal hand on it and he was known to be brutal. The phrase Ruling with an Iron Fist is sometimes attributed to that story. What about the ethics of prosthetics? Here’s simple question. Just because someone is missing an arm do they need to wear a prothesis. Do athletes with prosthetic limbs have an unfair advantage over able-bodied athletes? Patrick Kane was once known as the bionic teenager. He was one of the youngest people to ever be fitted with an artificial limb. He joins our host Erik Weihenmayer and guest host Billy Lister and they tackle these ideas and more.

Born without legs, one would think Jen Bricker would be destined for a life of hardship.  However, the hand of destiny brought her an amazing adoptive family, who gave her one simple rule, “Never say can’t” and helped her forge a life of triumph, not tragedy.  As a child, Jen was obsessed with gymnastics, and her idol was Olympic gold-medalist Dominique Moceanu.  Seemingly against all odds, Jen went on to compete against able-bodied athletes, and became a State Champion in power tumbling—only later to discover Moceanu was actually her biological sister.

TED TALK: Is the Grand Canyon for Salehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71jvm2Pq0Us WATCH: Peter’s 750-mile trek across Grand Canyon National Park.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLDc1Ib1acgLISTEN: NPR 1A podcast with Erik & Peterhttps://www.npr.org/2021/10/03/1042831854/seeing-silence-one-photographers-mission-to-find-the-worlds-quietest-placesREAD: Seeing the Silence book excerpt in Nature magazine. https://www.nature.org/en-us/magazine/magazine-articles/book-excerpt-search-for-silence/

As Dr, Hoby Wedler puts it, wine is just two ingredients, yeast and grapes. Yet when people talk about how wine tastes it’s more complex and described through the lens of fruit flavors or perfumes or other plants and trees. As a food and beverage sensory expert Dr. Wedler's clients rely his abilities to translate those complexities into products that you and I enjoy. There is a twist though. Dr. Wedler is blind. Hoby earned a Ph.D. in chemistry at the University of California, Davis, and is the founder and director of the nonprofit organization, Accessible Science. In our conversation Hoby was a fountain of so many ideas that, we ran out of time during the original recording and resumed the next day. I guarantee a few of these you can put into action as you look towards a goal for today or a year from now. One thought I had, that probably you do to… Is it true that when people who lose one sense can gain super abilities in another? Or maybe “super-abilities” are through plain hard work? Stick around.

Our guest usually finds himself speaking in front of large audiences motivating them through topics like the power of change or embracing the struggle, but today… we get him all to ourselves. Chris Waddell is a Hall of Fame Paralympic skier and wheelchair track athlete. A college skiing accident paralyzed him waist down. Yet he went to the highest levels of competition in the Paralympics winning medal after medal for a decade. The adventure continued with his unassisted ascent of the highest mountain in Africa, Kilimanjaro at over 19,000 (the first paraplegic to do so). Authoring a few books came next, founding a non-profit, delivering commencement speeches, and the list goes on… ’m glad you’re joining us for this conversation between host Erik Weihemayer and guest Chris Waddell.