No Barriers

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.

In 2013 Erik Weihenmayer picked up the phone with an idea and a pitch. After 6 years of training, he was ready to throw himself into some of the biggest whitewater in the country... in a kayak. Where? That stretch of the Colorado River flowing through Grand Canyon. Who did he call? Lonnie Bedwell; today’s guest. Erik’s journey learning to kayak was a bit lonely at times. Where were the other blind kayakers? Eventually he found Lonnie, blind, who had thrown himself into the sport, and with rapid speed, into that big water in Grand Canyon as well. Erik wanted Lonnie to join him on this epic river adventure. His pitch, “One blind descent is an anomaly, but two would be a statement”) Erik and Lonnie indeed tag teamed that descent through the Grand Canyon and inspired others who followed years later. Let’s get into Lonnie’ story. We’ll cover how he lost his sight in a hunting accident, kayaking the Zambezi in Africa, how his experiences in the military on submarines taught him about managing fear, adaptations he’s made working in construction whether roofing a house or running electrical, and how he re-learned to mow a lawn, with his daughter, who was 5 at the time, … and much more…

Our guest today grew up in rural Mongolia; hundreds of miles from anything resembling an advanced health care facility. So when his legs stopped working as a young boy; finding out the reason would not be easy. The family began their quest by traversing over 400 miles across Mongolia without a paved road in sight making their way to the capital city. They found new jobs and connected their son with the best health care available at the time. 3 years later they still had no answer. In fact in took 7 years until our guest, Bayar Damdinjav, received his diagnosis of an incurable auto-immune disease. The pivotal moment in Bayar’s life was when he decided to move back home to eastern Mongolia and attempt to be a normal teenager, which at that point involved going to high school. Nothing in his town was built for someone in a wheelchair. No sidewalks, no paved roads, no ramps, or elevators. Academically, there would be a lot of catching up to do, as he hadn’t attended school in 3 years. The odds were stacked against him. What he’s accomplished since then, might surprise you.

Chris Layne on Instagram. 

A couple days ago myself, our host Erik Weihenmayer, and maybe 50 others were sitting in an auditorium with our eyes closed. My knees were pressed up against the seat back in front of me. My arms were pinned between the hard wooden armrests. I was not comfortable. However… and I know this may sound a bit out there… buts… minutes later I found myself floating in space. I could no longer feel the pressure points in my knees and arms. I was on my way to a state of hypnosis. I was about to have a conscious conversation with my subconscious mind. That’s the way our guest today describes it. Dr. Vidor Friedman. Dr. Friedman was leading a group hypnosis experience, at the No Barriers Summit, intended to give us a small glimpse into the process. That day was about reprogramming our response to stress or anxiety. However, the potential here runs so much deeper as you hear today. Pain management without narcotics. Surgery without anesthesia (yes, as a matter of fact, there’s been successful implementations of hypnosis in lieu of anesthesia during surgery). And much more….