In Other Words

Bob Baxt is a surgeon who spends most of his time these days out of the country. He works with civilian humanitarian medical services like Doctors Without Borders (MSF) and the former hospital ship Hope.  He's spent a lot of time in Africa and has seen what is actually going on there.  Bob states at the outset of the interview that his views are his and do not represent the views of any government or any organization he has worked with.  But he says we're trying so hard in this country to help the people in war-torn countries, but we can never understand what is going on there unless you understand the tribal system that they have used as their form of government for eons.  The concept of a centralized government isn't even in their consciousness, yet that's what we keep trying to get them to use. 

Bob also steps back some and gives us a brief history of how things got the way they are in Africa.
With the dangers involved, the lack of supplies and sterility, why do Bob and others like him keep going back?  Listen and you'll know.

NOTE: This is an old show, before I was using a good microphone, so I apologize for the sound quality.

Vicki Brick recently took over as CEO of Brick Bodies.  Before then, she worked at the clubs, starting in sales and working her way up to a general manager position.  Before that, she played pro ball.  Yup, basketball.  We talked about what it was like growing up in a fitness dynasty and how it was growing in a climate where other clubs are going out of business. 

There's a portion of the deep south known as the Wiregrass, for the particularly nasty kind of grass that grows there.  That's where author Pam Webber and her cousins spent their summers growing up.  And that's where the fictional cousins of The Wiregrass spent their summers.  The summer she writes of is the one where they are starting to realize their childhood is coming to an end and the way things have always been, isn't the way they're going to be anymore.

One of the reasons she wrote this book is to bring more awareness to the problem of child abuse. According to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children says that in one year alone, more than a million kids were abused or at risk for being abused.  We need to stop that.

This is part two of this podcast.  There was just too much really important stuff to fit into one.  In Part 1, we introduced Zimbabwean Adrian Suskin. We talked about the former Rhodesia claiming it's independence, and how the Great Liberator became a tyrant who, in five years, took Zimbabwe from tremendous affluence to abject poverty, 90% unemployment, and inflation so high $100 billion could buy a loaf of bread.  In this, Part 2, we talk about what Adrian and others are doing to bring the country back to its former glory.

Adrian is an American citizen, but he was born in what was then Rhodesia, now known as Zimbabwe.  And he still has very strong ties to his home country, a land so prosperous it was called the Breadbasket of Africa.  They boasted a literacy rate higher than in many Western countries.  In Part 1, we talked about President Robert Mugabe's "nationalizing" the white-owned farms 2000, bringing the country to its knees in only five years.  This was recorded in mid-2012, when inflation was so out of control, the government was printing $100,000,000,000,000.00 bills – that's one hundred trillion dollars – the life expectancy was back up to about 50 (it first dropped to the mid-30s), and unemployment was at about 90%.  In Part 2 of this podcast, he talks about his Zimkids project, that feeds, clothes, educates, and teaches skills to Zimbabwean orphans. 

When Ariana Ayu first approached me about being on my show, I was uninterested. Everything about her is big and bold and, yes, sexy. She is unabashedly voluptuous. I could not imagine her being a good business coach. But being a good talk show host, I did my homework, and then I couldn't book her fast enough! Big and bodacious and sexy is her brand. It works for her. She does not try to make it work for anyone else. She guides clients to find their own brand and she helps them make it as strong for them as hers is for her.

And the conversation was such fun! You'll love the way we fed off each others' energy. This will be one of the most valuable branding shows you're heard.

Eric was on the verge of being fired from his sales job because he never met his quota.  Three months later, he was the company's top seller.  Listen to him talk about how that happened.  And then he figured out that what he really wanted to do was teach selling.  At a really affordable price.  So people could actually afford to learn it.  As I listened to listen one again, I got even more value from it. 

NOTE: I don't know why, but the sound quality of this one is not good.  It's still easy to listen to and understand, though.

At her heaviest, Angie Johnston weighed over 418 pounds. She doesn't know how much more because she topped out the scale. Then she decided she had to make big changes ... or she would die. She has lost about 200 pounds and is now a certified personal trainer.

But what broke my heart was when she talked about what everyday life is like for a morbidly obese person. She was intimidated by everyone, always waiting for the person to start making fun of her. People at the gym looked down their noses at her, as though she shouldn't even be there. I had no idea what an act of courage it was for a morbidly obese person to simply walk out their front door. And talk about courage, it wasn't until a little ways into the interview that she relaxed and realized I wasn't going to attack her or set her up to be laughed at (the original show was live).

John-Leslie Brown is the son of world renown speaker Les Brown. I'm sure he'd rather not be known as Les Brown's son, as he has his own thriving career as a speaker, coach, and hip hop artist. I am also sure he will be, for some time to come.  It's the curse of having a famous parent.

When John-Leslie talks, you can hear his heritage.  He's very committed to everything he says.  He is committed to helping people not find their destiny, but create it. 

He's also a hip hop artist, going by the name of High Hopes.  It gives him a way to reach kids who wouldn't otherwise get to hear someone telling them how magnificent they are.

Gretchen Wallace began her Global Grassroots foundation to support women and girls in war torn countries. What she found is, the women in these communities know what they need and they know how to do it.  They come up with astoundingly creative solutions none of us would ever think of.  But they don't have the resources to do anything.  Global Grassroots teaches the women business skills, leadership skills, whatever else they need to learn. They give them all the start-up money and other needs. These communities become self-sustaining. They have increased the number of girl graduation high school from 17% to over 80%, they have had an effect on sexual violence, and much more.