Living A Life In Full

Ian Lantz is one of the happiest activists I have ever had the pleasure to call friend. Lots of the other folks I have worked with may have had a grudge, or an ax to grind, or a cross to bear. Not Ian. In spite of a challenging childhood growing up in Los Angeles, he is one of the most giving and caring individuals that I know.

It’s almost like he’s an accidental change-maker, and artist for that matter. In spite of not having formal art school, his works are in demand, even by the Mayor’s Office. He was warned off of going into some Chicago ‘hoods because of being unsafe. But he did anyway, and thankfully so. He brought art and received friendship. He brought curiosity and caring and received the same in return. This is not a story of gentrification and loss of place. It is a story of crossing lines and collaborating to make a neighborhood a better place for those already there, and by becoming part of the fabric of what makes a neighborhood special.

Please listen in to the wonderful story of a life lived in full by an inspirational creative, Ian Lantz.

Listen on iTunes and be sure to subscribe. (Please subscribe, leave a rating, and help us make “New & Noteworthy”): https://tinyurl.com/ALifeInFull or download here: http://livingalifeinfull.libsyn.com. You can also listen in Overcast as well.

Bridget Algee-Hewitt, PhD, does amazing things.

She is a Senior Research Scientist at Stanford University’s Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity and a Quantitative Researcher in Facebook’s SBG Data Science Research and Development Division. Bridget is a biological anthropologist who studies how skeletal and genetic traits vary among contemporary peoples, across space and through time. She develops new computational methods, using machine learning and artificial intelligence, and geographic mapping algorithms, and hands-on DNA and osteology laboratory approaches to improve estimation of the personal identity parameters essential in forensic identification of unknown human remains and for the paleo-demographic reconstruction of past population histories in bio-archaeology.

As a practicing forensic anthropologist and geneticist, she provides forensic casework consultation to the medico-legal community. She also delivers expert testimony for asylum petitions and advocates for policy change in support of undocumented migrant and refugee rights. Her social justice work focuses on immigration, displacement, poverty, and violence in Latin America, addressing in particular the crisis of migrant deaths along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Bridget received her PhD in Biological Anthropology from the University of Tennessee – Knoxville, an MA in Classical and Near Eastern Archaeology at Bryn Mawr, and a BA in Classics and Art History from Mount Allison University. Bridget is an Advisory Board Member for the Certificate in Critical Consciousness and Anti-Oppressive Praxis in the Stanford School of Medicine and she is the Book & Resource Review Editor for the American Journal of Physical Anthropology.

Listeners may recall past episodes in which we had guests who are experts in forensics, and in AI, and big data, and genetics, and anthropology, and even an artist who used randomly found public DNA to create sculptures of individuals, but Bridget’s work seems to be an integration of all of these areas and more. We begin with what drew her to biological anthropology and what biological anthropology constitutes.

We then discuss her article in Medium with Casey Miller on US/Mexico border camps, COVID-19 and medical care and humanitarian relief efforts. Next we do a deep dive into her talk at the Stanford Institute for Human Artificial Intelligence conference on AI Ethics, Policy and Governance where she spoke on Race, Rights and Facial Recognition, and we discuss the social justice aspects that she spoke on—in particular how geopolitical situations can change our biology by causing trauma that may play-out in our epigenetics which can be passed on intergenerationally. It is truly fascinating, especially in the context of the Grand Ethical Challenge in this area of work.

Related to this, Bridget was part of a panel on Forensic Genomics: New Frontiers and New Considerations, which focused on the difficult questions about whether and how DNA technologies are being used to identify “race” or “ethnicity” and the balance between ethical, legal and social implications and we learn her perspectives on this and what can be done as safeguards.

We also circle back to her Advisory Board work on the nascent Certificate in Critical Consciousness and Anti-Oppressive Praxis in the Stanford School of Medicine and this program’s work, and her perspective on the “compound technology effect” and better ways to integrate and sort multidisciplinary effects on scientific work and its ramifications.

She also has a new book coming out Remodeling Forensic Skeletal Age: Modern Applications and New Research Directions, which “presents a comprehensive understanding of the analytical frameworks and conceptual approaches salient both to the present chapters on forensic age estimation and to those seeking to grasp the current state of the field more broadly. It also includes a series of recommendations of best practice through the chapter-examples, which offer theory and guidance for data acquisition, technique and/or model development...

What is the journey like to move from enlisting in the Navy at age 17, being recruited into the SEALs instead of going to law school, then serving as a SEAL Team member for twenty years, leading combat missions and helping to design and test new special operations capabilities while becoming a combat-decorated officer and later instructor, to next becoming an entrepreneur, novelist and nonfiction author, CEO and Chief Strategy Officer, Portfolio Manager, sought-after media expert and keynote speaker, while being a father of five and beating cancer – twice?

Well, that’s what Marty Strong will be discussing in this episode, and how to apply what he’s learned, to your life and work.

But let me first tell you a little bit more about Marty.

In the Navy, he served as Former Task Unit Commander and Ops Boss, was a member of SEAL Team Two and SEAL Team Four, and was Leading Chief Petty Officer at the Naval Special Warfare Center in Coronado. He’s traveled to over forty countries, and been shot-at in a few.

Marty is currently the CEO of three companies within an ESOP-enterprise structure and he runs his own consulting firm. He’s appeared on CNN, Fox News, Inside Edition, and was a featured expert on two History Channel documentaries. In all, Marty has over 400 TV and radio interviews to his credit.

Marty has taken the thread of leadership to stitch together the fabric of his vibrant, albeit challenging career and life. There is so much we covered in this episode – leadership, overcoming adversity, BUDs and being a SEAL Team Member and instructor, author, entrepreneur, and more.

We also covered mindset, adaptation, and improvising, black swans, flow state a la Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, business leadership during crisis, motivation and the courage required to excel, and how to see risk as opportunity for accelerated outcomes. Marty certainly lives his life in full, and in the service of others in so many ways. This is a great conversation with an amazing leader.

When you think of modern technologies that aren’t gadgets and gizmos, you probably think of the Web, and with it, the Internet.

If so, you aren’t really thinking of modern technologies.

We are entering a new age. We’ve moved from the “Read-only Web,” which had little functionality for interacting with content, to the “Read-Write Web,” which offered seemingly endless collaborative opportunities, from sharing things with friends and family to shopping at your favorite brands. But the profusion of cyberattacks, data hacks, and online profiling have left many of us to view digital life as a Faustian bargain in need of a major rethink.

It brings with it a new lexicon and vocabulary for concepts and tools like blockchains, the metaverse, NFTs, DAOs, decentralized finance, and self-sovereign identity. In this episode, Alex Tapscott will serve as our guide and interpreter of this brave new world.

Alex is the author of the Wall Street Journal and The Globe and Mail Bestseller Web3: Charting the Internet’s Next Economic and Cultural Frontier. He is also an entrepreneur and seasoned capital markets professional focused on the impact of emerging technologies, such as Web3, AI, VR/AR, the Metaverse, blockchain and cryptocurrencies, on business, government, and society.

Alex is masterful in communicating via both the written and spoken word as to complex topics that are critically important to our future and living fuller lives. As he wrote “In the Read-Write-Own Web of Web3, we are not merely spectators; we are authors of our digital destiny, reclaiming control over our identities and assets.” This episode is not to be missed if you want to better understand what the future holds and how it will impact us all and society.

Have you ever found yourself in the presence of someone you love dearly and had nothing to say? The silence, not indicative of your care for the other, nor of your desire to connect with them, and yet there were no words you could grasp to articulate the depth or quality of your connection to them.

Or, have you found yourself in the same looped pattern of conversation with someone you love? Feeling as though you were treading the same path repeatedly, and it was simply exhausting? Or, even worse, it was deteriorating your connection. We all crave connection. But sometimes we need help getting there.

Topaz Adizes offers a guide to having the conversations that can lead to that connection in his latest book, 12 Questions for Love: A Guide to Intimate Conversations and Deeper Relationships. After a decade of exploring human emotions and intimacy through more than 1200 conversations in his Emmy Award-winning experience design studio, The Skin Deep, Topaz has been studying and watching humans of all types, and in all kinds of relationships, simply talk. And it’s resonating, having over 1.2 million followers on TikTok and 900,000 on YouTube.

Topaz is a writer, director, and experience design architect. He is an Edmund Hillary Fellow and Sundance/Skoll Stories of Change Fellow. His works have been selected to Cannes, Sundance, IDFA, and SXSW; featured in New Yorker magazine, Vanity Fair, and the New York Times; and have garnered an Emmy for New Approaches to Documentary, along with Two World Press photo awards for Immersive Storytelling and Interactive Documentary.

He is currently the Founder and Executive Director of The Skin Deep. Topaz studied philosophy at UC Berkeley and Oxford University. He speaks four languages, and currently lives in Mexico with his wife and two children.

In this episode, Topaz shares what he has learned from witnessing over 1200 conversations and the lessons from his own first-hand experiences.

Topaz’s creativity, like his humanity, seems boundless. His work on relationship developments is a useful approach to helping us all have deeper and more intimate relationships that helps each us live our lives in full.