James Boyd

08/20/19 • 32 min

Ep. 7 — A pudgy British youth gives up a life of wealth and privilege to enlist for a punishing stint in the U.S. Special Forces / James Boyd, CEO and Co-Founder of Adyton In this episode, software entrepreneur James Boyd describes how he spent his childhood cocooned in wealth and privilege, frittering his time away in expensive schools and shuttling between homes in London and California. But the September 11, 2001 attacks happened on Boyd’s first week at Stanford University and shocked him out of his complacency. Boyd shares how he made the decision to give up his British citizenship and enlist in the U.S. Special Forces. He talks about the rigors of serving in the Army’s elite and demanding Green Beret 18X (18 X-Ray) program and the leadership lessons he learned along the way. Transcript Download the PDF Chitra: Hello and welcome to When It Mattered. I'm Chitra Ragavan. On this episode we will be talking to James Boyd. He is CEO and co-founder of the tech startup Adyton. The September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks happened in Boyd's first week at Stanford university and led him upon graduating with honors to enlist in the elite army special forces Green Beret 18 X-ray program. As a Green Beret, Boyd was deployed in multiple counter-terrorism and counterinsurgency operations. James, welcome to the podcast. James: Good morning, Chitra. Chitra: Good morning. Was there anything in your childhood or youth that showed a predisposition for a physically punishing career like joining the US Special Forces? James: I think it would be the absolute opposite. When I think back to my 11 year old self, I was frankly a rich kid living a comfortable life, going to a good school, and I spent a little bit more time eating pizza and eating candy and watching TV than I probably should have. And I think my parents, they tried to get me to go get some exercise. They tried to get me to stop playing around with the computer. And it was definitely, it was a comfortable lifestyle for an 11 year old to just have toys and games and all the candy you could want. Chitra: I imagine you weren't particularly physically fit either. James: No, absolutely not. I was a little bit pudgy as an 11 year old. in fact, I think I remember my dad had asked one of my teachers, he's like, "Hey, is this going to burn off at some point?" And he would take me on cycling trips. And so there was this sort of a push to try and get a little bit more exercise as a pudgy 11 year old. Chitra: So what happened next? James: Well, I remember at one point I was going through this great school. It was a feeder into one of the top high schools in the country, and you're around a whole bunch of other smart kids, and it was very competitive to get into it. But I was coasting, we had all of these fantastic courses available to us, study Latin and Greek and things like that. And I was kind of shooting for about middle of the road on things, getting fairly average to below average scores. And one day my mother saw my report card and she was absolutely livid and she told me that if you aim for 70 you're going to get a 60 and she threw me out of the house. And this was before school. So I remember sitting on the steps of my house in London at 11 years old. I have been told that what I was doing was not good enough. I sort of wondered what I'm supposed to do next. And that was a very, very visceral moment that let me know that I was wasting what was in front of me. Chitra: And you were living in London, but you had dual homes, you had a wealthy lifestyle. Your mom was American, your dad British. So you were going between countries, between homes, and it was just amazing till you had that realization. James: Absolutely. I think my parents had met in California and so we actually had a house in California and a house in London, and able to spend vacations in California and there was nothing that we wanted for.

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Dr. Shawna Pandya

Ep. 6 — A martial arts competition goes awry in Thailand and teaches this polymath a lesson for life / Dr. Shawna Pandya, Physician, Citizen-Scientist Astronaut & Aquanaut, and Martial Artist In this episode, Canadian physician, Dr. Shawna Pandya, describes how she combined her childhood passion for space and medicine into a unique and rewarding career as a citizen-scientist astronaut and aquanaut. Dr. Pandya talks about what it takes to be a polymath and near-superhuman and excel in multiple fields. And she describes the rigor and rewards of becoming a Black Belt in Taekwondo and shares an invaluable lesson from competing in an amateur Thai boxing/martial arts competition in Phuket, Thailand. Transcript Download the PDF Chitra: Hello, and welcome to When It Mattered. I'm your host, Chitra Ragavan. On this episode we will be talking to Dr. Shawna Pandya. She's a Canadian physician, citizen scientist, astronaut and aquanaut, and pilot in training. She's a martial artist with a black belt in Tae Kwon Do, and she also practices the Thai martial arts, Muay Thai. Dr. Pandya currently serves as the life sciences team lead for the Association of Space Flight Professionals, and she's the life sciences chair for the Canadian Space Society. Dr. Pandya holds a bachelor's degree in neuroscience, a master's degree in space studies, and a medical degree. She's licensed as a general practitioner and is an accomplished public speaker. Dr Pandya, welcome to the podcast. Shawna: Thank you so much for having me. Chitra: I believe you fit the definition of a polymath, one who excels at many things. How old were you when you began to define your goals and ambitions? Shawna: I was always an ambitious kid. When I was four, I wanted to be a superhero, or a Transformer, and save the world, and fight crime. And then I realized that that's not something you could actually go to school to do. And so I set my ambitions a little bit lower, and said I'm going to be a billionaire, and I'll be the world's richest person, and use my wealth to solve all the world's problems. And that was when I was seven. Shawna: And then I realized that you can't exactly go get a degree in billionaire-ologies. So then I set my sights on the next ambition, which was becoming an astronaut and going to space. And that really set the trap for everything that came next, especially in my adult life as in my professional career. And so everything I did as a child, whether it was what I was reading about my homework assignments, it was all about going to space and becoming an astronaut. And that laid the foundation for my professional life. Chitra: You were an avid reader, and you said it caused your mom a little bit of concern. Shawna: Yeah, that's a really funny story. So when I was in the second grade, I loved reading. All I would do would be reading. So at recess, regardless of whether it was the middle of winter, or rain or shine, I would just have a book, and I would just read in a corner to the point where my teacher called my mom about it. And one day my mom was listening to a child psychologist on a radio talk show, and they were talking about problems with raising children. And my mom called into this child psychologist, and she said, "My kid reads too much. What do I do about that?" And that was kind of emblematic of the kind of child I was. Chitra: Was there a moment when you realized your passion for space? Shawna: I think it was always a fixture for me growing up. Some of my fondest memories are camping with my family, going to these beautiful locations, away from city lights. Just seeing the dark night sky and the stars leap out at you. I remember on one camping trip when I was seven, it was the Leonides meteor shower, and all we did was stay up till 2:00 AM watching shooting stars through the sky. And it was just this wonderful moment where you're truly aware of how beautiful, and mysterious,

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Nina Totenberg

Ep. 8 — An award-winning reporter struggles with balancing a demanding job and managing a family crisis and learns the true meaning of duty and family / Nina Totenberg, Legal Affairs Correspondent, National Public Radio (NPR) In this episode, NPR’s Nina Totenberg confesses that her youthful admiration for teen fictional detective Nancy Drew played a formative role in pursuing journalism as a career in an era when female reporters were a rarity. Totenberg reveals how she broke free from the confines of fashion and wedding news reporting via press releases and became one of the most acclaimed and celebrated legal reporters in the country. And she compares the challenges she and other working women of her generation faced to how women are handling sexual harassment today in light of the #MeToo movement. Totenberg describes what it’s like to have covered the U.S. Supreme Court for decades, and she reads the tea leaves on where this increasingly conservative court may be heading in the coming months. And she walks us through her difficult days holding down a high-profile job and taking care of her late first husband, Senator Floyd Haskell (D-Colorado), after he suffered a serious head injury from a fall and battled for his life for months in an intensive care unit. Totenberg shares with us the advice that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg gave her to help her through those trying times. And she talks about her own survival from a snorkeling accident when she was hit by a power boat during her honeymoon with her second husband, who just happened to be a trauma surgeon. Through these crises, Totenberg reveals how she came to have a renewed appreciation for friends and family and the importance of duty in life’s journey. Last but not least, Totenberg ends the conversation with a heartwarming anecdote about her virtuoso violinist father Roman Totenberg’s stolen Stradivarius. Transcript Download the PDF Chitra Ragavan: Hello, and welcome to When It Mattered. I'm Chitra Ragavan. On this episode, we will be talking to Nina Totenberg, National Public Radio's award-winning legal affairs correspondent. Totenberg's coverage of the Supreme Court and legal affairs have won her widespread recognition and acclaim and earned many awards. She's often featured in Supreme Court documentaries, most recently in RBG. As Newsweek put it, quote, "The mainstays of NPR are Morning Edition and All Things Considered. But the créme del la créme is Nina Totenberg." Nina, welcome to the podcast. Nina Totenberg: It's my pleasure, Chitra. Chitra Ragavan: What was your path to becoming a reporter? Nina Totenberg: Well, when I was a girl, really a girl girl, I was a great fan of Nancy Drew, and Nancy could do everything. And, of course, she had no mother. Her mother was dead, so she didn't even have to compete for her father's affections. And she had a boyfriend, Ned, and a roadster, and she solved all kinds of mysteries and could do a jackknife dive. And I wanted to be Nancy Drew, and I thought the mystery part was something that I could do. And so I think that that made me, at first, interested in journalism. Nina Totenberg: And then later, when I was teenager, I read Theodore White's, The Making of a President, 1960, and I thought, "That's really what I want to do. I want to be ... " The elegant way of saying it is, "A witness to history." The inelegant way of saying it is, "I want to be a gossip," in the most regal sense. I mean, my colleague, Cokie Roberts, often says that, "Historians get it wrong. They make it boring." But history is gossip. It's what's going on and the story behind the story as well as the story in front of the story. And that's what I wanted to do from the age of about 16 on. Chitra Ragavan: So how did you go from being a fan of Nancy Drew to actually becoming a real reporter? Nina Totenberg: Well, it was very difficult when I started out because people just told you they didn't hire women or,...