Two ex-special operations guys armed with MBAs seek out people leading lives less ordinary, in order to find out how they fill their ‘unforgiving minutes’, and what helps them go, always, a little further. Like intellectual bowerbirds, we collect shiny little objects of knowledge that will help build better humans. Co-hosted by Ben Pronk and Tim Curtis.
Episodes
Tuesday Sep 28, 2021
Tuesday Sep 28, 2021
Hamish Blake needs no introduction.
So, we won’t give him one.
Part A discusses getting into comedy, bombing and learning from failure and who/ what is the real Hamish. We talk about Hamish and Andy and sustaining a personal and professional relationship. And their trip into Afghanistan.
Intelligence Summary (INTSUM)
00:00 Hamish proves that he’s as bad as Ben and Tim on recording.
01:00 Why we are on a last name basis
03:30 How did Hamish get to be the Hamish he is today?
06:55 Breaking into comedy….. what was Hamish’s dream job?
08:30 How confronting is stand-up comedy?
10:55 The importance of bombing… and perspective.
13:40 The original Hamish and Andy Show- bombed. How do you come back from that?
17:50 Learning and adapting from sucking.
20:00 Hamish + Andy. How do you sustain social and professional over an extended period?
26:30 How many personalities can you juggle-including the public persona.
31:45 When role and identity collides = ‘issues’
34:40 Hamish and Andy head to Afghanistan- why?
40:05 The non-alcoholic beer challenge in Afghanistan (not endorsed by us!).
43:00 The Paddle Pop challenge (not endorsed by us!).
44:20 And other food challenges.
47:50 Taking us own with Hamish as a non-battle casualty (NBCAS) in Afghanistan.
External Links
Contact Us
Email us at debrief@unforgiving60.com
Social Media (Instagram, Twitter, Facebook): @Unforgiving60
Music
The Externals – available on Spotify
Wednesday Sep 01, 2021
Wednesday Sep 01, 2021
Since as long as he could remember, Boo wanted to be a fighter pilot. Even before he’d seen Top Gun! In this episode, Ben and Tim pick Boo’s brains about his connection to purpose, the difference between ‘High Performance’ and ‘Deep Performance’ and how he and the team at Afterburner have helped countless corporate clients embrace the fighter pilot mindset and improve their performance by adopting the mantra ‘Plan, Brief, Execute, Debrief!’
Intelligence Summary (INTSUM)
02:45 What would Tim’s callsign be if he was a fighter pilot?
06:00 Boo’s story, including how he found his dream to be a pilot
08:30 The importance of purpose
11:30 What’s it really like being a fighter pilot? (Hint: It’s not like Top Gun, but it is achievable!)
17:00 Life in the squadron
21:10 The ‘say/do’ gap
25:15 The importance of debriefing
29:50 On ego
39:20 Boo’s reason for leaving the Air Force - and his post-military career
48:25 The difference between ‘High Performance’ and ‘Deep Performance’
53:20 Boo on his podcast, The Few
57:40 …and Boo’s ‘Power Song’!
Email us at debrief@unforgiving60.com
Social Media (Instagram, Twitter): @Unforgiving60
External Links
- Boo’s website
- Afterburner
- The Few podcast
Music
The Externals – available on Spotify
Ben Frichot - available on Spotify
Friday Aug 13, 2021
Friday Aug 13, 2021
Following up from last week, this week we have Dr Dan Pronk back on the show to talk about the making of The Resilience Shield.
And what the three authors do in their lives to contribute to their own Resilience Shields.
More on The Resilience Shield is here...
Intelligence Summary (INTSUM)
- no show notes this week. Email us if you love show notes!
Contact Us:
Music:
The Externals
Thursday Aug 05, 2021
Thursday Aug 05, 2021
Alex Lloyd from Life on the Line Podcast interviews Ben, Tim and Dr Dan Pronk discussing resilience.
More about the incredible Life on the Line Podcast here:
More on the amazingly selfless Alex Lloyd here:
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Life on the Line Episode Notes:
Alex Lloyd interviews three Australian Special Forces veterans about the secrets to unlock greater personal resilience.
Life on the Line tracks down Australian military veterans and records their stories. Dr Dan Pronk, Ben Pronk DSC and Tim Curtis return to the show in this special podcast to talk about their new book, THE RESILIENCE SHIELD. From lessons learned in Afghanistan to Sierra Leone, the board room to the hospital, the SAS veterans have demystified and defined resilience and unlocked how anyone can better equip themselves to overcome adversity in life. Alex Lloyd, the publisher of their book at Pan Macmillan, spoke with the trio more about how the book came about and what readers can expect.
Thursday Jul 15, 2021
Thursday Jul 15, 2021
A very intimate, raw and special reverse episode- where Ben and Tim tell honest stories about their own families, as well as their philosophy on death and dying, and the values they have tried to instil in their own families.
- With Jump Daddy and Dr Tom from the Dad to Me Podcast.
External Links
More information on Dad to Me is available here.
About Us
Email us at debrief@unforgiving60.com
Social Media (Instagram, Twitter): @Unforgiving60
Music
By The Externals – available on Spotify
With thanks also to Ben Frichot from Frichot Design Factory for his music.
Friday Jun 25, 2021
Friday Jun 25, 2021
A hilarious episode with Dr Tom and Jump Daddy who have a podcast that acts as a translation service between kids and their fathers! These two are as smart and funny as …. They interviewed Ben and Tim about parenting on the Dad to Me Podcast; and now Ben and Tim get their own back! The revenge episode!
The Dad to Me podcast interviews the world's hottest fathers. The series poses questions grown children have always wanted to ask their own dads, but have somehow felt too awkward, out-of-place or simply scary to ask.
Intelligence Summary (INTSUM)
02:30 Introducing Dr Tom and Jump Daddy! Interviewing the world’s hottest fathers!
03:45 How the two boys met
06:30 Alternate political views- anti War and student politics… and handball!
09:15 The boys’ professional lives. Comedy and Latin.
17:15 What are the boys learning from their podcast.
22:00 Platforms for conversations- when/ how do you have the tough conversations with your kids.
29:00 What was the motivation to start the Dad to Me podcast? Talking their relationships with their Dads.
33:00 Older males and framing vulnerability. Our relationships with our own dads- the sharing moment!
41:50 The boys own parenting experiences. Jump Daddy’s is quick. Dr Tom describes himself as ‘more than an uncle/ less than a dad!’…. 8-O
51:20 What’s next on the Dad to Me podcast for Season 2?
External Links
- More information on Dad to Me is available
About Us
Email us at debrief@unforgiving60.com
Social Media (Instagram, Twitter): @Unforgiving60
Music
By The Externals – available on Spotify
Thursday Jun 17, 2021
Thursday Jun 17, 2021
What do we do better? Decommissioning aircraft or decommissioning people? This episode will explore how well we do the latter.
Dr Richard Magtengaard is a psychiatrist with near 20 years of clinical experience, working extensive with veterans and first responders. But he’s pretty different to who and what you might expect...
- Firstly, Richard served for 10 years as an officer in the Royal Australian Navy, before retiring to complete his Postgraduate Degree within Medicine (MBBS) and then into psychiatry.
- Secondly, Richard prefers to use non-conventional therapies over medication.
We ask Richard about the merit of art therapy, animal therapy, forgery, the use of psychedelics and much more.
What can we do NOW so we don’t need to end up seeing a psych!?
Richard is currently the Director of the Military Trauma Recovery Programme. This programme remains dedicated to assisting Defence Personnel, our Veterans, First Responder Organisations and their families who have sustained physical and psychological traumas during the performance of their duties.
Richard is passionate about the future of disruptive health technologies to improve outcomes in care, including neurostimulation with rTMS (repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation).
Intelligence Summary (INTSUM)
00:30 Please excuse the echo in the introduction as we tested our new non sound. proofed studio…. Don’t ask why!? Just ask Ben!
03:55 Richard’s surname…. And how it translated into a nickname!
08:20 Joining the Navy from a Wheatbelt town.
12:00 Summarising Richard’s Navy service, and transferrable lessons learned into psychiatry.
14:30 Why psychiatrists are bad are decompressed.
16:20 Rights of individuals….. versus collective responsibility.
18:50 Has Richard ever crashed a boat?
21:00 The most confronting professional sights for Richard.
22:20 Out of the Navy whites and into the Scrubs.
24:15 Combat operations- fascinating science or difficult treatment?
26:00 Therapies other than medication.
28:00 Tim’s opinion on the role of ‘forgery’.
29:20 Mammalian brains…. why we have challenges.
31:00 Did we prepare people well for 20 years of combat operations?
35:30 Mark Wales and his brain being more lizard than human!
42:30 Art therapy- how (and does) it work?
47:20 Animal therapy… gimmick or effective?
52:00 Is there a place for psychedelics?
56:50 Set and settings…. dose and environment. Loving yourself and removing stress.
59:10 Richard talks disruptive health technologies and transcranial magnetic stimulation.
1:03:20 What can we do so we don’t need to end up seeing a psych!?
1:05:50 On breathing.
1:07:50 On victimhood, diagnoses, power and control …. Richard’s thoughts.
1:12:15. Caring for the carers
Email us at debrief@unforgiving60.com
Social Media (Instagram, Twitter): @Unforgiving60
External Links
- More information on Richard is available here.
Music
The Externals – available on Spotify
Mitchell Martin- available on Spotify
Thursday Jun 10, 2021
Thursday Jun 10, 2021
Nicho Plowman reckons our lives are like an amazing movie – the trouble is that most of us are sitting way too close to the screen and being overwhelmed by it! In this podcast, Nicho, an entrepreneur and vedic meditation teacher, talks to us about the incredible benefits of using a meditation practice to move a few rows back in the movie of your life. Reflecting on his own journey into meditation, Nicho shares the history and principles of vedic meditation and some of the benefits that he has derived from his practice – not least of which is the ability to get to further back in the cinema of his life and enjoy the show!
Intelligence Summary (INTSUM)
02:45 Nicho’s background and how he got into meditation
04:45 Burning the candle at both ends – which eventually caught up with him and prompted Nicho to try meditation
06:30 On having the book Autobiograpy of a Yogi around for 10 years – and finally reading it, which ‘lit a spark’
08:00 Trying a variety of meditation techniques – most of them ‘monastic’, which work well on retreats, but were difficult to maintain in the ‘real world’
10:30 Discovering vedic meditation – and its benefits for us ‘householders’
11:30 Nicho then took 12 months to undertake vedic teacher training
12:30 The importance of experiential ‘research’ – sometimes we need to be ready to receive new knowledge
15:30 The history of vedic meditation
17:45 The relationship between vedic meditation and transcendental meditation
20:30 Overcoming the barriers to entry to meditation – what is meditation and how can we make it more accessible, particularly to guys?
22:30 The importance of the mantra in vedic meditation – a simple, yet powerful, technique to rest your mind and release stress and fatigue
26:15 Nicho on his acquisition of Insight Timer as a means of bringing meditation to more people – and its evolution from there
29:50 The benefits (unexpected or otherwise) of a meditation practice
33:45 Will meditation slow me down and make me lose “the edge”?
34:30 Enjoying the movie more by moving back a few rows from the screen
36:50 The differences – and added benefits – of meditating as a group
39:00 The application of meditation to military and first response organisations – and competitive sports
46:50 Meditation – less about learning something knew, and more about remembering something we’ve always actually known!
48:40 Is there a place for psychedelics as a complement to meditation?
55:00 How are corporates approaching meditation?
Email us at debrief@unforgiving60.com
Social Media (Instagram, Twitter): @Unforgiving60
External Links
- Nicho’s website
- Insight Timer
Music
The Externals – available on Spotify
Ben Frichot - available on Spotify
Thursday Jun 03, 2021
Thursday Jun 03, 2021
Dr Lies Notebaert is a psychologist who examines cognitive processes such as attention, interpretation, memory, and complex planning, in order to find out how these affect mental health and resilience in people who are dealing with adversity. She also happens to be our long-suffering research partner in the Resilience Shield project, who has single-handedly had to endure an almost endless barrage of dumb questions as we work to refine our understanding of what resilience is – and how we can improve it. In particular, Lies has been at the forefront of interpreting and analysing the first tranche of results from our Resilience Survey.
In this episode, we chat with Lies about her background, her areas of research interest and the findings from her analysis of our survey data.
Intelligence Summary (INTSUM)
04:15 Lies’s background – including her desire from a very early age to write a book. (Tragically, the initial concept – about killer Belgian traffic lights – never came to fruition…)
05:30 How Lies became fascinated with psychological research
06:15 Ben talks about his Kings College lecturer, Dr Kenneth Payne, who has just released his latest book, I, Warbot, on the applications of artificial intelligence in warfare.
07:00 Lies’s PhD in cognitive psychology
09:30 Cognitive biases – quite universal across cultures, however changing with age
12:05 OK, so what is resilience? Lies’s definition and how she impacted our ideas on resilience and vulnerability
14:45 The relativity of resilience
16:30 The genesis of the Resilience Shield model, how we developed the Resilience Survey, and the amazing work Lies has done in analysing the data collected from this to date.
19:00 The Body Layer: sleep, diet and exercise - and why this is often the first thing we abandon when things get tough
20:30 The importance of sleep and how much is enough (depending on your age!)
22:20 The Mind Layer – and how it is strong that it broke our statistical model!
26:00 Being a specialist vs being a generalist – and why the latter is probably better for our resilience
28:20 The impact of routine and disruption on our resilience
30:30 The importance of an internal locus of control
35:15 Meditation and mindfulness – good stuff to do, according to science
37:00 Growth Mindset and resilience
39:50 The Social Layer…
41:00 …and its particular impact on decreasing our vulnerability
45:45 The Professional Layer
49:30 Next steps for the Resilience Shield
Email us at debrief@unforgiving60.com
Social Media (Instagram, Twitter) @Unforgiving60
External Links
- Click here for more information on resilience, the Resilience Shield model and to complete the Resilience Survey
- Lies was recognised as the University of Western Australia Faculty of Science Rising Star winner in 2019 for her work on resilience – more here
Music
The Externals – available on Spotify
Ben Frichot - available on Spotify
Thursday May 27, 2021
Thursday May 27, 2021
Ben and Tim talk about the book that they have written with Dr Dan Pronk titled The Resilience Shield.
What is resilience and stress.... and how does the scientific proof explain how we can be more (or less) resilient.
More information including the individual resilience survey is at: www.resilienceshield.com