Victoria Petrovsky: 0:00

Welcome back to the Startup of Human Potential. We're your co-hosts.

Clifton Smith: 0:04

I'm Clifton.

Victoria Petrovsky: 0:05

And I'm Victoria.

Clifton Smith: 0:07

And together we're Faces of the Future. Faces of the Future is a personal development platform at the intersection of consciousness, connection, innovation and well-being. We're excited to have you join us in on our show today.

Victoria Petrovsky: 0:22

And today we're excited to be joined by our great friend Brady Bradshaw, or Brady Orca. Welcome, Brady, Thank you.

Brady Bradshaw: 0:30

Thank you. If I could make an orca sound, I would do it right now, but I'm trying my best and that's what I'm here to talk about.

Victoria Petrovsky: 0:37

Cool and much more.

Brady Bradshaw: 0:39

Thanks for welcoming me.

Victoria Petrovsky: 0:41

Awesome, excited to dive in with you. So Brady is a senior oceans campaigner at the Center of Biological Diversity, working to protect endangered marine species from extinction and marine ecosystems from collapse. That's freaking awesome work. And he has been successful in banning the sale of shark fins in the US and has blocked both the Obama and Trump administration from expanding offshore drilling on nearly every coastline in the US. Also, he's a competitive and spiritual freediver who has set four national records and he has an exciting new venture he'll talk about later in this episode about where that world freediving is taking him next. And he has investigated illegal fisheries while being undercover abroad, which is an incredible story, and has published a scientific article alongside world-renowned fisheries biologist, dr Daniel Pauley. So welcome, brady. It's an honor to have you on this show.

Brady Bradshaw: 1:44

Thank you. Well being introduced on a podcast, that's what's happening right now. That feels so nice to hear those words. And it's really fun to be with you. I'm excited. I can tell there's a lot of intention that's gone into creating this and you are both great friends and great humans, so just want to share the gratitude right back. I'm excited to talk with you.

Victoria Petrovsky: 2:06

Thank you, let's dive in. I'm sure we'll use that pun a few times today because Brady's a freediver, and let's get to it.

Clifton Smith: 2:16

So the story begins with our meeting each other in a very serendipitous way. Brady, catch the readers up to where you are today. Sometimes life just brings you people into your life, and that's exactly what happened here. We had a conscious, co-living, co-working space, and a mutual friend on Facebook introduced us. But what brought you to the world of freediving and ocean conservation?

Brady Bradshaw: 2:44

Oh my gosh, so many important moments here encompassed in what you just said, and I think I want to start with how I got into freediving in the first place, which was I was. It's a journey of both, like impassioned activism and burnout, which I think is a very common thing in the activist world, and then trying to find things that served my well-being. I had just run a campaign on the east coast of the United States fighting an offshore drilling plan and we secured our victory and I left to go start grad school in Australia on the Great Barrier Reef, which had always been my journey or my mission to see the Great Barrier Reef. Before knowing the dangers that are present and the impacts that are happening to the reef, I always wanted to see it before it died or I died.

Brady Bradshaw: 3:34

Really glad I got there when I did because it was in pretty beautiful shape, but a lot of people were saying it's not like it used to be, but nevertheless I was just so fascinated by it. I was there to study the ecology on the reef and during our breaks during my class I would see these shiny things just a little bit deeper than we were currently in our field of study and I would just need to see it and would just dive a little deeper and a little deeper. And fortunately I knew how to, my body knew how to do that and fortunately I had enough fitness at that time to not kill myself, because it's actually dangerous to start freediving without a certification and with proper safety methods. But anyway, I loved it. I actually ended up leaving grad school to pursue that skill and felt as though I was being called to do what my body was always meant to do.

Brady Bradshaw: 4:25

It's such a beautiful thing to experience. I know it can be scary. For a lot of people it can sound really scary and extreme. What I was experiencing was this deep serenity and belonging underwater, which was really really special, beyond what I had known before that point.

Victoria Petrovsky: 4:44

So this is before you got officially certified to do freediving. You're talking about how it's like a dangerous thing to just do on your own without proper training.

Brady Bradshaw: 4:53

Yeah, before I was certified as one, I was still in Australia on the Orpheus Island Research Station is where I started doing it. And then, once I got back into the classroom back on the mainland, I was like I just can't sit here anymore and I actually left grad school and traveled to Mexico to start training with a really talented and spiritually based instructor in La Paz, and that was the beginning of my freediving journey.

Clifton Smith: 5:21

Wow, but take us back a little bit, because how did you get to the Great Barrier Reef? Was this something that you grew up as a child around the ocean? What was that like?

Brady Bradshaw: 5:33

Yeah, I was actually just reflecting on this because I had to write a little bit more of a personal bio for my teammates at work and I was like, wow, ok, this actually started Like I used to. I grew up in Pittsburgh and I would always hold my breath through the Fort Pitt tunnel and then the Liberty tunnel, which is actually, at one point, was the longest tunnel in the world. Wow, so, I had this training as a kid because I had a superstition that you had to hold your breath through tunnels.

Clifton Smith: 5:57

Yeah, I remember that I used to do that.

Victoria Petrovsky: 6:00

Yeah.

Clifton Smith: 6:01

Is that a thing? Yeah, I was enjoying it.

Victoria Petrovsky: 6:03

I didn't know about it.

Clifton Smith: 6:05

Yeah, you couldn't do that through your New York tunnels with the traffic, but you know if you.

Victoria Petrovsky: 6:12

I'd pass out and we'd call a code blue.

Clifton Smith: 6:15

Yeah.

Brady Bradshaw: 6:16

Yeah, you know, that's another thing that I like. I want to disclaimer, disclaimer. Don't try these things at home. But I realized that I used to retreat into the swimming pool that was right across the street from my house as like a sanctuary.

Brady Bradshaw: 6:31

And I find sanctuary now in my diving and I was thinking back to when I was really young.

Brady Bradshaw: 6:36

I used to go touch the bottom of the pool and I felt really special because I could, and being at the bottom of that pool and the silence was so much more calming to me and I think there's something really primitive about being able to be surrounded by water and silence cool like the coolness of it that we really often miss, yeah. So yeah, that started when I was about, when I was like just early enough to swim. And going back even farther, my dad was a swim coach at the University of Pittsburgh and a school by instructor, and he actually used to throw me into the pool when I was a baby to demonstrate to his students that humans are designed to survive in water and that we all have it in us to just instinctually do the right thing. So I was his test subject. He knew I'd be fine and I always was fine, so he would just toss me in the pool and I would exhibit some of the natural functions that humans are built with.

Victoria Petrovsky: 7:34

Wow, and that's the human potential right there.

Clifton Smith: 7:37

We're designed to swim. That's awesome.

Victoria Petrovsky: 7:39

Yeah, so much depth and tranquility in your presence, brady. It's felt from the word choices you're using to the way you're describing the ocean, and we'll probably get into a lot of more ocean metaphors and depth and exploration and deep diving with you. So really awesome, great it's my love.

Victoria Petrovsky: 8:03

I remember you sharing a story with us when we used to live in our co-working, co-living space in Topanga, about how you were training in high school and they told you like, for whatever reason, you didn't have the capacity to be a diver or to swim or something like that. Do you remember what I'm talking about? Yes, could you share that story?

Brady Bradshaw: 8:27

Yeah, we're really taking a journey into my childhood now. Great. I just visited my hometown, by the way, and realized and have been admitting to everyone just how privileged I was growing up and how that's something that I want to. I've been starting to be more like expressive about that.

Brady Bradshaw: 8:44

I was extremely privileged growing up and I got to reflect on a lot of this childhood that I had. So I tried it a lot of different sports. I never my dad never forced me into swimming, even though he was so passionate about it. So I got into karate, soccer, football. Skateboarding was a big thing for me. I ended up being like a big skater punk. So I took this big detour away from my baby in the pool days and got to get involved in all sorts of different activities. And when I first realized I wanted to join the swim team, I went to the pool, jumped in the pool to have the coach check out my technique and give me my prognosis, and he said you just have to try another sport, You're just not going to make it.

Brady Bradshaw: 9:25

And my technique was pretty terrible, but my dad, I think, handed me a what do you even call those? Like a V tape.

Clifton Smith: 9:34

VHS yeah.

Brady Bradshaw: 9:35

Yeah, vhs of this guy recorded a bunch of technique videos and I watched them religiously and went to the pool myself and just trained for like several months and got to the point where I was in high school. This is in high school I got to the point where I was skilled enough to join the middle school team and started, started trying to overtake middle schoolers in my speed and like progressed to the high school team and just I just loved it. The movement through the water was something that it just felt like this beautiful dance beyond any actual dance I'd ever seen, and it's a dance with the water and a dance with the breath. So I don't think I was like communicating about all this stuff or communicating with myself consciously about it, but like my love for being in the water and moving through the water and letting air move in and out of my body and keeping air in my body and letting it move through my bloodstream and you know, all of these explorations has just deepened and deepened and I think it's probably never going to end how beautiful the experience of being immersed in these mediums of water and air and the consciousness bringing the consciousness into the body.

Brady Bradshaw: 10:57

I struggled a lot with asthma and and, I think, called vocal cord dysfunction when I was in high school, and so I was like hacking up along on the side of the pool a lot of the time, and I was also blessed to receive some advice from a speech therapist that how to breathe from the belly and learned if I wanted to go fast and crush it like everyone was trying to do, I had to also integrate breathing while sitting, breathing while walking and then eventually breathing while swimming into my belly and so, yeah, the whole thing. I just feel incredibly grateful for being given the exact path that I was given and that's helped me a lot in my breath control with free diving. So it's often kind of part of the same training for life as well.

Clifton Smith: 11:46

I love how your passion for swimming in the water has been your conscious expansion journey. I've never thought of it with that much intentionality of the breathing and then enriching the bloodstream and the dance with the water, but the way you describe it is so beautiful. I could see how you have an authentic love for that. And it's palpable. Thank you so much for sharing.

Victoria Petrovsky: 12:12

Yeah, I want to jump in. Right now. I was going to say yeah, it's 90 degrees in Topanga today, so maybe some of the listeners want to jump in too. Yeah, what you're sharing about swimming and feeling it like on that cellular level, I personally resonate with that too. I come out of the water renewed. If I'm going through something challenging emotionally or I need to move through things, like when I'm moving through water, I feel like I'm making progress and it's like a renewal. I really feel that too.

Brady Bradshaw: 12:48

Yeah, being in high school and going through all the social chaos of that time, like the water was always a place to yell or let it out through the muscular movement. I do think it's such a beautiful thing for that too. And water is so absorptive. This is fun fact. The ocean has absorbed more than 80% of warming. We talk about global warming. The ocean is absorbed over 80% of that heat. So we are experiencing these weird temperature events.

Brady Bradshaw: 13:21

The ocean is warming even faster than we are expecting and I think about if you're a chemist or physicists will talk about the specific heat capacity of the water and how it has this incredible ability to absorb. So I do think there's all these parallels between the water has this, these ions that can help us discharge energy from our bodies and taken on so much.

Brady Bradshaw: 13:47

We used to think the ocean could take on everything and this. So this is part of, I think, the spiritual journey with water too is that we have to like we talk about. I talk about mother ocean.

Brady Bradshaw: 13:59

A lot of people say mother ocean, and it's like a metaphor for the feminine and is the feminine in so many ways. It's a fluid, flowy body and for a really long time men in our culture have taken out things on the feminine, not to say it's all. The dysfunction has been all with with men in our culture, but there's been this tendency to believe that there's this infinite capacity to take on more and more, and so that's a question I think I always have is like when do we reach our level of responsibility for caring for that body of water, caring for the feminine? How do we do that? When it's, it has the ability to take on a lot? These are some of the explorations of metaphor and energy that I think about when I'm swimming, or some of the experiences that I have with the water that sort of teach me how life is.

Clifton Smith: 14:56

Wow, yeah. What comes to me is that Pixar movie, the one where the song is like the strong older sister who keeps taking on more and more, and that song comes to mind, you're talking about incanto. Incanto, yeah have you seen that one, Brady.

Victoria Petrovsky: 15:17

No, the older sister is like the strong one and they're like how much more can she take on your sister's older or she's stronger? That's what you're talking about.

Clifton Smith: 15:27

Yeah, and she puts on a facade that she can take on so much. But it's really like crushing her, and I feel like that song really brings in that metaphor that you're talking about, brady, about the ocean and about water taking on the burden of our society and basically how we live as a global system. And you also talked about that masculine, feminine energy, and I know that you've done a lot of deep work with men's groups as well, and so I'd love to tie in all your love for water, your diving, your activism.

Victoria Petrovsky: 16:05

Stewarding of water, yeah.

Clifton Smith: 16:07

Yeah. What is that through line that connects all of this in your opinion?

Brady Bradshaw: 16:12

Yeah, oh, my gosh. I think that's the question that I'll be exploring, probably for the next, I don't know, probably forever. But I do feel like I'm in a really big process of exploration with understanding that this through line. I am experiencing myself as a through line. I started doing men's work out of necessity. I went to support a friend. Initially I went to a men's circle. I was like, oh, my friend wants me to go to this men's circle.

Victoria Petrovsky: 16:41

That's how it always starts.

Brady Bradshaw: 16:46

And then, as soon as I got there, I was like oh I, oh, dang, I'm unfurl, I'm not going to be able to not have this in my life anymore.

Clifton Smith: 16:56

It was so potent and For some of the listeners who are considering, who've never been in a men's group. What is it that you're talking about? That was called for in your life.

Brady Bradshaw: 17:07

Yeah, I just remember being in the circle and I remember thinking, oh no, this is going to be a disaster. There's 30 men in this room, we only have an hour, like everyone's going to be talking over one another, and I didn't say anything in that first circle and it didn't matter, because every single thing that every man said I felt deeply and I felt that I was feeling, and I think most of the men who were speaking up were doing so courageously and probably were afraid to speak up because they felt like they were alone, which is just so sad and powerful at the same time. There's so much work to be done just to be seen by each other and being community and connection. I also feel like men bring. To answer the other question, we've been really careful about my choice of words here. Men have been culturally put into a category of toxic almost just for being men. And I'm not saying, oh, men, have it so hard and all this. I think there's some victimization going on too.

Clifton Smith: 18:23

But with the eye right, Like a personal experience, like I'm a man and I've certainly had those instances right. And I think if we personalize it, maybe that can help with the explanation.

Brady Bradshaw: 18:38

Thank you, and that's actually a great one, because that's typically an agreement we have in the men's circles is to speak from my statement, which is wonderful. So my experience is, having been in a lot of activist circles, I have felt a lot of times like it's time for me to step back and listen, and I think that's so true. And I've taken it to a bit of extreme at times when I've been like I don't deserve to speak, which can over time. I think it's important to feel that for a little bit and to know what other people are feeling. And then it got for me to a point where I had to relearn to speak up, because I was being asked to fill roles that would require speaking up and using my expertise that I've ported my heart and soul into.

Clifton Smith: 19:31

Which is your activism, right? You're not just speaking up on a small thing, you're talking about a global thing. So I just want to give that context of what you're being asked to step into and speak up for. So, yeah, keep going. This is amazing.

Brady Bradshaw: 19:50

Yeah, I witnessed the BP oil spill firsthand. Wow, I remember watching the dolphins swimming through the sludge and the pelicans that were trying to fly and were never going to fly again, and these things that were just so like. I think the first word that comes to mind is shameful and just feeling so ashamed of humanity at that point in time. And it took some years to integrate. But those are the kinds of things that, because I've seen that and because I've had the privilege to learn about marine biology and to be able to use my time to be involved in activist campaigns, that it's my responsibility to bring that information forward and to bring that awareness forward, because people don't remember the BP oil spill as much as I think they should. It was horrific and should have been culture shifting for us forever, and so that's the work that I'm tasked with.

Clifton Smith: 20:54

And what's that vision of the future that you're working towards?

Brady Bradshaw: 20:59

Yeah, the vision I mean I can start with the one about the ocean, which is a healing ocean, and I can explore that vision in ways like the return of the basic kelp and seagrass beds all over different coastlines, the native species that exist there and the bottom up building of the ecosystems and the fish jumping out of the water that are way bigger than they are now.

Brady Bradshaw: 21:28

They used to be like these massive tuna, just the ocean being really full of life and us experiencing that level of abundance again. And also humans being integrated into that, like seeing what's underwater and being related to what's underwater. And so my vision also includes humans getting in that water and actually interacting with marine life and being a part of the community and taking responsibility for the continuation of the life in that community. And a lot of my work is done through like big policy level stuff at the national level, like banning the shark fin trade it's not allowed anymore in the US. It makes a huge impact and it makes a huge immediate impact, and so I think those are the kinds of impacts that we need at this point, because they're kind of an emergency situation regarding the state of the ocean.

Brady Bradshaw: 22:29

But eventually, what I'd like to see is like a whole lot more people taking these actions that are really tangible, rather than just like these policy experts trying to intervene in high level. Immediate impact things like banning offshore drilling is one thing that needs to happen before we can start to show up in the places that offshore drilling is currently threatening these massive spills, like I'm not going to build a kelp garden there, or like help be a part of an underwater permaculture thing there because, like it's very next day, it could be ruined by a massive spill. Are those?

Clifton Smith: 23:06

some of the more local, community, grassroot things that you see is like building a local kelp garden or what are some of those examples that are grassroot For my experience in newspapers and journalism sometimes and this is funny, coming for me, but sometimes etheric concepts are so unrelatable that people distance themselves from that. But if you can get them to feel it, to experience it like, your story inspires me when I was a camp counselor on Catalina Island and we would take Boy Scouts and experience the ocean for the first time.

Clifton Smith: 23:45

We had a little like shark area where they could actually pet a shark and to actually feel it, see it, be it, be a part of it, created that deep connection which I see so present here. So what are some of those ways that people can connect to the ocean and start to build that love and that privilege you say that you have and you've experienced?

Brady Bradshaw: 24:09

I want to go back to something that you said earlier in this question sparked like we really need to connect with indigenous people again and understand the indigenous ways and the ways that people have interacted with the life in this area for at least 5,000 years. If you are An indigenous person, you probably would say time immemorial. There's not really. There's not really a beginning. That's been a forever thing and that's the whole. So these are the things that work in terms of what permaculture projects look like, in terms of building towards something that actually is Like permanent culture.

Brady Bradshaw: 24:56

Those were the permanent cultures and those are only cultures that can be permanent, the ones that actually work with the land.

Victoria Petrovsky: 25:02

I'm picture out the way of water. Yeah, as you're describing this, yeah.

Brady Bradshaw: 25:12

Yeah, I've been extremely curious about the indigenous people's history in different tribes along the coasts who harvested what from the ocean and how. Help helping indigenous people to Overcome the obstacles that our culture, that the US government and our culture is imposing on them right now In order to have a little bit of breathing room to rediscover those kinds of things is important. I think the climate movement right now is doing a really good job and can always be doing a better job at Centering indigenous people and being led by indigenous people. So there's a whole lot of work being done. I think we're doing our very best as a movement, but you also we're asking about the bridge to get there, and I think there is a component where, like, it's just simply getting out in the ocean and like letting the ocean, teach us right like what sharks teach.

Brady Bradshaw: 26:08

Teach by their being like. They're not showing up as jaws, they're showing up as this cute probably cute shark that you can pet and that you can Feel for and feel like connected to instead of just yeah, and you have to just eliminate it.

Victoria Petrovsky: 26:23

That reminds me of when I did a scuba diving training in Indonesia, actually around the Gillies, and they were like, oh, this dive's gonna have sharks, and then I've sharks. Like oh, sharks. I got scared and then you see two little baby sharks huddled, snuggling with one another and let's see of people around them with go-pros video taping. You know they get the sharks are like and we out of here and I was afraid of before going in. Didn't think that they'd be afraid of us. I.

Brady Bradshaw: 26:55

Love that line about when one of my friends who's a shark biologist always asked what his scariest animal he's ever seen, and he always says the human, because people are always expecting him to say, oh, 20-foot bull, shark or whatever, but he's not. Humans are the scariest. I mean, we used to slaughter Sharks to a level just by the shark fin trade that used to exist in the US. We were importing fins from 73 73 million sharks every year. Mm-hmm and so the level of destruction compared to people who have been accidentally bitten by sharks.

Brady Bradshaw: 27:31

What are, what are they you important to recognize.

Victoria Petrovsky: 27:34

Yeah, for those listeners who may not exactly know, what would you use a shark fin for or like? Why would you trade a shark fin?

Brady Bradshaw: 27:44

Shark fins are high-dollar item. Used for shark fin soup is mostly at weddings that wealthier, I think Chinese weddings and it became a status symbol in the culture and became something that I think there were some disagreements a bit contentious. It's like are you against our culture? And I think it's. It goes back to that thing like what were the permanent cultures? Those are the ones that I really respect. Just to be really blunt, if this was something that was created by a king because the king wanted to eat shark fin soup at one point, or an emperor, and then people started using it as a status symbol, I don't think that's and I think that's something that can be defended by saying what's worth driving sharks extinct? A Shark's are such an important player in the ecosystem. They help regulate different fish species.

Brady Bradshaw: 28:40

And they help keep the entire ecosystem in balance by their, by the way that they seek prey and so If they're not hunting a certain fish, that fish can get really out of balance and out compete another fish in Ecosystem. Every species in the ecosystem plays a role like that. Every species has a puzzle piece to add and Actually it's something that's sewed together and he starts to remove little threads. And at what? Some point?

Clifton Smith: 29:06

the whole thing on rattles, because each species is really important, plays an important role well, that reminds me of the Colorado wolf project actually as well to repopulate the wolves and the wilderness and their impact on the local ecology, and Wolves are another one that could be feared by man and hunted. So you hit on something really interesting. You said that Ultra wealth and power creating a certain status symbol that impacts the local ecology or global Situation. What are some ways that we can start to shift the conversation to create more of a permaculture-esque status symbol that would bring balance and harmony to to the land or to the water?

Brady Bradshaw: 29:57

I wonder what friends showed me this diagram. I wish I had it in front of me right now. Years ago about. It was an upside-down triangle and a right triangle and it had things like community tools and things along the lines of what you need to be in a healthy community or a healthy culture and an unhealthy culture, and Status was part of the unhealthy culture, mm-hmm. And I think there's a different, there's a whole different concept than status, or maybe it's just a small piece of relationship, because maybe status does have a place in it all, but Status and title is just a part of the whole thing. And in the community, say, we used to have this neighbor right where we lived across the street, and John that's. I didn't care what John's Status was, I just knew that he knew how to handle a situation of if we had a, we had a massive fire coming up the hill towards our house, mm-hmm. So it was like which?

Victoria Petrovsky: 30:57

I'm going to John to ask.

Brady Bradshaw: 30:59

Yeah, we're gonna ask John for answers if a fire kicks off, which we did, and that was relationship and I know John felt gratification in that. I know he felt seen and Important. I think those are the kinds of things that we needed to, just in order to Be recognized. Do you actually need to provide value to the people in our lives? And that value can be Whatever? Your value, it whatever you feel is.

Brady Bradshaw: 31:28

It doesn't have to be the value that is being asked for by Culture. It can be like my value is to be a vulnerable man and to cry and let people see me cry, yeah.

Victoria Petrovsky: 31:40

Yeah, like you were talking about the ocean, and each roll or each species there has a specific thread and it's necessary for the complete puzzle and complete picture. Same thing with humanity. When each person is aligned to their true core essence and being of who they are, then they can participate in the world in their full value, be seen and recognized for that and then amplify that to others. That's how I see it.

Brady Bradshaw: 32:11

Yeah, without the obfuscation or distortion of what is your role in your status, and not that I don't believe in hierarchy. If you're on a sailboat, you need a hierarchy, you need a captain, one captain speaking in one voice telling people where to go. Anarchy won't work in that situation. But yeah, I just I feel what you're saying, how we build toward working together and providing each other resources and support and what you know what title you have nice.

Clifton Smith: 32:48

How do you become a good captain?

Brady Bradshaw: 32:50

That's a great question. I've been recently Asked to become more of a captain at my in my position and that works, and I do think that when it's being asked so, I also want to take this to the concept of a king like we talk about. There's a lot of talking that men's work community, about Archetypes, so there's like the four architects warrior, lover, magician and king and we kind of joke about these men that like call themselves a king. I Don't think you can just designate yourself a king. Being being a king this is not really my, so much my words, but it really resonated with me is that like being a king is has to do with having a kingdom and having people that Recognize you as a leader, and so I'm not claiming to be the king of my team.

Brady Bradshaw: 33:40

I'd go over really badly at work and it just isn't true. There's people that I had to recognize their skills, like I work with a bunch of lawyers and scientists and I am the person who helps coordinate those people. So really understanding that the communities needs are a coordinator, like I'm not telling people what to do because I'm better than them, I'm coordinating them because my skill is a coordinator Mm-hmm, and I have a campaigner lens. My my title is campaigner and so starting to embody that more is to recognize people's strengths and Call them forth into their strengths and praise them for their strengths, have them feel Really good, make sure that their strengths are used in a way that helps us win and that they can feel a sense of accomplishment and Victory and achievement. I think that's something along the lines of my answer to that question of how you become Like a captain, because just recognizing that the role of captain is needed and Playing that role in order to support the movement of the ship, versus being like I'm the captain because I'm the captain.

Victoria Petrovsky: 34:50

So I'm hearing having a common ground and a specific vision and destination and an understanding of what one's unique skill set is that could incline them to be a good Captain or leader for that specific objective of the group's trying to accomplish.

Clifton Smith: 35:07

And coordination to our names and yeah yeah, you're coordinating the wind with the sail with the team. And understanding how the boat moves. Yeah, yeah, you have the vision of where you're going. I love it. Brady, that's so cool, your coordinator, it's very flowing really fun when it's clear.

Brady Bradshaw: 35:26

It's really fun when it's very clear what it's about. It's not about keeping the job or performing well. When it's clear that our mission is like we're gonna stop exon from restarting their platforms off the coast of Santa Barbara and what needs to happen in order to do that is for me to coordinate a call between all of our partners, then I keep in that zone really easily versus worrying, being in a state of worrying about am I performing well, which, again, there's so many links and this is a huge lesson I always learned from freediving and I've learned it very starkly recently is that times when I've been focused on performing and getting that national heard and Really focused on, like this is my shot. I have to perform, yeah, it goes up, I start to get stressed and my brain is, my mind is really active, which the brain itself takes about a quarter of the oxygen consumption of the body.

Brady Bradshaw: 36:22

So if my mind is extra active and burning more oxygen then I get to Get hypoxic faster and I don't perform as well. But then yeah when I set my recent records, I was actually Meditating before my swim. I was looking at the moon and I was a lot more focused on the sky and the moon and the sensations of water on my body.

Brady Bradshaw: 36:47

And just like truly, my goal that day was to enjoy the dive, actually focused on the enjoyment of the safeties and the judges and the people that were there to be a part of it. I was like really focused on okay, are people having fun here? Like this is supposed to be fun.

Victoria Petrovsky: 37:03

Yeah, I was gonna say that touches on the work that Clifton and I do, because we help people create high performers, create their total life of joy, and we call them quantumpreneurs and it's the idea that, like anything you wanna accomplish in life, you can do that from that feeling of joy rather than through all the hustle and grind or force. I mean that to a extent is needed, but it's about recontextualizing what that process looks like and allowing that process to feel more joyful by how you're describing, by that visualization, that meditation. What would it feel like if everybody's having a great time? What would it feel like with the water on my skin and then the judges are having a great time and the moon is shining and it's just a reverence for the process and the whole experience and less about the objective, about the actual destination.

Clifton Smith: 38:00

Yeah, I mean, we work with high performers so by definition, they know how to put in the work and the consistency. Yeah, brady puts in the work, he is consistent. He didn't just show up to the pool that day and was like, ooh the moon and boom got a world record.

Victoria Petrovsky: 38:14

Yeah.

Clifton Smith: 38:15

And how, when you're in that state, do you get to the next level? How do you unlock that next level of your potential? That's what Victoria is sharing is getting into that state of joy.

Victoria Petrovsky: 38:26

Yeah, we've seen Brady train for competitions Like he is as disciplined as anyone I know probably one of the most disciplined people I know in my life and I've seen you try different approaches to the training, from being at the pool every single day at 5.30 and going to sleep at a certain time and doing your breathwork practices and all of that. And I love this kind of mindset shift that you've been bringing into it lately with like more of that ease.

Clifton Smith: 38:54

Yeah, what are some of those beliefs that you now have, or those empowering beliefs that fuel you up?

Brady Bradshaw: 39:00

Yeah, this is the prime example, and I've been writing little notes to myself at work to remind myself of what I've learned in freediving, which is something that a diver named Harry Chammas kind of coined this term train hard, dive easy. And so in freediving it's all about that. It says early morning workouts. It's that consistency and the discipline which I really value. Discipline and I relate to it in a kind way now. I used to not so much, but I love discipline and I hold myself to that standard throughout my training season. And then the competition.

Brady Bradshaw: 39:34

It should feel really beautiful, like it's a ball out of divers coming together in the same space, and so it's my time to really enjoy the moment. The sun is shining, the water is. You got those beautiful lines on the bottom of the pool that are like moving in these ways that you just never see anything move that way, and there's this like rainbows and sparkling. It's like a magical, mystical experience. And then there's people around who get it and you can nerd out on physiology. It's like the best. It's my version of a music festival. So, taking that over into my work, I've been like, okay, like how do I train hard, dive easy?

Brady Bradshaw: 40:08

And I realized like I do train. I'm naturally I train hard Like I don't have to think about that part. I study these issues. I'm very serious about understanding the opposing viewpoints energy policy, climate politics, everything and I've trained hard. So when I get nervous about a media interview, when someone from Fox News or something calls me, I'm like, oh no, I'm not prepared for this. I just have to remind myself that I'm like very prepared for this and I had to do a little version of that before the podcast. I think I've got to remind myself that often that what comes out of my mouth is okay and it's good and I've trained hard. So now it's time to enjoy the conversation and be expressive and let myself be the self that I've put time and energy towards. And I think that it is so true that, like, preparation is necessary and it's okay to show up something unprepared and realize that you were unprepared and then to reflect like maybe I need to train harder for this. I think that's all part of the same process.

Victoria Petrovsky: 41:12

Yeah, it's like the letting go and surrendering also. So like, regardless of if you prepared or how much someone prepared, when you're there, you're there, so you just got to surrender to what is and, through presence and being yourself, just see what happens.

Brady Bradshaw: 41:31

Yeah, the surrender. I mean that's another great lesson from the ocean. Like my free diving instructor has Ishvara Pranidhana on the side of her panga, which is an artisanal fishing boat type thing.

Brady Bradshaw: 41:42

So that is Ishvara Pranidhana is like surrender to the higher power, and so I do have fear of sharks, to be honest, when I dive, and it's so irrational, but it comes up from time to time and I just I actually tell myself like if the worst happens and for some reason a shark mistakes me for food, which is extremely like, beyond extremely unlikely to happen, by the way I just have to accept that and then let my body actually relax, because relaxation is important in free diving to allow the chest to compress and allow the ocean to compress the air spaces and to be in a good, safe position when you're diving deep.

Brady Bradshaw: 42:30

So I've definitely learned the lesson about surrender through free diving in the ocean and there's been moments when I've been at big waves and actually, instead of fighting, the best thing to do is to become like really present and try to like, do like consistent movements, but sort of in a surrendered way. And the best way to get tangled up in something like a kelp forest is to fight and try to fight. To the surface, I could see that A little bit. The better thing to do is like let yourself flow through the kelp. So there's boundless lessons of surrender from the ocean.

Victoria Petrovsky: 43:07

Wow, and with that I'd love to transition to another topic about exploring the depths, and the topic of the subconscious and the metaphor of how exploring the ocean is exploring the subconscious, and I wanted to hear what you had to say about that piece, brady.

Brady Bradshaw: 43:29

Yeah, I have said before, the ocean, I believe, represents best the subconscious of the human experience. It's out of sight, like we don't see what's happening under the ocean and, at the same time, like we're pouring toxins into the ocean Like every day.

Brady Bradshaw: 43:51

And it's getting. We're sort of offloading the toxicity of humanity off into the ocean and this needs to be seen. So we need to start seeing it. So people that are meditating are starting to see what's in their own subconscious. People that are exploring the ocean are starting to see what's in the ocean, and I think there's a lot of healing to be done for the planet through seeing, recognizing, grieving what's happening to the ocean and then, with the clarity that comes from that, taking the action that's needed to try to help heal.

Brady Bradshaw: 44:30

And that's the same thing for our subconscious. That's the same thing through going through therapy, picking up on things that are deep within ourselves that we maybe haven't thought about in a really long time, that got dumped on us from someone else. So I think that's how I would put it. In a basic way, it's like that. The ocean is a very clear representation of our subconscious and possibly, if we're able to heal ourselves, then we will be able to heal the ocean, because we'll be willing to take a hard look at the things that we've done, without all the guilt and the shame. The paralyzing Paralyzing, yeah, the paralyzing guilt.

Brady Bradshaw: 45:11

I love that.

Clifton Smith: 45:12

Yeah, like the ocean is the collective subconscious. I love that, like, if you want to see how we're doing as humanity, see how the ocean's doing. That's cool, I like that.

Victoria Petrovsky: 45:27

Yeah, and many things can be below the surface that we don't see. But we only see if it's floating at the top right, if there's like a film of oil or some debris, some garbage floating around. It's like when something bubbles up, it's in now you're in your awareness. It bubbled up from your subconscious to your conscious. Now that you see it, you're aware of it, can you acknowledge that it's there and then can you accept, like you said, without that feeling of paralyzing grief. And then how do you move to action from that space with what just surfaced?

Brady Bradshaw: 46:01

I do think action is a strong antidote to pain and to the grief that comes from recognizing what's happening to the earth and I do face off with climate grief and earth planet grief and I believe strongly that coming out of that not into hope, but into creating hope with action, it doesn't go like summon up some hope and you'll just brush your grief under the rug. I think for me personally again back to speaking for myself I do invite people to think about this Is it better to complain on social media, or is it for you? Or is it better to try and maybe fail to take action and then try again? Because if being a part of trying and knowing in my heart that I've been trying and having luckily for me, I've had a lot of success, it's been a really good way of navigating. I live a very happy life.

Brady Bradshaw: 47:05

My parents think that because I'm an activist, I'm angry and sad, because that's what the media kind of portrays. Often Is it like these angry and crazy and disruptive activists throughout there? But my life is really good and I also read about this stuff every day.

Victoria Petrovsky: 47:23

Who's done the work. It doesn't mean you weren't in that place ever, like you mentioned the paralyzing grief and whatnot. So what's the work that you've done to come to that place of my life is beautiful, I live a happy life and I'm an activist. Yeah.

Brady Bradshaw: 47:39

Well, I think some activists have families that they are like. I pack up my computer at the end of the day and there's my family and they need me and that keeps me in check and keeps me in balance. Currently, my devotion to freediving is doing that for me. I get up in the morning before work and I take my freediving pretty seriously and that helps me to lineate my schedule. I've gotten I'm a Virgo rising All the strollers out there. I've got like the flowiness, but I've also got the strict scheduling of things and organizations and they're polar opposites, because you're a Pisces Sun right.

Victoria Petrovsky: 48:22

Yes, well funny airy sun, libra rising, which are also the polar opposite, the balancing dynamic.

Brady Bradshaw: 48:29

So I feel that that internal push-pull oh yeah, it's great there's some astrology people in Bangor and it's fun. It's like playing Pokemon cards again.

Clifton Smith: 48:43

What's your sad what's your mood If you're always immersed in work that is protagonist, antagonists and trying to stop something, and the overarching narrative is not necessarily a positive prognosis towards the future right that can build up in someone's psyche and their subconscious and it can create deep depression or anxiety or whatever, but then hearing you talk about your joy and your love for life, how did you get to that place? How do you set up boundaries within your own personal self versus what you're constantly connected with in your work?

Brady Bradshaw: 49:22

Oh, beautiful question. This is wonderful because I didn't think about something I haven't thought about in a long time. My roommate in college asked me don't you think it's better to meditate and people like Gandhi? There was this peace about it and Gandhi was an activist and my response to that because I was really in the activist space and he was concerned about me and my mental health, surely, and wanted me to become more like him maybe and I love this guy like such a good person and he was like the part of me that I wasn't integrated with.

Brady Bradshaw: 49:59

Yet I think it's really important to like I am angry, I am angry and sad, you know, but I'm also playing that role. I'm also playing that game like my ego. That's my ego and I'm not going to stop my ego from feeling what it feels, because I get fired up and then I take action. But outside of that, encompassing all of that, is awareness and I think that's something that I pray that activists learn more and more. Not saying I'm the best at it, people need to learn to be like me. But I'm really grateful that I've had the yoga and meditation practice to recognize I'm not my thoughts, I'm not really my emotions, because I get those things coming up and just learning to say okay, like yes to all that and everything is perfect, all is well and it's not well. It's like having the drive to actually do something about it.

Brady Bradshaw: 51:08

And also like having the tool to take a deep breath every now and then and just say to myself all is well and this is all well. All this not well is also all well.

Victoria Petrovsky: 51:21

Yeah, as you're sharing this, I'm thinking of the Hawkins map of consciousness that we've talked about before, the book Letting Go. You know how it's from 20s shame all the way up to enlightenment is 1000. So, depending on what topic you're focused on, what narratives are coming in, and what you're describing is like all is well, like everything is perfect. Is that peace narrative? When you're in the level of consciousness of peace, and then when you're in the container of working, like doing the work on the campaign, you're like, okay, I need to actually tap into anger here to spark some action and to do stuff about it. But putting a boundary about not allowing that to permeate into your other categories of life is what I'm hearing.

Brady Bradshaw: 52:09

Yeah, is the anger serving me right now? Is it serving the ship that we're on? Is it helping the captain get?

Victoria Petrovsky: 52:15

done.

Brady Bradshaw: 52:15

Yeah, get done.

Clifton Smith: 52:18

Thanks a lot. And can you share a bit about what it's taken for you? You mentioned your yoga practice. You mentioned some of your conscious practices. Could you just, for a few moments, share a bit about your own conscious journey and those awakening moments you've had?

Brady Bradshaw: 52:37

Yeah, for some reason, what's coming to mind right now is this concept of everything is bonus. At this point, I'm thinking of times when I've had near death experiences or was told I would end up paralyzed. When I broke my back when I was 20 years old, I was told I'd be paralyzed no matter what, and so just physically yoga did a lot for me then. I turned to yoga instead of the doctors that were telling me I can be paralyzed.

Clifton Smith: 53:09

And.

Brady Bradshaw: 53:09

I'm 33 now. It's nine years after I was supposed to be paralyzed. All those nine years are bonus, and so gratitude is the tool that helps recognize that. Like back to the activist stuff. Yes, there's a threat of offshore drilling. There's all these industrial projects that are trying to get their people, are trying to expand the industrialization and the destruction of certain critical ecosystems on the earth, but I might not even be here. So just the fact that I'm here is already bonus. So it's not really like I used to take on, especially as a youth activist when I was like 19,. I used to take on a lot of responsibility because everyone was telling me, like it's up to the youth, it's up to you.

Brady Bradshaw: 54:03

You got to do this and so, I think, spelling that myth that like it's on and it also like it creates this self image of the hero Whereas it's really not. It's not me like I've taken a part in these campaigns that have been successful, but it's always about collaboration and how many?

Brady Bradshaw: 54:26

people were able to move with the movement and that's been a really important thing for I think a lot of people also to recognize in the movement is that when you step away like voila, you come back two years later and things are still there, still moving as the way they were. Yeah, I think it's just the ability to to let go when it becomes clear that, like things aren't going as planned and aren't going to go as planned, to just be like oh, I don't have to be stuck in this way anymore. And that's what's driven me to be like. I'm an activist for some years, I'm a grad student, I'm a free diver.

Brady Bradshaw: 55:06

I'm doing all these different things that have all contributed towards this moment now and I'm just, I'm recently starting to integrate, like, okay, it's not that being a free diver takes away from my ability to do work. It actually contributes like, oh, what lessons I learned this realm contribute this realm. And it's all multiplicative when, like when the heart is in it, when we're in it to get to like. What we were talking about maybe before we started recording was like the idea that, yes, there are goals to reach and there are these goal posts, and those can be meaningless if you're just doing them, get the achievement, but if the heart's really in it along the journey, there's, like these golden lessons that are learned, that can be applied across every aspect of life.

Victoria Petrovsky: 55:59

Wow, it's so.

Clifton Smith: 56:01

Yes, that's so in alignment with the work that that we do and we talk about first establishing that heart, coherence between the heart and the brain, so your heart is in everything you do, and then creating your total life of joy. And from that your being a space, business Emerges and that business is a natural byproduct of who you are, right so that Freediving adds and is the unique aspect of who you are. When you show up to work and you're able to bring those deep lessons, passion to this space that could be Challenging for those who are just coming at it from a mental perspective.

Clifton Smith: 56:41

Mm-hmm and don't necessarily have that level of conscious awareness that you do, and so it's so beautiful. And Brady, what? Where are you headed next as we move towards wrapping up? What's next for you, what's on the horizon and how can our listeners get a hold of you?

Brady Bradshaw: 56:58

Yeah, well, there's, there's, hopefully Sometime in the future, and something that emerges that it's a hub for all of these aspects that people can plug into in terms of activism, maybe men's work, as well as just getting acquainted with the water and and so I don't know what that looks like yet, but that's maybe something that would become my lifelong passion project, and I'm currently working for a non-profit that I feel is extremely effective, and I'm excited for us to move beyond Preventing the expansion of offshore drilling and move towards phasing out oil and gas drilling so that the planet can start to balance out and and heal. It's a big picture. That's what I'm envisioning for my work in that realm. And then I'm really excited. The sport of freediving has just been recognized by the world games, the, and it's on the road to getting integrated into the Olympics. I've always wanted to be, so in 2025, I will hopefully be at the world games for the first time, which is so cool, and I'll be training for that. I'm also gonna keep progressing in in Depths as well as distance wise.

Brady Bradshaw: 58:20

I I'd love to answer anybody's questions. I love talking about freediving. As you both know, I can talk about it for hours. So if anyone has questions about how to get into it safely. I really want to be a support for people to safely pursue freediving and learn as much as they possibly can about the Epic, cool things that we can do with our bodies in the water, as well as if folks are looking to get involved in Any type of ocean conservation or climate activism. I'm always happy to talk and you can Find me at at Brady orca on Instagram Is a great way to get in touch. Simple We've got for the Center for Biological Diversity. I've got at endangered ocean.

Victoria Petrovsky: 59:04

We'll drop the link below in the show notes too. Oh great, and that's on Twitter or X.

Brady Bradshaw: 59:13

That's on Elon Musk's website. Twitter acts and over.

Victoria Petrovsky: 59:21

And the at Center for bio dive div on X as well.

Brady Bradshaw: 59:27

Yes.

Victoria Petrovsky: 59:28

Yes.

Brady Bradshaw: 59:29

So we've got a lot of our campaign calls to action there. You can click on our stuff, you can sign a petition, you can make a phone call to a member of Congress that needs to hear from you, things like that. We're always posting updates and actions. People can help that, I believe, and strongly. I think our organization really aligns with biodiversity and with helping the planet balance again beautiful, awesome and any parting words from you for our listeners, brady our last question, too, that we ask is what does human potential mean to you?

Brady Bradshaw: 1:00:05

Oh my we've done so much in exploring technology in terms of like what can be built with our hands and with our minds, and there's different directions to go with human potential, and I think we're exploring the depths. I think it's wonderful to explore, wonderful to explore, these kinds of worlds of what is, what are our bodies capable of doing in the natural world. I think that's a wonderful place to explore, to unplug from all of this, all the stimulating things that we've surrounded ourselves with, and get into the natural world and Learn to climb a tree, get back in the trees, get back in the depths and let our bodies experience the stimuli that will be ultimately healing and strengthening for our bodies and minds.

Victoria Petrovsky: 1:00:58

Wow, thank you so much for joining us today, brady. It's been a pleasure and an honor having you on our show, having this conversation with you, sharing from the depths of your heart and or friends and I always love having our friends on our show to hear Other sides of their story that we haven't explored before, so it's always great seeing another lens of them, of their Personality and who they are and how they show up. So I really enjoyed this time with you, both with Brady and with Clifton.

Clifton Smith: 1:01:29

Yeah, thank you for yeah and thank you for listening. We'll catch you next time.