Resilience Gone Wild cover art

Resilience Gone Wild

Resilience Gone Wild

By: Jessica Morgenthal & Kai M Sorensen
Listen for free

Explore how nature’s most adaptable species can inspire you to overcome challenges, lead with purpose, and create lasting change in yourself, your organization, and your community. Resilience isn’t just about bouncing back—it’s about evolving, learning, and thriving in the face of adversity.Join Jessica Morgenthal, a positive psychology trainer, teacher, author, speaker, coach, and consultant, as she uncovers stories of nature’s remarkable adaptation and survival. Learn from the resilience of sea turtles, parrotfish, banyan trees, and more, and discover what these incredible examples can teach us about building a win-win-win mindset.Each week, we’ll dive into awe-inspiring stories from the wild and follow up with expert insights, offering practical lessons on resilience that you can apply to your life, leadership, and organization.When nature wins, we win. Subscribe to “Resilience Gone Wild” wherever you listen to podcasts, and let’s grow stronger together.Produced by BLI Studios in partnership with a Win Win Win MindsetConnect with the host Jessica via email: jessica@winwinwinmindset.comOr on the web: winwinwinmindset.comConnect with producer Kai via email: kai@balancinglifesissues.comOr on the web: https://balancinglifesissues.com/podcast-bli/Copyright 2025 Resilience Gone Wild (WinWinWin Mindset) Biological Sciences Science
Episodes
  • Follow Your Current: Rivers, Resilience, and When to Swim Upstream

    Follow Your Current: Rivers, Resilience, and When to Swim Upstream
    May 25 2026
    Episode 69 Guests: With Matthew Best & David Stormer of Riverkeeper Hook For four billion years, rivers have moved with one quiet genius: they follow their current. So what happens to us when we stop following ours — and start building levees against our own lives? This week, Resilience Gone Wild traces the deep story of rivers, and uncovers when to flow with your current and when, like the salmon, to swim purposefully upstream. Episode Overview Jessica Morgenthal travels the long arc of rivers — from the chaotic, sediment-laden flows of an early Earth to the great waterways that built civilization, to the modern story of dams, levees, and recovery. To navigate these waters, she’s joined by two river champions from Riverkeeper, the organization that helped bring the Hudson River back from the dead: Matthew Best, a fish biologist whose love of migratory species reveals rivers as living circulatory systems, and David Stormer, Riverkeeper’s Habitat Restoration Director, who is literally returning rivers to the courses they’ve always sought. Together they offer a vision of a river that remembers her path — and a resilience practice for the parts of us that remember ours. What You’ll Learn How rivers built (and were built by) life on Earth — and why their architecture mirrors a healthy circulatory system.What makes the Hudson “Mahakantuck,” the river that flows two ways, and why her recovery is one of the great environmental comeback stories on the planet.Why levees, concrete channels, and obsolete dams concentrate damage rather than prevent it — in rivers and in our own lives.The difference between going with your current and being swept away — and when to swim upstream like a salmon.Three practices for restoring your own flow: find your dams, give the flood its floodplain, and know the difference between purposeful upstream effort and habitual resistance.How dam removal, habitat restoration, and citizen action are bringing rivers back — and how to take part. Meet the Guests Matthew Best — Fish Biologist, Riverkeeper Matthew Best is a fish biologist with Riverkeeper whose work centers on migratory species and the health of the Hudson’s tributaries. He thinks of dams as “blocks to a circulatory system” — and the fish he studies, from river herring to juvenile striped bass, are showing him just how quickly that circulation can return when barriers come down. David Stormer — Habitat Restoration Director, Riverkeeper David Stormer leads Riverkeeper’s Habitat Restoration program, returning Hudson tributaries to their natural courses through dam removal, shoreline recovery, and nature-based community resilience. After 25 years away, he came home to a Hudson clean enough to swim in — a river that now supplies drinking water to over 100,000 New Yorkers along stretches he wouldn’t have dared enter as a child. Tools, Frameworks & Practices Mentioned Defend, Retreat, or Adapt — David Stormer’s frame for how communities (and people) respond to forces they can’t fully control.The Four R’s of Dam Removal — Remove. Reduce. Restore. Return. A roadmap for rivers and for inner restoration.Levee or River? — A resilience prompt for moments when you feel yourself hardening against something natural.Find Your Dams — Name the obsolete structures you’re still maintaining.Give the Flood Its Floodplain — Allow difficult emotions a bounded space to move through and recede.Going With vs. Swimming Upstream — The salmon test: is this resistance purposeful, or just habit? Closing Insight “The river didn’t need to be re-engineered. She needed the barrier removed.” True resilience isn’t the capacity to hold everything together by force. It’s what becomes possible when you stop spending yourself on resistance that was never going to work — and let your natural current carry you toward what actually matters. Call to Action When nature wins, we win. Subscribe to Resilience Gone Wild wherever you listen to podcasts, and let’s grow stronger together — https://pod.link/J4yd77 Resources & Links Riverkeeper — https://www.riverkeeper.orgWaterkeeper Alliance (active in 46+ countries) — https://waterkeeper.orgRiverkeeper Sweep — the annual river-wide cleanup every May from the Adirondacks to the BatteryTree-planting & post-dam-removal habitat days — ongoing volunteer opportunities via RiverkeeperSubscribe to the show — https://pod.link/J4yd77Explore more episodes & the newsletter — https://www.resiliencegonewild.comConnect with Jessica — jessica@ResilienceGoneWild.comVisit — https://ResilienceGoneWild.com #FollowYourCurrent #ResilienceGoneWild #Riverkeeper #HudsonRiver #DamRemoval #NatureBasedSolutions #WhenNatureWinsWeWin Resilience Gone Wild — resiliencegonewild.com Listen to more episodes — pod.link/1765376951 Sign up for the Resilience Gone Wild newsletter at resiliencegonewild.com Produced by Kai Sorensen of Balancing Life’s Issues (BLI ...
    Show More Show Less
    1 hr and 9 mins
  • Coffee’s Powerful Nudge: Caffeine, Crisis, and the Regenerative Solution

    Coffee’s Powerful Nudge: Caffeine, Crisis, and the Regenerative Solution
    Apr 28 2026
    Episode 68 Guests: Etelle Higonnet (Director, Coffee Watch) • Sebastian Nielsen (CEO, Slow Forest) • Andrés Montenegro (Sustainability Director, Specialty Coffee Association) What if your daily cup of coffee is actually a masterclass in resilience? In this episode of Resilience Gone Wild, host Jessica Morgenthal takes us deep into coffee’s origin story — back to a plant that learned to survive through a brilliant strategy: the nudge. Coffee’s caffeine was nature’s quiet genius: a molecule that repels what harms, attracts what helps, and shapes an ecosystem through subtle influence. From the Congo Basin to the mountains of Yemen, from pirate seed heists to “penny universities,” and from industrial monocrops to regenerative agroforestry, this is a sweeping story about biology, behavior, and the choices that shape the world beneath our rituals. Joined by three powerful voices — from human rights advocacy to regenerative supply chains to specialty coffee leadership — Jessica explores how the coffee industry got pulled into extractive, short-term systems… and how it can be nudged back toward resilience. Episode Overview Coffee is a plant built for resilience — trees, shade, birds, insects, fungi, and human hands all part of the system. Yet modern production has often stripped away the ecosystem that makes coffee resilient, pushing farmers into fragile monocultures and chemical dependency and lives of struggle. Etelle Higonnet explains why coffee’s future hinges on agroforestry for biodiversity and for farmer wellbeing and food security. Sebastian Nielsen offers proof from the field that trees are more than “nice to have” — they are protective infrastructure that keeps farms alive through frost, drought, heat, and intense storms. And Andrés Montenegro reminds us that coffee is a language and a “third place,” and that regeneration is a mindset that can apply to business, soil, and society. Jessica brings it home with practical nudges listeners can use immediately in their daily habits and in the coffee choices that ripple outward into the world. What You’ll Learn The Science & History How the coffee plant uses caffeine as a two-pronged nudge: fierce defense and brilliant attractionWhy coffee flowers “dose” pollinators and create nature’s most effective referral programHow coffee spread through “wild transit” via elephants, bats, birds, and monkeysThe dramatic human history of coffee — from dancing goats in Ethiopia to pirate seed heists to the penny universities that fueled the Enlightenment The Global Crisis & Solutions Why scientists project we could lose half of global coffee crop by 2050 if we stay on our current pathThe true cost of sun-grown monocultures and why shade-grown, regenerative systems are biologically and economically smarterHow global supply chains trap 85% of value in the Global North and what needs to shift upstream to save the farmsHow regenerative agroforestry protects flavor, yields, biodiversity, farmer food security, and livelihoods with stunning real-world proof from the fieldHow centering the “handprint” of the 1,300+ people behind every shipping container of coffee transforms how we see our morning ritualThe hope: what the science says, what pioneers like Sebastian and Etelle are proving, and why the specialty coffee movement matters The Resilience Lessons & What You Can Do Surprisingly simple nudges for better sleep, sharper focus, and healthier habits that require no willpowerWhich coffee certifications actually matter, how to find them, and why combined certifications make the biggest differenceHow your everyday purchasing choices send ripples further than you might imagine Meet the Guests Etelle Higonnet is the Director of Coffee Watch, founded to push for reforms in the coffee industry to address abuses like deforestation and forced labor. She has led global environmental and human rights work with Mighty Earth and Greenpeace Southeast Asia, and has conducted research in war zones and post-conflict areas for Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and others. Etelle is the author of Quiet Genocide and was named Chevalier de l’Ordre National du Mérite in France for her work combatting deforestation and rights abuses. Sebastian Nielsen is the CEO of Slow Forest, building regenerative value chains for coffee and chocolate through large-scale agroforestry and ecosystem restoration. He leads teams across Africa, Southeast Asia, and Europe, and has pioneered long-term off-take models that enable asset-backed financing for regenerative farms. Slow Forest is recognized in global frameworks and is driving the idea that resilient businesses of the future will restore the ecosystems they depend on. Andrés Montenegro is the Sustainability Director at the Specialty Coffee Association (SCA). With 15+ years across private sector, civil society, and government collaborations, Andrés brings a systems view to sustainability — ...
    Show More Show Less
    55 mins
  • Evolving Your Armor in an Ever-Changing World: What Pangolins Teach Us About Updating Protection and Accepting Help

    Evolving Your Armor in an Ever-Changing World: What Pangolins Teach Us About Updating Protection and Accepting Help
    Jan 14 2026
    Episode 67 Evolving Your Armor in an Ever-Changing World: What Pangolins Teach Us About Updating Protection and Accepting Help Guest: Tim Santel, Retired Special Agent in Charge (SAC), U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service Office of Law Enforcement; Senior Advisor & Media Relations Director, Focused Conservation What if the very thing that once protected you… is the thing that’s now keeping you stuck? And what happens when the world changes faster than your instincts can? In this episode of Resilience Gone Wild, host Jessica Morgenthal takes us into the moonlit grasslands of Botswana, following the quiet, deliberate life of the pangolin—a living fossil with nature’s most powerful mammal armor. For more than 60 million years, the pangolin’s perfect defense was simple: curl into an unbreakable ball and wait out danger. Then humans changed the rules. Today, pangolins are the most trafficked mammals on Earth. Their scales—made of keratin, the same material as human nails and hair—are sold under false claims of medicinal power, and their meat is treated as a luxury. In a single human generation, the pangolin’s ancient protection became its vulnerability. Jessica pairs this story with a gripping, grounded interview with Tim Santel, one of the most experienced wildlife trafficking investigators in U.S. history. Tim takes us inside the real-world mechanics of trafficking networks—how wildlife is moved like any other commodity, and why weak penalties and low enforcement capacity make illegal wildlife trade so attractive to criminal syndicates. The resilience lesson is both tender and urgent: we all carry armor built for earlier seasons of life. Some of it still protects. Some of it now constricts. And sometimes resilience means doing the opposite of what we’ve always done—opening instead of closing, seeking new protection instead of relying only on the familiar. Episode Overview The episode opens in Botswana, tracing a pangolin’s sensory world—smell, vibration, memory, instinct—and the intelligence of a creature shaped by time. We learn how pangolins live, how they nurture their young, how they “read” the land, and how their scales evolved into the most formidable natural armor carried by any mammal. Then the story turns: when human trafficking enters the ecosystem, the pangolin’s perfect curl—once a masterpiece—becomes an easy handle for capture and transport. Jessica reframes this as a human mirror: the coping strategies we built to survive earlier threats may not match the threats we face now. Jessica welcomes Tim Santel to explore what it takes to protect species whose defenses can’t keep up with rapidly evolving human systems. Tim shares his path into wildlife law enforcement, the “voice for wildlife” moment that guided his career, and what he’s learned from decades of investigations into trafficking networks—from pangolin scales to rhino horns and beyond. The episode closes with two practical reflection practices to help listeners reassess their own protections, and a call to action to support conservation organizations and on-the-ground enforcement efforts working to keep pangolins—and countless other species—from disappearing. What You’ll Learn Why the pangolin’s greatest protection became its greatest vulnerability in a human-shaped worldHow “armor” shows up in our lives (withdrawing, micromanaging, bracing, overworking) and when it stops serving usWhat global wildlife trafficking networks have in common with other criminal trades—and why wildlife is so profitableThe real cost of treating living beings as commoditiesWhy awareness alone isn’t enough—and why frontline teams matterHow to update your internal protections with intention, clarity, and courageTwo practices for examining what still protects you… and what now constricts youHow attention becomes action—and why action becomes hope Episode Highlights [00:00] A moonlit pangolin in Botswana—and the question of protection [02:17] “A new season is opening…” and why this story feels personal [02:45] Pangolins as living fossils: lineage, mothering, and the world of scent [05:11] Intelligence as awareness: tremors, heat, memory maps, and escape artistry [07:34] The quiet architecture of termite mounds—and the pangolin’s role in soil health [10:01] When humans arrive: trafficking, false beliefs, and endangered collapse [12:22] The resilience lesson: protections that once served us can later constrict us [14:58] Welcome Tim Santel: protecting species that can’t protect themselves [30:48] “When wildlife dies, it doesn’t make a sound…” [39:39] Why wildlife trafficking is low risk, high profit—and the convergence of criminal networks [45:46] Pangolins: docile, ancient, and tragically easy to capture [48:16] The scale of the trade: what thousands of kilos really means [50:06] Operation Crash: how value multiplies through trafficking layers [55:41] What helps most: supporting ...
    Show More Show Less
    1 hr and 5 mins
adbl_web_anon_alc_button_suppression_t1
No reviews yet