Matt Langdon is the President of the Heroic Imagination Project (HIP) and the author of The Hero Handbook. This episode describes that ways that we can develop our capacity to take risks when the world needs our help. Matt shows that it is possible to train heroes and to diminish the possibility that we will just stand by and let bad things happen. His stories of heroic action illustrate how the possibility of stepping forward can develop in all of us. 1:24 What is the Heroic Imagination Project: heroism as the antidote to evil. 4:06 Spreading the learnings of research about heroism. 5:03 Can heroes be trained? Research interviewing heroes to find out what makes a hero? Why people don’t do the thing they think they should. 7:30 What is the Hero Round Table? 8:10 What is a hero? A person who takes action on behalf of others when there is a risk or sacrifice to the person who performed the act. A sacrifice is a risk that has 100% chance of happening. 12:10 How heroes are trained – turning bystanders into potential heroes. The larger the group, the less likely people are to help and stand back. 14:20 Identifying and feeling strongly identified with a bigger group makes it more likely you will help. 17:25 How getting comfortable with being uncomfortable can increase the likelihood of being a helper. 18:35 What happens after people are trained to be heroes. How a younger girl recalls her hero training to overcoming the barrier to inaction and stand up to an older girl who is being a bully. 23:40 Training children versus training adults. How kids are more ready to try out new thing. 24:40 How imagination trains heroism. 28:30 How training in one domain relates to acting in different domains. 31:20 Empathy is a characteristic of heroes. How heroism is an act that challenges character and values in the moment. 34:20 Can society train heroes more effectively? Helping to inspire risk taking versus the bubble wrapping of children. 39:00 Slow progression toward independence and the overprotective of young people. 40:50 How to develop an inner hero. Thinking about what else could I do? 43:00 All the different ways that people think about heroism. Having your own heroes, consuming stories about heroes and unsung heroes. 45:35 Find the Heroic Imagination project. https://www.heroicimagination.org/ The Hero Round Table presents multiple ways of thinking about heroism.

HERO: Zoe Huml
EXPERT: Dr. Jamie Wu

Zoe is a young adult who founded the HIP Hero Club, an initiative to help high school students take social risks and become the kinds of heroes who speak up when they see things that are wrong. Jamie then discusses what it takes for youth to develop as prosocial leaders like Zoe. She highlights how adults can work with youth to decide the direction of programs, the kind of supports they need to offer and how adults sometimes need to step aside to allow youth not just to have the potential to lead but to be out front.  


Zoe Huml: Founder of the HIP Hero Club
1:46 What is the Heroic Imagination Project and the HIP Hero Club that she founded.
2:40 How ordinary people can allow bad things to happen.
3:30 How ordinary people can also become heroes.
4:20 How youth underestimate their power to do things in the world.
5:18 Her involvement in clubs and using the club format to develop the Club-In-A-Box. 
6:30 Zoes’s early interest in psychology supported by her father and her athletic involvement.
8:15 What happens in the HIP Hero Club: Fortify, inspire, actin heroically.
9:20 The importance of visualization in preparing heroes.
10:15 Helping students to recognize their goals and passions and empowering them to contribute to social change.
12:25 Her personal experience of learning that she can do something that contributes to change in the world.
13:30 A hero is someone who acts for others when there is risk. Risk can be physical. but it is often social, the risk of speaking out.
15:00 Get in touch at www.HIPheroclub.org 
Jamie Wu, PhD: Associate Director for Community Evaluation Programs, University Outreach & Engagement, Michigan State University  
17:00 The need for both a combination of adult involvement along with the young person’s intrinsic motivation, what they care about. 
19:00 Social-media can empower youth but it can go both ways.
20:40 Youth need a mentor that they naturally relate to develop their leadership capabilities.  
22:10 How programs can tap the intrinsic motivation of youth. Giving youth opportunities for leadership, giving them real decision-making roles in deciding the direction.
25:00 What it means to fail safely for youth includes paying attention to how they have improved, what they have learned, and appreciation of their effort.
28:00 Leaders are not just the charismatic and most experienced people. Youth lean toward the idea of leadership as a learned skill. 
29:40 Egalitarian spaces can include a no adult talk time to allow youth voices to emerge.
31:00 Youth agency needs to come from a broad set of skills that they can develop. Taking leadership roles is a way that the skills can develop. Adult support is very important to that development.
33:40 Youth have well-developed social media skills but may need adult scaffolding to move that toward prosocial initiatives.
35:00 Youth-adult partnerships start with asking youth what programs they need and what they care about contributing. 
38:40 The freshness of youth voices and how youth can help one another.
Zoe Huml: Founder of the HIP Hero Club,
Jamie Wu, PhD: Assistant Research Professor, Department of Human Development and Family,
Associate Director for Community Evaluation Programs, University Outreach & Engagement, Michigan State University  
https://engage.msu.edu/about/departments/office-for-public-engagement-and-scholarship

Our Heroes’ Story: Keisha and Teegan Simpson

Keisha and Teegan Simpson are twin sisters who started the Instagram account called Live Life Unfiltered. They wanted to reach out and talk about the negative impacts of social media and of curating our lives to post images. Starting with talking to their friends, they have now reached tens of millions of people. Dr. Renee Engeln is a Psychology Professor at Northwestern University and the author of Beauty Sick, a book about how the cultural obsession with appearance hurts girls and women. She joins us to discuss the idea of an unfiltered life. Her insights shine light on how culturally embedded our appearance concerns are.  
Minutes
1:46 How Keisha and Teegan felt pressured by social media to make it look like, “we were having a lot more fund than we were.’’ 
3:00 How the negative impact of social media in their own lives led them to the idea of Live Life Unfiltered
4:00 The research phase of their project, learning about both body image and how social media works.
4:25 Introducing their idea to their friends. Getting input and support.
5:20 Live life unfiltered on Instagram: from a challenge to friends to show unfiltered photos on social media
6:50 Expanding to the As She Is campaign: the massive work of getting celebrities and influencers to take part, reaching 100 million people on social media
7:50 How people connected to the As She Is message, even celebrities struggle with body issues. 
8:45 The importance of starting to see the many ways that we filter our lives.
10:15 Advice to others, if you have an idea ‘Just do it’. Don’t let you brain get in the way and don’t be afraid to ask for help.
Our expert commentator Renee Engeln: Professor at Northwestern University and author of Beauty Sick,: How the cultural obsession with appearance hurts girls and women
12:40 How the concern of young women about appearance is a natural response to the culture. 
14:00 The floodgates of emphasis on appearance with the advent of photo-driven social media.
16:00 Awareness of the influence of social media and powerlessness. The benefits of being on social media versus the costs.  
17:00 Our drive to compare ourselves to others. How the tools to enhance images have become so readily available that we easily lose track of how people really look.
19:40 Moments of performance versus living life unfiltered, the need to find the people who accept as we are.
21:00 Consequences of believing in filtered images. How feeling that we fall short can contribute to mental health problems.
23:00 Media literacy. Knowing that images are filtered does reduce the impact of the comparison process. TAking fewer personal photos can diminish appearance concerns.
26:00 The impact of sharing real moments is different from the impact of sharing posed images.
27:30 Form versus function: What your body gives you versus what it looks like turns down the volume in how much we care about appearance.
30:00 Self compassion: you are not alone in this hurt; the culture does not serve you well.
32:20 For helpers, should we engage in body talk? Shifting to asking better questions, opening the door to meaningful conversations about values.
35:00 Social media is supposed to be about connection but is often much more, “Me. Me. Me.” How connecting to others is also self care. 
Renee Engeln
https://psychology.northwestern.edu/people/faculty/core/profiles/renee-engeln.html
http://beautysick.com/