Only Human – News, Analysis, and Insights from the World of Human Performance

In this very short not-an-episode, Tony announces that the podcast will be taking a hiatus for 4–6 weeks while he moves across the country and adjusts to some new professional responsibilities. Listen in for Tony's explanation, along with a few more details. This isn't an end to the podcast—just a short break before new beginnings. Thank you all for tuning into the podcast and we plan to s...

In some settings, just mentioning the phrase “professional ethics” makes the hairs on people’s arms stand up… but it shouldn’t. Part of the unease might stem from the fact that the term is often poorly defined or understood, leaving a nebulous gray area that makes people not only unsure of where they stand, but also where they  should be  standing. In this episode, Tony reviews a  New York Post  a...

In case you didn’t know, August 19th is National Aviation Day, when we honor the birthday of Orville Wright, whose name should be familiar to even the non-aviation listeners of the podcast. But for those less familiar with the history of aviation, Tony covers some of the historical milestones that showcase how the human spirit pushes through boundaries, breaking free of the limits of the past, sha...

Why are there so many books on “leadership” but almost none on “followership?” To answer that question, we first return to the cockpit recording from the midair helicopter collision over Reagan International this past spring. This scenario illustrates what can go wrong when people are unprepared for a reversal of the leader/follower roles they are used to. Tony uses this example to dive into the c...

Most of us face a certain amount of danger every single day, whether it’s while driving, walking our dog, stopping at the bank or the grocery store, or working on a home improvement project. Because the likelihood of catastrophe is so low, most of us will spend that time thinking about other things, maybe daydreaming or listening to an audiobook, a podcast, or some music. This tendency toward comp...

In this episode on good leaders versus mere managers, Tony discusses three people whose leadership lessons made their mark on him and influenced his own path as a leader. These examples range from his time as a B-1 pilot to teaching military history at the US Air Force Academy and finally as the Director of Aviation for the US Forest Service, with a critical leader in each position leaving him wit...

The recent crash of Air India Flight 171—a tragedy that appears to have been caused by one of the pilots deliberately cutting fuel to the engines immediately after takeoff—reminds us once again of the importance of mental health support, not just for pilots but for all working professionals. Tony discusses a similar accident 10 years ago, when the pilot of Germanwings Flight 9525 deliberately cras...

How many leadership books do you own—or have actually read? If your shelves look anything like mine, you probably have dozens. But here’s the question: Are they helping, or just collecting dust? In today’s episode, Dr. Tony Kern dives into why so many leadership books miss the mark. He’ll challenge the assumptions behind popular leadership advice, explore what real-world leaders actually do differ...

As Tony—along with the rest of our nation—mourns the loss of life resulting from the Medina River floods in Kerr County, Texas, he also takes a moment to reflect on emergency preparedness and the all-too-human tendency to become complacent when vigilance is required. As a rancher living in the area, Tony shares local history, insights, and information about the current tragedy, but also examples o...

Have you ever wondered how you'd respond in a true life-or-death moment? In today’s episode, Dr. Tony Kern explores that question by diving into real-world case studies where the stakes couldn’t have been higher. Through these intense scenarios, he’ll uncover what drives human performance under extreme pressure—and what we can learn to better prepare ourselves for the unexpected.

In this week’s episode of the podcast, Tony reflects on this weekend’s B-2 bomber mission that saw multiple stealth aircraft launch from a Missouri Air Force base, fly over to Iran to drop bombs, and then safely return to the same base. A mission of this length—likely 35–40 hours from pre-flight to post-flight duties—puts a heavy burden on the air crew executing the mission, with the perils of fat...

While crashing airplanes have been in the news a lot lately, there’s another major problem currently plaguing aviation: the precipitous increase in ground damage incidents, along with their associated costs. Ground damage events occur when the aircraft is not flying, during taxi, aircraft repositioning, loading/unloading, fueling, and maintenance tasks. Our news story and resulting discussion come...

Eighty years of aviation experience between them, Tony and special guest Dr. Petitt discuss the  real  challenges in aviation safety today, how we got here, and where we can go to improve. Dr. Karlene Petitt, an international airline pilot, author, pilot advocate, and aviation safety subject matter expert ( visit her website here ), discusses the current state of aviation and why passionate instru...

This week’s conversation on professionalism begins with the news that retired four-star Navy Admiral Robert Burke was found guilty in a bribery scheme involving directing a government contract to a private company in exchange for a job after his military retirement. He is the most senior US military officer found guilty of a federal crime while serving on active duty. But while this conviction is...

In this week’s episode, Tony follows up on last week’s conversation with Sara Hammel by delving deeper into one of the topics they touched on: the dangerous rogue operators. The clinical term for this type of person is  maladaptive sociopath , and Tony’s research into one example—the pilot Bud Holland, who crashed a B-52 during a Fairchild Air Force Base airshow in 1994—uncovered some common chara...

A majority of those working in aviation are ethical professionals, but it’s also an industry that developed in the “Mad Men” era of predatory male-dominated power imbalances. Many of the resulting challenges and hierarchies remain to this day—and are sometimes still exploited. Award-winning investigative journalist and bestselling author Sara Hammel ( follow her on Substack ) joins us on the podca...

The struggle with complacency is an ancient one rooted in human biology and our desire to find and follow the path of least resistance, likely developed as a means to conserve energy between meals. But just because there is an innate biological basis for complacency does not mean we must be slaves to it, nor to the “baddies” who manipulate and encourage complacency for their own reasons. Whether i...

We are confronted on an almost daily basis with a new report about so-called leaders who are removed from their positions for poor performance, scandalous behavior, or the ubiquitous “loss of confidence.” These stories occur so often it makes us wonder if the label “good leader” is an oxymoron, if the art of leadership is dead and gone, and perhaps most importantly, what the future looks like if t...

In this week’s episode, Tony and his guest—Max Trescott, host of the  Aviation News Talk podcast —discuss prioritizing safety and the tensions between safety and production as seen in the fallout from a fatal Hudson River crash of a New York Helicopter tour on April 10. Following the accident, the Director of Operations prioritized safety by suspending flights, but was immediately fired by the CEO...

In this week’s episode of  Only Human , Dr. Kern covers a couple of stories involving basic OSHA required safety precautions that were ignored in three incidents. The first involves a worker who fatally fell from a scaffold in Madison, WI, the second a hazardous chemical spill at a plant in Toledo, OH, and the last a grain elevator explosion in Nebraska. He also covers worker issues involving comp...

The podcast is re-branding! Over the last few years, we’ve pursued the goal of bridging the gap between who you are today and who you are capable of being by focusing on reducing human error and improving human performance from a mostly philosophical stance. Starting today, we’re centering practical application and real-world scenarios through the lens of the strategies and techniques we’ve been d...

Uncertainty is a major feature of the modern world. We have unprecedented access to a connected network of global information that we must constantly parse, analyze, and decipher. This adds a relentless complexity that our brains did not evolve to handle and creates a Petri dish of self-induced stress. In this week’s  Only Human with Dr. Tony Kern podcast, our host uses a personal fishing story to...

Modern technology enables instant global communication, microwave meals, and AI-generated artwork… but conveniences like these also come at a cost. In this episode of  Only Human with Dr. Tony Kern , we explore why so many people find it difficult to connect the dots between their individual actions and any sort of meaningful impact, resulting in an epidemic of indifference. Far too often, we only...

Human beings possess a dangerous flaw in our inherent desire to confirm our current assumptions and perspectives. This flaw is amplified in the modern world through social media, like-minded friend groups, partisan news, etc. to create echo chambers that reinforce, rather than challenge, our pre-existing beliefs. In this episode of the  Only Human with Dr. Tony Kern  podcast, we explore the import...

How distracted are we? How much effort is required for us to truly focus on something important? In this episode of the  Only Human with Dr. Tony Kern  podcast, our host discusses the modern distractions that pull focus and inhibit many of our efforts. He provides four critical strategies to counter the impact of disruptions and get back to what’s important, including attention management and acti...