By Ken Sheetz
It was summer 2014 and the Arizona heat blazed outside the air-conditioned offices of Patrick Flanagan’s PhiSciences headquarters in Cottonwood, AZ. I was filming the amazing doctor for the launch of his coming Indiegogo. The mission, raise at least $100,000 to fund R& D and retooling for his newest and most advanced Neurophone so far, the NEO (Neural Efficiency Optimizer).
All was going smoothly with the Indiegogo film shoot with Patrick, when a pained look crossed his usually smiling face and he said, “Beautiful isn’t it, Ken? Interesting to note, however, that a few years ago one of my staff first noticed my name was missing as a Gold Plate Award winner on their website.” His inventive fingers traced his name on of the Gold Plate award, almost as if to confirm his name was still there.
I love Pat’s work making a healthier world. Deepak Chopra calls Patrick “A gift to humanity.” He really deserves to stand on the Achievement.org page with other giants of art and science. Even if he was only 18 in 1962 when he won for his Gold Plate award. So I promised, “Well, soon as the Indie campaign is behind us, Patrick, I will see if I can fix the omission for you.”
The doc happily nodded and we went back to filming for the Indiegogo. The doctor is amazing on camera for a non-actor. He’s done magnificent work with my over 50 exclusive Youtube videos of him for the hit web series The Flanagan Experimentswith over 25 million views. The doc gave a great performance that day. I was able to make an awesome series of Neurophone videos you can watch in the gallery at the NEO Neurophone Indiegogo.
The 21st-century-website, Indiegogo.com, embraced the doctor and his amazing Neurophone from day one of the 60-day crowdfunding run.
Soon the doctor was basking acknowledgement of over over 1800 contributors, so far. Fans from all over the world, as far away as Siberia, surfing high on the tide of success on page one exposure on Indiegogo.com. By the end of the hit that campaign that rolled over into forever funding, we’ve raised over six hundred thousand dollars, in total with Pay Later NEOs included, beating our $100K minimum goal 6 times over.
On the winds of the Indiegogo 60-day success, and with prestigious beta Forever Funding in front of us, spurred on by some friendly reminders from amazing fans the campaign, like Trygve Larsen, buoyed by great videos of amazing people like former NASA scientist Renea Atiemo and many others sharing their profound Neurophone Experiences, and the blessings of the famed Dr. Flanangan, I went to work right after Thanksgiving and contacted the Academy of Achievement folks.
Update 12/2/14: The Academy of Achievement folks have clarified that the award of a division of the Gold Plate Awards for high school age recipients. The award is called the Golden Eagle, and that is what Patrick was given alongside the adults. For reasons of web brevity, the Academy has chosen not to include those in school on their website. Hence not being able to locate Patrick on the Academy of Achievement website.
However, the mystery is not solved as Pat’s plate shows no significant distinction from other gold plates I looked at on Google images, and Pat remembers no such delineation. So I have asked the Academy to look deeper. Perhaps the Golden Eagle was added for younger winners after 1962. So stay tuned.
In any case, my hope is that with all Pat’s success on his NEO Neurophone it would certainly be fitting that in 2015 the 70 year-old Patrick Flanagan win another plate for his long and distinguished career.
FLANAGAN’S GOLDEN ACCOMPLISHMENT
You’ll see how proud the doctor is of his Academy of Achievement award in the video I filmed of him with his dear pal and colleague in raising human consciousness, Deepak Chopra.