If you’re working to build a healthy and just society,
let me help you tap the unique power of narrative.
I draw on my experience teaching, acting, music & film producing, screenwriting, and interviewing to help you tell more compelling stories. Listen here. After years of radio interviews seeking A World That Just Might Work, I now produce and host the Disruptive podcast for Harvard’s Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering. Let’s explore how we might work together to change the world.
Yuval Noah Harari’s book Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankindhas sold over 8 million copies and is currently the #1 selling paperback on the lists of both the LA and New York Times. Bill Gates reviewed his latest book, 21 Lessons for the 21st Century in a recent NYTimes Book Review.
MICHAEL LEWIS’s best-selling THE UNDOING PROJECT tells how the collaborative work of Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman revealed previously undiscovered ways our minds fool us.
NEW: BARBARA FINAMORE – Will China Save the Planet?
In the US today, we see how even one person willing to oppose the popular consensus can dictate our nation’s response to climate change. Meanwhile China has leapt into the vacuum created by our retreat. In her provocative new book, Will China Save the Planet?, BARBARA FINAMORE, Senior Attorney and Asia Senior Strategic Director, Natural Resources Defense Council, explores China’s big picture, long-term strategy to seize the leadership of the global response and reap the technological, economic, and political benefits.
In this podcast, I go solo. Rather than interviewing others, I share with you the best of the work I do to help organizations develop more engaging narratives and tell better stories. Learn why narrative is uniquely powerful as well as the recipe for a good story – whether in a Hollywood screenplay or a one-to-one conversation.
When the three richest Americans have more wealth than the lowest 50%, shareholder capitalism is not working. In EVERYTHING FOR EVERYONE: The Radical Tradition that is Shaping the Next Economy, NATHAN SCHNEIDER reminds us of a hopeful alternative – cooperatives – jointly owned, democratically controlled enterprises that advance the economic, social, and cultural interests of their members. Schneider previously wrote a book on the Occupy movement. You can learn more at nathanschneider.info
NEW: JOSHUA GOLDSTEIN-How did France & Sweden successfully solve climate change?
I’m always interested in what the US can learn from other countries. So I was immediately attracted to JOSHUA GOLDSTEIN’s new book A BRIGHT FUTURE: How Some Countries Have Solved Climate Change and the Rest Can Follow. When Goldstein (and co-author Staffan Qvist) did the research and the math on what it was going to take to reduce carbon emissions enough to avoid the worst of climate change, they concluded that rapid development of renewables would need a large and fast buildout of nuclear power to replace fossil fuels as backup for wind and solar. You may not agree with them, but I think this conversation is worth a listen.
NEW: GREG GRANDIN, The End of the Myth: From the Frontier to the Border Wall
The idea of the frontier has been central to American identity. Its image of endless promise fostered our belief in the US as exceptional. Today America has a new symbol: the border wall. As GREG GRANDIN sees it, America’s constant expansion helped deflect domestic political and economic conflicts outward. But the 2008 financial crash and unwinnable wars in the Middle East turned Americans inward, leading to the rise of reactionary populism, racist nationalism, extreme anger, polarization – and Trump.
www.greggrandin.com
NEW podcast: JOSHUA DOUGLAS – How to Take Back Our Elections
The Republican party games the political system with gerrymandering, voter suppression, and election manipulation. In VOTE FOR US, JOSHUA DOUGLAS writes about the many positive initiatives through which Americans are taking back their democracy, one community at a time – expanding voter eligibility, easing voter registration rules, making voting more convenient, giving redistricting back to the voters, improving civics education, and more. This interview offers warnings, good news, and action steps for 2020.
https://joshuaadouglas.com/
NEW – RICHARD WRANGHAM – The Goodness Paradox – Humans show extremes of violence and harmony
How is that humans can be both the nicest and the nastiest of species? Biological anthropologist RICHARD WRANGHAM wrestles with that question in The Goodness Paradox: The Strange Relationship Between Virtue and Violence in Human Evolution. Though our capacity for coolly planned and devastating violence remains unrivaled, Wrangham offers a strikingly original theory that capital punishment has been instrumental in humans becoming extremely peaceful in our daily interactions. Can this understanding help us to confront the growing hostility in society?
Thirty years ago, BILL McKIBBEN’s THE END of NATURE was the first popular book about climate change. Since then the effects have exceeded our expectations, while our response has lagged what’s needed. Bill has done his part – with books, articles, and as co-founder of the climate movement 350.org, which has held 20,000 rallies in 182 countries and spearheaded the fight against the XL pipeline and the movement to divest from fossil fuel companies. We talk about the latest findings, warnings, and global activism in his new book FALTER: Has the Human Game Begun to Play Itself Out? www.billmckibben.com
"Stories are the most powerful communications tool we have."
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WHAT DO YOU THINK?
“Change the Story to Change the World.”
We hear it all the time. How are we doing with that?
When have we been successful?
How do we do it?
What stories do we need to change?
Add your thoughts, examples, questions.
I draw on my experience teaching, acting, music & film producing, screenwriting, and interviewing to help you tell more compelling stories. Listen here. After years of radio interviews seeking A World That Just Might Work, I now produce and host the Disruptive podcast for Harvard’s Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering.
work together to change the world.
NEW PODCAST
