Braver New Worlds

How do we make emerging science accessible without turning promising treatments into miracle cures? And how do we help the general public understand science in a growing environment of questions, misinformation, and institutional mistrust.  Audrey Tharp is clinical research professional, psychedelic researcher, and founder of Hot Girl Pharma. She works at that difficult intersection of trying to g...

What if protecting young people from harmful media isn’t the same as preparing them to live with it?  Dr. Sydney Sharkey studies social media and well-being, and argues that phone bans alone can’t replace media literacy.  In this conversation, she explains why influencers can feel like friends even when they’re selling us something, why two hours of scrolling can feel different from watching a mov...

How do we stay informed without letting the news consume our attention, our trust, and our emotional bandwidth?  Journalist and media-literacy educator Ashlyn Raine joins Nathan to explore how the information ecosystem has changed—and what it takes to navigate it with more care. Ashlyn is the creator and host of Ask Ashlyn, a text-based news service designed for people who want to understand natio...

What happens when the life everyone sees is very different from what someone is carrying underneath it? Musician and entrepreneur Benj Gershman joins Nathan Young to talk about mental health, vulnerability, recovery, and the kinds of support that make it easier to face hard moments without pretending they aren’t happening. Benj spent nearly three decades building a career in music, including as an...

It might seem that a lot of the conversations that we had about privilege, land acknowledgements and racial politics have been forgotten, co-opted or pushed to the wayside since 2020, but that’s not entirely true. There are some people out there still working, thinking and trying to find valuable ways to create more equity in our modern world.  On this episode of Braver New Worlds, Nathan talks wi...

What does it mean to act beyond the edge of our comfort when there is genuine risk involved?  And what does courage look like when the stakes are real, the systems around us are powerful, and the outcome isn't guaranteed? For this episode we welcome Karim Bouris, Principal of Strategy and Advocacy at Mixte Communications. He joins Nathan for a wide-ranging conversation about storytelling, propagan...

What kind of world are we building through the way we move money? It’s a question that gets at the heart of everything. Because unless we finance the world we want, we’re unlikely to get it.  This week Nathan is joined by Alexander “Brave Journey” Sterling. He is Co-Founder and CEO of Turtle Island Community Capital, a financial service organization working to build the monetary infrastructure for...

What if business wasn't primarily designed to maximize value for shareholders, but to help people, communities, and the planet flourish? Wild idea, right? But maybe it’s possible?  In this conversation, Abraham Chen, Executive Director of B Local San Diego, makes the case for rethinking the role of business in our society, and for questioning the economic assumptions we've come to treat as inevita...

What does it actually mean for someone to belong? For Daniel Aguirre, founder of Pueblo Collab, the answer goes beyond a workplace saying it values inclusion or creating a “sense of belonging.” Real belonging means not having to wonder whether you belong at all. In this conversation, Daniel and Nathan explore what happens when organizations take an honest look at the difference between how they im...

EPISODE SUMMARY Lindsay LaShell calls herself a ‘doula for the matriarchal economy’ — helping purpose-driven entrepreneurs move away from top-down, patriarchal, and extractive business practices into ones that are more equitable, regenerative, and abundant.  In this conversation, Lindsay and Nathan trace the difference between patriarchal and matriarchal values and get concrete on what this might...

What if justice isn't what happens after someone is harmed—but what we build to prevent the harm in the first place? This is the question at the heart of the conversation with civil rights attorney Rebecca Young.  She has spent approximately two decades practicing law, much of it in civil rights. She's also a former U.S. Army soldier, writer, and speaker whose talk Crayons Before Constitutions: Be...

What happens when a skeptic sits down with an energy healer—and instead of trying to prove or disprove the practice, they start asking what might be underneath it? Alexis Piotrowski is an energy healing practitioner whose work focuses on helping people reconnect with themselves, their bodies, their awareness, and the world around them. In this conversation, Nathan expresses his skepticism but also...

The old media system is breaking apart. Newspapers and magazines have shrunk, audiences increasingly get their news from social feeds and video, and anyone with a phone can become a publisher. That democratization has opened space for voices and perspectives that traditional institutions often ignored. But what happens when the institutions disappear and every individual is left to build their own...

What separates an idea from a successful business? For entrepreneur and inventor Nichole MacDonald, the answer isn't creativity—it's validation, community, and trust. Nichole is the founder of Sash, a hands-free bag company that grew from handmade backyard prototypes into a nationally recognized brand with one of the most engaged customer communities in consumer products. But behind that success s...

EPISODE SUMMARY What if the goal of homeownership wasn't a payout at the end, but a say in what happens along the way?  In this episode, Nathan sits down with Josh Newton, researcher, lecturer, and co-founder of the San Diego Community Wealth Building Coalition. Together they dig into two financial ownership models most people have never heard of: community land trusts and limited equity housing c...

Episode Summary Susanna Peredo Swap has spent the last decade building something rare: a creative community in San Diego that operates on collaboration instead of competition. As founder of Vanguard Culture, she's brought together thousands of artists across every discipline — starting, almost by accident, from a single potluck where the first fifty people to RSVP were invited to bring not just fo...

EPISODE SUMMARY Risa Bell never planned to run a nonprofit. Yet a single paddle-out event she organized where she expected maybe 25 people to attend actually drew thousands. The thoughts and questions that followed her in her life later led her to start Paddle for Peace, an organization connecting BIPOC and underserved communities with the ocean as a source of healing and reconnecting with nature....

EPISODE SUMMARY What actually separates entrepreneurs who make it from those who don't? It isn't always talent or work ethic. It's something else completely. In this conversation, Nathan sits down with Alex Waters, Executive Director of The Program Labs, to unpack what it really looks like to build a business without a safety net, and why the entrepreneurs he works with aren't failing when a plan...

What if the goal of a story wasn't to convince someone, but to hand them their own voice back?  Philippe Lazaro has spent nearly two decades helping international nonprofits and climate organizations tell stories from the Congo Basin to Bangladesh — and along the way, he's developed a clear-eyed philosophy about what ethical storytelling actually requires.  In this conversation, Philippe and Natha...

In this episode, Nathan sits down with AI researcher and economist Dr. Karen Boyd for a conversation that explore the AI related questions many of us are wrestling with. How is AI reshaping work, creativity, trust, and human connection? And why navigating these questions requires more nuance than either the enthusiasts or the skeptics often provide. Karen explains why many of the biggest concerns...

What does it really mean to become a man in a world that offers plenty of expectations but a lot of contradictory direction. In this episode, Nathan sits down with men's relationship coach Dave Lishansky for a wide-ranging conversation about masculinity, relationships, emotional growth, and the work of becoming more fully human. Together they explore why so many men are taught grit, responsibility...

In this episode of Braver New Worlds , Nathan sits down with Lola Akapo , founder of Benchtop to Boardroom , a biotech communications consultancy specializing in mRNA therapeutics and biologics. Drawing on nearly a decade of vaccine and drug development work, Lola argues that the biotech companies shaping the future of medicine can’t simply rely on building breakthrough technologies. They also nee...

What happens when the worldview that shaped your identity, relationships, and understanding of reality no longer makes sense? In this episode of Brave New Worlds, Nathan sits down with Kaia Badger—former ministry leader, biblical studies scholar, and content creator under the handle of Reconstructing Kaia—for a conversation about faith, doubt, identity, power, and the challenge of rebuilding a mea...

EPISODE SUMMARY What if universities weren't just places where knowledge is created, but places where knowledge is actively put to work in service of local communities? In this episode of Brave New Worlds , we sit down with Professor Jessica Barlow , Professor of Sustainability at San Diego State University and Executive Director of the Center for Regional Sustainability. Together, they explore ho...

In this episode, Nathan sits down with Alexandra Peek, a former climate tech professional turned community-based healer, to explore what it means to truly create change.  After years working in law, sustainability, and environmental advocacy, Alexandra found herself questioning the impact of her work despite outward success. That realization sparked a personal transformation that shifted her focus...