No Small Endeavor with Lee C. Camp

How do you form a good habit? How do you change a destructive one? “It's up to us to decide which…habits that we wish to embrace,” says Charles Duhigg, author of the longtime bestseller "The Power of Habit." In this episode, he explains how to tackle new and old habits in an empowering way.  Plus, Duhigg discusses his new book "Supercommunicators," in which he shares how to understand the type of...

“​​We started the public desegregation of the nation,” says Reverend James Lawson, “and we did it without hating anybody.” In this episode, the man who Martin Luther King Jr. called friend, mentor, and the very conscience and architect of the Civil Rights Movement, Reverend James Lawson, discusses the United States’ past and present, and what it took to organize a whole population across the count...

Juneteenth celebrates the day that the final enforcement of the Emancipation Proclamation was given in Texas, officially making slavery illegal in the U.S. But what factors led to the worldview that condoned slavery in the first place, and how might those factors still be affecting the country today? Martin Luther King Jr.’s attorney Fred Gray discusses his work against segregation in the South, p...

What has the power to change our minds about the world? In John Blake’s case, it was a surprise encounter. “I knew I had a white mother,” says award-winning journalist John Blake. “Her name is Shirley, and her family hates black people… that's all I knew.” At age 17, John Blake’s father casually asked him if he’d like to meet his mother for the first time. Three days later, he found himself in the...

John Blake’s father was Black. The mother he never knew was white. The two met in Baltimore in the 60’s when interracial marriage was illegal. “I knew I had a white mother,” says the award-winning journalist. “Her name is Shirley, and her family hates black people… that's all I knew.”  At age 17, John Blake’s father casually asked him if he’d like to meet his mother for the first time. Three days...

This is our unabridged interview with Naomi Shihab Nye. What do scientists and poets both agree on? On this show, we often host guests whose work is in scientific or concrete fields, such as psychology or sociology, which rely on experiments and research to come to helpful conclusions. But such conversations sometimes fall short of the wonder and beauty we experience in everyday life, and for such...

What do scientists and poets both agree on? On this show, we often host guests whose work is in scientific or concrete fields, such as psychology or sociology, which rely on experiments and research to come to helpful conclusions. But such conversations sometimes fall short of the wonder and beauty we experience in everyday life, and for such subjects, we turn to the poets. In this episode, award-...

This is our unabridged interview with Kristin Neff. Is high self-esteem crucial to human flourishing, or, rather, a hindrance? “The biggest problem with self-esteem is that it tends to be contingent,” says Kristin Neff. “We only feel good about ourselves when we succeed.” Far too often, high self-esteem breeds narcissism, bullying, and prejudice. Kristin is a professor of Educational Psychology at...

Is high self-esteem crucial to human flourishing, or, rather, a hindrance? “The biggest problem with self-esteem is that it tends to be contingent,” says Kristin Neff. “We only feel good about ourselves when we succeed.” Far too often, high self-esteem breeds narcissism, bullying, and prejudice. Kristin is a professor of Educational Psychology at the University of Texas at Austin. She’s also a pro...

This is our unabridged episode with Amy-Jill Levine. What happens when you get a self-dubbed “yankee Jewish feminist” talking about Jesus? Turns out, you get a fascinating conversation leaving folks of all faiths and worldviews with much to think about. Amy-Jill Levine is a brilliant professor of New Testament, and, perhaps surprisingly, a practicing Jew. In this episode, she uses her knowledge of...

What happens when you get a self-dubbed “yankee Jewish feminist” talking about Jesus? Turns out, you get a fascinating conversation leaving folks of all faiths and worldviews with much to think about. Amy-Jill Levine is a brilliant professor of New Testament, and, perhaps surprisingly, a practicing Jew. In this episode, she uses her knowledge of Jewish culture to highlight common mis-readings of t...

This is our unabridged interview with Angela Williams Gorrell. What is joy? Is it equatable with happiness, or pleasure, or both? Is it to be found in a career, or a romantic partner, or a religion? And if we were to manage it, would our lives forever be free from sorrow, pain, and suffering? In this episode, author and professor Angela Williams Gorrell, who was teaching a class on joy at Yale whe...

What is joy? Is it equatable with happiness, or pleasure, or both? Is it to be found in a career, or a romantic partner, or a religion? And if we were to manage it, would our lives forever be free from sorrow, pain, and suffering? In this episode, two guests discuss joy, describing both what it is and, perhaps more importantly, what it is not. Author and professor Angela Williams Gorrell, who was...

This is our unabridged interview with Karen Korematsu. What is it like to be an Asian American? In light of the beginning of AAPI month, we present a re-airing of our episode from 2021 with Karen Korematsu and Eugene Cho, two Asian-Americans with unique stories of grief and hope. Karen Korematsu tells the story of her father Fred Korematsu, a famed Japanese-American civil rights activist who refus...

What is it like to be an Asian American? In light of the beginning of AAPI month, we present a re-airing of our episode from 2021 with Karen Korematsu and Eugene Cho, two Asian-Americans with unique stories of grief and hope. Karen Korematsu tells the story of her father Fred Korematsu, a famed Japanese-American civil rights activist who refused Franklin Roosevelt’s executive order to report to wh...

Today, we’re sharing a special episode from The Gist—hosted by Mike Pesca. Sir David King, formerly the UK's Government Chief Scientific Adviser, is now the Founder and Chair at Cambridge's Center for Climate Repair. He advocates carbon capture technology as part of the mix of solutions to climate change. Many environmentalists are not sold. Mike Pesca has established a seven-year connection to hi...

This is our unabridged interview with Suzanne Stabile. What is the Enneagram, and how can it help us live a good life? “The unexamined life is not worth living,” said Socrates. But if that’s true, how are we to go about examining our lives, and what templates or metrics are we to use? One of the best places to start, suggests author and speaker Suzanne Stabile, is the ancient wisdom tool known as...

What is the Enneagram, and how can it help us live a good life? “The unexamined life is not worth living,” said Socrates. But if that’s true, how are we to go about examining our lives, and what templates or metrics are we to use? One of the best places to start, suggests author and speaker Suzanne Stabile, is the ancient wisdom tool known as the Enneagram. What at first glance seems like a Myers-...

This is our unabridged interview with Bill McKibben. “If we are to take heart from the really good things about American history, we have no choice but to reckon first with the dark sides of it,” says Bill McKibben, journalist, author, and activist. One of the most prominent of environmental activists and authors, McKibben also discusses racial justice, the economic impact of suburbanization, and...

Believe it or not, a 2020 PEW study revealed that the most polarized issue in the US is climate change. How did we get here? How have the warnings of climate science been ignored by half the country? How serious is the climate problem, how immediate are the consequences, and what can regular people like us really do about it? In this episode, four voices discuss the subject from all angles. We hea...

This is our unabridged interview with Pádraig Ó Tuama. What if, to be a peacemaker, one might have to wade into trouble and stir the waters oneself? What if, to be a theologian, one might have to leave some of the most troubling questions about God unanswered? What if, to be a poet, one might have to do away with flowery abstraction and accept the nitty-gritty of real life? Pádraig Ó Tuama, host o...

What if, to be a peacemaker, one might have to wade into trouble and stir the waters oneself? What if, to be a theologian, one might have to leave some of the most troubling questions about God unanswered? What if, to be a poet, one might have to do away with flowery abstraction and accept the nitty-gritty of real life? Pádraig Ó Tuama, host of the podcast Poetry Unbound from On Being Studios, is...

This is our unabridged interview with Azim Khamisa. How do you forgive the man who killed your son? In 1995, Azim Khamisa’s only son Tariq was shot and killed while delivering a pizza. The killer was a 14-year-old gang member named Tony Hicks, and due to a recent change of law in the state of California, Tony was tried as an adult and sentenced to 25 years to life in prison. But instead of respond...

How do you forgive the man who killed your son? In 1995, Azim Khamisa’s only son Tariq was shot and killed while delivering a pizza. The killer was a 14-year-old gang member named Tony Hicks, and due to a recent change of law in the state of California, Tony was tried as an adult and sentenced to 25 years to life in prison. But instead of responding with a call for outrage or revenge, Azim did the...

This is our unabridged interview with Dacher Keltner. “Brief doses…help your heart, your immune system, your stress, your reasoning, your relationships,” says psychologist and bestselling author Dacher Keltner. And believe it or not, he’s not describing some new miracle drug or medical treatment. He’s talking about the experience of awe. He defines awe as “the feeling we have when we encounter vas...