Meditative Story

How do you find joy in your life? For entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and author Reid Hoffman, it’s through the act of genuine, honest, and intimate conversations with friends. Once a self-described misfit, in college, Reid finds his place. He connects with people who share not necessarily his interests but his curiosity, and his dedication to asking big questions. It is in asking the big questi...

How to teach a classroom full of "difficult" kids? By meeting them where they are, and finding a way in. This is something that Sinéad Burke sees every day in her teaching career. Her own life experience has taught her how to turn everything that excludes someone into something that includes, by looking for that common ground we all have with one another. What can you do to build a way in for some...

Watching her daughter chase a balloon through a graveyard, Dr. Lucy Kalanithi comes to realize that maybe she can learn from four-year-old Cady. After the death of her husband, Dr. Paul Kalanithi, author of "When Breath Becomes Air," Lucy focuses on Cady, on teaching Cady how to deal with grief and loss. But as Cady bounds through the cemetery, on the way to see her dad, she teaches Lucy. She sees...

How do you build rapport with another person quickly? How do you bond? Author A.J. Jacobs shares a Meditative Story about the day he found himself on "The Oprah Winfrey Show," and how courage to take a risk might just be the best way to connect with someone else. If this episode resonates with you, we’d love to hear from you. Please take a moment to share your reflections by rating and reviewing M...

Psychologist and author Susan David invites us into the sad days after she loses her father as a child – and the kind teacher who helped her carve out space to feel her grief and sadness honestly. It's a lesson she takes into her own journey as a parent. "When we truly see ourselves, we’re more able to see others too." – Susan David If this episode resonates with you, we’d love to hear from you. P...

To truly see what is right in front us, requires the practice of looking, of careful and sustained attention – without expectation or judgment. Join author and essayist Siri Hustvedt on an hours long trip to the museum spent in front of just one painting. And discover more than just what's on the canvas. If this episode resonates with you, we’d love to hear from you. Please take a moment to share...

No boys. No dresses. As a teen, Moj Mahdara, founder of the fashion media company Beautycon, knows she’s different. And growing up in a traditional Iranian household, she struggles to reveal her own true identity. When two long-term houseguests descend — her grandmothers — Moj is shocked to learn that each woman has a surprising story of identity of her own. She learns secrets. She also learns tha...

Fluent in cheating time to squeeze productivity out of every minute, entrepreneur Keith Yamashita recounts the frightening details of a devastating stroke as it is actually happening, and discovers the second part of his life. It isn't a medical recovery. It’s an awakening. If this episode resonates with you, we’d love to hear from you. Please take a moment to share your reflections by rating and...

As an actor and a new mom, Catherine Reitman felt pulled between two competing identities. To capture her frustration, her sadness, her truth, she wrote it all down. In sharing her darkness, she found a way to turn a light on for someone else. If this episode resonates with you, we’d love to hear from you. Please take a moment to share your reflections by rating and reviewing Meditative Story in y...

Author and poet Stephen Kuusisto, who is blind, hears life expressed in sound, the weird and wonderful chance music of everyday life. And he's able to find meaning, big and small, in it all. If this episode resonates with you, we’d love to hear from you. Please take a moment to share your reflections by rating and reviewing Meditative Story in your podcast player. It helps other listeners find the...

When's the last time you hand-wrote a letter? Author Hannah Brencher shares a simple story about the value of connecting on paper. If this episode resonates with you, we’d love to hear from you. Please take a moment to share your reflections by rating and reviewing Meditative Story in your podcast player. It helps other listeners find their way to the show, and we’d be so grateful. Each episode of...

In precisely chosen words, the writer, artist and Zen priest Zenju Earthlyn Manuel tells a story from her girlhood, a road trip from LA to Louisiana in 1957. While five-year-old Zenju sits in the back seat dreaming of cowboys, her parents navigate an altogether different landscape. From them, from the trip, Zenju now believes she’s learned how to find her way in the world, in her skin. If this epi...

Tuxedo-clad, face covered in makeup, hair slicked and parted in the middle, jumping around a creaky stage, teenage Josh Radnor (now an actor, producer and director) makes a life-changing discovery: He can act. And he loves it. But what to do now? At 16 years old, all Josh knows is that his ambition to act is at odds with everything that surrounds him, and with what he thinks his family expects of...

Host of NPR’s Wait, Wait...Don’t Tell Me!, Peter Sagal is wrecked and stuck in the wake of a divorce. Suddenly, he finds himself with two free weeks. In need of a healthy distraction, Peter jumps on his Harley for a long solo trip out west. Though he has a destination in mind, what he finds on those quiet, desolate, curvy roads is a new focus, a new voice. And though his aim was to fill his time,...

What's is like to be an identical twin? Game designer Jane McGonigal tells a story of similarity and divergence as she explores the magic of sharing DNA while becoming an individual. If this episode resonates with you, we’d love to hear from you. Please take a moment to share your reflections by rating and reviewing Meditative Story in your podcast player. It helps other listeners find their way t...

Restaurateur Danny Meyer takes us back to where it all began for him: a family trip to Europe and a simple plate of pasta. That memorable meal sparked a lifetime practice of discovery that continues to feed his creativity and his soul. If this episode resonates with you, we’d love to hear from you. Please take a moment to share your reflections by rating and reviewing Meditative Story in your podc...

While filming one day in the Congo Rainforest, legendary photojournalist John Moore pursued the vision of a perfect photograph — a vision that literally brought him to his knees. He shares the magic that can occur when you let go of the desire to control the outcome. If this episode resonates with you, we’d love to hear from you. Please take a moment to share your reflections by rating and reviewi...

Sitting around tables with arms experts, moving missiles around a map of Europe as if it were a gameboard, On Being's Krista Tippett grabs the moment to dislodge herself from the exhilaration of power. The journey that ensues leads her to a remote cottage in Spain where a chance encounter with a retired accountant, Robert, creates the space to redirect her life forever.  Read Krista's book "...

Author and journalist Thomas Page McBee takes us into the boxing ring at Madison Square Garden, where he finds answers to some of his most profound questions through fighting – and along the way discovers what happens when you stop trying to win. If this episode resonates with you, we’d love to hear from you. Please take a moment to share your reflections by rating and reviewing Meditative Story i...

Broadcaster Dan Harris shares a candid look at his attempts to connect more with his son, Alexander, on their first father-son trip. If this episode resonates with you, we’d love to hear from you. Please take a moment to share your reflections by rating and reviewing Meditative Story in your podcast player. It helps other listeners find their way to the show, and we’d be so grateful. Each episode...

For this human moment, join astronomer Michelle Thaller as she contemplates the night sky. We’re such a small part of the universe – and yet so significant within it. If this episode resonates with you, we’d love to hear from you. Please take a moment to share your reflections by rating and reviewing Meditative Story in your podcast player. It helps other listeners find their way to the show, and...

Renowned astronomer and science commentator Michelle Thaller shares a story about cosmic awe and deep connection — both to our fellow human beings and to the universe around us. If this episode resonates with you, we’d love to hear from you. Please take a moment to share your reflections by rating and reviewing Meditative Story in your podcast player. It helps other listeners find their way to the...

In a tiny studio in Tampa, Florida, with new-to-the-scene Jennifer Hudson and a Pomeranian dog named Grammy, young music producer Larry Jackson begins to feel the heat. It’s his job to not only make music, but to make hits. And it’s not happening. From an early age, Larry has had to scramble to make things happen for himself – and chance luck has made him a bit superstitious. The creative process...

A glossy picture on the cover of a magazine. That’s all it takes for a teenage Arianna Huffington to decide she’s going to leave her family and home – and the activity and warmth of her mom’s kitchen table – to start something new. Without speaking the language, or even knowing how to get there, Arianna decides she’s going to start a new life in a new place, propelled forward by her mom’s wise sen...

Facing a dreaded 20-hour layover after weeks away from home, Pico Iyer sees his best option is to set out and explore a city he never planned to visit in the first place. Pico's expectations, like anyone traveling to a new place for the first time, are to distract himself with new experiences and try to make sense of the world around him. What happens, though, couldn't be more unexpected. A feelin...