The Wonder Dome

“I am living more richly right now, without a doubt, than I have at any point in my life. That is with all of the constraints of my health.”-Mike Kester When people hear the word acceptance, they often hear it as surrender. Giving up. Quitting. I think that’s a big mistake. The more you fight reality, the more suffering you’re in for. Acceptance is recognizing exactly where you are in this moment,...

"Just 10 hours without social interaction has the same neural response in the brain as hunger... It's not a luxury. It's actually a biological, physiological human need." -Ellen Buckley What does it mean to build for the future? For humans of all walks of life, as we navigate climate change, political upheaval, and economic breakdown? Especially when many of us live in relative isolation? I am mor...

The workplace is filled with human beings, not just job titles. -Jamie Graceffa When you hear the word kindness, what comes to mind? In our personal lives, it seems to me to be essential. Most of us want our partners, friends, and neighbors to be kind. The golden thread that holds a relationship together is rooted in kindness: listening, care, generosity, understanding. And it requires strength an...

“You are ‘response-able.’ You’re responsible for your response.” - Divya Agarwal How do you decide what to do? In his book Thinking, Fast and Slow , Daniel Kahneman writes about our two modes of thinking: Instinct and cognition. It’s a brilliant frame. But it leaves something out. What does it feel like to slow down when your instincts are moving fast? And what happens to both kinds of thinking wh...

What might it mean to remake housing in America? We need an estimated 5 million more homes by 2035. Nine years out. Clock ticking. And that number alone doesn’t tell the whole story. I’ve been attending town meetings in the small town where I live, and year after year, the financial picture is getting worse. We’re straining to pay for basic services. Teachers. Fire fighters. Police officers. Road...

“The weight of this sad time we must obey. Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say.” — Nicholas Janni, quoting King Lear , by William Shakespeare The word ‘chaos’ evokes a lot for me. It’s noise. Uncertainty. Violence. It’s nature at her most intense. Society at its most fractured. Ambiguity down to the deepest level. My first instinct, in times like these, is to duck and cover. And in most c...

“Starting over is the American way.” — Brandon Peele As the country marks its 250th year, I welcome back my friend and brother Brandon Peele for a conversation about what it might mean for our nation to begin again. Rather than greet the anniversary with fireworks and nostalgia, Brandon spent the last fifteen months on something much more powerful: a month-long caravan pilgrimage across America to...

“Mythology is not just humanities fluff […] it’s: do you dare to understand how things have been coded from first principles?” -Rayner Jae Liu In a time where chaos is the word on everyone’s lips, Andy sits down with Rayner Jae Liu in a vast and reflective conversation about how humans make meaning when our familiar paradigms begin to crumble. Rayner is an evolutionary entrepreneur, executive coac...

“Convictions are beliefs strongly held. It’s responsibilities that have rebuilt societies.” -Christopher Spicer This week, Andy is joined by friend and neighbor Christopher Spicer — a writer, father, longtime human rights advocate, and recent candidate for Somerville City Councilor At-Large. He has served as Chair of the Somerville Human Rights Commission, participated in nonviolent protest and ci...

“When you drop a team in the realm of process […] they’re one step closer to getting to the human dimension.” -Alexander Caillet Alexander Caillet is an internationally recognized organizational psychologist, consultant, and coach dedicated to helping organizations achieve high performance through powerful teaming. As the CEO of Corentus, Inc. , Alexander has worked across more than 30 countries o...

“Service to others is my spiritual home.” -Max Klau This week Andy welcomes longtime friend, colleague, and returning Wonder Dome guest Dr. Max Klau . He’s an author, coach, developmental psychologist, and founder of the Center for Courageous Wholeness , who’s work sits at the intersection of inner development and systems change. His new book, Developing Servant Leadership at Scale: How to Do It a...

“In what way am I an example? In what way am I a warning?” -Ariane de Bonvoisin Ariane de Bonvoisin is a best-selling author, international speaker, entrepreneur, and change optimist. She is a renowned expert in leadership, change, and personal transformation with a global audience, speaking and coaching at major companies such as Google, Twitter, Morgan Stanley and more, bringing practical tools...

“We’ve worshipped a hungry monster. And the more you feed and worship a hungry monster, the hungrier it gets.” -Josh Schrei This week we welcome Josh Schrei — storyteller, mythologist, and creator of The Mythic Body . As host of The Emerald podcast , Josh shepherds listeners through explorations of our modern world through a vibrant lens of mythos, music and mindfulness. His work is a salve for mo...

“What if we served from what we love rather than what we’re against?” -Nina Simons Welcoming back two brilliant past guests of the Wonder Dome this week with Nina Simons (co-founder of Bioneers and author of Nature, Culture, and the Sacred: A Woman Listens for Leadership ) and Deborah Eden Tull (founder of Mindful Living Revolution and author of Luminous Darkness: An Engaged Buddhist Approach to E...

“Radical listening gives us agency — it’s something we can still do even when everything feels uncertain.” - Christian van Nieuwerburgh Robert Biswas-Diener and Christian van Nieuwerburgh , two distinguished voices in coaching, positive psychology, and leadership, join Andy to explore the radical and joyful art of listening. As co-authors of Radical Listening: The Art of True Connection , Robert a...

“We need an abundance of the things we need — safe homes, good jobs, healthcare — not an abundance of consumption.” - Saul Humphrey Saul Humphrey is a UK-based leader and sustainability advocate, a professor of sustainable construction at Anglia Ruskin University, and Vice President of the Chartered Institute of Building . He’s also the founder of an eponymously named consultancy practice that int...

“Your dream is a film written and directed by the real you.” -Martin Boroson What if every night, while you sleep, a deeper part of you is trying to speak? In this conversation, executive coach, psychotherapist, and Zen priest Martin Boroson joins Andy to explore the art of listening to that voice — the dreaming mind. Martin invites us to consider dreams as nightly messages from the larger intelli...

“Even when we feel alone, there’s this ancestral truth that all of these people…have carried us here.” -Jamie Hunt What does it mean to be carried—by ancestors, by friends, by music, by silence? This week, Andy gathers with three fellow travelers on the path of inquiry, growth, service and commitment: Jamie Hunt , Todd Marston , and Francis Briers . Together they’ve spent the past five years tendi...

“I know that I was brought on this world to create a multi-sector, multi-generational, intersectional global movement for healing, freedom, and justice.” — Dr. Annice Fisher What is power? Where does it come from? How does power flow through our lives, our communities, and our choices? This week, Dr. Annice Fisher , (leadership coach, founder of Developing Capacity Coaching and author of The Power...

“All of this art is a metaphor for yourself. You are the song. You are the poem. You are the painting.” -Mícheál Moley Ó Súilleabháin What are we for ? This timeless question becomes the ground on which brothers Owen and Mícheál Moley Ó Súilleabháin walk in this conversation. As musicians, poets, and teachers, they inherit and carry forward a lineage of song and story that reveals how art is not s...

“Walking together is one of the most ancient human practices. It’s how we’ve always learned to be in relationship—with each other, with the land, and with God.” -Reverend Rita Powell Reverend Rita Powell is the Episcopal chaplain at Harvard, formerly a priest at Trinity Church in Boston, and a longtime spiritual innovator whose journey has included living in the monastic community of Taizé in Fran...

“Mysticism is about meeting life as it is. It’s about leaning into discomfort, leaning into obstacles, leaning into challenges and saying, there’s a reason why they’re here.” -Robin Alfred What does it mean to live a mystical life? Not on a mountaintop or in a monastery, but in the midst of work deadlines, childcare chaos, and the messiness of everyday life? Once again we welcome back Robin Alfred...

“Ritual makes the invisible visible.” — Casper ter Kuile Casper ter Kuile shares insight and inspiration on the future of community, ritual, and spirituality. His work explores how we’ll make meaning, deepen our relationships, and experience beauty in the 21st century. He’s the author of The Power of Ritual and co-founder of The Nearness , a digital community of people exploring life’s big questio...

“We need our most weird parts to be our most wonderful selves. And as we become more wonderful, we become more weird! And that’s kind of what flourishing looks like in the universe.” — Dominic Longo This Pride Month we are thrilled to welcome back Dominic Longo , founder of Flourishing Gays and author of Queer Flourishing: A Guide to Personal Growth and Greater Aliveness for LGBTQ+ Adults . Domini...

As a Certified Hakomi Practitioner and coach, much of Ketriellah Goldfeder’s ethos is rooted in transforming the self-help paradigm of “working on yourself” to “working with yourself.” While many of us feel that we are fundamentally broken and that one day, when we work hard enough, we will be fixed, Ketriellah helps her clients embrace the beautiful messiness that is synonymous with being human....