Clear+Vivid with Alan Alda

You need little more evidence these days that our country is badly divided than to toggle back and forth between Fox News and MSNBC – two perspectives on the same day’s events that might be coming from two different universes. We have become a nation of tribes. We didn’t set out on Clear+Vivid to explore this divide, but in our conversations about connecting and communicating, the topic kept comin...

Regular listeners to Clear+Vivid know that we have a thing for empathy, as do many of our guests. For our host, Alan Alda, empathy is the indispensable foundation for good communication. But exactly what empathy is isn’t always obvious – nor is it obvious that it’s always a good thing. So, we thought we could look back over the 40-odd conversations we’ve had on this podcast so far and see where an...

We love hearing from our listeners! Through social media and email, you've been sending us your own answers to "Alan's 7 Questions" and we've been having a great time reading through all your witty, smart, and often poignant responses. In this episode, we're highlighting all of our favorites! We want to keep hearing from you, so please continue to write us at: podcast@aldacommunication.com or get...

Why doesn't Dr. Ruth talk about her sex life? What keeps Michael J. Fox optimistic? Why does Isabella Rossellini have a passion for animals? What's the strangest question someone ever asked Tina Fey? How do Sarah Vowell and Sarah Silverman stop compulsive talkers? Our guests have hilarious, thoughtful, and heartwarming answers to Alan Alda's "7 Questions" -- in this episode, we bring you all of ou...

Clear+Vivid with Alan Alda is coming back soon for a sensational season 4! In the meantime, we've been having a lot of fun behind the scenes creating bonus episodes, new experiences, and great content for you. And, we also want to introduce you to some of our favorite podcasters. So, here's a podcast we like called Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast. In this episode Gilbert and Frank wel...

How do you learn? It may be different from how I learn. David Flink knows about learning differences. Dave was diagnosed with dyslexia and ADHD in grade school, but with the right support he got into an Ivy League college. There, he helped start a program for kids with a diagnosis of dyslexia or ADHD to be mentored by college students with the same diagnosis. Dave's program, "Eye to Eye," is now e...

At Harvard, she's known as the "rollerblading, rockstar scientist." Pardis Sabeti mines the human genome for its secrets to eradicate deadly scourges. Her breakthrough work helped tackle an outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus in Africa. She also finds time to write and perform with a rock band. In this episode, Pardis and Alan Alda talk about her extraordinary work, and how to tackle any challenge...

How do we come up with ideas? How do we make decisions? And how can we do both better? Steven Johnson has explored this question and written a dozen books about it. In this playful, thoughtful episode, Steven has some fascinating stories, like how Darwin made the decision to get married — or how a defecating duck helped lead to the invention of the computer. Through their own stories, Steven and A...

Steven Strogatz possesses a special ability to see into the unseen. How does he do it? Steve is a world class mathematician, who sees through the window of math. But, lucky for us, he’s also a world class communicator. An award-winning professor, researcher, author, and creative thinker, Steve can help anyone (even Alan Alda) understand some of the unseen world of numbers. In this episode, Alan an...

Alan Alda wanted to get off the island quickly. Steven Strogatz explains how an 18th century British clergyman could have helped. In this short bonus episode, Steven helps Alan understand something that he’s wondered about for years. Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/clearandvivid Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of...

How do we get beyond Right versus Left, "Us" versus "Them," and even "Me" versus "You"? Jonathan Haidt has a few theories about this all too-familiar tribalism and the seemingly endless culture wars of our time. As someone who studies morality and emotion, Jonathan has deep insight into the moral foundation of our politics and his research in moral psychology has revealed new ways for us to engage...

How do we actually learn to communicate? How is it different from how other animals learn it? Michael Tomasello explores what may be at the very heart of relating and communicating: shared attention. Alan Alda first met Michael when he interviewed him a few years ago in Leipzig, Germany. Michael was already doing experiments that studied the differences between how human children and chimps learn...

Sarah Vowell is not short on facets. She’s writer, a historian, a satirist, a radio star and an actor. While he writing voice can be satirical, you might recognize her speaking voice as that of Violet in the Pixar animated series “The Incredibles.” She's a contributor to the public radio show This American Life, and has written seven New York Times ’ bestselling books on culture and American histo...

Sherry Turkle is an expert on both our cultural and personal well-being. She's a professor at MIT, an author, a licensed clinical psychologist, and someone who's deeply concerned about how people connect and communicate. In this conversation with Alan Alda, Sherry shares her concerns about mobile technology, social networks, AI, and robots. She explores our relationships with our devices and how o...

Stephen Fry loves words. But he does more than love them. He puts them together in ways that so delight readers, that a blog or a tweet by him can get hundreds of thousands of people hanging on his every keystroke. As an actor, he’s brought to life every kind of theatrical writing from sketch comedy to classics. He’s performed in everything from game shows to the British audiobook version of Harry...

Her name is Ruth Westheimer, but we all know her as Dr. Ruth, the helpful lady who’s spoken to us for decades about sex. She's always direct, to the point, and bubbling with insight about ourselves and our partners. In this frank conversation with Alan Alda, Dr. Ruth talks about how to achieve a long lasting relationship in a short term world. She also talks candidly about her past experience as a...

M*A*S*H is the most beloved and one of the most watched TV shows of all time. It set viewing records that have never been broken and is ranked as one of the top 25 shows of all time. In this exclusive podcast, actors from this legendary show gather together for an uproarious and totally candid conversation about how they learned to connect with one another to create their special brand of entertai...

Sheila Nevins has explored the human condition in the thousand or so documentaries she produced for HBO. From more than 30 years of telling us stories about ourselves, to her experience as a woman in the workplace, Sheila has plenty to say about communicating. And she never holds back. In this delightful episode, Alan Alda talks with Sheila about her life, how she feels about aging, the #MeToo mov...

Coming Tuesday, February 5th! M*A*S*H will be back for a one-time, exclusive episode with all your familiar friends -- join Alan Alda, Loretta Swit, Jamie Farr, Mike Farrell, and Gary Burghoff for an intimate and candid conversation about their personal experiences of being part of one of the most beloved TV shows of all time; and the lessons they learned about how to connect, communicate, and to...

Senator Bill Bradley has an amazing life. He was a Gold medal Olympian, a Rhodes Scholar, a legendary star with the Knicks for 10 years, a United Sates Senator for 12 years. He ran for the Democratic party’s Presidential nomination, and to top it off, he’s the host of the long-running SiriusXM Satellite Radio program – “American Voices.” In this episode, Alan Alda speaks with Sen. Bradley about le...

Christian Picciolini is the author of “White American Youth: My Descent Into America’s Most Violent Hate Movement – And How I Got Out.” His story helps the rest of us understand what leads an ordinary person take on a life of hate and violence. He knows because he was once a leading organizer for the Neo-Nazi movement. In this emotionally riveting conversation, Alan Alda and Christian talk frankly...

Should you shut down your social media accounts right now? Jaron Lanier thinks so, and he knows the tech world. He helped build the Internet and was one of the creators of virtual reality. But now, he believes something has gone very wrong with our new digital world. In this episode, Jaron joins Alan Alda to discuss social media addiction, the crisis at Facebook, how our behavior is being subtly m...

Rachael Ray knows how to relate over food. When she cooks, she's always thinking about her audience and how to communicate a message through the medium of food. Her energy and talent have led her to create a billion dollar lifestyle empire, built around the concept of fun, healthy, and joyous experiences with food. In this episode of Clear+Vivid, Rachael Ray and Alan Alda cook up some pasta togeth...

W. Kamau Bell, the host of CNN's "United Shades of America,” describes his show as giving people a “microphone” and “public square to tell their version of the story.” Putting it plainly, he's said his greatest gift as a communicator is in knowing, “... how to shut the f*ck up and let people talk.” Kamau is a gifted stand up comedian who delivers his comedy through a socio-political lens. In this...

The most important time in your life can be those few minutes when you're in the doctors office - this is a critical time for you to tell your story and for your doctor to listen. 80% of correct diagnoses are made when doctors get the whole history from their patients. And the more empathic the communication, the better the diagnosis. In this last episode of our 3-part series, we speak with Dr. Su...