Know What You See with Brian Lowery

Sometimes healing doesn't mean trying to erase the past, but honoring it — cracks and all. In this episode, artist Naoko Fukumaru shares her deeply personal story of transformation through kintsugi, the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery or ceramics with lacquer and gold or silver powder to highlight the fractures and seams. She and host Brian Lowery explore what it means to mend — not just...

What do medieval troubadours and modern rappers have in common? More than you might think. In this episode, Stanford professor of French and Italian, Marisa Galvez joins Brian Lowery to explore how poetry—whether in 12th-century love songs or hip-hop lyrics—has long been a way to express love, power, or identity. Together they discuss how lyrical traditions from the past continue to shape music an...

Host Brian Lowery talks with journalist Jennifer Sullivan about the parallels between beauty and birding. As someone who has spent years writing about appearance and self-perception, Jenn discovered that watching birds offered a different kind of reflection—one that quiets the mind and expands our sense of place in the world. She and Brian discuss how stepping into nature can shift the way we see...

National Geographic photographer and conservationist Jaime Rojo has spent decades capturing the beauty and fragility of the monarch butterfly. Their epic migration is one of nature’s most breathtaking spectacles, but their survival is under threat. In this episode, Jaime shares how his passion for photography and conservation led him to document the monarchs’ journey. He and host Brian Lowery disc...

In this episode, comedian and tea enthusiast Jesse Appell of Jesse's Teahouse takes us on a journey from studying Chinese comedy to building an online tea business. He shares how navigating different cultures shaped his perspective on laughter, authenticity, and community. From mastering traditional Chinese cross-talk comedy to reinventing himself after a life-changing move, Jesse and host Brian L...

In this episode of Know What You See , Brian Lowery talks with DJ Colleen "Cosmo" Murphy, an acclaimed broadcaster, DJ, and founder of Classic Album Sundays . Colleen shares her journey from a high school radio station to becoming a global curator of transformative musical experiences. Whether it's finding community through the airwaves, or the shared euphoria of the dance floor, or the relaxed vi...

Here’s another podcast we think you’ll like. It's called " Wisdom and Practice " and it’s hosted by one of Brian Lowry's guests this season, Simran Jeet Singh . Wisdom & Practice uncovers what insights we can gain from our ancient and modern traditions. Simran explores the different means of practice his guests have taken to discover new awareness of themselves, and how we can all cultivate mo...

Wine and chocolate may seem like simple pleasures, but for people like master sommelier Chris Gaither and Dandelion Chocolates co-founder Todd Masonis, they’re so much more. Chris sees wine as a way to bring people together to share stories and get in touch with the land and culture. Todd’s approach to chocolate focuses on traditional origins and fostering relationships with small farms. In Brian'...

In this episode of Know What You See, Brian Lowery talks with with Simran Jeet Singh, professor, author, and host of the podcast, Wisdom and Practice , to explore the intersection of faith, purpose, and daily life. Simran shares how his Sikh faith guides his journey toward self-improvement, happiness, and meaningful community connections. Together, he and Brian discuss the role of religion as a pr...

On a recent episode of Know What You See , Brian had a conversation with master storyteller, Dr. Ray Christian. Ray’s stories have appeared on The Moth, RISK!, and Snap Judgment but he’s not just a storyteller. Ray is also a historian, father, and combat veteran from the rural South, who finds himself floating between life in academia, public speaking, parenting, and tending to the goats in his ba...

What do the stories we tell say about who we are? In this episode of Know What You See , host Brian Lowery sits down with Dr. Ray Christian—storyteller, educator, ten-time Moth Story Slam champion, and host of the award-winning podcast What's Ray Saying? —to explore how the narratives we share, and the ones we leave out, shape our understanding of ourselves and the world around us. Join Brian and...

On Know What You See , host Brian Lowery dives into a single, sweeping question: "What's the point?" Why do people dedicate so much of themselves to pursuits like music, wine, comedy, or storytelling? Through engaging conversations with enthusiasts from diverse fields, this season explores the reasons behind our passions and what they reveal about us. Tune in for new episodes starting November 26.

In this Know What You See short, Brian probes the real reasons for having kids and why biological family is so important to us.

In this Know What You See short, Brian reflects on how the strategy of selection determines our sense of self worth .

In this Know What You See short, Brian considers why being thoughtful about travel can help us get the most out of it. Why do you travel? Leave a message with your thoughts at brianloweryphd.com/contact.  Stay tuned for new episodes of Know What You See coming this fall and follow @knowwhatyouseepod on Instagram.

We’ve been looking at the forces in our lives that shape who we are and who we can be: our relationships, our social identities, our ability to choose. But all of this exists in the shadow of the knowledge that we will all die. This is so terrifying that most of us try to avoid thinking or talking about it. But what would change if we were better prepared for death and dying? How would it transfor...

In the day-to-day of our lives, how often do we feel truly moved? Many of us think we have to get away from our daily reality to experience awe--the feeling that something is so wondrous and mysterious it's a little scary. It can feel like only extraordinary encounters with say art or majestic experiences of nature evoke awe, and we are left with too little of it. But maybe we can learn to cultiva...

We like to believe that we are masters of our own fate, that we are the cause of our choices and actions. But what if that's not true? Imagine that all of our choices and actions are simply the product of history—whether that goes back one minute or 1000 years—and biological and environmental forces that we often don’t even understand. In this episode we're exploring the question of whether free w...

Race and gender are thought by many to be immutable features of our biology. In some places and spaces, we see significant challenges to this way of thinking about gender, but the biological view of race has proved more durable. How do we understand racial identity from individual and community perspectives? What’s changing about how we define race and how that shapes our interactions with the wor...

For many of us, gender is an important part of how we understand ourselves. It affects everything, from the way we present ourselves physically, to how we make sense of others' interactions with us. But what determines our gender? The answer to this question is more complicated than we might think. The way we understand gender can reveal a lot about who we are and who we can be. Our guests: Schuyl...

With so many of us now working at home or on a hybrid schedule, the line between our employment and our personal lives has been blurring. What does work/life balance mean when the boundaries keep shifting? What does our nostalgia for pre-pandemic workplace comedies like The Office say about who we are and who we used to be? And is the dystopian drama series Severance a warning, or a kind of wish f...

What goes into making a home? For many, it means a physical space, that’s true, and the useful objects we collect within. But it’s also a repository for our memories and aspirations. How we build or decorate our homes signals who we are, our tastes and values, and the signs of our success. It’s where we feel safe and connected, and where we welcome others we trust. But does a home need to be a fix...

A spouse, a soul-mate, a life partner - however you define “the one”, the search for that person is often confusing and fraught with challenges and doubt. And in a world with so much choice, is it better to enlist the opinions of those who know you best, like your family and friends? Or can more “objective” support like matchmakers and algorithms narrow down the field and yield true love? Guests:...

This season Brian explores some of the topics from his book “Selfless: The Social Construction of You”. Specifically, how we see ourselves, and how our relationships and social interactions shape the way we live. Even before the pandemic, there was evidence our social lives were fraying. Engagement in social clubs, civic organizations, churches have been in decline and the traditional ways of meet...

Here’s another podcast to add to your queue. Matt Abrahams is a Lecturer in Organizational Behavior here at Stanford, and in his podcast, Think Fast, Talk Smart . he speaks with experts about the real world challenges of communicating effectively. From emails, to giving presentations or speaking at family functions, how can we best get our point across in business and in life? Brian Lowery was a g...