The Wonder Dome

In this special, inter-generational episode we welcome Dr. Sousan Abadian and her daughter, Ariana Abadian-Heifetz. Ariana is an experiential educator with expertise in social-emotional learning and gender-based violence. Sousan has an independent practice, teaching, speaking, and consulting internationally on leadership, innovation, and culture change. Currently, she serves as the Executive Direc...

Robert Biswas-Diener is a researcher, author, and well-known executive coach. His work has taken him all over the globe, studying culture as it relates to well-being. In addition to happiness, he’s researched subjects such as strengths, hospitality, friendship, and leadership. In 2024, Thinkers50 recognized Robert as one of the 50 most influential executive coaches in the world. A prolific author,...

Eleanor Robins writes in service of imagination. Her work has been featured in publications such as the Guardian, the Times Literary Supplement, the Washington Post, and the LA Times. Her Substack, How to Go Home , is a newsletter devoted to essays, reflections, and conversations about imagination and the imaginal realm. A steward of dreams and stories, Eleanor studies the phenomena of the imagina...

Cecily Sommers is a futurist, business consultant, and author of Think Like a Futurist . Cecily defines her practice as a futurist in terms of someone who studies the principles and mechanisms of change by looking at history, biology, and the universe in order to understand how societies transform over time. As a business futurist, Cecily’s zone of genius is as a consultant to some of the world’s...

Mieke Jacobs (poet, coach, thought leader and systemic teacher) returns to the Dome to share from her book Poet Assassin ; a fittingly-titled collection of “dense and ethereal” poems that excavate the collective psyche. It’s a fitting title for a body of work that flows through the mind and heart and yet is also sharp like an edge that cuts through the noise and speaks truth in a way that can be d...

Nate Helbach is the founder and CEO of Neutral , a regenerative development company that crafts economically viable and ecologically sustainable built environments. Neutral creates beautiful housing developments that enhance existing neighborhoods, encourage the fostering of human connectivity, and generate profits all while mitigating the harmful effects traditional development tends to inflict o...

Housing is one of the greatest adaptive challenges we currently face as a species. It’s also a key solution to many other complexities around population, community, civic engagement, and the ecological crisis. Navigating our current global political landscape often feels like patching up a sinking ship, where the tools we use to mend it often reproduce the status quo that created the holes in the...

Return guests Parker Palmer (author, activist, educator, and co-host of The Growing Edge ) and Ariel Burger (scholar, musician, rabbi, and author of Witness: Lessons from Elie Wiesel’s Classroom ) join Andy in sharing music, poetry, and reflections on humanity’s current moment with generous wisdom and insight. Parker and Ariel speak to what it means to be “awake” to the realities of hardship and s...

“How can I become a good relative?” is the inquiry that guides Hilary Giovale’s work in writing, teaching, and reparative philanthropy. It’s a concept Hilary first became familiar with while building relationships with Indigenous communities; a goal to strive toward where we operate in support of the collective human community and of the Earth. In her book, Becoming a Good Relative: Calling White...

After several years focused on parenting, podcasting, and leadership development work, I'm excited to release my new song Apocalypse on Christmas . I wrote it last winter in the wake of a period of depression and an intense bout with Covid that laid me up for over a month. Writing it helped me heal. It was kicked off by my five-year old daughter's playful attempts to steal my jacket. It turned int...

What would social media look like if it nourished our critical thinking, mental health, privacy, civil discourse, and democracy? Is that even possible? Mark Weinstein is a world-renowned tech entrepreneur, privacy expert, contemporary thought leader, and author of Restoring Our Sanity Online . An early pioneer of social media platforms in the 1990s, Mark has become a vocal critic of the current st...

Does art have the power to create change? For Kristen van Ginhoven, former Artistic Director of WAM Theatre and current Executive Director of Project SAGE , the answer is an unequivocal “Yes!” Founded in 2010, WAM Theatre’s mission is one driven by a mission of arts as activism — creating theatre for everyone that benefits women and girls by pairing each production with beneficiaries working for t...

Ben Campbell has spent the last 15 years studying the Enneagram; a system that can help us classify personalities based on core motivations, desires, and fears. Though he’s passionate about its value as a wayfinding tool for better understanding ourselves and others, he realized early on in his studies that it was insufficient on its own for helping us access our full potential as human beings. It...

What if everything you’ve learned about self-development is actually making things harder for you? What if there was a way to shift from the self-improvement paradigm, which leaves many of us feeling caught in a constant flux of trying to “fix” ourselves, towards one that nourishes our sense of innate wholeness and resourcefulness? For Steve March, a coach of nearly 25 years and founder of Alethei...

Four years ago, in the wake of nationwide lockdowns necessitated by the pandemic, the Wonder Dome was born from a need to foster a space for connection, healing, and hope for humanity. 150 episodes later it continues to endeavor to provide guests and listeners alike with a space of rest and repose for the soul. In this special episode, Andy takes a solo turn behind the mic to reflect with gratitud...

This Throwback Thursday, we’re revisiting one of our favorite episodes featuring long-time collaborators Parker Palmer and Carrie Newcomer . Parker is a celebrated author, educator, and activist. He and Carrie, the award-winning singer and songwriter, have produced a number of stage productions centered around collective healing and reimagining of our democracy. They have co-written songs, turned...

Aaron Cantor is a movement coach, bodyworker, personal trainer, yogi, and movement generalist. He’s the founder of Primal Practice, an intuitive and playful method of fostering wellness through the development of mindfulness and movement skills. He’s also a coach with Evolve Move Play , a collective that empowers people to cultivate transformative movement practices through their outdoor training...

Jonathan Smales is the founder and CEO of Human + Nature , a campaigning development company working to create “a far, far better future” through sustainable building and design. As a former MD of Greenpeace (UK), a sustainability advisor to the government, and developer of some of the UK’s first major sustainability projects, Jonathan’s expertise is now focused on The Phoenix : a sustainable neig...

Catherine Bell is a successful entrepreneur, business leader, and best-selling author. She is the CEO and founder of The Awakened Company , which focuses on helping organizations foster healthy work cultures through the awakening of the self, relationships, and team dynamics. Her book of the same name is a response to the world-wide crisis of financial instability, and posits that a fundamental re...

Dr. Stephen Aizenstat has devoted his life to understanding the profound wisdom and healing power that exists within our dreams and imaginations. “Dream tending” is a process he developed that can help us work with our own dreams and the dreams of the world around us to see the consciousness that exists in all things, and to utilize them as a source of strength, insight, and potential. In his rece...

Raised in Karachi, Pakistan, fahad punjwani is a strategist, designer, poet, and uncle who now calls Houston home. Their work is rooted in creativity, beauty, and empathy. He is the founder of Suchee Studios , a collective that helps mission-driven leaders and organizations use design thinking to foster capacity for connection in order to tackle the “ Big, Gnarly Problems ” we face as a species. f...

Next in our Throwback Thursday series is a fresh look at this ever-relevant conversation with Nina Simons, the co-founder and Chief Relationship Strategist of Bioneers . For over 30 years, this organization has focused on helping the human species reach a place of true racial and gender justice for all, while also rekindling our sacred relationship with the planet Earth - and in the process, suppo...

How does science fiction have the potential to shape our understanding of human nature, reality, and the universe? It’s a topic that Damien Walter — writer, video essayist, and lifelong enthusiast of science fiction — is continuously exploring. If you take a look at his popular YouTube channel (aptly titled “Science Fiction”) you’ll see a wealth of analyses that explore the role the genre plays as...

In this new series, we revisit past episodes of The Wonder Dome that continue to resonate powerfully today. First published in October of 2021, this conversation with the incomparable Lawrence Barriner II surrounding the complexities of grief , the transformative power of understanding one’s own story , and the untapped potential that lies in the collective grieving of our shared history feels as...

Bonnitta Roy is an author, award-winning teacher, and insight guide who helps individuals and groups break away from limiting patterns of thought so that they can grow into their full potential . Bonnie works across many levels of abstraction while remaining grounded in the important questions: Who are we? How do we want to be in the world, with ourselves, and with each other? What is it to be hum...