This week on the Soul Boom podcast, Rainn sits down with Jeff Hiller—actor, improviser, and someone whose path to doing meaningful work looks nothing like the version we’re taught to expect.

We love this episode because Jeff isn’t just telling a story about persistence—he embodies it in his work. You feel it in the quiet precision of what he does onscreen, whether it’s his breakout role as Joel on Somebody Somewhere or a standout performance like Pluribus, where nothing is pushed and nothing is wasted. He has this rare ability to make a moment land without announcing it, to listen so fully that the scene bends around him, and to find the exact note that makes something feel human instead of performed. As he explains to Rainn, the decades of improv, the years of almost, the long stretch without clear validation—they weren’t detours, they were training. What looks effortless now is built on an almost invisible discipline: attention, restraint, and the courage to stay present and not just turning up the volume.

Jeff’s story doesn’t follow a straight line. He doesn’t leave home and suddenly “make it,” he doesn’t reject his upbringing, and he doesn’t even become the version of himself he once imagined. He almost became a pastor, and that reveals what’s been consistent all along: a pull toward people, toward listening, toward being present in a way that might actually help. That thread runs through everything—through the church he grew up in, through the tension of being a “profoundly gay kid” in a world that didn’t fully know what to do with him, and through years of improv where listening isn’t a skill but the entire job.

There are years that feel like almost—almost stable, almost successful, almost there—and then there’s the moment where that gap between expectation and reality becomes impossible to ignore. Turning forty doesn’t bring clarity so much as a confrontation with the story he thought he was living, and the realization that effort alone isn’t going to resolve it.

If you’ve read Jeff’s hilarious and poignant memoir, Actress of a Certain Age: My Twenty-Year Trail to Overnight Success, then you are acquainted with his journey of grinding it out for decades—auditions, side jobs, improv sets, and the long stretch of wondering if the thing he loved would ever love him back. What becomes clearer in his conversation with Rainn is that improv wasn’t just a workaround for a tough industry—it was the place where something deeper was being practiced all along.

The way Jeff approaches improv isn’t about being the loudest or funniest person in the room. It’s about listening closely enough to respond truthfully, staying present, and letting go of the need to control the outcome. That might sound like performance technique, but it starts to feel like something closer to a way of being.

By the time Somebody Somewhere arrives, what people respond to isn’t a breakthrough performance so much as a quality of presence. His character, Joel, doesn’t fix people or deliver answers; he listens, he stays, and he makes space. That alone feels rare, which says as much about the culture as it does about the role.

The same instinct that drew him toward the church—care, attention, the desire to help—never disappeared. Instead of throwing everything out, he learned, slowly and imperfectly, how to discern what he wanted to take with him and what he wanted to leave behind.

If your life hasn’t followed the path you expected, if you’ve ever questioned whether you stayed too long or left too soon, or if you’re still sorting out what actually matters underneath all of it, this episode of Soul Boom might just be what the doctor ordered.

Somebody, somewhere, loves you just the way you are. Chances are many do. Hopefully you are one of them. And if you don’t now, that’s OK—Jeff’s journey shows us that’s part of the story too—as long as you just keep going.

This week’s episode of the Soul Boom podcast Rainn sits down with peace activists, social entrepreneurs and authors Maoz Inon and Aziz Abu Sarah:

Rainn opens by asking the central question: Is peace between Israelis and Palestinians still possible after October 7, the war in Gaza, and the current level of violence? The duo answers unequivocally that peace is not only possible but inevitable—it’s only a question of how long will we have to wait, and how much suffering will be endured along the way.

The sentiment might be unexpected, but it’s even more surprising when you learn that Maoz Inon is an Israeli whose parents were murdered in the October 7 Hamas attacks, and that his co-author is also no stranger to violence: Aziz Abu Sarah is a Palestinian whose brother died after being imprisoned and tortured by Israeli authorities decades earlier. By every instinct of history and politics, these two men should have become enemies.

Instead, they became brothers. Their remarkable new book, The Future Is Peace, is brilliantly told, deeply rooted in history, unsparing about the present, and unwavering in its conviction that peace is humanity’s destination.

If their names sound familiar, you may have seen them recently on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, where they spoke about refusing to let devastating personal loss become an excuse for vengeance. Or perhaps with Christiane Amanpour’s show, where they challenged one of the most deeply held assumptions of our time—that this conflict has simply gone too far for peace to remain possible. They’ve been traveling the world inviting people to imagine a future that many have stopped believing can exist.

Rainn doesn’t avoid the difficult questions. And neither Maoz or Aziz minimizes the pain that has been endured. Neither asks us to pretend history didn’t happen. What they challenge instead is the assumption that history must always repeat itself.

At one point in the conversation, Maoz says that peace is one of the names of God—in both Hebrew and Arabic. Shalom. Salaam. Aziz reflects that, in Islamic tradition, many of the names of God come in complementary pairs, but peace stands alone. It has no opposite.

As Nelson Mandela said, “Peace is not just the absence of conflict; peace is the creation of an environment where all can flourish regardless of race, color, creed, religion, gender, class, caste or any other social markers of difference.”

As Maoz and Aziz demonstrate, peace is a practice, and one that people on the ground can choose long before treaties are signed and politicians catch up.

Which makes us think about another moment in the history of the Holy Land.

More than a century ago, when ‘Abdu’l-Bahá—an important figure in Rainn’s Bahá’í Faith—passed away in Haifa, thousands gathered to accompany his funeral procession to Mount Carmel. Muslims. Jews. Christians. Druze. Government officials. Religious leaders. Rich and poor. They walked together through the streets of a city overlooking many of the most sacred sites of the Abrahamic traditions, united in honoring a man whose life was devoted to the oneness of humanity, whose service transcended every social and religious boundary, and whose love embraced all.

Today, that same city of Haifa has quietly become one of the centers of the Israeli-Palestinian peace movement. Perhaps that’s coincidence. Or perhaps it’s a reminder that the Holy Land has always carried more than one story. Alongside every chapter of division has been another—often overlooked—of people choosing relationship over resentment, shared humanity over inherited hatred.

Maybe that’s the story we most need to remember. The Future Is Peace is not simply a book about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Like this week’s conversation on the Soul Boom podcast, it refuses both despair and easy answers. Instead, it offers something much rarer: the conviction that even after unimaginable loss, another future is still possible.

As Aziz and Maoz write:

“While our friendship is unusual, we are not unique. The two of us are part of a growing coalition of Israelis and Palestinians, working locally and globally to build a bridge to a shared future. Together, we are creating a new story. We do not see ourselves as Palestinians and Israelis, or as Jews and Arabs, but as human beings who believe in fostering a culture of dialogue, a culture of forgiveness, a culture of peace. To those who see only division lines, we say: If you must divide us, let it be as those who believe in peace and equality and those who don’t . . . yet.”

The Future is Peace

Excerpted from the book by Aziz Abu Sarah and Maoz Inon

Once, there were two brothers who lived on opposite sides of a hill. They had each inherited half of their father’s farmland. One was married with children, the other a bachelor who lived alone. They tilled their own plots of land, and when harvest time arrived, both were blessed with bountiful crops. One night, the younger brother thought to himself, “I have more than I need. My brother has a large family to feed. Surely, his need is greater than mine.” On the other side of the hill, the older brother lay in bed thinking, “I have children who will care for me in my old age, but my brother has no one. Surely, his need is greater than mine.”

That night, each took a sack of grain from his own stores, carried it over the hill, and secretly placed it in his brother’s barn. In the morning, they were both puzzled to see their own stores unchanged. Night after night, this exchange continued. Until one night, under a clear and starry sky, the brothers met each other coming over the hillside, sheaves of wheat bundled under their arms. In that moment, they understood why their stores had never diminished. The brothers embraced and wept in each other’s arms.

It was on this hill, the site of an extraordinary act of brotherly love, that the holy city of Jerusalem was built.

The two of us—Aziz, a Palestinian, and Maoz, an Israeli—forged a bond of brotherhood when the world expected us to hate each other. We are peacebuilders, sons of farmers born into a world where the very idea of brotherly love between Israelis and Palestinians was unthinkable. Aziz lost his brother in the First Intifada; Maoz lost his parents on October 7. Our mutual loss and pain, along with a shared vision of peace, brought us together at a time when the violence of war has pushed our people further apart than ever.

This story of grace and generosity between brothers is a popular Jewish fable, but its origin is as an Arab folktale passed down through oral history for centuries by Palestinian Jerusalemites and then adopted and adapted by Jews in the early nineteenth century. Before there was conflict between our people, there was a long history of cultural collaboration. But today we are trapped in a hurricane of violence and vengeance that has led to more than a century of bloodshed. The scars of our generational trauma are deep. We are so divided by fear and anger, by extremism and tribalism, that we can no longer see each other’s humanity or feel empathy for one another’s suffering. We live the histories handed down to us, but if Israelis and Palestinians are to build a shared future—and we must, for the sake of both our people—the only way forward is to tear down the walls of ignorance and hatred that divide us.

We both know the agony of losing those we love most to this conflict. We understand that in the face of suffering and grief, when so many lives have been lost and families shattered, talking about peace can feel too vulnerable—dangerous, even. When each side believes that the other is a threat to its existence, talk of peace can feel like a betrayal of one’s people. Wherever we look in the world, we find these growing divides. Siloed into a false mentality of us versus them, we perpetuate zero-sum arguments fed to us by the politics of fear. The biblical Book of Proverbs says, “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” And today, we are too often sold a vision that leads to more violence, instead of one that leads to harmony and a strategy for lasting peace. But there is another way.

Peacebuilders have been marginalized, both at home and abroad, for far too long. We are not invited to sit at negotiation tables or included in international summits with those making decisions on behalf of our peoples. We are used to being dismissed as dreamers and mocked as being naïve. Yet we are realists. We know that bombs will not bring quiet, walls will not protect us, and war will not bring security to either side. What is truly naïve is imagining that fear and multigenerational trauma will lead to security, or that any strategy to end the horror of this conflict can succeed without dreamers and visionaries at the vanguard. We have met with politicians and world leaders to forge a path beyond the tragedy of endless wars, a path that leads to a future grounded in the values of dignity, inclusion, and equality. We have shared our personal stories in houses of worship, virtual town halls, and local community centers; on university campuses and in arenas before audiences of thousands. We have been interviewed by countless journalists and media outlets about our shared vision of peace “from the river to the sea.”

At our core we are travelers and guides. Coming from a tourism background, we have a passion for taking people on transformative journeys, and we have become adept at guiding travelers through conflict zones. We share a conviction that travel is more than just checking off destinations on an itinerary. It is an industry of diplomacy and dialogue—and peacebuilding. We have learned that when it comes to shifting mindsets and creating discourse out of discord, nothing is more powerful or transformative than the experience of stepping out of one’s comfort zone to meet the “other” and truly listening to their story. Between us we have organized and led thousands of tours across Israel and Palestine. We have witnessed people overcome fear and even hatred by being exposed to those they once considered enemies. The first step on the path to peace is listening to the other side’s story. This sounds simple, but for those who choose to walk this long and winding road, it is often the most difficult step to take. And so, in August 2024, ten months into the deadliest year in close to a century of bloodshed between Israelis and Palestinians, we turned to the transformative power of travel.

We wanted to tell the story of our people through the living history of the land that holds our memories. We wanted to give a voice to those whose lives have been indelibly shaped by the persistent violence of this conflict. However, months of bombings of Gaza and the looming threat of a regional war had all but collapsed the tourism industry across the region. Since we couldn’t bring travelers to the Holy Land in person, we decided to embark on our own eight-day journey across the ancient terrain that binds and divides our people. On this journey, we learned new things about each other, challenged stereotypes, met each other’s families, and grappled with century-old questions. We invite you to join us on this journey of memory, remembrance, and history…

Years ago, Aziz began using a “dual-narrative” approach, in which Israeli and Palestinian guides lead tours together as partners, sharing stories and perspectives that offer human context for travelers to understand the immensity of the conflict. On the journey ahead, we will take turns guiding you over land as we visit some of the most holy and contested locations in the region, and through time as we share the political history that has shaped the physical and psychological boundaries that separate our peoples.

We will take you to the landscape of Maoz’s childhood in the Negev, which for thousands of years has been a crossroads of trade, culture, and conflict. As we stand in the shadow of the border fence between Israel and the Gaza Strip, we will see the scars of war as we confront the trauma on both sides of the conflict and explore the intersection of grief and peacebuilding. In the ancient port of Jaffa and the modern Israeli city of Tel Aviv (known as the “Startup City” and the “City That Never Stops”), mythic and biblical symbolism collide with the recent past as we lay a foundation for the two historical narratives underpinning the conflict: the Israeli War of Independence that established a Jewish State in the wake of the Holocaust, and the resulting mass displacement of more than seven hundred thousand Palestinians from their ancestral villages and homes, known as the Nakba—the catastrophe.

In a region steeped in tension, nowhere is that feeling more palpable than in the holy city of Jerusalem. Sacred to the three Abrahamic religions, the “City of Peace” sits at the center of the conflict and holds the collective heartbeats of diverse faiths and cultures. As we walk the winding stone alleyways of the Old City, we will see the conflict in history and the conflict today, but also humanity’s profound capacity for collaboration. On the outskirts of Jerusalem, we will visit Aziz’s hometown and learn how the policies of separation and occupation prevent his family from living in their own home.

Next, we will head south and cross the checkpoint into the West Bank—an area roughly the size of Delaware—where about 3.3 million Palestinians live under military occupation, and where more than half a million Israeli settlers, in defiance of international law, have taken over large swathes of farmland and live in heavily guarded settlements. We will visit the Palestinian city of Bethlehem, where the concrete border wall stands more than twenty-five feet tall—twice the height of the Berlin Wall—and is covered in graffiti, murals, and street art that have transformed the mechanism of separation into a canvas of protest. In the West Bank, we will learn about the Jewish people’s biblical and historical connection to the region, come face-to-face with the reality of structural violence, and explore what binds Palestinians together as one people.

Next, we will head north to the most important Arab city within Israel, and the only one that still holds its pre-1948 Palestinian identity. The city of Nazareth is holy to Christians as the site of the Annunciation and the childhood home of Jesus. We will guide you through the history of how the birthplace of Christianity became the “Arab capital of Israel” and share the story of Maoz’s twenty-year partnership with a Nazarene family that revitalized the city’s economy.

We will end our journey in the Galilee, where we trace part of the route Jesus walked from Nazareth to Capernaum. The region’s history is layered and complex: we will see the remains of a Roman road built for a conquering army, the battle scars left by fallen empires, and a kibbutz built by children of the Holocaust over the ruins of a Palestinian village razed in 1948. Layer upon layer of pain, one trauma built on top of the other. Yet conflict is a part of the human story. It has been with us since the beginning of civilization. Pope Francis cautioned us against trying to ignore this reality, saying, “What would a society, a family, or a group of friends be like without tension or conflict? Do you know what it would be? It would be a cemetery. Because only in dead things are there no tensions and no conflicts. When there is life, there is tension and there is conflict.” We cannot escape this truth of our past or our present, but if we are to break free from perpetual violence and create a future in which our people can live together in peace, we must find a way to rise from conflict and evolve from it. Ultimately, every conflict ends. It’s up to us to decide how much blood must be spilled first.

If you take nothing else from our story and this journey, let it be these words: The future is peace. We know this because between us we have visited and worked in former war zones—from Vietnam and Northern Ireland to Rwanda and South Africa—where we have witnessed people’s capacity to rise out of the wreckage of their trauma and the destruction of war, and we have seen former enemies come together to forge a path of healing and reconciliation. We know that the future of humanity is peace; the only uncertainty is how many more innocent people will suffer before we get there.

We have been to places that take peace for granted, even though bloodshed, slavery, and genocide are part of their recent history. We have seen the weakening and delegitimization of international organizations such as the United Nations, which was created to prevent wars and build bridges but is being rendered unable to achieve that mission at an increasing rate as permanent Security Council members engage in or support preventable wars. We believe that now is the time to renew our vision for a peaceful world upon which these institutions were built. A lasting peace in Israel and Palestine would send ripple effects around the world and help remind the world that the future will be peace!

Excerpted from The Future Is Peace: A Shared Journey Across the Holy Land by Aziz Abu Sarah and Maoz Inon. Copyright © 2026 by Aziz Abu Sarah and Maoz Inon. Reprinted with permission of Crown, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC.

Aziz Abu Sarah is a Palestinian peacebuilder, author, and former National Geographic Explorer. After losing his brother during the First Intifada, he dedicated his life to transforming personal tragedy into dialogue, reconciliation, and peacebuilding. Maoz Inon is an Israeli social entrepreneur and peace activist who spent decades building ventures—including the Abraham Hostels network—designed to foster encounter, understanding, and connection across cultures. After his parents were killed in the October 7 Hamas attacks, he became an international voice for nonviolence, reconciliation, and a shared future for Israelis and Palestinians.

Together, Aziz and Maoz have emerged as two of the world’s leading advocates for grassroots peacebuilding, demonstrating through their friendship that reconciliation is not merely an aspiration but a lived reality. Through their writing, public speaking, and practical work, they invite us to imagine a future rooted in dignity, justice, and our common humanity.

What do you think Soul Peaceniks? Is peace the future?

In a recent essay for The New York Times, Jamelle Bouie reflected on perhaps the most famous sentence in American history:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Those words have become sacred in the American imagination. These days we hear them as a timeless declaration of universal human equality.

But as Bouie points out, that wasn’t quite how Thomas Jefferson originally understood them.

Jefferson’s Declaration was, first and foremost, an argument about political authority—a justification for revolution and self-government. It would take generations of Americans to insist that those words meant more.

No one did so more powerfully than the people who had been excluded from the promise itself.

Again and again, enslaved Black Americans quoted the Declaration back to the nation that had written it.

One petition from 1777 declared:

“Your petitioners apprehend that they have, in common with all other men, a natural and unalienable right to that freedom... bestowed equally on all mankind... They cannot but express their astonishment that every principle from which America has acted... pleads stronger than a thousand arguments in favor of your petitioners.”

Benjamin Banneker would later quote Jefferson’s own words back to him, asking how a man who had proclaimed that “all men are created equal” could reconcile those ideals with slavery.

As Bouie reminds us, it was these voices—and countless others—that transformed the Declaration from a revolutionary manifesto into America’s enduring moral compass.

In other words, America has always been a common endeavor.

Its greatest ideals have never simply been inherited. They’ve been enlarged, challenged, reclaimed, and carried forward by generation after generation of people determined to make the country live up to its own highest aspirations.

And today, on this Fourth of July—the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence—we have a rare opportunity to ask what chapter comes next.

That question brought Rainn to Washington, D.C., last week for a series of conversations exploring America’s future—not only politically, but morally and spiritually.

One of those conversations was with Senator Chris Murphy, who reflected on the role government can play in helping people find purpose:

“I think we have to connect more in government about how to invest in the common good and give people access to purpose and meaning... we’re doing our best work when we’re actually thinking about the policies we make and whether they’re actually making people feel spiritually fulfilled every day when they wake up.”

Rainn responded by widening the lens.

“America is at a crisis point, certainly. It’s also at an inflection point... our founders had amazing ideals when they launched this democratic experiment... Let me be really clear about what I mean when I say spirituality... I’m speaking about the common, shared, universal values that we all treasure... compassion and love for one another, service to one another.”

Those ideas became the starting point for a special live edition of the Soul Boom podcast.

This isn’t our usual one on one kind of interview. Instead, Rainn gathered with an all-star panel to wrestle with one deceptively simple question:

What would America’s spiritual renewal actually look like?

Joining him were returning Soul Boom guests Arthur Brooks and Dr. Vivek Murthy, alongside journalist Amanda Ripley and scholar Derik Smith.

It’s one of the richest conversations we’ve had. Check it out:

While he was in Washington, Rainn also shared A Common Endeavor: Realizing the Promise of America, a new letter from the Bahá’ís of the United States written for the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.

The letter argues that freedom, equality, and justice are not only political principles but spiritual ones—and that America’s next chapter will depend as much on our capacity for love, trust, courage, and service as on any policy or election.

As a special bonus with today’s Dispatch, we’re sharing the full letter as well.

Two hundred and fifty years after the Declaration, perhaps the most important question isn’t whether America has fulfilled its promise—It’s whether we’re still striving towards a more perfect union.

“In this time of challenge, we need spaces where we can pause, reflect, and listen to others with openness and goodwill. We hope this message can inspire such conversations—in homes and neighborhoods, in faith communities and civic settings—so that we can move forward together.”

A Common Endeavor

Realizing the Promise of America

To all who hold the promise of America in their hearts,

The founding of our country was based on ideals, like freedom, equality, and justice, that reflect deep, shared human aspirations. Generations have labored to realize those ideals and to build a more perfect union where all can flourish.

In this common endeavor, we have experienced progress and accomplishments, but also setbacks and crises.

People across the country are reflecting on this history during a critical juncture in the life of our society. Many Americans, exhausted and disillusioned by polarization and conflict, are feeling anger, despair, or apathy. Discourse in the public sphere largely feeds this anxiety, and such narratives often obscure a widespread desire to transcend division. Driven by such desire, individuals of all backgrounds are arising in the service of common aims. Among them are members of the Bahá’í Faith and their collaborators, who are engaged in thousands of grassroots, community-building efforts.

Such experiences inspire the hope that, whatever the turbulence of the current moment, we can together realize our highest convictions. Bahá’ís are eager to contribute, alongside others, to the stirrings of spiritual renewal in the life of this nation.

The Bahá’í sacred scriptures envision a destiny for America that fulfills, and even exceeds, the principles of its founding. These scriptures also recognize the gravity of America’s challenges, and they offer the insight that there is a moral and spiritual dimension to the task of shedding the ills that blight our society. In this view, we can move forward toward America’s high destiny only to the extent that we work together to overcome key spiritual and social maladies, such as excessive materialism, corruption, racism, and the mistreatment and exploitation of vulnerable groups.

Freedom, equality, and justice are, in essence, moral or spiritual principles. They stand alongside other important values like moral courage, trustworthiness, generosity, integrity and, not least, love. We flourish to the extent that we embody such qualities in our individual and collective lives. These principles and values have always been a part of humanity’s spiritual heritage, and they need to find fresh expression in our time.

At the heart of the change required for true prosperity—and a reflection of the nation’s founding principles—is the recognition that all people belong to one human family. Only in unity can we thrive. Yet the principle of oneness is not based on uniformity. Instead, it embraces and nurtures the diverse expression of our common humanity as intended in the phrase e pluribus unum: out of many, one.

Oneness has profound practical implications. According to this principle, prejudices of any kind are a distortion of the human spirit, not its essential nature, and must be overcome. Furthermore, we all deserve to be treated with dignity and the opportunity to develop the talents we possess—for our own benefit and the benefit of others.

So essential is the principle of oneness that we could tell the story of this land as the struggle to apply it fully to social life.

The history of our country is one of great enterprise, including innovations in technology, industry, and commerce. These material achievements have changed our lives but have not yielded shared prosperity. Unless aligned with spiritual and moral principles, material attainments can be as great a source of harm as of good. Our challenge now is to focus innovation, creativity, and effort on the spiritual dimensions of change.

Insights drawn from religion have shown the potential to help us reconcile the moral, spiritual, and material aspects of life. While historical wrongs committed by religious individuals and institutions must be acknowledged, religious faith as a civilizing force has inspired and sustained movements for the common good throughout human history. At its best, religion brings people together with meaning and purpose, illumines the sacredness of every soul, and teaches us to realize our own potential through service to others. It helps us clearly see challenging forces at work around us while strengthening faith in a vision of what we can build. Such understandings can enrich a broad conversation about revitalizing the spirit of our nation among those with secular, spiritual, and religious worldviews.

We all have a part to play in fulfilling the hope of this country. Whatever our background—whether our ancestors were the first inhabitants of this land, or were brought here in forced servitude, or came in search of freedom and opportunity—whatever our age or gender, whatever our circumstances, and wherever we are, we each have a sphere in which we can act.

We can arise in service, expand our circle of concern, seek the harmonization of our interests with the interests of others, and work for mutual benefit. We can learn with others how to put higher truths to practical use in specific contexts.

Young people have a unique contribution to make within this broad, multi-generational effort. When inspired by a sense of possibility and purpose, youth have a remarkable capacity to forge meaningful relationships and contribute to change. In the process, they learn to protect themselves from the harmful forces they face. How, then, can this shared sense of possibility be fostered among them as well as all members of society?

A recognition of the moral and spiritual foundations of collective well-being and progress is now growing. To strengthen that recognition, we need conversations at all levels of society, from the neighborhood to the halls of government, about the shared values that strengthen America’s social fabric.

Conversation is an easily underestimated but vital form of action. The simple act of visiting friends and neighbors, building ties of friendship, and exploring hopes and concerns together can help remedy the isolation and loss of purpose that are increasingly prevalent. Conversations—when carried out with goodwill, fair-mindedness, a desire to learn and, most importantly, with love—can help build community, catalyze action, and facilitate progress.

As the Bahá’í writings observe:

The power to transform the world is effected by love, love originating from the relationship with the divine, love ablaze among members of a community, love extended without restriction to every human being. This divine love... is disseminated by enkindled souls through intimate conversations that create new susceptibilities in human hearts, open minds to moral persuasion, and loosen the hold of biased norms and social systems so that they can gradually take on a new form.

Many groups and organizations are striving for justice and human dignity, for solidarity that can overcome division, and for the empowerment of the downtrodden. Some efforts seek to build upon accomplishments that are worthy of preservation, while others focus on new ways of doing things. The complex endeavor of social evolution requires a range of approaches.

Meaningful change can advance in unassuming settings at the grassroots. Where people are explicitly putting into practice the principle of the oneness of humanity, we have seen that contributors from different religious, racial, ethnic, political, cultural, and economic backgrounds can pursue shared goals. Under such conditions, they consult to bridge differences, reconcile perspectives, and make collective decisions. They are able to take action and learn their way forward.

They do not have all the answers, but they are working on questions that are crucial to our common endeavor, such as:

• How do we foster faith in the capacity of all so that everyone’s contributions are sincerely welcomed and encouraged?

• How do we build genuine bonds of concern, mutual responsibility, and collaboration that allow people to transcend whatever differences arise as they work together?

• How can educational programs nurture a new kind of social actor, one who can see their own well-being in the prosperity of the whole society?

• How can a shared devotional spirit help those of different belief systems experience all humanity and all life as an interdependent whole to which we all have moral obligations? How can that spirit reshape our relationships and our stewardship of the land’s resources?

• How do we strengthen the fundamental institutions of our society, such as families, schools, and other civic entities, to serve our collective hopes?

Whatever the adversities that lie ahead, the Bahá’í writings offer a hopeful vision for our country: that our varied communities and peoples can live in peace and justice.

The United States is in many ways a microcosm of the world. Our differences are both an inherent challenge and a great strength. While such differences can be conceived as a source of tension and conflict, they can also be a potent source of creativity and resilience.

The work of our nation to harness the power of unity in diversity is a search for new ways of living that can help establish peace and prosperity, both here and across the globe.

This is the promise of America.

Let us not falter now. This trying time can be an inflection point when we see constructive efforts begin to intensify. Let us redeem the incalculable price that generations have paid by pressing forward toward true prosperity for all. With God’s help, let us arise in service and even sacrifice when called. Let us see through our differences and recognize the sincere, fair-minded souls all around us who long to contribute.

Let us join in common endeavor.

Let us draw on the power of love, of justice, of creativity and enterprise.

Together, let us bring about the spiritual renewal that will lead us to the realization of our highest aspirations.

Happy 250th America — your best days are yet to came.

And Happy Fourth of July, Soul Boomlets! What would a spiritual renewal in America look like to you?

This week on the Soul Boom podcast, Rainn sat down with his old friend Oscar Nuñez for what happens to be our 100th episode.

Over the past hundred episodes, we’ve found ourselves wandering back into the halls of Dunder Mifflin every now and then. We’ve had Angela Kinsey on. Ed Helms dropped by. BJ Novak recently sat down with Rainn. Now Oscar. Soul Boom has never been an Office podcast (there are plenty of wonderful shows devoted to that already) but we also can’t pretend that one quirky little sitcom about a struggling paper company in Scranton hasn’t become part of our DNA.

Maybe that’s because The Office was always about more than paper. Yes, it gave us staplers in Jell-O, fire drills gone catastrophically wrong, CPR performed to the beat of “Stayin’ Alive,” and a beet farmer who somehow became one of television’s most beloved characters. Beneath all that, though, it was a show about flawed people trying to work together, find purpose, build friendships, fall in love, forgive one another, and make it through another Tuesday. In other words, it was always asking surprisingly human questions.

Naturally, in this episode, Rainn and Oscar reminisce about the good old Office days, tell stories from the set, and slip effortlessly back into the rhythm that comes from spending nearly a decade working side by side. If you’ve ever wondered what it sounds like when Dwight Schrute and Oscar Martinez have had twenty years to mellow out, you’re in for a treat.

But old friends have a way of wandering into deeper waters.

Oscar reflects on his family’s journey from Cuba, discovering comedy later than most, and growing more comfortable with uncertainty. Not uncertainty as a problem to be solved, but as an honest way to move through life.

One of the great things about making Soul Boom has been watching conversations follow their own path. Guests arrive to talk about a new book, a film, or a television show, and somewhere along the conversation with Rainn inevitably moves toward the questions that actually keep us awake at night. How do we become wiser? How do we stay open? How do we hold onto our sense of humor without losing our sense of wonder? Those questions don’t belong to one religion, philosophy, or television series. They belong to all of us.

Reaching one hundred episodes has us feeling grateful—not just for the remarkable guests who have shared their stories, but for this community. You’ve followed us from conversations about neuroscience to mysticism, comedy to climate, politics to prayer. And every so often, we’ve found ourselves back in Scranton, discovering that the people who once made us laugh also have something meaningful to say about what it means to be human.

We think you’ll enjoy this conversation as much as we did—and we’d love to hear—what enduring lesson from The Office has stayed with you?

Ye Origin Storie…

The conversations that led to Sacred Riffs started many, many years ago when I first met Rainn Wilson. This was back in the late 1900s: pre-’The Office,’ pre-Dwight, when I could go for coffee with Rainn and no one knew who either of us were (they still only know him). He was an up-and-coming film & TV actor in LA, fresh from the theater scene in New York, landing quirky roles like Lahnk, the Thermian alien in Galaxy Quest, looking for his Hollywood break.

Speaking of almost being famous, Rainn got a small part in Almost Famous, a film that looms very large in my universe because it’s the only thing I’ve ever seen that captures the exact feeling I got from rock music during my childhood. When he found out I adored that film, Rainn generously gave me a precious piece of swag he had received on set: the album cover of Almost Famous’ fictitious band, Stillwater. I still have it.

Rainn has always egged me on in my total commitment to music. Any time he saw me in a cool jacket or a pair of sunglasses that most non-rockers would never dream of wearing, it seemed to fill him with genuine delight. Our conversations around music, especially newer rock and indie, ranged from devastating lyrics (Jason Isbell, Madison Cunningham), to unbelievably cool guitar (Blake Mills, Madison Cunningham), to hope for the future of the genre (Geese, Madison Cunningham). He seemed just as well-versed in the old stuff, though more inclined to dwell in the present.

But... Why?

The topic we always seemed to return to was: what does music mean? Why does it matter so much? As with all of his own work, Rainn was always nudging me towards reflection, service, soul-searching. And whenever I would write a brutally honest lyric about my own spiritual process, he would spread it far and wide.

In spring 2024, I was living with my family in a 19th-century farmhouse on a cattle ranch in Nevada County, California, recuperating from a series of particularly intense life tests... when Rainn suggested we work on some things together. This was right around when the actual Soul Boom book was released (a book which I devoured, by the way, and highly recommend—I’ve given several copies away). It was too late for me to try to muscle my way onto the book tour as musical accompaniment, but the seed was planted.

Finally a couple of months ago, he texted me ‘why don’t you make a bunch of videos for Soul Boom’s Instagram about spirituality and rock & roll?’ I said ‘Hellz to the yeah, Rainn-Man.’ And Sacred Riffs was born.

What this is really about

The idea of this series is to look for traces of the profound and transcendent in music, especially the stuff that doesn’t get spoken of in the same reverential tones as, say, Vaughan Williams’ ‘Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis.’ What about the final anthem fromTommy by the Who? What about Bob Marley’s ‘Redemption Song?’ Or Prince’s ‘I Would Die 4 U?’ Why does a minor chord sound like longing?

There could be no topic that’s more of a bullseye for me. I’ve always been fascinated by the spiritual, especially in music. As a person who has a rocky relationship with authority (all the way up to God) and grew up in such a cynical, materialistic culture, I am drawn to anything that seems like a shortcut to enlightenment. And music, for whatever reason, seems to be ‘a conduit, a wormhole, a secret passageway’ as I said in a recent video, to the realm of the intangible. For whatever reason, we are supposed to have this magical sound on tap 24/7 to help us on our journey towards the universal, to the Divine, to ourselves.

So while I’m certainly no authority on spiritual topics, I do know a bit about Led Zeppelin and Jimi Hendrix. I toured with War, wrote and and produced for Santana, sat at the feet of masters, breathed that rarified air. I hope my enthusiasm is contagious! 40 years after picking up the guitar, having worked in the industry the entire time since, I’ve lost none of my fascination with the possibilities and connections music offers. I daydream about it when I’m not doing it. I daydream about it while I’m doing it. I give music an inch, it gives me a yard. That’s our deal.

Hallelujah!

Anyway, welcome aboard. There’s so much cool stuff to get into.

“JB ECKL IS CANADIAN FREAK-MAGIC FOR YOUR EARBONES”

— RAINN WILSON

JB Eckl is a Canadian musician, songwriter, producer, and composer whose career has spanned rock, funk, reggae, Latin, electronic, and global music. He has toured with the legendary funk band War, collaborated with Carlos Santana on Supernatural and Shaman, and written, performed, and produced music for artists including En Vogue, Larry Carlton, Eliades Ochoa, and Ozomatli. He is the creator and host of Sacred Riffs, a Soul Boom series exploring the weird intersections between spirituality and rock & roll. Follow him on Instagram, YouTube and his Substack Ecklectica!

This conversation travels through some of that same country. Rupert returns. Ram Dass returns. Questions about awareness, consciousness, and God all return.

But the emphasis feels different. It’s less on what Pete believes and more about the inner journey that embraces all his previous incarnations.

Pete’s spiritual journey begins in familiar American territory: evangelical Christianity, youth groups, certainty, answers. A world in which the great questions of existence seemed largely settled. God existed. Salvation had a blueprint. The universe possessed a clear moral architecture.

But life has a way of interrupting our certainties.

For Pete, one of those interruptions was divorce. The future he imagined disappeared. Assumptions he had carried for years no longer seemed capable of holding the weight of reality. Many people experience such moments as a collapse. Listening to Pete describe them now, they sound more like an initiation.

The experiences we most wish to avoid often become the experiences that transform us. Not because suffering is inherently noble, but because it strips away the stories we mistake for ourselves.

Pete has spent years exploring that territory through the work of thinkers and teachers as varied as Joseph Campbell, Ram Dass, Richard Rohr, and Rupert Spira. What unites them is not a shared doctrine but a shared intuition: that reality is larger than the conceptual boxes into which we habitually place it.

Pete shares the words of Richard Rohr’: “everything belongs.” It may be the simplest summary of Pete’s worldview.

Everything belongs. The embarrassing parts. The holy parts. The failures. The victories. The certainty and the doubt. The evangelical kid. The divorced comedian. The spiritual seeker. The frightened self and the awakened self. Not one replacing the other, but all of them somehow included in a larger whole.

Much of modern life is organized around exclusion. We curate our identities and our conceal contradictions. Yet wisdom traditions across centuries often point in the opposite direction. They suggest that maturity consists less in perfecting ourselves than in enlarging ourselves. Becoming spacious enough to contain complexity without being shattered by it.

That insight appears repeatedly throughout the episode, including in an extended discussion of Christianity. Pete offers a striking observation borrowed from Richard Rohr: perhaps Christianity, at its best, is a spirituality of learning how to lose well.

It is difficult to imagine a message less aligned with the values of contemporary culture. We are surrounded by exhortations to win—to accumulate, optimize, dominate, achieve, and prevail. Yet the central figure of Christianity enters Jerusalem on a donkey, not a warhorse. He is humiliated before he is glorified. The apparent defeat becomes the source of redemption.

Whether one interprets that story literally, symbolically, or somewhere in between, the pattern appears everywhere. The breakdown that becomes a breakthrough. The wound that becomes an opening. The loss that reveals a deeper form of belonging.

The conversation eventually arrives at the question beneath all spiritual questions: What is God?

Pete’s answer is less a definition than a gesture. The God he speaks about today is not a cosmic supervisor keeping score of human behavior. It is closer to what mystics across traditions have pointed toward for centuries: the awareness within which all experience appears. The mystery that precedes concepts. “The Ground of Being” as theologian Paul Tillich would describe it.

What makes this conversation compelling is not the philosophy itself. It is hearing those ideas refracted through lived experience. Through heartbreak. Through uncertainty. Through many, many laughs.

Pete remains one of our favorite kinds of guests: deeply thoughtful, spiritually adventurous, and entirely unwilling to sacrifice humor in the pursuit of seriousness. The result is a conversation that moves effortlessly between theology and comedy, grief and transcendence, the ridiculous and the sublime.

In other words, exactly the sort of conversation we love around here.

This week on Soul Boom, Rainn sits down with theologian, philosopher, literary critic, translator, and one of the most provocative religious thinkers alive today, David Bentley Hart.

David is one of Rainn’s favorite thinkers. And by the end of this week’s episode, he might be one of yours too.

If there is a common thread running through David’s vast body of work, it is a refusal to accept shallow explanations for the deepest realities of human existence.

For Hart, reality is stranger, more mysterious, more interconnected, and more beautiful than we perceive.

Modern life can sometimes feel like a dream from which we have forgotten how to awaken. We become absorbed in the immediate concerns of our days—our careers, our anxieties, our political tribes, our ambitions, our endless scrolling—and gradually begin to mistake those things for the whole of reality. The horizon narrows and deeper questions fade from view.

In a passage in his book The Experience of God, he compares this condition to dreaming:

“One does not see that this secondary world rests upon no foundations, has no larger story, and persists as an apparent unity only so long as one has forgotten how to question its curious omissions and contradictions.”

This intuition appears throughout Hart’s work. Whether writing about consciousness, God, beauty, love, suffering, or the great religious traditions of humanity, he repeatedly invites us to look beyond appearances—not to escape the world, but to encounter it more fully.

That invitation feels especially relevant today, submerged in our digital simulacrums and unrooted to the ground beneath our feet. We are connected to more people than ever before, yet often feel profoundly alone. We possess extraordinary technological power while struggling to answer basic questions about meaning, purpose, and what it means to live a good life.

Those questions lie at the heart of David’s newest book, a new translation of the Tao Te Ching.

Written more than two millennia ago, the Tao Te Ching remains one of humanity’s most enduring spiritual texts. In his introduction, Hart describes it as one of the great monuments of humanity’s “awakening” to a deeper understanding of reality. This little book has found its way into monasteries and universities and backpacks and nightstands and probably a few glove compartments. It’s a book that can be read by a monk sitting quietly on a mountainside and by a college student sitting in a coffee shop and by a tired parent reading a few pages before bed. It has traveled across centuries and languages and cultures and lost none of its vital relevance.

In luminous prose, David describes vividly the power of this ancient text in his introduction to the translation:

“... a very great part of the strange genius of the Daodejing lies in what it makes of this picture of things. It is a text that abounds in paradox, telling us that true strength lies in yielding, true wealth in possessing nothing, true greatness in humility, true wisdom in apparent folly, true glory in hiddenness, and the highest victory in the cultivation of indifference to struggles for dominance. It tells us also that force is weakness and pride a form of contemptible debasement.

In a world that has always been the plaything of violent and avaricious buffoons, as we have been reminded with special vividness in recent years, the “saint” or “sage” who represents the human ideal in this book is someone who instead refuses to strive for mastery or ownership or personal aggrandizement. Instead, he or she seeks to imitate the flow of nature and of life as a gift that arrives from a source beyond itself and moves toward an end over which no one at the last can wield control...”

What if the deepest source of wisdom is just learning to let go — and go with the flow? But, like, for real.

Enjoy this excerpt from David Bentley Hart’s new rendering of the Tao Te Ching.

Tao Te Ching

Attributed to Laozi

A New Translation by David Bentley Hart with Patrick Robert Hart

I

That Way that abides forever is not a way that can be trodden,
that Name that abides forever is not a name that can be uttered: 
when nameless, it is the pure origin of Heaven and Earth;
when named, it is the Mother of all the myriad things.

Abandon desire and its figments forever,
and you will be granted the vision of that wondrous mystery;
cling to desire and its figments forever,
and you will see only the surfaces of things.

Yet both the hidden and the manifest issue from a single source,
even if we speak as though they were wholly different.

All we can say of them is that they are an abyss of mystery,
and even then a mystery that constantly deepens—
this is the gateway through which one enters
into the wondrous mystery of all things.

2

All who dwell under Heaven recognize beauty when it manifests itself
by distinguishing it from deformity;
all recognize the good
by distinguishing it from wickedness.

So it is: being and non-being are begotten each from the other,
the arduous and the effortless arise together,
the long and the short reveal one another,
the high and the low rest each upon the other,
tone and timbre together produce harmony,
future and past are ever pursuing one another.

Thus one who is wise and holy dwells outside the realm of striving 
and, without speaking, teaches a doctrine that has no need of words.
Attending to all the myriad things as they arise while rejecting none of them,
nurturing them but not possessing them,
laboring over them but seizing no fruit from them,
accomplishing what is needful but claiming no honors.

It is those who do not assert themselves 
whose achievements never fade away.

3

Do not exalt even what is worthy of honor,
lest the people contend for honor and rank;
do not prize rare and unattainable possessions,
lest the people be moved to steal and intrigue;
do not make a great show of opulent riches,
lest the people’s minds be perturbed by longing.

One who is wise and holy governs by preserving the purity of humble souls,
filling their stomachs,
weakening their ambitions,
fortifying their bones,
always preserving them from furtive cunning and extravagant desires,
assuring that those who are cunning by nature dare not try to deceive them.

There is nothing that may not be ordered well by not striving.

4

The Way is empty
and yet forever inexhaustible to those who draw upon it.
It is a fathomless abyss
and yet is manifest in all the myriad things as their fountainhead.

It blunts all that is sharp,
unravels all that is entangled,
softens every glare,
settles the dust of the world.

Deep and tranquil, it seems to abide in its own eternity.
I know not whose child it is.
It is more primordial than the gods.

From Tao Te Ching, translated by David Bentley Hart and Patrick Robert Hart.

David Bentley Hart is an Eastern Orthodox scholar of religion, philosopher, translator, cultural commentator, and fiction writer. He is the author of more than 30 books spanning theology and metaphysics, philosophy, biblical scholarship and translation, political theology, linguistics, fiction, and children’s literature. His works include The Experience of God, The Beauty of the Infinite, That All Shall Be Saved, All Things Are Full of Gods, and his translation of the New Testament. He also has a fantastic Substack to which he contributes almost weekly, Leaves In The Wind.

Soul Boomlets—we’d love to hear about your journeys in the Way—what have you gained in learning to let go?

This week on the Soul Boom podcast, Rainn sits down with the globe-trotting YouTuber Drew Binsky.

Drew has visited 197 countries. Which, depending on how you count countries, territories, disputed regions, and tiny patches of land claimed by three governments and a goat, may actually be all of them. Either way, it’s an astonishing accomplishment.

But the most interesting thing Drew brought back from fifteen years of nonstop travel wasn't a passport full of stamps. It was a staggering collection of stories: drinking goat blood with Maasai warriors, wandering through misunderstood countries, meeting remarkable people in the world's most remote places—and discovering, beneath all our fascinating differences, how much human beings actually have in common. Whether he's in a village in Africa, walking through Tokyo, or sharing meals in the Middle East, Drew keeps finding the same things: people who love their families, want meaningful lives, laugh with friends, worry about the future, and hope their children will have it better than they did.

That lesson comes through especially powerfully in his stories about Iran, which Drew calls the most misconceived country in the world. It has the largest gap he’s ever encountered between a government and its people. Yet after four visits to the country, what struck him most wasn’t politics. It was hospitality. It was warmth. It was ordinary people eager to share their culture and tell their stories.

During one trip, Drew traveled with a Muslim, a Jew, a Christian, and a Bahá’í. (FYI, Long before appearing on Soul Boom or visiting Iran, Drew had actually made a video about the Bahá’í Faith—a part of the story of how he got to know Rainn.) The Bahá’í was a local Iranian cameraman. At one point, the man quietly asked Drew not to tell anyone he was Bahá’í. He explained that he attended gatherings in private homes and didn’t publicly identify with his faith because doing so could endanger him and his family.

Drew was struck by the irony: a religion born in Iran, whose followers often cannot openly identify themselves there.

It’s a story that captures one of the recurring themes of the episode. Travel turns abstractions into human beings. The farther Drew travels, the less interested he becomes in stereotypes and the more interested he becomes in actual people.

Of course, his adventures aren’t all profound revelations.

Sometimes they involve fermented shark in Iceland. Or live octopus in Korea. Or drinking goat blood with Maasai communities in Kenya. Drew’s philosophy is simple: if people have been doing something for generations, he’s willing to try it at least once.

He approaches cultures not as problems to solve or places to judge, but as opportunities to learn. In a world increasingly shaped by outrage, suspicion, and algorithms that profit from division, that posture feels almost radical.

As Drew tells Rainn, “soul” to him means recognizing the humanity in others. It’s understanding that every person you meet entered this world the same way you did and will leave it the same way you will.

After visiting 197 countries, Drew didn’t return with a theory about which culture is best or which nation has everything figured out. He came back convinced that the core human experience is universal. It’s something he has witnessed, again and again, across deserts, cities, mountains, islands, and borders.

Everywhere you go, people are different — and yet, so very much the same.

And that’s a lesson worth traveling to 197 countries to learn.

This week on the Soul Boom podcast, Rainn sits down with Christiana Figueres, the world-renowned climate leader who helped shepherd the historic Paris Agreement—a rare moment when nearly every nation on Earth agreed to act, together, on behalf of our shared future.

If her name doesn’t immediately ring a bell, you could be forgiven—not because her impact is small, but because it belongs to a different kind of fame. Not the flash of pop stardom, but the quieter, steadier influence of someone working behind the scenes to bend the arc of history. In the world of climate diplomacy, however, she is a beloved, iconic figure.

A Costa Rican diplomat by training, Christiana brought an anthropologist’s eye to global negotiations—educated at Swarthmore and the London School of Economics, she learned early how deeply human systems, stories, and relationships shape what’s possible. Over decades, she rose through the ranks of international climate work, ultimately leading the UN climate process at a moment when it seemed broken beyond repair. By 2010, when she took the helm of the UN climate process, things were not looking great. The Copenhagen talks had collapsed. Trust was thin. Hope was thinner. The prevailing global mood felt like we were approaching the gates of a planetary inferno: abandon hope, all ye who enter here.

And yet—somehow—five years later, nearly every nation on Earth signed onto a shared plan in the form of the Paris Agreement — an unprecedented Agreement in which every signatory agreed to lower its emissions.

As Christiana tells Rainn, one of the great secrets to the agreement’s success wasn’t just intellect or strategy—it was something she calls stubborn optimism.

An idea so powerful she later gave a widely viewed TED Talk on it, stubborn optimism is not about wishful thinking or blind hope. It is the discipline of believing that change is possible—even when the evidence suggests otherwise—and acting accordingly.

Christiana traces this mindset back to her father, José Figueres Ferrer, a towering figure in Costa Rican history. In 1948, after a disputed election plunged the country into crisis, he helped lead a revolution, defeated government forces, and then—remarkably—abolished the nation’s military altogether, redirecting its resources toward education, healthcare, and human development. To this day, Costa Rica remains one of the few countries in the world without a standing army.

But as Christiana shares in her conversation with Rainn, often the brightest lights cast the longest shadows.

She recalls, as a child, watching her father give an interview and listening as he was asked how many children he had. His answer: over a million—that is, the population of the people of Costa Rica. In that moment, she understood something that would take years to fully process: that he saw himself as a father to a nation, but not always to his own children.

Those early wounds stayed with her. Even after her extraordinary achievements, even as a devoted mother herself, she found that success did not quiet the deeper questions within. As she tells Rainn, eventually, she reached a breaking point—one that led her inward, toward a dimension of life she had not previously explored in any depth: the spiritual.

What followed was not a departure from her work, but a transformation of it.

Where she had once focused primarily on systems and structures, she began to see more clearly the inner dimensions of change—the mindsets, the beliefs, the unseen forces that shape human behavior at scale. The outer work of climate action, she realized, cannot be separated from the inner work of human awakening.

It’s a lesson worth holding on to, even as the nations of the world fall short of their 2015 Agreement, and the biggest stakeholder of all has pulled out of it — this against the backdrop of so many accumulating and interlocking planetary problems that some have dubbed our era the Age of the Polycrisis.

You can hear her reflect on this journey—and what it means for all of us—in Christiana’s conversation with Rainn. And on that note, to accompany this episode, we’re sharing an excerpt from the book she co-authored, The Future We Choose—a work that echoes the central theme of her TED Talk: optimism is not the outcome for things going well. Optimism is the necessary input we need to act courageously when they are not.

Stubborn Optimism

Excerpted from The Future We Choose: Surviving the Climate Crisis

By Christiana Figueres and Tom Rivett-Carnac

Twenty-five hundred years ago, Siddhartha Gautama, the man who became known as the Buddha, understood optimism. He said many times that a brightness of mind was both the final goal of the path of enlightenment and also the first step. A bright mind is how you proceed. Without it, you can’t make progress.

The Buddha also understood that we are not subject to our attitudes in a passive way but are active participants in creating them. Neuroscience has now confirmed this. It does not matter if our natural tendency is to see things with optimism or with pessimism. At this point in history we have a responsibility to do what is necessary, and for most of us that will involve some deliberate reprogramming of our minds.

Psychological research has shown that attitudes can be transformed by first identifying our thought patterns, then deliberately cultivating a more constructive approach. The practice involves becoming aware of these patterns, drawing out the unconscious assumptions, and challenging them when they don’t serve you.

It’s not complicated, but neither is it easy. Essentially, we all have inbuilt reactions to adverse things that happen around us. From the latest alarming report on climate change to missing the bus, we have a learned response to all phenomena that we encounter in life, and those learned reactions dictate how we respond to a particular situation. When it comes to climate change, the vast majority of us have a learned reaction of helplessness. We see the direction the world is headed, and we throw up our hands. Yes, we think, it’s terrible, but it’s so complex and so big and so overwhelming. We can’t do anything to stop it.

This learned reaction is not only untrue, it’s become fundamentally irresponsible. If you want to help address climate change, you have to teach yourself a different response.

You can do it. You can switch your focus, and you will be stunned by the impact such a shift can create. You don’t need to have all the answers, and you certainly don’t need to hide from the truth, nor should you. When you are faced with the hard realities, look at them with clarity, but also know that you are incredibly lucky to be alive at a time when you can make a transformative difference to the future of all life on earth.

You are not powerless. In fact, your every action is suffused with meaning, and you are part of the greatest chapter of human achievement in history. Make this your mental mantra. Take notice of how your mind tries to insist on your helplessness in the face of the challenge and refuses to accept it. Notice it, and refute it. It will not take long for your thought patterns to change.

When your mind tells you that it is too late to make a difference, remember that every fraction of a degree of extra warming makes a big difference, and therefore any reduction in emissions lessens the burden on the future.

When your mind tells you that this is all too depressing to deal with and that it is better to focus on the things you can directly affect, remind yourself that mobilizing for big generational challenges can be thrilling and can imbue your life with meaning and connection.

When your mind tells you that it will be impossible for the world to lighten its dependence on fossil fuels, remember that already more than 50 percent of the energy in the UK comes from clean power,² that Costa Rica is 100 percent clean,³ and that California has a plan to get to 100 percent clean, including cars and trucks, by the time today’s toddlers have finished college.

When your mind tells you that the problem is the broken political system and we can’t fix that so there is no point in doing anything, remind yourself that political systems are still responsive to the views of people, and that throughout history people have successfully overcome extraordinary odds to achieve political change.

And when your mind tells you that you are just one person, too small to make a difference, so why bother, you can remind yourself that tipping points are nonlinear. We don’t know what is going to make the difference, but we know that in the end systems do shift and all the little actions add up to a new world. Every time you make an individual choice to be a responsible custodian of this beautiful Earth, you contribute toward major transformations.

You may not be religious or spiritually inclined, but consider the lot of the stonemason in medieval Europe building one of the great cathedrals. He could have chosen to throw down his tools because he was not going to personally finish the entire cathedral. Instead, he worked patiently and carefully on his one piece, knowing he was part of a great collective endeavor that would lift the hearts and minds of generations. That is optimism, and cultivating it will not only be a crucial step to advancing our human story, it will also improve your life today.

Václav Havel aptly described optimism as “a state of mind, not a state of the world.” Three characteristics are generally agreed upon as essential to making this mindset transformative: the intention to see beyond the immediate horizon, the comfort with uncertainty about the final outcome, and the commitment that is fostered by that mindset.

To be optimistic, you must acknowledge the bad news that is all too readily available in scientific reports, your newsfeed, your Twitter account, and kitchen table conversations bemoaning our current state of affairs. More difficult, but necessary for any degree of change to take place, is to recognize the adversities and still be able to see that a different future is not only possible but is already tiptoeing into our daily lives. Without denying the bad news, you must make a point of focusing on all the good news regarding climate change, such as the constantly dropping prices of renewables, an increasing number of countries taking on net-zero-emissions targets by 2050 or before, the multiple cities banning internal combustion vehicles, and the rising levels of capital shifting from the old to the new economy. None of this is happening yet at the necessary scale, but it is happening. Optimism is about being able to intentionally identify and prescribe the desired future so as to actively pull it closer.

It is always easier to cling to certainty than it is to work for something because it is right and good, regardless of whether it currently stands a decent chance of success. All the measures to address climate change still require further maturation; none guarantee ultimate success. We don’t know which renewables, if any, will predominate, or which are more likely to scale quickly. Problems with the batteries of electric vehicles (weight, cost, recycling) must still be solved, and charging networks still require substantial expansion to succeed. Financial instruments must more effectively manage the risks of new technologies. Market models that shift us from single ownership of homes and cars to shared ownership must gather steam and make peace with regulation.

When you look at the future broadly instead of narrowly, you see that you must take these uncertainties in stride, or you will stay stuck in the knowns of the past. You have to be willing to risk mistakes, delays, and disappointments, or you will be at the mercy of only the tried and true, to your ultimate peril.

This mindset is all the more important once you realize that the habits, practices, and technologies of the past will lead us only to ecological demise and human suffering. Viewing our reality with optimism means recognizing that another future is possible, not promised. In the face of climate change, we all have to be optimistic, not because success is guaranteed but because failure is unthinkable.

Optimism empowers you; it drives your desire to engage, to contribute, to make a difference. It makes you jump out of bed in the morning because you feel challenged and hopeful at the same time. It calls you to that which is emerging and makes you want to be an active part of change. Rebecca Solnit puts it well: “Hope is an ax you break down doors with in an emergency; ...hope should shove you out the door, because it will take everything you have to steer the future away from endless war, from the annihilation of the earth’s treasures and the grinding down of the poor and marginal....To hope is to give yourself to the future, and that commitment to the future makes the present inhabitable.”⁶

In other words, optimism is the force that enables you to create a new reality.

Optimism is not the result of achieving a task we have set for ourselves. That is a celebration. Optimism is the necessary input to meeting a challenge.

Optimism is about having steadfast confidence in our ability to solve big challenges. It is about making the choice to tenaciously work to make the current reality better.

Optimism is about actively proving, through every decision and every action, that we are capable of designing a better future.

From the darkness of an Alabama jail, Martin Luther King, Jr., kept calling for the realization of a deeply held dream, no matter how bleak its prospects. Many others have done the same throughout history: John F. Kennedy refusing to accept that nuclear war was inevitable. Gandhi marching to the ocean to collect forbidden salt.

In all these cases, key people believed that a better world was possible, and they were willing to fight for it. They didn’t ignore difficult evidence or present things in a way that wasn’t true. Instead they faced reality with a fierce belief that change could happen, however impossible it might have seemed at the moment.

Christiana Figueres is a true powerhouse in the movement for a healthier planet. As the Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change from 2010 to 2016, she famously led the monumental diplomatic effort that secured the historic 2015 Paris Agreement. In an extraordinary feat of collective intention, she united 195 nations—each bringing vastly different perspectives, circumstances, and timelines—to rally together in service of humanity’s future and our hurting Earth.

Today, Christiana continues to inject fierce optimism into the climate conversation. She is a Founding Partner of the organization Global Optimism, the co-host of the hit climate podcast Outrage + Optimism, and the co-author of The Future We Choose: The Stubborn Optimist’s Guide to the Climate Crisis (written alongside Tom Rivett-Carnac).

Tell us Soul Boomlets — what does stubborn optimism mean to you?

Has hope ever been an ax in your hands?

This week on the Soul Boom podcast, Rainn sits down with the inspiring author, podcaster, and creator of the Wise Habits program, Eric Zimmer.

Eric is the host of The One You Feed, a podcast with more than 50 million downloads, built around a deceptively simple question: what does it mean to live a meaningful life? It’s a question he didn’t arrive at from a place of comfort. More than 30 years ago, he was struggling with heroin addiction, unhoused, and facing prison. That period forced a confrontation not just with his circumstances, but with the deeper mechanics of change itself—what works, what doesn’t, and why so many of us find ourselves stuck between intention and action.

Out of that inquiry comes the central idea of his new book, How a Little Becomes a Lot.

The title itself is inspired by the Tanzanian proverb:

Little by little, a little becomes a lot.

As simple as it is, it is at the heart of spiritual change or anyone pursuing big goals — whether recovery from addiction, the pursuit of an Olympic gold medal, or the spiritual transformation of a community.

There’s a Zen saying André Duqum quoted in his appearance on Soul Boom: “Water heats slowly and boils suddenly.” There’s also the story of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, who, responding to someone discouraged by the distance between where they were and where they hoped to be, offered the simple counsel: “Little by little. Day by day.”

Eric’s work brings together spiritual traditions like Zen Buddhism with modern behavioral science, and one of the most useful lenses he draws on is the Fogg Behavior Model. The premise is straightforward: for any behavior to happen, three elements have to converge — motivation, ability, and a prompt. When something feels too difficult, or when motivation inevitably dips, the behavior falls away.

The Foggs Behavioral model helps explain a familiar experience. We decide to change. We set ambitious goals. We summon a burst of energy. And then, almost as predictably, we slide back into old patterns. It’s not necessarily a failure of character. It’s often a mismatch between what we’re asking of ourselves and how change actually works.

Eric’s approach is to reduce that mismatch.

Instead of trying to overpower the system, he suggests working with it. Make the action small enough that it can happen even on a day when motivation is low. Let consistency do the work that intensity cannot sustain. Over time, those small actions accumulate, and something begins to shift — not just in behavior, but in identity.

As St. Francis of Assissi is supposed to have said: “Start by doing what’s necessary; then do what’s possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible.”

The path doesn’t unfold all at once. It builds. Little by little, until a little becomes a lot.

This week, to accompany you on your own personal journey from the seemingly impossible to the actually accomplished, we’re sharing an excerpt from Eric’s book — enjoy.

A THOUSAND MILES

Excerpted from How A Little Becomes A Lot: The Art of Small Changes for a Meaningful Life

By Eric Zimmer

I learned the hard way about the importance of showing up long before I ever climbed on a Peloton.

“Rarely have we seen a person fail,” is the beginning of a reading that happens at the start of nearly every AA meeting in the world. Early on in my recovery I went to at least one, if not two, AA meetings per day. So I heard the reading over and over, often feeling mocked by its confidence. I also heard the program’s famous Twelve Steps read at nearly every meeting. And the Twelve Traditions. Let’s just say there’s enough repetition at a 12-step meeting to make a broken record jealous.

At first I gritted my teeth and zoned out to get through the readings. Then I made a game of memorizing them, which wasn’t that hard to do as I heard them all twice a day.

On top of the recitation at regular meetings, we had to read the same 164 pages of the AA Big Book—the program bible written by founder Bill Wilson—at Big Book study meetings. Only one book and only the first 164 pages of it? I felt sure my brain would turn to sludge.

And the clichés, oh God, the clichés. “One day at a time.” “Easy does it.” “Keep coming back.” It felt like an infinite loop of Chicken Soup for the Boring Soul.

And you know what? I got and stayed sober.

Was it in spite of or because of the repetition? I think it was largely because of the repetition, as I’ll explain below. But we are faced with a quandary here. Repetition can lead to deeper insight and compounding growth, but it can also lead to stagnation, apathy, and a desire to quit. I was in danger of giving up on AA before I’d even scratched the surface—before I’d let the process do what it was designed to do.

What saved me was finding a way to appreciate just how meaningful, even spiritual, repetition can be.

Around the same time I’d discovered the joy of alcohol, at the age of eighteen, a high school teacher introduced me to Zen Buddhism. Although my understanding was weak, it spoke to me. The idea that something extraordinary could be hidden within the ordinary world resonated deeply with me, as did the belief that even in life’s hardest moments, peace is waiting, if we can just allow ourselves to access it.

Six years and a lot of questionable choices later, tasked with finding a “spiritual solution” to aid my recovery but not drawn to the mainstream offerings of Columbus, Ohio (I found the concept of an interventionist Christian God hard to square with my situation), I remembered those books about Zen my teacher had given me.

I cracked them open again and quickly realized that the voices that spoke to me—Shunryu Suzuki, Mark Epstein, Jack Kornfield, Pema Chodron—all emphasized one thing above all: If you want to grow spiritually, you have to meditate. So I made it my mission to start a consistent practice.

And yet no matter how hard I tried I could not stick with it.

Most of my books said that I needed to meditate for thirty to forty-five minutes, so that was always my goal. I might do it for a day, a week, maybe a month one time. And then I would just quit.

At the time I didn’t know anything about, as BJ Fogg would put it to me years later, the “compensatory relationship” between ability and motivation. I just knew that meditation was really hard for me to do and I could not seem to keep at it.

I would sit down, close my eyes, and then it was like the dark circus came to town. The ever-efficient processor nestled in my head would say, “Marvelous, you’re paying attention! Shall we begin with the classic hits—‘Imposter Syndrome,’ ‘Catastrophizing,’ and the chart-topping single ‘Your Life Is Meaningless’? Or would you prefer some fresh material from my Worst Case Scenarios album?”

To use the scientific terminology, half an hour of meditation was too high on my ability axis. Despite believing that it was gravely important for me to do this, I couldn’t keep my motivation high enough to make it a practice.

After many, many failed attempts, I finally decided that I would aim to meditate for just three minutes a day, but that I would do it every day. This was, of course, the solution. It was something easy enough that I always had enough motivation to do it. Eventually I was able to increase how long I meditated for, and over time, how well I could do it (less circus, more peace). And I reflected on the power of even the smallest repeated actions.

One of the most famous expressions of little by little comes from the Tao Te Ching: “A journey of a thousand miles starts under one’s feet.” The Buddhist tradition also emphasizes a gradual path to personal transformation. The Dhammapada, one of the core Buddhist scriptures, says: “Drop by drop is the water pot filled. Likewise, the wise person, gathering it little by little, fills themselves with good.” Nirvana, or enlightenment, is most often described as the end point of a long journey, during which we gradually rid ourselves of the weight of earthly desires.

Yet there has also been a debate in spiritual circles forever about whether enlightenment is actually more of a lightning strike, something that comes to us all at once, if at all.

My own adopted tradition, Zen Buddhism, has a rich history of stories of sudden enlightenment. As a user on the r/Buddhism subreddit wrote, these stories all sound something like: “So-and-so worked in the monastery kitchen. One day Master such-and-such kicked him in the ass and suddenly he was enlightened.” In one actual example, a student named Gensha stubs his toe and promptly cries, “This body does not exist!” There are also the meditative koans (“What is the sound of one hand clapping?”) which are sometimes described as tools for “direct pointing,” or prompts to trigger an immediate, epiphanic experience of spiritual awareness.

To see only sudden enlightenment in these stories and practices, however, is to miss the forest for the bodhi trees. The moments of revelation come after long periods of practice and studies. Gensha the toe-stubber practiced an ascetic life in the mountains for years, thinking about the ephemeral nature of things like pain, before his holy stumble. Even the hypothetical monastery kitchen worker put in his time before the rewards of that work were revealed in a glorious instant.

The modern spiritual marketplace is filled with promises of a shortcut to enlightenment. The logic is something along the lines of “everything you need to awaken is right here and is always right here and all you have to do is see it directly.” Which is like telling a Little Leaguer, “All you need to hit a home run in the major leagues is to watch the ball come in, swing at the right time, and let the ball do all the work.” Slightly more often than a chimpanzee types a novel the kid will hit a home run, but they are far more likely to end up with a traumatic brain injury.

Gurus of popular psychology sometimes make similar promises, with neat parables of “breakthrough” moments.

One thing my very gradual road to building a meditation practice did was to disabuse me of any and all such get-enlightened-quick dreams. If there is someone out there who could focus perfectly enough to access the secrets of the universe or his own psyche all at once, I’m not him. But I am someone who could practice sitting, listening, being present—three minutes by three minutes, day by day.

Another old Chinese proverb says: “Read a book for 100 times then the meaning will emerge.” In my Zen practice, my teacher had me read the same 165-page book for six months. We chanted the same thing at the end of each meditation session and bowed, in the same way, each time.

Back in my early days of AA, reading the same 164 pages of the Big Book over and over, I would have been shocked to hear that the task I was rolling my eyes at was almost identical to something I would do happily in pursuit of Zen years later. And yet: Meaning did emerge in those early days of sobriety. I kept showing up to meetings, reading the readings, sitting down to at least try to meditate. My days without drinking added up. And eventually, “Rarely have we seen a person fail” came to seem less mocking than fortifying. “One day at a time” and “keep coming back” were still more clichés than koans, but they took on the weight of lived experience.

We all know the phrase “practice makes perfect,” but it is more accurate to say that repetition breeds results. This is because the more we repeat a task or activity, the more comfortable and confident we become in our ability to do it. We become more efficient and effective as we become more familiar with the process.

We also trust the process more, even subconsciously. We see ads for the same products many times; politicians parrot the same messages on what feels like an endless loop. Why? Repetition breeds results. It seems like it should take more than repetition to make something persuasive, but scientific study after study shows that it really does work. This is due to something called the illusion of truth effect. People rate statements that have been repeated just once as more valid or true than things they’ve heard for the first time.

The key, I believe, is to be intentional in our repetition. We should pause and ask ourselves why we are doing this and what we hope to gain from it. We should strive to bring our full selves to the task. We should be aware of the potential for complacency and strive to remain curious and engaged in the process.

What I got from remaining curious and engaged in my journey toward sobriety was not only sobriety itself, but a lifelong interest in the ways each of us seek wisdom and meaning. I’m still somewhere on that journey of a thousand miles, grateful that I get the chance to continue.

THE FIRST STEP

In his book The Quiet Before, author Gal Beckerman makes the argument that even revolutions start gradually, with creative exchanges of ideas in small rooms and among limited networks.

“We are gripped by the moment when the crowd coalesces on the street—the adrenaline, the tear gas, the deafening chants, a policeman on horseback chasing down a lone protester or a man standing up to a tank,” Beckerman writes. But “change—the kind that topples social norms and uproots orthodoxies—happens slowly at first.” The Civil Rights Movement, the women’s suffrage movement, the LGBTQ+ rights movement: Behind each was a long path of (as the TTM would say) precontemplation, contemplation, preparation, action, and maintenance that made their eventual public actions undeniable.

For every “Eureka” moment there’s a thousand dusty chalkboards. Years of failed attempts preceded the Wright Brothers’ first successful flight. Even with famous lightning-strike discoveries, there’s more to the story: After Alexander Fleming accidentally discovered a bacteria-killing mold called penicillin, it took fourteen years and the careful work of a number of other scientists before a patient was treated with the world’s first antibiotic.

“If I have looked far,” Isaac Newton said, “it is because I’ve stood on the shoulders of giants.” But of course those “giants” were standing on shoulders too. In creating his physical laws Newton drew on the laws of planetary motion developed by Johannes Kepler, who in turn relied on the work of astronomer Tycho Brahe… who spent twenty years of his life watching the sky every single night, making meticulous maps of the movements of heavenly bodies governed by a force no one had yet called gravity.

The story that gets passed down is an apple to the head and a flash of genius. But the real story is one of thousands of little steps, thousands of nights spent watching the stars.

Eric Zimmer is an author, behavior coach, and the host of The One You Feed, an award-winning podcast with more than 50 million downloads. A person in long-term recovery, his work brings together behavioral science, spiritual wisdom, and lived experience to explore how real, lasting change happens. His latest book, How a Little Becomes a Lot, offers a practical path toward a more meaningful life—one small step at a time.

What are times you’ve experienced this spiritual truth at work in your life?

We’d love to hear.

This week, Rainn sits down with the We Love You duo—Thomas Sullivan and Andy Min.

Thomas and Andy are lifelong best friends, filmmakers, and the creative force behind We Love You—a multimedia project devoted to spreading hope, empathy, and emotional honesty in an often anxious and disconnected world.

The poetry and wonder of their micro-masterpieces is on full display in their conversation with Rainn—you will indeed feel like they love you and are connected to everything that is, not just as an idea, but as an experience.

Raised in the Bay Area and shaped as much by the forests and mountains of Northern California as by the early internet, Thomas and Andy began creating together as kids and found their voice during the stillness of the COVID years. What emerged was something deceptively simple: short films built from real conversations, rooted in nature, and animated by a quiet but radical optimism. Their work doesn’t deny the anxiety of modern life—it meets it head-on, offering an alternative to the noise and pressure of the digital landscape. So much of the online world feeds a sense of not being enough; their work is an attempt to push back against that—to make it not just acceptable, but compelling, to be hopeful, to be kind, to see the good.

There’s a universality to what they’ve created. Their audience spans ages, backgrounds, and belief systems—because what they’re tapping into isn’t niche. It’s something fundamental: the longing to feel connected, to feel grounded.

To accompany their appearance on the Soul Boom podcast, we’re also sharing an excerpt from their book, the eponymously titled We Love You. The premise of the book begins with a truth both obvious and startling: you are on a rock floating through the vastness of space. Everything you know—every person you love, every fear you carry, every moment you’ve lived—exists on this tiny speck drifting through something unimaginably large. And that while this can feel overwhelming, frightening even, it is also an invitation to look closer, think bigger and recognize that even in a world that can feel confusing, loud, and difficult, there is still kindness to be found.

The excerpt we’re sharing, points to another fundamental and startline reality: Nothing is Individual.

Enjoy!

And remember,

We Love You,

The Soul Boom Team

Excerpted from We Love You: an optimistic guide to life on a rock floating through space

By Andy Min & Thomas Sullivan

We’ve been focusing on the individual elements that make up our world. Our goal has been to see what we might learn from each thing while trying to take absolutely nothing for granted. By looking at each isolated part of our world with this sense of wonder, it’s possible to learn quite a lot: from the tender simplicity of a newt, to the stunning power of a redwood tree, to the determination of a fish swimming upstream. When you really try to see things individually, you start to notice something.

Everything—from the ants to the mountain lions, from the moss along the river to the lichen growing on a branch a hundred feet in the air—is connected to the world around it. Nothing in this world is truly singular.

When we think about a tiny plant growing in the dirt, we can’t help but wonder where that dirt came from. And what about the carbon dioxide it takes in to photosynthesize and build its cell walls? What about the fungus in the ground that affixes nitrogen to make it accessible to plant life? And don’t forget about the insects that pollinate seeds. Wouldn’t we be missing something if we were to consider only the plant itself without factoring in the wide web of living and nonliving things that give the plant its very life? Maybe, like its own roots or leaves, these elements shouldn’t be thought of as loosely connected to the plant, but should instead be understood as common parts of something larger, as parts of the same whole.

We’re not just talking about plants either. Surrounding each individual person is an endless web of interrelatedness, of cause and effect, of questions asked and answered spreading out in every direction. Each person is a part of something so much greater than themselves, extending to their family, their friends, their community, and the entire human world. To understand each other—to understand ourselves—we can’t think of people merely as disconnected individuals. We have to consider every single person as a part of an interconnected community of being, a community with a shared history, a shared future, and most urgently of all, a shared present.

This might feel like grasping at straws or some far-fetched philosophical way to compare the human world with the natural world. But let us remind you: The human world is part of the natural world, and it is just one part of it. And everything that connects to us branches in every direction. We are one tiny part of something much bigger.

When you pay attention to each thing individually, you can’t help but notice: Nothing is individual.

Excerpted from WE LOVE YOU: An Optimistic Guide to Life on a Rock Floating Through Space by Thomas Sullivan and Andy Min. Copyright © 2025 by Andy Min & Thomas Sullivan. Published by DK, a division of Penguin Random House LLC.

Thomas Sullivan and Andy Min are filmmakers, writers, and lifelong best friends, and the creative duo behind We Love You—a multimedia project dedicated to spreading hope, empathy, and emotional honesty in an often anxious and disconnected world. Raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, where they were shaped by both the natural landscapes of Northern California and the early internet, they began collaborating creatively as children and have continued ever since. During the COVID-19 pandemic, they launched We Love You as a response to the growing anxiety, disconnection, and pressure of the digital age, creating short-form videos rooted in real conversations, nature, and a quietly radical optimism. Their work has since resonated with millions across platforms, offering an alternative vision of what it means to live with curiosity, kindness, and hope. Now based in Los Angeles, they are expanding their work into long-form storytelling across books, film, and audio, including their podcast Hey Man.

We’d love to know — what does connection with all things feel like to you?

This week on the Soul Boom podcast, Rainn sits down with André Duqum, host of the Know Thyself podcast.

If you’ve checked out his immensely popular podcast, you already know that André is a kind of cartographer of the inner life—mapping the strange, beautiful terrain of consciousness with curiosity and care. Each week, he talks to spiritual teachers, cutting-edge scientists, and heart-led creatives (like Rainn, for example) to wrestle with the Big Questions: What is the self? What is reality? Is there a God out there? What are the essential pillars that allow a human being not just to function, but to flourish?

His Soul Boom conversation with Rainn hits some of these big themes beautifully. And we thought we’d share a handful of takeaways from their convo:

1. God Is Not a Concept—It’s an Experience

God has been turned into just about everything imaginable: an old man in the sky, a cosmic referee, a philosophical abstraction, a cultural artifact to either defend or dismantle depending on one’s mood that day. Entire ecosystems of thought have been built around defining it, arguing over it, rejecting it, reclaiming it. And yet, as André Duquam suggests, all of that activity may be orbiting the thing rather than encountering it. His perspective is disarmingly simple: God is not fundamentally a concept to believe in, but an experience available in every moment. Now consider the implication for a second. Every sight, every sound, every sensation—the world as it is known—is arising within consciousness. Always. Without exception. And instead of examining that directly, most of the time is spent theorizing about it, labeling it, building elaborate frameworks around it. Menu reading, endlessly. From André’s view, if the divine is not an object within experience but the very ground of it, then searching for it “out there” starts to look slightly off-target. The invitation is not to adopt a new belief, but to investigate the fact of experience itself—quietly, directly, without immediately converting it into an idea.

2. Integrity Is Wholeness

Integrity is one of those words that tends to get flattened into something manageable—say what you mean, do what you say, don’t cut corners when no one is looking. All good things. Necessary things. But, as André frames it, that definition barely scratches the surface. His use of the word points toward something much deeper: wholeness. Undividedness. A state in which thoughts, emotions, motivations, and actions are not subtly contradicting one another behind the scenes. Because, in practice, it’s entirely possible to present as ethical while being internally fragmented—one part seeking approval, another driven by fear, another quietly negotiating for advantage. It can look coherent from the outside and feel like a committee meeting from the inside. From André’s perspective, that’s not integrity; it’s a kind of managed dissonance. True integrity has more in common with structural soundness than moral performance. It is what happens when the internal divisions begin to resolve, when there is less conflict between what is thought, what is felt, and what is done. And in a world that often rewards appearance over alignment, that kind of inner cohesion becomes both rare and consequential.

3. Separation Is (At Least Partly) an Illusion

There’s a basic assumption running quietly in the background of most experience: here is the self, contained and separate, and out there is everything else—other people, the world, reality at large. It feels obvious. Indisputable. And yet, André repeatedly points toward a different possibility, one echoed in both contemplative traditions and emerging conversations in consciousness research. If all experience is happening internally—if the world, as it is known, is appearing within awareness—then that sharp boundary between “self” and “other” begins to soften. Not conceptually, but experientially. And when that happens, something interesting unfolds. Ethics begin to shift from imposed rules to intuitive responses. The idea of harming another starts to feel less like breaking a rule and more like a kind of confusion. Because if the separation is not as solid as assumed, then the distinction between self-interest and other-interest becomes less clear-cut. André isn’t presenting this as a doctrine to adopt, but as a direction of inquiry—one that, if explored deeply, has implications not just for philosophy, but for how people relate, respond, and organize their lives.

4. Inner Work Fuels Outer Change

At this point, the obvious question arises: what does any of this have to do with the actual state of the world? Conflict, injustice, systemic dysfunction—the long and ever-growing list. There’s a tendency to hear conversations about awareness or inner alignment and file them under “nice, but not helpful.” André pushes against that framing. From his perspective, the quality of external action is inseparable from the state from which it arises. Reactivity—unchecked anger, fear, internal division—often perpetuates the very patterns it seeks to change. History provides a fairly extensive record of this. By contrast, action that emerges from clarity, from a more integrated and aware state, carries a different quality. It is less impulsive, less distorted, more precise. Acceptance, in this context, does not mean passivity or resignation. It means not expending energy arguing with the fact that something is happening, so that energy can be directed toward responding effectively. André’s point is not that inner work replaces outer work, but that it conditions it. Without addressing the internal landscape, attempts at change risk replicating the same fragmentation at a larger scale.

5. Awareness Creates Freedom

Running beneath all of these ideas is a central emphasis on awareness itself. Not as a vague spiritual ideal, but as a concrete capacity that can be developed. André often returns to the observation that most people are deeply identified with their thoughts, emotions, and narratives—so much so that these are taken to be reality itself. A worry arises and becomes the entire field. A reaction surfaces and dictates behavior before it’s even noticed. His metaphor is a simple one: it’s like sitting in a dark theater, completely absorbed in a film. The story feels real, urgent, all-encompassing. Awareness, in contrast, is like stepping back and recognizing the screen, the room, the larger context in which the film is playing. The movie doesn’t stop, but the relationship to it changes. There is space. And within that space, a different kind of freedom appears—not the ability to control everything, but the ability not to be entirely controlled by everything. From André’s perspective, this capacity isn’t accidental. It requires cultivation—through contemplative practices, through attention training, through repeated moments of noticing. Much like physical fitness, it develops through consistent engagement. And as it develops, the quality of experience—and response—begins to shift in subtle but meaningful ways.

Of course, these 5 takeaways are just scratching the surface of their conversation.

We’d love to hear what other big themes you picked up on. And how what André shared resonated with you — or — how you might see something a bit different.

There’s no wrong answers, and we’d love to hear yours.

BJ was also one of the show’s key writers, shaping its voice from within, and has since built a body of work as an essayist and director that reflects a particular attentiveness to how culture functions beneath the surface.

We’ll let you watch the episode to take in the full conversation — but there was one thread worth examining in this here Dispatch:

Scarcity.

What emerged wasn’t something easily measured, but something that seems to persist even when external conditions change, even when a person’s life would suggest stability or success.

You hear it in passing, in stories that almost feel incidental—the successful person still taking what’s free, still behaving as though there might not be enough later—and it begins to suggest that whatever this is, it isn’t entirely tied to the present. It lingers from earlier phases of life, from years marked by uncertainty or striving, and doesn’t quite recalibrate once things improve.

It remains, shaping how one relates to what one has, and begins to look less like a situation and more like an orientation—a way of moving through the world that can persist even in the presence of abundance.

From there, the conversation shifts toward the idea of testing.

Because when we talk about spiritual tests, most of us think immediately of difficulty—loss, crisis, the moments when something breaks and we’re forced to respond. Rainn reflects on the fire that damaged his home and the stretch that followed, and in looking back, he offers a harsh self-assessment. A D+. Not a collapse, but not the response he might have hoped for. BJ counters with an interesting take — he describes his own life as not having presented him with those kinds of visible tests. And that absence becomes its own test. And that idea is as old as time—that the material benefits of a life of ease can distract. The veil of privilege is the thickest of all.

How does one relate to success, to comfort, to the gradual accumulation of stability?

It’s often said, hardship reveals character. Less obvious is the way ease can do the same. One can be unsettled by loss, but one can also be unsettled by the sense that what has been gained might not last. The same posture—uncertainty, vigilance, a reluctance to fully inhabit the present—can show up in both conditions. Looking at it this way, the distinction between hardship and comfort begins to blur, and the question becomes less about circumstance and more about orientation.

How are we meeting what is in front of us?

Across different spiritual traditions, there is a recurring emphasis on this point. Not on eliminating difficulty or securing comfort, but on cultivating a way of being that can move through both without becoming entirely defined by either.

A great deal of contemporary discourse on spirituality centers on internal regulation—reducing anxiety, finding calm, creating a sense of balance. Meditation apps, mindfulness practices, breathwork, a steady stream of content designed to help us feel a little more grounded.

There is real value in this. But there is also a question that follows. What is it all for?

If the endpoint is simply a more manageable internal state, then something essential may be getting lost. Because much of what spiritual traditions have pointed toward is not only inward but outward, not only about perception but about participation.

About how one shows up for others.

Otherwise, it risks becoming another form of consumption, one more domain in which we optimize the self without necessarily moving beyond it.

This becomes especially relevant when we consider how much of our inner life is shaped by what we take in through screens — and how much time we spend doing so. The stories we watch. The voices we listen to. The steady flow of images and narratives that, over time, begin to define what feels normal, what feels desirable, what feels worth pursuing.

What we attend to, repeatedly, begins to shape us.

It’s part of what makes it interesting to watch both Rainn and BJ navigate their careers. BJ, for instance, steps into The Devil Wears Prada 2 (out May 1st!) playing a character he himself describes as a “problem” for the world of Runway—someone a little slippery, a little hard to like . And yet there’s an awareness there, a kind of intentionality about the roles he takes on, the stories he participates in. The same is true of Rainn. Neither of them seems interested in making work unconsciously. There’s a sense that what they put into the world matters—not in some heavy-handed, moralizing way, but in the quieter recognition that stories don’t just entertain, they shape the atmosphere we all live and breathe inside of.

It makes us think of something BJ’s dad wrote in an essay for the New York Times:

“Call me old-fashioned, but I’d rather explore the qualities and actions that will inspire future generations. Chances are, they will also inspire me.”

The stories we take in aren’t passive. We shape them and they shape us.

Through the lens of Soul Boom, you begin to see a spiritual principle at work:

Our hearts are mirrors. What we turn them towards, we reflect.

And maybe that’s part of the quiet work here. Because in a sense, we’re all temps—this whole life is less than a fleeting moment.

Soul Boomlets, we’d love to hear your answer to this lingering question:

What are you turning your hearts towards these days?

This week on the Soul Boom podcast, Rainn sat down with Andy Grammer—the chart-topping, heart-lifting singer-songwriter who turned years of street busking into a global career, and who has quietly built a body of work rooted in something deeper than hits: service.

What unfolds is a shared meditation on showing up—for your craft, for your community, and for the mystery that lives somewhere between effort and grace.

Rainn and Andy trace the long arc of Andy’s journey: growing up in a home filled with music and meaning, learning songwriting at the dinner table, and then stepping into the crucible of the street—where no one owes you their attention, and truth arrives quickly. For four years, Andy sang to passersby who mostly kept walking. And in that silence, something essential took shape.

They talk about the shift that changes everything: when art stops being about proving yourself—and starts becoming about serving others. Not in a performative way. Not by chasing trends or trying to reverse-engineer what people want. But by getting quiet enough to discover what is most true within you—and then honing your craft until you can show up in a way that actually meets people where they are.

That spirit carries directly into Andy’s new podcast—part of the Companion family—which he and Rainn also explore in the episode. It’s a funny, raw, and deeply human exploration of what it means to show up: for ourselves, for each other, and for the world.

The first episode brings that question into one of life’s most profound thresholds. Andy sits down with one of Julie McFadden, better known as Hospice Nurse Julie—a hospice nurse, online educator, and author—to talk about the great and ultimate unknown: death. You might remember Julie from her appearance on Soul Boom.

Together, she and Andy explore the resistance, beauty, joy, and sincerity in embracing the process. For Andy, this conversation is deeply personal. Having lost his mother at 25, facing the realities of death has become a quiet but powerful passion in his life. What emerges is not just a conversation about dying, but about how we live—how we accompany one another, how we face what we fear, and how we show up when it matters most.

To round it all out, we have a very short but very lovely piece from Andy’s dad—the Grammy-nominated children’s singer-songwriter Red Grammer, whose music has quietly shaped generations with messages of kindness, connection, and joy. As you’ll soon read, Red, like his son, is all about showing up.

We’re so glad you’re here,

The Soul Boom Team

The Art of Showing Up

by Red Grammer

There’s no greater delight than watching your children grow into decent, caring, thoughtful human beings. I’ve had that pleasure with both of my sons, Dave and Andy. As Andy launches this new podcast, I’ve been reflecting on how he has always been attentive to those around him—consistently looking for ways to help others shine a little brighter. He is deeply inspired by people who do the same. So it makes perfect sense that he would create a podcast called Showing Up, where he interviews, learns from, and celebrates those who have made service a cornerstone of their lives.

I am moved by the many ways people show up for each other, often quietly and without fanfare: the volunteer who delivers Meals on Wheels to homebound seniors and stays for a bit of a chat at the door, knowing that for some it will be their only face-to-face contact that week; the one who shows up to nurse a friend during a long and difficult illness; the family that instantly takes in their friends and children after a fire; the high school and college students who spend time each week helping younger youth find their balance and their voice in a confusing world, and who carry out acts of service with them in their neighborhoods.

Big or small, what all acts of service teach us is the power of connection. They make visible the very real interconnectedness of us all—a powerful blessing for everyone involved. They are acts of spirit that illuminate the material world our souls move through.

In showing up, we learn humility, for we have so much to understand about loving well. We learn discernment, listening to the quiet voice within that lets us know whether a particular area of service is ours to pursue. It calls forth courage, stamina, selflessness, a commitment to listen, and a willingness to learn and to change. That’s a lot. It’s not done lightly, though the decision to show up is often quickly made. Money and recognition may be strong motivators to act, but showing up requires something entirely different. It is a matter of the heart.

There is a line Andy heard often growing up in a Bahá’í home, where Bahá’u’lláh says, “The essence of faith is fewness of words and abundance of deeds…” He has taken that to heart and demonstrates it in his life every day.

We all want to make the world a better place, but we don’t always know where to begin. I’m grateful to Andy and Companion for creating a space that helps point the way—and invites each of us to find our own way of showing up.

Red Grammer is a beloved singer, songwriter, and educator whose work has been nurturing the hearts and spirits of children and families for decades. Widely regarded as one of the leading voices in children’s music, he creates songs that are playful, joyful, and rooted in the belief that each of us carries something fundamentally good within. His recordings—recognized with a Grammy nomination and multiple Parents’ Choice honors—are widely used by educators and families to teach themes such as empathy, cooperation, and respect for diversity. His album Teaching Peace was named one of the top children’s recordings of all time by The All Music Guide.

In addition to recording and performing internationally, Red is a frequent speaker at educational conferences, where he focuses on the role of music in supporting child development and community building. By the way—we really love his new album, Hooray for the World!

Whether you’re a spiritual seeker, skeptic, or a recovering cynic — we’re glad to have you here.

Exactly two years ago today, we launched Soul Boom with the intention of digging into the human experience. We wanted to spark conversations about a spiritual revolution—conversations where Rainn would go deep with our favorite thinkers and doers about life, meaning, and, well, yes—the occasional idiocy.

And two years later, we can say that dream has come true—thanks to you.

Beyond the guests, the book, the podcast, our social media presence, and this here Dispatch, we see amazing conversations and exchanges happening among all of those who follow us across these various platforms. What we see is a community built not on answers—but on a shared willingness to ask better questions.

Of course, a lot of those questions are stirred by our guests. So for this anniversary, we’re looking back at the moments that made us laugh, think, and feel something real (with only occasional bouts of existential dread).

While by no means exhaustive, this episode is a mosaic of voices from among those who’ve shaped the Soul Boom experience:

• Alex O’Connor, wrestling honestly with belief, doubt, and the limits of reason

• Dr. Lisa Miller*, illuminating the science of our innate spiritual lives

• Rick Glassman, bringing the beautifully chaotic, deeply human energy that launched it all

• Britt Hartley*, mapping meaning beyond traditional religion

• Sara Kuburic*, cutting to the heart of self-deception and personal truth

• Trisha Paytas, offering a raw window into identity and reinvention

• Bobby Lee, finding vulnerability in unexpected places

• Jeff Kober*, speaking with quiet depth about presence and stillness

• Dr. Joe Dispenza*, exploring the frontier of mind, body, and transformation

• Ed Helms*, reflecting on purpose, creativity, and a meaningful life

• Angela Kinsey, grounding it all in warmth, humor, and everyday humanity

Different paths. Same essential questions:

How do we live well? How do we search for truth? How do we love each other better?

And how do we get this spiritual revolution going?

Now—press play, and revisit some of the most powerful moments from the last two years of Soul Boom.

And let us know what your favorite moments are! Or what Soul Boom has meant to you in these two short, fleeting years.

*FYI: These asterisked Dispatches feature not only the episode, but an excerpt from a book by that guest — they’re great, definitely worth checking out.

This week on the Soul Boom podcast, Rainn sits down for a second time with Arthur C. Brooks — Harvard professor, social scientist, and one of the world’s leading researchers on happiness, meaning, and human flourishing.

Arthur’s first visit with Rainn actually led to the two of them going on a journey to meet the Dalai Lama, all captured in a previous Soul Boom Dispatch.

In round two Arthur and Rainn dig even deeper into one of the most urgent questions of our time:

Why do so many people feel that their lives are… meaningless?

Arthur’s new book, The Meaning of Your Life, is his most distilled and deeply personal answer to that crisis. Drawing from decades of research in psychology, philosophy, and theology, he argues that meaning isn’t mystical vapor.

As Arthur tells Rainn, it took him five years to even define meaning well enough to write about it. He’d been staring at the data for years, noting that young adults have been reporting anxiety and depression at historic levels. One predictor rising above the rest: “My life feels meaningless.” And yet, in spite of his personal anxiousness about the subject, as a behavioral scientist, he felt he couldn’t write a book about meaning until he could answer the question: What is the thing people are missing?

Arthur offers one of the clearest explanations of meaning we’ve heard. In his telling, it’s derived from three essential elements:

• Coherence — your answer to why life unfolds the way it does.

• Purpose — why you are moving in a particular direction day after day.

• Significance — the knowledge that the world would be worse for someone you love if you didn’t exist.

He also makes a crucial distinction: we tend to chase résumé virtues — money, status, applause — while neglecting the deeper “eulogy virtues” that actually make a life matter.

There’s a lot more in the book — indeed, as you’ll hear in the episode, Rainn loves it. (Like, truly—he was gushing about it before Arthur even got to the studio.) It’s one of those reads that’s hard to sum up, because it’s less a set of ideas and more a journey you move through. But one thing stood out to us. It’s when Arthur tackles the subject most of us would prefer to skip:

Suffering.

Arthur doesn’t frame suffering as an interruption of meaning. He sees it as central to it. Not something to avoid at all costs — but something that, rightly understood, becomes a source of growth, depth, and transformation.

Which brings us to something especially appropriate for Soul Boom.

In The Meaning of Your Life, Arthur tells the story of Rainn — yes, that Rainn — as a case study in how suffering, addiction, fame, spiritual doubt, and recovery can ultimately cohere into a life of purpose and service.

Because if we’re going to talk about meaning on Soul Boom, we might as well get personal. After you read it, we’d love to hear how you are finding meaning in your life.

Don’t Waste Your Suffering

Excerpted from The Meaning of Your Life

By Arthur C. Brooks

“I was such an insecure, warped creature that I needed that laughter to feel good about myself.”

This was the actor Rainn Wilson’s response to my question about why he’d always made jokes as a kid. He explains that when you are in a lot of pain but figure out that you are naturally funny, you start making jokes to distract yourself and others from your misery. It’s a kind of “emotional substitution,” he said.

I didn’t know Wilson when he was a child—although I easily could have: We are about the same age, grew up near each other in Seattle, and were both serious classical musicians. We became friends as adults and have bonded over our shared childhood experiences as well as common interests, values, and beliefs.

To meet Wilson as an adult, you would be hard-pressed to imagine him as an unhappy little kid. Today, he is a famous comedic actor, probably best known for his role as Dwight Schrute in the hit comedy television series The Office. His life looks charmed—as do, come to think of it, the lives of the people we met in the introduction. But, of course, looks are deceiving.

Wilson’s childhood was completely unstable. The family’s economic situation was precarious at best. His mother, a sixties hippie who had a pet goat named Angel of the Morning, abandoned the family when Rainn was two years old; he didn’t see her again until he was fourteen. Desperate and despondent, his father quickly entered into a tense, loveless second marriage and converted the family to the Bahá’í Faith, a religion established in Iran in the nineteenth century that has an estimated 175,000 adherents in the United States. Wilson’s upbringing was, in his own words, characterized by “confusion, anxiety, and alienation.”

At eighteen, Wilson escaped to college in New York City and studied acting, resolving to be finished forever with his dysfunctional family and their weird religion. He could not outrun his demons, however. Depression, loneliness, and anxiety hunted him relentlessly. He drank heavily and used drugs throughout his twenties and thirties, a form of self-medication that led, inevitably, to addiction.

At forty, his luck seemed to change when he scored a role in The Office, which quickly became a popular sensation. Almost overnight, Wilson became internationally famous. As he tells it, he was suddenly recognized, even adored, wherever he went. You might think that having people shout “I love you” from passing cars would fix his depression and give him an incentive to kick his habits, right?

Wrong. The admiration from strangers poured gasoline on the fire of his mental anguish. Becoming famous made him a little insane, he believes, and instead of being able to savor his success, he endured one of the unhappiest periods of his life. “I became filled with ever more entitlement, wants, and needs,” he told me. “Why don’t I get more and better movie deals? Where are my lucrative commercial campaigns? Why did I never win a @#$% Emmy!?” He had become, he said, what Buddhists call a “hungry ghost”: a pathetic creature animated by insatiable craving.

This swirling torment could have ended very badly. His profession, after all, does not lack for heartbreaking examples of stars addled by addiction and deranged by celebrity. That might have been Rainn’s fate, but for two bright spots in his life. The first was the woman he married, Holiday Reinhorn, who somehow stuck with the sad little boy in the body of an ego-mad, grown-up addict. The second, strangely enough, was the Bahá’í Faith he thought he had left behind. He found a tender God who took him back. Or perhaps he was the one who was found.

“I knew My love for thee,” he read in the Bahá’í holy book The Hidden Words, “therefore I created thee, have engraved on thee Mine image and revealed to thee My beauty.”

The enduring love of Holiday and the unconditional love of God brought Wilson to life, perhaps for the first time. Through years of spiritual search, prayer, meditation, and a lot of twelve-step recovery, he found a growing sense of peace, joy, and meaning. Today, he is still zany and charmingly eccentric, but he has a deep stillness that is utterly magnetic. I ask him to articulate the meaning of his life: “To love and be loved; to deepen and enrich my spiritual growth and progress; to use my gifts to serve humanity.” In other words, he is a case study in the ideas of this book.

But what about all the turmoil over the first five decades of his life? Wouldn’t it have been better for Rainn if he could have avoided all that suffering?

In a word, no.

Although he wouldn’t wish such troubles on anyone, he feels that all of the experience has contributed to his life’s meaning. “The pachinko-ball chaos of youth settles in hindsight into a life perspective that I feel had to unfold the way it did,” he told me, in inimitable style. “I’m grateful for every anguish.” He wouldn’t give up the pain he suffered then—or the pain he still suffers, or even what he will suffer in the future.

Rainn Wilson’s difficulties are not yours. Whatever pain afflicts you is all your own. But the wisdom he has acquired lines up with what both modern research and ancient philosophy have to tell us—and that wisdom can apply to you, just as it does to him.

Your suffering is sacred and central to your search for meaning. Do not waste it.

Excerpted from The Meaning of Your Life: Finding Purpose In An Age of Emptiness, published by Portfolio / Penguin, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC.

Arthur C. Brooks is a Harvard professor, social scientist, and one of the world’s leading researchers on happiness, meaning, and human flourishing. He teaches at Harvard Business School and the Harvard Kennedy School, where his work focuses on the science of well-being, leadership, and moral development.

Before entering academia full-time, Arthur served as president of the American Enterprise Institute, one of the nation’s leading public policy think tanks. Earlier in his life, he was a professional classical musician — a path that eventually led him to ask deeper questions about ambition, success, and the human search for meaning.

He is a New York Times bestselling author and writes a popular column on happiness and life for The Atlantic. His books blend rigorous behavioral science with philosophy and spirituality, offering practical frameworks for building lives marked not just by achievement, but by coherence, purpose, and significance.

So tell us Soul Boom fam — how are you discovering the meaning of your lives?

This week on the Soul Boom podcast, Rainn sits down with Josh Radnor—actor, writer-director, musician, and quiet cartographer of the inner life.

Most people know Josh from his nine seasons as Ted Mosby on the Emmy-nominated How I Met Your Mother—a hopeless romantic with a blueprint for love and a tendency to overthink everything (relatable). But Josh Radnor’s creative life has always extended far beyond that role. He’s written, directed, and starred in two feature films, Liberal Arts and Happythankyoumoreplease—both premiering at Sundance, with the latter winning the 2010 Audience Award for Favorite U.S. Drama. He appeared in the PBS Civil War drama Mercy Street, and took the stage on Broadway in Disgraced, Ayad Akhtar’s Pulitzer Prize–winning play, as well as The Babylon Line at Lincoln Center.

In the years since HIMYM, along with stepping behind the camera, Josh has explored music through Radnor & Lee—all orbiting a shared question: what does it mean to live a meaningful life? These days, that question isn’t just artistic—it’s personal, shaped by marriage, fatherhood, and the daily, grounding realities of showing up for another human being.

In other words, he’s pivoted from telling stories about finding ‘the one’ to asking deeper questions about who we are—and what happens when the scripts we inherit no longer serve us.

Listening to Josh, you quickly realize—this is a deeply thoughtful human with a restless curiosity. Not just an actor who found success on a beloved sitcom, but someone actively exploring the inner life and the role spirituality plays in it. As he puts it, “all great spiritual traditions warn of getting tricked by the senses, that they can narcotize us and lead us away from the truth of who we are.”

As he tells Rainn, there’s a parallel between the work of a dramatist and the spiritual seeker. “There’s a layer beneath the layer beneath the layer… you look at the text and plumb the depths to see what’s really going on… It’s a depth exploration underneath the surface… I can’t get enough of these brilliant quotes from philosophy, psychology, theology. I really like having these conversations because I feel like there’s so much in the world that’s dragging us to the surface of things—and only having us look at the surface of things, the surface of who we are…”

In a culture obsessed with the superficial, this former sitcom star is choosing to go deeper. It doesn’t get more Soul Boom than that.

This week on the Soul Boom podcast, Rainn sits down with design legends, Stanford professors, and best-selling co-authors, Bill Burnett and Dave Evans.

Bill and Dave aren’t just theorists—they’re co-founders of the Stanford Life Design Lab, where they’ve spent nearly two decades helping students, executives, and everyday people navigate life’s biggest transitions. Their work blends design thinking, psychology, and real-world experimentation, and has reached millions through their courses, workshops, and bestselling books.

The conversation opens with Rainn asking a deceptively simple question: how can a Christian who loves Jesus and an atheist who loves Nietzsche work together on the same project—helping people design their lives? What unfolds is a rich exploration of shared humanity, even across very different worldviews.

Rainn wanted to have Bill and Dave on the show because he loved their latest book, in which the two tackle the greatest design problem of all: how to design a meaningful life.

This isn’t their first rodeo. Their first book, Designing Your Life, was aimed at helping people get unstuck—offering practical tools for navigating careers, choices, and uncertainty through design thinking. But over time, they began hearing a persistent question from some of their former students: My life works—so why doesn’t it feel meaningful? They had achieved what they thought they wanted, only to discover it wasn’t enough. As Bill and Dave point out, many of us are living in that gap between a functional life and a meaningful one. That question led to their second book, How to Live a Meaningful Life, which moves beyond building a life that functions to designing one that actually feels alive.

Bill and Dave don’t treat meaning as an experience you stumble into or are handed by circumstance. They see it not as a static reality, but as a living practice you can actively design into your life. Not perfectly or all at once. But by staying curious, experimenting, and paying attention to what actually makes you feel alive.

Because the question isn’t just “What’s wrong with my life?”

It’s: What’s possible if I start designing it differently?

One of the key ideas Bill and Dave return to is that meaning unfolds over time—and that the work of your twenties, thirties, and beyond is not the same work.

They describe the early years of adulthood as the “Odyssey Years”—a season not for having it all figured out, but for exploring, forming convictions, and building the inner compass that will guide the rest of your life. It’s a time to cultivate curiosity, practice wonder, and begin aligning your life with your values—not perfectly, but intentionally.

Get too fixated on finding the one perfect passion, and you can stall out. Lose your curiosity or your sense of wonder, and you risk drifting into a life shaped by other people’s expectations instead of your own.

But invest in those capacities early—curiosity, wonder, coherence—and you lay the groundwork for a life that can grow in meaning across decades.

With that foundation in mind, the excerpt below explores what comes next: how the first half of life is about building your “container,” and how the second half invites you to transform and give that life away in a deeper, more expansive way.

Ages and Stages

Adapted and Excerpted from HOW TO LIVE A MEANINGFUL LIFE: Using Design Thinking to Unlock Purpose, Joy, and Flow Every Day

By Bill Burnett & Dave Evans

The First Half

After the Odyssey Years, the rest of the first-half years are full of challenges. It is during this stage that Richard Rohr talks about building your life container. This is the container that defines who you are and where you stand in the world. Basically, it’s what you’re all about—the combination of your story, your Workview, and your Lifeview... Crafting that container is hard, necessary work. Much if not most of that work is done in the transactional world as you build your work and career and assemble your network of friends, colleagues, and family. The emphasis is on getting stuff done and making something of your life (however you define that). And it takes time.

That transactional emphasis tends to come with a nonstop sense of urgency. It seems like everything takes too long, so we are constantly pushing to speed things up. But a lot is happening in these first-half years with work, career, family, relationships, children, community, and naming your mission and goals for life. These things take a few decades to complete, so pace yourself. Don’t let the urgency distract you from the joy of this season. These very productive years can be deeply gratifying and meaningful, if you remember to pay attention and catch the many wonderful moments when they appear. You’ll pass this way but once, so remember to make the most of it.

The encouragement we want to give to those of you in the first half of life is to keep moving and not get lost or stuck. We wrote this book to address a concern that we kept hearing again and again from people in their thirties and forties—that they were working hard, and even successfully, at designing and building their lives, but they still weren’t experiencing the kind of meaning and purposefulness in those lives that they were hoping for. As we heard their stories, it sounded to us like they were accidentally (though quite understandably) getting stuck in their first-half-of-life thinking.

For modern people in a post-internet, AI-accelerated world, the first-half-of-life project can easily become all-consuming and all transactional. The first half’s hyper-focus on producing and achieving has made impact the primary if not sole form of meaning-making many people recognize. Being busy isn’t the problem. As we’ve seen it, losing sight that there is anything else in life is the problem.

There’s more at stake here than just the sadness of missing out on the gifts of the flow world during these years. This relentless focus on constant production morphs from a merely lopsided lifestyle trend to an ideological conviction. Serious people living worthwhile lives are getting stuff done, and the best and brightest are using technology to do more faster. The mantra of more faster starts to become a mindset—even a kind of moral code—that perniciously works its way into every domain of modern life. Worst of all, this mindset is insatiable, so it carries its adherents along year after year, well into the second half of life and in so doing delays or even prevents the rest of the journey of becoming fully human.

If you’re learning the same lessons at sixty that you learned at forty, there’s a good chance you overran the finish line of the first half and just kept going. Keeping a more balanced perspective isn’t hard to do, but it is easy to forget. That’s where some well-chosen practices from this book and participating in a supportive formative community can make a world of difference.

During these go-go years of work and possibly family, just remember to design a life that includes regular access to the flow world, that makes room for wonder, and appreciates coherency along the way. You don’t need to dedicate lots of time to these things—just enough to keep your awakened brain awake and celebrate the scandal of particularity.

The second recommendation we have for this first-half stage is to get your compass calibrated and form the habit of living coherently. While the Odyssey Years are the time to start forming your Compass Values, it’s in the thick of these first-half years that your compass gets calibrated against the push and pull of reality in adult life. Now is the time when necessity will very likely demand some compromises be made.

Perhaps creativity is important to you, but the only job you could find in the media world was account management. Is creatively managing your customer relationships and promoting creative media (but not actually making it yourself) good enough, or do you feel you need to find a different job altogether? These aren’t easy questions, but they’re the ones we face in the first half. When they appear, take them head-on and work it through so that you have confidence in your own coherency.

In our work, when someone at the age of thirty-eight or forty-five suddenly looks up and finally admits to themselves they’ve lost their way, exclaiming, “Omigosh! How did I get here?!” it’s usually because they abandoned their compass early on—or never calibrated it in the first place. Having a set of values is easy; applying them coherently in the real world can be harder. Don’t shy away from the task or put it off to next time. Get your compass calibrated and take coherency sightings regularly, especially in your thirties and forties.

This is also a great time to invest in a formative community and to find mentors to help you navigate the tough choices when they arise. Both of us remain deeply grateful to have had great mentors who helped us stay on track when things got confusing during our early careers and young family years.

The Second Half

The second half of life is about moving from self-actualization into self-transcendence—the peak of Maslow’s revised pyramid. This follows the rule, “First we must build the Self, so that we can transcend the Self.” Going back decades if not centuries, much has been written about the second half of life, and never more than as the huge baby boomer generation began entering their sixties and seventies (with Gen X and millennials coming up close behind). If you are entering this phase of life, we encourage you to sample the many books, TED Talks, podcasts, workshops, and articles on the subject and discover what resources are most helpful to you. While this is not a comprehensive treatment, we do want to highlight some of the unique gifts and design opportunities to be found in this stage.

When we’re talking about the second half of adult life, we’re talking about the life that awaits us after a big shift in the human journey of becoming—the shift from role to soul. In Connie Zweig’s lovely book The Inner Work of Age: Shifting from Role to Soul, she describes the special invitation of late life as an opportunity to discover an advanced stage of human development that is hidden in plain sight—the shift from role to soul.

This phrase was coined by spiritual teacher Ram Dass, a Harvard psychologist who returned from India in the 1960s and became a renowned guide and bestselling author. He describes this shift in identity from the active roles that we have fulfilled during our lives to something deeper, something connected to a spiritual essence that has inherent value and does not depend on our productivity, accomplishments, or self-image. Ram Dass calls this spiritual essence loving awareness. Whether we call it soul, Spirit, Higher Self, or God, when we begin to identify with That, we begin to become who we really are. With this next stage of development, we can unearth the treasures of late life.

Not everyone chooses to make this shift, and while it usually happens in one’s fifties, it can start anywhere from thirty-five to eighty-five, depending on the mindset and personality of the individual. The famous psychiatrist and researcher Carl Jung spoke extensively about this change. He called it going from life’s “morning” to life’s “afternoon.”

Thoroughly unprepared, we take the step into the afternoon of life. Worse still, we take this step with the false presupposition that our truths and our ideals will serve us going forward. But we cannot live the afternoon of life according to the program of life’s morning, for what was great in the morning will be little at evening and what in the morning was true, at evening will have become a lie.

Jung suggests that second-half living is different from the first-half living, so the tools and tricks that worked in life’s morning probably won’t work as well in the afternoon of life. Remember philosopher James Carse’s discussion of finite and infinite games—where we play finite games by the rules to win versus playing with the rules in infinite games to get to keep playing.

Using Carse to explain Jung, what we’re saying is that the first half of life is playing a finite game (winning the project of building the container of your life) while the second half of life is an infinite game (staying in the never-ending game of enjoying each particular moment for itself). Going from being an effective finite game player to an artful infinite game player is what the big midlife shift is all about.

That may sound a bit daunting, but if you think on it for a moment, it’s wonderfully encouraging news. Carse and Jung and countless wisdom traditions before them are telling us that the second half of life is a refreshingly new chapter with new gifts to give and new experiences of meaning and purposefulness in store for us. It stands to reason that a new approach is needed to make the most of these new discoveries.

Our first tip: Don’t stumble your way into second-half living. (Skip the midlife crisis.) Stumbling into midlife happens when we have become so preoccupied with first-half living that we ignore the signals that the game is changing. Signals like your body is past its natural peak; you’re the one at work with more answers than questions; your kids are going through puberty; and “winning” or “succeeding” just doesn’t pack the same punch it used to.

When these things start appearing in life, don’t turn a blind eye and just hit the gas to accelerate into your old life. Lean into this new perspective and listen to what your life is starting to tell you.

The secret to doing midlife well is simple—it’s our old designer’s mindset friends: acceptance and availability. If we accept that the second half is coming and make ourselves available to it and open to learn from it, we can make the most of it. If we just try to keep doing what we’ve done before, we’ll get stuck in the first half and find it more and more frustrating. If you keep a little curiosity, wonder, coherence, and community going, you’ll be well positioned to skip the crisis and sail into your second half.

The chief feature of the well-lived second-half life is freedom. With the container-building project of your first-half self largely completed, you are now free to put your attention on other things. You are still involved in the transactional world and probably very busy, but in this stage, you more and more get to pick what you say yes and no to.

If we come to our second-half life with a healthy trust in ourselves and fully accepting the life that we’re in—successes, losses, compromises, joys, and all—our capacity to notice and pay attention to our experience of life in the moment (and not just our progress on our goals) takes a big leap forward. That capacity can become a superpower.

Our second tip: Get good at using your flow world–vision superpower. Like Superman’s superpower of x-ray vision, second-half people have the superpower of flow-world vision…

This is much easier to do in your second-half life because your maturity and wisdom enhance and focus your vision. You can see the flow world much more easily because you have put the transactional world in its place—it isn’t taking up all your attention and awareness. Remember that the flow world is always happening everywhere. Every moment has a flow moment available in it. With this superpower, you experience the reality of the flow world coursing along just below the surface of the transactional world, and you are able to access it anytime you want.

Excerpted from How to Live a Meaningful Life: Using Design Thinking to Unlock Joy, Purpose, and Flow Every Day, by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans. Published by Simon Elements, an Imprint of Simon & Schuster, LLC.

Bill Burnett is a designer, educator, and co-founder of the Stanford Life Design Lab, where he has spent decades helping students and leaders apply design thinking to life’s biggest questions. A longtime Stanford professor and self-described Nietzsche fan, he brings a curiosity-driven, human-centered approach to designing a life of meaning. He is the co-author of Designing Your Life and How to Live a Meaningful Life.

Dave Evans is a Stanford lecturer, entrepreneur, and co-founder of the Stanford Life Design Lab, where he has spent decades helping students and leaders design lives of purpose and coherence. A Christian who “likes Jesus a lot,” he brings together engineering rigor and spiritual reflection in exploring what makes a life meaningful. He is the co-author of Designing Your Life and How to Live a Meaningful Life.

The two discuss what Chip’s learned from building the Modern Elder Academy, where people across generations come together to exchange something our culture often separates: the curiosity of youth and the wisdom of experience.

Chip reflects on the ideas behind his book Learning to Love Midlife, describing why research increasingly shows that life can actually grow richer with age—and why midlife may be less of a crisis than a chrysalis.

He and Rainn talk about mentorship, aging, courage, and what it looks like for generations to learn from one another as we navigate a messy world going through challenging times.

The conversation takes a deeply personal turn when Chip reflects on living with cancer and the question that now guides how he spends his time:

“Ten years from now, what will I regret if I don’t do it now?”

That’s a question we’d all do well to return to—often.

Check it out and share your thoughts. We’d love to hear how you’re navigating this moment—whatever season of life you’re in.

Today’s episode is a joyful one. Rainn sits down with comedian, writer, and world-traveler Zach Anner, who has alchemized the challenges of living with cerebral palsy into a resilience and outlook on life that is equal parts hilarious, disarming, and deeply wise.

Together Zach and Rainn explore disability, awkwardness, faith, embarrassment, and what happens when we stop worrying about saying the wrong thing and simply show up for one another as human beings.

Zach has a simple philosophy for navigating life: “See a person and be a person.”

We love it — it says so much, so simply. At the heart of Soul Boom is a longing to center our shared humanity.

But seeing people clearly doesn’t only matter in our personal lives. It matters in how we see whole nations, cultures, and histories. Too often, countries like Haiti are reduced to headlines or stereotypes rather than understood through the long human stories that shaped them.

Last week we shared a brief spotlight on The Forgotten Occupation: Jim Crow Goes to Haiti, a powerful new documentary from filmmaker Alain Martin. This week, we’re honored to share an essay from Alain himself—reflecting on the deeply personal journey behind the film and why reclaiming Haiti’s history is so essential to reclaiming dignity, identity, and truth.

Because sometimes the most powerful act of seeing a person—is seeing a people.

The Forgotten Occupation: Jim Crow Goes Haiti

by Alain Martin

The release of The Forgotten Occupation: Jim Crow Goes to Haiti,comes at a moment when the United States is once again projecting political and military power into the Caribbean. Strikes on boats at sea, regime change efforts in Venezuela, intensified embargoes on Cuba, and even symbolic gestures like renaming bodies of water are part of a renewed drive to assert American influence in the region. At the turn of the last century, as the United States was rising as a global power, it announced itself by intervening in the politics of its neighbors—what we now call gunboat diplomacy, dollar diplomacy, and the Good Neighbor Policy, all variations on a project of political and economic domination in the Caribbean and Latin America. In 1915, Haiti was pulled into the crosshairs of this project when U.S. Marines landed in Port-au-Prince and began a 19-year occupation. In 1919, as President Woodrow Wilson spoke about the rights of small nations to self-govern, occupation forces in Haiti were undermining Haitian sovereignty in the name of spreading democracy. The Haitian 20^th century, defined by dictatorship, mass emigration, and economic depravity, is a direct consequence of this occupation.

With a push from a film professor, and my own desire to really understand the history of my culture, I set out on a 12-year journey developing The Forgotten Occupation and returning to the beginning to try to explain the present.

While the documentary is about occupation, it is also, at its core, a conversation between myself and my grandfather who was so instrumental in my life and upbringing. In order to find a way to bring the archival imagery and the shared memory of my people to life, I found a way in by writing a posthumous letter to my late grandfather Brunel who was a gifted storyteller and was tremendously instrumental in my life. Brunel was a fierce nationalist who loved the United States, who believed deeply in the American ideal and in the supposed benevolence of its mission to spread democracy. Looking at Haiti’s troubles in the late 20th century, he was convinced that only the strong, “benevolent” hand of the United States could shape Haiti into the prosperous nation he longed for. The film moves within the tension that the occupation he might have welcomed is a major reason Haiti was left in the very condition he found so deplorable.

Brunel never spoke to me about the U.S. occupation that lasted 19 years, the very period in which he was born and came of age. For many Haitians, that occupation lives in memory as a bloody usurpation of the sovereignty our ancestors won when they ended slavery and expelled French colonizers in 1804. In the film, I try to take up my grandfather’s mantle as a storyteller and gently fill that silence. Through this letter, I walk him – and viewers – through the events, brutalities, betrayals, and long‑term implications of an occupation that has too often been pushed to the margins of history.

For me, making this film was an intensely personal process. I imagined, researched, shot, and shaped this documentary as an act of grief and love. The grief came as I pieced together archival records, testimonies, and the scars still visible in Haiti’s institutions, seeing how profoundly this occupation continues to shape our present. Today, Haiti faces a gang crisis, political instability, and an economy that struggles to offer a dignified life to most Haitians. I don’t believe any of this can be understood apart from a century‑old decision by a powerful neighbor to occupy, extract, and rewrite our destiny. For me, the occupation is not distant history; it is the ghost in almost every headline.

The project was also a labor of love. I wanted to make something Haitians could watch and say, “This is our story, told with care and rigor, in our voice.” Our occupation was not televised. I took on this project in the name of my people, for our collective memory, and as a humble act of hope.

By putting this story into the world, I hope to do two things. First, I want to give Haitian people across the globe tools to understand themselves. When we know what was done to us, we can begin to address it and organize around it. When we recognize our suffering as the predictable outcome of specific policies and violences—not evidence of some imagined inferiority—that clarity can strengthen our sense of identity and restore dignity to those who have carried shame.

Second, I hope the wider world can learn to see Haiti differently. Not as “the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere,” perpetually in crisis, but as a nation that dared to become the first Black republic and has been punished ever since. Not as a cautionary tale, but as a mirror in which other countries might examine their own stories about freedom, race, and empire. Even when hope feels naïve, I believe that by reclaiming our history, we can help preserve our culture. I hope that by educating others about Haiti, we can slowly shift how they speak about us, write about us, and stand with us. And I hope that my grandfather, wherever he is, can somehow hear this letter and know that his grandson chose a different kind of movie—one in which Haiti is not a backdrop for someone else’s heroism, but the beating heart of the story.

Alain Martin is the director The Forgotten Occupation: Jim Crow Goes to Haiti. Executive produced by New York Times bestselling author Roxane Gay (Bad Feminist), the film revisits the U.S. occupation of Haiti (1915–1934) and traces its lasting impact through a deeply personal lens. The Forgotten Occupation is now available worldwide to rent or purchase on Apple TV, Amazon, Google Play, YouTube Movies, kweliTV, Gathr, and Vimeo On Demand, with educational access via Kanopy. We encourage you to check it out.