five nuclear powers. She founded the Oxford Research Group, Peace Direct, and co-founded 'Rising Women, Rising World' and FemmeQ, and was nominated three times for the Nobel Peace Prize. She is interviewed here about her latest book, "The Business Plan for Peace: Building a World without War." In it, she points out that while 1,686 billion dollars is spent on militarization every year, it would only cost two billion dollars to put into action methodologies that are known to work to prevent war and armed conflict worldwide. What follows is the edited transcript of an Awakin Call interview with Scilla Elworthy. You can listen to the full recording here.  Aryae ... posted on Feb 15 2019 (7,938 reads)

you'll have that experience today.  Sujatha is the Director of the Restorative Justice Project at the National Council on Crime and Delinquency in Oakland, where she helps communities implement restorative justice alternatives to juvenile detention and zero tolerance school discipline policies. She's also specifically dedicated to advancing restorative justice as a tool to end child sexual abuse and inter-familial sexualized violence in the US as well as South Asia. Her work is characterized by an equal dedication to victims and persons accused of crimes. She's a former public defender herself and also a victim advocate, and she's been a frequent guest lectur... posted on Jan 27 2015 (45,124 reads)

out of looking forward to pleasures and rushing ahead to meet them that we can’t slow down enough to enjoy them when they come,”Alan Watts observed in 1970, aptly declaring us “a civilization which suffers from chronic disappointment.” Two millennia earlier, Aristotle asserted: “This is the main question, with what activity one’s leisure is filled.” Today, in our culture of productivity-fetishism, we have succumbed to the tyrannical notion of “work/life balance” and have come to see the very notion of “leisure” not as essential to the human spirit but as self-indulgent luxury reserved for the privileged or deplorable idlen... posted on Oct 15 2015 (11,360 reads)

a 30-part series that aired in the fall—called Waking Up in the World—that looked at the intersection of the spiritual journey and social change. One of my very favorite presentations from that series was with CNN host and bestselling author Van Jones. Quite honestly, Van Jones blew my mind when he talked about breaking out of our "resistance bubble"—our kale-eating and Prius-driving subculture; a subculture that many people I know live in—and instead working to find common ground with those that have different viewpoints from our own. I can't think of a more important and timely interview—one that I want to be heard far and wide—th... posted on Mar 5 2019 (8,654 reads)

to remind me of the amazing people I'd met in Australia. When I was in Sydney, I was with the folks that ran the National Student Leadership Forum on Faith and Values.  They told me the story of these guys that wanted to do something good for their country.  They used the idea of the Pay It Forward model which had been made popular in the Kevin Spacey movie and Catherine Ryan Hyde’s book.  They took college-age students around the coast of Australia to do service work and tell stories of their service journeys. When I got to the University of Minnesota, four of us sat up late, eating Top Ramen and Easy Mac.  We said,  “Hey we should chan... posted on Jan 2 2019 (3,365 reads)

tools to communities in need, including at-risk youth, prisoners, veterans, and those in developing countries. If you'd like to learn more, or feel inspired to become a supporter, please visit SoundsTrueFoundation.org. You're listening to Insights at the Edge. Today my guest is Frederic Laloux. Frederic is originally from Belgium, and is a former associate partner with McKinsey and Company and holds an MBA from INSEAD and a degree in coaching from the Newfield Network. Frederic's book, Reinventing Organizations: A Guide to Creating Organizations Inspired by the Next Stage in Human Consciousness has sold upwards of 400,000 copies self-published, a... posted on May 13 2019 (7,831 reads)

you happy? Could you be happier? Gretchen Rubin was already "pretty happy" when she asked herself these very questions. In search of the answers, she started her own pursuit of happiness, which eventually became a New York Times bestseller titled, The Happiness Project. She has now written a second book, Happier at Home, based on the idea that the home is the foundation of happiness. Knowledge@Wharton recently spoke with Rubin about why happy people work more hours each week, how to make and keep happiness resolutions, how to ward off the three happiness leeches and how to start your own Happiness Project. An edited version of the transcript appears below. Knowled... posted on Aug 13 2013 (24,296 reads)

unconventional studies have long suggested what neuroscience is now revealing: Our experiences are formed by the words and ideas we attach to them. Naming something play rather than work — or exercise rather than labor — can mean the difference between delight and drudgery, fatigue or weight loss. What makes a vacation a vacation is not only a change of scenery, but the fact that we let go of the mindless everyday illusion that we are in control. Ellen Langer says mindfulness is achievable without meditation or yoga. She defines it as “the simple act of actively noticing things.” What follows is the transcript of an On Being interview between ... posted on Apr 2 2018 (17,721 reads)

Ware is an author and speaker whose bestselling book, The Top Five Regrets of the Dying, is based on her time as a palliative care worker. In this episode of Insights at the Edge, Bronnie outlines these five major life regrets with Tami Simon and discusses the experiences in end-of-life care that inspired them. Bronnie explains how most regrets arise from a lack of courage and why people are willing to share so openly during their last days. Tami and Bronnie speak on the healing power of sharing our most vulnerable selves, even if it's in a letter that we never send. Finally, they talk about maintaining trust in the flow of life and why happiness is ultimately a choice. Tuesda... posted on Aug 12 2019 (13,620 reads)

cooked, stories shared in their house down the road from Port Royal, Kentucky. And lots of flowers, because beauty matters, she reminds me, in a house full of paintings, fabric and stitching, and photographs. “It’s an important thing that’s left out of most people’s lives.” That’s the home Tanya Berry has made, in a rural community that endures—at least for now—because of people like her. Over those years, she has honed skills in farm work and the domestic arts, while serving as perhaps the most important fiction editor almost no one has heard of, married to one of the most important American writers almost everyone knows. All t... posted on Nov 24 2021 (6,236 reads)

your job seem dull and meaningless? Morten Hansen and Dacher Keltner point the way out. Do you experience meaning at work—or just emptiness? In the United States people spend on average 35-40 hours working every week. That’s some 80,000 hours during a career—more time than you will spend with your kids, probably. Beyond the paycheck, what does work give you? Few questions could be more important. It is sad to walk through life and experience work as empty, dreadful, a chore—sapping energy out of your body and soul. Yet many employees do, as evidenced by one large-scale study showing that only 31 percent of employees felt engaged with their work. ... posted on Dec 30 2013 (38,125 reads)

following is the audio and transcript of an onbeing.org interview between Krista Tippett and Ellen Langer. ELLEN LANGER: We have these categories, work, life, and we have brains, brawn, so on. All the different distinctions that we make. We make them mindfully, and then we start to use them mindlessly, forgetting that when we’re at work, we’re people. We have the same needs we had when we were on vacation. And you should get to the point where you’re treating yourself whether you’re at work or at play in basically the same way. [music: “Seven League Boots” by Zoe Keating] KRISTA TIPPETT, HOST: Ellen Langer is a social psychologist wh... posted on Mar 28 2016 (26,608 reads)

Program, helping those released from the criminal justice system re-integrate back to society and succeed at furthering their education. The Transitions program won The John G. Rice Award for Diversity and Equity in 2012. Leyva is the author of “From Corrections to College: The Value of a Convict’s Voice.” He has spoken at universities and criminal justice conferences throughout California. I met Leyva at a fundraiser for AHA! and was struck by how much he loved his work. I asked him if he would talk to The MOON about “The Best Job in the World.”                              ... posted on Sep 3 2016 (13,961 reads)

trick to being happy with your job doesn’t necessarily lie in earning more money. We all spend a large part of our lives at our jobs. Yet how many of us are bored or frustrated at work, whether unhappy with our company’s goals, stressed from overwork, or dealing with toxic coworkers? Don’t we deserve better than that? The new book How to Be Happy at Work makes the case that, yes, we do, and happiness at work should be our ultimate goal. Written by Annie McKee—an international business advisor and senior fellow at the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education—the book provides ideas for how to turn your job into a source ... posted on Apr 28 2018 (59,879 reads)

I was 6 years old, I began to go for an hour every day, before school had started, to work with a speech therapist who taught me to put my hand on her throat, and my throat, and then focus on matching her vibration as she would make a sound, because I had to learn how to talk. One of the things I noted right away was that when we matched vibration, I became really connected with her. It was a feeling of connection in my heart, a feeling of love that I would feel for her in those moments." Myron Eshowsky is a shamanic healer, mediator, consultant and author who was born with congenital severe hearing loss that he learnt to adapt into a skill for deep listening. He serves curre... posted on Oct 8 2018 (9,963 reads)

this year, we had the privilege of hosting a beautiful Awakin Call with Maya Soetoro-Ng, where we heard about her speak about a wide range of topics: from her expansive view of the role each of us can play in building peace, to how the Presidency of her brother, Barack Obama, as well as the divisive aftermath of the past several years, both transformed and reinforced her vision of the work of building peace. By way of brief background, Dr. Maya Soetoro-Ng, a peace educator consulting for the Obama Foundation, was director of the Institute for Peace and Conflict Resolution at the University of Hawaii. Her brother is former US President and Nobel Peace Prize winner Barack Obama... posted on Feb 24 2019 (6,090 reads)

so much knowledge there that we’ve ignored." In this in-depth interview, Dr. Suzanne Simard—the renowned scientist who discovered the “wood-wide web”—speaks about mother trees, kin recognition, and how to heal our separation from the living world. Transcript Emergence Magazine You’ve described your work as an exploration of how we can regain our respect for the wisdom and intelligence of the forest and, through that, help to heal our relationship with nature. And over the course of your career, ... posted on Aug 16 2021 (7,489 reads)

the realms of both conventional medicine, and what we might call alternative healing, and in ancient wisdom traditions, and modern spiritual practices. I first met Lissa about 10 years ago in the living room of a mutual and very dear mentor and friend, Dr. Rachel Naomi Remen, who has been a true pioneer and inspiration for an integrative health movement, someone who has widened the path that Lissa and I have walked. I just wanna take this moment to recognize her and all those who have done work in healing the earth, healing ourselves, expanding science, spreading wisdom and love on all sides of the bedside, so to speak, because we're really all learning and growing and healing toget... posted on Aug 28 2023 (3,815 reads)

Means Relying on Everyone's Creativity Leader to Leader, Spring 2001 Innovation has always been a primary challenge of leadership. Today we live in an era of such rapid change and evolution that leaders must work constantly to develop the capacity for continuous change and frequent adaptation, while ensuring that identity and values remain constant. They must recognize people's innate capacity to adapt and create-to innovate. In my own work I am always constantly and happily surprised by how impossible it is to extinguish the human spirit. People who had been given up for dead in their organizations, once conditions change and they ... posted on Feb 26 2018 (12,379 reads)

louder. This new voice urged him to connect with the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, where he became intimately acquainted with the Native American inhabitants. What happened next, was a deep relationship with a community silenced by injustice. This caused Kevin to evolve a new voice that changed his life and his style of leadership forever.   “Strengthen the voices of others; practice restraint; learn the ways of shared leadership through nature; take care of your employees; work should enhance the evolution of the soul.” Kevin shares these principles and more in this interview. He offers us ways to illuminate the authentic voices in all beings, as we create wor... posted on Nov 6 2018 (6,056 reads)