The New Story Is with Dave Ursillo

Play is essential for healthy human growth and development. But despite the benefits, many adults lose their sense of play. Why?Gary Ware is a Strategic Play Consultant, corporate facilitator, keynote speaker, certified coach, and author who helps individuals and teams integrate play into their daily business. He was featured as one of the Top 100 HR influencers of 2021 by the Engagedly HR software platform, and is the author of the book, Playful Rebellion: Maximize Workplace Success Through The Power of Play.After 14 years in the corporate world, Gary’s experience with burnout led him to discover that his life, and his work, were missing play. With benefits ranging from improved mood, increased creativity, more self-confidence, and psychological trust, today, Gary uses the power of applied improvisation and other playful methods to help teams and organizations discover the benefits of play.In this interview, Gary shares his discoveries and experiences in teaching the power of play, including:How play creates, and preserves, crucial levels of psychological safety, especially in the workplaceThe neurochemical benefits of play on productivity, mood, and building interpersonal trustWhat a society that values play could look like—and how we can each get startedWant to get in touch? Leave us a voicemail Support our partners and affiliates for exclusive discounts:Fathom Analytics: Get beautiful, secure website data without trading your customers’ private browsing data to Google and FacebookFlywheel: Seamless WordPress website hosting on US-based serversHover: Register domains with ease. Save $2 on your first purchaseMailerLite: A lite, powerful, affordable email marketing platform with premium plans starting at just $9/mo.Sanebox: Take back your inbox with machine learning to automatically organize your emails. Save $5 when you join.Trint: Turn recordings of meetings, calls, and interviews into transcripts with 99% accuracy.Affiliate Disclosure: Our show is listener supported through affiliate and partner links. By clicking one of the above links and registering or making a purchase, we may earn a small commission, which helps pay for the costs of our show.

A car accident at age 11 left Brooke Ellison paralyzed from the neck down and ventilator-dependent. When, at 21, she graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University with a degree in cognitive neuroscience—the first student with quadriplegia to do so—she received international praise and attention. Her first book, Miracles Happen (2002), was adapted into The Brooke Ellison Story, a movie directed by the late actor, director, and activist, Christopher Reeve. Today, Brooke's latest memoir, Look Both Ways, returns to the story of her life through the lens of personal struggle, public policy, sociology, the future of disability rights, and what it means to be human. She shares what it has meant to be a person living with a disability for the last 31 years, and affirms that our society, as a whole, has so much to gain from a world in which those with disabilities are integrated into decision-making processes, public policy, and how physical spaces are designed.In our conversation, Brooke and Dave discuss:The feeling of "feigned praise and condescension" when called "an inspiration," despite well-meaning intentionsHow perceiving inabilities of disabled persons result from "social construction," not reality What is the real, hard work of supporting those with disabilities—in a society built against them?Brooke Ellison, Ph.D. is an associate professor of health policy and medical ethics at Stony Brook University. She is a policy and ethics expert in stem cell research and has served on the Empire State Stem Cell Board, which designed New York’s stem cell policy. She is on the Board of Directors of the NY Civil Liberties Union and the Suffolk County Human Rights Commission.Please rate and review our show on Apple Podcasts and Spotify to help other listeners find our work!Want to get in touch? Leave us a voicemailSupport our partners and affiliates for exclusive discounts:Fathom Analytics: Get beautiful, secure website data without trading your customers’ private browsing data to Google and FacebookFlywheel: Seamless WordPress website hosting on US-based serversHover: Register domains with ease. Save $2 on your first purchaseMailerLite: A lite, powerful, affordable email marketing platform with premium plans starting at just $9/mo.Sanebox: Take back your inbox with machine learning to automatically organize your emails. Save $5 when you join.Trint: Turn recordings of meetings, calls, and interviews into transcripts with 99% accuracy.Affiliate Disclosure: Our show is listener supported through affiliate and partner links. By clicking one of the above links and registering or making a purchase, we may earn a small commission, which helps pay for the costs of our show.

Content warning: This episode discusses violent crime including homicide, the criminal justice system, natural disasters, racism, and police brutality against unarmed Black civilians.For 14 years, Jared Fishman served as a U.S. Department of Justice prosecutor, where he led some of America’s most complex and high-profile civil rights prosecutions involving police misconduct, hate crimes, and human trafficking. He joins us to tell the true, behind-the-scenes story of his investigation of the murder of Henry Glover, an unarmed 31-year-old Black man, who was gunned down by a White police officer in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, which he chronicles in his book, Fire On The Levee: The Murder Of Henry Glover And The Search For Justice After Hurricane Katrina.In this interview, we discuss:Jared's years-long battle to hold the New Orleans Police Department accountable for police abusesThe systemic failures at the root of one of the most egregious, shocking cases of police abuse in recent historyHow one case of police abuse pushed Jared to leave Federal prosecution, altogether, and try to look for new solutionsHow prosecutors, Attorneys General, and judges can help our broken justice system—without waiting for politicians to pass legislationJared Fishman is the founder and Executive Director of Justice Innovation Lab, an organization that designs data-informed solutions for a more equitable and effective justice system. He also serves as adjunct faculty at the George Washington University Law School and at Georgetown University.Want to get in touch? Leave us a voicemailSupport our partners and affiliates for exclusive discounts:Fathom Analytics: Get beautiful, secure website data without trading your customers’ private browsing data to Google and FacebookFlywheel: Seamless WordPress website hosting on US-based serversHover: Register domains with ease. Save $2 on your first purchaseMailerLite: A lite, powerful, affordable email marketing platform with premium plans starting at just $9/mo.Sanebox: Take back your inbox with machine learning to automatically organize your emails. Save $5 when you join.Trint: Turn recordings of meetings, calls, and interviews into transcripts with 99% accuracy.Affiliate Disclosure: Our show is listener supported through affiliate and partner links. By clicking one of the above links and registering or making a purchase, we may earn a small commission, which helps pay for the costs of our show.

The World Economic Forum says that we are 151 years away from achieving gender equity at work. Our guest says that gender equity is achievable in this lifetime.Katica Roy is a gender economist and the founder and CEO of Pipeline Equity, an award-winning analytical platform designed to help organizations improve their equity and inclusivity efforts, beyond the talk, and with real action. As the daughter of an immigrant and a refugee, Katica is driven by a passion to eradicate economic inequality and championing the rights of refugees, women, and children. In this interview, Katica explains how gender equity differs from gender equality, and illustrates how framing gender equity as an economic issue, not a moral one, makes equity and inclusivity efforts nonnegotiable. She calls gender equity "a $2 trillion economic opportunity" and strives to establish data and research-based arguments to generate bipartisan, inclusive buy-in and systemic change to address equity issues in modern America.We answer questions like:What are the implications of women being paid less, taxed more, and holding greater student loan debt?How does gender equity impact men's mental health and the education of boys in 2022?What new stories could propel gender equity public policy in the coming years, and how can we help them?Katica is a former Global 500 global executive, programmer, data scientist, and a regular contributor to CNN, CBS, Bloomberg, Cheddar, MarketWatch, and Yahoo Finance Her advocacy and education have made her a LinkedIn Top Influencer for gender equity in 2022. She is also a member of Fast Company’s Impact Council and Bloomberg’s New Economy Forum.Please rate and review our show on Apple Podcasts and Spotify to help other listeners find our work!Want to get in touch? Leave us a voicemailSupport our partners and affiliates for exclusive discounts:Fathom Analytics: Get beautiful, secure website data without trading your customers’ private browsing data to Google and FacebookFlywheel: Seamless WordPress website hosting on US-based serversHover: Register domains with ease. Save $2 on your first purchaseMailerLite: A lite, powerful, affordable email marketing platform with premium plans starting at just $9/mo.Sanebox: Take back your inbox with machine learning to automatically organize your emails. Save $5 when you join.Trint: Turn recordings of meetings, calls, and interviews into transcripts with 99% accuracy.Affiliate Disclosure: Our show is listener supported through affiliate and partner links. By clicking one of the above links and registering or making a purchase, we may earn a small commission, which helps pay for the costs of our show.

In the United States, the month of May is Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Heritage Month. To celebrate AAPI heritage, we're resharing two past guests who identify as AAPI and who shared personal stories on navigating cultures and belonging—and how those influences have shaped them, their missions, and their work in the world.Dr. Han Ren is a licensed clinical psychologist and educator based in Austin, Texas, who joined us last October to discuss what it means to decolonize mental health. Listen to the full interview here.Cher Hale is the founder and director of Ginkgo PR, a public relations firm that helps historically-excluded authors, entrepreneurs, and leaders take back narratives that have traditionally been told for them, not by them, in the media. She joined us in March. Listen to the full interview here.Please rate and review our show on Apple Podcasts and Spotify to help other listeners find our work!Want to get in touch? Leave us a voicemail Support our partners and affiliates for exclusive discounts:Fathom Analytics: Get beautiful, secure website data without trading your customers’ private browsing data to Google and FacebookFlywheel: Seamless WordPress website hosting on US-based serversHover: Register domains with ease. Save $2 on your first purchaseMailerLite: A lite, powerful, affordable email marketing platform with premium plans starting at just $9/mo.Sanebox: Take back your inbox with machine learning to automatically organize your emails. Save $5 when you join.Trint: Turn recordings of meetings, calls, and interviews into transcripts with 99% accuracy.Affiliate Disclosure: Our show is listener supported through affiliate and partner links. By clicking one of the above links and registering or making a purchase, we may earn a small commission, which helps pay for the costs of our show.

Content warning: This episode contains brief mentions of sexual, physical, and emotional violence involving children, childhood abuse, sexual abuse of a child, bullying, and substance use.For most of his life, Michael Baldwin was haunted by curious phobias, recurring nightmares, interpersonal relationship issues, and sudden anxieties so distressing that he would turn to substance use for relief. One day, a therapist suggested that he was suffering from the effects of trauma. He introduced Michael to EMDR, or Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing. Everything began to change.Michael Baldwin and Deborah L. Korn are the authors of Every Memory Deserves Respect, which tells Michael’s story as a trauma survivor and shares Deborah's clinical knowledge and expertise on what trauma is, how it affects the brain, and how EMDR therapy has been proven to help people recover from the effects of trauma with over 30 years of research and evidence.Deborah L. Korn is a clinical psychologist and consultant, teacher, and researcher who presents and consults internationally on the treatment of adult survivors of childhood abuse and neglect. She is on the faculty of the EMDR Institute in California and the Trauma Research Foundation in Boston. She currently serves on the editorial board of the Journal of EMDR Practice and Research.In this special episode, we ask, "Could EMDR therapy become the 'new story' of trauma survivorship for the nearly 70% of the population who suffer from the effects of traumatic experiences?"Find an EMDR therapist at EMDR International Association.Please rate and review our show on Apple Podcasts and Spotify to help other listeners find our work!Support our partners and affiliates for exclusive discounts:Fathom Analytics: Get beautiful, secure website data without trading your customers’ private browsing data to Google and FacebookFlywheel: Seamless WordPress website hosting on US-based serversHover: Register domains with ease. Save $2 on your first purchaseMailerLite: A lite, powerful, affordable email marketing platform with premium plans starting at just $9/mo.Sanebox: Take back your inbox with machine learning to automatically organize your emails. Save $5 when you join.Trint: Turn recordings of meetings, calls, and interviews into transcripts with 99% accuracy.Affiliate Disclosure: Our show is listener supported through affiliate and partner links. By clicking one of the above links and registering or making a purchase, we may earn a small commission, which helps pay for the costs of our show.

Physical touch is crucial for healthy human development. Safe touch may be a key to living whole and well in our lifetimes. But what happens to those in our society who have been deprived of touch and conditioned against intimacy and connection?Aaron Johnson (he/him) is a facilitator, public speaker, and touch specialist who says touch can help dismantle systems of oppression and racism. As the co-founder of Holistic Resistance and Grief to Action, two black-led organizations and movements, Aaron's work holds the trauma stories of Black people and strives to make touch a radical action to interrupt oppressive systems in modern American society. He is a graduate of the California Institute of the Arts and blends teaching, singing, photography, filmmaking, minimalism, and more to create intimate experiences of creativity to transcend oppressive forces.In this interview, Aaron shares how touch facilitates a holistic connection with nature, ourselves, and one another. He says that being creative in our healing journeys is an antidote to oppressive forces, from internalized oppression to forceful repression in modern American society.Aaron is also the creator of the Chronically UnderTouched (CUT) Project, an initiative to support Black men and People of the Global Majority—people of color—to access healthy, nourishing, platonic touch in a culture in the United States that denies access to touch.Please rate and review our show on Apple Podcasts and Spotify to help other listeners find our work!Questions? Comments? Leave us a voicemail.Support our partners and affiliates for exclusive discounts:Fathom Analytics: Get beautiful, secure website data without trading your customers’ private browsing data to Google and FacebookFlywheel: Seamless WordPress website hosting on US-based serversHover: Register domains with ease. Save $2 on your first purchaseMailerLite: A lite, powerful, affordable email marketing platform with premium plans starting at just $9/mo.Sanebox: Take back your inbox with machine learning to automatically organize your emails. Save $5 when you join.Trint: Turn recordings of meetings, calls, and interviews into transcripts with 99% accuracy.Affiliate Disclosure: Our show is listener supported through affiliate and partner links. By clicking one of the above links and registering or making a purchase, we may earn a small commission, which helps pay for the costs of our show.

In a patriarchal, misogynistic society, the stigmas and stereotypes that are weaponized against women create an insidious pattern of internalized oppression: those who are marginalized are gaslighted into thinking that they, themselves, are to blame.What does that cost women?We're joined by Sasha Cagen, an author, coach, and teacher whose life work subverts some of the more restrictive, diminishing cultural expectations placed upon women, womanhood, and expressions of femininity in our time. Once a Silicon Valley social media startup founder, Sasha has become a champion of feminist empowerment methodologies, especially for women over 40, who feel restricted or held back by social norms, cultural pressures, and expectations that are minimizing of a full and whole life experience.She espouses counter-cultural concepts and practices like “self-marriage” while coining witty and memorable catchphrases like “quirkyalone” and even “pussywalking,” which have rightfully garnered global attention over her career from outlets like CNN, the New York Times, BBC, Vogue, and beyond.Sasha is the author of the 2004 cult-favorite book, Quirkyalone: A Manifesto for Uncompromising Romantics, which espouses a philosophy of not settling in life, or in love. Stream our curated podcast playlist on Spotify!Please rate and review our show to help other listeners find our work.Support our partners and affiliates for exclusive discounts:Bookshop.org: Buy cheap books and support local, independent bookstores with every purchaseFathom Analytics: Get beautiful, secure website data without trading your customers’ private browsing data to Google and FacebookFlywheel: Seamless WordPress website hosting on US-based serversHover: Register domains with ease. Save $2 on your first purchaseMailerLite: A lite, powerful, affordable email marketing platform with premium plans starting at just $9/mo.Sanebox: Take back your inbox with machine learning to automatically organize your emails. Save $5 when you join.Trint: Turn recordings of meetings, calls, and interviews into transcripts with 99% accuracy.Affiliate Disclosure: Our show is listener supported through affiliate and partner links. By clicking one of the above links and registering or making a purchase, we may earn a small commission, which helps pay for the costs of our show.

In this solo-pod episode, host Dave Ursillo breaks down some of the big — and daunting! — ideas that emerged in our last interview with best-selling author and thought leader Margaret Wheatley. Dave editorializes an overview of his understanding of a philosophical concept called The Three Stories of Our Time, which was created by ecologist, philosopher, and author Joanna Macy in her book Active Hope (revised): How to Face the Mess We’re in with Unexpected Resilience and Creative Power (2022).Listen back to our recent interview with Margaret Wheatley on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or at TheNewStory.Is.Pre-order the updated second edition of Who Do We Choose To Be? Facing Reality, Claiming Leadership, Restoring Sanity (June 6, 2023)Also mentioned in this episode: Dr. Irvin Yalom and his 2013 book, Love's Executioner.Stream our curated podcast playlist on Spotify!Please rate and review our show to help other listeners find our work.Support our partners and affiliates for exclusive discounts:Bookshop.org: Buy cheap books and support local, independent bookstores with every purchaseFathom Analytics: Get beautiful, secure website data without trading your customers’ private browsing data to Google and FacebookFlywheel: Seamless WordPress website hosting on US-based serversHover: Register domains with ease. Save $2 on your first purchaseMailerLite: A lite, powerful, affordable email marketing platform with premium plans starting at just $9/mo.Sanebox: Take back your inbox with machine learning to automatically organize your emails. Save $5 when you join.Trint: Turn recordings of meetings, calls, and interviews into transcripts with 99% accuracy.Affiliate Disclosure: Our show is listener supported through affiliate and partner links. By clicking one of the above links and registering or making a purchase, we may earn a small commission, which helps pay for the costs of our show.