Beautiful Voyager

Obi is offering our podcast listeners a special discount! Find a trained peer supporter on peers.net who understands exactly what you're going through, then use code "BEVOYA" to book up to 4 FREE SESSIONS and share it with any teen or young adult in your life who could benefit from some extra support.

A bit about this episode: I've been wanting to speak with Obi Felten on this podcast for years because of her unique blend of product incubation experience (she was the first non-engineering member of the team behind Google's Moonshot factory) and her passion for mental health innovation. Since I also am a non-engineer working at an innovation lab with a passion for mental health, Obi seemed like someone I needed to know.

Obi is the founder and CEO of Peers.net, a telehealth platform where anyone between the ages of 13 and 30 can book 1:1 sessions with a peer supporter of their choice within 24 hours. To experience how powerful it is to talk to someone who has actually been in your shoes, just visit peers.net and pick a supporter that feels right to you.

This conversation traces Obi's career arc along with the personal experiences that led her to found Flourish Labs, a startup focused on elevating professional peer support (a new concept to many) using the tool of technology. We talk about the power of this kind of peer support, especially for people who are just learning to accept their mental health challenges or people who are transitioning out from in-patient care, etc. We discuss what is currently known in the world of mental health treatment, and what the future might look like. Good stuff.

Train to become a peer supporter or sign up for peer support using the code "bevoya" for a discount!

Megan Cornish is a former social worker and writer who's been tackling big questions about how mental health is discussed on Linkedin. That's where she caught my eye: I loved her authentic, honest voice and risk-taking in what tends to be a pretty stuffy and status-quo environment. I felt like Megan was wrestling with the same kinds of things I was about the "industry" of mental health. So when she wrote a list of the companies and people who intrigued her and included me on that list, I wrote back and said I would love to get to know her more in my favorite way — on a podcast conversation.

Here we dig into the world of wellness products, the role of faith and spirituality in Megan's own mental health journey, going "dry" on social media for January, and much more.

To learn more about Megan, check out: The Therapy Trust Collective and Megan's site.

Ximena Vengoechea is a user researcher, writer, illustrator, and the author of the new book, Rest Easy: Discover Calm and Abundance through the Radical Power of Rest. In this conversation, we dig into what rest really means and why it's not just napping, for example. We talk about her path to writing and her first book, Listen Like You Mean it: Reclaiming the Lost Art of True Connection. 

Ximena has worked at Pinterest, Linkedin, and Twitter. She's also a contributor at Fast Company and writes a newsletter, Letters from Ximena. I really loved hearing some of Ximena's insights about a perfectionist's journey to rest. There's something in here for all overthinkers.

Kevin Kelly is best known for co-founding the award-winning Wired magazine  in 1993, but his work spans widely beyond that. He's the founder of the Cool Tools website and podcast (which I've appeared on in the past!), which has been reviewing tools daily for 20 years. He also puts out the Recomendo newsletter with Claudia Dawson, who has also appeared on this podcast. He's the co-chair of The Long Now Foundation, a membership organization that champions long-term thinking. And he's written multiple best-selling books about the future of technology. 

I wanted to sit down and talk to Kevin about his newest book, Excellent Advice for Living, but our conversation spanned many topics, and at the end Kevin gave me some great advice for myself, too, which I will cherish. Thank you Kevin!

B Dukes is so many things. A queer, non-binary filmmaker, a photographer, an activist, a student, and a healer. They tell the incredible story of their journey from a child in the backwoods of South Carolina to the world of Silicon tech...with many stops in between.

We talk about what ancestral healing means, the fascinating world of psychedelics being used to address trauma, and B's travel around the globe to understand new ways of connecting with our "shadow selves." This is the first part of a multi-part episode, with the next episode coming after B's research trip to Ecuador next month. Learn with me, then become as big of a fan of B as I am.

Check out
B's vision: https://www.wtfwth.com/
B's book: https://www.amazon.com/Truth-Behind-Empty-Pen/dp/1621472566
B's work with Freedom Community Clinic lead by Bernadette Lim: https://www.freedomcommunityclinic.org/
Follow B on Twitter: https://twitter.com/bdukesthetruth

Dr. Zorana Ivcevic Pringle, Ph.D., is a Senior Research Scientist and Director of the Creativity and Emotions lab at the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence. Born in Croatia, Zorana shares cultural perceptions of creativity. Her research centers on the role of emotions in creative work. Zorana and I were lucky enough to get to work together on the How We Feel app, out now and free to all. I've learned so much about the role of creativity in my own life from Zorana and think you will too! Follow Zorana on Twitter for her latest work. 

Jeffrey Sparr is a father, husband, mental health advocate, teacher, and nonprofit founder who used his early experiences with OCD to fuel his life as a self-taught artist. In this conversation, Jeffrey and I talk about what he's learned from helping people use creativity as a means of self-expression and what an unlikely candidate he was for this kind of work.

Through PeaceLove Foundation  and in partnership with Hasbro and Amazon, Jeffrey's working on a new game to help people with their mental health. Jeffrey says, "You can't reverse engineer authenticity." You definitely couldn't reverse engineer his story.

Links
The artist: http://www.jeffreysparr.com/
The organization: https://peacelove.org/
Online classes: https://peacelove.org/scribl/#

Claudia Dawson is a psychonaut -- and if you don't know what that is, you should listen to this podcast. She co-produces one of my favorite weekly newsletters, Recomendo, which features 6 tools for thought each week. She's the Founding Editor of a publication called Phantom Kangaroo, "an eerie place for poems."

In this conversation, we cover everything from the Carlsbad Caverns as a metaphor for the self, how mental health can be helped by psychedelics, Claudia's fantastic advice for all beautiful voyagers ("accept that you are a prism"), and many other inspiring ideas. Claudia is very inspiring herself, in fact. You should get to know her work. Start here!

Links
Phantom Kangeroo: https://www.phantomkangaroo.com/
Recomendo newsletter: https://www.getrevue.co/profile/Recom...
Claudia's collection of short stories: https://www.amazon.com/New-Temple-oth...
Claudia's newsletter: https://claudiadawson.blog/newsletters

Larz May is the founder of an incredible mental health nonprofit called #HalfTheStory. The nonprofit's mission is to empower the next generation’s relationship with social media through advocacy, education, and providing access to resources. What I love about Larz is her ability to cut through social media's rapidly evolving landscape and point to deeper truths, in a very timely manner.

I look to Larz as a leader in digital wellbeing and think you should too. She founded the Global Day of Unplugging, an internationally recognized day every August that encourages divesting from technology to plug back into life. In this conversation, we talk about what it means to approach daily life with honesty, forge that path for others, and so much more.

Rosie Acosta has studied and taught yoga and mindfulness around the world. She is the  award-winning podcast host of Radically Love and the author of You Are Radically Loved: A Healing Journey to Self-Love.

A first generation Mexican-American, Rosie grew up in East LA in the 1990's. We talk about how she taught herself to reframe her perspective as a kid, and how those lessons have played out in her life.

Rosie's warm, presence, and depth are irresistible. You will want to spend time with her as I did! 

Links
Rosie's website: https://www.radicallyloved.com/
Rosie's book - You Are Radically Loved: https://www.amazon.com/You-Are-Radically-Loved-Self-Love/dp/0593330153
Rosie's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rosieacosta/?hl=en