Brenda Cunningham and I share a problem— we hate having to call people. We even break into a sweat when the phone rings. But as Brenda says, "that simply won't do!" Learn how both of us have dealt with this problem, including the surprising ways that Brenda has leveraged her Christian Faith to help her be a better friend. Part 2 of 4 episodes on the role of faith, having it or not, on how we think about getting better. Learn more about Brenda at: http://www.pushcareermanagement.com/ Intro Music by Black Ant: http://b-l-a-c-k.tumblr.com/ Outro Music by Broke for Free: http://brokeforfree.com/

What do you do when you realize that you trust yourself, more than your community? When Angella Johnson was 19 years old, she left the Mormon Church and has spent her life trying to define what it means to be "a good person" without the structure that defined that for her growing up. She tells us how she does that and how she's trying to create a, "life without explanation." Part 1 of 4 episodes on the role of faith, having it or not, on how we think about getting better at things. Learn more about Angella Johnson at http://angellajohnson.com/ Music by Sláinte. More at http://www.irishband.com/

What does it mean to be authentic? What are we trying to learn when we say we are trying to communicate with "more integrity?" Tammy Washington has been asking these questions for the last few months, when she had to move back closer to home after 13 years of living in LA. We talk about authenticity, integrity, and what it means to be "emotionally responsible" when dating. Learn more about Tammy here: http://www.tammywashington.com/ Intro Music by Andy G. Cohen: http://www.andyg.co/ Outro Music by Doctor Turtle: https://doctorturtle.b

Brandon Scott Chien has lived in the woods for 45 days. He's drifted cars and shot arrows off a horse. But he's tried to get better at all of it in order to learn more about being useful for the people he cares about. You can watch Brandon's Vlog, "Happy Asian Males" here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLq2cjzTUZsXzxjtC4MMUbMAmcqlI5bvcx Music this week by Josh Woodward: http://www.joshwoodward.com

How many times do you have to do something you hate... before you love it? For Dr. Nadia Brown, her journey to learning a skill she loathed started when the unthinkable happened and she was broke. She had to dig deep and learn to sell her services, but also learn to trust the people around her who believed she could be good at it. To learn more about Dr. Nadia, check out http://doyenneleadership.com/ Music this episode by Kai Engel http://www.kai-engel.com/

Imagine giving up your entire life to pursue something, then right after you've made the plunge, becoming so paralyzed with fear that you couldn't perform at even the most basic level. Andrus Nichols experienced that at the age of 30 when she left her life to become an actor. We learn how over the next 3 years, Andrus became unstuck by creating her own graduate school curriculum and filling 18 moleskines to create her own "user manual." Music by Yael Yona, "Pharaoh 2011" Hear more at http://yairyona.net/

5 years ago, Kent Davis had never written a novel. Now he's published three. We learn how he got started and how he kept going when nothing he was writing was good enough and everything was hard and terrible until it wasn't. Learn more about Kent Davis at http://kentishdavis.com This Episode's Music by Revolution Void

Dr. Amy Bucher has been designing health behavior change programs for over a decade, but how does she keep herself feeling motivated? Today's conversation is a deep-dive into the science "Basic Psychological Needs," and why sometimes we feel motivated by data and sometimes it makes us feel like giving up and throwing our Fitbit in a drawer.

On a whim, Shane moved to Oakland to start a rap career when he was 20 years old, shy, and didn't know anyone. Now he makes new friends every day, because he learned how to get out of his comfort zone. Find out what happened when Shane just started walking up to people and saying, "yo, I like you shirt."

If you were the most-produced living playwright in the USA, you probably wouldn’t consider taking up a new art form. But Lauren Gunderson did just that, in a tribute to someone who loved the banjo. Then she wrote about it, and finally — after writing hundreds of plays — cast herself as the main character.