Sam Demma had his sights set on a professional soccer career from age five — training in Italy at 13, playing for one of Canada's top club teams by 17 — until three major knee injuries and a torn labrum ended that dream in his final year of high school. What came next is the subject of this conversation: how Demma rebuilt his sense of purpose, first through small volunteer garbage cleanups with a friend, then through public speaking, and eventually through writing.

Just shy of his 27th birthday and about to publish his third book, Return on Goodwill, Sam has delivered close to 800 talks across four continents. In this episode, he shares the stories behind his books — Empty Your Backpack, born from a conversation with a bullied student, and Be Someone's Taco, inspired by a pandemic-era gesture that brought a friend to tears — and unpacks the idea at the heart of his new work: that doing good with no expectation of return has a way of coming back around.

The conversation also covers:

• The mentor (a high school teacher) and the "small consistent actions" lesson that changed Demma's trajectory

• Why closing the loop — telling people the impact they had on you — matters more than we think

• The practice of "assuming positive intent" and how it protects your energy day to day

• How Stephen Covey's circles of concern, influence, and control connect to Demma's philosophy

• Building a speaking career from scratch: years of cold outreach, a mentor who changed his approach to business, and the slow climb to hundreds of events a year

Chapters:

00:00 Sam Demma's Journey: From Soccer to Success 05:07 Finding Purpose After Athletic Setbacks 11:11 The Power of Intentional Appreciation 16:05 Empty Your Backpack: Letting Go 20:49 Be Someone's Taco: Acts of Kindness 27:04 Return on Goodwill: A Life Philosophy 32:09 Practical Tips for an Optimistic Life

Comedian, speaker, and humor coach Mike Goodwin joins Bill Burke for this special summer encore presentation of a classic Blue Sky episode. Mike shares how a difficult, sometimes volatile childhood in Camden, South Carolina sparked his lifelong instinct to use humor to ease tension - a skill that carried him through four years in the U.S. Army, a career in higher education and college counseling, and eventually onto stages with America's Got Talent, Dry Bar Comedy, Lifetime, BET, and Amazon Prime.

Known for his clean, expectation-defying comedy (not a single curse word, but plenty of big laughs), Mike opens up about why he chose to keep his act family-friendly, how he tackles sensitive topics like race with honesty instead of division, and how he built a second career as a keynote speaker blending humor with leadership insight. He closes with his signature "comedian's mindset" — the ABC method (Awareness, Breathe, Curiosity) — a practical tool for navigating stressful moments both on stage and in everyday life.

Bill and Mike discuss:

• Childhood in Camden, SC - Growing up in a financially stressed, sometimes volatile household and discovering early that making his mother laugh could ease tension at home
• Military service - Joining the Army at 18, an unexpected ROTC rank bump, and how cracking jokes during lights-out got him in trouble with his drill sergeant
• Career in education - From student affairs at the University of South Carolina to college counseling at a private school, and how standup started alongside that career
• Getting his start in comedy - Breaking into standup through his church, thanks to a veteran comedian who gave him a choice: hand over the material, or get on stage and keep the money himself
• Why he keeps his act clean - His faith, family, and personal values behind choosing "clean" comedy over vulgar material, and why he sees clean comedy as harder, not easier
• Tackling race and identity through humor - How he approaches sensitive topics like race on stage with honesty and generosity rather than division (including his "police repellent" bit)
• Defying expectations on stage - Being a "walking contradiction" — a big, athletic, bespectacled guy who looks more like a professor than a comedian
• The pivot to keynote speaking - How a chance conversation with a conference organizer led him to develop his "Leadership and Laughter" keynote, and the trial-and-error of blending humor with substantive content
• Humor as a leadership tool - Why comedy is "neutral," and how leaders can use appropriate humor to build connection instead of division in the workplace
• The comedian's mindset (ABC method) - Awareness, Breathe, Curiosity - a practical framework for handling stressful or unexpected moments, on stage and in everyday life
• Reflections on America and optimism - Closing thoughts on the ongoing pursuit of happiness and striving toward a better version of the country

Chapters:

00:00 Intro to Mike Goodwin — comedian, speaker, and humor coach

02:30 Growing up in Camden, SC — using humor to cope with a volatile household

07:00 Joining the Army at 18 and how comedy caused (and solved) trouble in basic training

11:30 From student affairs to college counseling, the unexpected path to comedy

14:00 How Mike got his start doing standup — at church

17:00 Why Mike chose clean comedy over "blue" material

20:00 Tackling race and identity on stage: The "police repellent" bit

26:00 Being a "walking contradiction" — the big, athletic guy who looks like a professor

29:00 From standup to keynote speaking: The "Leadership and Laughter" talk

34:00 Why humor is neutral and how leaders can use it to unify, not divide

40:00 The comedian's mindset: Awareness, Breathe, Curiosity (the ABC method)

45:00 Where to find Mike Goodwin and catch a live show

In this Blue Sky conversation, host Bill Burke sits down with Melissa Connelly, CEO of OneGoal, a national organization working to ensure every young person can pursue education beyond high school. Melissa's path to this work started long before her career in education. Raised by a single mother on the south and southwest sides of Chicago, she missed more than 60 days of school in eighth grade and landed in her high school's truancy program, a labeling experience that nearly derailed her future.

That changed when a school social worker, Ms. Jeter, taught her how to advocate for herself and get back on track. Melissa shares the highs and lows that followed, including a heartbreaking moment arriving in New York for her freshman year at NYU without enough cash for a cab, and the winding five year, five school path she eventually took to earn her degree.

Today, Melissa channels that experience into OneGoal, which partners with more than 300 schools to support around 14,000 students a year, and now trains school districts directly to build advising into their core curriculum rather than treating it as an afterthought. She and Bill discuss:

• Why the average student receives just 38 minutes of college advising in high school

• OneGoal's "momentum theory" and why getting a student enrolled isn't enough, they need support through their first year of college too

• The idea of "occupational identity" and helping students connect who they are to what they want to contribute to the world

• Parenting her own two teenagers through the college process, and what her son's experience taught her about how rarely students are truly seen in school

• Why she believes nonprofits should be working to put themselves out of business

• The concept of "triggers and glimmers," and why she chooses to look for the bright spots even on hard days

Melissa's story is a powerful reminder that one caring adult can change the entire trajectory of a young person's life, and that optimism, even when it's called "hokey," is a discipline worth practicing.

Chapters:

00:00 Introduction to Blue Sky 02:22 Melissa's Early Life and Adversity 08:31 Navigating Higher Education Barriers 13:21 The Mission of OneGoal 21:02 Scaling and Systemic Change 26:01 Ensuring Momentum After High School 33:17 Humanizing the Educational Experience 36:47 Parenting and Educational Policy 46:25 Finding Glimmers and Looking Forward

Ted Johnson's life reads like several careers stitched into one: raised in a mostly white Raleigh suburb while attending a Black church several times a week, a Hampton University graduate, a 20-year Navy officer who became a White House Fellow under President Obama and later a speechwriter for two chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Somewhere along the way, he became a writer — now a Washington Post columnist and author of two books, most recently If We Are Brave: Essays from Black Americana.

In this conversation, Ted joins host Bill Burke to talk about:

• Growing up between two worlds — a white suburb and a Black church — and how that shaped his early sense of identity

• Why he chose an HBCU (Hampton University), and how a chance encounter led him into the Navy

• His path from ship duty in the Arabian Gulf to the NSA, the Naval War College, a White House Fellowship, and ultimately speechwriting for the Joint Chiefs

• How the killing of Trayvon Martin redirected his career from cybersecurity toward writing about race and democracy

• Why he sees racism as fundamentally a failure of the state, not a failure between individuals — and what that reframe means for how we talk about accountability

• His candid take on the shifting language around DEI, affirmative action, and "the soft bigotry of low expectations"

• What the military taught him about integration - and its surprisingly short "half-life" once people leave that environment

• The story behind his name — Theodore Roosevelt Johnson III — and what it reveals about three generations of hope in his family

• His new book, If We Are Brave, and his work leading New America's US@250 initiative ahead of the nation's 250th anniversary in 2026

Chapters:

00:00 Introduction to Ted Johnson 03:06 Upbringing and Path to Service 08:02 A Twenty-Year Naval Career 12:13 Writing About Racism and Optimism 17:34 The Idea of America 22:07 DEI and Structural Reform 28:07 Generational Wealth and Founders 34:21 If We Are Brave 42:10 New America and 250th Anniversary

Lee Woodruff's life reads like fiction — a college meet-not-quite-cute with her future husband Bob, a front-row seat to the Tiananmen Square crackdown that redirected Bob's entire career, his meteoric rise to co-anchor of ABC's World News Tonight, and then, just weeks into that dream job, a roadside bomb in Iraq that nearly killed him.

In this conversation, Lee shares how she got the call while at Disney World with their four kids, the surreal days that followed, and the 36-day coma that ended with Bob speaking Mandarin and French before he could speak English again. She opens up about "ambiguous loss" — the complicated grief of loving someone who survived but changed — and the "four F's" (family, friends, funny, faith) that got her through. Lee also talks candidly about the Bob Woodruff Foundation, which has now raised more than $80 million for veterans and military families, and about her own definition of optimism: not the absence of hard days, but the belief that tomorrow can be better.

Chapters:

00:31 The Woodruff Story: Love and Triumph 02:08 A Life of Accomplishments 04:42 The Impact of Tiananmen Square 08:31 The Shocking News 12:14 The Four F's: Coping Mechanisms 13:16 The Birth of the Bob Woodruff Foundation 16:03 Finding Strength in Adversity 19:14 Bob's Remarkable Recovery 22:05 Navigating Complicated Grief 25:57 The Pursuit of Happiness 29:02 The Foundation's Humble Beginnings 30:31 Innovative Solutions for Veterans 32:06 Mobilizing Awareness Through Personal Experience 33:05 Navigating Caregiving and Grief 35:30 The Journey of Optimism 37:11 The Impact on Family: Growing Through Adversity 40:49 Looking Ahead: New Ventures and Aspirations

More than twenty-five years ago, John Wood was a rising Microsoft executive with a demanding job and a packed passport. A trek through Nepal changed everything. After encountering a rural school with empty library shelves, Wood made a promise to a headmaster that would eventually lead him to leave his corporate career behind and found Room to Read — an organization that has since built tens of thousands of libraries and reached over 26 million children across 20 countries.

In this conversation, John shares:

• The moment in the Himalayas that sparked his decision to leave Microsoft

• How he applied business discipline — benchmarking Room to Read's growth against Starbucks' post-IPO expansion — to scale a nonprofit faster than a Fortune 500 company

• Why local ownership and community buy-in (not "helicopter philanthropy") became core to Room to Read's model

• The origin of Room to Read's local-language publishing program, which has produced over 1,700 original children's titles

• Why he launched a second organization, U-Go, to fund university scholarships for young women in low-income countries

• The economics behind U-Go's $800-per-year scholarship model and its "zero leakage" funding structure

• His advice for anyone considering a major career or life pivot toward purpose-driven work

Chapters:

00:00 A Pivotal Moment in Nepal 04:35 The Path to Scaling Impact 10:00 Productizing Philanthropy and Engagement 16:00 Local Empowerment and Cultural Solutions 22:00 Sustaining Motivation Through Challenges 26:40 Introducing U-Go: A New Vision 32:00 Creating Long-Term Educational Stability 40:10 Effective Altruism and Fundraising 44:10 Advice and Closing Thoughts

Alan Murray has spent four decades studying American business — as editor-in-chief and CEO of Fortune, Washington bureau chief at the Wall Street Journal, president of Pew Research Center, and now founding president of the WSJ Leadership Institute. In this episode, he makes the case that despite the headlines, business has undergone a genuine, structural shift toward human-centered leadership — and he explains the "physics" behind why.

Alan walks Bill through the data point that changed how he thinks about corporate value: a study found that more than 80% of Fortune 500 companies' value came from physical assets in the mid-1970s, but today more than 85% of value comes from intangibles — talent, brand loyalty, employee engagement. That shift, he argues, is what's really driving the "human-centered" turn in business, not politics or PR.

The conversation also covers:

• Why the language around ESG and DEI has changed even if the underlying substance hasn't

• The Johnson & Johnson Credo, the Tylenol crisis, and what it means for corporate integrity today

• Why Is Mona Lisa Smiling? The Reimagination of the Corporation, a documentary film for which Alan served as an executive producer.

• The state of journalism — why newsroom jobs have likely been cut by 50% or more over the last 20-25 years, and why paywalls at places like the Wall Street Journal and New York Times were the right call

• His cautious optimism about AI: massive upside for medical research and productivity, paired with real fears about the "pollution of the information ecosystem"

• His new venture, the WSJ Leadership Institute, helping executives navigate a moment where, as he puts it, every technology conversation eventually becomes a conversation about people

Chapters:

00:00:00 Early Journalism and Origins 00:04:49 The Nature of Optimistic Leadership 00:11:31 Human-Centered Business Evolution 00:19:07 Reimagining the Corporation 00:23:43 The State of Modern Journalism 00:32:26 AI, Leadership, and Future Outlook

Kathy Eldon's son, Dan Eldon, was a young photojournalist working for Reuters in Somalia when he was killed at just 22 years old while documenting a famine and its aftermath. Rather than let that loss define her, Kathy and her daughter Amy founded Creative Visions Foundation in 1998 to support artists, journalists, and storytellers using media to inspire positive change. The foundation has since incubated hundreds of projects — including the Oscar-winning documentary Navalny — and its work has reached more than 100 million people across five continents.

In this candid and moving conversation, Kathy opens up about:

• How Dan's early humanitarian instincts led him from fundraising for a child's heart surgery in Kenya to documenting the Somali famine as a photojournalist

• The chaotic, tragic circumstances of Dan's death, and the making of the Emmy-nominated documentary Dying to Tell the Story

• The real and growing dangers facing journalists covering conflicts today

• Creative Visions Foundation's Impact Media and Impact Education initiatives, including a multi-million dollar partnership with the Bezos Family Foundation

• The Angel Catcher journal series she created with Amy, which has helped grieving readers (and hospices) process loss for over 20 years

• Her new project, Boundless, born out of COVID isolation and the trauma of the LA wildfires

• Her belief in signs and guidance from beyond — including an encounter with a psychic medium months after Dan's death

• Her advice for anyone facing profound grief: channel that energy into something that helps others

This is a story about finding blue sky above even the darkest clouds — and using creativity, purpose, and community to transform unimaginable loss into a legacy of hope.

Chapters:

00:00:00 Introduction and Early Life 00:03:33 Dan's Legacy and Tragedy 00:08:05 Channeling Grief into Action 00:12:09 The Dangers of Journalism 00:16:05 Empowering Change with Creative Visions 00:20:02 Adapting to Changing Landscapes 00:25:41 Healing Through Connection 00:31:56 Finding Meaning in Hardship

What if optimism about climate change isn't naive — but necessary? In this episode of Blue Sky, Anne Therese Gennari, TEDx speaker and author of The Climate Optimist Handbook, shares the breakdown that led to her breakthrough: how years as an "angry activist" left her burned out and disconnected, until a single emotional collapse revealed her real mission — teaching climate optimism as a daily practice, not a personality trait.

Anne Therese makes the case that fear-based climate messaging doesn't change behavior — it triggers the same fight-or-flight response as encountering a bear in the woods. Instead, she offers a different approach: trading shame and guilt for curiosity and invitation, and shifting from "minimizing our negative impact" to "maximizing our positive one." She and host Bill Burke also dig into the psychology of optimism, the surprising data on optimists' success and longevity, and what it's been like for her to raise two young children — including a daughter who hugs trees on sight — while holding onto hope for their future.

This conversation is a reminder that the future isn't fixed. It's being written today, one mindset shift at a time.

Chapters:

00:00 Introduction to Climate Optimism 01:54 From Climate Anxiety to Optimism 06:30 Optimism as a Catalyst for Action 09:47 Rethinking Climate Communication 13:20 Inspiring Climate Solutions 18:54 Parenting and Inner Transformation 22:33 Nurturing Love for Nature in Children 27:26 Hey Change Podcast and its Mission 31:33 Evolving Climate Narratives and Future Plans 37:04 Conclusion and Resources

If even the letters "A-I" are enough to spike your anxiety, this episode is for you. In this conversation, host Bill Burke sits down with Dr. Mark Bloomfield — a Cambridge Judge Business School fellow who has spent over 15 years applying artificial intelligence to real business challenges, long before ChatGPT made it a household name.

Marc's career is a story of reinvention: a colorblind teenager whose dream of flying gave way to a PhD with Airbus, and eventually to advising boards at companies like Vodafone, Unilever, and Pfizer on their AI transformation. Along the way, he's developed a refreshingly grounded, optimistic philosophy about how everyday people can engage with AI — starting small, staying curious, and using these tools to amplify what makes us human rather than replace it.

From treating AI anxiety like a fear of flying, to his weekly "AI amnesty" walks, to raising AI-savvy kids ("water always finds a way — so train them to become a plumber"), Mark offers a practical, hopeful roadmap for a technology that isn't going anywhere.

In this episode:

• Why getting started with AI on something small and familiar builds confidence and literacy

• How to avoid "metacognitive laziness" and use AI to sharpen — not outsource — your thinking

• The honest truth about AI and jobs, and why human skills may become the real differentiator

• What "the uncertainty advantage" means, and the four lessons piloting through turbulence teaches us

• How to raise kids who use AI intentionally without losing the value of learning on their own

• Why governance, trust, and transparency are the keys to AI that benefits society

Chapters:

00:00 Introduction to Mark Bloomfield 02:04 Career Path and Aviation 05:24 The Evolution of AI 09:46 Approaching AI with Optimism 15:08 Using AI to Enhance Humanity 19:09 AI's Impact on Jobs and Governance 25:01 Untold Stories and Future of AI 29:21 The Uncertainty Advantage 32:30 Building and Using Voice Agents 38:08 Parenting in the AI World 42:29 Conclusion and Resources