Common Good Podcast

For years, the Common Good Podcast has explored the significance of place, the structures of belonging, and the gifts that emerge when people are invited to contribute to their communities. Today, we're introducing a new podcast that shares many of those same interests. Daniel Yudkin is a social psychologist and researcher who's developing a new political philosophy called Potentialism, built around a simple but surprisingly radical idea: everyone has something to offer. Potentialism asks what it would look like to build our communities, institutions, and even our politics around the belief that everyone has gifts worth discovering, developing, and sharing and that we all have a part to play in helping one another flourish.

For the remainder of the year, we'll share ten episodes of The Beacon Project Podcast, which he describes as a public workshop for Potentialism. In these episodes, Daniel talks with people who are helping him explore and develop Potentialism. 

Our first guest is someone many of you already know: Sam Pressler. 

What happens when people have something to offer but nowhere to offer it? In this episode, Daniel talks with Sam about his research on friendship, isolation, and purpose among men without college degrees, many of whom feel disconnected from their communities and unsure of where they belong. Together, they explore the relationship between belonging and contribution, the importance of rites of passage and meaningful relationships, and the ways our political divisions can obscure the complexity of people's lives. Along the way, Sam challenges Daniel to think more deeply about potentialism and what it would take to build a society where everyone has the opportunity to discover their gifts, contribute to something bigger than themselves, and know they're needed.

Resources:

• Nobody to Call
• Disconnected: The Growing Class Divide in American Civic Life
• Connective Tissue newsletter
• Sam Pressler's projects
• More in Common
• Hidden Tribes: A Study of America's Polarized Landscape — the research behind the term "Exhausted Majority."
• The Revolt of the Elites and the Betrayal of Democracy — Christopher Lasch's critique of the growing separation between educated elites and the rest of society.
• Democracy's Discontent — Michael Sandel's book about citizenship, community, and American democracy.
• Rob Henderson and luxury beliefs — The concept Sam references when discussing family and social class.
• After Virtue — Alasdair MacIntyre — Daniel mentioned MacIntyre in the conversation about life as a narrative quest.

In this final episode of the miniseries, Tristan and Rashid step back to reflect on what seven episodes of storytelling from Cape Town have revealed. They revisit the arc of the series, from grounding ourselves in our bodies with Bongeka and Aphiwe, to the critical hope of Ashley and Helene, the courage of Ncedisa, the radical imagination of Leila, and the belonging found at Charlie and Barry’s dinner table.

They explore the power and danger of stories, drawing on Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s “the danger of a single story” and James Cone’s call for a global analysis of liberation. They ask what it means to tell stories from the Global South without claiming to speak for it, and challenge the ways resources and power are still gate-kept by those claiming to want change. The episode opens and closes with collectively written poems on the role of stories in making a new world.

THEMES

Reflection. The danger of a single story. Global South and Global North. Collective liberation. Interrogating our own narratives. Stories as world-making. Power and resources. Invitation to the listener.

FEATURED VOICES

Tristan Pringle is a life and executive coach, facilitator, and poet based in Cape Town.

Rashid Adams is a musician, songwriter, music producer, and ethnomusicologist based in Cape Town.

CREDITS

| Produced by | Rashid Epstein Adams
| Music by | Rashid Epstein Adams (AKA Arkenstone) and Pursuit
| A collaboration between | The Common Good Podcast & The Liminal Space Podcast

LINKS

| Podcast | linktr.ee/theliminalspacepod
| Substack | theliminalspacepodcast.substack.com
| Instagram | @theliminalspacepod

What if the most radical thing you could do is invite someone to sit at a table with no queue, no power dynamic, and a really good meal? In this episode, Tristan and Rashid introduce two unlikely friends: Charlton Alexander, a tour guide and facilitator who invites people to connect with the city and its stories, and Barry Lewis, an architect from the UK who has spent decades building sandbag homes alongside communities in Cape Town’s townships.

Through a clip from the original Liminal Space episode, Charlie and Barry speak about a community dinner in Muizenberg where there is no queue, where people keep coming back not for the food but for the contact time, and where the questions being asked go far beyond “how do we feed hungry people?” Barry challenges us to throw out the lazy questions that aren’t generating anything new, and Charlie reframes homelessness by pointing out that people living on the streets do have a home, they just don’t have a house. Tristan and Rashid then reflect on what it means to create spaces of belonging and how that might change a neighborhood, a city, and eventually a world.

THEMES

Community dinners. No queue, no power dynamic. Belonging through a meal. Lazy questions. Houselessness vs homelessness. Contact time. Friendship across difference. Creating spaces of belonging.

LISTEN TO THE FULL EPISODE

This episode features clips from The Liminal Space Season 1, Episode 5: Kinship, Assimilation and Making Home in the Colonial City with Charlton Alexander and Barry Lewis. The full conversation is available on all podcast platforms.

Listen on Apple Podcasts

Listen on Spotify

Watch on YouTube

FEATURED VOICES

Charlton Alexander is a tour guide and facilitator based in Cape Town. He invites guests to the city to connect with the people and land in experiences that are life altering.

Barry Lewis is the director of UBU (Ubuhle Bakha Ubuhle / Beauty Builds Beauty), a company focused on developing the technology of sandbag housing in low-income communities in South Africa.

Tristan Pringle is a life and executive coach, facilitator, and poet based in Cape Town.

Rashid Adams is a musician, songwriter, music producer, and ethnomusicologist based in Cape Town.

CREDITS

| Produced by | Rashid Epstein Adams
| Music by | Rashid Epstein Adams (AKA Arkenstone) and Pursuit
| A collaboration between | The Common Good Podcast & The Liminal Space Podcast

LINKS

| Podcast | linktr.ee/theliminalspacepod
| Substack | theliminalspacepodcast.substack.com
| Instagram | @theliminalspacepod

What would it look like if any two people could sit at a table and have a conversation? In this episode, Tristan and Rashid begin with a wide-ranging exploration of shared consciousness, Ubuntu, and the Hebrew concept of tzedakah, before introducing Leila Kidson, a social systems researcher, facilitator, and designer who co-founded the social design studio OCTOPI.

Through a clip from the original Liminal Space episode, Leila paints a picture of radical imagination that is refreshingly honest. Not a world where everyone is happy, but one where we have the capacity to sit across from someone we disagree with and recognise their humanity. She asks what happens when survival needs are met, when communities are modular rather than insular, when walls become picket fences. Tristan and Rashid then reflect on the impediments to even simple human connection, from visa hierarchies to the way wealth privatises our lives, and close with questions about neighbours, kindness, and bridging the distance from your front door to theirs.

THEMES

Ubuntu. Radical imagination. Communal vs individual living. Any two people at a table. Shared consciousness. Picket fences, not walls. Future generations. Tzedakah and right standing.

LISTEN TO THE FULL EPISODE

This episode features clips from The Liminal Space Season 2, Episode 13: Reorienting Ourselves Toward Community and Building Bridges with Leila Kidson. The full conversation is available on all podcast platforms.

Listen on Apple Podcasts

Listen on Spotify

Watch on YouTube

FEATURED VOICES

Leila Kidson is a social systems researcher, facilitator, and designer focused on better integrating grassroots voices into systems design, advocacy and action. She is co-founder of OCTOPI, a South African social design studio.

Tristan Pringle is a life and executive coach, facilitator, and poet based in Cape Town.

Rashid Adams is a musician, songwriter, music producer, and ethnomusicologist based in Cape Town.

CREDITS

| Produced by | Rashid Epstein Adams
| Music by | Rashid Epstein Adams (AKA Arkenstone) and Pursuit
| A collaboration between | The Common Good Podcast & The Liminal Space Podcast

LINKS

| Podcast | linktr.ee/theliminalspacepod
| Substack | theliminalspacepodcast.substack.com
| Instagram | @theliminalspacepod

What does it take to stop colluding with systems that dehumanise us? In this episode, Tristan and Rashid explore the role music plays in grounding us, reminding us of our humanity, and giving us the courage to resist. They introduce us to Ncedisa Nkonyeni, an African-centred systems change and field learning partner who teaches organisations to apply systems change to their strategies and partners with collectives committed to organisational well-being.

In a clip from the original Liminal Space episode, Ncedisa shares a story about a Tori Amos lyric that gave her the courage to walk away from a scholarship when she realised the research she was being asked to do was fundamentally afrophobic. From there, Tristan and Rashid reflect on what it means to negotiate our own complicity within unjust systems, and whether giving, in all its forms, could become an act of laying down power rather than exercising it.

THEMES

Music as resistance. Non-collusion. Ethical courage. Complicity and the status quo. Giving as laying down power. Joy as humanizing. Systems change.

LISTEN TO THE FULL EPISODE

This episode features clips from The Liminal Space Season 2, Episode 10: Systems Thinking and Rehumanising Narratives with Ncedisa Nkonyeni. The full conversation is available on all podcast platforms.

Listen on Apple Podcasts

Listen on Spotify

Watch on YouTube

FEATURED VOICES

Ncedisa Nkonyeni is an African-centred systems change and field learning partner. She teaches systems change, helps organisations apply it to their strategies, and partners with collectives committed to discovering organisational well-being.

Tristan Pringle is a life and executive coach, facilitator, and poet based in Cape Town.

Rashid Adams is a musician, songwriter, music producer, and ethnomusicologist based in Cape Town.

CREDITS

| Produced by | Rashid Epstein Adams
| Music by | Rashid Epstein Adams (AKA Arkenstone) and Pursuit
| A collaboration between | The Common Good Podcast & The Liminal Space Podcast

LINKS

| Podcast | linktr.ee/theliminalspacepod
| Substack | theliminalspacepodcast.substack.com
| Instagram | @theliminalspacepod

What kind of hope is worth holding onto? In this episode, Tristan and Rashid unpack the idea of critical hope, drawing on the work of Jeff Duncan-Andrade and a powerful quote from Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of Hope. They introduce us to Ashley and Helene Visagie, founders of Bottom Up, a Cape Town youth organisation that equips teenagers with tools of critical thought to question the systems around them rather than simply plugging gaps.

In clips from the original Liminal Space episode, Ashley describes the shift from fixing broken toilets to asking why they’re broken in the first place, and how capitalism alienates us from our work, each other, and the environment. Helene speaks about telling kids the truth without leaving them stranded in despair, and what it takes to move forward together. Tristan and Rashid reflect on when they first encountered critical thinking, and why imagining a new world requires us to question the imagination behind the current one. The episode closes with a guided imagination exercise inviting listeners to picture their neighbourhood 20 years from now.

THEMES

Critical hope. Democratizing critical thought. Stop plugging gaps. Alienation under capitalism. Education as liberation. Imagination as action. Youth as co-constructors of change.

LISTEN TO THE FULL EPISODE

This episode features clips from The Liminal Space Season 1, Episode 3: Critical Hope and Being Human with Ashley Visagie. The full conversation is available on all podcast platforms.

Listen on Apple Podcasts

Listen on Spotify

Watch on YouTube

FEATURED VOICES

Ashley & Helene Visagie are the founders of Bottom Up, a Cape Town-based youth organisation that develops socially engaged leaders who can critically analyse how political, economic, and cultural systems produce inequality, and then organise to change them.

Tristan Pringle is a life and executive coach, facilitator, and poet based in Cape Town.

Rashid Adams is a musician, songwriter, music producer, and ethnomusicologist based in Cape Town.

CREDITS

 | Produced by | Rashid Epstein Adams
 | Music by | Rashid Epstein Adams (AKA Arkenstone) and Pursuit
 | A collaboration between | The Common Good Podcast & The Liminal Space Podcast

LINKS

| Podcast | linktr.ee/theliminalspacepod
| Substack | theliminalspacepodcast.substack.com
| Instagram | @theliminalspacepod

In this episode, Tristan and Rashid take us to Khayelitsha, one of South Africa’s largest townships, about 20 miles southeast of central Cape Town. Built during apartheid-era forced removals, Khayelitsha continues to bear the scars of spatial inequality. But in the heart of its informal settlements, two young founders, Bongeka and Aphiwe (Qhama), have created something remarkable: Thembisa Ratanga, a community space they describe as “a safe space in a not-so-safe place.”

Through a clip from the original Liminal Space episode, we hear Bongeka and Aphiwe reflect on the deep connection between nature, spirituality, and the body. Yoga poses that imitate trees and birds. Sunsets you don’t plan but can’t avoid. The quiet gift of a wetland on the edge of a township. Tristan and Rashid then unpack what it means to “just be” in a world that demands we constantly produce or consume, and ask whether rest itself might be a revolutionary act.

THEMES

Coming home to our bodies. Being vs doing. Nature as teacher. Rest as resistance. Spatial apartheid and its legacy. Yoga in the township. Eliminating economic isolation.

LISTEN TO THE FULL EPISODE

This episode features a clip from The Liminal Space Season 2, Episode 11: What happens when we reclaim our stories and find home in our bodies? With Bongeka and Aphiwe. The full conversation runs about an hour and is available on all podcast platforms.

Listen on Apple Podcasts

FEATURED VOICES

Bongeka & Aphiwe (Qhama) are the founders of Thembisa Ratanga, a Khayelitsha-based NPO that uses education, art, and sport as tools for community development and self-empowerment. Their space has been dubbed “a waterfront in the township.”

Tristan Pringle is a life and executive coach, facilitator, and poet based in Cape Town.

Rashid Adams is a musician, songwriter, music producer, and ethnomusicologist based in Cape Town.

SUPPORT THEMBISA RATANGA

Bongeka and Aphiwe are currently running a BackaBuddy campaign to support day-to-day logistics and building improvements for the kids in their community. If you’d like to contribute, visit the link below.

CREDITS

 | Produced by | Rashid Adams
 | Music by | Arkenstone
 | A collaboration between | Common Good Podcast & The Liminal Space Podcast

LINKS

| BackaBuddy | backabuddy.co.za/campaign/tembisa-ratanga
| Full Episode | Listen on Apple Podcasts
| Podcast | linktr.ee/theliminalspacepod
| Substack | theliminalspacepodcast.substack.com
| Instagram | @theliminalspacepod

What happens when imagination meets reality? In this pilot episode, we kick off a special miniseries in collaboration with The Liminal Space Podcast, bringing voices from Cape Town, South Africa to the Common Good conversation. Hosts Tristan Pringle and Rashid Adams introduce themselves, share what drew them to the idea of liminality, and explore the stories that ground them right now, from earth as a shared garden to the liberating power of intuition. The episode closes with a collectively written poem on imagination, storytelling, and the search for glimpses of a better world.

ABOUT THE SERIES

Over seven episodes, this miniseries brings a Global South perspective to the Common Good Podcast’s core themes: the significance of place, eliminating economic isolation, and the structure of belonging. Through conversations with guests in Cape Town, from yoga practitioners in Khayelitsha to musicians, educators, and community organisers, we explore what it looks like to rebuild belonging in the wake of extraction and inherited inequality.

ABOUT THE GUESTS

Tristan Pringle is a life and executive coach, facilitator, and poet based in Cape Town. He works across faith-based, corporate, and grassroots organisations to hold space for dreams of a better world, and to make them real.

Rashid Adams is a musician, songwriter, music producer, and researcher based in Cape Town. His academic work explores how indigenous music-making within decolonial Christian frameworks functions as a form of sacred resistance.

CREDITS

 | Produced by | Rashid Adams
 | Music by | Arkenstone
 | A collaboration between | Common Good Podcast & The Liminal Space Podcast

LINKS

| Podcast | linktr.ee/theliminalspacepod
| Substack | theliminalspacepodcast.substack.com
| Instagram | @theliminalspacepod

Welcome to the Common Good podcast, a conversation about the significance of place, eliminating economic isolation and the structure of belonging.

Earlier this summer, Walter Brueggemann passed away. His friendship with Peter Block and John McKnight was the spark that inspired the Common Good Collective, and the first three seasons of this podcast captured conversations among these three voices.

To honor Walter’s memory, friends of the Collective are hosting a local gathering in Cincinnati on September 19th in Cincinnati called The Provocation: Practicing Prophetic Imagination in Memory of Walter Brueggemann. We’d love for you to join us.

Today’s episode is a talk Walter gave at the first Common Good Collective gathering in 2018. In it, he turns to the Exodus narrative as a guiding script for social imagination, showing how it helps us uncover hidden meta-narratives and resist the totalizing forces of extractive economies.

This episode was produced by Joey Taylor and the music is from Jeff Gorman. You can find more information about the Common Good Collective here. Common Good Podcast is a production of Bespoken Live & Common Change. 

Welcome to the Common Good podcast, a conversation about the significance of place, eliminating economic isolation and the structure of belonging.

Today’s episode is something a little different. We’re sharing a recent conversation with Peter Block that originally aired on the Avenue M, hosted by Joey Taylor and Haroon Moghul. In each episode they speak with remarkable guests to help unpack the moments that shape us, the struggles that build us and the questions that intrigue us.

This rich and intimate conversation centers on Peter Block, a long-time organizational development thinker, and his reflections on mortality, loneliness, freedom, and purpose. 

Peter Block is an author and citizen of Cincinnati, Ohio. He is the co-founder of
Designed Learning, a training company that offers workshops designed to build the skills outlined in his books. Peter is part of the Common Good Alliance of Greater Cincinnati and was a member of his local neighborhood council. His books include Activating the Common Good, Confronting Our Freedom, Flawless Consulting, Stewardship, The Answer to How Is Yes, Community, and The Abundant Community.

Things referenced in episode:

• The Vitality of Death: Essays in Existential Psychology and Philosophy by Peter Koestenbaum
• Vitality of Death (video of conversation between Peter Koestenbaum and Peter Block)

Avenue M is sponsored by Queen City Diwan, which leads travel adventures, immersive experiences, leadership retreats and religious pilgrimages. Queen City Diwan is excited to share its fall schedule, including an October ‘umrah in Saudi Arabia, a January trip to Andalucía just for college students—and, over Thanksgiving break, we’re planning an incredible tour across three countries. Learn more on our website. Avenue M is produced by Bespoken Live with music by Zach Swelber, who plays in Circle It and Mosant.

This Common Good Podcast was produced by Joey Taylor and the music is from Jeff Gorman. You can find more information about the Common Good Collective here. Common Good Podcast is a production of Bespoken Live & Common Change.