Alan Moore is a craftsman of beautiful business. He is a business innovator, author, and global speaker whose life’s work centers on one simple but radical idea: beauty is not a luxury in business, but a necessity.

He has designed everything from books to organizations, working across six continents with artists, entrepreneurs, and leadership teams. He has advised companies including PayPal, Microsoft, and Interface, taught at institutions such as MIT, INSEAD, and the Sloan School of Management, and helped guide some of the world’s most innovative enterprises.

He is the author of four books, including Do Design: Why Beauty Is Key to Everything and Do Build. How to make and lead a business the world needs. His work has been featured in outlets such as the BBC, The Guardian, Stanford Social Innovation Review, and The Huffington Post.

In this second part of our conversation, we talk about:

1. Beauty as a quest for truth rather than surface aesthetics

2. What it means to create something like a jewel

3. Inevitability in design

4. Beauty as a metric for innovation

5. The distinction between extractive and regenerative approaches

6. Beauty as a verb and everyday practices for “doing beauty.”

To learn more about Alan’s work, you can find him at:

https://thebeautifuldesignproject.com/

Books and resources mentioned:

• No Straight Lines: Making Sense of Our Nonlinear World (by Alan Moore)
• Do Design: Why Beauty Is Key to Everything (by Alan Moore)

This season of the podcast is sponsored by Templeton Religion Trust.

Support the show

Alan Moore is a craftsman of beautiful business. He is a business innovator, author, and global speaker whose life’s work centers on one simple but radical idea: beauty is not a luxury in business, but a necessity.

He has designed everything from books to organizations, working across six continents with artists, entrepreneurs, and leadership teams. He has advised companies including PayPal, Microsoft, and Interface, taught at institutions such as MIT, INSEAD, and the Sloan School of Management, and helped guide some of the world’s most innovative enterprises.

He is the author of four books, including No Straight Lines: Making Sense of Our Nonlinear World and Do Design: Why Beauty Is Key to Everything. His work has been featured in outlets such as the BBC, The Guardian, Stanford Social Innovation Review, and The Huffington Post.

In this first part of our conversation, we discuss:

1. Beauty as a sense of homecoming to self, family, and the natural world

2. Why beauty is felt in the body, not just understood in the mind

3. Beauty as something soulful, universal, and deeply human

4. Living and working through the transition from analog to digital culture

5. Innovation as seeing latent potential and unmet human needs

6. The idea of beauty as the “ultimate metric” for decision-making

7. How beauty challenges dominant ideas of success, value, and the good life

To learn more about Alan’s work, you can find him at:

https://thebeautifuldesignproject.com/

Books and resources mentioned:

• No Straight Lines: Making Sense of Our Nonlinear World (by Alan Moore)
• Do Design: Why Beauty Is Key to Everything (by Alan Moore)

This season of the podcast is sponsored by Templeton Religion Trust.

Support the show

Lisa Z. Lindahl is an award-winning inventor, artist, author, and entrepreneur best known for transforming women’s sports with her 1977 invention of the first sports bra, the Jogbra. As CEO of JBI Inc. from 1977–1992, she helped shape a global industry, earning ten patents and seeing her invention archived at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History and even displayed at The Metropolitan Museum of Art as a “revolutionary piece of women’s undergarments.”

In 1999, she co-founded Bellisse and co-invented the Compressure Comfort® Bra, a breakthrough medical garment now supporting breast cancer survivors worldwide. She has been inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame (2022), received a U.S. Congressional Commendation, and has long served as an advocate for women’s health, most notably through her leadership roles at the Epilepsy Foundation of America.

She is the author of Beauty as Action (2017), her philosophical guide to practicing “True Beauty,” and the acclaimed memoir Unleash the Girls (2019).

In this second part of our conversation, we talk about:

1. True beauty is harmony rather than glamour
2. The problem of living in a culture rooted in fear, competition, and accumulation
3. “Practicing beauty” works through simple, everyday disciplines
4. Lisa’s 16 practices of beauty
5. The three-legged stool of truth, beauty, and justice

To learn more about Lisa’s work, visit:

• https://www.lisalindahl.com/
• https://beautyinaction.com/

Links Mentioned:

• Beauty as Action by Lisa Z. Lindahl
• Unleash the Girls (Lisa’s memoir on inventing the sports bra)

This season of the podcast is sponsored by Templeton Religion Trust.

Support the show

Lisa Z. Lindahl is an award-winning inventor, artist, author, and entrepreneur best known for transforming women’s sports with her 1977 invention of the first sports bra, the Jogbra. As CEO of JBI Inc. from 1977–1992, she helped shape a global industry, earning ten patents and seeing her invention archived at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History and even displayed at The Metropolitan Museum of Art as a “revolutionary piece of women’s undergarments.”

In 1999, she co-founded Bellisse and co-invented the Compressure Comfort® Bra, a breakthrough medical garment now supporting breast cancer survivors worldwide. She has been inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame (2022), received a U.S. Congressional Commendation, and has long served as an advocate for women’s health, most notably through her leadership roles at the Epilepsy Foundation of America.

She is the author of Beauty as Action (2017), her philosophical guide to practicing “True Beauty,” and the acclaimed memoir Unleash the Girls (2019).

In this first part of our conversation, we talked about:

1. Lisa’s earliest encounters with beauty, from frozen rivers to childhood moments of oneness with nature
2. The story behind the first Jogbra prototype and why sewing “stretch on stretch” is its own art
3. Why the need for the sports bra was far greater than she ever imagined
4. The surprising moment when she realized that “beauty is what really matters.”
5. What she means by true beauty and why she believes it is eternal

To learn more about Lisa’s work, visit:

• https://www.lisalindahl.com/
• https://beautyinaction.com/

Links Mentioned:

• Beauty as Action by Lisa Z. Lindahl
• Unleash the Girls (Lisa’s memoir on inventing the sports bra)

This season of the podcast is sponsored by Templeton Religion Trust.

Support the show

John C. Havens has spent years at the heart of the global conversation on AI ethics. As the Founding Executive Director of the IEEE Global Initiative on Ethics of Autonomous and Intelligent Systems, he led the creation of Ethically Aligned Design, a document that went on to influence the United Nations, OECD, IBM, and dozens of organizations shaping the future of AI. He also helped build the IEEE 7000 Standards Series, now one of the largest bodies of international standards on AI and society.

Today, John serves as the Global Staff Director for the IEEE Planet Positive 2030 Program, guiding efforts that prioritize both ecological and human flourishing in technological design. But his perspective on AI doesn’t begin with policy or engineering; it starts with love, vulnerability, and the deep spiritual questions that have shaped his life.

Previously, John was an EVP of Social Media at Porter Novelli and was a professional actor for over 15 years. John has written for Mashable and The Guardian and is author of the books, Heartificial Intelligence: Embracing Our Humanity To Maximize Machines, Hacking Happiness: Why Your Personal Data Counts and How Tracking it Can Change the World, and Tactical Transparency: How Leaders Can Leverage Social Media to Maximize Value and Build their Brand. John is also an expert with AI and Faith.

In this second part of our conversation, we talk about:

1. The core of reality as love
2. Dangers of ignoring grief
3. Why values must be integrated into AI systems from the very beginning
4. How generative AI entered classrooms and workplaces without care, consent, or love
5. The seductive danger of simulated relationships
6. The role of faith communities in an automated society
7. John’s GAP framework: gratitude, altruism, and purpose
8. Risks of using AI in religious settings
9. How genuine community embodies the kind of love and dignity that technology must never replace

To learn more about John’s work:

• IEEE Planet Positive 2030 Program – https://sagroups.ieee.org/planetpositive
• IEEE 7000 Standards Series – https://standards.ieee.org

Books and resources mentioned:

• Heartificial Intelligence: Embracing Our Humanity to Maximize Machines (John Havens)
• Hacking Happiness: Why Your Personal Data Counts and How Tracking it Can Change the World (John Havens)
• The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power (Shoshana Zuboff)
• Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other (Sherry Turkle)

This season of the podcast is sponsored by Templeton Religion Trust.

Support the show

John C. Havens has spent years at the heart of the global conversation on AI ethics. As the Founding Executive Director of the IEEE Global Initiative on Ethics of Autonomous and Intelligent Systems, he led the creation of Ethically Aligned Design, a document that went on to influence the United Nations, OECD, IBM, and dozens of organizations shaping the future of AI. He also helped build the IEEE 7000 Standards Series, now one of the largest bodies of international standards on AI and society.

Today, John serves as the Global Staff Director for the IEEE Planet Positive 2030 Program, guiding efforts that prioritize both ecological and human flourishing in technological design. But his perspective on AI doesn’t begin with policy or engineering; it starts with love, vulnerability, and the deep spiritual questions that have shaped his life.

Previously, John was an EVP of Social Media at Porter Novelli and was a professional actor for over 15 years. John has written for Mashable and The Guardian and is author of the books, Heartificial Intelligence: Embracing Our Humanity To Maximize Machines, Hacking Happiness: Why Your Personal Data Counts and How Tracking it Can Change the World, and Tactical Transparency: How Leaders Can Leverage Social Media to Maximize Value and Build their Brand. John is also an expert with AI and Faith.

In this first part of our conversation, we discuss:

1. How love reframes “weakness” in both human life and AI ethics
2. The impact of generative AI on creativity, intellectual property, and the erosion of human craftsmanship
3. The dangers of anthropomorphism in AI design
4. Ways AI systems undermine our capacity for conscious choice
5. How the surveillance economy and advertising systems shape our habits and decisions
6. Positive psychology matters for designing technology that supports well-being
7. What dreams, virtual reality, the spatial web, data, and spiritual life have in common

To learn more about John’s work:

• IEEE Planet Positive 2030 Program – https://sagroups.ieee.org/planetpositive
• IEEE 7000 Standards Series – https://standards.ieee.org

Books and resources mentioned:

• Heartificial Intelligence: Embracing Our Humanity to Maximize Machines (John Havens)
• Hacking Happiness: Why Your Personal Data Counts and How Tracking it Can Change the World (John Havens)
• The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power (Shoshana Zuboff)
• Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other (Sherry Turkle)

This season of the podcast is sponsored by Templeton Religion Trust.

Support the show

In Episode 3 of this season, we explore the evolving landscape of spiritual innovation, what it means to design meaningful spiritual life in a rapidly changing world, with guests Casper Ter Kuile and Angie Thurston from Sacred Design Lab, a nonprofit dedicated to nurturing the future of spiritual life.

Casper Ter Kuile shares insight and inspiration on the future of community, ritual, and spirituality. He is the author of The Power of Ritual and co-founder of Sacred Design Lab. He also co-created the hit podcast Harry Potter and the Sacred Text, co-founded Nearness, and co-authored the influential paper How We Gather.

Angie Thurston is Co-Founder and Executive Director of Sacred Design Lab. She has worked with hundreds of innovative leaders, finding new ways to address spiritual longings amid religious change. Angie has co-written eight widely read reports on the evolving landscape of community and spiritual life, including How We Gather.

In this second part of our conversation, we talk about:

1. Why innovation is more often incremental than disruptive
2. The possibility of engineering innovation
3. Why freedom to experiment, fail, and try again is the real engine of progress
4. The complex relationship between basic science and technology, and why it often moves in both directions
5. What it means to “tame” new technologies
6. How patents and intellectual property can stifle creativity rather than inspire it

To learn more about Casper and Angie’s work, you can find them at: https://www.sacred.design

Books and resources mentioned:

• The Power of Ritual (by Casper Ter Kuile)
• How We Gather (by Casper Ter Kuile & Angie Thurston)
• Harry Potter and the Sacred Text (podcast)
• Illuminating Spiritual Innovation (report by Sacred Design Lab)

This season of the podcast is sponsored by Templeton Religion Trust.

Support the show

In Episode 3 of this season, we explore the evolving landscape of spiritual innovation, what it means to design meaningful spiritual life in a rapidly changing world, with guests Casper Ter Kuile and Angie Thurston from Sacred Design Lab, a nonprofit dedicated to nurturing the future of spiritual life.

Casper Ter Kuile shares insight and inspiration on the future of community, ritual, and spirituality. He is the author of The Power of Ritual and co-founder of Sacred Design Lab. He also co-created the hit podcast Harry Potter and the Sacred Text, co-founded Nearness, and co-authored the influential paper How We Gather.

Angie Thurston is Co-Founder and Executive Director of Sacred Design Lab. She has worked with hundreds of innovative leaders, finding new ways to address spiritual longings amid religious change. Angie has co-written eight widely read reports on the evolving landscape of community and spiritual life, including How We Gather.

In this first part of our conversation, we discuss:

1. The origins of Sacred Design Lab and its mission
2. What “spiritual innovation” really means and how it appears across traditions
3. The story behind Harry Potter and the Sacred Text and how reading can become a spiritual practice
4. What it means to design for risk in ritual and liturgy
5. The meaning of “spiritual innovation” and why the language itself can be both inspiring and controversial
6. Real stories of innovators around the world: Buddhist monks leading meditation in the metaverse to Muslim leaders blending theology with psychology

To learn more about Casper and Angie’s work, you can find them at: https://www.sacred.design

Books and resources mentioned:

• The Power of Ritual (by Casper Ter Kuile)
• How We Gather (by Casper Ter Kuile & Angie Thurston)
• Harry Potter and the Sacred Text (podcast)
• Illuminating Spiritual Innovation (report by Sacred Design Lab)

This season of the podcast is sponsored by Templeton Religion Trust.

Support the show