Robert Biswas-Diener is a researcher, author, and well-known executive coach. His work has taken him all over the globe, studying culture as it relates to well-being. In addition to happiness, he’s researched subjects such as strengths, hospitality, friendship, and leadership. In 2024, Thinkers50 recognized Robert as one of the 50 most influential executive coaches in the world. A prolific author, Robert has penned many best-selling books including Positive Provocation, The Upside of Your Dark Side, and Happiness.

Robert describes Positive Provocation as a love letter to coaching. It includes 25 provocative questions that challenges readers to examine the foundational architecture of coaching. In this episode, he and Andy talk about the importance of learning through reflection, challenging long-held beliefs, and getting curious about asking novel questions that interrogate the world around us and stimulate growth.

"Some Questions You Might Ask" by Mary Oliver Is the soul solid, like iron? Or is it tender and breakable, like the wings of a moth in the beak of the owl? Who has it, and who doesn’t? I keep looking around me. The face of the moose is as sad as the face of Jesus. The swan opens her white wings slowly. In the fall, the black bear carries leaves into the darkness. One question leads to another. Does it have a shape? Like an iceberg? Like the eye of a hummingbird? Does it have one lung, like the snake and the scallop? Why should I have it, and not the anteater who loves her children? Why should I have it, and not the camel? Come to think of it, what about the maple trees? What about the blue iris? What about all the little stones, sitting alone in the moonlight? What about roses, and lemons, and their shining leaves? What about the grass?

Show Notes:

* Positive Provocation: 25 Questions to Elevate Your Coaching Practice by Robert Biswas-Diener

* www.robertdiener.com

Connect with Andy:

* LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewjcahill/

* Instagram: https://instagram.com/wonderdomepodcast​

What is your fiercest hope for humanity?

Eleanor Robins writes in service of imagination. Her work has been featured in publications such as the Guardian, the Times Literary Supplement, the Washington Post, and the LA Times. Her Substack, How to Go Home, is a newsletter devoted to essays, reflections, and conversations about imagination and the imaginal realm.

A steward of dreams and stories, Eleanor studies the phenomena of the imaginal realm and how it shapes us and our relationship with reality. Following in the tradition of thinkers and mystics such as Henry Corbin and Cynthia Bourgeault, Eleanor and Andy’s conversation explores the imaginal realm as a real place apart from the physical, one with its own mode of perception separate from our ordinary waking consciousness; the space between the spiritual and the material; the dreamtime of the gods.

"I Am Like a Leaf" by Yone Noguchi The silence is broken: into the nature My soul sails out, Carrying the song of life on his brow, To meet the flowers and birds. When my heart returns in the solitude, She is very sad, Looking back on the dead passions Lying on Love’s ruin. I am like a leaf Hanging over hope and despair, Which trembles and joins The world’s imagination and ghost.

Show Notes:

* How to Go Home - Eleanor Robins on Substack

* https://www.eleanorrobins.com

* Eye of the Heart: A Spiritual Journey into the Imaginal Realm by Cynthia Bourgeault

Connect with Andy:

* LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewjcahill/

* Instagram: https://instagram.com/wonderdomepodcast​

What is your fiercest hope for humanity?

Cecily Sommers is a futurist, business consultant, and author of Think Like a Futurist. Cecily defines her practice as a futurist in terms of someone who studies the principles and mechanisms of change by looking at history, biology, and the universe in order to understand how societies transform over time. As a business futurist, Cecily’s zone of genius is as a consultant to some of the world’s biggest brands in the disciplines of strategy, innovation, and leadership development, helping organizations recognize and strategize around the forces of change impacting business and society.

This week on The Wonder Dome, Cecily shares the significance of developing what she calls change literacy; an ability to cultivate an inner stability in tandem with an understanding of how the cycles of change function so that we can readily meet the future as it approaches. In an ever-changing geopolitical landscape, Cecily’s work is a balm that soothes uncertainty by helping us develop, “the other AI: an Anticipatory Intelligence that tells us not just what to follow, but how to leverage change for growth.”

"The Future" by Rainer Maria Rilke, translated by A. Poulin The future: time's excuse to frighten us; too vast a project, too large a morsel for the heart's mouth. Future, who won't wait for you? Everyone is going there. It suffices you to deepen the absence that we are.

Show Notes:

* www.cecilysommers.com

* Cecily Sommers on LinkedIn

* Think Like a Futurist by Cecily Sommers

Connect with Andy:

* LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewjcahill/

* Instagram: https://instagram.com/wonderdomepodcast​

What is your fiercest hope for humanity?