61: Creativity, Courageous Vulnerability and Wholehearted Living

to have Brene Brown on the podcast. Brenee is a research professor at the University of Houston Graduate College of Social Work. She has spent the past thirteen years studying vulnerability, courage, worthiness, and shame. Brenee is the author of three number one York Time bestsellers, Rising Strong, Daring Greatly, and The Gifts of Imperfection. Thanks for talking with me today, Berne. I'm excited. I'm looking forward to it. I have a big fan of your work, so I'm I'm excited to Wow. That

means a lot to me that you said that. I'm a big fan of yours as well, and I'm really looking forward to talking today. And I thought we could start with your career starting topic shame. How did you get interested in this topic. You know, I didn't have any I didn't really have interested in that topic. I was very interested in connection and kind of trying to understand the anatomy of connection because I was, you know, I have bachelor's in social work, a master's and was

working on my PhD in social work. And I think I summarized my you know, fifteen years of higher ed and my one hundred thousand dollars in school owns as we are wired to be connected to one of me, to each other. So that was the big takeaway, and so I really wanted to understand what does it mean, what does connection really mean, how do we build it? And what gets in the way. And I wasn't really interested in what gets in the way. I was just I thought, you know, if I come across with that,

it'll be interesting. Well, as it turns out, and you know this probably better than most, it's human nature. When we don't have vocabulary to describe what is, we rely

on the easier vocabulary of describing what isn't. So when I started asking people about connection, what's important to them and what's meaningful for them, they immediately told me stories about isolation, heartbreak, pain, disconnection, betrayal, and so I involuntarily, very quickly became a shame researcher because I think that shame is the experience of believing we're not worthy of connection, or the fear of believing we're not worthy of connection.

And that's how people really just described their experiences of connection with me is by describing disconnection. So I became literally just I mean dogged about it. And you cannot believe how many people are like, you can't study that. It's a horrible topic. You'll never get published note, you know, just but I don't know. I think I was really attracted to it because for the first time in my

life I felt not alone hearing other people struggles with it. So, first of all, you were brave to still continue on that topic. So that was an act of bravery right there. And then what it led to you sort of had this faith in a way. It seems to me that it also would lead to into new unexpected directions. So I really like this quote of yours. Only when we are brave enough to explore the darkness will we discover

the infinite power of our light. And it seemed like you almost had to correct me if I'm wrong, Rene, but it seems like you almost had to start with this topic. It sort of like was a foundation for like everything else you study by starting with the dark in a way, Does that make sense? Yeah? Yeah, completely, And it was. Honestly, it was an enormous an ask. People did not want to hear about it. I couldn't even know. I knew I wanted to write very early on. I knew I wanted to write, not I wanted to

write for the public. I didn't want to do that kind of thing, you know. I was in a very stressful in your dract position. I didn't want to do that thing where I was just writing for other academics because I had done research before, especially under two of

my mentors at you of Ah. But it was the first time I'd ever done a study where the research participants after the interviews would look at me, I mean tearfully look at me and say, do you promise when you learn what this means and what this is, that you'll share it with us? And I felt really terrible because the answer was, you know, I'm actually not. I'm going to publish it in a article that like three people read, and mostly the people that read it will

be checking to make sure they've been quoted. It's so true, so true. I think it was really hard. But I do think so much of what's wrong today for me about what's out there, you know, the professional literature and you know, made available to the public, is people don't talk about the stuff that gets in the way. Yeah, they almost sort of jump in kind of a masslow sort of way. They kind of jump right to the self actualization without working on all the steps along the way.

Is that a fair way of putting it. I think it's a really weird way of putting it. And for those of us who are you know, perfect For myself, I need to normalize about how hard it is, how human it is, what I'm experiencing, how this is not going to be easy, and I need someone to say, you know what, just because it doesn't mean putting it into practice makes it, you know, it's still hard. And

so I think starting a shame. While it was really really hard on me professionally and personally, I don't think I could have done what I've done had I not started there. That makes a lot of sense. And also I find it really important to hihilate that you do qualitative analysis. Yeah, grounded theory, which was pioneered by your mentor, Barney Glazier. And I'd love for you to talk a little bit about the differences, you know, really quickly, you know, I know we could talk all day about this, but

why do you prefer personally? What kind of data do you think you can get out of quality of that you can't get from quantitative you know. I think what's interesting about grounded theory is I think it's normally associated with qualitative research, but a lot of people myself included now using secondary data can use the methodology with qualitative

or quantitative data. The thing that I love about, you know, And for people listening to her like what you know you can use Yeah, you can use this theory to understand numbers, you know, kind of hard data, or you can use this approach to find the patterns and themes

that emerge from stories and interviews. And so for me, what I really love about grounded theory is that, unlike a lot of traditional research qualitative and quantitative, rather than starting with an existing theory and then proving or disproving that theory, it calls into questions the validity of existing theories and says, you know what, build a theory from the ground up, not based on other theorists, but based

on people's lived experiences. Then when you find the themes and patterns saturating and emerging so they're almost predictable, then start developing that theory. Then you do the lit review, then you look into it. But anything before that will fill your mind with kind of preconceived notions, and that is not building a theory on what people really live. And so to me, I was going in researching a

topic that was, you know, no one talks about. And if you look at Glazer and Strauss who developed it, it was really interesting because a lot of times grounded

theories are controversial. They really push on a existing theories because you know from Kriglazer and Strauss they wanted to understand dying and they really wanted to understand dying and children, and so they had to find a way to talk to children about their experiences during a time where doctors, nurses, parents, clergy conspired to not tell children that they were actually

eternal as they were dying. So they had to find a way to really be loyal and truthful about these children's experiences and not rely on what was already out there, and so it is really the other thing I love about it that just is like, I know, I'm kind of geeking otters, so thanks for putting me to And by the way, this is what our listeners will love to hear, is the geeking parts good. What I really

love about it is that it's not descriptive. It's not like a lot of qualitative researchers that descript This is conceptualizing from data in a very rigorous scientific way. It's kind of a brutal methodology, very time consuming, very hands on. You're not allowed to use any kind of software to quote to code data. It's really about staying in a process and being true to a process and being true to what people are saying, not your academic interests or

pet peeves. So it's it's challenging, but I've become a huge lover of it, and it's fun because I get to share a lot of dissertations now for people kind of around the world who are doing grounded theory research. So it's really fun. And I still am in contact with Barney Blazer. Yeah, incredible. You know, one of the kind of founding people of Chicago's School Qualitative Research. So

it's really interesting. Yeah. Yeah, And grounded theory is definitely considered one of the most rigorous qualitative methods that exist today. And I think it's so interesting, like it's both top down and bottom up. It's like an iterative process. It

is completely Yeah. In fact, Barney was on my you know, the methodologist on my dissert, and I gave them a pen for the gifts, like a really beautiful pen, and I had it inscribed and it said trust an emergence because the whole theory grounded theory is trust that what you need will emerge from the data if you stay regress. Sounds like the nature of consciousness. Oh my, you know. And what's really funny too, is I'm not a clinician.

I've never been a clinician, but it is very similar to the clinical process of being with clients and listening to their stories and not getting ahead of them or behind them, but just staying with them in their process, just being with them. Yeah. So interesting. Well, thanks for talking about that a little bit, sir. So I want to move on now to this major point in your life,

your two thousand and seven breakdown. I mean, spiritual awakening. Yeah, I thought maybe we could talk a little bit about that, and you know what happened around then that made you shift a little bit in your research interests, you know, I think for me, you know, I came to the end of this reekon shame feeling like I had a really good understanding of what it is, what it isn't, how it operates, how to distinguish it from other self

conscious affect like guilt, humiliation, embarrassment. And what I realized is I was sitting on some data that could really mine for a different question, a question that I was really interested in, which is Okay, I understand how shame works.

But there are you know, there are a lot of men and women who I've interviewed who, rather than waking up in the morning and saying, you know, I'm not enough, I don't have enough, there's never enough, nothing's good enough, these people woke up in the morning really and saying, yeah, there's a lot of scurcity, there's a lot of perfectionism, that I am enough, And so what did they have in common? And so I really wanted to to look

back into the data ask me that question. And so for me, the kind of breakdown slash spiritual awakening came when what really emerged from that, you know, we call it constant care, comparative method. That's the big method we use in gravied theory. What really emerged from working with doctoral students and other people in the research is what these men and women had in common, kind of above all else, was the willingness and capacity to be vulnerable.

And that was devastating for me because I became a researcher strictly because I hate vulnerability, and so I'm not a fan of vulnerability really at all. And I like certainty. I like control. I like prediction and control, you know, I like that. That's the bill of goods. I got sold on research, but is there's also a part of it that's like we I don't want to speak for you, but like intellectualization was kind of a way for me and my childhood to suppress feelings I didn't want to

feel at home yea percent. You know, you don't have to feel them, just understand them. And as a child, you know, safety is not always in feeling what you're feeling, but it's understanding why you're feeling it and what you can do to change it. I think it was really You know, it's funny because one of the quotes that I see all the time that people use and like on their blogs or people is a quote from mine that I it's like one of my least favorite quotes.

I'm always surprised when I see it. But it's something like I think it's from the gifts of imperfection that knowing ourselves matters but not as much as loving ourselves or something which still pisses me off. I wish the love and the magic was in the knowing, not the feeling. I still wish that. Sometimes I don't believe it anymore, but I still wish it. That's interesting. Can you elaborate a little bit on that? So I want to make

sure I fully understand that point. I can have full awareness of how vulnerability works at the constant, what it is, what the pieces and the elements are. But unless I'm really willing to embrace uncertainty, unless I'm really willing to be vulnerable, it doesn't matter how well I academically understand it. And so well. Yeah, and so that's the part that's still hard for me, because I'm much more comfortable in my head than I am in my heart. Okay, that

makes a lot of sense. You know, a lot of people say that, like a lot of research is research. Maybe in a way that's a good thing. You know, I've never heard that, but that's funny. Yeah, it seems like, you know, it's a good like it's important to kind of see it from the inside as well as the outside. Yeah, I mean, just more basically, for me, why would you ever spend your career studying something that had no personal

value to you? Like for me, I'm really passionate about figuring these things out sometimes because I think it makes me a better partner and a better parent and a better person, a better leader. And so I just didn't expect font to find things that were going to kick my ass to the level that they did. Totally. Yeah, so that's cool. I mean it's like your stories that you collected inspired you to be a better person in a way, or to be a dit to to prove

in certain areas of your life. Oh for sure. Yeah, that's cool. I mean I'm just trying to think that's something that I don't I don't always get so inspired when I look at my quantitative numbers. Your methodology kind of affords that in an additional way. So I really

like that cool. And I think sometimes even like we're doing some quantitative work right now, which you know, I enjoy, I don't have the same kind of maybe deep passion for quantitative work as I do for qualitative work, only because you know, I'm a storyteller and a story catcher, and so I love that part. But I think the quantitative. You know, it's funny because I had the first qualitative dissertation in my college and it was a real kind of scandal. I had to get all kinds of special

dispensation from the provost. It was hard, but I was taught by really great people who told me he really taught me, like my mentor my academic mentor study femicide the killing of women by intimate partners. And she was domestic violence researcher, and she was a mixed methods researcher, and she always used to tell me, she said, if I could change the face of domestic violence with really

powerful stories, I would do that. If I could change the face of domestic violence with numbers, I would do that. But it takes both to really speak to human behavior and human thinking. You have to have the numbers and the stories. And so to me, that's kind of how I was academically raised. So I don't really see it as an either or, but I do think for the things that really shook my soul, it was the qualitative stuff. Yeah, that was very well put. I like that. So let's

talk about wholehearted living. There's so much that it encompasses. It's not just one thing. How do you define? First of all, how do you define wholehearted living? To you know, I have a definition in the gifts of imperfection of it. And I can again try to quote myself maybe, but you know, to me, it's about the willingness. To you,

it's the courage to be imperfect, to be vulnerable. It's about the courage to wake up in the morning and really acknowledge that no matter what gets done and what doesn't get done, that I'm enough, and that I'm worthy of love and belonging and joy those things that we just are irreducible needs for humans. And so to me, wholeheartedness is really about, I think, the opposite of it.

Here I go, doing exactly what told you my research participants did, using the opposite to explain I think it's really about the opposite of it is really scarcity, that I'm not enough. What I produce, what I create dictates who I am and dictates my worth. And I think wholeheartedness is different than that. I think it's that I am enough. Yeah, I like that, and so a lot of these things to fall naturally from that holding courage, compassion, connection.

So why is being vulnerable and active courage? Yeah, this is the big P. I think this is the research that has been meant the most to me and probably I think has changed my career the most. And that is this, you know, dispelling the mythology that I think vulnerability is important to courage. I think vulnerability is courage.

And in fact, we were looking at data the other day and you know, we have the two hundred thousand pieces of data now that I can't find a single example or what we would call incident of courage that is not completely defined by vulnerability. And it's one of the things that I really challenged people to do. I do a lot of speaking, and like I was just recently at Fort Bragg speaking to soldiers in joint special

operations like special ops soldiers. Yeah, but I even challenge them because you know, it's a hard it's a hard group to talk about vulnerability with because basically, in a combat situation, vulnerability equals death and so and their job is really to minimize vulnerability. Even that's even language they use.

And so I ask them to, you know, come up with an example a courage that they've ever seen done themselves witnessed that wasn't completely defined by a willingness to be vulnerable, you know, a willingness to put yourself engage in risk, uncertainty and emotional exposure. And no one could come up with an example. And so to me, it's not that courage requires vulnerability. I think vulnerability is our

most accurate measure of courage. Tell me how vulnerable someone is willing to be, and I'll tell you how brave they'll be. That's so interesting. That makes a lot of sense. And I kind of like this. You kind of talk about the flip side of vulnerability in a way of like being acting cool. I thought that was so interesting,

Like you're talking about people who act cool, you know. Yeah, yeah, can you librate a little bit on that, Yeah, I mean I think the opposite of vulnerability, you know, the definition I use for vulnerability emerge from the data, and it's simply uncertainty, risk and emotional expl mesure. And so cool is the need to be perceived as completely in control, completely certain and risking no emotional exposure at all. So it's kind of the straight jacket of I'm in control,

I've got everything managed. It's emotional stoicism, not emotional exposure. And so I think cool is just really dangerous. I agree. I don't know. There's that great quote from Almost Famous. The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what you say to someone when you're being uncool. I like that. I mean that I wish like my twenty one year

old self heard in this conversation. You know, I feel like I went through my whole twenties trying to be someone I wasn't like, trying to be like I bought

like Abercrombie and pitch clothes like I'm not. I mean that is for someone that is who they are, but I'm saying for me, it is I spent my twenties trying to be cool, and then my al you know, I started giving talks about my experiences as being in special ed as a kid and just being really honest about that, and and I think people think I'm a lot cooler when I do that then when I was

trying to act cool. Yeah, because there's some authentic badassory in that piece, right, Yeah, because it's brave, because that's brave, because it's vulnerable, and there's really there's nothing really that brave about being cool. It cool is by definition self protection, you know. And for me, I came from a family

where cool was really important. And so you know, I do a lot of parenting research right now, I'm doing it right now or teaching a class, and it's one of the things I really talked to parents about that if you are consciously or unconsciously positioning cool as a family value, you know, you've got to be really clear on the implications that will have on children, because kids will engage in very, very high risk behaviors without thinking much. If cool is a value you put forward as a

big family value, I agree. And something I thought was really cool was this phrase wholehearted parenting that I saw you use in one context and just made me think of, like, what would a wholehearted school look like? What would wholehearted education look like? You know, it's so it dovetails nicely with the work we're doing on positive education and all these interventions we're trying to do to look at increases in gratitude and mindfulness and a lot of the things

you talk about. But it really a lot of ways. That's what it is. It's you know, it's like a wholehearted school. Wow, now it is. We have a new programmat called Daring Schools. We really talk about what does it take to create a culture in education where vulnerability is a requirement for learning and you can't learn with your mouth shutting your head down. So you can't learn in classrooms where vulnerability is not you know, promoted, they're got a safe space for it. You just can't learn.

And so that means just by definition that any kind of shame based environment, you know, prohibits that really prohibits learning. So we're kind of looking at the same things from

a different perspective that y'all we're looking at. And I think there's an incredibly powerful intersection I think of the work that y'all are doing the work we're trying to do, because I think it's going to take the combination of what we're all looking at to pull together the kind of schools that we're going to need to put together

moving forward. So how I was saying, no, a critical component of compassion because they're not often treated in the same sentence, right, Like boundaries and compassion are not often treated together. But I really like how you put them together. So could you obrate on that a bit? Sure? And

I think that was a real surprise to me. I had this kind of stack of data for about six months, and I laughingly called it the Compassion SmackDown stat because I was like, this was a stack of people who I interviewed who I was just kind of really blown away by their level of just human compassion. And I wanted to figure out what was it that these people shared in common. I was, you know, I made a hundred guesses. I was like, you know, is it kindness?

Is it faith? Is it spirituality? What do these men and women who are so incredibly compassionate toward themselves, toward each other, toward just their thoughts about human nature? What do they share in common? And it turns out that the only variable they shared in common was they were the most boundary people I've ever interviewed. And it took me a while to put two and two together to understand, like, wow, these boundary people happen to also be the you know,

the compassion people. And as I started looking into it and then doing kind of what we call selective coding, going back now that I haven't understanding of what's emerging, and doing more interviewing specifically around those questions, it became really clear to me that you know, when you go, I do like ninety percent of my work right now in you know, kind of fortune five hundred companies and large organizations, and I always strive me that how many

of these organizations have assumption of positive intent as a standard value, But no one talks about the prerequisite for that, which is you cannot be generous and tolerant and accepting of people who are not respecting you, not respecting your boundaries. And so we call it in my research, we call it big that it's boundaries, integrity, generosity. In order to really approach people's thoughts, behaviors, and actions with a hypothesis of generosity, you have to ensure that your boundaries are

being respected by those people. That makes a lot of sense, and bringing in their self compassion seems to be an important thing that you talk about as well and acceptance. So it seems like you really have to know who you are and what you want to set up those boundaries, and in order to do that, you have to accept who you are and what you want, right, I think

it does. It's interesting with grounded theory because we don't do the lit review until the theory emerges, because you know, it gets in the way of us, you know, trying

to figure out how people are actually living. It's interesting because then once you do the lit review after your theory has emerged, you're looking for existing literature that supports or existing literature that really conflicts with what you found, and you know, addressing that and so and sometimes that means just saying, you know, this is not what I find. I disagree, you know, the times it's digging in further

and making sure that you didn't miss something. And so for me, when I was doing the compassion work and after I finished coding that data, I found Kristin Neff from the University of Texas at Austin Kristin Neff's work on compassion and it was just such a powerful fit with what I had seen in the data. So I rely on her work a lot. Yeah, she's been on this podcast, and I'm going to, in fact, when I feature my podcast my website, I'm going to put yours

next to krisin NEPs. I decided I'd like to neighbors with her. Yeah, I just decided. Yeah, it dovetails so nicely. So this is great. You know, when I talk about creativity, I bring in stuff like authenticity and meaning, and you know, in Wired to Create, I talk about how really creativity is not much more than finding your personal meaning in a way, and you talk about it in similar terms. I'd love to hear your thoughts and let's just have a discussion and jam on this topic. Yeah, I love it.

I love Wired to Create. Oh, I just think it's it. I just I love what you say in it. I think it's the title is like, it's just soul whole truth telling. I love it. Oh that just made my wife right there. But thanks I forgot. Yeah, I just do. I think everything about everything that you have found, everything that you pause it is exactly I think it's exactly right. I just believe it heart and soul. So tell me

your question again because I was Fonny. Yeah, I love like these associated constructs that we both I totally agree are part or kind of part and parcel of creativity. So meaning having a uniqueness, not like comparison, but having your own path that you are accept in a way and you and then drives you and all these things. And authenticity is another one. So there's all these related topics and I just wanted to just talk about how they relate to creativity. Yeah, I think, I don't know.

I think you know. One of the most I don't know if the word controversial, but one of the findings from my work that I thought about a lot when I read Wired to Create, which was met has been still still met, Like I just did a talk in Denver on Saturday. It's still met with Like people get really fussy but crunchy about it. Is my belief that you know, and I think it's a shared belief that we have, is that you know, there's no such thing

as creative or not creative people. There's people who use it and people who don't, right, But I do believe, and this is where people get upset that unused creativity is not benign. I think ignoring that part of our humanity comes at a cost, because I do believe, as you say in your title, that we are wired for creativity. It's part of our DNA. And so I think the question for me, and this goes back to starting as a shame researcher, and that lends really informing my entire career.

So my question is like, if we are really wired to be created, but yet people are not doing it? What gets in the way, And so much of what gets in the way is shame. Oh yeah, absolutely, and and a lot of these other emotions that kind of

block us up. So you know what's interesting. I started, I'm working on this project about Abraham Maslow, and I've ring all those journals, and he believed that self actuization is the height of creativity and that self actualization really can only come about when you, piece by piece start unblocking yourself. It's sort of like our default state is self actualization. And then all these other things in the pyramid are things that are kind of clogging it up

in a way. I think I agree with that. I mean, my question would be, does he think that they were born with them plogged? Are that? Well, we're born with the creative instinct, And I definitely agree with that. There's just a sort of you know what, it's no, the way I like to think about there's sort of like there's an inner freedom that comes with creativity. That all these things like shame and fear and what they do is they limit our degrees of freedom. But how do

you think they get there? Lizzy is pointing something she wrote down in her hands. She wrote, arts, art scars that that's that's Lizzie, that's exactly that will never serve you, Lizzy the podcast. So I was, no, it's OK, I'm going to keep this same and I'm going to keep this in also, that's a question I'm asking, like, I believe the reason why I'm asking you is because I think that what I find in my work is that the stuff that Maslow would say clogs freedom or clogs

or you know, creates inhibition or whatever it is. Inhibition may be the wrong word, but I think a lot of that is learned, and I think that in many ways we're born with a lot of freedom. And you know, when you have as many people that we've interviewed and fifty percent of I mean sorry, eighty five percent of them can remember something that happened in school that was so shaming it changed how they thought of themselves as learners. And of that eighty five percent, fifty percent of those

scars specifically were around art, writing, drawing, creativity, music. I mean, like the stuff that you're doing with schools, Like, it's going to be so much easier if you don't create the wound then try to heal it. And I'm telling you that's what happens. Like people want to believe that that's, oh, that must be like you know, resource poor public schools

where that's happening. It's not. It happens in every school, not in every classroom, of course, because there are teachers that I've met some of the fiercest, non shaming, wholehearted people I've ever met our teachers. But you know, it happens a lot. And so if we can change the environments in which the clogging happens, that's going to be so much more effective and efficient than trying to heal it.

Great and additionally, create a culture that allows people to feel comfortable sharing how they feel, you know, their vulnerability about you know, maybe they were bullied and saying like, you know what, I really am not cool with that. You know, this is how I feel about that you know, so just yeah, adding in that vulnerability aspect as well, that would have been huge for me. Well, but we all have that inner freedom. It really is inside us.

It's just we don't access it. It is, and I think it's hard to make the transition from you know, I think I always tell people it's one of the most important developmental milestones of midlife is you know, midlife is when and midlife can be anything from your you know, you know, from your mid thirties to you know, who knows, sixties, But it's kind of when the universe grabs you by the shoulders and says, you know, I'm not screwing around

like you're halfway done. And all the armor and all the things you put around yourself, the walls, the armor, the moats you dug to really protect yourself emotionally, maybe even physically. They're keeping you from growing into your gifts. And you're an adult now, but it's you know, so it's time to take those off, and it's time to

be vulnerable and be who you are. But you know, when you when you grow up having to put armor are on to self protect, which we all do to some extent, it becomes a great challenge to believing that

you're safe enough to pull it off. And I think that's you know, that's really the part of the work that I try to talk to people about is that, you know, how do we how do we create environments where kids and cultures, family cultures, school cultures where kids don't have to armor up so much to begin with, And then once those of us who are armored are armored, what do we need to start pulling that stuff off?

I love that, So maybe it would be to end on this note, we can like both agree that I think society would be benefited if we shifted from this focus on what's wrong with people, like you know, your test SAT scores are terrible or this and that, and focused more on the beauty and potential that's inherited in everyone and the creative possibilities. Oh my god, sign me

up for that. Also, well, thank you so much for chatting today and for the really terrific work you do and for inspiring me to be more authentic in my own life. Oh my god, one hundred percent, And thank you for the work you're doing. And it's so fun to find like spirited people on the same because it's hard sometimes and you're like, oh, and you know, am I chasing windmills? But you know, if that's what it is, at least are people like you. I can knock them

over with sounds gonna be. Thanks for Nae. Thanks for listening to The Psychology Podcast with Doctor Scott Barry Kaufman. I hope you found this episode just as thought for booking and interesting as I did. If you'd like to read the show notes for this episode or hear past episodes, you can visit the Psychology Podcast dot com