
Curiosity, democracy and moving from fear to purpose
03/10/23 • 43 min
1 Listener
In this episode, we have a captivating conversation with Jim Herr on the theme of curiosity. Jim discusses the importance of self-reflection, looking behind the curtain we create, and questioning who we are. He shares his personal journey of self-discovery and how he overcame the fear of being an imposter or not being good enough. Jim highlights the significance of recognizing our own power and, like Spiderman, the responsibility that comes with it. He shares how he found his purpose in leading an initiative for democracy preservation at the Japanese American National Museum and ensuring that no one is left behind. Join us as we explore the beauty and challenges of self-reflection and making room for those who may not agree with us.
Create an intentional practice with your own Gratitude Blooming card deck, notecards, candle and much much more at our shop at www.gratitudeblooming.com.
Learn more about our co-hosts and special guest for Season 4:
Co-host Belinda Liu | Hestia Retreat Centers
Co-host Omar Brownson | Trickster's Guide to Immortality on Substack
Special Guest Dr. Paul Wang | The Dao CenterIf you enjoyed this episode, please take a moment to leave us a 5-star rating and review. Your feedback is valuable to us and helps us grow.
Share your thoughts and comments by emailing us at [email protected]. We love hearing from our listeners!
In this episode, we have a captivating conversation with Jim Herr on the theme of curiosity. Jim discusses the importance of self-reflection, looking behind the curtain we create, and questioning who we are. He shares his personal journey of self-discovery and how he overcame the fear of being an imposter or not being good enough. Jim highlights the significance of recognizing our own power and, like Spiderman, the responsibility that comes with it. He shares how he found his purpose in leading an initiative for democracy preservation at the Japanese American National Museum and ensuring that no one is left behind. Join us as we explore the beauty and challenges of self-reflection and making room for those who may not agree with us.
Create an intentional practice with your own Gratitude Blooming card deck, notecards, candle and much much more at our shop at www.gratitudeblooming.com.
Learn more about our co-hosts and special guest for Season 4:
Co-host Belinda Liu | Hestia Retreat Centers
Co-host Omar Brownson | Trickster's Guide to Immortality on Substack
Special Guest Dr. Paul Wang | The Dao CenterIf you enjoyed this episode, please take a moment to leave us a 5-star rating and review. Your feedback is valuable to us and helps us grow.
Share your thoughts and comments by emailing us at [email protected]. We love hearing from our listeners!
Previous Episode

From Darkness to Light: The Dignity of Time and Boundaries
In this episode, we are joined by Emily Golding, Executive Director of Amplifier, a nonprofit design lab that builds art and media experiments to amplify the most important movements of our times. Together, we explore the Gratitude Blooming theme of Choice, represented by the spring rose.
Emily shares her journey of embodying choice, teaching the joy of choice, and leaning into how ideas incubate in young people. She also discusses the concept of time dignity and how it impacts our well-being with a focus on the importance of setting boundaries and saying "no" in order to create space for our "yes."
Emily shares her personal story with balancing work and motherhood, and the importance of taking time for ourselves to nurture our well-being. She also explores the challenges faced by the younger generation, including eco-anxiety and the pressure to constantly be "doing," and offers insights into how we can create a more fulfilling and purposeful life.
Read more about Emily and her work here:
As an Irish/Latina native of the eastside of Los Angeles, Emily is keenly interested in how the stories we tell shape our collective identity. In her 10+ years in the social impact space, she has collaborated with philanthropists, artists, activists, technologists, journalists, and scholars to launch large-scale media, art, theatre, dance, and film projects that expand our notion of public life. To date, Emily has secured over 17 million in funding from over 100 grantors spanning from the Knight Foundation, the Hewlett Foundation, the Kresge Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the U.S. Department of State, and global brands like Johnson & Johnson, The North Face, and Louis Vuitton for projects across the United States and Latin America. Program partners have included the U.N., the J. Paul Getty Museum, the Guggenheim Museum, Facebook, and ViacomCBS.
Emily is the Executive Director of Amplifier, a design lab that amplifies the most important social movements of our times. Prior to Amplifier, Emily spent seven years running the national grantwriting and comms firm Girasol Consulting, and served as a writing professor at Occidental College.
She has served as a panelist for the National Endowment for the Arts’ Folk and Traditional Arts grants program and spoken about narrative shift and culture change work at Johns Hopkins University, George Washington University, and on ABC and FOX news. Her writings on politics and culture have been published by Zocalo Public Square and by Harvard University and New York University journals. Emily holds a master’s degree in Journalism from Georgetown University and an undergraduate degree in Modern Literature from UC Santa Cruz. In her free time, she enjoys hiking, creative writing, vegan nachos, and adventures in revolutionary motherhood!
Create an intentional practice with your own Gratitude Blooming card deck, notecards, candle and much much more at our shop at www.gratitudeblooming.com.
Learn more about our co-hosts and special guest for Season 4:
Co-host Belinda Liu | Hestia Retreat Centers
Co-host Omar Brownson | Trickster's Guide to Immortality on Substack
Special Guest Dr. Paul Wang | The Dao CenterIf you enjoyed this episode, please take a moment to leave us a 5-star rating and review. Your feedback is valuable to us and helps us grow.
Share your thoughts and comments by emailing us at [email protected]. We love hearing from our listeners!
Next Episode

Beyond Learning: Embodying values and building connection through art
This week, we sit down with Adam Rosendahl, the founder and CEO of Late Nite Art, to explore the theme of Celebration through the metaphor of a bouquet of flowers. Adam reflects on his journey into facilitation and art, including a transformative experience of being blessed as a baby by a monk who noticed that he had "the hands of an artist".
Adam also discusses the power of art and music to help people feel seen and connected, and how Late Nite Art uses an arts-based methodology to support teams from all industries to improve their creative confidence and break routine ways of thinking. He emphasizes the importance of pro-activism and creating experiences that make people feel deeply connected, seen, and supported.
Throughout the episode, Adam shares his insights on how to tune our instruments to be in harmony with the world around us and how to move beyond the first step of learning to truly embody and live out our values. This episode is a reminder to celebrate the things that bring us joy and connection, and to use our creativity to build a better world.
Enjoy our closing reflection question to help you explore what you'd like to be celebrating in 10, 40 or even 100 years from now!
Here's more on Adam and where to explore his work!
Adam Rosendahl is an internationally renowned facilitator, team engagement expert, and the founder of Late Nite Art®, a connection and creativity firm based in San Francisco. He works with the world’s top companies to create transformational learning events that help teams take more risks and build meaningful relationships. At its core, his work is about humanizing people beyond the roles they play at work. Over the past 10 years, Adam has led 500+ events, impacting 10,000+ people across 15 countries. His clients include Pixar, Instagram, and Southwest Airlines – as well as prisons, schools, and nonprofits across the globe.
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adamrosendahl/
- IG: https://www.instagram.com/theadamrosendahl/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/adameliasrosendahl/
- TEDx Talk:
Create an intentional practice with your own Gratitude Blooming card deck, notecards, candle and much much more at our shop at www.gratitudeblooming.com.
Learn more about our co-hosts and special guest for Season 4:
Co-host Belinda Liu | Hestia Retreat Centers
Co-host Omar Brownson | Trickster's Guide to Immortality on Substack
Special Guest Dr. Paul Wang | The Dao CenterIf you enjoyed this episode, please take a moment to leave us a 5-star rating and review. Your feedback is valuable to us and helps us grow.
Share your thoughts and comments by emailing us at [email protected]. We love hearing from our listeners!
If you like this episode you’ll love
Episode Comments
Featured in these lists
Generate a badge
Get a badge for your website that links back to this episode
<a href="https://goodpods.com/podcasts/gratitude-blooming-podcast-248783/curiosity-democracy-and-moving-from-fear-to-purpose-28649907"> <img src="https://storage.googleapis.com/goodpods-images-bucket/badges/generic-badge-1.svg" alt="listen to curiosity, democracy and moving from fear to purpose on goodpods" style="width: 225px" /> </a>
Copy