Best Words Of Vikram Podcasts (2024)

1
Ep 134: Are sunk costs sinking your communication? 32:05

1d ago32:05

32:05

Is an unawareness of sunk costs sabotaging your communication efforts? We often hold on to decisions, beliefs, and strategies simply because we’ve already poured time, money, or energy into them, even when we know they are no longer serving us well or are no longer aligned with who we are. Understanding the role that sunk costs play in our decision…

1
My Long-Term Relationship With Grief - Barri Leiner Grant & The Memory Circle 50:03

16d ago50:03

50:03

When Barri Leiner Grant was 28, her mother Ellen died suddenly. Barri was hit with intense grief, but back then the expectation was to hurry up and get back to work and life. She didn't have the time, space, or tools to acknowledge and attend to grief. Over the past 31 years, Barri and her grief have gotten to know each other on a deep level. In th…

1
Ep 133: Vikram Mansharamani | Approaching life, conflict, and uncertainty as a generalist 59:52

15d ago59:52

59:52

Our society spends an awful lot of time and energy trying to categorize and label people. From your political affiliation to your religion to your generation to your level of schooling, each "box" comes with it expectations of who and what you are, and as a result, a prediction of how successful you'll be in your chosen pursuits. My guest in this e…

1
How They Died Matters, A Daughter's Story - Kari Lyons-Price, MSW 50:40

20d ago50:40

50:40

Sometimes we can't really begin to understand grief - ours or anyone else's - if we don't have space to talk about the death. The context surrounding how someone died matters and can shape our grief in meaningful ways. This was true for Kari Lyons-Price, MSW, who was a caregiver for her parents, Hal and Sylvia, for many years. They died three years…

1
108 Ways To Survive Grief - Sweta Vikram 40:20

1M ago40:20

40:20

In May of 2023, Sweta Vikram was overwhelmed with grief. In the span of three days, her father died, her father-in-law died, and it was the 9-year anniversary of her mother’s death. When she looked for information on how to survive the maelstrom of emotions, she found reassurances that she would eventually get to the other side, but nothing that sh…

1
Embodied Practices For Tending Grief - Camille Sapara Barton 37:56

1M ago37:56

37:56

Camille Sapara Barton is a social imagineer who is reimagining how we define and relate to grief. As a writer, artist, and somatic practitioner, Camille is looking to create a new grief narrative expansive enough to include multiple forms of individual and collective grief, especially for queer, trans, and BIPOC communities. In Camille's book, Tend…

1
Ep 132: The story I'm telling myself is... 20:36

1M ago20:36

20:36

How can you make your disagreements more meaningful? Too often, when conflict arises, there's an understanding that a disagreement is present, but rarely do we take the time to truly understand why the disagreement is there in the first place. This happens everywhere — at work, within family dynamics, with friends and significant others, in the pol…

1
Is There A Cure For Grief? - Cody Delistraty 42:36

2M ago42:36

42:36

Cody Delistraty is a journalist and he's also a son whose mother died of cancer. These two identities intersect in his new book, The Grief Cure, which chronicles his quest to find a way to eliminate the pain of grief. After exploring Laughter Therapy, silent meditation, Breakup Bootcamp, and other avenues for grief expression, Cody landed where so …

1
Ep 131: Robin Reames | The lost understanding of rhetoric and the power behind words 58:33

2M ago58:33

58:33

This conversation is perhaps the most profound exploration I've ever done on the power of asking questions to understand the meaning behind words. Robin Reames is an Associate Professor of English at the University of Illinois Chicago and the author of the book, "The Ancient Art of Thinking for Yourself: The Power of Rhetoric in Polarized Times." A…

1
The Ripple Effect Of Loss In Portland's Black Community - Sharice Burnett, LCSW 47:17

2M ago47:17

47:17

It's impossible to speak for an entire community, especially when it comes to grief, but Sharice Burnett, LCSW, knows a lot about the ripple effect of loss in the Black and African American community in Portland, OR. Born and raised in the community, Sharice is a clinical mental health therapist and consultant dedicated to naming and dismantling th…

1
Ep 130: 6 things school didn't teach you about communication 53:20

3M ago53:20

53:20

Welcome to Rethinking Communication! Over the past four years, I've uncovered some aspects of communication that have largely gone untaught in our traditional educational settings. So, I'm pivoting this podcast to focus on how we can bridge these gaps in our collective communication skill set. In this first episode under the new banner, I introduce…

1
How To Stop Shoulding Yourself - Lisa Keefauver & Grief Is A Sneaky Bitch 47:23

3M ago47:23

47:23

Lisa Keefauver is a lot of things - she's a writer, speaker, educator, social worker, podcast host, mother, widow, and grief activist. She came to the last two titles when her personal experience of grieving for her husband Eric, who died of a brain tumor in 2011, intersected with her professional life as a clinician. At this intersection, Lisa rea…

51
Autism & Grief 34:47

3M ago34:47

34:47

The Autism & Grief Project is a new online platform designed to help adults with autism navigate and cope with the complexities of grief arising from both death and non-death losses. Alex LaMorie, A.A.S is a member of the project's Advisory Board and brings his lived experience with both autism and grief to this work. Dr. Kenneth J. Doka, PhD, MDiv…

1
The Intimacy Of Friendship - Lissa Soep & Other People's Words 37:51

3M ago37:51

37:51

Have you ever heard someone’s voice in your head and suddenly you're transported to a time and place when you were with them? This phenomenon is what Lissa Soep explores in Other People’s Words: Friendship, Loss, and the Conversations That Never End, her book about the intimacy of friendship and how words and language keep people with us, even afte…

1
Ep 129: Patrick Williams | Restoring your innate creativity to solve your greatest challenges 57:35

3M ago57:35

57:35

My guest in this episode is Patrick Williams, a public speaker, writer, artist, independent scholar, and educator. Patrick is the founder and CEO of Satori Innovation and the Creative Director of The Satori Institute, an arts, education, and research non-profit. For more than four decades, Patrick has developed what he calls the Philosophy of Creat…

1
Changing The Landscape Of Grief Support For Latino Families 1:00:23

3M ago1:00:23

1:00:23

Cristina Chipriano, LCSW, Dougy Center's Director of Equity & Community Outreach and Melinda Avila, MSW, CEO of OYEN Emotional Wellness Center, are committed to changing the landscape of grief support for Latino families. They bring personal and professional grief experiences to the work of ensuring that every Latino family has access to dual langu…

1
Ep 128: Inviting curiosity into conversation before common ground 55:38

3M ago55:38

55:38

This is an interview I did with David Bryan on his Curiosity Invited podcast. In this conversation, David and I get into the deeper reasons why I started this exploration of change, common ground, and curiosity. To order a copy of my book, go to https://michaelashford.com/caniaskaquestion to get signed copy or order it on Amazon at https://www.amaz…

1
A Living Remedy - Nicole Chung 48:46

4M ago48:46

48:46

We cannot separate grief from the context in which it occurs. This is true for Nicole Chung whose adopted parents died just two years apart in 2018 and 2020. The world of 2018 was very different than that of 2020. In 2018, Nicole and her mother could grieve for her father, together and in person. In 2020, Nicole was on the other side of the country…

1
Ep 127: Orly Israel | Listening is access to the infinity of other people's universe 59:27

4M ago59:27

59:27

In episode 99 of this show, Manu Meel offered up my favorite definition of empathy when he said it was the act of "making someone feel like they belong in that space with you." Then, in episode 110, I explored the topic of listening and how to do it better with several guests, and we uncovered that asking questions was critical to true, real listen…

1
Ep 126: Rob Lawless | "The more I interact with the depth of people the more I acknowledge it exists" 1:02:47

4M ago1:02:47

1:02:47

What do you think you might learn about communication if you held thousands of conversations with strangers over the course of a decade? Well, you don't have to wonder. My guest in this episode can tell you. Back in 2015, while working as a sales rep tasked with cold-calling people who didn't want to talk to him, Rob Lawless started a side project …

1
Conscious Grieving - Claire Bidwell Smith, LCPC 33:33

5M ago33:33

33:33

Maybe you're familiar with the phrase, "You can't go around grief, you have to go through it." Or, "You have to feel your feelings." If you're like a lot of people, you might cringe and also wonder, "What does that actually mean?" Grief isn't linear, and it's not something to get through - and yet, a lot of people appreciate having some sense of wh…

1
Ep 125: Michael McQueen | We're not afraid of change...we're afraid of loss 58:44

5M ago58:44

58:44

If you were to track how many times per day someone tried to convince you to change in some way, chances are you'd fill up pages worth of tally marks. We often get sucked into thinking that the way to change people's minds to get them to do what we want them to do is to present them with enough evidence, data, and proof that our way is the "right" …

1
Caring For Young Widows In Nigeria - Diane Kalu 39:24

5M ago39:24

39:24

In 2015, Diane Kalu was living in Nigeria with her husband and their three young children. One day, about eight weeks after the birth of their third child, Diane’s husband went to work and never returned. A few days later she got the news that he dad died. She was suddenly a widow, responsible for raising three children under the age of five, in a …

1
It's A Loss That's Hard To Talk About - Grieving A Friend 55:50

5M ago55:50

55:50

Read Transcript Whenever Annette & Mel connect, there's always a third person in the mix. That third person is Amy, their friend and chosen family member who died in 2012 of pulmonary fibrosis. While they each had a unique friendship with her, both connections were formative and deep. When Amy died, Annette and Mel's friendship grew stronger, becau…

1
Ep 124: Why I wrote my book and what I learned about communication and change 39:48

5M ago39:48

39:48

This episode is taken from my recent appearance on Kwame Christian's "Negotiate Anything" podcast. In this discussion, Kwame and I take a deep dive into my book, "Can I Ask A Question?" and explore how the book came to be and the lessons about communication and change that I learned along the way. To order a signed copy of my book, go to https://mi…

101
Creating A Home For Grief - Laura Green 34:49

6M ago34:49

34:49

What if there was a place you could go in your grief and be both perfect and broken? That's the kind of place Laura Green dreamed up with her friend and co-founder, Sascha Demerjian. Together they created The Grief House, a community space for people to explore grief through movement, conversation, creativity, and care. Since she was very young, La…

1
Ep 123: Steve Leskovec | Closing the gap on the things you weren't taught in school 56:57

6M ago56:57

56:57

My guest in this episode is Steve Leskovek, a retired nurse who has created a resource to teach teens and young adults valuable life skills that Steve realized were not being taught in schools. The word resource might be underselling it a bit — Steve created an entire curriculum, complete with video tutorials and study guides for everything from fi…

1
“I Felt Like Half A Person” – On Becoming A Widow 52:38

6M ago52:38

52:38

In an instant, Leslie went from sharing every aspect of life with her husband Ryan to feeling like half a person. Leslie, Ryan, their two young children, and their extended family were on vacation in California when Ryan told Leslie that something didn't feel right. He was rushed to the hospital where he died of a stroke and an aneurysym, leaving L…

1
Ep 122: Meghan Bonde | Neurodiversity, the 5 intensities, and communicating to meet social-emotional needs 51:57

6M ago51:57

51:57

If you’re anything like me, you’ve noticed over the past decade or so the emergence — or at least the increased use of — the word neurodivergent. And if you’re anything like me, you heard the term and made some assumptions about what it meant, what and who it described, and why it started showing up in more places and in more conversations…perhaps …

1
Putting Grief On Hold - Channing Frye 43:31

7M ago43:31

43:31

What happens when you put your grief on hold? In the summer of 2016, Channing Frye was riding high. After over a decade in the NBA, his team, the Cleveland Cavaliers, had won the Championship. Then, in the fall, he hit one of the lowest lows. His mother Karen died of cancer. Just a month later his father, Thomas, also died. Channing put his grief o…

1
Ep 121: Amy Morin | Building mental strength through reclaiming control over your thoughts and emotions 51:38

7M ago51:38

51:38

One of the ways us humans feel the most vulnerable and least empowered is when others have authority and control over us. Take away a person’s sense of autonomy and I’ll show you a person who is unsure of themselves, angry, and without peace. When you voluntarily give away power and control over your thoughts and actions, psychologist Amy Morin say…

1
The Dangers Of Pathologizing Grief - Dr. Donna Schuurman, EdD, FT 46:26

7M ago46:26

46:26

Dr. Donna Schuurman is back - this time talking about the dangers of pathologizing grief. While the term "complicated grief" has been used in various grief settings for years, it wasn't until March of 2022 that Prolonged Grief Disorder made it into the DSM-5-TR - the Diagnostical & Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders - as an official diagnosis. …

Podcasts Worth a Listen

Words Of Vikram Podcasts

Podcasts Worth a Listen

Quick Reference Guide