‍[00:02] Jennifer: Hi, everyone, thanks for listening to The Founder Spirit Podcast. I'm your host, Jennifer Wu. In this podcast series, I interview exceptional individuals from all over the world with the founder spirit, ranging from social entrepreneurs, tech founders, to philanthropists, elite athletes, and more. Together, we'll uncover not only how they managed to succeed in facing multiple challenges, but also who they are as people and their human story. 

Thanks a lot for tuning in and I really hope that you’ve enjoyed season 2 of the Founder Spirit podcast. If you’d like to hear a bit more about my experience of coming to America, my spiritual practices, and a brief encounter with Dr. Jane Goodall, feel free to listen to the season 2 wrap-up conversation with my friend Ingrid.

[00:47] Ingrid: Hi, Jennifer. So it's the end of your second season, it’s a big deal! 

I remember that when you reached the end of your first season, your sense of accomplishment was really strong. You take this huge idea and turn it into something real, like your first 16 episodes. 

Now that you're a seasoned podcaster finishing up your second season, how different a feeling is it? 

[01:19] Jennifer: Well, first of all, thank you again, Ingrid, for doing this with me. 

So, yeah, wrapping up season two with 20 new episodes, and it's still super exciting. It's definitely been a journey, I'm progressing as an interviewer and there's still much work ahead of us. 

I'm really excited about the guests in season two, it’s been such an eclectic crowd. We started season two with Elaine Pagels, who's the professor of the history of religion from Princeton University on the Gnostic Gospels, and with Monk Burin, a Thai Buddhist based in New York and the Executive Director of Middle Way Meditation Institute focused on world peace through inner peace. 

We've also featured some really exciting guests, such as Bill Shufelt, who is the founder and CEO of Athletic Brewing Company, the fastest growing beer company in America, and it is actually non-alcoholic, and guests who grew up in the Middle East, Ahmad Joudeh and Zainab Salbi on human resilience in times of war. 

And we're ending the season with Fabiola Giannotti, the first female Director General of CERN, and Atossa Soltani, the founder of Amazon Watch and Director of Strategy of Amazon Sacred Headwaters Alliance. So really exciting, quite a lineup. 

And not to mention at the beginning of this season, the Founder Spirit podcast started a partnership with the Villars Institute, which is a non-for-profit organization focused on accelerating the transition to a net-zero economy and restoring planetary health.

I feel very much aligned with the goals of that organization and they've brought me some really amazing guests as well. So it's really broadened my guest cadence, and I'm looking forward to the next season. 

[03:04] Ingrid: I remember you saying last time that you curated your guest list very carefully, and you also tended to, I think you said, over prepare for interviews. You really researched everybody very carefully. 

Would you still describe yourself in this way, or have you also changed as an interviewer? 

[03:21] Jennifer: Well, I'm still over-preparing. So I think it's my own fear of failure that's driving much of that. And, like with everything, there's upside and there's downside. 

The upside is that I come really well-prepared, so it calms my nerves before the interview. When I'm preparing, sometimes I could really get into this highly focused state, they call it the flow state, and I'm able to come up with some good questions. 

But the downside is that because you know so much about the person during the interview, I struggle sometimes to let it flow versus being in the moment, being present. And it's very difficult to turn off the inner critic sometimes - too much of the analytical mind, not enough of the heart. 

The lesson there is, learn to let go, learn to be present, don't doubt yourself, trust your intuition. And also, I think part of it is understand that you're not your thoughts and don't give power to negative thought patterns and just be kind to yourself. You know, I think we're still very hard on ourselves. So, yeah, there's a lot of work to be done.

[04:35] Ingrid: I mean, I know that you're a really goal-oriented person, and so I could imagine also, especially because you've done so much research about each person that you're sort of hoping that they're going to say specific things. And it's maybe quite frustrating when you don't and get there immediately. 

But on the other hand, a spontaneous conversation is also really interesting to listen to. It has a different kind of a feeling, and maybe it guides you in directions that you weren't expecting that can ultimately be just as fulfilling. 

[05:00] Jennifer: Yeah, absolutely, so maybe the lesson going into the third season is less is more. That's what Monk Burin said, less is more. It's always a delicate balance. I think Larry King, it is said that he doesn't prepare very much for the interview and he's really excellent. 

[05:16] Ingrid: Yeah, well, and some people are driven also just by the adrenaline of the moment. That's how they like to kind of handle things, right? 

Well, it's really interesting to hear all these, like, personal details about how you're handling it behind the scenes. 

I noticed also in the episodes this season that on a few occasions you've mentioned a little bit more about your own personal background, emigrating from China as a child and coming to the US. Can you tell us maybe a little bit about your story and how this experience has affected your identity and your values? 

[05:43] Jennifer: Sure. You know, I came to America in the mid-80s, and I landed in Salt Lake City, which is predominantly white and Mormon. 

The China that I left in the mid-80s is very different from what China is today, so a lot of things were new to me. We didn't have supermarkets, and I remember when my parents would send back photos of what supermarket looked like and how big the bananas are and how red the apples were. 

The China that I grew up with, we had food rations, so it's a completely different world for me. But I think when you're a child, you learn to adapt to the situation that you're in, you learn to assimilate. So I don't remember it being a very hard transition. 

But I think as an immigrant in a predominantly white city, growing up as a teenager, and in a very religious, spiritual place like Salt Lake City, there's a sense of not belonging and trying everything that you can to fit in. So I think a quite number of my guests have been immigrants or first generation as well, and we have very similar experiences. 

The values that I have is working hard - that comes from being Chinese and also coming to America to achieve the American Dream. If you work hard enough, you can achieve your dream - that's the belief system that I had. So that gave me a lot of confidence. I think I'm able to adapt to quite a lot of different situations, having now lived and worked in three different continents, I feel like I'm a bit of a chameleon sometimes. 

But there's always that fear of failure, the fear of not having enough, I think that scarcity mindset is very present in me. So as a result, I have a very unhealthy relationship with money. 

And Benjamin Von Wong and I talked about this on our episode, he also has a very unhealthy relationship with money. And I'm a total guardian, which is, you know, you hold on to money because you have this scarcity mindset. 

But to some extent, we all do because that's how we built our society - money kind of trumps everything, it drives our behavior. We're to some extent completely unconscious of it, but that's what it is. 

In the episode with Atossa Soltani, we talk about the book by Lynne Twist called the Soul of Money. The book examines our attitude, our relationship with money, and how we structured our society based on the value of money and how it affects us in ways that we're not really conscious of. 

Lynne is the founder of the Pachamama Alliance, and she sees money as energy. And she brings forth this idea that money flows through our lives, this idea of circulation. The more you let it flow, the more it'll come back to you. So I think that's a very healthy way of looking at money. 

So I also tried to let it flow this season. I mean, we talked about the business model at the end of season one wrap-up. So I moved onto the Patreon model, which is, I create the content, and people want to support me, then they can become my patron on Patreon. 

I'm still letting the money flow out more than it's coming back, but there is also a non-financial measure of success, which is, how much you get out of it, like we talked about last time, food for the soul. And that, I think, is priceless, to use the slogan from the Mastercard. The inspiration and the imagination and the connections that you make is invaluable, so that cannot be measured with money. 

[09:20] Ingrid: Yeah, and I totally agree. I know that you have strong spiritual practice, and it's interesting to see as well in some of your episodes that there's a little bit more of that creeping into your program. 

So can you tell us a little bit about that? Maybe explain what your spiritual practice and whether you are consciously changing the focus of the podcast towards including more guests with this in mind? 

[09:44] Jennifer: Sure. So I didn't expect the second season to have this slant towards spirituality, but it turned out to be that way. 

And, you know, of course, we started with Elaine Pagels on the Gnostic Gospels and Monk Burin on the wisdom from the silent mind. But I've had a couple of guests where I didn't know that they were very spiritual, like Ahmad Joudeh and Zainab Salbi. In a way, I had consciously curated some guests like Loïc Le Meur, who talked about his own journey of self-transformation and spiritual path. But now that's also the path that I'm on. 

But going back to my own spiritual practice. I recently came back from a five-day meditation retreat and it's linked to the same temple where Monk Burin came from called Dhammakaya. 

Well, the first day and a half were actually silent. So I learned that silence is golden, that words are quite unnecessary sometimes, that we can communicate in different ways than just verbal communication, and that true wisdom, as Monk Burin said, comes from the silent mind. 

What else did I learn? I learned that I'm not a very good meditator - the minute that my mind calms down, I start making to do lists and worrying about what is happening back at home, 

I also read a lot of books - The Bhagavad Gita, The Untethered Soul by Michael Singer, I just finished Autobiography of the Yogi, about the life of Yogananda. I also listen to a lot of podcasts from Sadhguru and Eckhart Tolle. 

So the new practices that I'm now putting in place is meditate every day first thing in the morning. And also, about the silence, I'm gonna try to put it in practice. And Gandhi used to observe silence on Mondays until 8pm So I read about that, and I'm inspired to…

[11:38] Ingrid: Might be difficult for a podcaster.. (chuckles)

[11:40] Jennifer: I know, to instill maybe a day of silence a week. And I think when he really needed to communicate, he just wrote stuff down. 

So it was interesting because when I told people that I was going to this retreat that first day and half were going to be silent, people were like, that's going to be difficult for you because I'm such an extrovert. And also I do podcasts, so I talk a lot. Well, actually, I don't talk that much, I let my guests talk. 

Oh, one thing I did want to mention is the gratitude journal. So Loïc Le Meur, through his conferences, I got a hold of the gratitude journal. So it's really great because in the morning, you write down three things that you're grateful for and two or three things of what would make today great. 

And then at the end of the day, you write down the highlights of your day and what you learned that day. So it really shifted your mindset, because even when you're having a bad day, there are still learnings from that difficult situation.

I wanted to put this into practice to motivate myself, so I bought also a gratitude journal for my husband. An when we share with each other, at the end of the day, the highlights of our day and what we learned, it completely changes the content of the conversation because we have this tendency to complain.

So it changes your mindset of how you appreciate the day and what you've learned, and you really move from the negatives to the positive. So anyone else there that's listening right now, I strongly recommend you to do the gratitude journal, because little by little, if you do it every day for two weeks, you'll see the change in your psyche. 

And if you're in a funk, pick up the gratitude journal. 

[13:21] Ingrid: What about all these little nuggets of wisdom that you're collecting in all of your interviews? Are you writing them down to somehow try and remember all of these things that you've learned to apply them to your own life? 

[13:37] Jennifer: So I have the transcript that's also on the website and then (on) my version of the transcript, I highlight the wisdom that I'm collecting. And I've been asked to write a book about it and I'm not quite ready yet, but I'm collecting them so I can always go back and look at them. 

Also if you go to our website, I have a quote for each episode and I have a quote from each guest. So that's also part of the wisdom that I go back to. 

[14:07] Ingrid: It's really nice to kind of distill down the experience to what you want to remember. Maybe before you write the book, you need to have a little bit more of your own personal wisdom journey. And I would like to hear about the Amazon. 

[14:17] Jennifer: So, yes, I'm planning a trip to visit the Amazon later this year. I've met the leadership team of Amazon Sacred Headwaters Alliance earlier this year, it’s an alliance of 30 Indigenous tribes across Ecuador and Peru in the headwater bioregion of the Amazon. So it's the source of the mighty Amazon river. 

And this group is looking to permanently preserve 85 million acres of the rainforest. I've never been to South America, so I'm looking forward to the journey into the jungle, to sit with the forest and to get downloads from the forest. 

The chairman of Amazon Sacred Headwaters Alliance is Domingo, he's an elder from the Achuar tribe based in the Ecuadorian Amazon. And they have a dream culture where they wake up at 2-3 a.m. every morning and they talk about their dreams because sometimes they get revelations or inspirations from their dream. 

I'm also part of a dream circle where we only do it every three or four months, not every day. (I) can't imagine waking up every day at 2 or 3 a.m. I do Kriya yoga, the breath of fire, where I had visions of the treetops from the Amazon. 

So I talked to a lot of people who's done the same journey into the Amazon and they all said it will change your life. So I'm really excited about that. But at the same time, I'm trying not to have too many expectations because I'm someone who over prepares. And from the over preparation, I have certain expectations. So I really don't want to be disappointed. 

And then also, just as I did in the meditation retreat, seeing how the monks live, how they go out every morning at 7 o’clock around the village barefoot, and they get food from people. It's not called begging, it’s alms giving, by the way. 

But in that way to live side by side for a few days with the Indigenous people, maybe participate in a dream circle, hopefully not every day. But just seeing how they live and how they are protecting the forest and hopefully coming back with some insights and trying to then help these people who are basically the guardians of our planet. 

What we don't realize is that we've now lost 26% of the Amazon forest. And the science says that we're reaching a tipping point where the Amazon could, in the coming decades, turn into a savannah. So it's really about existential survival of not just humans, but also animals and plant species. 

So, yeah, hopefully come back with some lessons from that experience and see how we can help these people going forward.

[16:57] Ingrid: I'm going to come back down to the more prosaic kind of day-to-day life of your podcast after that. That's fascinating. 

Just over the long term, how do you sustain motivation and inspiration to keep going with this podcast? 

[17:37] Jennifer: I think it's really (about) finding inspirational people to interview for me and getting their stories out there. 

I think we're used to in media or social media to follow famous people and key influencers, but I take a different approach, which is, (there are) so many inspiring people out there and they deserve to get the stories out. 

So it's nice to interview famous people once in a while, you know, it's impressive, I guess, but I also think that we all have incredible experiences if we let ourselves be open to tell the story. 

Recently, I attended a conference where one of the teaching artists from Artolution spoke. Majida is a refugee originally from the Palestinian Territories, and she came through Syria into a refugee camp in Turkey. 

And with nothing, she started an art school for children. Because when she went to the camp, she said, oh my God, I went from one prison to another. So with nothing, no money, she just started an art school for children under a tree. So that was amazing. And getting those stories out there, I think it's really important. 

Going back to the comment that Benjamin Von Wang made, and we talked about what is the impact of your art. He said, my responsibility is not to do every aspect of the creation and the impact measurement piece. He said, you know what, I'm just going to focus on my art and hope that it does a really good job of inspiring people. 

So I'm taking his approach now because I think we tend to really focus on the numbers, like, how many listens did I get? How many followers do I have? So I'm just going to focus on creating the content and hope that will inspire people. And that's it. 

I think it's also about the depth of impact, that's something that we talked about. If I look on my dashboard, maybe I see one download. But if that one download is able touch someone deeply, then it's all worth it, even if it's just one. 

[19:14] Ingrid: I remember you saying that the interviews were the food for your soul. And I think that really comes across in the podcast, and that's how you touch people. When you're passionate about it and it's inspiring you, it necessarily inspires others, I think. 

And it's also really interesting, therefore, to hear about how it's affecting your life path, because I think that can also be inspiring to others. Can you tell me in this season which of the guests have affected you most? 

[19:39] Jennifer: That's always a tough call (chuckles). It's really hard, you’re making me choose. 

I have to say that the podcast has brought new people into my life, but it's also brought other people from past or existing relationships into my present life. And it's allowed me to develop a new way of connecting and building relationships. 

So I just give you a couple of examples. Dr. Max Frieder from season one, and shortly after we did the episode together, I became a board member of Artolution. With Elaine Pagels, I was the babysitter of her children when I was 17-years old. And after I started the podcast, I read her books, and then I reached out to her. 

Karen Tse from International Bridges to Justice. I've known her now for 20 years,but I really didn't have understand exactly what she was doing and the impact that she was having. And it's amazing to know someone even better than you thought you would. 

Even my best friend, whom I've known for now over 30 years, and I went into the interview and I thought I know everything about her. And boom, things came out and stuff that I didn't know. So it's really interesting. 

And also, last but not least, I would say Fabiola Giannotti, who's the head of CERN, it was really also wonderful to hear about her journey. And as my father is a physicist, I'm a daughter of a string theorist, I'm actually truly grateful because the podcast with Fabiola, it really gave me the opportunity, for the very first time and at a very superficial level, I finally understood what my dad does for a living.

I would also say that there were episodes where I've cried with the guests on the show. I've cried with Ahmad Joudeh the very first time that I met him. And afterwards, I read his book, and I was crying. But even at the podcast interview, I cried because his journey continues to be difficult. He's being targeted by extremists. He went back to Syria last summer to work on his film, and he had to flee. Well, the struggle continues, you figure, he left, now he's in Europe, he’s safe. No, that life still is very difficult.

And then the second one that I remember is with Zainab Salbi because her experience helping women in conflict zones and wars, we started talking about the current conflict. We recorded the episode at the end of November, and the conflict in the Middle East had just started a month before, so it was really heartbreaking. So she and I were both crying. We had to take a five minute break, actually, to wipe our snots. (chuckles)

And Jaeson Ma had a really powerful message, where he talked about the power of forgiveness and redefining success as knowing that God loves us all unconditionally, as who we are.

And then, of course, Monk Burin, I loved how he talked about his spiritual path and his mission of world peace through inner peace. And congratulations to him, he recently became the Abbot of the Middle Way Temple, the first Thai Buddhist temple in New York City. 

[22:50] Ingrid: Quite a lineup. So if there's one person that you would like to interview next season or in the future, who would it be? 

[22:55] Jennifer: Oh, I think there's one person I would love to interview is Dr. Jane Goodall, the English primatologist. Earlier this year, I had a very brief encounter with her, and she turned 90 this year. And she just embodies the indomitable spirit of love and wisdom. 

And I had the opportunity to ask her what she has learned about humanity after spending six decades observing chimpanzees, who are our closest living relatives. Her response was so profound that I felt very much compelled to share the message on social media. 

She said, although humans have higher intellect, our intelligence did not prevent us from destroying our home, Mother Earth, this planet. And that is because intelligence is connected to the mind, which is our brain, where wisdom is connected to the heart, which is our soul. She said, it is only when we have learned to live with both our mind and our heart in harmony can we reach the true human potential. 

And she is incredible, I have to say. I probably won't get to interview her, although I hope that I would. But another guest on the show that I have lined up for season three, he recently did an interview with Dr. Jane Goodall. So I'm gonna ask him all about it, that's for sure. 

[24:17] Ingrid: By proxy. Can you give us another few sneak previews then, for next season? 

[24:22] Jennifer: Sure. So besides the many episodes that are still to come from the guests that's been introduced to me from the Villars Institute, we have Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy. 

She's the Oscar-winning documentary director, and she is also going to be the director of the next Star Wars. And she is the director of DVF, which is a documentary that's coming out now on Disney+ and Hulu about the life of Diane von Furstenberg. And Sharmeen did a documentary about the girl who had acid poured on her face in Pakistan called Saving Face. 

[25:01] Ingrid: Right. 

[25:02] Jennifer: And also a hypnotist, Byron Leon is considered one of the leading experts on the subconscious. I don’t want to say much here, but I recently met him, and was just blown away. 

So I’m really looking forward to season three and what other guests it might bring. 

[25:17] Ingrid: Really exciting. So I know you always end with a quote. What's the quote? 

[25:22] Jennifer: Can we end with the quote from Dr. Jane Goodall? 

[25:26] Ingrid: Yes. 

[25:28] Jennifer: “Only when we have learned to live with both our mind and our heart in harmony can we reach our true human potential.”

[25:35] Ingrid: Very nice. Thank you so much, Jennifer. 

[25:37] Jennifer: Thank you, Ingrid. 

If this podcast has been beneficial or valuable to you, feel free to become a patron and support us on Patreon.com, that is P-A-T-R-E-O-N.com/TheFounderSpirit. 

As always, you can find us on Apple, Amazon and Spotify, as well as social media and our website at TheFounderSpirit.com. 

The Founder Spirit podcast is a partner of the Villars Institute, a nonprofit foundation focused on accelerating the transition to a net-zero economy and restoring planetary health. 

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