Growing up in the Kennedy family, Tim Shriver sees close relatives compete at the highest level of U.S. politics and learns a very specific definition of what it means to be a winner. As a result, a fierce competitiveness finds its way into every aspect of his life. But as the years go on, Tim begins to question whether this winner-takes-all mentality is the healthiest way to live. Maybe there’s a way that competition can bring out the best in all of us, regardless of who gets the gold medal.

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Before becoming a MacArthur award–winning entomologist, Dr. Marla Spivak is adrift – first as a young woman in search of direction, then deep in the Amazon, severely ill and fearing death. Time and again, it’s the hum of bees that shows her a path forward. Apiculture doesn’t just become her life’s passion, it reveals a deeper truth about the connections that bind us.

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Writer Isha Sesay is happiest when she is caring for others; it’s a lesson she learns from her mother while growing up in Sierra Leone. But as an adult, there’s another lesson her mother teaches her, in quite another way: that even the most caring and giving among us must learn to receive help too. It’s through both giving and receiving that we become whole.

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Just out of school, writer Alex Morris gets a job performing and teaching improv comedy in London, playing absurd characters night after night. But his knack for hiding his true self starts long before he ever steps onstage. Alex is hiding a secret — one that only his family and a few close friends know: he’s slowly losing his sight. He shares a story about his struggles living with a degenerative eye disease and the lengths to which he would go to pretend he didn’t need help.

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As a young writer and performer, Sara Benincasa found her voice doing stand-up comedy. For years, it seemed better than therapy. But slowly, doubts surfaced. While the external validation she received made her feel successful and even loved, something was missing. In this episode of Meditative Story, Sara shares how she came to look inward, instead of outward, for richer feelings of worth.

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It’s not surprising that Martha Beck, best-selling author and columnist for O, The Oprah Magazine, grew up as a high achiever. Attending Harvard University for both undergraduate and doctoral degrees, Martha spends years fighting to be the smartest person in the room and contending with serious anxiety. It’s only after a revelatory trip to Japan that Martha learns to put her rigid pursuit of intellect aside and find true happiness in the peaceful empty spaces between all things.

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What’s the hardest part about being the main character in your own life? You’re also writing the script as you go along. And sometimes it’s hard to know when you need a scene change. Filmmaker Franklin Leonard encounters plenty of dramatic moments as he seeks to follow his creative dream. But those big moments, he comes to realize, aren’t what will change him into the person he truly wants to be. Change happens not in an explosion or a sudden shift of scenery, but slowly, in moments of reflection, and sometimes after years of pleasing others. What matters is … it happens.

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Psychologist and author Susan David invites us into the sad days after she loses her father as a child – and the kind teacher who helped her carve out space to feel her grief and sadness honestly. It's a lesson she takes into her own journey as a parent.

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