Braver New Worlds

Nathan Cody Young

Braver New Worlds is a podcast for people navigating change, questioning inherited narratives, and trying to lead with intention and humanity even when the path forward is unclear. It’s about the stories we need to share–about ourselves, our work, and our vision–for the future want to create. Each episode is a thoughtful human conversation with someone actively trying to change something, whether that’s through their work, their being, or their relationship with community. We discuss personal stories, public responsibility, and how identity, values, and lived experience shape the way we see and show up in the world.

  1. 2d ago

    Rebuilding a Shared Reality: Media, Trust, and the End of Institutions with Jackie Bryant

    The old media system is breaking apart. Newspapers and magazines have shrunk, audiences increasingly get their news from social feeds and video, and anyone with a phone can become a publisher. That democratization has opened space for voices and perspectives that traditional institutions often ignored. But what happens when the institutions disappear and every individual is left to build their own audience, verify their own information, and navigate their own personalized reality? In this episode of Braver New Worlds, Nathan talks with journalist, writer, editor, professor, and content strategist Jackie Bryant about what we have gained—and what we may be losing—as media becomes increasingly fragmented. Jackie makes the case that independent media is a vital check on legacy institutions, but warns against treating individual creators as a complete replacement for journalism’s editorial structures, institutional knowledge, fact-checking, and economic support. The conversation moves from the history of San Diego’s media ecosystem and the literal origins of the “soapbox” to the collapse of monoculture, algorithmic feeds, media literacy, the economics of journalism, and the difficult future facing young reporters. Jackie shares what she sees among her journalism students, why being a creator often means becoming your own editor, producer, marketer, administrator, and public punching bag, and why the promise of independent media can become another burden for working-class media workers. About Jackie Bryant Jackie Bryant is a journalist, writer, editor, professor, and content strategist based in San Diego. Her journalism focuses heavily on cannabis business and culture while also spanning travel, food, wine, spirits, arts and culture, and organized labor. She is a content director and editor for Leaf Magazines, works with brands on fractional content strategy and copywriting, and teaches in the Journalism and Media Studies department at San Diego State University. She also writes Cannabitch, a newsletter about cannabis culture, and co-hosts the Happy Half Hour podcast with Troy Johnson at San Diego Magazine. Find Jackie Instagram: @jacqbry LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/jacquelineannebryant Threads: @jacqbry Bluesky: @jacqbryant Newsletter: cannabitch.substack.com Website: jackiebryantwriting.com Happy Half Hour: sandiegomagazine.com/listen/happy-half-hour-podcast/ Puff Puff Press: puffpuffpresspodcast.com

  2. Aug 11

    From Idea to Business Success: Trust, Community, and Self Belief with Nichole MacDonald

    What separates an idea from a successful business? For entrepreneur and inventor Nichole MacDonald, the answer isn't creativity—it's validation, community, and trust. Nichole is the founder of Sash, a hands-free bag company that grew from handmade backyard prototypes into a nationally recognized brand with one of the most engaged customer communities in consumer products. But behind that success story lies a much more complicated journey: failed businesses, financial hardship, years spent selling face-to-face at farmers markets, and countless lessons about manufacturing, marketing, and leadership. Nichole shares the practical lessons she learned building a physical product company from scratch: why founders should validate ideas before investing heavily, how small experiments create momentum, and why maintaining relationships with customers may be the greatest advantage a business can have. The conversation expands into leadership, advocacy, and politics. Drawing on her experience leading women's business organizations and advocating for small-business policy, Nichole argues that trust is the missing ingredient in many institutions today. She outlines a vision for connecting communities, innovators, and policymakers in new ways, while reflecting on the role curiosity and courage play in building a better future. Whether you're launching a business, leading a team, or simply wondering how meaningful change happens, this episode offers an honest look at the messy, human work of creating something that lasts. About Nichole MacDonaldNichole MacDonald is an entrepreneur, product creator, and advocate for women and small business owners. She is the founder of Sash Bag, an alternative to the traditional handbag that grew into a multimillion-dollar direct-to-consumer business and a community of more than 22,000 women. Nichole has spent more than two decades working in consumer product development and manufacturing. Her entrepreneurial experience—from hand-sewing early Sash Bag prototypes, selling directly to customers at farmers markets, and eventually scaling the company nationally—has shaped her approach to product development, marketing, community building, and leadership. Her work has increasingly expanded into advocacy for women entrepreneurs and small businesses, including leadership roles with the National Association of Women Business Owners (NAWBO), serving as president of both the San Diego and California chapters. At the heart of Nichole’s work is a belief in staying close to the people you serve—listening to them, building trust, and using that relationship to create better products, businesses, and communities. Today, she works with entrepreneurs, creators, and leaders to build businesses rooted in authenticity, community, and purpose through consulting, speaking, and educational work. — Connect with Nichole MacDonaldWebsite: nicholemacdonald.com LinkedIn: Nichole MacDonald Instagram: @nichole.macdonald Facebook: Nichole MacDonald TikTok: @california.mac Sash Bag: thesashbag.com

  3. Aug 4

    Shared Equity, Collective Power, and Rethinking Who Owns Housing with Josh Newton

    EPISODE SUMMARY What if the goal of homeownership wasn't a payout at the end, but a say in what happens along the way?  In this episode, Nathan sits down with Josh Newton, researcher, lecturer, and co-founder of the San Diego Community Wealth Building Coalition. Together they dig into two financial ownership models most people have never heard of: community land trusts and limited equity housing cooperatives. Josh walks through how these models separate land ownership from what's built on top of it, why "limited equity" might be the wrong name for what's actually a form of shared equity, and how one-share-one-vote governance makes cooperative housing more democratic than the corporations most of us assume are the default.  Along the way, Josh takes apart two of the most common arguments used to explain the housing crisis, supply-and-demand theory and "filtering." He also shares a real local example born out of decades of displacement: Barrio Logan's Tierra Indígenas land trust.. The conversation moves from mechanics to something bigger: what it would look like if cities were governed from the neighborhood up instead of the top down, and what's actually standing in the way. Hint: it’s a combination of education, funding, and political will… and not the models themselves. ABOUT JOSH NEWTON Josh Newton is a Researcher and Lecturer in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at the University of California, San Diego. He received his Ph.D. in Urban Planning and Public Policy from the University of Texas at Arlington. He has written on the impact of philanthropic foundations in housing and community development, housing precarity and grassroots solutions in informal subdivisions, and the economic and political benefits of community land trusts and limited equity housing cooperatives. Outside of academia, he co-founded the San Diego Community Wealth Building Coalition to expand and support community land trusts and housing, worker, and food cooperatives in the region through education, technical assistance, and policy advocacy. LINKS LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/city-josh-newton/Instagram: instagram.com/cityjoshnewton/Website: cityjoshnewton.comSan Diego Community Wealth Building Coalition: https://www.instagram.com/sdcwbc/Tierras Indígenas Community Land TrustInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/tierras_indigenas/Website: https://www.tierrasindigenasclt.org/

  4. Jul 28

    Community Over Competition and Advocating for Culture with Susanna Peredo Swap

    Episode Summary Susanna Peredo Swap has spent the last decade building something rare: a creative community in San Diego that operates on collaboration instead of competition. As founder of Vanguard Culture, she's brought together thousands of artists across every discipline — starting, almost by accident, from a single potluck where the first fifty people to RSVP were invited to bring not just food, but talent. In this conversation, Susanna traces that arc from a scrappy email newsletter to a nonprofit and unpacks the philosophy underneath it: a "yes, and" approach borrowed straight from her years in theater, where saying yes to one more collaborator almost always makes the work better. She and Nathan dig into the tension between boldness and hubris; how a decade of professional rejection as an actor left her with less fear of failure; and stepping up to your creative strength, whether that’s in how you put your own work forward or how you build community. We also talk about why she thinks the "starving artist" mindset is a kind of self-imposed sabotage, and the economic case for why a city's investment in its creative sector pays for itself many times over. ABOUT SUSANNA PEREDO SWAP Susanna Peredo Swap is an award-winning producer, journalist, and film director with 25+ years of experience in arts administration, acting, jazz vocals, arts advocacy, and public relations. At the San Diego International Airport Art Program, she curated over 80 exhibitions and led a dynamic performing arts series.  She currently serves on several boards and advisory committees, including the San Diego Museum Council, San Diego Press Club, Burnham Center for Community Advancement, and One San Diego. She recently co-led Arts & Culture for World Design Capital San Diego–Tijuana, served on the board of Women in Tourism & Hospitality International, and advised UCSD-TV's ARTS Channel.  Her passion for the arts led her to found Vanguard Culture, a nonprofit dedicated to uplifting San Diego's creative workforce — an organization that has won 82 awards for Excellence in Journalism, 2 Gold Anthem Awards presented by the Webbys, a feature on the National Geographic Channel, and an official Vanguard Culture Day designation from the County of San Diego marking 10 years of service to the arts community. LINKS Website: vanguardculture.comNewsletter: Sign up hereFree resource guide for creatives: Access hereSan Diego Arts PassLinkedIn: Vanguard CultureInstagram: @vanguardcultureFacebook: Vanguard CultureYouTube: @VanguardCultureSDThreads: @vanguardculture

  5. Jul 21

    The Ocean, Healing, and Turning Pain Into Purpose with Risa Bell

    EPISODE SUMMARY Risa Bell never planned to run a nonprofit. Yet a single paddle-out event she organized where she expected maybe 25 people to attend actually drew thousands. The thoughts and questions that followed her in her life later led her to start Paddle for Peace, an organization connecting BIPOC and underserved communities with the ocean as a source of healing and reconnecting with nature. In this conversation Risa unpacks the multi-layered generational reasons why the coast isn't equally accessible, the historical exclusion of Black and Brown communities from beaches and pools, and the ripple effects that’s caused.  She also shares her own path from foster care and survival mode as a teenager, to her growth as an adult and ultimately walking away from a stable healthcare career on two months' savings to build something she couldn't yet explain. Risa talks candidly about being a guarded person who has had to learn vulnerability later in life and how her community has repeatedly shown up for her in ways she didn't initially know how to accept. She and Nathan close with an unexpectedly philosophical exchange about purpose, meaning, and what pulls people together in the first place. ABOUT RISA BELL Risa Bell is a social entrepreneur and founder of Paddle for Peace. She draws from her multicultural experiences and is driven by a zest for life and a commitment to diversity in outdoor spaces. Her upbringing fuels her passion for creating healing and transformative experiences for underserved communities at the ocean.  One thing that sets her apart is her ability to turn personal challenges into community driven solutions. She has faced barriers that could have kept her from leadership, but instead, they fueled her mission. She doesn't just advocate for change, she builds programs, creates access, and makes space for others who have been historically excluded.  Her work with Paddle for Peace isn't just about bringing people to the ocean, it’s about shifting systems, fostering belonging, and ensuring future generations see nature as a place of healing and peace. LINKS Paddle for Peace: www.paddleforpeace.orgInstagram: @paddleforpeaceFacebook: facebook.com/paddleforpeaceSDYouTube: youtube.com/@paddleforpeace4431Newsletter: sign up at www.paddleforpeace.org

  6. Jul 14

    Entrepreneurship, Access, and What Money Really Buys with Alex Waters

    EPISODE SUMMARY What actually separates entrepreneurs who make it from those who don't? It isn't always talent or work ethic. It's something else completely. In this conversation, Nathan sits down with Alex Waters, Executive Director of The Program Labs, to unpack what it really looks like to build a business without a safety net, and why the entrepreneurs he works with aren't failing when a plan takes longer than expected, but they still need to figure out how to manage themselves in the meantime. The conversation moves from the deeply personal to the systemic: why financial literacy still isn't taught in schools, why AI has closed the information gap but not the execution gap, and why so many founders quietly believe they only get one shot. Alex offers concrete tools along the way, including his approach to prioritization ("deciding what you're not going to do") and a reframe on quitting that treats it as data, not failure. In the back half, the conversation turns toward philanthropy and venture capital. Venture capital tolerates enormous failure rates in pursuit of a single unicorn — while philanthropic funding is expected to succeed every time, with almost no appetite for productive risk. It's a pointed challenge to rethink what our culture treats as "cool" to fund — and why programs nonprofits build need to deliver value back to the organizations themselves, not just to beneficiaries. ABOUT ALEX WATERS Alex Waters is an ecosystem builder who creates spaces where people can experiment and bring their ideas to life. As Executive Director of The Program Labs, he helps organizations build entrepreneurship programs that create economic opportunity. Currently, he's partnered with the San Diego College of Continuing Education to build and operate a community Business Resource Center in Barrio Logan. Over the last decade, Alex has built community programs, coached executives, led lean innovation sprints for global companies, and designed accelerator programs — most notably the Jacobs Center Business Accelerator, a HUD-funded initiative that graduated more than 120 businesses and supported millions of dollars in investment and job creation in the San Diego region. Beyond program development, Alex serves on the boards of the SDSU Research Foundation and the San Diego Neighborhood House Association, and sits on the Impact Investment & Audit Committee for the Alliance Healthcare Foundation. LINKS Website: theprogramlabs.orgLinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/watersalexEmail: alex@theprogramlabs.orgFree Program Consultation: form.jotform.com/Plabs/free-consultation

  7. Jul 7

    Storytelling as the Opposite of the News with Philippe Lazaro

    What if the goal of a story wasn't to convince someone, but to hand them their own voice back?  Philippe Lazaro has spent nearly two decades helping international nonprofits and climate organizations tell stories from the Congo Basin to Bangladesh — and along the way, he's developed a clear-eyed philosophy about what ethical storytelling actually requires.  In this conversation, Philippe and Nathan dig into why he thinks of his work as "the opposite of the news," how the charity and NGO world has historically gotten storytelling wrong, and what it looks like to get it right: local creative teams, informed and enthusiastic consent, and a hard commitment to letting people narrate their own experience instead of having it narrated for them. From there, the conversation opens into the craft itself — the "Hollywood treatment," the three layers every story operates on, and a detour into how different cultures structure narrative differently, from Japan's Kishōtenketsu to cyclical storytelling traditions that don't follow a Western arc at all.  Philippe also makes a case for a healthier relationship between storytelling and data, arguing the two are too often treated as rivals when they're actually complementary tools for understanding impact. ABOUT PHILIPPE LAZARO Philippe Lazaro is a strategic communications leader with over a decade of experience helping international nonprofits grow through ethical, solutions-focused storytelling. He's worked with leading climate and international development organizations, telling stories from Ethiopia to Haiti to Bangladesh. He's an avid traveler, illustrator, and improviser, as well as a dad to three. Whether telling stories through video, writing, or visual media, his goal is always to help audiences feel more connected to the world. He’s also recently launched his own agency, Banana Leaf Storytelling. LINKS Banana Leaf Storytelling: https://bananaleafstorytelling.com/Philippe's website: https://www.philippelazaro.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/philippe-lazaro-b2872169/Instagram: @philippelazaroThreads: @philippelazaroYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@philippelazaroSubstack: https://philippelazaro.substack.com/

  8. Jun 30

    AI Beyond the Hype: Ethics, Work, and What Makes Us Human with Dr. Karen Boyd

    In this episode, Nathan sits down with AI researcher and economist Dr. Karen Boyd for a conversation that explore the AI related questions many of us are wrestling with. How is AI reshaping work, creativity, trust, and human connection? And why navigating these questions requires more nuance than either the enthusiasts or the skeptics often provide. Karen explains why many of the biggest concerns surrounding AI—from environmental impact and privacy to bias and job displacement—deserve careful attention without resorting to fear or false certainty. Along the way, the conversation expands into much bigger questions: What parts of our work actually give us meaning? Does effort have value beyond efficiency? How do we preserve authenticity in a world where machines can increasingly imitate human creativity? And if AI can do more of our work, what kinds of work should we value in the future? Whether you're excited about AI, deeply skeptical of it, or simply trying to figure out where you stand, this conversation offers a grounded, practical, and deeply human perspective on one of the defining technological shifts of our time. ABOUT DR. KAREN BOYDDr. Karen Boyd helps mission-driven organizations navigate AI with confidence. She is an economist at the Policy and Innovation Center in San Diego and co-founder of Our AI Futures Lab, where she has trained more than 300 nonprofit, government, and social-impact leaders on the thoughtful adoption of artificial intelligence. Her research focuses on AI ethics, machine learning documentation, and the future of work. Karen earned her PhD from the University of Maryland, where she studied how machine learning engineers identify and respond to ethical issues in training data, and she also holds an MBA from the Rady School of Management at UC San Diego. Karen serves on the San Diego Foundation's AI Council and is the author of Amplify Good Work: Effective, Ethical AI for Mission-Driven Work. Her work has been featured in leading academic conferences and publications, cited in hundreds of scholarly articles, and recognized by organizations across the nonprofit and technology sectors. She also hosts the upcoming Labor in the Loop podcast, exploring the future of work in the age of AI. LINKSKaren Boyd Website: https://drkarenboyd.comNewsletter: https://drkarenboyd.com/newsletterBlog: https://drkarenboyd.com/blogLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drkarenboyd/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/karenboydauthor/ Resources Mentioned Amplify Good Work: Effective, Ethical AI for Mission-Driven WorkFree Sustainability & AI Chapter: https://drkarenboyd.com/freechapterMission First Starter Kit: https://drkarenboyd.com/missionfirstComing Soon: Labor in the Loop Podcast: https://www.laborintheloop.com/

See All (29)

Ratings & Reviews

5
out of 5
5 Ratings

About

Braver New Worlds is a podcast for people navigating change, questioning inherited narratives, and trying to lead with intention and humanity even when the path forward is unclear. It’s about the stories we need to share–about ourselves, our work, and our vision–for the future want to create. Each episode is a thoughtful human conversation with someone actively trying to change something, whether that’s through their work, their being, or their relationship with community. We discuss personal stories, public responsibility, and how identity, values, and lived experience shape the way we see and show up in the world.

Information

  • Creator
    Nathan Cody Young
  • Years Active
    2026
  • Episodes
    29
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Nathan Cody Young
  • Show Website
    Braver New Worlds