Lucid Commons™

Tatyana Norman-Webler
  • 5.0 (5)
  • Society & Culture

Lucid Commons is where we press pause on life long enough to hear ourselves think—where we explore the question: what does it mean to be human? We put a pin in that question thousands of years ago and got busy working. Now AI is presenting us with an opportunity to revisit this question—to do a different kind of work—the beautiful, messy work. This is an invitation to an examined life in an unexamined world. Each episode captures the science or the soul of the human experience—through a personal story, or through experts who bring the perspective and tools to navigate humanity's liminal space. If you're asking this question too, or searching for the you in your life, you're in good company. “It is not the answer that enlightens, but the question.” —Eugène Ionesco

  1. 1d ago

    25. Dr. Quianta Moore

    What if every child started kindergarten with a fair shot? Dr. Quianta Moore is a mom of three, an MD/JD, a philanthropic advisor, and a change agent working to give America’s children a healthy start. The disparities she saw on her medical school rotations set her on a path to health policy, and to redesigning systems around the people they’re meant to serve. We talk about going into labor in the middle of a law school final, the night her daughter almost died in a hospital where Quianta was on the faculty, and the research that convinced her everything starts with the brain’s first five years. Now, after years of doing, with her oldest heading to college, she’s turning toward being and becoming: who is she beyond what she does, and why does changing the world start from within? In this episode, Quianta explains: ■ Why she says kids are on a “physiological caste system” by age five, and what brain capital could change. ■ Why our systems end up serving themselves, and what it would take to redesign them for human flourishing. ■ What becoming a mom during her MD/JD taught her about the difference between surviving and becoming. ■ The free, everyday habits that could change a generation that no one tells new parents. ■ What the night her daughter almost died revealed about who gets heard in healthcare. ■ What an empty nest ahead is teaching her about simply being, and the one thing she hopes the next generation won’t lose. 💬 Pull up a chair: How will you be the change you wish to see in the world? Tell us in the comments. LUCID COMMONS Humanity is having an identity crisis. We put a pin in the oldest question, what it means to be human, and got busy doing. Lucid Commons is where we pick it back up, bringing science and soul to help us navigate this messy middle, together. Every week, I bring you an expert lens, a human story, or (usually) both, to help us remember who we are. Join us as a listener: ▶️ YouTube/ Spotify/ Apple 🔗 Follow on LinkedIn GUEST RESOURCES Quianta on Linkedin

  2. Nov 2

    24. Brian S. Cunningham

    What if we’ve got “bouncing back” all wrong? Brian Cunningham is a husband, a father, and “Papa” to three grandchildren. He’s also a former Big Four partner, a technology and consulting executive of 30 years, and the author of a forthcoming book on whether AI can save education. He used to think resilience meant dusting yourself off and carrying on. Then he survived Hurricane Irma on St. John, lived with a traumatic brain injury that went undiagnosed for nearly three months, and lost his brother suddenly. He stopped pushing past what happened and started asking what each experience was trying to teach him, and who it was asking him to become. We talk about rebuilding a mind that once ran a 170-person organization, how his wife helped him find his way back, why he now introduces himself by his relationships before his titles, and the school program where sixth graders ended up leading the twelfth graders. In this episode, Brian explains: ■ Why you can’t push past hard experiences, and why resilience starts with realizing “you might not be the same person you were before.” ■ How a proposal that made no sense when he read it back revealed his brain injury, and why the hardest part was that “I wasn’t who I knew myself to be.” ■ How a perfectionist and a visionary became each other’s rock, and why going it alone “seems to crack at some point.” ■ Why he chose to let go of anger after his brother’s death, “I need to live remembering who he was,” and why he won’t cash the insurance checks. ■ How he hopes his grandkids remember him, and why it starts with their mother. ■ What Bali, and a culture that answers “thank you” with “thank you,” taught him about the gratitude that powers resilience. ■ How a project-based learning program changed students’ lives, and why he believes the real root of the problem in education goes back further than any new technology. ■ The mentor who taught him that leadership is about diversity of thought. 💬 Pull up a chair: What challenge became part of who you are? Tell us in the comments. THE COMMONS Humanity is having an identity crisis. We put a pin in the oldest question, what it means to be human, and got busy doing. Lucid Commons is where we pick it back up, bringing science and soul to help us navigate this messy middle, together. Every week, I bring you an expert lens, a human story, or (usually) both, to help us remember who we are. Join us as a listener: ▶️ YouTube/ Spotify/ Apple 🔗 Follow on LinkedIn GUEST RESOURCES Brian's Website: J Strategies Brian on LinkedIn Watch for Brian’s forthcoming book: EducAItion (January 2027; link coming soon)

  3. Oct 26

    23. Maggie Ortiz

    When you can’t fix it, who do you become? Maggie Ortiz, MSN, RN, is a nurse of 26 years and the founder of Advocates for Nurses. She discovered nursing at her grandmother’s ICU bedside, then spent two decades holding families’ hands through the same goodbye she once lived herself. We talk about what the bedside teaches us about being human, what it took to walk away from the business of healthcare, and how her calling moved from nursing to the nurses themselves. In this episode, Maggie explains: ■ How letting her grandmother pass with dignity showed her the way forward: “Her last dying gift to me was to make me see that I did need to be a nurse.” ■ How she’s unlearning the fixer reflex. ■ Why the pandemic left her “not the same person,” and why she keeps going anyway. ■ Why she now stands beside nurses facing board investigations: “I’m called to nurses, I’m not called to nursing any longer.” ■ What the RaDonda Vaught case reveals about blaming one nurse for a system’s failures. ■ Why your license outranks your job, every time. ■ Why new tools in clinical practice still leave the nurse or doctor holding the bag, and why patients deserve to be asked first. 💬 Pull up a chair: Who’s the nurse who showed up for you or someone you love? Tell their story in the comments. THE COMMONS Humanity is having an identity crisis. We put a pin in the oldest question, what it means to be human, and got busy doing. Lucid Commons is where we pick it back up, bringing science and soul to the messy middle, together. Join us as a listener: ▶️ YouTube/ Spotify/ Apple 🔗 Follow on LinkedIn GUEST RESOURCES Advocates for Nurses Website Maggie recommends: Nancy Brent’s Nurses and the Law Maggie on LinkedIn

  4. Oct 19

    22. Kira C. Staggs

    Kira Staggs is a mom, board-certified health and wellness coach, yoga teacher, independent scholar, and author of the Substack Feral Medicine. She spent nearly 20 years as a veterinary emergency and critical care technician in the US and UK, then went back to school for a degree in health sciences with a specialty in evolutionary medicine. Watching sick animals and their frightened owners taught her that “underneath it all, humans are just animals,” and evolutionary medicine gave her the language for what she’d seen: stress. Six weeks after she went back to school, a surprise pregnancy rerouted her from integrative medicine to health coaching. When the world shut down six months after her son was born, the self-described introvert’s reaction was “don’t threaten me with a good time,” but she’s refreshingly honest that she did not have a good time, juggling a full course load with postpartum anxiety that kept her on high alert. We get into the mismatch between our primitive biology and modern life, her three papers (on chewing as a signal that the threat is gone, sociophysiological dysregulation theory, and how a body that moves and senses less stays on guard), and why she says “humans built their own zoos.” Plus, why you need to find your “threshold tolerance for b******t” before road rage hits, or before your kid spills the milk and you’re sobbing on the kitchen floor. In this episode, Kira explains: ◻️ Why “we do not have to convince our nervous systems that we’re safe,” and what to do instead ◻️ What chewing has to do with stress eating ◻️ Why stress is “not the opposite of regulation,” and balance is something you do, not something you have ◻️ How we’re “outsourcing our interoception,” and what it looks like to be more human, not less If you’ve ever reached for the chips after a hard day, told yourself to calm down and your body didn’t listen, or left Costco feeling like you’d survived something, this one’s for you. Find Kira: Website: https://kaecesshealth.com/ Read Feral Medicine on Substack LinkedIn

  5. Oct 12

    21. Dr. Catherine Robert

    Catherine Robert, educator, researcher, and host of the Fearless Careerist podcast, takes us on her career journey: contract bookkeeper, small-business CFO, oil services accountant, middle school registrar, drama and English teacher, school administrator, HR, tenured professor, and now writer. She was great at accounting, but it never felt like a vocation. Then she took a job at her daughter’s school and found her people: middle schoolers. We reflect on why kids that age keep showing up in a different outfit (they’re “literally just hatched out of a little shell,” trying on new selves to see what fits), the five-minute hallway passing period that showed her how much a kid carries between classes, and why those years are “a critical time for people to become people.” Catherine shares what her research says about why people stay in the jobs that pay the least, the “career drift” many of us go through, and why the linear career path is dead. Her question now: once we’re adults, “Where’s our career services?” We get into how kids learn to think when an answer is always one click away, how she taught eighth graders to figure out how they learn best, and why it’s time to rethink a system where “we’ve assessed kids to death and not much has changed.” Catherine shares what fielding 800 requests a day as a school administrator taught her about being human, and the idea from her doctoral studies that changed how she approaches policymaking. She isn’t here to tell you to quit. “So many people live their lives in quiet desperation,” she says. If you’re ten years into the same job and ready for a change, she offers a way to think it through, so you can feel good about the decision, whether you go or stay. If you’ve ever been great at a job that never felt like yours, wondered whether to stay or go, or are trying on a new self to see if it fits, this one’s for you. Look for Fearless Careerist, the book, coming in spring 2027. Fearless Careerist on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@FearlessCareerist Find Catherine: Website: https://catherinerobertedd.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/catherine-robert-823801212/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/crobert903/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61560439627250

  6. Oct 5

    20. Tess Posner

    Tess Posner, award-winning musical artist, entrepreneur, and community builder, shares her journey from founding CEO of AI4ALL to full-time musician to founder of Resonance. Tess is on a mission to build the infrastructure that empowers local communities to navigate and shape their future with AI based on what matters to them, instead of accepting the defaults. We discuss facing fear in a modern world, why she's learned it's impossible to heal anyone else and what she does instead, and why Resonance salons are her answer to an epidemic of loneliness and a loss of agency. We explore what it means to "live the questions" (hat tip to Rilke and her St. John's College education), why "education is often effective because of friction," and the human capacities worth protecting in the Age of AI. We compare thirty people lingering at a café in Paris to a Starbucks drive-thru, and consider what American culture traded when it optimized for efficiency. Tess explains why she doesn't have a P(doom) and makes the case for building a future where technology alleviates suffering and fosters connection, agency, and creativity, instead of eroding what makes us human. We explore her music—"Vertigo," written in the first weeks of the pandemic; "Party at the End of the World," the dance song she wrote under an orange wildfire sky in California; "You Set Me on Fire"; and "Feral Child," her letter to the inner child the modern world stepped on and that she buried, and what happened after she released it. If you've ever lost touch with the kid who used to wonder about everything, chased answers when you needed to live the questions, or want a voice in the future being built, this one's for you. Links: 🌐 Resonance tess-posner.com 🎵 Feral Child 🎵 Party at the End of the World 🎵 Vertigo 🎵 You Set Me on Fire ✍️ Living the Questions

  7. Sep 28

    19. Rebecca Bultsma

    Rebecca Bultsma, an AI ethics researcher, writer, mom of four, and, by her own account, a huge nerd, brings nuance to an increasingly polarized world. We talk about her pivot from public relations to data and AI ethics, the moment she watched ChatGPT write a press release in seconds and knew everything would change, and her research on deepfakes: how K–12 leaders can respond when no one can tell what's real. We also talk about growing up with her father, an Oxford-trained lawyer who was comfortable saying "I don't know," why she questions whether AI belongs in classrooms at all, the metaphors that shape how we act, Pope Leo XIV's encyclical Magnifica Humanitas, what happens when profit comes before people, and what your loyalty card is really for. Rebecca shares why we've lost our tolerance for uncertainty, what London's cab drivers can teach us about using AI without outsourcing our thinking, and why, of all tools, she turns to Grok when she's trying to piece together what's true in real time. Through it all, she returns to what makes us uniquely human: critical thinking, our own voice, and our capacity to genuinely care for and connect with each other, because, as she puts it, "we're more than data points." If you're wondering how to stay human in the Age of AI or how to hold nuance in a polarized world, this one's for you. Find Rebecca on: LinkedIn Substack: Yes, and Also No RebeccaBultsma.com

  8. Sep 20

    18. Brian Cunningham (Part II)

    Brian Cunningham returns to dive deeper into the mechanics underneath the developmental progression of leadership he mapped in Part I. This time we tackle attention, focus, and intent—the three levers of our awareness—and the distinction between consciousness as the field and awareness as what perceives it. We dig into what happens when our attention is constantly fragmented—by media, algorithms, or ADHD—and the gap between the millions of bits of stimuli hitting us each second and the handful we actually register. Brian introduces "free-ish will": agency that's real but bounded, and the nuance of what it means to co-create your life—the freedom of it, and the overwhelm that can keep us stuck in fear if we never move past self-authoring into self-transcendence. He lays out the four domains of our Awareness Quotient (AQ), the missing link between our IQ, EQ, and intuition: internal, external, the integration between the two, and the deeper purpose beneath it all. Then he gets specific—what it looks like, in a real meeting, to catch someone's fear before it hardens like wet clay, and to hand three people at three different leadership levels a role that expands all three at once. He shares what he learned studying under David Dibble—a master apprentice of Don Miguel Ruiz (author of The Four Agreements)—including how to unleash the human spirit in the workplace not through retreats or seminars, but by treating the workplace itself as the tool. Sure you can meditate at the ashram in the mountains for a week, but can you lead people when the sh*t hits the fan at work? If you've ever felt your attention hijacked, wondered how to reclaim your agency in a "free-ish" world, or want a practical framework to build your awareness muscle and leadership skills—this one's for you. Find Brian at: LinkedIn AwarenessQuotientLeadership.com Find Brian's books on Amazon: Leadership: The Universal Principles Our AQ (Awareness Quotient): The Missing Link to Extraordinary Leadership and Life

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Ratings & Reviews

5
out of 5
5 Ratings

About

Lucid Commons is where we press pause on life long enough to hear ourselves think—where we explore the question: what does it mean to be human? We put a pin in that question thousands of years ago and got busy working. Now AI is presenting us with an opportunity to revisit this question—to do a different kind of work—the beautiful, messy work. This is an invitation to an examined life in an unexamined world. Each episode captures the science or the soul of the human experience—through a personal story, or through experts who bring the perspective and tools to navigate humanity's liminal space. If you're asking this question too, or searching for the you in your life, you're in good company. “It is not the answer that enlightens, but the question.” —Eugène Ionesco

Information

  • Creator
    Tatyana Norman-Webler
  • Years Active
    2026
  • Episodes
    25
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Tatyana Norman-Webler
  • Show Website
    Lucid Commons™