The Gumpcast Omar Shaker, Paul Kist

This Season II Finale is a double feature. Enjoy 80 minutes of crying, laughing, real talk and allowing ourselves to hang loose and be silly with improv actor, teacher and facilitator Stacie B.
I know that this finale will inspire you to think of how you express yourself, what things may be repressed within you, and an overall picture of how expression impacts us through a lot of our trademark vulnerable storytelling which we hope you know us for by now.
It’s been an honor to create these episodes for you. Please help us fund the third Season by becoming a paid subscriber on findgumption.com. 

How can we use technology to amplify our lives rather than drain them?I traveled to Switzerland to reconnect with my old roommate to discuss this very important question on my quest for gumption. 
Check out this episode with engineer Islam El Ashi, as he takes us on his journey from optimizing ads for Twitter to using his abilities to help Syrian refugees, send a camera into the stratosphere, and now to help build the world's biggest internet computer blockchain.
His perspective will get you thinking about your everyday life and relationship with technology from a lens that will help you amplify your gumption versus letting tech drain it.
Enjoy and let us know if you started playing with these concepts in your life at findgumption.com

Paulo Machado, mental health investor and advisor, struggles when his own brother attemtps suicide.

We all have a story to tell and stories have a profound impact on what we do. Which stories can save lives? Which stories can be a form of healing for others?
In today’s polarized world, this episode could not be more timely.
My guest, Dr. Gautam Gulati - or Dr. G- is a speaker, doctor, and “Status Quo Agitator”. He is the founder of The Well Home and host of the multiple award-winning podcast Super Humans.
He takes us with him on a trip to Kenya, where a treacherous accident opened him up to the power of storytelling, and created the framework that shaped his current life and work.
After listening, we want to hear from you in the comments, what stories shaped who you are? Which of your stories do you feel are important to share with the world?
Leave a comment



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How do we challenge our stereotypes about other cultures and humanize others beyond what we assume?
My guest today, Mina Girgis, believes that learning about music and listening to other people’s music is the path forward. What happens when we bring curiosity to the music we listen to?
Mina is a musical anthropologist and current Director of Education, Campus and Community Engagement at UC Berkley CalPerformances. Mina is also the founder of The Nile Project, where he used the power of human connection via shared musical culture to tackle one of Africa’s most challenging sustainability conflicts: The River Nile.Whether yo are into classical music, to gypsy music, or electronic and hiphop, we’ll cover how any music tells a story that can help us understand life and humans on a more fundamental level.
Sample performance from the Nile project:
 



Notes:

Romani People/ Gypsies


The Nile Project: http://nileproject.org/music/musicians/


Illuminations - Human and Machine https://calperformances.org/learn/illuminations/illuminations-2022-23/


Othering and Belonging Institute
https://belonging.berkeley.edu/
 

 

 There are many voices that tell us to express our truth, but almost none that tell us to do so with grace and respect to our loved ones and their truth.
Our anonymous guest spent 14 years building his own sense of safety before coming out as a homosexual man in a society that was directly opposed to it.
It is remarkable how he created space for his mother, a member of that society, to live her own story.
Our guest today bravely shares his journey of conscious self-acceptance, while waving a tapestry of love to hold his family despite their conflicting views on homosexuality.

“I wanted us to go through it together. I did not want to become someone they did not recognize”
Today’s Gumpcast story will leave you with:
-A new perspective for what it looks like to speak your truth, while holding space for others.
-A model for how knowledge can help build a sense of self that is shielded from society.
-A deep probe into how the gay identity is engineered for a Western society. How the Arab homosexual identity is inspired by it but does not relate to it.
-A big question in the end about the history of man and our relationship to nature.

9 min Bonus Soundbite next week!
There is a segment of the conversation that took us on a riff where my guest shared a lot of the history of homosexuality and the “scientific”-ization of it with Freud and Eugenics.
He masterfully pieces together the bits of history as he discovered them in his quest to understand how society reacted to homosexuality, from political will power, and the utility of the Gay identity.
We decided to cut it from the episode but will make it available as a stand alone 9 min segment this week.
Stay tuned for a follow up soundbite at findgumption.com 
References:

Desiring Arabs Paperback – Illustrated, September 15, 2008
by Joseph A. Massad (Author)


Orientalism Paperback – October 12, 1979
by Edward W. Said (Author)


Desperate housewives scene: Bee’s son comes out


Juste une question d'amour,TV Movie 2000 1h 28m


Contracorriente (VOST) 2009 ‧ Romance/Drama ‧ 1h 50m