Sounds Good with Branden Harvey
by Good Good Good
Sounds Good hosts hopeful conversations with optimists and world-changers about the headlines we can be hopeful about — and how you can get involved and make a difference. Every week, Good Good Good founder Branden Harvey sits down with the people driving positive change against the world's greatest problems. Each episode will leave you with a sense of hope about the good in the world — and a sense of direction on how we can all be a part of that good. Dive deeper into these stories and find more good news at goodgoodgood.co and @goodgoodgoodco.
Episodes
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Backhanded Optimism with Adam J. Kurtz
Sounds Good Season Finale // If you've been looking for a sign to change your life, this is it. As you've probably figured out by now, life isn't a linear line. It's full of ups and downs, uncertainty, and confusion; however, what guides us through is intentionality. That's what illustrator and...
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How to Turn Good Intentions into Real Change in Your Workplace
The gap between good intentions and real change is a big one to fill. While many companies are interested in making their workplaces more diverse, it’s not enough to simply want more inclusion. It takes real systemic change to transform any professional setting into an equitable one and many...
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Develop for Good Is Pairing Ivy League Students with Nonprofits
Develop for Good pairs students with nonprofits to use tech to make a difference. The founder of the organization, Mary Zhu, is no stranger to the experiences of underserved communities. She’s the daughter of two Chinese immigrants and her cultural background was a huge driving force in helping…
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Meet the App That Helps People Find Public Benefits
Growing up in the racially and economically segregated suburbs of Maryland, Patrice Berry found herself wanting to work in U.S. policymaking after experiencing firsthand how hard it is for marginalized folks to finish school, get assistance, and provide for their families. She now works for the...
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One Doctor’s Mission to Bring Healthcare to Refugee Women
After trading jazz for a Harvard education, this doctor chose to support refugees by not only working in a refugee camp in Turkey, but by developing an app that supports refugees’ unique healthcare needs. One of the major challenges of being a refugee is the lack of access to real healthcare,...
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Being an Imperfect Conscious Consumer
Being an environmentally conscious consumer means shopping smarter, not harder. But with so much information and products in the world, it can be challenging to know where to start making choices that are good for the planet. Thankfully, our guest is doing the good work to help everyday folks…
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How an Ex-Felon Is Helping Others with Their Second Chance at Life
After getting out of prison, Jason Wang committed to helping ex-felons get jobs, end generational poverty, and re-enter society. The United States’ incarceration system has made it nearly impossible for ex-felons to have a second chance at life. From the minute they’re incarcerated to the minute...
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On the Ground in Haiti After Earthquake with Mercy Corps
After a 7.2 earthquake struck the western part of Haiti last week, it’s been all hands on deck to help the country get back on their feet. This week, we’re talking to Christy Delafield, Managing Director of Communications at Mercy Corps, about the devastating effect the earthquake has had on…
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How to Get Your Voice Heard by Elected Officials
Contacting an elected representative is an effective way to make change, but it might not always be clear how to make your voice heard. Our show guest today is Jason Putorti, one of the founders of Resistbot — a free and easy to use messaging service that connects constituents directly with their...
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Letting Go of Perfection to Find Peace, According to an Expert
Mental health influencer Poppy Jamie is letting go of the idea of perfection. The British entrepreneur and lifestyle personality made the radical choice to unsubscribe from habits that were making her miserable and in her new book, Happy Not Perfect: Upgrade Your Mind, Challenge Your Thoughts…
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Navigating Change Is An Opportunity for Growth
Growing — whether in our personal or professional lives — requires change. But change can be terrifying, no matter what stage in your life you’re at. Fortunately, there are people who can help us deal with change — and show us how it can transform our lives and the communities around us. Josh...
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How a College Student Founded NOLA’s First Glass Recycling Plant
Recycling glass turned this young founder into a TikTok star. Franziska Trautmann was at the end of her college career when her frustration at her city’s (New Orleans, Louisiana) lack of a recycling program for glass boiled over. But rather than just stewing on it, she jumped into action and...
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How Poetry Keeps Us Hopeful with Maggie Smith
Maggie Smith is an award-winning poet who shot to prominence in 2016 with her viral poem, Good Bones. Widely celebrated in the poetry community for her lyricism and her poetic style, Maggie’s poems have appeared in publications such as The New York Times and The Paris Review. Her bestseller, Keep...
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Do Petitions Even Do Anything?
Petitions help people feel like they’re making change in the world — but do they really make a difference? Stuart Perelmuter, the founder of OD Action and Atadvocacy, has worked for over a decade to keep hundreds and thousands of people informed and engaged in progressive politics through...
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How to Keep Juneteenth Alive All Year Round
Pulitzer Prize winner Professor Annette Gordon-Reed has been celebrating Juneteenth her entire life. But in light of the global spotlight on the Black Lives Matter movement from last year’s protests against police brutality, more and more people are aware of what Juneteenth represents for…
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Intervening When You See Harassment Is Easier Than You Think
Intervening when someone is being harassed feels scary. But a global, people-powered movement called Hollaback is making it easy to put an end to harassment — and they’re seeing huge progress. The organization has grown to 14 countries, where it provides free trainings on conflict de-escalation,...
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Ending Global Homelessness Through Innovation
The nonprofit New Story is solving global homelessness with innovative and holistic solutions. By providing financing and creating innovative home designs and processes, New Story has built 26 communities in four countries, all while partnering with local builders using local resources. The...
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Saving the Bees with Bee Girl Sarah
Sarah Red-Laird is “the bee girl” who started the nonprofit The Bee Girl Organization to educate and inspire communities to conserve bees, their flowers, and our countryside. The nonprofit helps to regenerate soil, bees, and communities through educational programs and events for both kids and...
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Changing the World Happens Best in Community
Terence Lester (Love Beyond Walls) is making a difference for people experiencing poverty, homelessness, and economic inequality. He founded Love Beyond Walls, an Atlanta-based organization that serves people experiencing homelessness. He returns to the podcast for the second time to discuss the...
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6 Good News Stories to Make Your Week Better
There’s always good news if you know where to look. Every month, we publish a print newspaper called The Goodnewspaper, full of hope and ways to make a meaningful difference. In this episode, Branden sits with the managing editor of The Goodnewspaper, Kailey Thompson, to share our favorite good...
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How to Fight Gun Violence with Shannon Watts
Moms Demand Action began the day after the Sandy Hook shooting, which claimed the lives of 28 people, including 20 children. Shannon Watts, a mother of five, knew she needed to do something — so she moved into action to end gun violence. She started Moms Demand Action, a non-partisan grassroots...
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Rainbow Railroad Is Helping LGBTQ+ People Flee Persecution
Rainbow Railroad helps LGBTQ+ people escape countries where they face imminent danger because of their sexual orientation or gender identity. The Canada-based organization works to solve a multi-layered problem that goes beyond LGBTQ+ persecution — they’re also responding to a global refugee...
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John Moe Is Fighting Mental Health Stigma With Humor
John Moe (“Depresh Mode,” “The Hilarious World of Depression”) is bringing humor to mental health. The writer and radio personality’s work often centers on his mental health journey, and his writing has appeared in numerous humor anthologies as well as The New York Times Magazine, McSweeney's…
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What’s Happening at the U.S./Mexico Border and How to Help
Yonathan Moya grew up on the U.S./Mexico border and sought out a way to tell the stories of the people living there. Following a nine-day photographic journey in 2017, he launched an organization supporting families along the border. Border Perspective leads service-learning trips along the south...
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Why a Plant-Based Diet Can Save the World
Gene Stone (author of “Forks Over Knives”) has spent the last decade writing about plant-based diets and their relationship to health, animal protection, and the environment. The former Peace Corps volunteer and journalist (Esquire, GQ, and Vogue) is a New York Times bestselling author who has...
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3 Myths About Changing the World
All over the world, mysterious signs have been popping up. They say messages like: “Don’t give up.” “You are worthy of love.” “Your mistakes don’t define you.” Today we’re introducing you to the woman behind these messages and the global movement: Amy Wolff. One weekend in 2017, Amy and her…
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Sharing Your Story & Creating Community
At 22, Paige More (The Breasties) got a preventative double mastectomy before ever being diagnosed with cancer. At the time, she was working as a producer for Good Morning America and felt on top of the world, but she had just discovered she carried the BRCA 1 gene mutation that indicates a…
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How to Support Creators of Color
Photographer Aundre Larrow (@aundre) has worked with clients such as The North Face, Amex, Volcom, Lululemon, and the Warriors, and his work has been published in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. His work aims to show the fundamental value in each person and commonly captures the...
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What We Can Learn From the World’s Most Notable Activists
Journalist and photographer KK Ottesen has photographed and interviewed the world’s most notable politicians and activists. She is a regular contributor to The Washington Post Magazine, and her work has appeared in many other international publications. Her new book, “Activist: Portraits of...
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How Writing Can Help You Make Sense of the World & Make a Bigger Difference
Expert writing coach Allison Fallon says writing can help you unlock your purpose. Allison is the author of “The Power of Writing It Down” and founder of the writing coaching company Find Your Voice. In Allison’s newest book, she shares why writing down your story is one of the most powerful…
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How to Make the World More Generous and Thoughtful with Sharon McMahon
This teacher has turned to Instagram to combat misinformation. Sharon McMahon — who describes herself as “America’s (not boring) government teacher” — and her highly engaged Instagram community (self-described as Governerds) — just joined forces and raised enough money to forgive $50 million in...
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Environmentalism Must Care for People and the Planet
Activist Leah Thomas created a platform to address the ways environmentalism impacts not only the planet, but the people on it, too. She calls the platform Intersectional Environmentalist, a movement that addresses and incorporates lawyer and scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw’s feminist framework of...
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This Organization Is Helping Young People Get Elected
After working on Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton's presidential campaigns, Amanda Litman founded Run for Something, an organization dedicated to helping young and non-traditional candidates successfully run for office. Run for Something removes barriers to entry by providing assistance with...
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Positive Peace and How We Can Get More of It
Is the world becoming more peaceful? Or less? How would we know if it was? In an effort to measure peace, entrepreneur and philanthropist Steve Killelea founded the Institute for Economics and Peace, a nonprofit global research institute that measures peace levels around the world. The Institute...
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[Unedited] Jedidiah Jenkins on Finding Your Purpose
This is the full-length, unedited version of our conversation with Jedidiah Jenkins. Jedidiah was one of our first-ever guests on the show when we launched Sounds Good five years ago. His episode remains one of our most popular episodes, so we thought it would be fun to release the full unedited...
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Jedidiah Jenkins on Finding Your Purpose
Jedidiah Jenkins is a travel writer who lives with life with intention and purpose. He worked a dream job as a lawyer for the nonprofit Invisible Children before quitting to bike 10,000 miles from Oregon to Patagonia. He wrote a New York Times-bestselling book about his experience and has…
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Can Wearing a Dress Change the World?
Dressember founder and CEO Blythe Hill is on a mission to use fashion to end human trafficking. What she started as a style challenge in 2009, she turned into a nonprofit with global reach. The challenge is simple: Every December, wear a dress (or tie) every day. It’s a great conversation…
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How To Combat Your Media Echo Chamber
Echo chambers are a real problem in our news and media consumption. We follow, listen to, and read news from people who tell us what we already believe, so we run the risk of missing out on the truth or valuable perspectives. Our guest, Harleen Kaur, co-founded Ground News, a news comparison...
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Shane Claiborne on Abolishing the Death Penalty
Shane Claiborne is an outspoken critic of the death penalty. He’s a well-respected justice system reform activist and Christian faith leader, and he believes capital punishment needs to go for good in the United States — a country that’s in company with China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Egypt...
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This Nonprofit Helps Kids Grow $100 Into Thousands For Charity
The nonprofit Kids Boost empowers kids to become philanthropists and social entrepreneurs. With $100 in start-up funding, kids work with a one-on-one coach to raise funds for a charity they love. On average, participants turn the initial $100 into $1,850 for deserving charities. In the first half...
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3 Steps to Emotional Wellness with Miles Adcox
Miles Adcox (Onsite Workshops, Unspoken Podcast) is passionate about emotional wellness. His company offers life-changing personal growth workshops, leadership retreats, and emotional treatment. He lives his life by three concepts: Empathy over action, love over agenda, and grace over advice. He...
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How to Be an Ally During a Crisis
Danielle Coke (@ohhappydani) uses art to educate and inspire her Instagram followers about anti-racism and allyship. For many of us, this year has inspired big questions about how to meaningfully take action and make a difference in the realm of a lot of big problems — and especially systemic...
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Why Ranked Choice Voting Could Save Us
Katherine Gehl says reforming our voting system is the solution to political division and gridlock. Our current political system makes polarization and incivility commonplace and compromise nearly impossible, but ranked choice voting promises to make efficient cooperation possible. Katherine...
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Terence Lester is Helping Forgotten People Wash Their Hands
Terence Lester (Love Beyond Walls, Dignity Museum) is on the forefront of providing support for people experiencing homelessness — in Atlanta, Georgia and around the world. More than 500,000 people experience homelessness every single night — and their needs are made worse by COVID-19. It's a...
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Sounds Good is Back!
The podcast that leaves you feeling more hopeful is coming back! Sounds Good hosts hopeful conversations with optimists and world-changers about the headlines we can be hopeful about — and how you can get involved and make a difference. Every week, Good Good Good founder Branden Harvey sits down...
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Dr. Tererai Trent — Awakening the Sacred Dream Inside of Us
Before she became Oprah’s “favorite guest of all time,” she was a woman with a forgotten dream and a profound desire to recreate our world for the better.
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Sarah Corbett — The Art of Gentle Protest
What does a gentler form of protest look like? Could it be uniquely effective? Sarah Corbett, TEDx speaker, author, and activist of 30 years has perfected the art of gentle protest.
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Jonny Sun — The Strange Hope of Being an Alien
From projects with Lin Manuel Miranda, to writing for Netflix’s BoJack Horseman — from illustrating a book about an aliebn, to getting a master’s degree from Yale, Jonny Sun is doing it all. Somehow he’s also maintaining a humble approach to infusing a sense of empathy, hope, and purpose into the...
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Tyson Motsenbocker — Walking Through Doubt
Currently touring with Switchfoot and Colony House, Tyson Motsenbocker is a songwriter and guitarist living in San Diego, California.
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Celebrating 3 Years of Sounds Good!
Branden Harvey jumps in with a short episode to share some exciting personal news, celebrate three years of making Sounds Good, and highlighting what’s ahead for Year 4 of the podcast. soundsgoodpodcast.com
About this show
Sounds Good hosts hopeful conversations with optimists and world-changers about the headlines we can be hopeful about — and how you can get involved and make a difference. Every week, Good Good Good founder Branden Harvey sits down with the people driving positive change against the world's greatest problems. Each episode will leave you with a sense of hope about the good in the world — and a sense of direction on how we can all be a part of that good. Dive deeper into these stories and find more good news at goodgoodgood.co and @goodgoodgoodco.
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