Coffee That Makes an Impact & Kenny Sipes
Kenny Sipes started the Roosevelt Coffeehouse in 2013 to make a social impact. He knew from the start that he wanted to build the coffee shop without any loans so that they would be able …
Racing with VETMotorsports & Pete Cline
Pete Cline was racing at a semi-professional level in motorsports when an accident forced him to take a different turn. An event in the UK had inspired Pete to enlist some veterans to show some …
Transforming Lives of Homeless Youth with the Star House & Ann Bischoff
When you walk around Columbus, one population you don’t encounter are the homeless, but they are here behind the backdrop of the city. The organization Star House reaches out to specifically help those who are …
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Uncommon Insight into Changing the World with Dr. Srikumar Rao
Join me as I speak with my longtime mentor, Dr. Srikumar Rao — TED speaker, author, consultant, and creator of the Creativity & Personal Mastery course. I took his course at the London Business School …
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Ione Butler & Uplifting Content
For episode 19, we spoke with Ione Butler of Uplifting Content, and like the name, uplifting content is all about creating uplifting content… because the world needs more of it. (Personally, I couldn’t agree more. …
David Shekleton & Affiliate Marketing for Good
David reached out to me on Twitter — and I found myself intrigued by his use of affiliate marketing to raise money for causes that offset the social economics costs of tourism. The statistic I’ve …
John Rush, Clean Turn & Passion Purpose Profit
I recently met John Rush, President, and CEO for Clean Turn enterprises, right before their Passion Purpose Profit conference. Their mission is to strengthen communities with an empowered workforce by creating profitable social enterprises, and …
Growlers Dog Bones & Amy Noltemeyer
I recently met Amy Noltemeyer at the Aspire 2017 awards, where her social enterprise, Growlers Dog Bones, took first place for Emerging Social Enterprise of the Year. Growlers Dog Bones is a nonprofit whose goal …
Kiva in Columbus & Lily Vail
I recently met Lily Vail, the Program Lead for Kiva in Columbus, Ohio. I’ve known Kiva for years as the icon for social lending abroad, making loans accessible for businesses and projects that were outside …
Reading for Change with Ethan Martin
Ethan Martin and his wife started Reading for Change just a few years ago. Sitting in a coffee shop, his wife was lamenting over her previous teaching position in title 1 school, where she felt …
Serial Volunteering with Raj Thangavelu
I have known Raj Thangavelu since we ran cross-country together in high school; he was an early inspiration in my life. Raj, who stood 4’ 10.75” tall, wasn’t the fastest runner on our team, but …
GRIT, Building a Career with a Criminal Record & Harley Blakeman
I met Harley when he interned in our company. I knew he was a relative of my parents’ friends from college, but had no idea of his story or his social mission to help ex-offenders …
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Transracial Adoptees with Donna Blume
So, I was on twitter where I follow a lot of people. Anyone I think might be interesting, and I often wonder if this accomplishes anything, as I rarely see any of these people again. …
Socially Conscious Travel with Flower La Warner
Flower La Warner, left her home in South Africa and journeyed to Korea to teach English in a small village. While many foreigners experience culture shock, Flower fell in love with the culture right away, …
Columbus Coalition for the Homeless with Don Strasser
Don Strasser moved to Columbus after living in New York until he was 40, and after a career serving those effected by mental health, he retired. But the idea of moving to Florida and spending …
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Flying Horse Farms with Alexa Donner
Flying horse farms is not a farm, nor do they have any horses. But what they do have is serious fun. The SeriousFun camps, formerly known as The Association of Hole in the Wall Camps, …
Mysore Style Ashtanga Yoga with Danielle DePompei
For episode 7, we dive deep into Mysore style Astanga Yoga with Danielle DePompei, an instructor at Astanga Yoga Columbus. Danielle has such an awesome energy, and a cool story how she found Astanga Yoga and …
Saving the Environment with Steven Anderson
I am very fortunate to present this podcast with Steven Anderson, founder of Integrated Leadership Systems. ILS helps organizations all over North America improve their leadership and team building to be more effective so they …
Graphic Design for Entrepreneurs with Rose Buoni
Entrepreneurs often don’t understand the value of graphic design. People like me don’t understand the world of freelancing. So when I met Rose, who is building a freelancing graphic design career in her spare time and mostly …
Steve Morris & Starting a Company
My father founded his company, ASG, 15 years ago to provide retail real estate services: helping retailers to audit landlords, manage leases, build stores, negotiate deals and develop strategy. Personally, I started working with my …
TBEX: The Travel Blogger’s Conference
TBEX Huntsville was this year’s North America travel blogger conference. I had no idea what to expect… to be honest, I was skeptical of going to a small town in Alabama that I had never …
Photography with a Social Mission – Commons Studio & Matt Reese
I am delighted to bring to you a podcast with Matt Reese, a Columbus photographer who has built up the Commons Studio photography company with a social mission. His social mission has three aspects: First …
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Backstage at the Columbus Zoo
Columbus, Ohio has one of the best zoo’s in the country. When Jack Hannah inherited the zoo as director in 1978, it was a mess. But he built it up with his charisma, vision and …
Discover Columbus, a Unique Destination
Columbus is a unique place. First impressions: it’s small & there isn’t much happening. But living here, I’m starting to develop a deeper appreciation for the city. It has these hidden possibilities: they’re not obvious …
Permaculture Farming & Lindsay Stevenson
Welcome to Episode 2 of the People Helping People Podcast. I had the pleasure of speaking with Lindsay Stevenson, who delightfully discussed her passion for permaculture farming… and her motivations on why she wants to …
Saving the world from extinction with permaculture farming
Disclaimer: I am not a farmer… this is my green thumb attempt to understand farming. Technically, I didn’t even to travel to a farm (I do have one almost in my back yard if that counts). …
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An Unexpected Chill in Brussels
I have heard wonderful things about Brussels: it’s a nice modern city, easy to get around in and beautiful in the summer. From London, you arrive in just a few hours on the Eurostar. No …
All you need to know about Londoners
London is the premier international city. You can walk down Oxford Street and easily hear 10 languages in 10 steps, because people come from everywhere and anywhere. (I used to think New York was the …
Culture, Diversity & Mikela Thomas
Welcome to the first episode of the Aurai Online Podcast – People Helping People Make Awesome Stuff Happen, where we’re going to talk to people involved in social change, developing cultural ties, and cool project that …
How to Get The Perfect London Night Shot
I love photography – and have been snapping shots since my first digital SLR in 2004. (Well, before that I shot some 20,000 photos on whatever digital camera I could find.) There are 15 minutes, …
The Joy of a London Train Ride
If you consider your average day – be it at work, school, or home – you most likely wake up each day and go through a pattern you’ve been through many times before. When you …
London & The Indescribable Value of Kindness
Kindness is one of the rarest gifts we have to give: it doesn’t exist until we give it, and only in giving kindness does it exist. It even has a secret of it’s own: when …
Volunteering abroad with Samaritans
I volunteered with the Samaritans for 5 years during my time as an expat in London at the Central London branch. They are a wonderful organization that exists to reduce suicide by offering emotional support …
Belize & Communal Eating
Staying at the Thatch Caye resort in Belize was my first experience with communal eating. The meals are fun — with such a small group (there were about 12 of us), and no menu choice …
Belize & The Art Of Doing Nothing
Thatch Caye is a cozy resort off the coast of Belize — a small island, with 10 – 20 guests, where you may walk from one end to the other in 25 minutes. (And if …
Belize & The Anatomy Of An Awkward Traveler
I’ve earned my badge for traveling – spending a year abroad in high school as an exchange student; followed by 9 years as an expat in London, where I discovered my now wife from India; …
Moroccan Social Entrepreneurship
One of the first observations when traveling through the Moroccan countryside is the lack of billboards and advertisements. A US highway has so many signs, billboards and noise constantly grabbing for your attention that you …
Silence in the Moroccan Desert
Our trip had a false start: my wife’s visa was incorrectly stamped to begin only on the second day of our trip, so the airport sent us home for a day, instantly squeezing our 5 …
Bremen: Oh-My!
My year in high school as an exchange student in Bremen was challenging, even though the experience was invaluable. One of the most difficult parts was my host mother. I stayed with a large host …
Bremen & Boredom
Bremen is not a boring city. It may be small, but it has a huge soul, complete with a gothic town hall in a pedestrian zone buzzing with life and delicious German bakeries. They’ve been …
Bremen: The Year Abroad
The year was 1993 – I was 16, and I flew to Germany. My sister’s friend was an exchange student, who spent a year in my small town of Avon, Connecticut. At the end of …
Jaipur: Life Turning Point
There are certain turning points in your life. My first trip to Jaipur, India, and the 10-day Vipassana meditation retreat was one such point. In 2004, my company had essentially gone bankrupt (they didn’t call …
Jaipur: Arts in the Pink City and Learning to Write
I am slowly learning how to write. It’s not that I can’t — I have some 3,000 odd journal entries (they’re all odd, believe me), of which, 650 of them were since I started my Morning …
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Jaipur: My First 1o Day Vipassana Meditation
After my first night in India and meeting up with colleagues, we made our way to the Vipassana meditation retreat center. Still adjusting to the sights and smells, we pulled into the center, which felt …
Jaipur: My First Two Hours in India
My first two hours in India were the most terrifying in my life. It was January 2005, and I had just landed in Delhi. A colleague at business school was organizing this trip for a Vipassana …
Wales: Plastic Bags for Children
Part of the reason I started this blog was because I got tired of the news (especially with this current election cycle), and I wanted to discover inspiring projects from around the world. In scouring the Welsh …
Wales: Welsh Pies
In searching for cool causes in Wales, we discovered Peter’s Pies, a staple pie baker from Caerphilly, just outside Cardiff. They have a strong social aspect to their business helping schools and the local community. …
Wales: UNA Exchange & Connecting Cultures
The UNA Exchange started as an international volunteering movement after the First World War. This transpired when the Swiss pacifist, Pierre Ceresole, sought to bring young people together from France and Germany to volunteer in the …
Vipassana at Dhamma Dipa
Vipassana meditation is something that I practice in my daily life. It is the meditation to cultivate self-awareness, and the capability to observe the sensations in the body without reacting to them – with the understanding that it …
And the secret to Paris is…
I love to travel. Part of the reason why I chose to showcase Paris first is that it was one of the first cities I visited abroad. When I lived in London, hopping around Europe …