241: What Stayed With Us: Conversations That Shaped 2025

Dec 22, 2025

Sheryl Crow, a Grammy-winning musician, shares her journey of healing and authenticity, reflecting on childhood narratives that shaped her identity. She discusses the importance of naming early wounds and how therapy helps dismantle shame. The episode also highlights other inspiring stories, like how small acts of kindness can transform lives, reclaiming trust in our bodies, and staying human in an increasingly AI-driven world. Each narrative encourages listeners to cultivate personal growth and contribute to the greater good.

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ADVICE

Act Where You Can

Do what you can instead of being paralyzed by what you cannot fix.
Hold hope and act with humility to contribute to the common good.

ANECDOTE

A $100 Bill That Lasted

Sharon McMahon found a $100 bill on her car seat during a desperate college season.
That anonymous kindness shaped her belief in small, targeted acts of mercy.

ADVICE

Listen To Your Body

Try trusting your body and instincts as legitimate sources of wisdom.
Use practices like guided meditation to move out of your head and back into bodily guidance.

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Some moments stay with us long after the episode ends. In this special episode, Lee C. Camp and Jakob Lewis revisit the conversations from 2025 that changed them—clips that still echo with courage, tenderness, and the invitation to live well.

Key Ideas:

Focus on What You Can Do. Sharon McMahon reminds us that while none of us can fix everything, each of us can meaningfully contribute to the common good through small, faithful actions.
Reclaim Trust in Your Body. Jen Hatmaker’s story shows how healing from spiritual shame begins with listening again to our intuition, our bodies, and the wisdom we were taught to doubt.
Let Small Words Change You. Terrence Lester’s life was redirected by a single affirmation from an unhoused stranger—revealing how everyday encounters can spark courage, purpose, and justice.
Stay Human in an AI World. Baratunde Thurston and Astro Teller explore how technology invites us to ask what is uniquely human—and why deep community and local practice matter more than big “moonshot” fixes.
Rewrite Your Inner Story. Sheryl Crow’s vulnerable reflections show how naming early wounds and dismantling shame can help us live more authentically, with freedom and grounded joy.
Tend Your Own Small Garden. In previewing The Subtext, Savannah Locke and Lee C. Camp offer a hopeful vision: in a complex world, flourishing begins with the corner of the world that’s ours to steward.

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No Small Endeavor: An award-winning podcast that asks what it means to live a good life. Through conversations with leading thinkers across theology, philosophy, psychology, politics, and the social sciences, we explore human flourishing, meaning and purpose, faith and culture, science and religion, virtue and character, community, and the practices that help shape a good life grounded in truth, beauty, and goodness.

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