Combating Anti-Blackness and Being An Authentic Ally with Dr. Norman Kim

Finding Stillness Because This World Is Still Breathing with Morgan Harper Nichols

Mark has met Oprah. He's met Dr. Brené Brown more than once. And yet when he turned around at a book event in Atlanta and realized the woman tapping his shoulder was Morgan Harper Nichols, he cried on the spot. That says everything you need to know about what today's guest means to him. Morgan Harper Nichols is a bestselling author, award-winning artist, poet, musician, PhD student, mother, and one of the most quietly revolutionary creative forces working today. Her words — those short, luminous quote graphics you've been sharing for years without always knowing whose they were — have reached millions of people across the world. Her initials, MHN, have appeared in countless captions and reposts as a kind of shorthand for that feeling of being seen when you didn't expect to be. This conversation covers how a single journal poem posted to Pinterest in 2016 changed the trajectory of her life, what it means to protect intimacy when your work reaches a million people, what she's learning in her PhD research about health narratives and art, and what it felt like to be in your early 30s with a thriving creative career already built,  to finally receive the diagnosis: autism. ADHD. Sensory processing disorder. This conversation is an invitation to be still and breathe.  Guest Bio Morgan Harper Nichols is a bestselling author and award-winning artist whose work explores creative storytelling through visual art and the written word. Her books, including the bestselling All Along You Were Blooming and other collections of poetry and illustrations, have found a wide, international audience.  She has built a creative community of over a million followers on Instagram, where she shares her art and reflections on creativity, healing, and connection. Morgan is also the creator of the Storyteller app and founder of Garden24, a platform for her visual and written work.  In addition to her creative practice, Morgan is a PhD student in Communication Studies at the University of Georgia. Her research focuses on using arts-based methodologies to communicate health narratives. She serves on the Board of Directors for To Write Love on Her Arms (TWLOHA) and is actively involved in community-based mental health initiatives.  At 31, Morgan was diagnosed with Autism, ADHD, and sensory processing disorder, an experience that continues to inform her work and perspective. From and based in the Atlanta, Georgia metro area, she continues to connect art, research, and community in ways that highlight creativity as a space for understanding, imagination, and meaningful connection. Connect with Mark: ⁠Sign up for Mark's Newsletter⁠ [https://professionalstoryteller.myflodesk.com/newsletter] ⁠Follow Mark on Social Media⁠ [https://linktr.ee/marktravrivera?fbclid=PAZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAafPMaj_D18DExfiwY4MZ9rNQ1FUT8y1CBqwBvOakR_MxXWNDcOrcpAhfsRVpg_aem_b-fpm4NaXgIhjT2sRhrnLg] Connect with Morgan: Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/morganharpernichols/] Shop at Garden24 + buy  MHN’s art and  books [https://garden24.co/?srsltid=AfmBOoqaJPkUNqVbqlWnj-Yt80b2xcCPc_kF0INxELw6O11Qx0Sf9o6u] Website  [https://morganharpernichols.com/] Questions or comments? Email us at Hello@MarkTravisRivera.com.   Music from #Uppbeat (free for Creators!): https://uppbeat.io/t/swoop/success License code: SQK0ZY8P3EBIUZYY Disclaimer Note: The captions in this video are auto-generated, and while we try to ensure accuracy, you may notice a typo or error. Thank you in advance for extending grace.

Choosing Joy When The Rainbow Is Not Enough with Obella Obbo

He's back. Obella Obbo — therapist, wellness specialist, CEO of The Radical Empath, and one of Mark's dearest friends — returns to The Shift as what may be the first guest to appear on both Season 1 and Season 2. A lot has changed since they last spoke: Obella got married, survived one of the hardest years of his life, and has been in the thick of holding space for clients navigating a world that feels like it's unraveling in real time. This conversation goes deep on joy as a practice, the psychic weight of the current political moment, what it means to truly care for the healers in your life, and why radical empathy might be the most revolutionary act available to us right now. Guest Bio: Obella Obbo is a therapist, wellness specialist, space curator, consultant, and creative artist. As the CEO and founder of The Radical Empath, Obella draws on his background as a Black, queer, Ugandan-American man to decolonize toxic belief systems and reframe them to empower people toward their most authentic selves. His career spans college-prep programs in low-income communities, domestic violence organizations serving both survivors and alleged perpetrators, respite sites for children with behavioral disabilities, multicultural affairs centers at predominantly white institutions, and DEI consulting for corporate clients across urban planning, technology, and more. In every space, he brings a fierce commitment to operational foundations that reflect the moral imperative for care and belonging. Obella is also a speaker represented by Mark. He is available for: * Mental health workshops and workplace training * College campus talks on identity, intersectionality, and wellness * Orientation and conference keynotes * Organizational consulting rooted in radical empathy 📩 Book Obella: speakeragent@marktravisrivera.com Connect with Mark: ⁠Sign up for Mark's Newsletter⁠ [https://professionalstoryteller.myflodesk.com/newsletter] ⁠Follow Mark on Social Media⁠ [https://linktr.ee/marktravrivera?fbclid=PAZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAafPMaj_D18DExfiwY4MZ9rNQ1FUT8y1CBqwBvOakR_MxXWNDcOrcpAhfsRVpg_aem_b-fpm4NaXgIhjT2sRhrnLg] Connect with Obella: Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/obellaobbo/] LinkedIn  [https://www.linkedin.com/in/obella-obbo/] Questions or comments? Email us at Hello@MarkTravisRivera.com.   Music from #Uppbeat (free for Creators!): https://uppbeat.io/t/swoop/success License code: SQK0ZY8P3EBIUZYY Disclaimer Note: The captions in this video are auto-generated, and while we try to ensure accuracy, you may notice a typo or error. Thank you in advance for extending grace.

Blooming Wildly and Being Free with Rigness Rush

This episode is one of Mark’s most personal conversations yet: a sit-down with his neighbor, his chosen family, and one of his favorite humans on the planet, Rigness Rush. Known simply as "Rig," Rigness is a health-centered space designer, social justice advocate, and visual artist whose fingerprints are on rooms you've walked into, campaigns that moved you, and communities that held you, even if you never once heard his name. That's by design. Rig has always preferred to be felt more than known. But today, he steps into the light. This conversation travels through spirituality weaponized against a boy just trying to bloom, through the documentary Speaking Out [https://speakingoutthemovie.com/?fbclid=PAZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAc3J0YwZhcHBfaWQPOTM2NjE5NzQzMzkyNDU5AAGn-STyAsv_olZWuFMy-ztKNxbKDCoxpQzDrlPO49vN2p-f-aMQe3TXAPv9ejM_aem_NxMu4-k-O3feFouiULxlyQ&utm_source=ig&utm_medium=social&utm_content=link_in_bio], which dared to hold a mirror up to buried pain, through the quiet revolution of designing healthcare spaces that greet people with dignity rather than shame. It moves through chosen family and biological wounds, through forgiveness that doesn't excuse and love that doesn't look away. And woven through all of it: the question that anchors this whole conversation: what does it really mean to resist, to endure, to show up proudly, scars and all? If you've ever had to fight just to exist in a room, in your family, in your body, in your identity, listen to this episode.  Guest Bio: Currently, Rigness helps design health-centered spaces and creates engagement activations rooted in social justice,  health literacy, and equity.  He continues to emphasize the importance of fostering community insight, which translates research and scientific data into social marketing initiatives. He combines empathy,  intuition, and creativity to retool programs and efforts, making them more culturally informed, sustainable, and profitable.   Recent campaigns he has driven include the Stand Against Hate Campaign, aimed at fostering accountability and action through disruptive messaging, and the We the People campaign, which bolstered inclusion and equity by creating space for honest engagement and alignment across cultural, racial, and equitable lines of division.  Outside of work, Rigness travels the world constantly learning and engaging with people. He strives to develop a heightened sense of global awareness and activism, built on a foundation of empathy and LGBTQ visibility and representation. Connect with Mark: ⁠Sign up for Mark's Newsletter⁠ [https://professionalstoryteller.myflodesk.com/newsletter] ⁠Follow Mark on Social Media⁠ [https://linktr.ee/marktravrivera?fbclid=PAZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAafPMaj_D18DExfiwY4MZ9rNQ1FUT8y1CBqwBvOakR_MxXWNDcOrcpAhfsRVpg_aem_b-fpm4NaXgIhjT2sRhrnLg] Connect with Rig: Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/the_rigness/] Questions or comments? Email us at Hello@MarkTravisRivera.com.   Music from #Uppbeat (free for Creators!): https://uppbeat.io/t/swoop/success License code: SQK0ZY8P3EBIUZYY Disclaimer Note: The captions in this video are auto-generated, and while we try to ensure accuracy, you may notice a typo or error. Thank you in advance for extending grace.

Combating Anti-Blackness and Being An Authentic Ally with Dr. Norman Kim

Mark sits down with Dr. Norman Kim, a psychologist, DEI scholar, UN expert affiliate on LGBTQ rights, and co-editor of a new Oxford University Press book on anti-blackness, for a wide-ranging conversation about what resistance really looks like in this political moment. They dig into the model minority myth, what authentic allyship demands of people of color, the limits of Western medicine's approach to healing, and why community — not the tools of oppression — is the only path to collective liberation. Guest Bio: Dr. Norman Kim is the inaugural Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Officer for the Center for Practice Innovations at Columbia University Department of Psychiatry, an adjunct faculty member at New York University, the co-founder of the Institute for Antiracism and Equity, a social justice-focused consultancy, and an expert affiliate on LGBTQ rights to the United Nations. He completed his B.A. at Yale and his Ph.D. in Psychology at UCLA. Specializing in examining the impacts of racism and discrimination, minority mental health, social determinants of health, and psychiatric complexities, his research and clinical interests span the application of transdiagnostic frameworks for eating disorders and anxiety, evolutionary approaches to shame and psychopathology, autism spectrum disorder, and the developmental course of bipolar disorder. He is a regular national and international speaker, educator, and passionate advocate with a particular focus on health equity, systemic racism, and anti-Blackness. He advises health tech startups in the UK and the US, professional organizations, and providers, and was the co-founder of a national eating disorder center. His co-edited book, Antiblackness and the Stories of Authentic Allies: Lived Experiences in the Fight Against Institutionalized Racism, was just released by Oxford University Press. Connect with Mark: ⁠Sign up for Mark's Newsletter⁠ [https://professionalstoryteller.myflodesk.com/newsletter] ⁠Follow Mark on Social Media⁠ [https://linktr.ee/marktravrivera?fbclid=PAZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAafPMaj_D18DExfiwY4MZ9rNQ1FUT8y1CBqwBvOakR_MxXWNDcOrcpAhfsRVpg_aem_b-fpm4NaXgIhjT2sRhrnLg] Connect with Dr. Kim: Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/gnorman] LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/normankim/] Website  [https://antiracismandequity.com/] Questions or comments? Email us at Hello@MarkTravisRivera.com.   Music from #Uppbeat (free for Creators!): https://uppbeat.io/t/swoop/success License code: SQK0ZY8P3EBIUZYY Disclaimer Note: The captions in this video are auto-generated, and while we try to ensure accuracy, you may notice a typo or error. Thank you in advance for extending grace.

Being Whole As A Black Neurodivergent Man

What does it mean to show up as a deeply loving, emotionally intelligent Black man in a world that wasn't designed to see you that way? In this rich conversation, host Mark Travis Rivera sits down with entrepreneur, speaker, and podcast host Sheldon Gay to explore neurodivergence, Black identity, radical self-love, and the power of community in a world that often asks us to fragment ourselves. Sheldon opens up about arriving in his early 40s without realizing he was neurodivergent, how representation finally made it click, and why he calls his life's purpose "leveraging technology to create a more equitable, just, and joyous world." This episode is a love letter to every Black and melanated person who has ever been told their way of thinking was a problem — and a reminder that your "brain sparkle" is a gift. Guest Bio: Sheldon Gay is an entrepreneur, speaker, and host of the I Must Be Buggin' podcast — where B.U.G.N. stands for Black, Underrepresented, Unidentified, Gifted, and Neurodivergent. He is a leading advocate for gifted and neurodivergent people, especially those from melanated and marginalized communities. His lived experience empowers him to help people become curious about their minds, foster community, and experience peace and joy through authenticity. Connect with Mark: ⁠Sign up for Mark's Newsletter⁠ [https://professionalstoryteller.myflodesk.com/newsletter] ⁠Follow Mark on Social Media⁠ [https://linktr.ee/marktravrivera?fbclid=PAZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAafPMaj_D18DExfiwY4MZ9rNQ1FUT8y1CBqwBvOakR_MxXWNDcOrcpAhfsRVpg_aem_b-fpm4NaXgIhjT2sRhrnLg] Connect with Sheldon: Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/sheldongayisbugn/?hl=en] Website  [https://linktr.ee/sheldongayisbugn?utm_source=linktree_profile_share<sid=3994353f-ccc3-47d6-ae57-c957576cd58c] Questions or comments? Email us at Hello@MarkTravisRivera.com.   Music from #Uppbeat (free for Creators!): https://uppbeat.io/t/swoop/success License code: SQK0ZY8P3EBIUZYY Disclaimer Note: The captions in this video are auto-generated, and while we try to ensure accuracy, you may notice a typo or error. Thank you in advance for extending grace.