Come out and play

Come out and play

In 1959, the teenagers were outside. In 1979, they were outside... just with different music and considerably less supervision. In 1999, when not at the mall, they were still outside. Starting somewhere between 2010 and 2015, the social lives of entire generations moved inside. They moved into phones, bedrooms and screens. And the data that followed on anxiety, loneliness, depression, and social disconnection is unlike anything researchers had seen before. This episode is about what happened, why it happened faster than anyone understood in the moment, and what it has to do with the way any of us navigate change in a world moving faster than our ability to see what we're trading away.

69 Feet, or, the most consequential moment of change lost to history.

If I asked you to name the single most consequential change in the history of modern life, you might say the industrial revolution. The printing press. The internet. You'd be wrong.... Or rather, you'd be downstream. The thing that actually changed everything happened on a Saturday afternoon in 1859, at the bottom of a 69-foot hole in northwestern Pennsylvania. The man who made it happen was a retired railroad conductor with no geology training, no engineering credentials, and no particular reason to believe that anything he was doing would work. You almost certainly don't know his name. This is the story of Edwin Drake — the most consequential change agent in modern history, and the man almost nobody has heard of. And it's about what his story has to do with the thing you're waiting to try. Part 1 of 2. Range of Change is a show about what change actually requires, told through stories most people think they already understand.

Nothing Available to Be Dislodged

Almost nothing about Dolly Parton actually changed over six decades. And yet the world's relationship to her transformed completely. This episode asks why — because the answer has almost nothing to do with Dolly, and almost everything to do with what she was standing on. This is an episode about values clarity: not as a motivational concept, but as structural integrity. The kind that means external pressure — the skepticism, the jokes, the people invested in you staying exactly as you are — doesn't find anything loose to grab onto. Range of Change is a show about what change actually requires, told through stories most people think they already understand.

What He Saw That No One Else Could

In 1960, a man in rural Bihar, India picked up a hammer and a chisel and began striking a mountain. His wife had died because there was no road to a doctor. He had no money, no machinery, no government support. Twenty-two years later, he broke through the other side. Dashrath Manjhi's story is one of the most extraordinary examples of transformational change I've ever encountered — not because of what he achieved, but because of what made it possible. This episode is about target state: what it means to hold a vision so specific and so real that it stops being a wish and starts being a direction. Range of Change is a show about what change actually requires, told through stories most people think they already understand.

Should I Stay or Should I Go (Back) with Hank

Hank Smith is an international marketing and biz dev leader with 15+ years of experience growing brands across the US, Germany, Japan, and the UK. Currently Director of Strategy at DC-based agency SmithGifford, he leads new business and is helping position the agency for the next era of brand marketing.Before that, he spent a decade in Germany at ZDF Digital and Streamwerke, launching TV series, streaming platforms, and campaigns with major networks and streamers. A University of Colorado Boulder alum, Hank is now traveling the US in a camper with his wife Suz and their dog Ziggy, exploring National Parks, halfway decent cortados, and a place to call home (at least for a few years). He’s passionate about rock music, the horror genre, cooking, and—unironically—cleaning.