Guest– Lynda Ulrich and Liesl Ulrich Verderber

Feb 4

Ep. 130: Lynda Ulrich and Liesl Ulrich-Verderber on Optimism and Their Drive to CreateThe Goodness Exchange

Lynda Ulrich and her daughter Liesl Ulrich Verderber are the mother-daughter team behind The Goodness Exchange, a global positive-news platform founded in2014 to help people cut through today’s negative nose with research-backed, solutions-focused storytelling. On this Blue Sky episode, they describe how they came to their optimistic outlooks at different stages of their lives and have managed to work together to create a remarkable platform for hopeful and uplifting stories.

Resources:

The Goodness Exchange
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Chapters
00:00 Are Optimists Born or Made?
Bill Burke introduces the mother-daughter team, Dr. Linda Ulrich and Liesl Ulrich-Verderber, co-founders of The Goodness Exchange. Linda shares how a childhood tragedy, coupled with her parents’ optimistic worldview, led her to choose to see the goodin the world from a young age.

04:22 From Jaded to Optimist
Liesl describes her journey from a ‘jaded Harvard student’ to an optimist, influenced by working with her mother on The Goodness Exchange’s positive content. Linda discusses how she encouraged her children to ‘change their state’ and choose their perspective when facing adversity, modeling this through their family’s extensive global travels.

08:05 The Power of Travel
Linda and Liesl reflect on how their extensive world travels, even to uncomfortable places, broadened their perspectives and fueled their optimism. Liesl emphasizes seeing both the vast differences and similarities in how people live globally, fostering connections across cultures and expanding comfort zones.

12:30 The Digital Divide and Disinformation
Linda explains her transition from dentistry to founding The Goodness Exchange, motivated by patients’ increasing fear and negativity towards the future post-2010, linking it to negative news and social media. Liesl attributes this shift to the early, unregulated development of social media by young creators and a general lack of digital literacy, but notes a growing trend among younger generations to disengage from platforms that negatively impact them.

17:42 Battling Digital Overload
Bill and Linda discuss the unhealthy constant consumption of negative informationthrough smartphones and social media, highlighting how clicks on alarming contentinadvertently ‘vote’ for more of it.

22:30 Unplugging and Community
Liesl, specializing in EdTech, advocates for removing phones from classrooms to foster community and better learning, viewing technology as a tool for connection rather thana constant distraction.

30:01 The Goodness Exchange’s Evolution
Linda recounts starting The Goodness Exchange (originally Ever Widening Circles) as a blog to counter the world’s negativity she observed in her dental practice, writing daily articles about positive stories. Liesl, upon graduating from Harvard, decided to join, seeing it as a way to transition her mother’s passion into a sustainable and impactful publishing and