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PODCAST

Kelly Corrigan Wonders

Welcome to Kelly Corrigan Wonders, a place for people who like to laugh while they think and find it useful to look closely at ourselves and our weird ways in the hopes that knowing more and feeling more will help us do more and be better.Author of 4 New York Times bestsellers about family life, Kelly wonders about loads of stuff: is knowing more always good? Can we trust our gut? How does change actually happen?We only book nice people who have a sense of humor and know things worth knowing. Each

society & culture

All Episodes

55:12

Deep Dive with "Can Do Mom" Ariela

Kelly Corrigan Wonders ·

2026/10/06

Kelly talks with Ariela, a mother of two in Massachusetts who was told by a doctor, just three days after giving birth, that her newborn son was slowly dying. He was diagnosed with a rare metabolic disorder, rushed to Children's Hospital, and spent 22 days in intensive care. It was a crisis that reshaped her family's finances, her older son's sense of normal — and one she is still navigating every day. They get into why the oxygen-mask metaphor falls apart the moment you're actually living it, and

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7:18

Thanks For Being Here - Auntie Marge the Maker

Kelly Corrigan Wonders ·

2026/10/04

Jody Weverka wrote this sweet eulogy for her Auntie Marge - a woman who made everything from crafts to meals to gardens to family life better for everyone. (Previously aired)

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29:52

Go To on What a Maasai Childhood Teaches About Modern...

Kelly Corrigan Wonders ·

2026/10/02

A Maasai girl grows up milking cows at dawn, walking ten kilometers for water, sleeping eight to a bed, surrounded by 38 siblings and five mothers who all knew her name and sang her song. Then she leaves for the city—chosen husband, three children, a laptop, shoes with zippers. Kelly shares Ndinini Kimesera Sikar's TED talk about living in two worlds and the question that haunts her: what do we preserve as we rush toward the future? In the village, mental health was strong because life included

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49:02

Deep Dive with "Can Do Mom" Chelsea

Kelly Corrigan Wonders ·

2026/09/29

Chelsea wakes up before 4:30 AM, drives a school bus through rain and mud, and still finds a way to give her sons the kind of stability she lacked growing up. Kelly opens a new four-part series, Can Do Moms with a conversation about what it actually takes to raise good kids on very little sleep and even less margin for error. They talk about the community that shows up when family can't, the quiet calculus of choosing presence over productivity, and why the old story about financial help making

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4:09

Thanks For Being Here - When a Friend Loses a Parent

Kelly Corrigan Wonders ·

2026/09/27

Quite often, it’s hard to know how to properly show up for a friend who’s going through a tough time - that is, until you’ve been through the experience yourself and can relate more fully. This is Kelly’s letter to friends who have lost a parent and also to those of us who feel we could have shown up for someone in a better way. (Previously aired)

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11:26

Go To on Attention and Awe

Kelly Corrigan Wonders ·

2026/09/25

What does it take to truly see someone before they're gone? Kelly shares an essay she wrote for an evening celebrating awe, reflecting on attention as a practice—learning to notice in wild places with a guide who insists you look closer, then bringing that same discipline to a quiet room where it matters most. (Previously aired)

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55:35

Deep Dive with Nicholas Epley on Connection

Kelly Corrigan Wonders ·

2026/09/22

Why do so many of us sit in silence next to a stranger, certain a conversation would go badly, when the data says otherwise? Kelly talks with behavioral scientist Nicholas Epley, author of the new book A Little More Social, about the small, quiet decisions that keep us more isolated than we need to be—and what happens in the rare moments we choose to reach out instead. We're airing this conversation as a part of the Be Hope Podcast Takeover, a project with the United Nations timed to the UN General

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8:31

Thanks For Being Here - Tracy's 80th Birthday Toast...

Kelly Corrigan Wonders ·

2026/09/20

Kelly shares a listener's story that perfectly captures what Thanks For Being Here is all about - honoring the people who matter most, whether they're still with us or have moved on. Tracy Hargan's beautiful toast to her 80-year-old mother Janet shows us why these tributes are so powerful and needed. Through the toast given at her mom's birthday celebration, Tracy reminds us all to speak our love out loud - to grab those chances to tell someone exactly what they mean to us, creating moments of

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7:51

Go To on the Health Benefits of Connection

Kelly Corrigan Wonders ·

2026/09/18

For almost 90 years, Harvard has been tracking the same group of men to answer one question: what actually leads to a long, happy life? Kelly digs into the findings, which point again and again to the same surprising answer — not money, not IQ — but the quality of our closest relationships. She connects it to research on chronic pain, a study on personality change well into old age, and a simple trick for staying connected that takes less time than a coffee run. It's a conversation about what

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56:03

Deep Dive with Cava Menzies and Charles Limb on Music...

Kelly Corrigan Wonders ·

2026/09/15

Why do we still treat music like a luxury, given everything we now know about what it actually does for the human brain? Kelly talks with music educator and composer Cava Menzies and hearing surgeon and neuroscientist Dr. Charles Limb about the strange, powerful territory where sound meets the mind—the growing evidence that hearing loss may be tied to cognitive decline, and the case that music itself may be one of the most underused tools we have for mental health. It's a conversation about

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11:27

Thanks For Being Here - Mary Hope's Letter to her Dad...

Kelly Corrigan Wonders ·

2026/09/13

Kelly reads a birthday letter from her lifelong friend Mary Hope McQuiston to her father Bob, who is turning 90. Instead of throwing a surprise party, Mary Hope decided to honor her dad by collecting the lessons he's taught her—one for each decade he's lived. What unfolds is a portrait of a life well-lived, told through stories about elaborate pranks, deep friendships, showing up when it matters, and never missing an opportunity for dessert or— pyrotechnics. It's about the quiet ways we shape the

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7:38

Go To on Someday

Kelly Corrigan Wonders ·

2026/09/11

Kelly follows up on her conversation with Susan Cain (author of Quiet and Bittersweet) with a song that captures the same ache of longing they talked about. It's a small tribute to the things we're all still waiting for, featuring a haunting, original song, Someday, by her friend — musician and NYU professor Mike Errico.Mike's book that Kelly mentioned is: Music, Lyrics, and Life: A Field Guide for the Advancing Songwriter

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55:16

Deep Dive with Susan Cain on Longing

Kelly Corrigan Wonders ·

2026/09/08

Author Susan Cain, who first reframed introversion for millions of readers in Quiet, turns her attention to something even more universal: the strange, aching beauty of knowing that everyone we love, we will someday lose. Kelly talks with Susan about why sorrow might be one of the most uniting forces we have — and what changes in us once we stop running from that truth. They also discuss Susan's bestseller Bittersweet, on sorrow and longing, and her new children's book, Lucky and Norman: Saying

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9:49

Thanks For Being Here - Kristina's Eulogy for her mom...

Kelly Corrigan Wonders ·

2026/09/06

Kristina Phipps wrote this exquisite, poetic eulogy to honor her mom Ann Emanuels. Ann's love for beauty and her affinity for the natural world shone through in her garden, where she loved to spend time. She saw a world to be seized and not squandered and would pack more into a day than seemed humanly possible. Perhaps more than anything though, Ann viewed the world as a place that should be savored - like a plump peach warm off the tree - and she made sure to impart that valuable lesson to her

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8:01

Go To on the Fourth Instinct

Kelly Corrigan Wonders ·

2026/09/04

Kelly shares a piece by her friend Arianna Huffington ("Self-Discovery Is Our Strongest Drive" - New York Times, June 17, 2026) about the drive underneath all our other drives—the pull toward meaning that shows up in our hardest losses and our most exhausting successes. It's a reflection on what psychologist Abraham Maslow called transcendence, and what it means to keep growing toward the truest version of yourself, even when the world tells you success should be enough.

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65:55

Deep Dive with Jim Collins on Discovery

Kelly Corrigan Wonders ·

2026/09/01

Kelly sits down with Jim Collins—the bestselling author behind business classics Good to Great and Built to Last—for a live conversation recorded on stage at Sixth & I in Washington, D.C., about his new book, What to Make of a Life. For over a decade, Collins studied 34 exceptional people, from astronauts to Supreme Court justices to rock stars, matching them into pairs who faced the same defining turning point in life and tracing how each person navigated what came after. They talk about the

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7:59

Thanks For Being Here - Amy's Dad Harold "Wes" Westlund

Kelly Corrigan Wonders ·

2026/08/30

Amy Zuckerman shares a remembrance of her late father Harry “Wes” Westlund. Wes was a special man whose dream of becoming an Air Force fighter pilot was taken away just days before he was to receive his wings, due to a heart murmur. Amy says that although her dad lived his entire life under the threat of a heart defect, he had no issues at all with his capital “H” heart. He was a loving, caring and kind man who made all around him feel comfortable and welcome. (Previously aired - created for

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7:41

Go To on the College Drop-off

Kelly Corrigan Wonders ·

2026/08/28

Kelly reads an essay she wrote several years ago about dropping her daughter off at college—the last box unpacked, the last goodbye said, and the strange quiet that follows. It's a reflection on the myth of ownership in parenting, and what it actually means to raise someone only to watch them walk away — unstoppable.

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54:02

Deep Dive with Raymond Ansotegui on Great Coaching

Kelly Corrigan Wonders ·

2026/08/25

Most people run from danger. Raymond Ansotegui spent a decade running toward it. In this episode of our Great Coaches series, Kelly talks with a retired rodeo bullfighter about what happens when your job is to step between a thrown rider and an animal the size of a car. Through stories about learning to read personality in a bucking bull, finding connection in the most chaotic moments and understanding when getting closer is actually safer than staying back, Raymond reveals lessons that reach far

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6:31

Thanks For Being Here - Kelly Finds an Old Letter to...

Kelly Corrigan Wonders ·

2026/08/23

Kelly recently found an old letter (hidden away in a closet in Bozeman) that she had written to her mom, way back in 1991. It’s good to look back sometimes at old letters and half-finished journal entries and be reminded of who we were - and who we wanted to become. (Previously aired)

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