INSIDE AND OUTSIDE: Nature + Pop Culture News with Jessica Murnane · Jessica Murnane

How Plants Can Increase Empathy + Explaining The Mandela Effect with Michael Ventura (Author of Applied Empathy)

·49 min·3 clips

Michael Ventura explains why the Mandela Effect pulls people into “a whole rabbit hole of conspiracy theory.”

1. INSIDE AND OUTSIDE: Nature + Pop Culture News with Jessica Murnane uses Michael Ventura to connect horticultural therapy, empathy, and the Mandela Effect. 2. Jessica Murnane introduces Michael Ventura as the author of Applied Empathy, a creative, educator, speaker, and advisor who has worked with the ACLU, Nike, the United Nations, and the Obama-Biden administration. 3. The episode asks what changes when nature and empathy become practical tools for deciding what to do next in life. 4. Murnane describes a values exercise with six or seven personal priorities that helped her choose horticultural therapy over a life tied to social media and a computer. 5. Ventura compares that exercise to Mad Libs, saying the structure gives enough framework without forcing everyone into the same answer. 6. He says the program is called prioritizing purpose because the real question is not whether someone has a purpose, but how they make it a priority. 7. Ventura says he has done two cohorts of about 25 people each and about 25 one-on-one sessions while working on a book that will come out next year. 8. He says some participants changed careers, changed where they live, or made other major decisions after using the process. 9. For his first nature memory, Ventura chooses Shelter Island on the East End of Long Island, where he and Caroline moved during the pandemic. 10. He says the move gave him trees, birds, a 10-minute walk to the ocean, and a ferry crossing that made the place feel physically separate from the city. 11. Ventura says his central nervous system “really needed this” after years of city life in New York since 1998. 12. He recalls growing up in New Jersey and visiting the Jersey Shore, where the Atlantic Ocean became his strongest early nature connection. 13. Ventura says he loves being “banged around” in the Atlantic because it makes him feel small inside something bigger and more overwhelming. 14. He contrasts the Atlantic with the Pacific, the Indian Ocean, and the Caribbean Sea, saying they are beautiful but “not my oceans.” 15. He and Murnane compare city noise to nature silence, with Ventura saying crickets and frogs replaced ambulances and street screaming on Shelter Island. 16. Ventura says airport and airplane environments calm him because they leave him with nothing to control, and he falls asleep before takeoff. 17. Murnane brings him a China-based study titled “empathy with nature promotes pro environmental attitudes in preschool children,” and Ventura links it to climate messaging. 18. He argues that messages about climate change work better when they connect to “your life” and “save yourself,” not just global sea temperatures and fish populations. 19. The interview is conversational and personal, with Jessica Murnane pushing into her own career story and Ventura answering in a reflective, low-drama way. 20. People interested in horticultural therapy, empathy, and nature as a decision-making tool will get the most from this episode; listeners wanting a tight pop-culture-only chat may skip it.

As heard by us

Jessica Murnane's inside-outside format gives the conversation shape, moving from gardening and culture into empathy with nature and climate without losing its easy feel.

Jessica Murnane keeps the discussion grounded with that inside-outside frame: first the lighter mix of gardening, pop culture, books, TV, and internet gossip, then the turn toward nature with Michael Ventura.

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Why you'd press play

You want empathy and climate talk that feels personal, not preachy or forced.

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