Valentine’s Day is supposed to be about love. But for many people, it lands as pressure, performance, exclusion, or quiet disappointment. In this episode, Lynne, Dan, and Dr. Patti take a familiar cultural moment and do what we always do on Listening for the Questions: we slow it down and ask better questions.

Together, we explore what Valentine’s Day reveals about how we define love, worth, success, and belonging. We talk about the stories we inherit about romance, the commercial scripts we rarely interrogate, and the invisible hierarchies that decide which kinds of love are celebrated and which are ignored. We also ask what gets missed when love is framed as a milestone instead of a practice.

This is not an episode about how to “do” Valentine’s Day better. It’s an invitation to examine what love actually means in your life right now, who it’s for, and how curiosity might open up more honest, humane, and expansive ways of relating to ourselves and others.

Questions we explore include:

• Who is Valentine’s Day really designed for, and who gets left out?
• When does love become a performance instead of a lived experience?
• How do scarcity narratives around love shape our choices and expectations?
• What might love look like if we treated it as a verb, not a status?

Whether you love Valentine’s Day, dread it, or ignore it completely, this episode offers space to reflect without judgment and to reconnect with love as something broader, messier, and more human than a single day can hold.

Resources we found helpful when prepping for this episode:

1. All About Love by bell hooks
   A grounding exploration of love as action, ethics, and responsibility rather than fantasy or possession.
   
   
2. The Gottman Institute Relationship Research
   Evidence-based insights on what actually sustains connection, trust, and intimacy over time.
   
   
3. Esther Perel’s work on modern relationships
   Particularly her talks and writing on desire, independence, and the tension between security and freedom in love.
   
   

Available wherever you get your podcasts.

Listening for the Questions asks better questions so we can live more honest lives, together.

Listening for the Questions is where curiosity is our compass.

We are surrounded by misinformation and disinformation, but reacting faster is not the solution. Asking better questions is.

In this episode, Patti Fletcher, Dan Ward, and Lynne Cuppernull explore the difference between misinformation shared without intent to harm and disinformation spread deliberately to deceive. More importantly, they examine why both work so well and what they reveal about fear, identity, trust, and belonging.

Drawing on the U.S. Surgeon General’s advisory Confronting Health Misinformation, the conversation frames misinformation as a public health issue that requires collective responsibility, not individual perfection. The episode also explores deeper meaning-making frameworks, including Richard Rohr’s work on Order, Disorder, and Reorder, and why periods of disruption create fertile ground for false certainty.

Along the way, the trio reflects on cultural touchstones like Schoolhouse Rock and ABC After School Specials and what we lost when we stopped teaching people how to think instead of what to think.

This episode is not about debunking. It is about slowing down, noticing our reactions, and asking better questions before belief hardens into certainty.

Resources mentioned

• Confronting Health Misinformation, U.S. Surgeon General
  https://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/surgeon-general-misinformation-advisory.pdf
  
  
• Richard Rohr, The Cosmic Egg
  https://cac.org/daily-meditations/the-cosmic-egg-my-story-and-our-story/
  
  
• The Wisdom Pattern: Order, Disorder, Reorder
  https://store.cac.org/products/the-wisdom-pattern-order-disorder-reorder
  
  
• Schoolhouse Rock
  https://www.youtube.com/user/SchoolhouseRockTV1
  
  
• ABC After School Specials
  https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL4_H2rkrpOuvXd-7hJoZBzIoUdo09NdnM
  
  

🎧 Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

Listening for the Questions is where curiosity is our compass.

New season. Same curiosity. And a topic most of us have a complicated relationship with.

In the Season 2 premiere of Listening for the Questions, Dr. Patti Fletcher, Dan Ward, and Lynne Cuppernull take on New Year’s resolutions and immediately question whether we should be making them at all. Instead of debating which resolutions work, the conversation focuses on something far more interesting: the questions underneath our urge to start fresh every January.

Why do we keep making resolutions even when we know we will probably break them? Who are these resolutions really for? Why do they feel so loaded with pressure, perfectionism, and failure? And what if the problem is not our willpower but the way we frame change in the first place?

Lynne, Patti, and Dan explore the difference between resolutions and goals, identity and transformation, progress and perfection. They unpack the gendered pressure baked into many resolutions, especially those tied to appearance, discipline, and self control. They also play with the idea of replacing resolutions with questions and what happens when curiosity takes the place of self judgment.

Along the way, the conversation wanders through birthday resolutions, school year fresh starts, acting as if you are already your future self, and even how AI can interrupt our default thinking by asking better questions instead of offering quick answers.

This episode is thoughtful, funny, honest, and deeply human. It is not about fixing yourself. It is about understanding why you want to change, whose values are shaping that desire, and how asking better questions might lead to more meaningful growth.

As Season 2 begins, this episode invites you to consider a different kind of fresh start. One where any day can be January 1st.

Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

Listening for the Questions is where curiosity is our compass.

Finish lines are supposed to be clear. Cross it. Celebrate. Move on...but what if they are not endings at all?

In the Season 1 finale of Listening for the Questions, Dr. Patti Fletcher, Dan Ward, and Lynne Cuppernull take on one of the most emotionally loaded ideas we carry with us: finish lines. Athletic. Professional. Academic. Personal. Visible and invisible. Chosen and imposed.

Drawing on Lynne’s experience as an Ironman triathlete, Dan’s background as an engineer and systems thinker, and Patti’s work around transformation, leadership, and life transitions, the conversation explores finish lines as waypoints, transitions, and sometimes illusions. From triathlons and PhDs to careers, gender equity, glass ceilings, and personal reinvention, the trio asks what really happens when we focus too tightly on the end instead of the experience.

Along the way, they wrestle with questions like:

• When does a finish line become a starting line?
• Whose finish line are you running toward and who chose it?
• What do we miss when we are too focused on crossing the line?
• What can we learn from not finishing?
• And who helped you get there in the first place?

This episode is thoughtful, funny, honest, and deeply human. It is about ambition, presence, partnership, and the courage to question whether the finish lines we chase actually belong to us.

As Season 1 comes to a close, this conversation invites you to pause, reflect, and ask yourself what you are building toward, who you are building with, and what might be waiting on the other side.

Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

Listening for the Questions is where curiosity is our compass.

Building something new sounds exciting. Rebuilding something after it breaks sounds exhausting. And yet most of us are living in a world where both are happening all at once. In this episode, Patti, Dan, and Lynne dig into the questions we should be asking when we talk about building and rebuilding and why these processes are never as simple as they seem.

Dan brings his experience as an engineer and technologist and admits that even in fields built on data and logic, most decisions are emotional ones. Lynne talks about coming back from a serious injury and how rebuilding a life and rebuilding a body are never separate experiences. Patti reflects on transformation and why rebuilding feels so loaded with history, memory, and meaning.

Together we explore questions about resilience, fragility, anti fragility, institutional collapse, community, collaboration, disagreement, and the emotions we attach to words like build and rebuild. We also look at what is worth rebuilding, what is better to build from scratch, and how personal rebuilding shapes everything else we try to create.

This conversation moves from sandcastles to frozen yogurt shops to democracy to the stories we tell ourselves about what should last and what should change. It is thoughtful, curious, and surprisingly funny in moments that remind us just how human these questions are.

If you are navigating change or trying to understand what should be saved, strengthened, or scrapped, this episode offers the questions that help you see the path more clearly.

Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

Listening for the Questions is where curiosity is our compass.

Magic is one of those topics everyone thinks they understand until someone asks a real question about it. In this episode, Patti, Dan, and Lynne step into the world of tricks, sleight of hand, wonder, and the deeper meaning of it all.

Dan adds a twist right from the start by revealing that he is not only an engineer and a technologist but also a magician who believes the best magic happens close up, in the moments when you are not sure what is real and what is not. That sets the stage for a conversation packed with curiosity and a surprising number of questions that have nothing to do with rabbits, hats, or sawing anyone in half.

Together we explore what magic actually is and why there is more to it than meets the eye. Why some people love it and some avoid it. What good magicians and bad magicians can teach us about leadership, creativity, timing, connection, and paying attention. We also look at what happens when we move past the tricks and start talking about transformation, invention, and the bold decision to imagine a third option when the world says there are only two.

Along the way we get into authentic human connection, wonder, belief, creativity, archetypes, sexism in magic, and the strange but very human desire to be surprised.

If you have ever wanted to peek behind the curtain, or if you are simply in the mood for a conversation that invites curiosity and possibility, this episode delivers.

Listen in and ask yourself a few magical questions.
Where might you find wonder this week. What mystery might you create. And who will you share it with.

Listening for the Questions is where curiosity is our compass.

What if the wisest questions aren’t asked in boardrooms or think-tanks — but in kindergarten classrooms, minivans, and sticky-fingered breakfast tables?

In this episode, Dr. Patti Fletcher, Dan Ward, and Lynne Cuppernull dive into one of the most delightfully disruptive prompts we’ve ever explored:

From “Why is the sky blue?” to “Why don’t grown-ups play more?” children constantly challenge assumptions, dismantle logic, and push adults into the kind of curiosity we forgot we needed.

Together we explore:

• What kids know instinctively about curiosity and wonder
• When adults begin filtering and performing instead of asking
• Why little-kid questions make us squirm (and what that says about us)
• What changes when we listen instead of rush to answer
• Whether curiosity might be a form of presence — and maybe, leadership
• How reclaiming childlike wonder could transform the way we work, parent, and connect

This episode is a sandbox of ideas — playful, profound, occasionally messy, and full of those “Wait… that’s a really good question” moments.

Bring your beginner’s mind. Leave your certainty at the door.
The world gets bigger and more beautiful every time we dare to ask like a kid again.

🎙️ Listening for the Questions — where curiosity isn’t childish.
It’s a superpower.

Listen now on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you wonder.

Listening for the Questions is where curiosity is our compass.

Why do some beliefs feel like bedrock while others crumble at the first nudge? In this episode of Listening for the Questions, Patti, Dan, and Lynne unpack why we cling to what we “know,” how power structures profit from our certainty, and what happens when curiosity finally cracks something open.

From “don’t wear white after Labor Day” to faith, identity, and technology’s role in reinforcing echo chambers, this episode invites you to take a fresh look at what you believe and why. Because questioning isn’t rebellion. It’s growth.

Listen in if you’ve ever asked yourself:

• Why does changing my mind feel like failure?
• Who benefits from what I believe?
• And how much of what I “know” is really mine?

🎧 Listening for the Questions — the podcast with no answers, just better questions.

Listening for the Questions is where curiosity is our compass.