The Optimist Project with Yara Shahidi

Host Yara Shahidi sits down with incredible changemakers to unlock their secrets to conquering life, love, career, and everything in between with unwavering confidence and hope. We often discuss joy and happiness, but this podcast goes deeper. Optimism is where the magic happens! Join us as we find ways to cultivate the practice of optimism in our own lives.

The Optimist Project with Yara Shahidi is a society podcast hosted by Yara Shahidi, with 29 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80. PitchCentric scores this show on Booking Probability, Listen Score, and live audience signals refreshed every 24 hours.

Yara Shahidi hosts The Optimist Project with Yara Shahidi, a society show with 29 episodes published.

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  Episode #26

  Lena Waithe Redefines Legacy, Listening, and Radical Acceptance

  Jul 15, 20251h 1mS0

  <p>🎬 Storytellers, Builders, and Believers—This One’s for the Architects of Culture Who Speak Truth and Shape Tomorrow.</p><p>This week on The Optimist Project, Yara Shahidi welcomes Emmy-winning screenwriter, producer, and trailblazer Lena Waithe for a deeply introspective conversation on happiness, radical acceptance, and creative disruption.</p><p>From navigating emotional impermanence to embracing the daily discipline of realism-rooted optimism, Lena shares her personal practices for cultivating inner peace—like meditation and silent retreats—and challenges our assumptions about what it means to be “happy.”</p><p>Through powerful reflections on societal norms, capitalism, and representation in the arts, Lena...

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  Episode #25

  Nikkolas Smith Reimagines the World Through ‘Artivism’

  Jul 8, 202548 minS0

  <p>🎨 Creators, Visionaries, and Changemakers—This One’s for the Revolutionaries with a Paintbrush.</p><p>This week on The Optimist Project, Yara Shahidi welcomes celebrated artivist, author, and concept artist Nikkolas Smith for a powerful exploration of optimism through the lens of creativity, justice, and bold imagination.</p><p>From designing theme parks as a Disney Imagineer to creating iconic movie posters and illustrating best-selling children's books, Nikkolas has made a career of dreaming aloud. In this conversation, he shares how his signature Sunday Sketch series evolved into a public ritual of art-as-healing—and how optimism fuels his ability to honor...

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  Episode #24

  Estelle on Trusting Yourself & Being a Light

  Jul 1, 202555 minS0

  <p>🎶 Creators, Dreamers, and Artists—This One’s for the Light Shining in You.</p><p>This week on The Optimist Project, Yara Shahidi sits down with Grammy Award-winning musician Estelle for an intimate conversation on purpose, presence, and the art of living with intention.</p><p>In a world that often prizes popularity over authenticity, Estelle invites us to consider a more grounded truth: that being a light matters more than being liked.  Estelle unpacks what it means to move through life with optimism—not as blind hope, but as a conscious choice to respond with grace, clarity, and ease.</p><...

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  Episode #23

  Cole Arthur Riley's Black Liturgies and the Beauty of Unanswered Questions

  Jun 24, 202548 minS0

  <p>✨ Writers, Seekers, and Tender Truth-Tellers—This One’s for You.</p><p>This week on The Optimist Project, we’re joined by writer, poet, and spiritual curator Cole Arthur Riley, author of This Here Flesh and creator of the transcendent digital space Black Liturgies.</p><p>Cole’s wisdom invites us to consider optimism not as loud hope but as sacred stillness—a quiet, rooted stance that makes room for contradiction, wonder, and doubt. In this profound conversation, she speaks with reverence and clarity about the spiritual life as one of complexity: where skepticism meets faith, and silence becomes presence.</p...

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  Episode #22

  Alok Vaid-Menon on Art, Identity & the Radical Power of Joy

  Jun 17, 202553 minS0

  <p>🌈 Artists, Seekers, and Boundary-Breakers—This One’s For You.</p><p>This week on The Optimist Project, I’m joined by the brilliant and genre-defying artist, writer, and performer Alok Vaid-Menon, whose work invites us to embrace our full selves with tenderness, complexity, and courage.  </p><p>In this luminous conversation, Alok redefines what it means to be optimistic—not as blind positivity, but as a sacred practice of embracing the unknown and choosing beauty, again and again.</p><p>We explore their early artistic influences (yes, including Avril Lavigne!), the transformative power of imagination, and how humor and honesty becom...

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