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TED Talks Daily

How Dolly Parton led me to an epiphany | Jad Abumrad (re-release)

with Jad Abumrad

Published September 29, 2025
View Show Notes

About This Episode

Host Elise Hume introduces a TED 2020 talk by Radiolab creator Jad Abumrad, in which he reflects on his evolution as a storyteller and journalist. Abumrad describes moving from science-driven stories that end in wonder, to conflict-driven narratives centered on struggle, and finally to seeking "revelation" by holding opposing truths together. Through his podcast series about Dolly Parton and a visit to her Tennessee mountain home, he discovers unexpected connections to his Lebanese immigrant heritage and embraces a new storytelling goal he calls finding "the third"-a shared space that emerges when differences are truly recognized.

Topics Covered

Storytelling Personal narrative Perspective shift Narrative psychology Identity Personal Development Science communication Broadcast history Talk radio Country music industry Race relations

Disclaimer: We provide independent summaries of podcasts and are not affiliated with or endorsed in any way by any podcast or creator. All podcast names and content are the property of their respective owners. The views and opinions expressed within the podcasts belong solely to the original hosts and guests and do not reflect the views or positions of Summapod.

Quick Takeaways

  • Jad Abumrad began his career crafting science-based audio stories that reliably led listeners to a feeling of wonder, but came to feel that this narrative pattern was too limited.
  • A painful interview about alleged chemical weapons in Laos forced him to confront the inadequacy of relying solely on scientific verification when human suffering and conflicting truths are present.
  • He then spent years making stories where clashing perspectives and unresolved tensions were central, treating the struggle to make sense as the point of the narrative.
  • This created a new problem: such stories were hard to end honestly without either false resolution or leaving audiences stranded in confusion.
  • Through his deep dive into Dolly Parton's life and music, Abumrad unexpectedly connected her Tennessee mountain home to his father's mountain home in Lebanon and to the immigrant experience.
  • Dolly repeatedly challenged his attempts to simplify her story into familiar power narratives, insisting on a more complex, unsummarizable reality.
  • Abumrad ultimately embraces the psychotherapeutic idea of "the third"-a new shared space that emerges when people truly see each other-as his new aim for journalism and storytelling.

Podcast Notes

Podcast introduction and framing by host

Elise Hume introduces TED Talks Daily and the episode

Description of TED Talks Daily format[2:35]
• Elise explains that the show brings listeners new ideas to spark curiosity every day.
Set-up of the central question: how do you end a story?[2:45]
• Elise frames the archive talk from TED 2020 around the question of how to end a story.
Introduction of Jad Abumrad and Dolly Parton connection[2:56]
• Elise identifies Jad Abumrad as the host of Radiolab.
• She notes that his search for an answer to how to end a story led him back to the mountains of Tennessee.
• She highlights that an unexpected teacher in his journey was Dolly Parton.

Jad Abumrad's early storytelling approach and pursuit of wonder

Jad introduces his search for purpose as a journalist

Framing his talk as a personal search[2:59]
• Jad says he wants to tell the audience about his search for purpose as a journalist and how Dolly Parton helped him figure it out.

Background on his audio storytelling career

Two decades of audio storytelling[3:13]
• He has been telling audio stories for about 20 years.
• He notes that his work started on the radio and then moved into podcasts.
Founding Radiolab and its early signature move[3:22]
• He started the radio show Radiolab in 2002.
• He describes a quintessential narrative move they would use on the show.

Example story about synchronized fireflies to illustrate the "wonder" arc

Introduction of mathematician Steve Strogatz and imaginative scene-setting[3:35]
• They would bring on someone like mathematician Steve Strogatz.
• Strogatz describes a hypnotic and spellbinding spectacle in nature that is absolutely silent.
• He invites listeners to picture a riverbank in Thailand in a remote part of the jungle.
• Listeners are placed in an imaginary canoe, slipping down a quiet river with only occasional jungle bird sounds.
Description of millions of fireflies and emergence of synchronization[3:53]
• In the air all around, there are millions of fireflies.
• At first, you see a randomized, starry-night effect because the fireflies are blinking at different rates, which is what you would expect.
• According to Steve, in this one place, for reasons no scientist can fully explain, the fireflies end up blinking in sync, with thousands of lights turning on and off together.
Use of music and cultivation of the feeling of wonder[4:39]
• At this point in such a story, Jad would bring in beautiful music, as he does in the talk.
• He describes the "warm feeling" that starts to arise, which science suggests localizes in the head and chest and spreads through the body.
• He identifies that feeling as wonder.

Defining his early job as leading people to wonder

Repetition of wonder-focused stories[4:48]
• From 2002 to 2010, he did hundreds of these stories.
• He describes them as sciencey, neurosciencey, heady, brainy stories that always resolved into a feeling of wonder.
Audience reactions as markers of success[4:56]
• He began to see his job as leading people to moments of wonder.
• He illustrates this with a montage-like series of listener reactions: "Oh, wow. Wow. Wow. That's amazing. Whoa. Wow."

Growing dissatisfaction with the science-to-wonder narrative

Fatigue with repetition and technical tasks

Tiredness with making similar stories[5:11]
• Jad admits he began to get tired of these stories, partly because of the repetition.
Example of repetitive sound design work[5:19]
• He recalls sitting at a computer making the sound of a neuron.
• He describes how to do it: take some white noise and chop it up, which he calls a very easy sound to make.
• He remembers thinking he had made that neuron sound 25 times.

Questioning the "science to wonder" story path

Recognizing the familiar path in his narratives[5:26]
• He notes that there was a familiar path to these stories: you walk the path of truth, which is made of science, and you get to wonder.
Acknowledging love for science and family context[5:31]
• He emphasizes that he loves science.
• His parents emigrated from a war-torn country to America.
• For his parents, science was more central to their identity than anything else.
• He says he inherited that identity from them.
Dissatisfaction with the simplicity of the movement from science to wonder[5:44]
• Despite his love of science, the simple movement from science to wonder started to feel wrong to him.
• He asks whether that is the only path a story can take.

Confronting multiple truths and shifting toward stories of struggle

The Laos chemical weapons story as a turning point

Encounter with a story that challenged his approach[5:59]
• Around 2012, he encountered several stories that made him think the science-to-wonder path was not the only or best one.
• He focuses on one story in particular involving alleged chemical weapons in Laos.
Description of the Laos interview and conflicting accounts[6:14]
• They interviewed a man who described chemical weapons being used against him and his fellow villagers in the mountains of Laos.
• Western scientists went to the area, measured for chemical weapons, and did not find any.
• When they interviewed the man about the discrepancy, he said the scientists were wrong.
• When they responded that the site had been tested, the man said he didn't care and that he knew what happened to him.
• Jad describes going back and forth and back and forth in this discussion.
Emotional consequence of pushing scientific truth[6:30]
• The interview ended in tears.
• Jad says he felt horrible.
• He realizes that hammering at a scientific truth when someone has suffered is not going to heal anything.
Realization about multiple truths and over-reliance on science[6:44]
• He wonders if he has been relying too much on science to find the truth.
• He says it felt like there were many truths in the room, but they were only looking at one of them.

Eight-year commitment to stories where truths collide

Decision to get better at handling conflicting truths[6:55]
• He resolves that he needs to get better at this kind of storytelling.
• For the next eight years, he commits to doing stories where listeners hear truths collide.
Examples of difficult, conflict-driven stories[7:09]
• He mentions stories about the politics of consent where they heard perspectives of survivors and perpetrators whose narratives clash.
• They produced stories about race, including how Black men are systematically eliminated from juries.
• He notes that rules intended to prevent this exclusion can actually make things worse.
• They also did stories about counterterrorism and Guantanamo detainees.
• He characterizes these as stories where everything is disputed and all you can do is struggle to make sense.
Embracing struggle as the narrative point[7:17]
• The struggle itself begins to feel like the point of these stories.
• He starts to think that his job might be to lead people to moments of struggle.

The sound of confusion as emblematic of the moment

Capturing the sound of struggling to make sense[7:14]
• He plays or mimics the hesitant, halting speech of someone trying to process: "But I see, I, like... Oh, I, I know... Well, so, like... That, I mean, I... You know..."
• He highlights the sigh that follows that kind of speech.
• He says he wanted to hear that sound in every single story.
Connecting that sound to the current cultural moment[7:45]
• He describes that sigh as capturing our current moment.
• He argues that we live in a world where truth is no longer just a set of facts to be captured.
• Instead, truth has become a process; it has gone from being a noun to being a verb.

The problem of endings in stories about conflict and struggle

Difficulty finding an ending for struggle-centered stories

Recognizing a recurring structural problem[8:46]
• He asks how you end a story built around ongoing struggle and conflicting truths.
• He describes a recurring pattern: telling a story with two viewpoints in conflict, cruising along, reaching the end, and then not knowing what to say.
• At the end he finds himself asking, "No, let me see. What do I say at the end?"

Rejecting false resolution and abandonment

Inadequacy of "happily ever after" endings[8:12]
• He says you cannot simply end those stories with "happily ever after" because that doesn't feel real.
Problem with leaving audiences stuck[8:18]
• On the other hand, if you leave people in that stuck place, listeners might wonder why they just listened.
• He concludes that there has to be another move, a way beyond the struggle.

Turning to Dolly Parton and the "Dolly Parton's America" project

Initial intuition that Dolly might hold an answer

Dolly as a potential guide for the "ending problem"[8:46]
• He says this question of how to end stories brings him to Dolly, or "Saint Dolly" as she is called in the South.
• He describes having a glimmer of an epiphany while doing a nine-part series called "Dolly Parton's America" the previous year.
• The series was a departure for him, but he had an intuition that Dolly could help him solve the ending problem.

Observation of Dolly's uniquely diverse audience

Contrasting groups at Dolly concerts[8:48]
• He notes that at a Dolly concert you see men in trucker hats standing next to men in drag.
• You see Democrats standing next to Republicans.
• You see women holding hands and every different kind of person smashed together.
Unity amid groups presumed to be in conflict[8:02]
• He points out that many people at Dolly's concerts are people we are told should hate each other, yet they are there singing together.
• He concludes that she has carved out a unique space in America and he wants to know how she did that.

Interviewing Dolly and encountering her control of her narrative

Intensity and scale of interviews[9:03]
• He interviewed Dolly 12 times on two separate continents.
Dolly's standard opening line in interviews[9:09]
• She started every interview by saying, "Ask me whatever you ask me and I'm going to tell you what I want you to hear."
• Jad reacts to this line with, "Perfect," implying he understands her stance.
Recognizing Dolly as a force of nature[9:33]
• He calls her undeniably a force of nature.

Confronting his own relationship to the South and Dolly's nostalgia

The conceit of the series and his discomfort

Dolly's focus on the South in her music[9:33]
• He notes that Dolly sings a lot about the South.
• Surveying her discography, you hear song after song about Tennessee, including titles like "Tennessee Mountain Home" and "Tennessee Mountain Memories."
His lack of nostalgia for Tennessee despite growing up there[9:51]
• Jad grew up in Tennessee but felt no nostalgia for that place.
• He describes himself as the scrawny Arab kid who came from "the place that invented suicide bombing."
• He spent a lot of time in his room when he lived in Nashville.
• When he left Nashville, he really left, implying a decisive break.

Encounter at Dollywood and confusion about others' emotion

Standing before the replica Tennessee Mountain Home[10:12]
• He recalls being at Dollywood, standing in front of a replica of Dolly's Tennessee Mountain Home.
• People all around him were crying.
• He was perplexed, thinking, "This is a set. Why are you crying?"
• He could not understand why others were so emotional, given his own relationship to the South.
Doubts about being the right person for the project[10:28]
• He began to have panic attacks about his role.
• He questioned whether he was the right person for this project.

Visiting Dolly's real Tennessee Mountain Home and discovering unexpected connections

Journey to the actual Tennessee Mountain Home

Meeting Brian Seaver and the impromptu trip[10:36]
• By a twist of fate, they meet Brian Seaver, described as Dolly's nephew and bodyguard.
• On a whim, Brian drives producer Shima Oleainai out of Dollywood.
• They go around the backside of the mountains, up the mountains for 20 minutes, down a narrow dirt road, through giant wooden gates that look like something from Game of Thrones, and into the actual Tennessee Mountain Home.
Recognizing the site as hallowed ground in Tennessee lore[11:08]
• He clarifies that this is the real place, the real Tennessee Mountain Home.
• He says he is going to score this part with Wagner to emphasize the significance.
• He explains that in Tennessee lore, the Tennessee Mountain Home is considered hallowed ground.

Personal moment of wonder and recognition

Standing by the Pigeon River and seeing butterflies[11:12]
• He remembers standing on the grass next to the Pigeon River.
• Butterflies were doing loop-the-loops in the air.
• He says he had his own moment of wonder there.
Seeing a visual echo of his father's Lebanon home[11:25]
• He realized that Dolly's Tennessee Mountain Home looks exactly like his dad's home in the mountains of Lebanon.
• He notes that her house looks just like the place his father left.

Layering of experiences and reframing of identity

New conversation with his father about migration and loss[11:39]
• This simple bit of layering led him to have a conversation with his father that he had never had before.
• They talked about the pain his father felt leaving his home.
• His father described how he hears that same pain in Dolly's music.
Dolly describes her songs as migration music[11:43]
• Jad then had a conversation with Dolly where she described her songs as migration music.
• He notes that even the classic song "Tennessee Mountain Home" fits this description.
Interpreting "Tennessee Mountain Home" as capturing a lost moment[12:43]
• He explains that the song is about trying to capture a moment that you know is already gone.
• If you can paint the moment vividly enough, maybe you can freeze it in place, almost like in resin.
• He describes this as being trapped between past and present.
• He identifies that as the immigrant experience.
Exploring connections between country music and the Middle East[12:38]
• This insight led him into many conversations with musicologists about country music as a whole.
• He had always felt that country music had nothing to do with where he came from.
• He learned that the genre is actually made up of instruments and musical styles that came directly from the Middle East.
• He notes that there were trade routes from what is now Lebanon right up into the mountains of East Tennessee.
Feeling like a Tennessean for the first time[12:50]
• He says that standing there looking at Dolly's home was the first time he felt, "I'm a Tennessean."
• He emphasizes that this feeling is honestly true for him.

Dolly challenging simplistic narratives about power and gender

The complex relationship with Porter Wagner

Overview of their partnership and conflict[13:02]
• He recalls talking with Dolly about her seven-year partnership with Porter Wagner.
• In 1967, she joined his band when he was the biggest thing in country music.
• She started as a backup singer and a "nobody."
• Within a short time, she became huge, and he became jealous.
• When she tried to leave, he sued her for three million dollars.
Temptation to cast Porter Wagner as a simple villain[13:20]
• Jad notes that it would be easy to see Porter Wagner as a classic patriarchal jackass trying to hold her back.
• He mentions that in videos, Porter has his arm around Dolly, suggesting a power dynamic.

Dolly's insistence on complexity and resisting imposed frames

Dolly's response when he suggests a simple power narrative[13:36]
• Whenever he suggested a simple power-based interpretation, Dolly responded that it was more complicated than that.
• She asks him to think about the fact that Porter had had his show for years and did not need her to have his hit show.
• She points out that he wasn't expecting her to become all that she did.
• She says she was a serious entertainer and he didn't know that.
• She notes that he didn't know how many dreams she had.
Rejecting Jad's "stupid way of seeing the world"[14:02]
• In effect, she kept telling him not to bring his "stupid way of seeing the world" into her story, because that was not what it was.
• She acknowledges that there was power involved, but insists that is not all there was.
• She insists that you cannot summarize this situation simply.

Toward a new storytelling aim: beyond difference to revelation

Zooming out to interpret what Dolly's example means for journalism

Journalists' fascination with difference[14:19]
• He steps back to ask what he makes of all this.
• He says journalists love difference and love to fetishize difference.
Need to become bridges between differences[14:24]
• He argues that in an increasingly confusing world, journalists need to be the bridge between those differences.
• He asks how you do that in practice.

Method: interrogate and hold differences until something new appears

Interrogating differences rather than flattening them[14:30]
• He says that for him, the answer now is simple: you interrogate those differences.
• You hold the differences for as long as you can until something happens.
• He connects this to his experience up on the mountain, where that holding led to a realization.
Insisting that stories cannot end in difference alone[14:44]
• He states that the story cannot end in difference.
• Instead, it has to end in revelation.

Discovering the concept of "the third" and redefining his calling

Introduction to the psychotherapeutic idea of "the third"

Receiving a book that names his emerging idea[14:54]
• After returning from the mountain trip, a friend gave him a book that provided a name for this idea.
• In psychotherapy, there is an idea called "the third."
Explaining "the third" as a relational creation[15:19]
• He explains that typically we think of ourselves as autonomous units: I do something to you, you do something to me.
• According to this theory, when two people come together and really commit to seeing each other, they create something new.
• In that mutual act of recognition, they make a new entity that is actually there.

Dolly's concerts as an example of a cultural third space

Applying the concept to Dolly's arena[15:19]
• He suggests that Dolly's concerts can be thought of as a cultural third space.
• The way Dolly sees all the different parts of her audience and the way they see her creates the spiritual architecture of that space.

Articulating a new personal mission for storytelling

Defining "finding the third" as his calling

Connecting his role as journalist, storyteller, and citizen[15:30]
• He says that he now thinks this is his calling.
• He identifies himself as a journalist, a storyteller, and an American living in a country struggling to hold together.
Commitment to seeking "the third" in every story[15:40]
• He states that every story he tells has to find "the third."
• He defines this as the place where the things we hold as different resolve themselves into something new.
• He ends his talk by thanking the audience.

Outro and production credits

Host contextualizes the talk's original publication

Original date of the talk's publication[15:56]
• Elise notes that Jad Abumrad's talk was originally published in June 2020.

Mention of TED curation guidelines and production team

Information about TED's curation[16:07]
• Listeners are told that if they are curious about TED's curation, they can find out more at ted.com/curationguidelines.
Credits for fact-checking, production, and mixing[16:19]
• Elise says TED Talks Daily is part of the TED Audio Collab.
• She notes that the talk was fact-checked by the TED Research Team and produced and edited by Martha Estefanos, Oliver Friedman, Brian Green, Lucy Little, and Tansika Sangmarnivong.
• She mentions that the episode was mixed by Christopher Faisy-Bogan, with additional support from Emma Taubner and Daniela Balarezo.
• Elise signs off, saying she'll be back tomorrow with a fresh idea and thanks listeners for listening.

Lessons Learned

Actionable insights and wisdom you can apply to your business, career, and personal life.

1

Truth is not just a fixed set of facts but an ongoing process that emerges when conflicting perspectives are held and examined rather than quickly resolved or dismissed.

Reflection Questions:

  • • Where in your life are you clinging to a single "correct" version of events while ignoring other people's lived experiences?
  • • How might your understanding of a current conflict change if you treated truth as a verb-something to be worked through with others-rather than a static answer to defend?
  • • What is one situation this week where you could slow down, listen longer, and actively hold multiple perspectives before drawing a conclusion?
2

Stories that only move from problem to neat resolution can feel false; more honest and powerful narratives acknowledge struggle yet still search for a deeper revelation beyond mere disagreement.

Reflection Questions:

  • • What personal or professional story are you telling right now that you might be oversimplifying with a tidy ending?
  • • In what ways could you share a recent challenge with others that includes the uncertainty and ambiguity, not just the final outcome?
  • • What is one ongoing struggle in your life that you could reframe as a search for insight or revelation rather than just something to escape?
3

Interrogating differences-staying with tension instead of rushing to categorize people as heroes or villains-can reveal hidden connections and more complex, human truths.

Reflection Questions:

  • • Who in your life or workplace have you mentally cast in a one-dimensional role (like "villain" or "obstacle") without exploring their full story?
  • • How could you create a conversation with someone you disagree with that focuses on really understanding their background and motives rather than winning an argument?
  • • What is one label or stereotype you habitually use that you could deliberately set aside the next time you interact with someone who fits it?
4

Your own story and identity can shift dramatically when you recognize how seemingly distant cultures, places, and traditions are intertwined with your personal history.

Reflection Questions:

  • • What places, art forms, or communities have you assumed are "not for you" that might actually share roots with your own background?
  • • How might exploring your family's migration stories or past homes change the way you relate to where you live now?
  • • What is one concrete step you could take this month to investigate a surprising historical or cultural connection in your own life?
5

When two people (or groups) truly see and recognize each other, they can create a "third space"-a new shared reality that neither side could reach alone and that can hold real diversity without erasing it.

Reflection Questions:

  • • Where in your work or community could a "third space" be most valuable-for example, between departments, generations, or political views?
  • • How might you change the way you listen and respond in conversations so that both you and the other person feel genuinely seen?
  • • What is one specific gathering, meeting, or project you are involved in where you could intentionally design conditions for a shared space to emerge rather than defaulting to sides?

Episode Summary - Notes by Riley

How Dolly Parton led me to an epiphany | Jad Abumrad (re-release)
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