>>Shabnam Mogharabi: I wrote this thesis about
the need for media to make conversations about
spirituality and philosophy cooler.
I thought there had to be a way for us to
talk about the search for meaning and purpose
and happiness and to have that sound a little
less like you were sitting at a yoga retreat.
So I write this thesis up, and I pack it up
and I put it in my parents' garage, and seven
years later I am living in D.C. and working
as a magazine editor and I'm listening to
NPR and this actor from "the office" Rainn
Wilson comes up and he starts talking about
this Web site he's going to launch called
SoulPancake and the mission of the Web site
is to talk about spirituality and philosophy
and make it cool again.
And I thought, oh, my God.
Rainn Wilson stole my idea.
This is not okay.
And I was super mad.
And I was mad for a little while, and then
I decided no, no.
I'm going to find a way to work on this.
So I reached out to everyone I knew in L.A.
I must have sent dozens and dozens of phone
calls and emails trying to find someone to
put me in touch with Rainn Wilson.
And someone eventually put me in touch with
his business partner, and three months later
we launched SoulPancake, and that was five
years ago.
So I sometimes ask myself how did this 40-year-old
comedic actor who was raised by hippy parents
in Seattle and myself, a first-born child
of immigrants who has a name that clearly
no one can ever pronounce, so how did these
people come up with the same idea to tell
stories about the human spirit, these positive
stories.
So I think the reason for that is we both
saw in the world of content a lack of inspirational
storytelling, thoughtful storytelling.
And so we both had this thought that there's
got to be a better way.
