What It Takes

This week on WIT, in celebration of painter Wayne Thiebaud's 100th birthday, we feature a conversation with the artist along with one of his most renowned students, Fritz Scholder.

This week on WIT, Willie Brown worked as a shoeshine boy and a janitor, but went on to dominate California politics for more than 40 years - as Speaker of the State Assembly and as two-term mayor of San Francisco (the city's first black mayor).

The best-known biographies of Presidents Lincoln, Adams, Eisenhower, Truman, Nixon were written by the three great historians featured this week on WIT. Each one explains the how he discovered that history would be his life's work.

On this week's 'Best Of' episode, Louise Glück, winner of the 2020 Nobel Prize for Literature, uses simple, unsentimental language in her poems to evoke overwhelming emotions. That rare combination is what has distinguished her as one of America's greatest living poets.

What do the first woman on the U.S. Supreme Court, a comedic newspaper columnist and an Award-winning actress have in common? This week, three trailblazing women, all from humble backgrounds, reflect on the grit and determination that led them to create their own destinies.

In tribute to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who has died at the age of 87, we have re-posted her featured episode this week. We invite you to listen as Justice Ginsburg tells her personal story of her lifelong pursuit of justice and equality for women.

Show up - Be there for your team - Play your best These are the values that Cal Ripken Jr. embodied every single day of his career. This week on WIT, Ripken reflects on the 25th anniversary of breaking the immortal Lou Gehrig’s record of consecutive baseball games played.

Joyce Carol Oates and Gore Vidal are two of the most admired and prolific authors of the 20th century. Listen to our most recent episode to hear more about their lives and their approaches to literature.

This week on What It Takes - Joyce Carol Oates was a hardworking farm girl from a small rural town, while Gore Vidal was born into an elite political family. She is earnest, introspective & soft-spoken. He was supremely confident, sharp-tongued & provocative.

Lord David Trimble received the Nobel Peace Prize with John Hume in 1998 for their efforts to bring a peaceful solution to the conflict in Northern Ireland. Listen as Lord Trimble discusses his methodical approach to revolutionary change.

This week WIT features two remarkable men, from opposite sides of the 30-year "Troubles" in Northern Ireland. John Hume and David Trimble bravely reached across the divide and waged peace, earning the Nobel Peace Prize in 1998.

Dame Olivia de Havilland, who just passed away at the age of 104, was the last of the Hollywood's leading ladies from the Golden Age. Enjoy this video from the Academy of Achievement’s archive as she describes her first screen test in 1935 with film industry legend, Errol Flynn.

This week on WIT, he grew up on the tough streets of Miami in the 1980s, dealing drugs and learning how to survive. But this first generation Cuban-American took the stage name Pitbull, and became a wildly successful rapper and music producer.

In honor of Congressman John Lewis, we are re-posting this feature episode, originally published in January, 2020. Listen as Lewis recounts how he learned to live fearlessly and non-violently, while maintaining faith and optimism about the future.

This week on WIT, Ron Howard explains how and why he made the shift from actor to director. He talks about embracing criticism, and he explains why he approaches his work as a collaborator rather than a lone wolf.

Maya Angelou's memoirs and poems told of her survival, and uplifted people around the world with words of triumph, justice and hope. In this episode, which originally ran in December of 2016, you'll be reminded why she was one of the most inspiring figures of the past century.

This week on @WhatItTakesPod, 2 world-renowned novelists from different corners of the globe, Orhan Pamuk from Turkey and Carlos Fuentes from Mexico, describe how they discovered the power of literature and how their writing relies on a combination of dreams, magic and discipline

Over the next several weeks, we will feature some of the extraordinary voices from the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960’s from the audio archive of the Academy of Achievement. Today, we bring you our episode on Coretta Scott King, originally posted in January of 2016.

He knew from the age of five that he was going to become a paleontologist, but he also became one of the most important evolutionary theorists since Darwin. In this week's episode, Stephen Jay Gould explains his most famous contributions to evolutionary theory.

This week, listen as Medal of Honor recipients, and best friends, Lt. Thomas Norris and Lt. Michael Thornton share their remarkable war stories and rescue missions from Vietnam.