Good Life Project || Inspiration | Motivation | Happiness | Meaning | Success

Spend 3 ½ days with us at the end of August at our "summer camp for grown-ups." Drop the facade, revel in new friendships, play, create, move, relax and learn powerful strategies for work and life. Learn more now!+This week's GLP Guest Riff comes from Productive Flourishing founder and process/growth maven, Charlie Gilkey.Charlie read Jonathan's original essay, The Content Delusion, which we aired as last week's GLP Riff, and felt the need to respond. He wanted to go deeper and explore what he calls the Sustainability Thesis, while also debunking two huge myths about building a business or a career.In this provocative, philosophical and actionable riff, he dives into the idea of "scaling" your business and why, for some, that is a fantastic idea, while for others, it is a terrible one. He also explores the "dollars for hours" myth for service professionals and offers a potential defense of it as a way to build a business that is so often maligned not only in the online space, but in the communi

Today's Good Life Project Roundtable™ features guests-in-residence Susan Piver and Lodro Rinzler. This is session 1 in their three-week residency.Susan is a New York Times bestselling author, teacher, and founder of the international mindfulness community, The Open Heart Project. Working to create a good human world, one breath at a time.Lodro is a teacher in the Shambhala Buddhist lineage, the author of five books on meditation, and the founder of M N D F L, a new studio making meditation accessible to all New Yorkers, and the Institute for Compassionate Leadership. They'll be our guests-in-residence for the next three weeks, so buckle up.Our three topics in this episode:When women get emotional, do you secretly think they're crazy?Do we have to love the people we hate?Fame for fame's sake, what gives?It's fast-paced, fun, utterly unscripted and at times a bit raw, but always good-natured and very real. Enjoy! And let us know if you like this format, over on social media. See acast.c

Today's conversation features Neil Pasricha, New York Times bestselling author of The Book of Awesome series, three time Webby Award winner, Harvard MBA grad, former Director of Leadership Development at Walmart, and husband, father, son, and brother.He is the author of a new book, The Happiness Equation: Want Nothing + Do Anything = Have Everything, which started as a letter to his unborn child on how to live a happy life, after his wife told him she was pregnant on the flight home from their honeymoon!TIn This episode, You’ll Learn:How Neil divides his time into 3 buckets for optimal happiness (and how they are different from the 3 buckets Jonathan offers).Why wanting can often lead to the exact opposite of happiness.Why he advocates for a 'home contract' as a key to happiness, in addition to a business or employment contract.How action leads to motivation, not the other way around.Why he's loving the word practice these days.Mentioned In This Episode:100 Awesome ThingsThe 3 A's of awesomeThe

There’s this unfortunate delusion that’s gaining credibility in the world of entrepreneurship and careers.The road to growth is paved with "content." Write, film, record and produce content and the world will rush to your doorstep.You don’t have to put your “self” out there anymore, just put your content out there.Problem is, it preys on a particular fear, and it’s based on a lie. At least, in part.Content, done right, can be a fantastic mechanism to build an idea into a platform, a brand, a reputation, position, entity, business or organization. But, it’s also a way to hide from the other piece of the launch and growth pie. The side of the equation that is about something else. Something that scares us. Something that, skipped, will still leave you playing a losing game. That's what today's GLP Riff is about. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Today's Good Life Project Roundtable™ is the third and final week for our current guests-in-residence Emiliya Zhivotovskaya, MAPP and and Bob Gower.Emiliya is a leading voice in the world of positive psychology and the science of flourishing, and is the founder of the Certificate in Applied Positive Psychology program, which is the largest in the world. In a past life she was a party entertainer and knows pretty much every group dance ever invented.Bob is a deep systems-thinker, author of Agile Business, organizational-dynamics consultant to some of the largest companies in the world. He's also an ex-cult member, and that comes out in interesting ways in the conversation.Our three topics in this episode:What's up with the "divine feminine?"Does creative genius demand suffering?Are we trapped by our past actions and statements? See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

This week, our in-depth conversation features Cathy Burke, speaker, author, and global change maker has served as CEO of The Hunger Project Australia for nearly two decades, and has traveled extensively across the villages of Africa and South Asia in her work of ending hunger.Cathy has been profoundly changed by what she has experienced. The women and men she has met have given her the most enduring lessons in life and leadership, resilience and the power of the human will.She is the author of the book, Unlikely Leaders: Lessons in leadership from the village classroom, These stories are captivating and moving, providing a roadmap for personal and social change.In This Episode, You'll Learn:How Cathy awakened to both the truth of world hunger and her role in helping to end itWhat her first trip to Ethiopia taught her that she (and her group) never saw comingHow harnessing the power of women to lead is the ultimate catalystHow her work has forever changed herMentioned in This Episode:T

There are times it makes sense to throw money at a problem, and times when that's not only the worst thing you can do, it's also the least effective.When we think about performing better, whether it's at work, in sport, even relationships, we often focus first on the things that are easiest to "tweak."Without fail, those things are less about the "core of the matter" and more about 'optimizing the margins." And, if we can do it by buying our way to better, investing in higher-end gear, apparel, equipment, supplies, materials or technology, we try to replace work with money.Thing is, that's often the least effective way to get where we so desperately want to go.What if, instead of spending all of your time, work and money optimizing the margins, you focused instead on optimizing the core? Not by purchasing your way into it, but by working your way into it?That's what we're talking about in this week's Good Life Project Riff. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Today's Good Life Project Roundtable™ features guests-in-residence Emiliya Zhivotovskaya, MAPP and and Bob Gower.Emiliya is a leading voice in the world of positive psychology and the science of flourishing, and is the founder of the Certificate in Applied Positive Psychology program, which is the largest in the world. In a past life, she was a party entertainer and knows pretty much every group dance ever invented.Bob is a deep systems-thinker, author of Agile Business, organizational-dynamics consultant to some of the largest companies in the world. He's also an ex-cult member, and that comes out in interesting ways in the conversation. They'll be our guests-in-residence for the next two weeks, so buckle up.This is week two in their residency, to be followed by their third and final week next week.Our three topics in this episode:Making time for unadulterated joy and play.Is it getting easier to fly your freak flag without being rejected?How can you hac

Today’s guest, Eric Zimmer, is the host of the wonderful The One You Feed podcast.Growing up in Ohio, his life took a hard turn and began to spin out of control. He eventually found himself addicted to heroin and alcohol, living in a van and struggling to make sense of the world. After years living in an ever-darkening place, though, he was able to tap into a hidden well of strength, get help, get clean and rebuild his life.But, his journey into addiction was not yet over. Believing he could go from clean and sober to casual use, he found himself spiraling back into that place of despair. But this time realized he'd have to make bigger, longer-lasting change, accept certain truths about who he was and create a way to perpetually "feed his good wolf, not his bad one."Along the way, he rebuilt his life, relationships, and career and found solace and fulfillment in, believe it or not, podcasting. He now hosts and produces the hugely popular, The One You Feed podcast, with his childhood friend, Chris Forbes.In th

This week's Good Life Project Riff is a reply to a question from one of our wonderful listeners.You've spent your whole life working at something that pays the bills, something that gives you time to be with family. Life, on the whole, is pretty good. But the thing you're doing to put food on the table and a roof over your head is emptying you out.You'd love to wake up feeling like the way you contribute to the world lights you up. But you have no idea where to start. And, you're not excited about the prospect of disrupting the rest of your life to make it happen.So, what do you do? What's your first step?I've written recently about first working to make things as good as you can get them, before blowing anything up. Whether you decide to eventually leave or even launch something on your own, the starting point is deepening your self-knowledge. Discovering who you really are and what matters. That's what this week's short and sweet Good Life Project Riff is all about. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt

Today's Good Life Project Roundtable™ features guests-in-residence Emiliya Zhivotovskaya, MAPP and and Bob Gower.Emiliya is a leading voice in the world of positive psychology and the science of flourishing, and is the founder of the Certificate in Applied Positive Psychology program, which is the largest in the world. In a past life she was a party entertainer and knows pretty much every group dance ever invented.Bob is a deep systems-thinker, author of Agile Business, organizational-dynamics consultant to some of the largest companies in the world. He's also an ex-cult member, and that comes out in interesting ways in the conversation. They'll be our guests-in-residence for the next three weeks, so buckle up.Our three topics in this episode:Is anger always bad or is it all about how you work with it?What's the deal with vibrations and energy, Is it real? Can we feel it? Can we harness it?Warmth and Competence, which matters more and why?It's fast-paced, fun, utte

For most of us, dealing with change is tough. We're wired to avoid wading into the abyss where we don't know how things are going to end.Even tougher, though, is leading others through change. Today's guests, Nancy Duarte and Patti Sanchez know this. Nancy is the co-founder of her eponymous firm, Duarte, the top presentation design firm in the world. Patti is the Chief Strategy Officer, and a lifelong storyteller and communications savant.Nancy has been on the show before when we filmed a powerful conversation about her "origin story." Today's focus is on the deep collaboration Nancy and Patti have formed, leading the firm through a disruptive, yet transformational reorganization, while simultaneously co-writing a book on leading through change, Illuminate: Ignite Change Through Speeches, Stories, Ceremonies and Symbols.In today's conversation, we talk about the simultaneously visionary, yet often brutal process of creative destruction in the name of building something better and how to tell the story of what

There's a somewhat ironic relationship between willpower and thinking. They don't play nicely with each other.The more you tax your brain with what we'd call a "cognitive load," the more your ability to regulate your behaviors craters.So, if you're working on a complex problem under deadline or trying to innovate or create, there's a good chance that, while you're in that hyper-thinking, innovating, creating mode, you'll be more susceptible to temptation. Big time!And, interestingly, even the slightest increase in demand for thinking and working memory can shut down your willpower plant. As we'll talk about in today's GLP Riff, the difference between having to hold two or seven numbers in your memory can be the difference between making healthy choices or chowing down on cake!Most people deal with this by just trying to "be a better person" and "digging deeper" to resist the siren call of the cookie jar.But, there's another approach that is far more likely to keep you on the right track. It's about altering y

Today's episode is part 3 of our latest experiment, a new show format we're calling Good Life Project Roundtable™.What is it? A new weekly show that won't replace, but will be added to our long-form conversations and short riffs. Two "guests-in-residence" and I will be hanging out for the better part of a month, usually 3 weeks. This really lets you get to know them and benefit from their deep interests and lens on life.In each Roundtable, we'll go deep into three specific topics. And, the thing is, nobody knows what the other person's topics will be until they hit the conversation.My guests-in-residence for today's episode of Good Life Project Roundtable™ are Playing Big author, Tara Mohr and yoga-educator, Erin Moon.Our three topics in this episode:Can you find the good in everything, or are some things just bad?Money, media and bias, what's the deal (and why do you care)?Crazy cons, has it ever happened to you?It's fast-paced, fun, utterly unscripted and at times a bit raw, but always g

What if you could take an idea and turn it into a website with more than 12 million visitors a month and a powerful global community?That's exactly what today’s guest, Jason Wachob, did. He is the founder of Mind Body Green, one the web's top wellness websites, featuring thousands of articles, a growing catalog of courses, contributors that include many of the top voices in medicine, nutrition and movement, and a huge global community.This is the second time Jason has been a guest on Good Life Project. He first appeared on the web-series in October 2013. At that point, he shared his powerful story of leaving a career in finance to reclaim his health and found his company. MindBodyGreen was just starting to break out in a big way. Since then, it has exploded.The team has grown in size, they inhabit new offices and Jason's had the chance to dive deeper into not only what it takes to build a company, but also a culture that walks its own content talk, a community around wellness and a good, vibran

I don’t like following, never have.Other peoples' rules and procedures and constraints and processes often don't sit quite right with me.I prefer to take my own path, follow my own rules.It’s why I was the “Lemonade Stand Kid” in my neighborhood—I wanted my own money, own responsibility. It's why I've been an entrepreneur the better part of my adult life. I enjoy figuring things out on my own, then leading rather than being led by others.But what I’ve discovered as I’ve gotten older is there are very real, very important lessons to be learned from being led by others, before you step in to lead yourself.Maybe my biggest awakening to the power of following before you lead came when I was rock climbing with a few partners in Rocky Mountain National Park, and various other destinations in Colorado. As the relative newbie in our group, I spent the entire time following my guide's lead.During the entire weeklong climbing adventure, I never once led a pitch (a ropes length of the climb that was many rope's len

Today's episode is part 2 of our latest experiment, a new show format we're calling Good Life Project Roundtable™.What is it? A new weekly show that won't replace, but will be added to our long-form conversations and short riffs. Two "guests-in-residence" and I will be hanging out for the better part of a month, usually 3 or 4 weeks. This really lets you get to know them and benefit from their deep interests and lens on life.In each Roundtable, we'll go deep into three specific topics. And, the thing is, nobody knows what the other person's topics will be until they hit the conversation.My guests-in-residence for today's episode of Good Life Project Roundtable™ (and next week as well) are Playing Big author, Tara Mohr and yoga-educator, Erin Moon.Our three topics in this episode:The three manifestations of God.The Hero's Journey, through a feminine lens.Can video games help ease pain?It's fast-paced, fun, utterly unscripted and at times a bit raw, but always good-natured and very real. Enj

Originals are the non-conformists who drive creativity and change forward—the ones who help us progress as both independent cultures and a unified species. They're Steve Jobs' "crazy ones."Yet in spite of this, humanity has always had a fascinatingly dysfunctional relationship with originality—we simultaneously venerate and scorn it, particularly in the workplace. Originals may eventually come to be loved, but they’re almost always met with cynicism and resistance first. Because they don't fit in.It’s a fascinating duality, and it’s one of the many things we discuss with today’s guest, Adam Grant—author of two New York Times bestselling books (Originals, Give and Take), and—at 34—the youngest tenured professor in the history of the Wharton School.As Grant shares, thanks to shifts in social and cultural norms, it’s never been easier to be an original, but so many of us still resist the call. In this wide-ranging conversation, we go deep into how originals think and act.We explore how we're often the worst judg

Every large scale creative endeavor, from writing a book to building a body of work, creating a collection or a company, is made up of dozens, maybe even hundreds or even thousands of smaller scale benchmarks, along with the "pushes" it takes to hit each.Every time you hit a benchmark, it feels great. You get to ease off the push and check a box that takes you one step closer to your ultimate quest.But, then, there's also a potential dark side to hitting these micro-goals. There's a break in the momentum. You have to rally yourself to start the push toward the next one fresh. To write the next chapter, start the next canvas, produce the next song, build the next piece of your entrepreneurial greatness.And, the closer you get to end of the bigger endeavor, the more the voice of internal Resistance, as Steve Pressfield described it in The War of Art, rises up and tries to derail you from your work.I've experienced this while writing books in the past. So, when I was working on my next one, I decided to try a mo

Today's episode is our latest experiment, a new show format we're calling Good Life Project Roundtable™.What is it? A new weekly show that won't replace, but will be added to our long-form conversations and short riffs. Two "guests-in-residence" and I will be hanging out for the better part of a month, usually 3 or 4 weeks. This really lets you get to know them and benefit from their deep interests and lens on life.In each Roundtable, we'll go deep into three specific topics. And, the thing is, nobody knows what the other person's topics will be until they hit the conversation.My guests-in-residence for today's episode of Good Life Project Roundtable™ (and the two weeks to come) are Playing Big author, Tara Mohr and yoga-educator, Erin Moon.Our three topics in this episode:Great leaders - are they always doubting and what's the deal with self-doubt?What's the deal with westerners reaching east for their spirituality?Is mindfulness always a good thing or can it sometimes do harm as well?It'