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

Imagine you're on stage, charged with holding the attention of a thousand people. Knowing that, as soon as you stop talking the free cocktails begin. Your job is to keep the audience rapt for a solid 60-minutes. It's you against the taunt of free partying.That's often the speaker's worst nightmare. But, this week's guest, Jon Acuff, loves those moments. A New York Times bestselling author of 5 books, including his latest Do Over, he relishes the challenge to win over his audience and keep them hanging on his every word.What's so interesting is that he doesn't do it by telling them he has everything figured out, then endowing them with his omniscience. He does it by sharing his own humanity, his vulnerability, his not knowing, and then tying it all together in stories that leave people crying with laughter and inspiration. And, he pretty much does the same with his books. Everything he does comes from a place of truth, humor, humility and craft.In this week's conversation, we go behind the scenes, ex

Here’s a great question from one of our listeners, David: If your work is truly cutting edge, how do you effectively market if people don’t even have the distinctions yet to “get it,” and you need to get their attention AND it takes a longer conversation to really open it up? The art of conveying […]The post Conveying the Cool: How to Sell an Idea That’s Ahead of it’s Time appeared first on Good LifeProject. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Imagine you're an actor. You work your entire life to generate a magic moment. A call, offering you the role that could open the door to your dreams. But, there is a cost.The gig will require you to cancel the trip of a lifetime with the one person in the world who leaves you breathless. And, on a deeper level, it represents a choice you've vowed not to make, picking craft over love.What would you do?That's the choice this week's guest, Erika Napoletano grappled with just days before we sat down to record this week's conversation. And, in many ways, it's a choice she and many of us have been forced to answer many times over the course of our lives.This is actually the second time Erika has been on the show. We first sat down a few years back in Boulder, Colorado, where she was deep into her writing career. Since that time, her world has changed in profound ways. Now in Chicago, with a deep focus on speaking and acting, I was curious about this evolution, so I when I heard she'd be passing through New Yor

Last week, Jonathan shared a GLP Riff about how he prioritizes major projects.He talked about his move away from "batching" tasks and parallel creation to taking a longer view and adopting a Serial Creation approach to getting big projects done better, faster and more humanely.Apparently, that spurred a lot of conversation. And, it led to a lot of questions, one of which was...With between 3 and 10 substantial projects that are calling us at any given time, how do we choose what to work on, and in what order?That made us think. How DO we choose? Turns out, there is a bit of a step-by-step process involved. Whether it's right for you, only you'll know. But, in this week's GLP Riff, Jonathan responds to the question of one awesome listener with some specifics about how he prioritizes what to work on and when.In his answer, he also references the work of productivity savant, Charlie Gilkey, along with the 4 Tendencies developed by The Happiness Project and Better Than Before author, Gretchen Rubin. You shou

Today’s guest, Elena Brower, dedicated her life to the practice and teaching of yoga nearly 20 years ago. She rose to acclaim, becoming known first as a wonderful teacher on the New York yoga scene, and then a teacher of teachers on a larger stage.But she also had a secret. Actually, not so much a secret as an addiction. And there came a time where she felt she not only had to get sober, but also share the journey in a very public way. With her students, her community of teachers, and her son.It became one of the most empowering journeys of her life. This is just one of the many paths our conversation takes in today's episode.We explore Elena's early years, her career in textile design and what led her to leave it behind and make yoga her "thing." We talk about the path to becoming a teacher, then eventually developing an authentic voice, a treasured lens and emerging as a teacher of teachers. We explore the power of awareness and mindful attention.We also dive into what it's like to run your own studio,

The process of creation breathes me. Always has, always will. I wake up every day thinking about what I am going to create, from business to art and health to relationships.The bigger challenge for me has never been about having enough ideas, it's been about process. How do I get the most important things done AND pursue my creative quests in a way that both lets me create my best work and feel good along the way?When it comes to completing these projects, I’ve long adhered to the principle of "parallel creation" and "batched" my time. I pursue anywhere from 3-10 major projects at the same time, then segment each day into distinct chunks dedicated to a specific task and projects (three hours to write, two hours to work on web development, one hour for fitness, etc.) and work away accordingly.But after years of doing it this way, I’m starting to think this might not be the best approach.A few months ago, I decided to experiment with a new strategy—serial creation.Unlike parallel creation, serial creation

Imagine a career...no…Imagine a life where you travel the world earning your living by taking jaw-dropping photos of some of the most astounding athletes, action-sports, and breathtaking backdrops the planet has to offer.Sound too good to be true?—it’s not—this is the life of award-winning photographerChase Jarvis...but it almost wasn’t, nor is it where he's resting.Chase started down the beaten path, a scholar-athlete, headed toward med-school. It wasn’t until after taking his MCAT and interviewing with several medical schools that Chase’s took an unexpected turn and walked away from it all.IMoved by the call of the camera his grandfather left him when he passed, Chase stepped out of the path he'd been expected to follow and stepped into a part of him that had laid buried. He claimed his inner-artist and storyteller, and starting shooting images of friends doing what they lit them up. And a lot of that included skateboarding and snowboarding.The result?—entirely self-taught, Chase bu

“No.”It’s such a simple word, and yet…massively impactful.Too often we find ourselves standing toe to toe with No—challenging it as an unwarranted slight, or an underserved rejection.My question is—why?No isn’t about passing judgement, it isn’t about demeaning your worth—it’s about communicating “X” is not the best possible fit for the promised outcome of “Y”.At Good Life Project, we use applications for our events to ensure the audience consists of individuals who will get the absolute most out of what we’re doing…It’s not about denying people, it’s about ensuring we can deliver on expectations. Theirs and ours.No is not a personal attack.No is not a critique against the backdrop of your life.No isn't a slam, it's a powerful data-point. Fuel for growth.In today's short and sweet Good Life Project Riff, we share a "Tale of Two No's," exploring how two different people responded to a No profoundly differently, and how each person's response likely informs both the way they move into the rest of their lives AND

Imagine yourself as a child uprooted from your home, and bouncing from nation to nation as a paperless refugee…Envision the fear of being unexpectedly foreign in lands when the customs are as alien as the language being spoken…What would you do? Would you follow your dreams and thrive, or merely play it safe and survive?These were the questions facing Maria Konnikova, an author and psychologist who landed in the suburbs of Boston by way of Moscow, Vienna, and Rome at the tender age of four.Despite not knowing a word of English upon her arrival in the United States, Maria worked furiously in pursuit of her passion—writing—eventually graduating with a bachelors from Harvard (magna cum laude, by the way) and a Ph.D. from Columbia University.Maria’s first book, Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes, was a New York Times bestseller, and her writing has been featured in The Atlantic, The New York Times, Slate, California Sunday, Pacific Standard, The New Republic, The Paris Review, The Wall Street Journal,

If you ask someone who is working on turning an idea into a business what they call themselves, a likely answer these days is "startup founder."If you'd asked that same question a generation ago, you'd have probably heard "entrepreneur" or "business person."The difference isn't just about semantics or generational change. It's about a profound shift in both the mindset of entrepreneurship, and the acknowledgement and exaltation of a very distinct "discovery" phase that exists between the idea and the viable entity called the startup.This seemingly subtle shift, which is anything but, has created a new wave of permission to take risks and innovate on a level that, not too long ago, many would have been fiercely judged for. And, along with that, it has brought a less catastrophic lens to failure and increased the willingness to put yourself on the line in the name of doing something extraordinary.It has tilled the soil of purposeful experimentation and empowered so many to take a shot at creating something from

Nerd. Gamer. Athlete.Three words you rarely hear uttered in the same sentence, let alone to describe any one person (unless you're talking about epic movie battles).But, that "triple-threat" describes founder of the global Nerd Fitness movement and author of Level Up Your Life, Steve Kamb, perfectly.A lifelong gamer and nerd, Steve found himself exposed to the world of fitness later in life. It was like a switch turned on. His life was transformed, and he wanted to find a way to apply what he knew about game-theory and technology to fitness in a quest to help millions of people break out of the fits and starts and finally reclaim their health.So, he created his Nerd Fitness revolution, the members of which call themselves The Rebellion. It seems he struck a chord. Nerd Fitness exploded, growing rapidly into a global community with more than 250,000 members and millions of visits to their online home every month.But, that's not all, Steve also figured out how to literally turn his everyday life into

Ever try to help someone who had absolutely no interest in being helped?It's one of the most frustrating experiences we can have. Maybe it's a family member or partner. Maybe it's a close friend or colleague. Or even a customer or client.So many times, we end up banging our heads against a wall trying to motivate or force others to care, then impose a solution they never asked for, because we "determined" it was in their best interest.We do this in our personal lives and, not infrequently, in our professional lives, too. But, even if the action we're looking to compel is, in fact, in that other person's best interest, until they care as much as we do, it's game over.Today's short and sweet GLP Riff dives into this phenomenon, shares a story of how Jonathan bumped up against it while looking to build a personal training practice years ago and what he learned.In the end, there's one simple truth. You can motivate action externally for a moment or even a window in time, but the sustained action needed to create

John Lee Dumas grew up believing he wasn't the most talented person in the room. But, he also knew the path to success in almost any endeavor was more about work than it was about innate gifts. So, pretty early on, he made a decision that he'd outwork pretty much anyone to get what he wanted.That led to a string of powerful accomplishments, from athletics to business and led him to follow in the footsteps of his dad and grandfather, serving in the military. But, when he came home, dealing with PTSD from combat, the years that followed led him to a series of false starts, from law school to real-estate, in an attempt to meet what he eventually realized were everyone's expectations and desires but his own.For the first time, there wasn't a clear path, and he fell into a depression. Until he found an unlikely spark in a place he wasn't even looking for it...podcasting.John became fascinated with the medium and set out to launch the first-ever daily business podcast, calling it Entrepreneur On Fire (now EO F

At the end of every year, business owners and accountants do something we might want to consider also doing in our personal lives.They "close the books."What does that mean? They look back over everything that's happened in the last 12 months, make sure it's as accurate as possible, understand what went into each debit and credit, then ask what makes sense to continue in the year to come, what makes sense to end and what makes sense to change.They look for any areas where the numbers don't seem to match up, where there's some kind of aberration or question or anomaly and try to figure out what actually happened. They reconcile the numbers and, if they can't, they place a note explaining why.Then, when they've learned what they can learn, fixed what they can fix, explained what they need to explain, they close the books. They let it all go and turn their energy to the next 12-month window, opening a new book and penning the first entry.So, here's my question...What if we did this not just in our financial

Colin Beavan burst into the public consciousness in a huge way with a documentary and international bestselling book called No Impact Man that documented his yearlong experiment to live in the middle of New York City with his family creating zero environmental impact.That experience opened his eyes to the power daily choices can have not only his own life, but the world around him. But, it also did something else. It triggered a deeper interest in exploring many of the big questions in life, the heart of which is not just how to be a good steward of the planet, but how to live a good life along the way.Consumed by the question he spent years diving into research, interviewing people and began to realize that our ability to live good lives is intimately tied to the way we relate to and serve those around us, and the planet that sustains us. It's about moving away from materialism and toward competence, and so much more. Diverging from convention, he shares much of what he's discovered in a wonderful new b

Sometimes your creative voice clashes with others' expectations of what's always been done, and what they think you're "supposed" to do.This has happened a few times with this podcast. Ninety-nine percent to the messages and reviews we get about the guests, topics and format are overwhelmingly positive. Every once in a while, though, we get hit with a "take down" comment, a really aggressive attack on either a guest, topic or the conversational format of the show.I understand the rebuttal against certain guests and topics. Sometimes we offer provocative guests, people who've made choices others don't agree with and we talk about topics and ideas that make some people uncomfortable. I get that, not every person or idea or choice is right for everyone.But, the occasional take-down over the conversational format of the show ("I don't want to hear the host, I only care about the interviewee's point of view), I always find fascinating. Because it reflects a point of tension over a creative choice that we've made i

Sekou Andrews defies every preconceived notion you might have in your head about the voice and role of poetry in business, society and life.In his words, when he "tells people that, before creating a new inspirational speaker category, he was a successful 'full-time poet,' you would think that he had said 'full-time mermaid,' or 'freelance unicorn' based on the reactions he gets."A former elementary school teacher turned musician, national poetry slam champion, Sekou discovered the power of delivering larger ideas, stories, missions and even strategies to audiences not by traditional keynote or slides or visuals, but by meticulously crafted spoken word performances.He calls this "Poetic Voice" and Sekou has now presented to everyone from the world's largest organizations to Barack Obama, Oprah, Maya Angelou, Quincy Jones, Larry King, Hillary Clinton, Norman Lear, Sean “P-Diddy” Combs, and Coretta Scott King and family and so many others.In today's episode, we explore Sekou's remarkable journey, his explo

Have you ever done something because you thought it would look good on your resume? Studied at a particular school or with a particular person?What if, instead of trying to pile on credentials from esteemed people and institutions in the name of building a resume, you based your choices on what would let you increase your capabilities, your ability to make a difference, with the greatest speed and depth?Sure, sometimes you can do both, but often times, we get lost in the quest to amass qualifications and forget the end game is not to have a "seemingly" glossy resume, but to cultivate the ability to leave others changed. To make a dent in the universe.That's what we're talking about in today's GLP Riff. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Janice Kaplan is filled with gratitude. But, it wasn't always that way.Her career in the media has taken her from the TV sportscasting desk to producing dozens of shows, writing more than a dozen books and eventually serving as editor-in-chief of Parade Magazine, which at its height, boasted a circulation of about 30 million readers.Her life was good, still is. But, she noticed that, as good as it was, there was always this feeling of yearning, of it not being enough.Then, a few years back, a research project she'd been working on that focused on gratitude triggered her to reexamine her life and explore nearly every facet of her existence anew.This launched a yearlong exploration of gratitude, with a series of experiments that revealed how profound an impact simple shifts and daily practices could have on her life. Unfolding in "seasons," Janice examines both the growing wellspring of research, as well as the direct effect of so many "gratitude interventions" we've heard about over the years in her book,

There's been a lot of pushback lately against the idea of mastery, choosing one thing and putting everything you've got into it.Mastery, it seems, has become almost a dirty word. Why choose just one or two things to master, when your interests span four or five or 10 or 20? Why not just do them all? Isn't that a legitimate way to both feel good and contribute to the world? Isn't being a jack of all trades, master of none the type of person who is most in demand these days anyway?For some, maybe. But, for many others, not so much. I wonder...Is the pervasive refusal to say no to many thing and strive for mastery in one more about fabulosity or FOMO?That's what we're talking about on today's GLP Riff. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.