Grow the Good

How often are you outside without really being with the place you’re moving through? In this Mindfulness in Action, I’m taking last week’s conversation about nature connectedness out of the theoretical space and into your body. You can do this practice while walking, running, riding, sitting outside, or even moving through your everyday life. We’ll use our senses to notice the ground, air, smells,...

A lot of us spend time outside. We run, ride, hike, train, explore, and use nature as a place to play or pursue our goals. But does spending time in nature actually mean we’re connected to it? This episode was inspired by something I heard during a recent breathwork session: many of us use nature without being in relationship with nature. That idea made me think about my own life as an athlete, an...

What if quitting was courageous? In this episode, I sit down with Lindsay Crouse, a former New York Times journalist and producer who spent 15 years at the Times, where she worked in Opinion and helped commission hundreds of short documentaries for Op-Docs. As an endurance athlete herself, Lindsay also became known for telling powerful stories about female athletes, pregnancy, sponsorship, and the...

A couple of days ago, I finished my first ultra trail running race: the Squamish 50K. This episode is a reflection on what it took to get there, what actually happened out on the course, and what I’m still processing afterward. This wasn’t a fairy-tale race story. I came into it after broken ribs, sickness, a short training window, and a lot of uncertainty about whether my body would hold up. I ke...

This week, I’m bringing back a conversation from the archives with Ethan Kross, one of the world’s leading experts on the conscious mind and the author of Chatter and Shift . I wanted to replay this episode because it connects so strongly with what I’ve been exploring lately on Grow the Good : impatience, rushing, emotional regulation, mindfulness, and the way our inner voice can either help us mo...

What does it actually mean to keep growing as an adult? In this episode, I sit down with my dear friend Travis Macy for a conversation that is less of an interview and more of a real, honest exploration of adulthood, grief, parenting, identity, intimacy, and mattering. Travis and I have had many podcast conversations over the years. I’ve been on his podcast, he’s been on mine, and we became good f...

In this Mindfulness in Action episode, we’re practicing patience in real time. If you listened to last week’s solo episode, I talked about impatience, rushing, and how so many of us move through life like our self-worth depends on our productivity. This practice is about noticing that urgency in the body and gently turning the dial down. You don’t have to cancel everything or suddenly become a com...

In this solo episode, I’m talking about patience, and really, about rushing. Rather than focus on time management conversation, I'm taking a look at what happens in our bodies and nervous systems when we move through life with constant urgency, and how impatience can show us where we feel out of control, overstimulated, or overly attached to productivity. I share what I’ve been noticing in my...

In this episode, I sit down with workplace well-being expert and author Jen Fisher to talk about her book, Hope Is the Strategy , and why hope matters so much in a world where so many people are burned out, languishing, and struggling to feel like they matter. Jen shares her own story of severe burnout and how achievement-based identity, constant performance pressure, and external definitions of s...

In this Mindfulness in Action episode, I’m exploring what it means to not only add value, but to let ourselves feel valued. So many of us are working hard to matter. We’re trying to contribute, perform, improve, achieve, help, and show up for other people. But even when we are adding value, we may not actually let the feeling of mattering land. We move so quickly that we miss the evidence that we...

What does it actually mean to matter? In this solo episode, I’m diving into a topic that has been occupying my mind for years and has become a central part of my research, workshops, and the book I’m writing: mattering. Mattering is more than belonging. It’s more than self-esteem. It’s the lived experience of both adding value and feeling valued — to yourself, in your relationships, at work, and i...

What if the real value of achievement isn’t what it proves about us, but how it contributes to others? In this episode, I sit down with bestselling author, researcher, and publisher Tom Rath. Tom is known for books like How Full Is Your Bucket? , StrengthsFinder 2.0 , Strengths-Based Leadership , and Eat, Move, Sleep . His work has shaped how millions of people think about strengths, well-being, p...

This Mindfulness in Action episode is a real-time practice in mental agility: the ability to notice what’s happening in your thoughts, emotions, and body, and make small adjustments that help you stay aligned with what matters. In the previous solo episode, I talked about mental agility from a more practical and educational lens: emotional agility, attentional agility, mindfulness, and the interna...

What does it really mean to be mentally agile? In this solo episode, I’m talking about the emotional and attentional skills that help us notice what’s happening inside of us, create space, and choose our next move with more intention. Mental agility is the ability to shift, adapt, and stay connected to what matters, especially when things don’t go the way we planned. Today, I’lm talking about emot...

What if so much of our suffering comes from trying to become who we think we’re supposed to be? In this episode, I sit down with meditation teachers Jeff Warren and Tasha Schumann for a wide-ranging, deeply practical conversation about mindfulness, creativity, neurodiversity, and how to let go of the societal “shoulds” that keep us disconnected from ourselves. This conversation felt especially per...

In this Mindfulness in Action episode, I’m talking about one of the sneakiest forms of distorted thinking: shoulds. You know the ones: I should be doing more. I should have this figured out by now. I should be more disciplined, more patient, more productive. These thoughts can sound helpful on the surface, but often they leave us feeling ashamed, guilty, disconnected, and never quite enough. In th...

Ever catch yourself thinking, “I should be better than this. I should be doing more. I should have started earlier” and then spiraling? In this solo episode, I’m diving into the world of "should" and how it quietly drives guilt, shame, and burnout, especially for high performers and ambitious, growth-oriented people. Recently, I injured my rib at my son’s ninja gym birthday party and bei...

Flow is one of those words that gets used all the time, but what does it actually mean? And more importantly, how do we create more of it in real life, not just in elite sport or peak performance moments? In this episode, I sit down with Dr. Sue Jackson, one of the world’s leading experts on flow, to talk about what flow really is, how challenge-skill balance works, and why mindfulness, self-effic...

In this Mindfulness in Action episode, I’m recording on a trail run and thinking out loud about something I’ve been re-examining in my own life: the pressure to constantly optimize and get better. We hear it everywhere: be more productive, improve every day, maximize your time. And while growth and striving for excellence matter, I’ve been noticing how easily that mindset turns into pressure, guil...

Sometimes it's hard to say what you mean. Oren Jay Sofer says, "Communication is a learnable skill and it’s one of the most powerful levers for making change in your life and the world." Non-violent communication is about taking responsibility for what we are experiencing using empathy, deep listening, know how to make requests. // This episode is a replay from the Sonya Looney Show...

What if the version of “success” you’ve been chasing is actually keeping you stuck in survival mode? In this episode, I sit down with author and coach Jon Rosemberg to talk about what it really means to move from high-functioning survival into genuine thriving. Jon shares his deeply personal story of growing up in Caracas, Venezuela, living in chronic vigilance, and eventually discovering that ach...

I’ve known Jenny Smith since the early 2000s, back when I was a brand-new pro mountain biker watching her absolutely dominate at Nationals. She’s been a mentor, a competitor, a mom who kept racing when that wasn’t common, and someone I’ve always admired for her longevity in sport. In this episode, Jenny and I talk honestly about aging as female endurance athletes, especially navigating perimenopau...

The most valuable skill I’ve ever learned isn’t about performance, mindset, or even resilience. It’s communication. In this solo episode, I’m teaching you one of the most powerful tools I use as a coach, mentor, professor at the University of Pennsylvania, keynote speaker, parent, and partner. It comes from motivational interviewing and it’s called OARS: Open-ended questions, Affirmations, Reflect...

Many of us know what burnout looks like: exhaustion, cynicism, and the feeling that we simply can’t keep going. But there’s another state that shows up far more often and it’s easier to miss. It’s called brownout. In this episode, I sit down with Jessie Reese, leadership and executive development specialist and positive psychology practitioner, to unpack the critical difference between brownout an...

In this Mindfulness in Action episode, I’m sharing a spontaneous trail-side reflection on something that’s been very present for me lately: how we manage drive without burning out and how we stay truly connected in a world that keeps telling us to “go bigger.” I talk about rethinking social media impact, why I’m increasingly prioritizing local and real-time connection, and how and asking better qu...