60 Mindful Minutes

As you can probably imagine, I read a lot about the topic of human connection and recently I came across an article written for Scientific American titled To Combat Loneliness, Promote Social Health. It not only honed in on the mounting evidence that shows relationships should be a public health priority, but it reported that the UK has recently appointed a Minister for Loneliness. This is pretty...

How many of us give much thought to the quality of our friendships or the ways we could be intentionally nourishing our friendships? Turns out there's not only an art and a science to how we create really good friendships, but there's a formula to the process as well. Shasta Nelson, author of "Friendships Don't Just Happen" and "Frientimacy: How to Deepen Friendships for Lifelong Health and Happin...

Imagine there was a way to more effectively and more quickly get our kids to do what we want them to do, when we want them to do it. Imagine if all the struggle and resistance and frustration dramatically decreased in our family life. Heather Turgeon, MFT and Julie Wright, MFT, authors of Now Say This: The Right Words to Solve Every Parenting Dilemma, did more than just imagine these idyllic scene...

I recently made a personal pledge to stop reading the news because I just don't feel good when I'm feeding my brain a constant supply of negativity. It's been nearly two months and I can already sense how much more uplifted, hopeful and positive I feel. My only source of news now is the Good News Network, which I access through an app on my phone. The stories that Good News Network reports on are...

Every month, Traci Ruble joins a group of volunteers near a busy San Francisco street with a sign that invites strangers to participate in free listening. It's called Sidewalk Talk, a non-profit organization with a mission to nurture human connection by teaching and practicing heart-centered listening in public spaces. Since it began in 2014, Sidewalk Talk has grown to over 700 volunteers worldwid...

Kate DeBartolo is used to uncomfortable conversations. In fact, her job is to be a proponent of them. And here's why. As the Director for The Conversation Project, her mission is to get people talking about one of the most difficult topics many of us will ever encounter: our end of life decisions and the end of life wishes of the those we love. Let's face it, we're all going to die. That's a hard...

I have a theory that if we upgrade the quality of our connections, if we got more intentional about how deeply we connect with the people around us, our lives would feel more joyful and more meaningful. What follows is a conversation about how we can use our hands and our imaginations to make stuff. But more importantly, why making stuff together— even if you don't consider yourself an artist or e...

Spring is nearly upon us, which means for many of us, it's time to go back outside. My guest today is Rebecca P. Cohen, someone who is incredibly passionate about inspiring families and individuals to spend more time outside. What's ahead is a conversation about the enormous benefits to being intentional about spending time outdoors every day—with your kids and with yourself – and how to easily an...

The idea of living with less—less stuff, less obligations, less debt and making less of a footprint environmentally—is really gaining momentum. And here's my hypothesis about why: For anyone on a journey to find some meaning in their life or simply trying to gain clarity on what truly makes them happy and fulfilled, we mostly all land in the same place with similar conclusions: it's not the stuff...

I first met Katie in my Friday yoga class. She's a little hard to miss since she's the only yogi in the class who brings her dog with her. I soon came to find out that she works as a volunteer raising companion dogs as well as therapy dogs. I was immediately fascinated, not just by her work with dogs, but I had a million questions about the relationship between dogs and humans, why dogs are so goo...

As the creator of The Dinner Party Project, Dana Marie Roquemore is on a mission to facilitate more and deeper connections between friends and strangers. A food-focused social experiment that invites 8 strangers to share food, conversation and company, the concept provides the random opportunity for people to meet and share a meal. Each week, seven guests are chosen at random and given instruction...

What happens when a community comes together to share its stories, triumphs, struggles and aspirations? PechaKucha, an international speaker series based on a 20×20 format (20 slides, 20 seconds each), exists to explore this question. Now held in over 1,000 cities around the world, the series gives a platform to each city's residents—from creatives to professionals to regular folks with a story to...

  R ick Bommelje has spent decades becoming a master listener and helping others do the same. Before you shrug off listening as a topic you already know about, I invite you to think again. In fact, I invite you to question why you may never have received any formal training in what is actually one of our most critical skills. Mostly, I invite you to listen to this conversation like it could hold t...

Americans forfeit over 600 million days of vacation time EVERY year, and there are huge economic, cultural and psychological consequences to this. We're not as creative and productive but we're also not as happy AND we miss out on countless moments we could have used to connect with our loved ones and ourselves. I loved this conversation and I can't with to share it with you, but a word of warning...

Wherever you are in your life, chances are you're going to find yourself working with teams at some point. And whether you're trying to solve a challenge at work or plan your next vacation as a family, there's a method to extracting the gold. Doug Bolger is the Founder & CEO of Learn2, a participant-centered, experiential learning company with programs designed to have teams wildly alter how they...

Our culture often teaches us to be uncomfortable with emotions, to avoid them, and to set them aside when making important decisions. But neuroscience would have us see them in a different way. In this episode, empathy researcher Karla McLaren invites us to see emotions as data, as fundamental aspects of our intelligence, and inescapable parts of our cognition. Whether you like it or not, your emo...

Belonging and inclusion are both critical to our health and well-being. There's real pain to be felt when we feel like we don't fit in or we're deliberating excluded. It's not theoretical, it's actually physiological, and science has proven this. During this episode, we discuss many great studies but we also bring it down to day-to-day life terms. The research is fascinating but so are the practic...

  We connect with other people all day long, in person and online. But how often do we take the time to connect with ourselves, to really check in and see how we're doing and feeling? It's not a practice our busy, fast-paced society allows for. In fact, it feels like we're more distracted from ourselves than ever. Any given moment we have a multitude of things puling at us, demanding our attention...

  There's so much more to travel than the places we can cross off our bucket list or the photos we can take. International travel writer Rachelle Lucas invites travelers to break from the pack and get lost in a city. The best travel experiences are the ones that we never expected to happen, and they can only be found when we put down the map or the guidebook and just explore. Travel gives us the o...

  During this interview, we discuss how we can prime our emotional state, refine our inner awareness and create better attention skills that result in us having a greater capacity to monitor our mind and body in real time.   Key Takeaways "We have emotional deficit disorder around our own potential." Excellence is having the ability to create an exceptionally stable and clarified mind… we do this...

Here's something we don't think about very much: how does a relationship occur for you and how do you occur for people who you are currently in a relationship with? What are we really committed to in our relationships with our partners, our family, friends and coworkers. Try on, as a possibility, that this sits at the foundation of your relationships. If you have no idea what I am talking about, g...

John P. Strelecky is on a mission to inspire people to think about and start pursuing their Big Five for Life: the five things they want to see, do or experience in their lifetime that would truly define their life as well-lived. And while he's living his Big Five every day, he'll be the first to admit that setting out on a new path, especially one that looks very different from the one you are al...

Recently, my husband, Marc, and I have started testing out a new ritual. We're habit people and find that when we can put key aspects of our connection on auto-pilot—that is, we get them to happen without having to think too much about making them happen—we seem to find each other more in the slightly chaotic, sometimes harried, often muddled, basket weave that is the life we've assembled together...

Kostya Kimlat is a Ukrainian-American magician, motivational speaker, entrepreneur and business consultant who uses magic to help others understand the importance of perception in our daily lives. Learn more at kostyakimlat.com .   Description Having the ability to see other people's perceptions of us is a powerful skill. We may not think about it much, but we are always "on," which is to say that...

Guest Bio Carrie Contey, PhD is an internationally recognized coach, author, speaker and educator. Her work offers a new perspective on human development, parenting, family life and being a healthy, happy, whole human being. Learn more at www.carriecontey.com.   Description Carrie Contey has been our parenting coach for many, many years and along the way her insights and wisdom have helped us navi...