Everyday Better with Leah Smart

Leah sits down with Marc Brackett, founding Director of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence and Author of Permission to Feel, to talk about what emotional intelligence really is, how to become an Emotion Scientist versus an Emotion Judge, and why it matters that we use words like trauma, gaslighting and narcissist accurately. Follow Leah on Linkedin Follow Marc on Linkedin

Krista Tippett, the host of “On Being” an adventure in the mystery and the art of living, joins Leah Smart to examine and talk about life after the pandemic, economic challenges, events that have changed us and more. They dive into the importance of finding our meaning and how to manage the matter of our inner lives. Follow Leah on Linkedin Follow Krista on Twitter Learn more about On Being

This week, Leah chats with Ashton Whitmoyer-Ober, writer, community psychologist and certified Enneagram coach as they dive into the Enneagram, one of the most powerful personality typing system that helps you understand your core motivations, your biggest fears, your biggest desires, and the best ways to improve. Follow Leah on Linkedin Follow Ashton on Instagram Get Ashton's Newsletter Book a ca...

In today’s episode, Leah sits down with Shawn Achor, author and happiness researcher who is best known for his book, The Happiness Advantage, as they discuss how happiness is a choice we can make each day. They explore ways we can focus on the positive aspects of our lives, why being mindful of our circumstances matters, and how to change the way you think to be content in your day to day. Follow...

In today’s episode, Leah sits down with New York Times bestselling author and international leader in the field of Functional Medicine Dr. Mark Hyman as they discuss how we can live a lifestyle that makes us feel 20 years younger than our chronological age. They dive into the four main pillars of longevity: diet, exercise, stress management, and sleep and how to make this a part of your everyday l...

In today’s episode, Leah sits down with world-renowned relationship researchers and authors Drs. John and Julie Gottman as they discuss what they have observed in 40 years of research on couples and the small strategies you can use to improve the quality of your partnership or prepare for what’s around the corner. Follow Leah on Linkedin The Gottman Institute on Linkedin

Leah talks to Tim Tamashiro, author of “How to Ikigai” about finding your purpose. As an ongoing student and teacher, Tim shares the tools to find your ikigai, where most people get stuck, and how we tend to go wrong with purpose. Follow Leah on Linkedin Follow Tim on Linkedin Attend Tim Tamashiro's Class on Skill Share

In this episode of In the Arena, Leah speaks with neurosurgeon, author & former NFL Player, Dr. Myron Rolle about his 2% methodology. Myron’s philosophy of incremental improvement has taken him from Oxford to a Rhodes Scholarship, and the NFL to a residency at Harvard. Follow Leah On Linkedin Follow Dr. Rolle on Linkedin

If you think you've found your favorite kind of meditation, maybe you haven't considered breath work yet. It can help reduce stress, restore your energy and improve your mental health. In this episode Leah and In the Arena’s former producer, Michele O’Brien, experimented with conscious connected breathing. Celebrity trainer and sober coach turned breathwork teacher, JP Crimi, has created a class w...

In this episode of In The Arena Leah talks with Kwame Christian, CEO of The American Negotiation institute, about how having tough conversations enhances the quality of our relationships. Leah and Kwame share past discomforts and anxieties with conflict and Kwame reflects on the what he’s learned over the years of teaching people to communicate better. Great News! Before the holidays we told you t...

Maria Failla, the author of Growing Joy: The Plant Lover’s Guide to Cultivating Happiness, wasn’t always a plant lady: in fact, she was a self-proclaimed plant killer. But after some time, trust, and patience, she discovered that plants have a lot to teach us about growth, dormancy, and well-being – and she explores all that and more on her podcast, also called Growing Joy. She joined Leah in stud...

Vision boards can get a bad rap, but there’s definitely something to the idea of writing down & saying what you want, loud and proud; it can help you recognize which opportunities are for you, and what to say no to. To that end, Leah walks through two different exercises – the Wheel of Life (which we’ve covered before on the show!), and a simple pie chart organizing how you’d like to be spending y...

Even though our personal growth depends on it, we don’t always prioritize reflecting back on where we’ve been in order to move forward. But we can’t make a change unless we know where we’ve started. So today Leah offers a tool, the Lifeline, that can help you take stock of the positive, negative, and neutral events of your year, and focus in on how you can change the narrative you have around the...

As the old year winds down, we’re sharing a favorite episode from the archives: influencer, artist, poet, and author Morgan Harper Nichols. Morgan shares how she got comfortable being creative, why your dream matters and the ways her community and curiosity drive her work. Follow Morgan on LinkedIn and check out her beautiful art on Instagram. Follow Leah and In The Arena on LinkedIn 🚨 Great News...

Katherine May’s moving memoir Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times resonated deeply with the audience who found it when it was published in 2020. It’s about her own journey through a personal “winter”: a period of time when she had to retreat into herself in order to cope with the world. Drawing on research about how Northern cultures have weathered the inevitable cold seaso...

The Danish prepare for their cold, dark winters by leaning into hygge, which loosely translates to “coziness.” To understand how hygge and happiness are linked, Leah sits down with Meik Wiking, founder and CEO of the Happiness Research Institute in Copenhagen – and author of the books The Little Book of Hygge and the new My Hygge Home. They dive into the art of hygge and how connection – and simpl...

In a favorite episode from the archives, Leah talks with bestselling author and podcast host Gretchen Rubin of The Happiness Project to get to the bottom of happiness – and why who you truly are may be your most important clue to how to be happier. Follow Gretchen on LinkedIn and check out her work at https://gretchenrubin.com/ Follow Leah and In The Arena on LinkedIn

Manifesto can be a charged word, but Charlotte Burgess-Auburn, Stanford d.school professor and author of the new book You Need a Manifesto: How to Craft Your Convictions and Put Them to Work, says it’s time to reclaim it. In this interview, she walks Leah through what putting your own values and priorities on paper can do to clarify your path, and the 5 C’s of manifesto creation. Follow Charlotte...

Huma Abedin’s incredible career – as advisor to former Senator, Secretary of State, and Presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton – and challenging personal life – her ex-husband, former Representative Anthony Weiner, was caught sending suggestive photos to women online – can’t be separated from one another. And Huma doesn’t want them to be. Her memoir Both/And tells both stories, along with m...

Let Leah guide you through a meditation meant to renew your connection with your self and your breath. Follow Leah and In The Arena on LinkedIn

Mike Evans couldn’t have predicted his success: he founded Grubhub because he wanted a snack and to pay off his student loans, and stayed with the company through a wildly successful IPO. But it’s what he’s done since that’s differentiated him from other startup founders: first, leaving Grubhub to take a transcontinental bike trip, and also his new company, Fixer, which aims to do social good even...

We spend a lot of time going inward on In the Arena… but we rarely actually talk about internal organs like the brain or the heart. Today, that changes, with guest Dr. Marc Milstein, author of The Age-Proof Brain: New Strategies to Improve Memory, Protect Immunity, and Fight Off Dementia. Marc and Leah get into what you can do now to keep your brain younger and healthier to increase longevity. One...

Almost everyone has experienced burnout in the past few years – and if you didn’t personally, you probably know someone who did. Many of us have been conditioned to believe that results and hyperproductivity define our value. But what if resting is actually the key to maintaining an ambitious life? Author Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith joins Leah to dig in to the 7 (yes, 7!) different types of rest, and...

This week In the Arena: Dr. Jennifer Freed, psychological astrologer and author of the new book A Map to Your Soul: Using the Astrology of Fire, Earth, Air, and Water to Live Deeply and Fully. Dr. Freed joins Leah to dig into the birth chart, and how using the “mystery art” of astrology combined with psychological analysis can help you define your purpose and your goals. (And then, of course, that...

This week: a very special episode from our friends and colleagues at our LinkedIn sister podcast, Hello Monday. Leah takes the host chair to interview Jessi Hempel, the show’s usual host, about Jessi’s beautiful new memoir, The Family Outing, how she and her family made the authentic choices to come out of their closets, why we are all unreliable narrators of our stories and what it means to live...