Good Life Project

Question, when was the last time you made a really good new friend, as a grown-up? Like the kind that actually knows you, not just online, but the real you? Turns out, it’s not actually so easy to create those kinds of friendships. But it is critically important to our ability to live good lives, especially during challenging times. My guest today, Kat Vellos, is here to help, She earns her living...

What if your work could make you come alive? What if it could fill you with meaning, purpose, and excitement like you're fully accessing and expressing all parts of yourself and stepping into your fullest potential? Like you're doing the thing you're here to do. We call this state being "sparked." The first step isn't about big, painful or disruptive change. It's about knowing yourself better, dis...

When I think about Peter Frampton, I’m immediately transported back to my teens when Peter’s musical juggernaut of a live-album, Frampton Comes Alive, took the world and my life by storm with anthemic songs like Do You Feel Like We Do, Show Me the Way, Lines On My Face and Baby, I Love Your Way. I cannot think about those songs without also hearing what became his signature voice-box sound vibrati...

Success is not just about knowing what to do. It's about doing it. Information, plans and goals, alone, will not get you where you want to go. Nor will willpower. Success at anything truly meaningful is about something bigger. Today’s show is going to be very different. Instead of deep-dive conversations with guests, it’s just going to be Jonathan, going deep into how to find success accompli...

Over the history of this show, we’ve been incredibly blessed to not only have hundreds of guests in the physical and now virtual studio for conversation but also live performances from a wide variety of acclaimed artists, many of whom are icons in their chosen form of creation and expression. The performances have ranged from unaccompanied to fully sound-designed spoken word, to a capella or instr...

There’s something about the sound of Mark Nepo’s voice that just puts me at ease. He’s been immersed in a path of spiritual inquiry for more than forty years, taught all over the world, authored more than twenty books, including the #1 New York Times bestseller The Book of Awakening, More Together Than Alone and others. His books have been translated into more than twenty languages and in 2014, Ma...

Christen Brandt and Tammy Tibbetts are on a mission to unlock the potential of girls and women, especially in parts of the world where they’re often excluded from education and, in turn, much of life and the opportunity to help shape their communities and lives in a meaningful way. Both Christen and Tammy grew up in households where they were loved and supported, taught to believe in themselves an...

I’ve been fascinated with alternative approaches to healing and medicine for my entire adult life. Especially when so many millions of us are walking around with pain and inflammation that doesn’t seem to fair well with a more Western approach. But, at the same time, I’ll also admit, I’m equally skeptical of a lot of solutions, practices, and claims. Which is why I’ve been deeply curious, for many...

Peter Tunney is a legitimate force of nature with boundless creative energy, who loves spreading positive messages in unconventional ways. After a career in finance, biotech and then nearly a decade defined by wild adventures, photo-curating and documenting travels through Africa with photographer and society fixture, Peter Beard, Tunney returned to New York in 1987 and declared himself an artist....

Kulap’s parents fled violence in Laos, finding themselves in a refugee camp in Thailand, before moving to DC, where Kulap would be born, and then Minnesota, where she’d grow up. Her world was blown apart when, at the age of 14, in the heat of a fight, Kulap’s mom revealed that her father was not, in fact, her biological dad. The trauma of that moment shook her, but would then get largely buried, a...

Ione is a British film, television and voiceover actress based in LA with many different credits including Marvel’s Black Widow, a leading role in a motion picture which premiered on the Syfy network, as well as guest-starring in hit TV shows on CBS, Spike TV, TLC, BBC and many others. Growing up biracial in West London’s Southall neighborhood, which has been known to many as little Punjab or Litt...

Over the past few decades, Seth Godin has made quite a ruckus in nearly every domain he's explored, from business to marketing to education, innovation and beyond, in no small part by encouraging us all to join him in purposeful ruckus-making, too. He's launched a number of successful companies, taught millions of people and left his mark on our creative culture. And, he’s written, just a bit. In...

Jen Sincero wants you to be a badass in all parts of life. And, as we head into the end of the year and start thinking about what we want to make happen, she’s doubling down on building badass habits. A past guest, Jen is the author of #1 New York Times bestseller You Are a Badass, which has sold over three million copies, is available in over 35 languages, and has been on the New York Times bests...

I first heard about my guest today, Michele Harper, when stumbled upon an essay she published earlier this year, entitled When This War is Over, May of Us Will Leave Medicine. It was about the reality of her day-to-day life as an ER doc during the early days of the pandemic. It was a devastating, powerful, deeply human read. That led me to her beautiful and, at times, heartbreaking, yet hopeful Ne...

Five days into filming his first movie - Dazed & Confused - some 28 years ago, Matthew McConaughey’s dad, a towering force in his life, suddenly died. Matthew had to figure out a way to keep showing up, to keep going. His mantra became “just keep livin,” which has become a guiding ethos, a sort of lens through which he lives his life. Now, nearly three decades later, an Academy Award-winning a...

Ozan Varol is a rocket scientist turned award-winning professor and bestselling author. A native of Istanbul, Turkey, Ozan Varol grew up in a family of no English speakers. He learned English as a second language and moved to the United States by himself at 17 to attend Cornell University and major in astrophysics. While there, he served on the operations team for the 2003 Mars Exploration Rovers...

Sara Hendren was drawn to painting as a kid, studied it in college, then began to build her body of work and career as a fine artist, focusing on painting. Then, a series of experiences sent her in what, from the outside looking in, may have seemed like a very different direction, but from the inside looking out, what a completely organic and aligned expression of her blended passion to see, to cr...

Growing up in Israel, Tal Ben-Shahar wanted to be the best squash player in the world. He turned pro at a young age and quickly rose up the ranks. Then a strange thing happened, he achieved his dream, but crashed hard, realizing it didn’t make him feel how he thought it would. That experience set in motion a lifelong journey into the science of happiness that led him to study at Harvard, then even...

Growing up in Nashville, Top Chef star, Carla Hall, was surrounded by soul food, especially dishes cooked by her beloved grandma. She loved eating it, but she had no interest in cooking it. In fact, she headed into the world of business, building a career in accounting when, in a moment of awakening, she took a hard left turn that took her through runway modeling in Europe, cooking and catering, a...

Today, we’re sharing part 2 of our special series, The Hug. Last week, we aired part 1 of the Hug, with six beautiful stories. Today is part 2 next, think of it as the other arm in our audio hug, wrapping us all in the arms of stories that remind us of our shared humanity at a time we need it most. So, sit back and enjoy these stories in part 2 of The Hug.  If you haven’t yet listened to Part...

Earning his living in a past life as a fashion model, Light Watkins, began yoga and meditation in-between casting calls in New York City during the late nineties. Something he never saw coming happened. It opened him to a different worldview and set of practices that would change not only the trajectory of his career, but also his path in life. Deepening his practice, traveling and spending time i...

Elizabeth Gilbert is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Big Magic and Eat, Pray, Love, City of Girls and other awesome books. She’s also just a straight-up genuine, wise, deeply-feeling human with a lens on life that is incredibly kind and real. Since her last appearance on the podcast, Liz’s life has been turned upside-down and back again. She has navigated profound awakening, unbelievab...

Today, we’re doing something we’ve never done before. We’re about to head into a week like never before in the US and, well, around the world. And we kinda wanted to wrap it, and you, with one big, beautiful, audio hug that reminds us all, people are good, they can be kind, even to total strangers, in ways we never imagined. So, we’ve created a two-part series for you we’re calling The Hug, where...

Rebekah Taussig is a Kansas City writer and teacher with her doctorate in Creative Nonfiction and Disability Studies. For the last five years, she’s grown a global community on Instagram, where she crafts these “mini-memoirs” that take you into her world, experiences and identity, a part of which includes her near lifelong relationship with physical disability and the wheelchair that has given her...

My guest today is former, U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, mayor of San Antonio, Texas and presidential candidate, Julián Castro. Today’s conversation is personal. Growing up in San Antonio, his love of the city, example of his grandmother’s devotion to family and hard work and his mom’s commitment to social justice and activism instilled a deep reverence for public service. He’d e...