Good Life Project

Growing up in LA, Ellen Bennett had no idea her summer spent with her grandma in a small town in Mexico would play a huge role not only his how she saw the world and related to people, but also in the career she’d eventually pursue and the company she would build. Describing herself as half Mexican, half English, born and raised in LA by a fiery mom who calls her “Mami,” and having never met a col...

Morgan Harper Nichols is an artist and poet whose work is inspired by real-life interactions and stories. Morgan spent the first couple of years of her professional life as a college admission counselor, and then, as a full-time touring singer-songwriter and musician. It was on the road that she cultivated her curiosity and passion for writing, art, and design and slowly began to share her work on...

Ever feel like life is one non-stop boundary issue? You’re not alone. And my guest, Terri Cole, can help. Before earning a Master’s Degree in Clinical Psychotherapy from New York University, Terri ran a talent agency for actors and supermodels. She was your typical Type A overachiever with zero balance and no internal peace, driven by ambition, living on planes and serving as a business executive,...

Imagine being a young photographer, working to stand out and rise up in a hyper-competitive industry, then getting a call one day from Iman and David Bowie, asking to shoot the cover of Iman’s next book, after two of the covers shot by two of the world’s top photographers had been rejected? That is exactly what happened with Indrani Pal-Chaudhuri.  That moment would become an inciting inciden...

Growing up outside Rochester, New York, all Elizabeth Miki Brina knew was that she was different, an outsider, and she blamed her mom, a first-generation immigrant from Okinawa, for it all. Elizabeth’s mother was working as a nightclub hostess on U.S.-occupied Okinawa when she met the American soldier who was deployed during the Vietnam war who would become her husband. Leaving her home, family, f...

Justin Tranter is one of the top songwriters and collaborators in the music industry, writing with everyone from Lady Gaga, Dua Lipa, and Selena Gomez to Demi Lovato, Bebe Rexha, Brandy Clark, Shea Diamond and countless others. With their astonishing success and abundant self-love, you’d never imagine Justin was bullied mercilessly as a kid growing up in Chicago. Every day was torture until the Ch...

My first exposure to Anne Lamott’s work was her iconic book, Bird By Bird , which as a writer, was transformative. Not just because it helped me better understand how and why to write, but also because her wonderfully wise and irreverent voice inspired me to be more real, more honest in both my work and my life. I’ve remained captivated by her writing ever since. The author of too many The New Yor...

Sophia Chang is a force to be reckoned with. A soft-spoken French-lit major in college and the child of Korean immigrants raised in Vancouver, when she first heard "The Message" by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five everything changed. Taken by the mix of urgency, anger, and pride that was hip-hop in the 80s and 90s, Sophia rerouted her life to New York, quickly becoming a fixture in the music...

Born and raised in Buffalo, NY, John Rzeznik is the founding-member, frontman and guitarist for iconic band, the Goo Goo Dolls. He's a legend in the world of music, with 19 top-ten singles, including mega-hits like Iris (which spent 12-months on the Billboard charts), Name, Black Balloon and countless others. And, like so many who turned to music at a young age as both a way to cope with discord a...

With culinary training from Le Cordon Bleu in Paris, and a relatability that seems to light up the screen, many people know Giada De Laurentiis as the Emmy award-winning television personality of shows like Food Network’s Everyday Italian, Giada at Home, Giada’s Weekend Getaways, as a judge on Food Network Star and Winner Cake All, an NBC Today Show contributor, and a successful restaurateur with...

Connie Lim, whose artist name is MILCK, rose to widespread attention after a video of an a capella performance of her song " Quiet " on the street at the 2017 Women's March exploded into the public’s consciousness going viral and becoming embraced as an anthem for the movement. That moment and the impact and reach of the song led to a major record deal and collaborations as a songwriter that launc...

Jen Hatmaker grew up in the church, surrounded by family and community, eventually rising up to become a central figure. But, over the years, she became increasingly uncomfortable with not so much the core tenets and teachings, but rather the trapping and limitations of the institution. She struggled with what she saw as a stifling of power, expression and contribution in the context of women, the...

Melissa Bernstein, along with her husband Doug, is the Co-Founder of the legendary toy company Melissa & Doug, which has created over 5,000 children’s products and sold billions of dollars of toys since its inception. Melissa and Doug started the business in their garage in 1988, and they’ve been on a mission ever since to provide open-ended, inventive, non-technologically driven playthings fo...

My guest today is Glasgow born photographer, Mark Mann, who has built a stunning career, photographing many of the most iconic celebrities in the world, from Robert Redford, Michael Douglas, Iggy Pop, and the Black Eyed Peas to Seinfeld, Rihanna, Queen Latifah, Stevie Wonder, Bradley Cooper, Willie Nelson, and hundreds of others. Funny thing is, Mark pretty much stumbled into photography in the mo...

Christa Couture is an award-winning performing and recording artist, filmmaker, writer and broadcaster. She is also proudly Indigenous (mixed Cree and Scandinavian), queer, disabled, and a mom. Her seventh album Safe Harbour was released on Coax Records in 2020. As a writer and storyteller, Christa has been published in Room, Shameless, and Augur magazines, she’s gone viral on CBC with an article...

Lama Rod Owens is a Buddhist minister, author, activist, yoga instructor and authorized Lama, or Buddhist teacher, in the Kagyu School of Tibetan Buddhism and is considered one of the leaders of his generation of Buddhist teachers. He holds a Master of Divinity degree in Buddhist Studies from Harvard Divinity School and is a co-author of Radical Dharma: Talking Race, Love and Liberation, along wit...

Mari Andrew is what I’d call a flaneur, she navigates the world in search of moments of discovery, wonder, serendipity and connection. That novelty often drops her into those flickering moments of aliveness - that is her muse. It’s found an expression in the form of beloved illustrations and words on her Instagram account with a community of more than 1M people and her first book. But these last 4...

My guest today, Chicago-born and raised, Roy Kinsey, is a bit of an anomaly. A black, queer-identified, rapper, and librarian or as he puts it, Rapbrarian. Roy’s escape from trauma and creative outlet as a kid was writing and music and also a love of books and learning. He began sharing his words and beats, rapping at a young age, but really began to elevate his pursuit of music-making in college,...

Jamie Kern Lima thought she’d spend her life in the world of broadcast TV, where after graduating, she began working her way up as a journalist, then eventually news anchor where a bright career was laid out in front of her. Then, the camera started picking up a genetic skin condition that she struggled to hide and threatened to derail what she’d worked for. That experience set in motion a quest t...

When Marine sniper Jake Wood arrived home in the States after two brutal tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, he wasn't leaving war behind him. Ten years after returning home, Jake's unit lost more men to suicide than to enemy hands overseas. He watched in horror as his best friend and fellow Marine, Clay Hunt, plunged into depression upon returning, stripped of his purpose, community, and sense of iden...

At 73, Denise Kaufman is the ultimate renaissance woman, an active member of the ‘60s Bay Area psychedelic rock scene who’s seen and done it all - and continues to do it all. The longtime singer and bassist is a member of Ace of Cups, the pioneering all-female psychedelic rock band that opened for Jimi Hendrix, The Band, Janis Joplin, and more, and that shared the stage with the likes of the Grate...

Miles Chamley-Watson is on a mission to take fencing mainstream. A British-born, 6-foot-four Black man, covered in tattoos with bleached blond hair, he breaks pretty much every generations-old assumption and mold about what the staid, traditionally-conservative and often elitist sport is about. Miles actually struggled a lot as a young kid, especially with focus, attention and school, until one da...

Born in New York City to a Tunisian father and a Swiss mother, Suleika Jaouad attended The Juilliard School's pre-college program for the double bass, and earned her BA with highest honors from Princeton University and an MFA in writing and literature from Bennington College. Leaving music behind, she thought she’d a war correspondent, but her plans were cut short when, at age 22, she was diagnose...

Born in the short-lived West African country of Biafra, Louis Chude-Sokei and his mom fled the country during the war that would take the life of his father, a figure of such great reverence in the country that it would create a set of expectations about who Louis was and should be that would follow him well into his adult life. Landing first in Jamaica, where his mother was from, then eventually...

My guest, today, Renee Jain, started into her career as a tech entrepreneur who secretly suffered with her own sometimes dizzying and even paralyzing anxiety. One day, a panic attack led her to step back and re-examine her life, seek help and begin to acquire the skills and understanding to live with more ease. It was transformative. But, along the way, something she never expected began to happen...