Good Life Project

Today’s guest,  Elena Brower , dedicated her life to the practice and teaching of yoga nearly 20 years ago. She rose to acclaim, becoming known first as a wonderful teacher on the New York yoga scene, and then a teacher of teachers on a larger stage. But she also had a secret. Actually, not so much a secret as an addiction. And there came a time where she felt she not only had to get sober, b...

The process of creation breathes me. Always has, always will. I wake up every day thinking about what I am going to create, from business to art and health to relationships. The bigger challenge for me has never been about having enough ideas, it's been about process. How do I get the most important things done AND pursue my creative quests in a way that both lets me create my best work and feel g...

Imagine a career...no…Imagine a life where you travel the world earning your living by taking jaw-dropping photos of some of the most astounding athletes, action-sports, and breathtaking backdrops the planet has to offer. Sound too good to be true?—it’s not—this is the life of award-winning photographer Chase Jarvis ...but it almost wasn’t, nor is it where he's resting. Chase started dow...

“No.” It’s such a simple word, and yet… massively impactful. Too often we find ourselves standing toe to toe with No —challenging it as an unwarranted slight, or an underserved rejection. My question is— why? No isn’t about passing judgement, it isn’t about demeaning your worth—it’s about communicating “X” is not the best possible fit for the promised outcome of “Y”. At Good Life Project, we use a...

Imagine yourself as a child uprooted from your home, and bouncing from nation to nation as a paperless refugee… Envision the fear of being unexpectedly foreign in lands when the customs are as alien as the language being spoken… What would you do? Would you follow your dreams and thrive, or merely play it safe and survive? These were the questions facing Maria Konnikova , an author and psychologis...

If you ask someone who is working on turning an idea into a business what they call themselves, a likely answer these days is "startup founder." If you'd asked that same question a generation ago, you'd have probably heard "entrepreneur" or "business person." The difference isn't just about semantics or generational change. It's about a profound shift in both the mindset of entrepreneurship, and t...

Nerd. Gamer. Athlete. Three words you rarely hear uttered in the same sentence, let alone to describe any one person (unless you're talking about epic movie battles). But, that "triple-threat" describes founder of the global Nerd Fitness movement and author of Level Up Your Life , Steve Kamb , perfectly. A lifelong gamer and nerd, Steve found himself exposed to the world of fitness later in life....

Ever try to help someone who had absolutely no interest in being helped? It's one of the most frustrating experiences we can have. Maybe it's a family member or partner. Maybe it's a close friend or colleague. Or even a customer or client. So many times, we end up banging our heads against a wall trying to motivate or force others to care, then impose a solution they never asked for, because we "d...

John Lee Dumas grew up believing he wasn't the most talented person in the room. But, he also knew the path to success in almost any endeavor was more about work than it was about innate gifts. So, pretty early on, he made a decision that he'd outwork pretty much anyone to get what he wanted. That led to a string of powerful accomplishments, from athletics to business and led him to follow in the...

At the end of every year, business owners and accountants do something we might want to consider also doing in our personal lives. They "close the books." What does that mean? They look back over everything that's happened in the last 12 months, make sure it's as accurate as possible, understand what went into each debit and credit, then ask what makes sense to continue in the year to come, w...

Colin Beavan  burst into the public consciousness in a huge way with a documentary and international bestselling book called No Impact Man that documented his yearlong experiment to live in the middle of New York City with his family creating zero environmental impact. That experience opened his eyes to the power daily choices can have not only his own life, but the world around him. But, it...

Sometimes your creative voice clashes with others' expectations of what's always been done, and what they think you're "supposed" to do. This has happened a few times with this podcast. Ninety-nine percent to the messages and reviews we get about the guests, topics and format are overwhelmingly positive. Every once in a while, though, we get hit with a "take down" comment, a really aggressive atta...

Sekou Andrews defies every preconceived notion you might have in your head about the voice and role of poetry in business, society and life. In his words, when he "tells people that, before creating a new inspirational speaker category, he was a successful 'full-time poet,' you would think that he had said 'full-time mermaid,' or 'freelance unicorn' based on the reactions he gets." A former e...

Have you ever done something because you thought it would look good on your resume? Studied at a particular school or with a particular person? What if, instead of trying to pile on credentials from esteemed people and institutions in the name of building a resume, you based your choices on what would let you increase your capabilities, your ability to make a difference, with the greatest speed an...

Janice Kaplan  is filled with gratitude. But, it wasn't always that way. Her career in the media has taken her from the TV sportscasting desk to producing dozens of shows, writing more than a dozen books and eventually serving as editor-in-chief of Parade Magazine , which at its height, boasted a circulation of about 30 million readers. Her life was good, still is. But, she noticed that, as g...

There's been a lot of pushback lately against the idea of mastery, choosing one thing and putting everything you've got into it. Mastery, it seems, has become almost a dirty word. Why choose just one or two things to master, when your interests span four or five or 10 or 20? Why not just do them all? Isn't that a legitimate way to both feel good and contribute to the world? Isn't being a jack of a...

There's that old line. When you're thinking about opening a restaurant, the three most important things are location, location and location. Edward Barnett agrees, but the way he chose the location for his first restaurant in what is now becoming a chain goes against nearly every bit of conventional wisdom and advice. Edward was on a mission. Not just to do well, but to do good. So, alon...

We spend so much time trying to "acquire" people and things. In business, we talk about "acquiring a customer," like they're a commodity we're buying at the corner store and we even associate a price with each new person. In our personal lives, we often do the same, thinking about the effort it takes to find and start a relationship with a new friend, lover or partner, yet it feels wrong to call t...

Born and raised in a family of Irish surfers, and named after a surf break,  Easkey Britton is a renowned Irish pro surfer, five-time National Surfing Champion and one of the top female big-wave surfers in the world. She's also an explorer, artist and scientist with a Ph. D. in Environment and Society. On any given day, she may be traveling the world, getting towed into waves 10 times bigger...

Ever wonder how to know when it’s time to hold, fold or change? At some point, we all end up walking into the fire. We feel the fierce heat of intense pressure, anxiety, uncertainty, challenge and frustration. Often, it’s self-generated, sparked by a project, company, quest or venture we’ve launched ourselves into. It’s not fun. But, […]The post When to Hold, Fold or Change. Walking Into the Fire....

Mark Nepo is a renowned poet, philosopher, author, master storyteller and spiritual teacher. He has appeared numerous times on Oprah, his  Book of Awakening   was a #1 New York Times bestseller and his newest book,  Inside the Miracle, explores how we can move through suffering with grace and resilience. As Mark shares in this wide-ranging conversation, his darkest moment came in 19...

We are wired to run from the unknown, to flee anything that leaves us in that raw, exposed place of uncertainty. When our ideas take us to this place, we feel it and many of us shut down. It stops our true genius from emerging and turning into breakthrough discoveries, products, experiences, brands, businesses and art. But there's another phenomenon that is even more alarming. And it happens when...

In November 2009, Bronnie Ware published a short essay entitled, Regrets of the Dying . It was a reflection on the years she worked in palliative care, taking care of people in the final days of their lives. She had noticed that the same basic set of profound regrets kept coming up, over and over again, as those in her charge would lie waiting for the end, often sharing the deepest parts of themse...

You know the old question, "if a tree falls in the woods and nobody is around to hear it, did it make a sound?" What if we asked a similar question about pain, suffering, anxiety or any other "experience or emotion" that exists only in the space between our ears? What if many of the things we experienced throughout the day, whether good or bad, were less about what was happening to us, and more ab...

Lodro Rinzler is that increasingly rare Westerner who didn't find Buddhism through a later-in-life quest for answers, he was brought up in the tradition of Shambhala Buddhism and has lived its teachings since he was a child, at one point even exploring the monastic path. That said, he's very much "of this world," deeply connected to the realities, demands, challenges and joys of life in a world th...