Good Life Project

The average person spends an almost obscene amount of time working tirelessly to avoid failure. We're terrified that we'll put everything we have into an endeavor, only to come up short. Failure, we're told, is something to be avoided at all costs. In some parts of life and professional cultures, it's not only frowned upon, it is fiercely punished. So, every day, a little bit at a time, we confine...

We see it around us every day. And, yes, we've been that person. The one who wants something so badly we'll take it any way we can get it. Including hoping the person or organization we're up against, our competition has a really bad day. But, is that really winning? Is that what it's all about? No matter the "objective score," will it make us feel the way we want to feel? Or, will it lead to a pa...

Today's guest, Dr. Alice Wilder , is one of the creative geniuses behind some of the biggest kids' "edutainment" juggernauts in history, from Blues Clues to Speakaboos and the recent Emmy Award-winning Amazon Kids program, Tumble Leaf. Her entire journey, though, might never have happened but for the fact that one person, in her case a teacher, noticed something special and "sparked" her curiosity...

Have you ever found yourself saying, "if only I had more [insert missing ingredient], I'd be able to succeed on a totally different level?" Yeah, me too. Thing is, with very rare exception, that's never true. Taking your game, your craft, your career, your creative or innovative juices, your art and outcomes to the next level is often not about more, but about less. Less money, less ability, less...

By the time people living with autism hit their mid-20s, they often "age out" of all the services and support available to them. Many, in fact, 80-90% end up unemployed, often for life according to this week's guest, Tom D'Eri . Tom wasn't about to let that happen to his little brother, Andrew, who'd been diagnosed with autism at the age of three. Obsessed with entrepreneurship as a kid, and follo...

There’s this odd thing that happens the moment after we ask for help. While we’re asking, we stand in a place of surrender. We hit a point, often deeply uncomfortable, where we’re riddled with uncertainty and we step into a place of vulnerability and say, “please, I don’t know where to go from here. Can you give me some help?” We feel great for a moment. And, then those we ask for help do exactly...

What if you knew why you were here from the time you were six years old? Cara E. Yar Khan is a what I’d call a “purpose outlier.” Most people never discover a driving purpose in their lives, or even a collection of fierce interests. If they do, it most often happens later in life […]The post Undeterred: From Devastating Diagnosis To Radiant Life appeared first on Good LifeProject. Hosted on Acast....

We're all guilty of it... It's something we all do. For some, it's not a big deal, intruding on rare occasion. For others, though, it literally controls your life. It fills each day with what feels like an impenetrable level of suffering and it's often accompanied by a stifling level of hoarding, both emotional and physical. Especially when the that hoarding of things and states helps to delude yo...

From the time he was a kid, Sean McCabe was obsessed, strike that, possessed, with letters. The shape. The form. The curves and nuances. Not just the fonts you see on computers, but the ones drawn painstakingly by hand, what's come to be known as hand-lettering, consumed him. A few years back, Sean began posting his work online. Nothing happened for the better part of two years. Then, lighting beg...

How often have you put off doing something uncomfortable and told yourself the timing's just not right? The timing will be better when, if, then, because, after. So you wait. And you wait. And you wait. Did you do what you said you were going to when you got more money, more time, more resources, more stability? More often than not, you probably didn't. Sometimes, bad timing is a legitimate issue....

What if there was a single trait that was a virtual unlock key for an extraordinary life? Ok, maybe there's not a single magic trait, but there is something I've observed that seems to be omnipresent in the lives of those who live great lives. It doesn't matter whether, they're movers, shakers, artists, makers, scientists, educators, entrepreneurs, caretakers or anyone else. This one trait se...

After years of launching, building and selling technology ventures, Brad Smith was at a crossroads. Starting almost accidentally, he parlayed a self-taught expertise in computers and then design into a series of ventures that kept him busily creating. But when the company that bought his last venture was sold, destroying his ability to run the business the way he wanted, he realized it was time to...

It was a moment that nearly brought me to tears... As an entrepreneur, a writer, a creator, a big part of why I do what I do is simply the hardwired need to create. I do the thing I "can't not do." The process of creation breathes me. Being able to write, to build, to produce, these things all light me up. But there's another part of the equation. It's the part about how the things you create land...

In January 2013, Susan Cain published a book that would spark a global conversation and change the world. Her stunning, international bestseller,  Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking ,  gave voice to nearly a third of the human race, those who'd often walked through life believing that their quiet nature, their love of smaller groups, individual conversation...

One the fastest ways to accelerate your growth, personal or professional, is to seek out and ask for guidance from mentors. People who've been where you're looking to go and are open to sharing their stumbles, wins and wisdom. But, there's something that often happens when a mentor gives feedback that does not validate or, even worse, straight-up shoots down what you want to do. You fight the feed...

Want a job at Google, a gorgeous hideaway on Airbnb, a spot on the Stanford faculty, a romantic partner or even a kidney? Good news, bad news. You have a say, but so do they. It's all part of a phenomenon called "matching markets." Markets are what make businesses possible. But not all markets operate on the exchange of cash for goods. In fact, some of the most important markets go so fa...

You want to be a better writer, write and study the craft of writing. Want to be a better maker, make more stuff and study the art of making. Want to be a better entrepreneur, build more businesses and study the process of birthing businesses. But, don't stop there. The really big leap, the thing that launches you from really good to world-shaking, is not skill. Transcendent output happens when yo...

Tamsen Fadal is an award-winning broadcast journalist and television anchor on the evening news in New York City. She's worked incredibly hard to get where she is, traveling the world, entering war-zones and extreme settings, giving a voice to the voiceless and a serving as a trusted guide through times of extreme tragedy, disaster and misfortune. While she'd become comfortable being the face and...

You wake up one day with pain in your lower back. Happens to the best of us. Popular wisdom says, “oh, you’ve got lower back pain, you need to strengthen your abs to support your back and it’ll go away.” Or you need to strengthen this or that or the other muscle, your problem is weakness. A similar thing tends to happen across all parts of life. You've got a problem, it must be caused by some...

What if you could instantly trace your connection through an online family tree to nearly anyone on the planet? Put another way, what if every person alive was your cousin? Enter A.J. Jacobs , the master experimenter and mega-NYT best-selling author known for running crazy, year-long experiments on himself. In the past A.J. has spent a year living every rule in the Bible (in NYC), tried nearly eve...

How often have you told yourself, "I'm not good enough, old enough, accomplished enough, credentialed enough, or any other 'enough' to get paid real money or get the gig I want more than anyone else?" Newsflash, there's a good chance you're right. It may well be true that there ARE indeed plenty of other people and organizations who are better at what you do than you are. But, there's also a dirty...

You can lose almost any part of your body, except one, and still be you. What is that one exception? Your brain. Because... The brain is the seat of your memory and your identity. Which is why brain injuries can be so devastating. And taking care of your brain is so incredibly important to a life well-lived. Question is, how do you do that? Turns out, there's a lot of "neuro-myths" floating around...

It’s not the box society puts us in that limits who we become, it’s the box we put ourselves in. There's no secret to success. No magic bullet. No pixie dust. Success in any endeavor is about doing the work, every day and not running for cover when things get hard. Because they always will. Even when it's right. Taking fierce, consistent action, though, is easier said than done. Especially when th...

Today's episode is sponsored by Camp GLP , the ultimate summer-camp for entrepreneurs, makers and world-shakers, recently featured in USA Today! +++ "Brand is the exhaust fume of the engine of your life." A show of defiance at the age of 18, Nilofer Merchant  packed a box, declared she was leaving home and walked out the front door. She though her departure would last an hour, it turned into...

"Don't make people work to learn what you know." Today's short and sweet Good Life Riff is about the increasing value of ease and simplicity in a world that seems designed to overwhelm and pummel. It shared an experience I had in law school, one that revealed the power of brevity and respect in a massively stressful environment and, in turn, led to a dream outcome. A few lines from the episode: Wh...