Heartful Wonders

Derek Haswell co-founded 10% Happier, and even on day 8 of a silent retreat, he was still performing for no one.<br><br>Derek built 10% Happier over a decade, working with the best meditation teachers in the world. He'd been doing inner work all along. Eight years ago, sobbing in bed next to his sleeping three-year-old, he saw his own proving-yourself wound already showing up in hi...

Jane Chen founded Embrace, the nonprofit behind life-saving infant warmers that have helped save over a million premature babies in underserved communities. She's also a TED speaker and the author of Like a Wave We Break. In this conversation, Jane traces the childhood violence she didn't connect to her work for a decade, the burnout that forced the reckoning, and what it took to feel wort...

Eric Ries spent a decade building LTSE. The night it almost died, his body responded like it was dying too. Eric Ries (author of The Lean Startup and the new book Incorruptible, founder of the Long-Term Stock Exchange) sits down with Vlada to walk through the part of founder life that almost never gets published: what happens to your body when the company you built starts to fail, and how naming w...

Cheyanne Donald was born on a gold mine in Alaska. Her parents were hippies. Their nearest neighbors lived eight miles away. She grew up skiing under full moons, building a house, and believing there was no wrong decision. Just a decision. At a young age she moved to California with fifty dollars in a duffel bag and a phone number for a Taekwondo instructor. From there, she built a life that didn&...

Dr. Nseyo spent years fighting to become the doctor she always dreamed of being. Then she got there, and she burned out. Ono Nseyo is an OB-GYN, women's health advocate, and podcast host who grew up watching her Nigerian immigrant father change lives in his community. Literally! That image of her dad shaped everything for her. She pushed through Stanford, organic chemistry, pre-med haters, eig...

Most of us have a voice in our heads that sounds like wisdom. Mun Yee Kelly spent years listening to hers, and it told her that being herself was the problem. So she stopped. She changed her hair, her personality, her city. Twice. And it worked, until it didn't. In this conversation, we go deep on the moment she finally stopped believing everything she thought, and what happened when she start...

What if the emotion you think is your heart is actually fear? Sue Heilbronner has been a federal prosecutor, startup founder, venture capitalist, executive coach, and now author of Never Ask for the Sale. She's followed her heart more times than she can count. And she's also followed her fear, thinking it was her heart. In this conversation, Sue gets honest about what it actually takes to follow y...

Jess Ekstrom has built companies, written books, and become one of the most sought-after speakers in the world. She also started all of it trying to right a wrong no one asked her to fix. At sixteen, Jess's family was caught in the Bernie Madoff scandal — her mom's uncle had stolen billions. The media, the betrayal, the upheaval. And Jess, quietly, decided she was going to do something so...

Pamela Gray Daniel spent years trying to heal the world — until burnout cracked her open and showed her the healing had to start with herself first. In this episode of Heartful Wonders, Pamela — founder of We Are One Consulting and author of Healing Our History — shares what she discovered on the other side of exhaustion. How she learned to stop working to be seen and start working just to be. How...

I knew Robert Hartline as a savvy businessman and someone who'd been a big Marco Polo fan for years. Then I read his LinkedIn post about love. I had to have this conversation. Robert spent 22 years building something extraordinary — 78 stores, 450 people, the fastest-growing business in middle Tennessee two years running. And slowly, quietly, he was going numb. Then T-Mobile acquired Sprint overni...

What does it feel like when your heart is calling you toward something that makes no sense to anyone else? Rachel Zurer has left "good enough" (at least) twice in her life—first, an established magazine career for a tiny startup, and years later, her marriage and job within months of each other. She shares the practice of recognizing truth in your body, starting small to build trust, and...

What happens when following your heart means choosing yourself over family expectations? Energy healer Jessica Lyda shares her journey from social media manager to healer—and the moment she had to break a lifetime pattern of pushing through to honor what her body needed. Episode is brought to you by: Marco Polo, the most magical way to stay close to your loved ones. There are no ads, no endless fe...

What happens when you spend your whole life in your head—and finally learn to trust your body? Nancy Yu and I sit down for an honest conversation about the journey from "head mode only" to embodied living. We both grew up with immigrant parents who taught us that achievement and academics were everything. The body? Not part of the equation. Episode is brought to you by Marco Polo, the mo...

"I have all this greatness in my life—how do I help the long tail of people who don't have that?" Nancy Yu reflects on the responsibility that comes with privilege and what she's learned about herself: she's driven by the mission of bridging the gap between big money and the have-nots. Making sure we all stick together. This is a preview from my new podcast, Heartful Wonders, where I sit down with...