The Meaning Project

Search & Rescue Team, Ski Patrol, and Sales Manager by day - but Tom DuBos real passion is helping people "own their destiny" - to take life off autopilot and to consciously, and responsibly, take control of where their life is going. And, with those aforementioned experiences, he's got some fairly unique stories to illustrate how to do that! Enjoy! To find out more about Tom - check out his websi...

I've really been looking forward to bringing you this episode! After these past few weeks of awesome interviews and amazing chats, this is an opportunity for you and I to just chat about logotherapy and mental wellness... It is human nature to want to label phenomena so that we can better understand it - the same is true with mental health issues or illnesses, but that doesn't always prove to be h...

You can quickly tell that Steve Cohen is living a meaningful life of helping others - of transcending the self - through his work as an RN and hypnotherapist; but it's his masterfully storytelling that makes you forget he is using time-test techniques to encourage people to go beyond their perceived limits. You might even notice he had me completely enthralled with his stories - I'm not sure if it...

What is the difference between Meaning and Purpose? Ever since The Purpose Driven Life, written by Rick Warren back in 2002, it feels like "Purpose" has taken the lead in pop culture and common language, while Meaning has been left in the ethereal or even mystical realm . In the, my good friend and interlocuter, Rabbi B., and I tackle this comparison through the lens of the recently released text,...

Michael Butera is President and CEO of Association Activision. He is a professional speaker with more than 40 years of experience working exclusively with nonprofits. He focuses on inspiring, educating, and motivating associations and individuals to unlock curiosity and be future-focused to understand and solve the impact of short-term tactics on long-term success and sustainability. In this episo...

Rayna Steigman is, quite possibly, THE MOST energetic and enthusiastic person I know. And definitely one of the hardest working. Not only is she a training manager and professional speaker by day, but she is also studying for her doctorate in organizational leadership and innovation by night!! She is truly a powerhouse of empowerment and self-love. In this episode of the podcast, we talk about her...

It is difficult, sometimes if may feel nearly impossible, to maintain our own health and wellness when trying to take care of others - whether that means taking care of an ailing family member, or an organization or corporation. Kyla Cofer, talks about how to prevent reaching this wall of impossibility - what we commonly call "burnout" and "compassion fatigue" - as a professional public speaker an...

The great thing about working with Rabbi B. is that we don't really have a plan - we start with a topic and see where it goes, and we end up covering a lot on the topics of mental health, meaning, logotherapy, and a whole bunch of, hopefully, helpful information. In this episode, we catch up what B. has been creating with the Enneagram, and I share a bit about my summer and time away from the podc...

Resiliency continues to be an important topic in our world today. The better we are at it, the more we train ourselves to be resilient in good time, the better we will "bounce back" from difficult times. Matthew Lostaglia ("like 'lasagna', you don't say the G") has a unique perspective on Resiliency from his military training and teaching in the subject, that he brings to organizations and corpora...

"Preach, Teach, Coach, & Serve" - these are the words Jay Thompson has lived by for the past decade. He lives these principles through his work with HikeTheMountain.org; helping businesses and organizations craft their culture with intentionality and purpose. In this episode of the podcast, we discuss how these principles fit with Mental Health and Meaning. To find out more about Jay and his work,...

For this episode, we go back into The Meaning Project archives to a past discussion with Sarah D., a client I worked with almost two decades ago, who is now a mental health professional. In the early days of my career, I worked with adolescents in an "innovative and successful" intensive substance abuse treatment program. I think this may have been the first place I started to understand the conce...

We are so close to a feature length film on the life of Dr. Viktor Frankl! For this episode, we went deep into the archives to pull up one of my previous discuss with Alex Vesely - Dr. Frankl's grandson. What a great chat - hopefully we get to talk again sometime soon! Alex Vesely is an established Logotherapist, the director of the movie Viktor and I - a collection of recollections of friends of...

We seem to be facing an ever increasing substance use and abuse problem. But recovery is possible. In this episode, we go back to a discussion with a former client from my days in adolescent substance abuse treatment. We continue our discussion on substance abuse, recovery, and meaning, in a discussion with Chad P. His story of absolute desperation at a very young age could be the story of many ad...

In this episode we go back a few years to a discussion about anxiety and trauma - something we seem to be facing more of now than ever before. EMDR - Eye-Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing - a fancy way of saying "bi-lateral stimulation", which is a fancy way of saying "making your eyes move back and forth"... I've referred MANY clients to EMDR specialists, and this almost the way I explain...

Well everyone, it is time for a meaningful break in podcast production. I will be taking the next few weeks, perhaps few months, off from the podcast. So, I thought it would be fun to share some of my latest, and long standing, clinical "pet peeves", and what you can do to make sure they don't impact you! I'll be back in a few weeks - in the meantime, sign up for my weekly Mental Health & Meaning...

“Freedom is in danger of degenerating into mere arbitrariness unless it is lived in terms of responsibleness. That is why I recommend that the Statue of Liberty on the East Coast be supplemented by a Statue of Responsibility on the West Coast.” -Dr. Viktor E. Frankl (Mans Search for Meaning) Dr. Frankl suggested be handled with responsible action - and thus goes the conversation with Rabbi B. and...

The conclusion of Dr. Ann V. Graber's lecture about the evolution of humankind from Homo Sapien to Homo Noeticus - people of interconnectedness. To support your favorite podcast on Mental Health & Meaning, pick up some meaningful The Meaning Project Podcast merch in our store at https://the-meaning-project-podcast.creator-spring.com/ And finally, if you would like to support our efforts to improve...

I've been meaning to share this with you for quite a while - probably since I started The Meaning Project Podcast.  "Homo Noeticus" is the name Dr. Ann V. Graber gives to the potential evolution of humankind in her 2005 speech at the World Congress of Logotherapy, commemorating the life of Dr. Viktor Frankl.  Dr. Graber, as you will hear in the podcast, was instrumental in my decision to study log...

For those who follow along on social media - which I am not very good at, so don't feel compelled to follow along, but if you want to, I believe the links are on this page and on my website - for those of you who do, you know I attended The Purpose Summit 2022 at the University of Notre Dame a few weeks ago.  Now, this was not my normal CEU (continuing education unit) psychology oriented conferenc...

This conversation with Rabbi B. started with me saying, "B., I'm getting calls to come talk about Mental Health & Meaning from places I never would've expected it - construction, manufacturing, business... People are struggling." And so it went. That's the funny thing about working with Rabbi B., our combined training and experience seems to connect some great ideas together. In this discussion, h...

Today we celebrate Memorial Day in the US - the unofficial start to summer - more importantly, the day we remember those who sacrificed their lives in military service. My good friend, Chief (retired) Paul shares his experience in the military - what led to his decision, how he survived and thrived in adversity, and now, what retirement means to him. Enjoy! For professionals looking to help milita...

Money. Little green, or other-colored, pieces of paper. Numbers and decimals on a screen. Simple, as an object. But money has so much more emotional connotation - it represents work we've done, and opportunity ahead of us. It is ripe with the potential for meaning. But it also causes serious conflict - both interpersonally, and in our own selves. Therefore, it can also have a considerable negative...

Manya Chylinski was at the finish line of the Boston Marathon in 2013 when the bombs went off. She was fortunate to suffer minimal physical damage. But the mental/emotional trauma she suffered last far longer than she expected. Fortunately, even though she didn't know of the science of "Resilience", she knew to take steps in that direction. I've spoken quite a bit about the opportunity to discover...

I often speak of turning suffering into achievement in my logotherapy work - one way to do this is by becoming more RESILIENT. Resilience has become an important field of major study in recent years, and Dr. Steven Southwick has led the way with some outstanding research. However, the world lost a great contributor to the field of Resilience and Mental Health & Meaning in the past few weeks. Dr. S...

You may have noticed I missed a week - you can hear a little bit about why in this podcast, it's just been a busy few weeks, but this last week was especially rough. I hope you don't mind me sharing about it, and how I apply the principles of Logotherapy in my own life in this episode. I also share about some of the writings from Dr.'s Maria & Edward Marshall's latest textbook on Existential Dynam...