What is a Good Life?

In this episode of What is a Good Life , host Mark McCartney sits down with Lior Steinberg , a Rotterdam-based urban planner and co-founder of Humankind, a multidisciplinary team working toward urban happiness for all. Lior is also the author of the children's book The Car That Wanted to Be a Bike . Together they unpack why so many cities remain trapped in car-centric design decades after urbanist...

What does it mean to live a truly meaningful life and why do so many of us feel an emptiness even at the height of our success? In this episode, Mark sits down with Kadam Adam Starr, who has been an international teacher of meditation and Buddhism for over 20 years and is the principal teacher at Tara Kadampa Meditation Centre in Dublin. Adam walked away from a corporate media career in 2005 to pu...

Dr. Karen L. Jacob is a clinical psychologist, Program Director of the Gunderson Residence at McLean Hospital, and Assistant Professor of Psychology at Harvard Medical School. She specialises in the assessment and treatment of personality disorders, with particular expertise in borderline personality disorder. In this conversation Karen talks about growing up with a love of art, spending four year...

In this episode, Dan talks with Mark about trading 80-90 hour work weeks and a self-medicating lifestyle in London for the forests and lakes of northern Sweden. He shares how his father's death became a turning point, how cold water swimming became a doorway back into his body, and how a small group of friends turned a Sunday morning dip into a movement. The conversation explores trust, surrender,...

Lucinda Millward is the founder of The Baskerville Project and a practitioner in embodied relational practice - bringing creativity, the body, and the nervous system into collective inquiry. She works across executive education, the arts, and public contexts, holds degrees from the University of Oxford, the Guildhall School of Music & Drama, and RADA and King’s College London, and has served f...

This week Mark McCartney sits down with Sam Smith. Sam sees life as a big old experiment. He used to play professional rugby, before starting a few businesses. Now he spends his time speaking to people, writing and loving his family. Last year he wrote his first book, The Door Was Never Locked . His latest project with his friend Garth, Conscious Soup launches soon, it's a Living Experiment. They...

What is it about dogs? It's the question Doug Skoke has been sitting with and it turns out, trying to understand what makes his golden doodle Harley tick has become one of his most impactful explorations of how to actually live well. Doug is the Founder & CEO of LFG NOW!, a boutique executive search firm, and a Gallup-certified CliftonStrengths Coach - but what defines him more than any title...

In this episode of What is a Good Life? , Mark McCartney sits down with Jennifer Garvey Berger - author, global leadership coach, and co-founder and CEO of Cultivating Leadership - to explore one of the most honest questions a person can ask: am I actually living in alignment with what I say matters most? Jennifer has spent decades helping leaders untangle big questions and find more courageous, c...

In this episode of What is a Good Life?, Mark McCartney sits down with Laura Beckingham - a modern mystic for turbulent times. It's a conversation that remains as grounded in the bread and butter of life as it ascends into the spiritual. We move from asking what existence is all about through radical inclusion, Family Constellations, ancestral wisdom, the right size in relationships, grief and dea...

In this episode of What is a Good Life?, Mark McCartney sits down with Dave Snowden - Founder and Chief Scientific Officer of The Cynefin Co., creator of the Cynefin Framework, and one of the most original thinkers working at the intersection of complexity science, organisational design, and human decision-making. The conversation moves through substrate theory, complexity science, psychological s...

What if it were easy? What would you do if you weren't afraid? This week I am joined by Dr Myriam Hadnes who shares with us two questions that have really influenced her life. We explore how passion can grow through doing rather than preceding it, why conflict in relationships can be a form of intimacy rather than a threat to it, and what it really means to act in integrity even when the cost is p...

Robert J. Anderson joins the show for a wide-ranging conversation about purpose, intuition, shadow work, and the question that has guided his life. He talks beautifully about doubt and fear alongside grace and synchronicity, and what it takes to keep saying yes when you can't see where it's going. Robert J. Anderson has been a pace setter in the field of Leadership Development for over 30 years. H...

What does a truly good life look like - and how do we find our way back to it? In this episode of What is a Good Life?, Mark McCartney speaks with Ally Kingston about recovering the capacity for "right relationship": with ourselves, with nature, with community, and with something greater. Ally is a creative strategist and facilitator, and strategy lead at non-profit Purpose Disruptors and Agency f...

How do you hold on to that feeling of childlike enchantment that you remember as a kid? In this captivating conversation, Mark sits down with Sam Lee, singer, composer, and author. We explore the nature of wonder, the role of ritual, and the significance of rite of passages and thresholds. He talks about his apprenticeship to Scottish traveller and balladeer Stanley Robertson and how that complete...

What does it mean to be fully alive? Mark sits down with Joel Monk to explore the journey from spiritual bypassing to embodiment. They talk about dark nights of the soul, the "yum" of visceral wellbeing, trauma-informed healing, the role of grace and prayer, and what it actually means to feel safe, okay, and enough. An episode for anyone on a path of dropping deeper into their own humanity and bod...

What makes a life truly good? In this rich and wide-ranging conversation, Mark speaks with Bruce Anderson, Executive Director of the Core Gift Institute, about the three kinds of glue that hold relationships, communities, and the world together: gifts, welcoming, and ritual. Bruce shares why he believes our primary gifts are not earned but given to us through spirit and why they always emerge from...

What does it mean to trust yourself when the path isn't clear? Kaylyn Lehmann is Co-founder and Executive Coach at Simplified Coach, a former VP of HR, and a specialist in neuroscience leadership and character strengths. Over the past decade she has coached hundreds of C-level and high-potential executives across high tech, biotech and highly funded start-ups.  Drawing on a formative experience of...

Most conversations about money stay on the surface. This one doesn't. Mark McCartney sits down with Bogumil Baranowski — investment advisor, author of Crisis Investing and Money Life Family , host of Talking Billions podcast, and profound thinker on the intersection of wealth and human experience. In this episode, they go deep on why money is one of the most emotionally charged forces in human lif...

What does it mean to be fully human — and to live from that place? Nicholas Janni has been working with CEO’s and senior teams globally for over twenty-five years, and teaches at two of the world’s leading business schools, pioneering a new vision and practice of leadership. He bridges the worlds of creative, personal, spiritual and professional development in a uniquely powerful, relevant and acc...

Dr Scilla Elworthy is a three-time Nobel Peace Prize nominee for her work with Oxford Research Group to develop effective dialogue between nuclear weapons policy-makers worldwide and their critics from 1983-2003. She founded Peace Direct in 2002 to fund, promote and learn from local peace-builders in conflict areas, was awarded the Niwano Peace Prize in 2003, the Luxembourg Peace Prize in 2020, th...

In this episode of What Is a Good Life? , Mark McCartney is joined by Jasper Walshe, coach, facilitator and founder of TRIPS Tank™, for an honest and wide-ranging conversation about identity, self-trust and what it really means to live well. Jasper traces his journey from fixating on high-performance coaching to a deeper, more grounded relationship with himself — touching on psychotherapy breakthr...

What does it take to be happy? And why does happiness so often slip away? In this episode of What Is a Good Life? , Mark McCartney is joined by Rasmus Hougaard for a conversation that moves from childhood questions about happiness, to monasteries in Nepal, to the boardrooms where he now works to transform leadership. Rasmus is the Founder and Chairman of Potential Project and was nominated by Thin...

What does it really mean to live a coherent life? In this episode of What Is a Good Life , Mark McCartney is joined by João Sevilhano for a deep, reflective conversation on coherence, something that goes beyond rigid moral ideals and is more a lived, imperfect practice. João is a psychologist and learning experience designer. Co-CEO of Way Beyond, where he works on human development and organisati...

How do we live in harmony with each other and the natural world? Cindy Forde is a thought leader and acclaimed author with over 25 years dedicated to systems change. In 2023, she won the Change Champion Award alongside leaders such as David Attenborough and Malala Yusafzai for her children's book 'Bright New World,' which was adopted by the Australian National Curriculum. She founded Planetari, pi...

What is a Good Life? #158 | Finding Self-Love Beyond Achievement Where do you belong? How do you best use your gifts? These questions have followed Alan Wilson throughout his life—from childhood football pitches to corporate boardrooms. In this deeply honest conversation, Alan shares his journey from seeking external validation to cultivating self-love, exploring how grief, self-inquiry, and simpl...