Good Life Project
Jonathan Fields / Acast
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Recent Episodes
What Lucky People Do Differently, According to Science | Tina Seelig
Luck is not a personality trait you either have or you don't. It is something you build, and science tells us there are specific, learnable skills behind why some people consistently seem to be in the right place at the right time while others walk right past the same opportunities. Tina Seelig has spent over 25 years at Stanford teaching and studying exactly this. As Executive Director of the Knight-Hennessy Scholars program and a longtime faculty member at the Stanford d.school, she has watched thousands of students move through the world, and the differences between those who generate luck and those who don't are far more concrete and actionable than most people realize. Her new book is What I Wish I Knew About Luck: A Crash Course on Turning Aspirations into Achievements. In this conversation, you will explore: What separates fortune from luck, and why that distinction changes everything about where you actually have agency in your lifeThe ship, crew, and sail framework for understanding what it really takes to become luckier, and where most people skip a stepWhy your mental model of failure, whether it feels like a trampoline or a black hole, may be the single most powerful predictor of how much luck you createThe hidden social behaviors that consistently show up in the luckiest people, from thank-you notes to a very specific way of asking for helpWhy luck is a long game, and the story of how behavior at a disastrous Costa Rica resort determined the outcome of a job interview fifteen years later If you have ever looked at someone who seems consistently lucky and wondered what they are doing differently, this conversation will give you some clear answers. You can find Tina at: LinkedIn | Episode Transcript Next week, we are featuring one of our most talked-about conversations from the archive, Tj Power on the four brain chemicals that are quietly running your life and why the modern environment is throwing them out of balance in ways that make everything from motivation to genuine connection harder than it should be. Be sure to follow Good Life Project wherever you get your podcasts so you don’t miss any upcoming episodes! Check out our offerings & partners: Join My New Writing Project: Awake at the WheelVisit Our Sponsor Page For Great Resources & Discount Codes Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Why Rituals Matter More Than You Know, And How to Design Your Own | Bruce Feiler
There is a particular kind of loneliness that hits in the middle of a full life. Not because you are isolated. Because the relationships that used to hold you steady are all being renegotiated at once. Your kids have left. A parent has died. A marriage needs new terms. A friendship has frayed. And the cultural rituals that once helped people move through moments like this are mostly gone. Bruce Feiler has spent the last three years traveling to 26 countries, attending over 100 ceremonies, and interviewing hundreds of people to understand what happens when we stop gathering in intentional ways. He's a seven-time New York Times bestselling author and the creator of the LifeQuakes framework. His new book, A Time to Gather, makes the case that we are living through both a celebration recession and a ritual renaissance at the same time. In this conversation, Bruce and Jonathan explore what it actually means to feel homesick in your own home, why the four traditional life rituals no longer match the lives most of us are actually living, and what it looks like to design a ritual from scratch when the ones you inherited don't fit. What you'll explore in this conversation: Why 5,000 Civil War soldiers were officially diagnosed as dying of homesickness, and what that history reveals about the longing you feel nowThe five building blocks of any ritual, from drawing the circle to creating a web of hope, and how to use them to mark a moment that mattersWhy Bruce calls this a celebration recession: what we stopped doing, when, and what's quietly replacing itThe live ritual Bruce helps Jonathan design in real time, walking through every step from welcome to closeWhy rituals are not just for grief and weddings, and the new ceremonies people are creating for divorce, mastectomies, miscarriages, sobriety, and career endings If you have ever felt the ground shift under you and not known how to steady yourself with the people you love most, this is the conversation for it. You can find Bruce at: Website | Instagram | Episode Transcript Next week, we're sharing our conversation with Stanford professor Tina Seelig to talk about something most of us have completely backwards: how luck actually works, and why most of what we call luck is the result of deliberate actions hiding in plain sight. If you have ever wondered why some people seem to catch every break while others keep missing them, this is going to change the way you see that. Be sure to follow Good Life Project wherever you get your podcasts so you don’t miss any upcoming episodes! Check out our offerings & partners: Join My New Writing Project: Awake at the WheelVisit Our Sponsor Page For Great Resources & Discount Codes Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Dating in Midlife…Oh My! | Bela Gandhi
Here is something most of us have never been told: falling in love was never supposed to be easy, and the fact that it hasn't been isn't a character flaw. It's a design problem. Your biology may be working against you. Your cultural programming works against you. But, more than anything, the list you've been carrying around of what you want in a partner is almost certainly pointing you in the wrong direction. Bela Gandhi is a dating coach and the founder of Smart Dating Academy, where she has helped thousands of people find lasting relationships. She was a longtime dating expert on Good Morning America and the Steve Harvey Show and built her methodology after realizing that love, like anything else worth doing, benefits from a system. What you'll explore in this conversation: Why 74% of third marriages end in divorce, and what that tells us about how most people approach finding a partnerThe "elevator people" exercise that reveals what you actually need in a relationship, and why it almost never matches your dream listHow biology, attachment patterns, and cultural messaging conspire to make us fall for the wrong people, again and againWhat highly accomplished, independent women often get wrong in the dating world, and what to do about it insteadWhy attraction can grow rather than just appear, and how pacing changes everything If you've been wondering whether love is still possible for you at this stage of life, Bela's answer is clear. She's seen too many people find it at 50, 60, and beyond to believe otherwise. You can find Bela at: Website | Instagram | Episode Transcript Next week, we're sitting down with seven-time New York Times bestselling author Bruce Feiler to talk about something most of us have felt but never quite had words for: the particular loneliness that arrives in the middle of a full life, when the relationships that used to hold you steady are all being renegotiated at once, and the rituals that helped people move through moments like these for thousands of years have largely disappeared. Be sure to follow Good Life Project wherever you get your podcasts so you don’t miss any upcoming episodes! Check out our offerings & partners: Join My New Writing Project: Awake at the WheelVisit Our Sponsor Page For Great Resources & Discount Codes Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Your Ambitions Might Not Be Yours | Tom Rath
Most of us reach our 40s and discover something unsettling: the ambitions we've been chasing weren't entirely ours. They came from parents, from culture, from the two or three careers we happened to see up close. Tom Rath calls this looking through a pinhole, and he thinks it explains more midlife restlessness than most of us are willing to admit. Tom is one of the most widely-read researchers on how careers shape health and wellbeing. His books, including the instant number one New York Times bestseller How Full Is Your Bucket? and StrengthsFinder 2.0, have sold more than 10 million copies. His latest book is What's the Point?: Turning Purpose into Your Daily Superpower. In this conversation, you'll explore: Why only 50 jobs represent half the entire labor market, and what that means for the choices you made at 18The difference between a ladder and a garden as frameworks for a life and why one of them is making you miserableWhat headstones actually say (and never say) about what we thought matteredThe legacy question that most people answer wrong and what Tom's grandfather's final hours taught him about the purest form of givingWhy purpose is less about finding your calling and more about something entirely different There's a particular kind of grief that comes from realizing your striving belonged to someone else. This conversation is for anyone in midlife who's starting to ask whether the ladder they've been climbing was theirs to begin with. You can find Tom at: Website | Instagram | Episode Transcript Next week, we're sharing our conversation with Bela Gandhi to talk about why midlife is actually the moment most people become more ready for a real relationship — and what's quietly getting in the way. Be sure to follow Good Life Project wherever you get your podcasts so you don’t miss any upcoming episodes! Check out our offerings & partners: Join My New Writing Project: Awake at the WheelVisit Our Sponsor Page For Great Resources & Discount Codes Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Why Can’t Anyone Tell Me What’s Wrong? | Alexandra Sifferlin
Ever have something clearly wrong, and yet no expert can tell you what’s causing it? Or, worse, they DO tell you, but they’re wrong? Nearly everyone will experience at least one diagnostic error in their lifetime. Not a minor mix-up, but a missed, delayed, or wrong diagnosis that shapes how long you suffer, what treatment you receive, and whether anyone believes something is actually wrong with you. For people in midlife, when the body starts sending new signals and the stakes of getting it right feel higher, that statistic carries a particular weight. Alexandra Sifferlin is a science and health journalist and the author of The Elusive Body: Patients, Doctors, and the Diagnosis Crisis. She spent years inside hospital systems, talking with leading diagnosticians, tracing families who waited decades for answers, and mapping the structural gaps that let real suffering fall through. Her book is dedicated to her sister, who spent years being told her severe hip pain was a pillow-placement problem, until imaging revealed torn cartilage that required surgery. In this conversation, you will explore: Why receiving a diagnosis is more than a medical event, and how a diagnosis gives you permission to be ill (in the best of ways)How physicians actually build a diagnosis in real time, and what gets lost when appointments shrink to seven minutes The case of the Proctor family, five siblings from rural Kentucky who spent decades with a mysterious, painful condition before becoming the first diagnosed case of the NIH's Undiagnosed Diseases Program Why the best diagnosticians in the country share one habit that has nothing to do with medical genius How AI note-taking in the exam room is making some appointments more human, not less What to do when you've seen four practitioners and nobody can tell you what's wrong If you've ever walked out of a doctor's office with more questions than you arrived with, this conversation is for it. You can find Alexandra at: Website | Instagram | Episode Transcript Next week, we're sharing a really meaningful conversation with Tom Rath, whose books have shaped how millions of people think about their work and lives. His new book makes a direct challenge to the whole "find your passion, follow your purpose" framework, and argues that the source of real fulfillment isn't looking deeper inside yourself. It's what you contribute to other people every day. Be sure to follow Good Life Project wherever you get your podcasts so you don’t miss any upcoming episodes! Check out our offerings & partners: Join My New Writing Project: Awake at the WheelVisit Our Sponsor Page For Great Resources & Discount Codes Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
How to Finally Have the Talk You've Been Avoiding | Jonathan Fields
There is a conversation most of us are carrying right now. Not one we lack words for. We have plenty of those. One we keep finding reasons not to have. Not because we don't know what we'd say, but because we have become very skilled at building the case for staying quiet a little longer. Jonathan Fields has spent a lot of time in that particular waiting room. This solo episode starts with a story he describes as embarrassing in the specific way only true stories about your own behavior can be embarrassing: a decade-long friendship, a thing said in passing that he never addressed, and the slow drift that followed because he never said it. It's a story many people in midlife will recognize without needing the details changed. What you'll explore in this episode: Why intelligent, emotionally capable people are often the most skilled architects of avoidance, and what that architecture actually looks like from the insideThe difference between protecting a relationship and protecting yourself from discomfort, and how easy it is to mistake one for the otherFour distinct types of difficult conversations and why knowing which one you're actually having changes everything about how to beginWhy the perfect moment to have the conversation you've been postponing doesn't exist, and what to do insteadHow to open a hard conversation without scripting it, performing it, or trying to win itA question to carry with you, not answer immediately, that may be the most honest thing in this entire episode For anyone in midlife who has been living carefully around something true that needs to be said, this one is for you. Episode Transcript Next week, we are sitting down with journalist Alexandra Sifferlin to talk about why millions of Americans are living with conditions that doctors simply cannot name, and what that does to a person when the system meant to help you keeps coming up empty. Be sure to follow Good Life Project wherever you get your podcasts so you do not miss any upcoming episodes. Check out our offerings & partners: Join My New Writing Project: Awake at the WheelVisit Our Sponsor Page For Great Resources & Discount Codes Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Invisible Grief: How Hidden Loss Holds You Back (and how to release it) | Dr. Lucy Hone
There is a gap between where your life is and where you thought it would be. That gap has a name. It is grief. A kind of hidden, invisible grief. And most of us are walking around carrying it without ever calling it that, because we have been taught that grief belongs only to those who have lost someone to death. The rest of us are supposed to just get on with it. Dr. Lucy Hone is an adjunct senior fellow at the University of Canterbury, a leading resilience researcher, and one of the world's most trusted voices on loss and grief. Her TED talk on resilience has been viewed more than nine million times. She is also a mother who lost her 12-year-old daughter, Abi, in a car accident in 2014, and who has spent the decade since weaving her scientific training and her lived experience into tools that actually work. Her new book is How Will I Ever Get Through This? In this conversation, we go to the places most conversations about grief are afraid to go. What you will explore: Why grief is not an emotion but a full-body experience that explains the exhaustion, brain fog, and 3 am waking you may have been blaming on other thingsWhat "living losses" are, the griefs that come without a funeral, and why they may be driving far more of our suffering than we recognizeThe difference between acceptance and coming to terms with, and why one word changes everything about how you move through lossWhat the research actually shows about post-traumatic growth, including the statistic that will surprise you about how common it actually isWhy resilience is not about bouncing back, and what Dr. Hone means when she says you do not bounce back from anything that mattersThe one question she asks herself in the hardest moments, and why it is a more useful starting point than any technique If you have ever minimized something you were going through because it did not feel like it counted as real loss, this conversation is for you. You can find Lucy at: Website | Instagram | Episode Transcript Next week, I am going solo to talk about something that I think a lot of us are quietly carrying, the conversations we know we need to have with the people who matter most to us, and why we keep finding reasons not to have them. The research turns out to be really clear on this: we consistently overestimate how bad it will be and underestimate how much it costs us to stay silent. Be sure to follow Good Life Project wherever you get your podcasts so you don’t miss any upcoming episodes! Check out our offerings & partners: Join My New Writing Project: Awake at the WheelVisit Our Sponsor Page For Great Resources & Discount Codes Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Your Life in One Word? This Could Change Everything | Erin Weed
Somewhere in the last few years, a lot of us started asking a version of the same question: who am I now, and what am I actually here to do? The answers don't come from a quiz or a vision board. But they just might come from the one word that has been running your life all along, whether you knew it or not. Erin Weed is a speaker coach, keynote speaker, and the creator of the Dig, a purpose-excavation method she has used with over a thousand leaders, founders, and changemakers across every stage of life and reinvention. Her new book, Just One Word: The Surprisingly Simple Method to Discover Your Purpose and Unleash Your Power, is the culmination of that work. She also spent over a decade as head speaker coach for TEDxBoulder, helping people find the one true thing they need to say and the courage to say it. In this conversation, you get to watch the Dig happen in real time, because Jonathan sits down in the chair and lets Erin guide him through the full process. What you will explore: What the Dig is and why close to 100% of people who think they know their word are actually wrongHow your life story, all of it, from childhood to present day, contains a 10-word operating system that explains exactly how you tickWhy your deepest violations, the things that make you genuinely angry, point directly toward your core wordThe difference between the word you think defines you and the one that actually doesHow knowing your word changes the way you make decisions, support the people you love, and build the things that matter most to youWhat Jonathan's word turned out to be, and the moment in the conversation where it landed If you have ever felt like you were circling your purpose without quite landing on it, this conversation is for you. You can find Erin at: Website | Instagram | Episode Transcript Next week, we're sharing our conversation with Dr. Lucy Hone to talk about something most of us are carrying without ever calling it what it is: the grief that comes without a funeral, the losses that do not count as real loss in our culture but may be driving more of our suffering than we know. Be sure to follow Good Life Project wherever you get your podcasts so you don’t miss any upcoming episodes! Check out our offerings & partners: Join My New Writing Project: Awake at the WheelVisit Our Sponsor Page For Great Resources & Discount Codes Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
The 5 Types of Overthinking and How to Turn Each One Off | Emiliya Zhivotovskaya [Best of]
The voice telling you that you're not enough, that something is about to go wrong, that you should have done it differently, it sounds like you. That's exactly what makes it so hard to catch and so hard to stop. Emiliya Zhivotovskaya has spent decades inside the science and practice of mental wellbeing, training thousands of coaches worldwide through her Certification in Applied Positive Psychology program. Her own path into this work began with a personal reckoning. An eating disorder that started in adolescence, years of thoughts she couldn't separate from herself, and the moment someone first told her she didn't have to be a passive recipient of what her mind was doing to her. In this conversation, we go deep into the phenomenon most of us call overthinking and find out it's not one thing. It's five distinct types of chatter, each with its own voice, its own purpose, and its own specific antidote. What you'll explore: The five types of mind chatter: worry, motivation, mindset, judgment, and regret. And how to tell which one is running you at any given momentWhy high-level worriers actually problem-solve less effectively, and what to do with anxiety that won't respond to "just let it go"The "I can't... yet" reframe that shifts a fixed mindset in a single word, and why it works where positive affirmations don'tHow to take your brain to court, the evidence-based tool for the thoughts that insist you're not enoughWhy your chatter isn't trying to destroy you, and what it's actually asking for If you've ever found yourself exhausted not by what's happening, but by what your mind keeps doing with it, this is the conversation for it. You can find Emiliya at: Website | Instagram | Mind Over Chatter Course | Episode Transcript Next week, we're sharing our conversation with Erin Weed, talking about her book Just One Word, and the surprisingly simple method she's used to help over a thousand people unlock their purpose and finally feel clear on who they are and where they're headed. If you've ever felt like you're searching for that through-line in your life, this conversation is for you. Check out our offerings & partners: Join My New Writing Project: Awake at the WheelVisit Our Sponsor Page For Great Resources & Discount Codes Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
The Hidden Reason You Keep Putting Things Off | Jon Acuff
What if procrastination has been working exactly as intended? Not as a character flaw, not as laziness, but as a solution you invented for a problem you were more afraid of than the thing you kept putting off. That reframe changes everything about how you approach it. Jon Acuff has spent decades thinking about why people with real ability, real ideas, and real desire still find ways to delay the work that matters most. His newest book, Procrastination Proof, is the result of working with hundreds of thousands of people on this exact struggle. He brings both the humor of someone who has personally been inside the loop and the precision of someone who has studied the patterns long enough to see what's actually underneath them. In this conversation we get into: Why procrastination is a solution, just not the best one, and what that distinction means for how you actually change itThe four permissions most of us never gave ourselves: to dream, to plan, to do, and to reviewHow desire creates discipline, not the other way around, and why willpower is the wrong tool entirelyThe broken soundtracks that sound like reasons but are really just fear in disguiseWhat "the opposite of procrastination" actually looks like, and why it has nothing to do with productivity If there's something you've been wanting to do for months or years, and you keep finding new reasons why this isn't quite the right time, this conversation is worth your hour. You can find Jon at: Website | Instagram | Episode Transcript Next week, we're sharing our conversation with Emiliya Zhivotovskaya to talk about what's actually happening when you can't stop the spin cycle in your head, and more importantly, what to do about it. Check out our offerings & partners: Join My New Writing Project: Awake at the WheelVisit Our Sponsor Page For Great Resources & Discount Codes Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Your Childhood Patterns Are Still Running Your Life | Dr. Nicole LePera
The anxiety you carry, the way you go silent in conflict, the relentless drive that never quite feels like enough, these didn't start with you. They started much earlier, in relationships and environments your body learned to survive before you had words for any of it. And according to Dr. Nicole LePera, until you understand what your nervous system actually encoded in those years, you'll keep bumping into the same walls, the same patterns, the same exhaustion. Dr. Nicole LePera is a clinical psychologist trained at Cornell University and the New School for Social Research, a New York Times bestselling author, and the founder of the global SelfHealers community. Her new book, Reparenting the Inner Child, brings together neuroscience, attachment research, and epigenetics to explain not just why we are the way we are, but how real change actually happens in the body, not just the mind. In this conversation, you'll explore: Why your childhood adaptations were brilliant at the time, and how they became the patterns holding you back nowWhat the inner child actually is (the science, not the cliche), and why insight alone isn't enough to change itThe neuroscience of emotional flooding: what's happening in your body when you can't just calm down, no matter how much you want toWhy midlife is often the moment these old patterns finally surface, and why that's not regression, it's readinessThe epigenetics of stress: how your ancestors' survival adaptations may be running your nervous system todayWhere to actually begin if you want to do this work without needing to excavate everything that happened to you as a child If you've spent years doing the work and still find yourself reacting in ways that don't feel like you, this conversation will help you understand why, and what to do next. You can find Nicole at: Website | Instagram | Episode Transcript Next week, we're sharing our conversation with Jon Acuff about why procrastination is not actually your problem and the surprising permission shift that happens when you finally finish what matters most. Follow Good Life Project wherever you get your podcasts so you never miss an episode. Check out our offerings & partners: Join My New Writing Project: Awake at the WheelVisit Our Sponsor Page For Great Resources & Discount Codes Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
You Probably Shouldn’t Say That. And Yet…(Groundbreaking Science of Disagreeing Well) | Julia Minson
Learn how to say what you think without blowing up your relationships. Most of us have been there. A conversation that starts completely normally and somehow ends with you lying awake at 2am wondering how it went so wrong, again. Whether it is a partner, a teenager, a colleague, or someone on the other side of a political divide, the cost of disagreement done badly is one of the quietest, most cumulative kinds of pain there is. Julia Minson is a behavioral scientist and professor at the Harvard Kennedy School who has spent years studying the psychology of disagreement, researching how people handle opinions, judgments, and beliefs that differ from their own, and what it actually takes to navigate those moments without losing the relationship in the process. Her book How to Disagree Better distills that research into a practical, science-backed guide for anyone ready to do the real work of staying connected across difference. In this conversation, you will discover: The single most common mistake people make at the start of a disagreement that almost guarantees it will escalate into a full argumentThe HEAR framework, a four-part behavioral science tool for expressing your view firmly without triggering defensiveness or shutting the other person downWhy leading with facts and data backfires when you are talking to someone who already disagrees with you, and what to use instead that dramatically increases trustA critical practice for building disagreement skills on low-stakes conversations first, so you are not white-knuckling it when the big moments arriveWhy empathy is wonderful in theory but unreliable in the heat of the moment, and what to focus on instead that actually shifts the dynamic If you are tired of watching important relationships quietly erode one hard conversation at a time, this episode is for you. Press play and let's figure out how to disagree better, together. You can find Julia at: Website | LinkedIn | Episode Transcript Next week, we're sharing our conversation with Dr. Nicole LePera, New York Times best-selling author of Reparenting the Inner Child, about why so many of us feel stuck in patterns we can't seem to escape, no matter how hard we try. And what's actually happening in your nervous system when that happens. It's a grounding, hopeful conversation. Check out our offerings & partners: Join My New Writing Project: Awake at the WheelVisit Our Sponsor Page For Great Resources & Discount Codes Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Your Body Is Already Talking. Here's What It's Saying | Linda Clemons
Before you ever say a word, you've already told the room everything it needs to know. Your posture, your eye contact, the angle of your body, the openness of your chest — all of it is speaking. And most of us have no idea what it's saying. Linda Clemons is a world-renowned body language and nonverbal communication expert who has spent more than three decades training Fortune 500 CEOs, sales teams, celebrities, and media leaders to master the silent signals that build trust, command respect, and create connection. Her bestselling book Hush: How to Radiate Power and Confidence Without Saying a Word is a practical guide to the conversation your body is having without you. We explore why 93% of communication is nonverbal and what that actually means in practice, the four power zones of the body and why keeping them open changes everything from a job interview to a conversation with your teenager, how our biases show up in our bodies before they ever come out of our mouths, the three patterns that derail us in high-stakes moments — frozen, flooding, and flat — and how to move through them, and why the question that changes everything is not what do I want to say but how do I want this person to feel when they leave? A deeply practical, energizing conversation for anyone who wants to show up more powerfully, more warmly, and more authentically in every interaction that matters. You can find Linda at: Website | LinkedIn | Episode Transcript If you LOVED this episode: You’ll also love our conversation with Julia Minson about how to disagree better so you can have less drama and more impact in your life, your work, and your community. Check out our offerings & partners: Join My New Writing Project: Awake at the WheelVisit Our Sponsor Page For Great Resources & Discount Codes Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
The Science Behind Why Religion Actually Works | David DeSteno
People who are genuinely engaged in spiritual practice live longer, experience 30% lower all-cause mortality, report more meaning, and suffer less depression. The data are remarkably clear. And yet, more people are leaving organized religion than at any point in modern history. So what happens when we walk away from the institutions but still carry the hunger for what they provided? David DeSteno is a professor of psychology at Northeastern University who has spent his career studying the mechanisms behind moral behavior, social emotions, and what he calls spiritual technologies — the rituals and practices baked into faith traditions that science is now showing work on our minds and bodies in measurable, powerful ways, whether or not we believe in God. He is also the author of How God Works: The Science Behind the Benefits of Religion. We explore what the research actually shows about why religious engagement improves health outcomes so dramatically, the Hindu concept of vana prastha and why midlife may be the exact moment to shift from accumulating to sharing wisdom, how rituals like contemplating death, practicing gratitude, and moving in synchrony with others change our brains and behavior, why extracting spiritual practices from their original containers can sometimes backfire, and what it might look like to build a new kind of spiritual life if you've left the one you were raised in. A rare conversation that takes both science and the sacred seriously — without asking you to choose between them. You can find David at: Website | Bluesky | Episode Transcript Next week, we're sharing our conversation with Linda Clemons about how your body is speaking for you before you ever open your mouth. Be sure to follow Good Life Project wherever you get your podcasts so you don’t miss any upcoming episodes! Check out our offerings & partners: Join My New Writing Project: Awake at the WheelVisit Our Sponsor Page For Great Resources & Discount Codes Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
The Practice of Holding Nothing | Elena Brower
Elena Brower spent two decades as one of the most visible yoga and meditation teachers in the world, stages of thousands, a growing platform, the whole forward-facing life. Then she started doing the opposite. She got quieter. She trained as a chaplain. She began sitting with people in hospice, in silence, holding nothing but presence. Her new book, Hold Nothing, draws on that journey and on an ancient Chinese sutra that became her compass: Welcome nothing. Refuse nothing. Reflect everything. Hold nothing. This is a conversation about what happens when the drive to impact as many people as possible gives way to the desire to impact as few as possible, as quietly as possible. We explore what Elena's time in hospice has revealed about presence as the ultimate offering, the hidden cost of living a double life while teaching wholeness, how the practice of letting go transforms the closest relationships in your life, why silence is the thing most of us are allergic to and also the thing we most need, and what it actually means to prepare, through every small daily choice, to die a good death, and why that might be the clearest definition of a good life. A deeply honest, quietly powerful conversation for anyone in midlife who is beginning to sense that the most important work ahead isn't about building more, it's about becoming less. You can find Elena at: Website | Instagram | Episode Transcript Next week, we're sharing our conversation with Dave DeSteno about the 'spiritual technology' that can lower your stress and mortality risk, even if you don't consider yourself a person of faith. Check out our offerings & partners: Join My New Writing Project: Awake at the WheelVisit Our Sponsor Page For Great Resources & Discount Codes Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.