Good Life Project || Inspiration | Motivation | Happiness | Meaning | Success

Funny thing about competence. With rare exception, we so often look at others and think they've got it so much more together than us.They're more skilled, smarter, more established, more connected, better able to do the thing we most want to do.Except, it's almost always a lie.We're all in that same "looking at the person ahead of us and wishing" boat. Thinking someday we'll get there. Or, maybe giving up and wondering how do we just be okay being okay.When we determine our own self-worth, happiness or sense of fulfillment in comparison to others, we always lose. Because we're comparing our insides to their outsides. And, even if we knew their insides, they're not us.So, here's the thing.This day. This moment. We ARE enough. You Are Enough.That's what this week's short and sweet GLP Riff is all about. And, it's a response to a listener email we recently received. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Today's Good Life Project Roundtable™ features guests-in-residence Daniel Lerner and Gabra Zackman. This is session 2 in their three-week residency.Dan Lerner is a leading expert on elite performance, excellence and the realization of unique potential, working with musicians, athletes, and numerous Fortune 500 companies and executives. He's on the faculty at both New York University (where he teaches the always waitlisted “The Science of Happiness”) and the University of Pennsylvania, where he works with the graduate program in Applied Positive Psychology. He is currently writing a book about the process and mindset that leads to healthy, uniquely individual excellence.Gabra Zackman is an actress, writer and voice over artist, frequent traveler and lover of adventure. She works regularly in theater, has a parallel and sustaining career in audiobook narration, having recorded over 300 audiobooks to date, and has had great success with her first writing contract, the humorous, romantic, spy-cente

Today's guest, Amy Koppelman, is a three-time novelist (so far), mom and an incredibly insightful human being. Her latest novel is Hesitation Wounds.Amy's second book, I SMILE BACK, was turned into a movie starring Sarah Silverman that premiered at the 2015 Sundance, Toronto and Deauville Film Festivals.I wanted to sit down with Amy, because I was drawn in by her immediate, visceral writing voice, her willingness to explore places that might scare off many others and also because of her lens on the writing journey and on life.In this conversation, not only does Amy share a bundle of unfiltered advice on the creative writing process, she also takes us, very transparently, into her personal journey and her lifelong dance with depression, becoming a mom and wife and author and how each affected the other.Listen in for some insightful thoughts on traversing the creative writing process to write your best work.  In This Episode, You’ll Learn:Why every creative writer’s process has to

In Buddhism as well as in the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, you'll find a conversation about four virtues known as the four immeasurables.These are qualities that we might seek to both cultivate and then embody in the name of service. But, they're also known to have a profound affect on the way we experience challenge, stress, relationships, work and pretty much all of life.Wondering what they are?Loving-kindnessCompassionAppreciative JoyEquanimityThese are four virtues that I try to explore and cultivate in life. But, I was also curious, what might happen if you worked to cultivate the four immeasurables specifically in the quest to craft a meaningful business or career?Exploring this question is what today's GLP Riff is all about. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Alec Ross is a Distinguished Visiting Fellow at Johns Hopkins University and the author of The New York Times bestseller The Industries of the Future.He recently served for four years as Senior Advisor for Innovation to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Prior to his service in government, Alec was a social entrepreneur and served as convener from technology, media & telecommunications policy on Barack Obama’s presidential campaign in 2008.Much of his interest in tapping technology and innovation to make a better world comes from his career as a sixth-grade teacher through Teach for America in inner-city Baltimore, during one of the most challenging times in the city's history, and also his upbringing in a small mining-turned-chemical town where opportunity was not always easily found.In his book, The Industries of the Future, he explores what he believes will be the major growth industries and also career opportunities for the next few decades, while also shining the light on some of the most fasci

Caroline Paul is the New York Times best-selling author of four books, including her memoir about being a San Francisco firefighter, called Fighting Fire, and the illustrated Lost Cat, A True Story of Love, Desperation, and GPS Technology. In her latest book, The Gutsy Girl: Escapades for Your Life of Epic Adventure, she shares her greatest escapades—as well as those of other girls and women from throughout history. The Gutsy Girl encourages a new generation to conquer fears, face challenges and pursue the lives they want—lives of confidence, self-reliance, friendship and fun.In This Episode, You'll Learn:Her unlikely path to becoming one of the first women in the San Francisco Fire Department.How she learned that her brother was a secret animal liberation leader for 20 years.Is there such a thing a 'girl books' and 'boy books'?The writing collective that kept her sane.Why she loves flying experimental planes, but not all the fancy gadgets and gear. Mentioned in This Episode:No Boys Allowed: School

I'm not a big surfer, but I grew up on the water and around the water.Over the years, I've noticed a number of powerful parallels between surfing and entrepreneurship. And, sitting at the beach one day, I started to think about what surfing might teach you about launching and growing a venture.I distilled these ideas into a short essay, which I'm sharing as spoken word in today's short and sweet Good Life Project Riff. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Today's Good Life Project Roundtable™ features guests-in-residence Daniel Lerner and Gabra Zackman. This is session 1 in their three-week residency.Dan Lerner is a leading expert on elite performance, excellence and the realization of unique potential, working with musicians, athletes, and numerous Fortune 500 companies and executives. He's on the faculty at both New York University (where he teaches the always waitlisted “The Science of Happiness”) and the University of Pennsylvania, where he works with the graduate program in Applied Positive Psychology. He is currently writing a book about the process and mindset that leads to healthy, uniquely individual excellence.Gabra Zackman is an actress, writer and voice over artist, frequent traveler and lover of adventure. She works regularly in theater, has a parallel and sustaining career in audiobook narration, having recorded over 300 audiobooks to date, and has had great success with her first writing contract,the humorous, romantic, spy-center

Today's guest, John O'Leary, has lived through worse than most can imagine.At age nine, a fire burned 100% of his body. He spent five months in the hospital, underwent dozens of surgeries, lost all of his fingers to amputation and had to relearn to walk, write, and feed himself.He endured, persevered, and survived – largely because others emerged, served and inspired. He now lives to share the life-giving lessons from his story in a new book, On Fire: The 7 Choices to Ignite a Radically Inspired Life.In This episode, You’ll Learn:+How the fire that burned him affected his siblings.What it was like to date and eventually find love and marryWhy the great goal of his life for so many years was just to be ordinaryHow he was called from carpenter and roof layer, to international inspirational speaker.How a book his parents wrote to say thank you to their community altered the course of his life forever.Four questions that you can ask yourself every day that will allow you to live an awesome min

Today's Guest Riff is brought to you by Katie Dalebout.She’s the author of the book Let It Out: A Journey Through Journaling.Katie helps people develop a positive image of their bodies by embracing their creativity and personality outside of their physicality. She’s on a mission to share journaling tools that invoke deeper authenticity and self-awareness.And, today's short and sweet GLP Riff is all about, you guessed it, journaling, what it is, what it isn't, what it does for you, why you should never edit when journaling and she even offers some tips and prompts to get you started. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Today's Good Life Project Roundtable™ features guests-in-residence Susan Piver and Lodro Rinzler. This is the last session in their three-week residency.Susan is a New York Times bestselling author, teacher, and founder of the international mindfulness community, The Open Heart Project. Working to create a good human world, one breath at a time.Lodro is a teacher in the Shambhala Buddhist lineage, the author of five books on meditation, and the founder of M N D F L, a new studio making meditation accessible to all New Yorkers, and the Institute for Compassionate Leadership. They'll be our guests-in-residence for the next three weeks, so buckle up.Our three topics in this episode:Who do you idolize and why?What does the future of meditation look like?There's no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothes.It's fast-paced, fun, utterly unscripted and at times a bit raw, but always good-natured and very real. Enjoy! And let us know if you like this format, over on social media. See acast.

Today's guest is Arianna Huffington, co-founder, president, and editor-in-chief of the Huffington Post Media Group, and author of fifteen books. In May 2005, she launched The Huffington Post, a news and blog site that quickly became one of the most widely-read, linked to, and frequently-cited media brands on the Internet. In 2012, the site won a Pulitzer Prize for national reporting. Huffington has been named to Time Magazine's list of the world’s 100 most influential people and the Forbes Most Powerful Women list. Originally from Greece, Huffington moved to England when she was 16 and graduated from Cambridge University with an M.A. in economics. At 21, she became president of the debating society, the Cambridge Union. She serves on numerous boards, including The Center for Public Integrity and The Committee to Protect Journalists. A devoted mom with a deepening focus on redefining the metrics of a life well-lived beyond business, she's decided to make sleep her revolutionary cause with her latest book, 

Finish what you start.Don't be a quitter.When the going gets tough, the tough get going.It's a lesson we all learned from well-intended advice-givers somewhere along the way. It's all about character.Life's hard, things get hard, the people who survive and do great things in business and life are the ones who keep going, no matter what the road throws in our way.But, what if that was wrong?FWhat if the people who do great things are are the ones who aren't afraid to quit a parade of wrong things in the name of making the space needed to see and then do the right ones?What if finishing what you started was only half the story? The other half being the potential benefits?This is what today's GLP Guest Riff is all about, and it comes from World Domination Summit founder and New York Times bestselling author of the new book, Born For This, Chris Guillebeau.Chris delivers some straight-shooting myth-busting about "stick-to-it-iveness," or when it makes sense to keep going and when the best option, both f

Today's Good Life Project Roundtable™ features guests-in-residence Susan Piver and Lodro Rinzler. This is session 2 in their three-week residency.Susan is a New York Times bestselling author, teacher, and founder of the international mindfulness community, The Open Heart Project. Working to create a good human world, one breath at a time.Lodro is a teacher in the Shambhala Buddhist lineage, the author of five books on meditation, and the founder of M N D F L, a new studio making meditation accessible to all New Yorkers, and the Institute for Compassionate Leadership.Our three topics in this episode:Is there such a thing as 'the one' in relationships and how do you know?Everyone wants to own the results, but why not the process?How to be okay when your co-workers reject you.It's fast-paced, fun, utterly unscripted and at times a bit raw, but always good-natured and very real. Enjoy! And let us know if you like this format, over on social media. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out

Today's conversation features Krista Tippett, a Peabody-award-winning broadcaster, New York Times bestselling author, and National Humanities Medalist.As the creator and host of public radio’s On Being, she takes up the great questions of meaning amidst the political, economic, cultural, and technological shifts of 21st century life.In 2013, Krista took On Being and its emergent Civil Conversations Project into independent production, creating "a social enterprise with a radio show at its heart." She grew up in Oklahoma, attended Brown University, was a journalist and diplomat in Cold War Berlin, and holds a masters of divinity from Yale.Her books include Einstein's God, Speaking of Faith, and most recently Becoming Wise: An Inquiry into the Mystery and Art of Living.In This episode, You’ll Learn:Lessons she drew from her hellfire and brimstone Southern Baptist grandfather.Her experience being in East Germany while the wall was still up.What drew her to divinity school.Why pitching her idea for On B

Spend 3 ½ days with us at the end of August at our "summer camp for grown-ups." Drop the facade, revel in new friendships, play, create, move, relax and learn powerful strategies for work and life. Learn more now!+This week's GLP Guest Riff comes from Productive Flourishing founder and process/growth maven, Charlie Gilkey.Charlie read Jonathan's original essay, The Content Delusion, which we aired as last week's GLP Riff, and felt the need to respond. He wanted to go deeper and explore what he calls the Sustainability Thesis, while also debunking two huge myths about building a business or a career.In this provocative, philosophical and actionable riff, he dives into the idea of "scaling" your business and why, for some, that is a fantastic idea, while for others, it is a terrible one. He also explores the "dollars for hours" myth for service professionals and offers a potential defense of it as a way to build a business that is so often maligned not only in the online space, but in the communi

Today's Good Life Project Roundtable™ features guests-in-residence Susan Piver and Lodro Rinzler. This is session 1 in their three-week residency.Susan is a New York Times bestselling author, teacher, and founder of the international mindfulness community, The Open Heart Project. Working to create a good human world, one breath at a time.Lodro is a teacher in the Shambhala Buddhist lineage, the author of five books on meditation, and the founder of M N D F L, a new studio making meditation accessible to all New Yorkers, and the Institute for Compassionate Leadership. They'll be our guests-in-residence for the next three weeks, so buckle up.Our three topics in this episode:When women get emotional, do you secretly think they're crazy?Do we have to love the people we hate?Fame for fame's sake, what gives?It's fast-paced, fun, utterly unscripted and at times a bit raw, but always good-natured and very real. Enjoy! And let us know if you like this format, over on social media. See acast.c

Today's conversation features Neil Pasricha, New York Times bestselling author of The Book of Awesome series, three time Webby Award winner, Harvard MBA grad, former Director of Leadership Development at Walmart, and husband, father, son, and brother.He is the author of a new book, The Happiness Equation: Want Nothing + Do Anything = Have Everything, which started as a letter to his unborn child on how to live a happy life, after his wife told him she was pregnant on the flight home from their honeymoon!TIn This episode, You’ll Learn:How Neil divides his time into 3 buckets for optimal happiness (and how they are different from the 3 buckets Jonathan offers).Why wanting can often lead to the exact opposite of happiness.Why he advocates for a 'home contract' as a key to happiness, in addition to a business or employment contract.How action leads to motivation, not the other way around.Why he's loving the word practice these days.Mentioned In This Episode:100 Awesome ThingsThe 3 A's of awesomeThe

There’s this unfortunate delusion that’s gaining credibility in the world of entrepreneurship and careers.The road to growth is paved with "content." Write, film, record and produce content and the world will rush to your doorstep.You don’t have to put your “self” out there anymore, just put your content out there.Problem is, it preys on a particular fear, and it’s based on a lie. At least, in part.Content, done right, can be a fantastic mechanism to build an idea into a platform, a brand, a reputation, position, entity, business or organization. But, it’s also a way to hide from the other piece of the launch and growth pie. The side of the equation that is about something else. Something that scares us. Something that, skipped, will still leave you playing a losing game. That's what today's GLP Riff is about. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Today's Good Life Project Roundtable™ is the third and final week for our current guests-in-residence Emiliya Zhivotovskaya, MAPP and and Bob Gower.Emiliya is a leading voice in the world of positive psychology and the science of flourishing, and is the founder of the Certificate in Applied Positive Psychology program, which is the largest in the world. In a past life she was a party entertainer and knows pretty much every group dance ever invented.Bob is a deep systems-thinker, author of Agile Business, organizational-dynamics consultant to some of the largest companies in the world. He's also an ex-cult member, and that comes out in interesting ways in the conversation.Our three topics in this episode:What's up with the "divine feminine?"Does creative genius demand suffering?Are we trapped by our past actions and statements? See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.