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

We love to judge. To gossip. To belittle.Not everyone, and not all the time, but enough for these feelings to fuel multi-billion dollar industries.Even if we never say it out loud, we derive a certain pleasure from others' misfortune. There's even a name for the phenomenon—Schadenfreude.We do it partly, because our brains are wired for comparison and social currency. And in part, because we're trained societally to determine our own value relative to others.Pile on the anonymity of the screen or the page and we've become a culture that not only judges, but determines the entire worth of a human, all too often, by their worst moment.We see it in the news cycle, in politics and Hollywood. But, we also see it in our towns, the local club, our own families and supposed friends.What if the value of your entire existence was judged by the meanest thing you've said or thought, or the biggest mistake you've made? What would that look like? How might it make you feel?What if, instead of reveling in the belittling of a

At first glance, you might think Amy Stewart had an obsession with gardens and bugs. She's written a series of bestselling books on the topic and had her garden of poison plants hailed as one of the 18 strangest gardens in the world by Popular Mechanics.Underneath that, though, lies a far deeper devotion, one that's fueled her since she was a kid. Amy Stewart is possessed by the craft of writing and storytelling. It's not so much gardens or bugs, it's the stories of people that arise out of those places and creatures that fascinate her. And the opportunity to tell them in her wonderful voice.After tremendous success as a nonfiction writer, Amy decided to do something most people in the industry view as a huge risk. Having built a large audience around her nonfiction creations, she stumbled upon a bigger story that had to be told. One of three beautifully colorful sisters who decided to take the law into their own hands, leading to an outcome nobody saw coming.But the story was old, the research was incom

What if one of the biggest pieces of "success advice" was wrong?There's a particular strategy that's become hot in the world of success and personal development. It's been hailed as the secret to accelerated results and success on a level and at a pace, that'd be near impossible without it.It's called "modeling." On the most basic level, the advice is to find someone who has done what you want to do, deconstruct everything they've done to get where they are, then do those same things yourself.Problem is, that can be pretty dangerous advice. It can and often does lead not to success, not to a good life, but to a whole lot of angst, anxiety and failure.Why that happens and what to do about is what we're talking about on today's short and sweet GLP Riff. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

So often, the way the world perceives us conflicts with the what we "think" we're saying and the way we want to be seen and heard.Truth is, so much of what we communicate all day long has nothing to do with the words that come out of our mouths.In fact, often the things we do, the way we move, the things we telegraph contradict the words we offer, leaving people with a sense of cognitive dissonance.Todd Henry is a master of cultivating the "voice beyond your spoken voice" or what he'd call your "authentic voice."A former touring musician and now a bestselling author and international speaker on creativity, intentional living and presence, he's spent years on everything from country music stages to stadiums, learning how to create magic night after night. What he'd eventually come to realize was, it wasn't the music that pulled him from ahead, it was the opportunity to teach, to see lightbulbs go on, to create magic and leave people changed.To do this on the level that made a real impact, though, he'd first ne

If you've been to the movies or watched cartoons, you've seen the word "Avatar" before. But, when we talk about building a career or company, it has a very special meaning.Your avatar is the person you're looking to help. The one you want and need to serve and elevate. It's your potential customer, client, diner, patient, participant, camper or student.If you want to build a successful career, experience or venture, you need to get to know your avatar on the most intimate level.You need to know her name, where she lives, her age, fears, desires, hopes, struggles, and influences. You need to understand a day in her life, then a week, a month, a year and a decade. You have to understand the conversations going on in her head, the language she used to talk to herself and the pictures she paints with her mind.It's hard work to get this detailed, but it's also make or break. It lets you serve, solve and build on a different level.But, here's the thing. The two reasons most commonly offered to "know your

The thing most people fear more than spiders and death is the very thing this week's guest, Michael Port, loves with every fiber of his being.What am I talking about?Public speaking.Port began his career as an actor, featured often on screens of all sizes, before jumping into the fitness world and then creating the Book Yourself Solid business development juggernaut and a string of bestselling books.He built an empire and, along the way, became a master not just of the screen, but of the speaking stage. There, he found his true home and built an astonishing career as an international speaker.With the launch of a provocative new book, Steal the Show and a new speaker training venture, he's on a mission to transform the world's #1 fear into an experience of awe, joy and impact.We go deep into the "real" backstory and his deeper "why" in this week's conversation. We talk about the tension between "performing" and being "authentic," and whether the two can really coexist. We talk about wh

Pam Slim is one of those people.You know, the ones who see the best in everyone. In everything. In every seeming barrier, she sees the lesson. The good. The opportunity to learn. To grow. To create. To collaborate.The one whose lens I aspire to embrace, but still find myself failing more often succeeding (someday, lol).She's also just an amazing human, dear friend and award-winning author who is in the midst of very cool 21-city Indispensable Community Tour.And, it just happened that one of the stops on that tour was NYC a/k/a my little town. So before she swept out to the next city, I asked her to jump in and share a special GLP "Guest" Riff about the power of community, especially as it relates to makers and entrepreneurs.In her short and sweet Guest Riff, she asks a big question:What if we thought more about serving a community as a community?Now, of course, the realist in me always kicks in when I hear things like that. Sounds good in theory, I snicker, but can it really happen in the real world?Acco

Elizabeth Gilbert exploded into the public's consciousness in 2006 with the release of her mega-bestselling memoir, Eat Pray Love.Since then, she's published a series of books, given a TED talk on creative genius that's been viewed more than 10 million times, become a leading voice on the pursuit of a creative, connected and vital life.Liz's latest book, Big Magic, takes you deeper into what it means to live a creative life, offering a wonderful blend of wisdom, unabashed magical thinking, amazing stories and a whole lot of unexpected myth-busting and contrarian insights.I had a chance to sit down with Liz and, as often happens with these Good Life conversations, we ended up going all sorts of places I'd never planned. We touched on the power of curiosity and the fallacy of passion, where creativity comes from, what stops us from doing the thing we're here to do, the importance of caring for your vessel, what happens when you think you've reached the end of your capacity and her powerful lens on what it

This is the first episode I've ever wished I didn't have a reason to air...On Sunday, a good friend of mine, an amazing man, husband, brother and son, founder of Live Your Legend and beloved member of the Good Life Project family, Scott Dinsmore, lost his life.Hiking Kilimanjaro with another amazing soul, his wife Chelsea, Scott was killed in a rockfall.He was only 33.I've shared more thoughts in writing here.For now, I wanted to do something to keep Scott's beautiful energy and words alive. So, I'm airing a conversation Scott and I filmed a few years back as an audio podcast in tribute to him.My heart is heavy, and my love and wishes for healing go out to Chelsea, to her and Scott's families and to all who've been touched by Scott's message, his presence and what he's created and now left behind.With love & gratitude,Jonathan See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

The story of a lifetime only comes around once...Dale Russakoff spent more than three decades as a top news journalist, reporting for The Washington Post for more than 28 years.When Facebook co-founder, Mark Zuckerberg, announced a $100 million grant, teaming with then rock-start mayor, Cory Booker, to revolutionize the Newark schools and create a model for national education reform, she'd found a story worthy of her full attention and her first-ever book.Leaving her job, she spent four and a half years embedded in the lives, conversations and inner-most workings of what seemed, at first, to be positioned as a stunning transformational endeavor. What unfolded on the ground, though, was a profoundly different story. One that seemed straight out of a Shakespearian drama with a complex cast of players, each driven by their own personal and social agendas.At play wasn't just the lives of tens of thousands of kids, many living in desperate poverty and violence, but also a $1 billion budget and thousands of jobs.Ru

You want to be known as someone who changes the game.Someone who brings amazing ideas, solutions, insights and potential to everything you do. You want to make real things happen. Things that matter.So you plug in. You mainline digital information, entertainment, pretty much any and all forms of data. You squeeze every possible moment out of the time you have, consuming, creating, connecting, rinsing and repeating. Occasionally, you breathe, but only if forced.Partly because it gives you more to think about, talk about and integrate and create. But, also, because it's just become your default. Space terrifies you. And maybe, just maybe, you're even driven by a little bit of FOMO.Thing is...It doesn't matter how productive you or how busy you are if the ideas you're building on don't represent the best you have to offer.And your best ideas rarely, if ever, come when you're filling every millisecond of your life with something to do.Genius comes when you disconnect from tasks and reconnect to space.To plug

Most people look at meditation as a practice. Something you do daily, most often seated on a cushion.New York Times bestselling author of eight books, and Shambhala Buddhist meditation teacher, Susan Piver, has a different take.What if it's not just a practice, she offers, but a path? A way of life. An approach to seeing and being in the world that plants the seeds of awareness, compassion and life in a more awakened and joyful state.She's written about this in her wonderful new book, Start Here Now. I had a chance to sit down with Susan and record a conversation live from the stage of Camp GLP in August, before a room of 350 people. The energy was electric.We talked about Susan's serendipity-driven journey through the hip-hop side of the music industry, her constantly yearning for answers to the big questions and her discovery of Buddhism, decision to eventually take her vows and what that even means.We also explore what Buddhism is and isn't and why so many people seem to be "Buddha-curious" these

Is creativity tied to your biological clock? A 2010 Global Chief Executive Officer study by IBM revealed the most sought after trait in emerging leaders. It’s not work-ethic or efficiency. It’s not motivation or productivity. Creativity is the trait most desired by those in charge. Understandably so. Because the ability to come up with new ideas, […]The post Unlock Creativity: Time of Day Matters appeared first on Good LifeProject. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Today's episode is our second experiment, with a new show format, we're calling 9Things™.What is it? A three-person roundtable, where each person shows up with three topics to jam on. And, the thing is, nobody knows what the other person's topics will be until they hit the conversation.My guests for today's episode of the 9Things format are two good friends, Gabra Zackman and Dan Lerner.Covered in this episode:Hashtags: funny new weird thing or business tool?Hamilton on Broadway: the birth of creative geniusInnate Goodness: are we wired to be helpful?Yazidi Women and the brutality of ISISFoodie Culture: more than what's on the plateBizarre Bat Discovered: fascinating that we can still discover new speciesFour Year Long Collaborative Online Story: oops...I didn't mean to end it that wayGarbage: how can one person collect so much?Workplace Culture: people are the new greenFrom Lawyer to Children's Entertainer: helping others pursue their interestsIt's fast-paced, fun, utterly unscripted and at ti

What if you spent more time making?We tend to spend our work lives dancing between two modes: maker mode and manager mode.The idea first came to me through a friend, Brad Feld. Maker mode is where we are immersed in the process of creation, innovation, problem-solving, artistry. It's a powerfully generative state that often creates the giant leaps forward, the big ideas and awakenings that propel us.Manager mode is all the administrative, process-driven stuff you need to do to breathe life into the genius that emerges from maker mode. It's a necessary adjunct and, for some, it's also the place where they become most alive and aligned.Problem is, they often have trouble happening at the same time. One pulls you almost violently from the other and you end ping-ponging between the two and never really make much progress on each.What if you took a different approach? What if you created designated, longer-term windows for each. Then took it even farther and, when in maker mode, focused only on the 2% of making th

Dale Partridge was riding high, or so it seemed.A serial entrepreneur and founder of the cause-driven venture, Sevenly, the media loved him and thrust him into the spotlight. Sevenly venture was not only making money, it had also raised more than $4 million for hundreds of causes and more than a million people.From the outside looking in, everything was fantastic. But, inside, he was dying. Living a life at a pace that was destroying him, pulling him away from his family, ruining his health and making him question everything.Eventually, he hit the wall. And he decided to make some major shifts. Stepping away from the company he started, he picked up his family and moved to Bend, Oregon, a small town 3 hours from Portland to start the painstaking process of rebuilding his life, his health and his living. Reconnecting with the people and things that mattered, starting with his family.His recent book, People Over Profit, shares this story, taking you inside the lifestyle implosion that led to a good life ev

What if you didn't have to change?What if everything you wanted, everything you needed, everything you aspired to become, you already had and were.What if living a good life was more about liberating and revealing than changing and becoming?The words transformation and evolution have become buzz-words across the landscape of personal development.The implication is that you, on the deepest level, are not who you need to be. That you need to become or step into something different and better before you can live your best life.But, what if that was a lie?What if deep down, you already were your best self and the work was really just about revealing it, removing the illusion, then living it?That's what today's short and sweet Good Life Project Riff is all about. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

When people talk about Seth Godin, they often attach a variety of labels.Entrepreneur, marketer, mega-bestselling author, acclaimed speaker, trusted-advisor, provocateur, raconteur extraordinaire and ruckus-maker.He is all those.But, when I think of Seth, the first word that comes to me is generous. Seth is a stunningly insightful thinker and doer. But beyond that, he is kind, compassionate and fiercely curious. And, I'm fortunate to also call him a friend.So, when I had a chance to sit down with Seth to record a conversation about everything from his love of books and technology, creativity and making, fear and experimentation and what it really means to live a good life, it was one of those conversations I didn't want to end.We first aired this conversation as a GLP TV episode. I'm so excited to share this "Best Of" episode with you now as a podcast. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

What if entrepreneurship wasn't just about what you create, but who you become along the way?Most people look at entrepreneurship as a quest, a desire to create something from nothing. The goal, to get to a substantial, viable, impact and revenue generating place as fast as humanly possible.Problem is, with rare exception, the path to success in the world of entrepreneurial dream manifestation just doesn't work that way.On a daily basis, the life of the entrepreneur ranges from intentional meandering, testing and "pivoting" to violent, non-stop jags, head-spinning problem-solving and night-sweats. And that's when things are going well!If your goal is simply to get swiftly to the end-state, you are going to suffer more than needed. You are also going to miss a huge opportunity for grace and growth. And you will likely ignore many critical signposts and possibilities that would've made the experience profoundly different in a way that's better. For you and for what you're trying to create.What if you approached

The average person spends an almost obscene amount of time working tirelessly to avoid failure. We're terrified that we'll put everything we have into an endeavor, only to come up short.Failure, we're told, is something to be avoided at all costs. In some parts of life and professional cultures, it's not only frowned upon, it is fiercely punished.So, every day, a little bit at a time, we confine ourselves into a supposedly safer and safer, smaller and smaller box with the hope of avoiding failure. We stop taking risks, go only for the most certain options and, in doing so, we destroy any semblance of life, freedom, discovery and possibility in our lives.It's bad enough when we make these choices for ourselves. But, what happens when we impose our failure-adverse lens on our kids, students or anyone others who might look to us to figure out how to live in the world?We end up not only teaching them to avoid failure, we also erect cages around them. Ostensibly to "protect them from both others and themselves." S