Bountifull Podcast

We spend so much of our lives chasing happiness. But happiness naturally comes and goes, and it was never meant to be the only measure of a good life.

In this episode, I sit down with philosopher Lorraine Besser to explore what happiness misses and why we also need meaning and psychological richness.

Lorraine explains how novelty, complexity, curiosity and experiences that change our perspective can make life feel fuller, even when those experiences are difficult or uncomfortable.

We also explore Lorraine’s experience of reaching the milestones she had worked towards, only to realise how much of herself had been lost to achievement. She shares how she began reconnecting with adventure, spontaneity and the things that genuinely engaged her.

This is a conversation about boredom, risk, resonance, regret and remembering who you are. Most importantly, it shows that a rich and interesting life does not require money, constant travel or dramatic reinvention. It can begin in ordinary moments by noticing more, asking better questions and paying attention to what sparks something within you.

In this episode, we explore

• What philosophers mean by “the good life”
• Why happiness is temporary and why that is not a problem
• The pressure to feel happy all the time
• Happiness, meaning and psychological richness
• What novelty, complexity and challenge add to our lives
• Why difficult experiences can still be valuable
• How to make ordinary life more interesting
• Boredom as a signal that the mind wants to engage
• The role of curiosity, risk and emotional discomfort
• How achievement can crowd out other parts of ourselves
• Why resonance helps us recognise what is good for us
• The importance of remembering who we are
• How to create a richer family and everyday life
• Why our greatest regrets often come from what we did not do

Chapters

• 00:00 Why Happiness Isn’t Enough
• 02:14 Lorraine Besser and the Good Life
• 07:41 What Is Psychological Richness?
• 10:16 Happiness, Pleasure and Human Flourishing
• 19:39 Why Happiness Naturally Fades
• 28:41 The Missing Dimension of a Good Life
• 35:06 How to Make Ordinary Life More Interesting
• 44:06 Losing Yourself to Achievement
• 50:10 Boredom, Curiosity and Resonance
• 58:39 Regret, Risk and Living Fully

Guest Bio

Lorraine Besser is a philosopher, author and professor specialising in moral psychology, happiness and the philosophy of the good life. She is the Pardon Tillinghast Professor of Philosophy at Middlebury College in Vermont and the author of The Art of the Interesting: What We Miss in Our Pursuit of the Good Life and How to Cultivate It.

lorrainebesser.com/

A thought to leave you with

You do not need to feel happy all the time to be living well.

A good life can be pleasurable and meaningful, but it can also be challenging, surprising, emotionally complicated and deeply interesting.

We may not be able to control when happiness arrives, but we have far more control over whether we pay attention, follow our curiosity and allow life to change the way we see the world.

About the Bountifull Podcast

The Bountifull Podcast explores the stories, ideas and experiences that shape a full and meaningful life.

Each week, host Sian Simpson sits down with fascinating people from around the world to explore creativity, connection, curiosity, resilience and what it really means to live well.

These are honest, thoughtful conversations designed to challenge the way you think, introduce you to new ideas and help you find more joy in everyday life.

Follow the Bountifull Podcast and join us for a new conversation each week.

bountifullworld.com/

What can a lifetime spent protecting some of the world’s most extraordinary places teach us about how to live?

In part two of my conversation with Lou Sanson, we travel from Antarctica to the highest levels of New Zealand’s conservation system — and into the lessons Lou gathered through a life of ambition, responsibility and service.

Lou describes Antarctica as New Zealand’s landscape “on steroids”: a place so still you can hear your ears ringing and see for hundreds of kilometres. After first travelling there as a field assistant, he returned to lead Antarctica New Zealand, overseeing Scott Base, supporting scientific research and representing New Zealand within a treaty system involving countries with vastly different interests and ideologies.

Antarctica taught him that influence does not always come from size, money or authority. It often begins with relationships: listening to people, earning their trust and finding enough common ground to move forward together. Some of Lou’s most consequential work began not in formal meetings, but around his family dinner table.

We then follow him into the role he had imagined since childhood: Director-General of the Department of Conservation. He inherited an exhausted organisation facing limited funding and an almost limitless task. Rather than imposing another restructure, Lou chose incremental change, stronger partnerships, visible leadership and a more hopeful story about what conservation could achieve.

He shares the courage required to make unpopular decisions, the importance of standing behind your people and why playing the long game means staying committed even when progress is slow, opposition is fierce and the result may not arrive during your tenure.

Yet after all the scale, ambition and responsibility, Lou’s philosophy of a bountiful life is wonderfully immediate: find one “ten out of ten” moment every day. A sunset, a bike ride, a good meal or the call of a native bird at night.

His life reminds us that fulfilment does not come from achievement alone. It comes from meaningful work, deep relationships, service to something beyond ourselves and retaining the ability to be delighted by the world directly in front of us.

Chapters

00:00 Antarctica, conservation and the lessons of a lifetime01:00 More than 50 trips to Antarctica05:18 Why Antarctica matters to all of us07:20 The power of relationships and the family dinner table15:07 From track cutter to Director-General17:42 Leading DOC through incremental change20:17 Storytelling, partnerships and making conservation matter27:30 Public opposition, visibility and social licence33:12 Courage, decisiveness and protecting your people38:54 Playing the long game48:10 Finding a ten-out-of-ten moment every day

Guest Bio 

Lou Sanson QSO, NZAM is one of New Zealand’s most experienced conservation leaders. His career began as a track cutter in South Westland and went on to include senior leadership across Fiordland, Stewart Island and the subantarctic islands. He served as Chief Executive of Antarctica New Zealand from 2002 to 2013 and as Director-General of the Department of Conservation from 2013 to 2021. Today, he continues to contribute to conservation as a trustee of the New Zealand Nature Fund and WWF-New Zealand.

About the Bountifull Podcast 

The Bountifull Podcast explores what it means to live a rich, meaningful and fulfilling life. Hosted by Sian Simpson, each episode brings together thoughtful conversations across psychology, science, relationships, health, work, creativity, culture and society — uncovering the stories, ideas and experiences that shape how we live.

www.bountifullworld.com/

What if the way you show up in every moment, at work, at home, with strangers, is shaping not just your life, but the lives of hundreds of people you'll never meet? In this episode of the Bountifull Podcast, Sian sits down with bestselling author, 2x TEDx speaker and researcher Marcy Axelrod to unpack her life's work: understanding what it truly means to show up.

Marcy introduces her three-level framework for showing up, from barely there, to just showing up, to truly showing up, and explains the three roles we all inhabit at every moment: self, situation member, and society member. She challenges the idea that we are isolated selves operating from the inside out, drawing on neuroscience, evolutionary biology, and interpersonal neurobiology to show that we are deeply interconnected, right down to the synchronisation of our brainwaves when we look into another person's eyes.

This is a conversation about slowing down, choosing presence over performance, and recognising that how we show up to the world is exactly how the world will show up for us.

Key Highlights

• The three roles we inhabit every moment. Self, situation member, and society member, and why understanding all three is the key to moving beyond disconnection and loneliness.

• The show up continuum. What separates "barely there" from "just showing up" from "truly showing up," and why most of us spend 80% of our time at level two.

• Choice vs. decision. Why decisions narrow your options while choices are expansive, ongoing, and available in every moment.

• Showing up "with" and "for" vs. "to". How the language of connection shapes the chemistry of the people around you, from cortisol to oxytocin.

• The ripple effect. Research showing that your behaviour influences not just the 20 people closest to you, but their networks too, reaching people you will never meet.

• Why busyness keeps us stuck. How a culture of doing prevents us from accessing the broader, more open mode of attention we need to truly be present.

• The three practices for presence. A meditative practice, a reflective practice (journaling), and a physical practice as the ecology of habits that support truly showing up.

• Authenticity over performance. Why performative living erodes trust and why deathbed research consistently reveals regret over unlived, inauthentic lives.

• Alltelligence. Marcy's coined term meaning "connectedness with intent to serve," the skill for our societal role that draws on the idea that intelligence is neither solely internal nor external.

Chapters

• 00:00 Introduction and welcome

• 01:24 Marcy's origin story: stuttering, observation, and the search for a blueprint

• 04:42 What does "showing up" actually mean?

• 06:34 Choosing how you show up: presence meets perspective

• 07:31 The two hemispheres of attention

• 09:42 The three roles: self, situation member, society member

• 17:30 The three levels of showing up

• 21:32 Practical exercises: the ecology of practices

• 23:16 The "Chuck" story: the show up continuum in real time

• 30:42 The three skills: groundedness, readiness, and alltelligence

• 37:39 Wisdom is not optional

• 42:54 What keeps us stuck in "just showing up" mode

• 46:08 Deathbed wishes and the cost of an inauthentic life

• 50:46 From performative living to true presence

• 54:24 Quick-fire round

• 57:28 Purpose, significance, meaning, and mattering

Guest Bio

Marcy Axelrod is the architect of the Show Up System, a bestselling author, keynote and two-time TEDx speaker, and management consultant. After beginning her career on Wall Street, she spent more than 20 years in KPMG Consulting’s high-tech strategy practice, working with global companies and leadership teams. Her latest book, How We Choose to Show Up, brings together research from neuroscience, psychology and behavioural economics to explore how we work, relate and live.

Bountifull is a personal growth and wellbeing podcast that explores how to live a richer, more meaningful life through conversations on joy, purpose, resilience, creativity and connection.

What happens when a childhood spent exploring wild places becomes the work of an entire life?

In part one of this two-part conversation, I’m joined by Lou Sanson, one of New Zealand’s most influential conservation leaders. Lou grew up on the West Coast of New Zealand, learning to cross rivers, climb mountains, cook over fires and navigate the backcountry. At 13, he encountered two forestry workers in a remote hut and decided he wanted a life spent working in nature. Over the next five decades, he would turn that early instinct into a life of extraordinary purpose and service.

We follow Lou from his first job cutting tracks through South Westland to becoming responsible for Fiordland, Stewart Island and New Zealand’s subantarctic islands. He shares the work behind Rakiura National Park, marine protection in Fiordland and one of the world’s most ambitious predator-eradication projects, while reflecting on the experiences that shaped his understanding of leadership, safety, accountability and lasting change.

At its heart, this is a conversation about what can happen when you recognise what makes you feel most alive and build your life around it. Nature became Lou’s education, his source of courage, his place of renewal and the larger purpose against which he measured his decisions. His story offers a richer way to think about a bountiful life: one grounded in belonging, contribution and responsibility, and in leaving the places entrusted to us better than we found them.

Key Episode Highlights

• How growing up on the West Coast of New Zealand shaped Lou’s courage, independence and connection to nature
• The backcountry encounter at 13 that gave him a direction for life
• Why nature became Lou’s education, purpose and place of renewal
• The leadership lesson that taught him good intentions are not enough without strong systems and accountability
• How Rakiura National Park, Fiordland’s marine protection and Campbell Island were brought to life
• Why meaningful change requires catching the wave of public feeling rather than pushing against it
• The importance of building trust and working closely with Ngāi Tahu
• The Māori philosophy that people belong within nature rather than stand apart from it

Chapters

00:00 Finding a ten-out-of-ten moment

02:56 A bountiful life shaped by the West Coast

08:22 The backcountry encounter that shaped his future

10:33 How New Zealand’s conservation system works

14:20 Building a career from the ground up

15:21 The leadership lesson that changed everything

22:32 Rakiura, Fiordland and Campbell Island

26:23 How lasting change really happens

30:59 Learning that we belong to nature

35:53 Why New Zealand’s native species matter

Guest Bio 

Lou Sanson QSO, NZAM is one of New Zealand’s most experienced conservation leaders. His career began as a track cutter in South Westland and went on to include senior leadership across Fiordland, Stewart Island and the subantarctic islands. He served as Chief Executive of Antarctica New Zealand from 2002 to 2013 and as Director-General of the Department of Conservation from 2013 to 2021. Today, he continues to contribute to conservation as a trustee of the New Zealand Nature Fund and WWF-New Zealand.

About the Bountifull Podcast 
The Bountifull Podcast explores how to live a richer, healthier and more meaningful life through conversations about psychology, relationships, health, work, culture, science and society. Hosted by Sian Simpson, each episode shares powerful stories and practical ideas to help us live with more joy, purpose, curiosity and connection.

www.bountifullworld.com/

What happens when the life you worked so hard to build no longer fits?

In this episode, I’m joined by Andy Johns for a deep and honest conversation about the valley between two mountains — the liminal space between who you were and who you are yet to become.

Andy spent 17 years in Silicon Valley climbing the first mountain of life: career, achievement, status, success, and external validation. But this conversation is less about the climb, and more about what happens after you step away. Because leaving an old life is not as simple as choosing a new one. Often, there is a long and disorienting middle — a space where the old identity has dissolved, but the next version of you has not yet fully arrived.

Together, we explore what it means to sit in that unknown. The grief of losing the person you thought you were. The fear of no longer being valued in the same way. The body’s withdrawal from stress, momentum and constant stimulation. The temptation to rush into the next thing just to escape the discomfort of not knowing.

Andy shares with rare honesty what it took to stop performing, stop achieving, and begin listening to what his body, spirit and life were trying to tell him. We talk about perfectionism, burnout, addiction, faith, rest, service, money, and the strange freedom that can come when you stop trying to force a new mountain into view.

This is a conversation for anyone who has ever found themselves between lives. For anyone who has left something behind, or knows they need to, but has no idea what comes next.

The valley can feel like failure. But maybe it is also where we begin to become more fully ourselves.

In this episode, we explore

• What Andy calls the first mountain of life

• Why success can stop feeling like success

• The valley between who you were and who you are becoming

• Why leaving an old identity can feel like grief

• The body’s withdrawal from stress, adrenaline and achievement

• Work, status and external validation as forms of addiction

• The difference between failure and misalignment

• What relationships reveal when your identity changes

• The fear and freedom of saying, “I don’t know what’s next”

• Rebuilding self-worth through service, meaning and truth

• Why rest is not laziness, but part of the healing

• How to sit in the unknown without rushing into the next mountain

Chapters

00:00 Introduction

02:00 The space between who you were and who you are becoming

09:00 When success stops fitting

18:25 The first mountain and the valley

26:10 Leaving an identity behind

31:20 Losing your sense of value and purpose

40:40 What happens to the body in the valley

50:30 Shame, addiction and survival patterns

57:00 Faith, spirituality and transformation

1:10:30 Rebuilding self-worth through service

1:20:00 Money, uncertainty and enough

1:27:30 The question everyone asks: what’s next?

1:36:00 Rest, change and becoming

1:39:00 Closing thoughts

Guest Bio 

Andy Johns is a writer, former Silicon Valley executive, advisor and investor whose work now explores identity, healing, transformation and purpose. In his earlier career, Andy worked across some of Silicon Valley’s most recognisable companies, including Facebook, Twitter, Quora and Wealthfront, where he served as President. After stepping away from a 17-year career built around achievement, status and external validation, Andy now writes and speaks about the inner work of leaving an old identity behind and navigating the uncertain space between who you were and who you are becoming.

https://cluesdotlife.substack.com/

About the Bountifull Podcast 

The Bountifull Podcast explores what it means to live a bountiful life through stories of creativity, connection, curiosity and resilience. With conversations spanning personal growth, mental health, mindfulness, emotional resilience and wellbeing, each episode offers honest stories and practical ideas to help us live with more joy, meaning and depth.

https://bountifullworld.com/

Most of us are building lives we are not fully present for. We optimise, produce, tick things off and tell ourselves we will get to the good stuff once things calm down. But things rarely calm down. They speed up. And one day you look around and realise your kids have stopped coming to you, your relationships are running on autopilot, and the life you worked so hard to build is one you are barely in. That was the realisation Harvard Professor Dr Jeff Karp had during Covid. The skill that had helped him survive school, build a world-leading lab and found 13 companies had also made him very good at moving through life without stopping to notice it.

What makes Jeff’s response interesting is that he did not begin with a retreat, a reinvention or some huge life overhaul. He started interrupting patterns. Change the question you ask your kid at dinner and see what happens. Take a different route. Drink tea instead of coffee. Blow bubbles at strangers in traffic and watch people put their phones down and smile. His argument is that changing one small thing can make you aware of all the other things you have been doing without ever really choosing them.

We also talk about anti-convenience, why Jeff sometimes washes dishes by hand, and why I can happily spend an hour making gluten-free ravioli from scratch. Not because doing things the long way is always better, but because efficiency is not always the point. Jeff has spent decades inventing technologies that save lives. Turns out one of the most important experiments he ever ran was learning how to be present in his own.

Key episode highlights

• Why the skill that helped Jeff survive school later began costing him in adult life
• How changing one small pattern can reveal the rest of your operating system
• The question: when did you decide to do the same things every day?
• Why bubbles in traffic became Jeff’s favourite form of pattern interruption
• How anti-convenience can create presence without turning your life upside down
• Why our brains default to familiar, low-energy behaviours
• What happens when you ask your children a better question than “how was your day?”
• How silliness can shift the energy of a room and give other people permission to join in

Chapters

00:00 Bubbles, productivity and disconnection02:43 The skill that saved Jeff as a child06:18 When he realised his children had stopped coming to him07:22 How our attention gets hijacked13:57 Why exhaustion can become addictive17:42 The hidden cost of constant productivity21:11 Why the brain defaults to low-energy patterns25:24 The patterns running our lives28:33 How pattern interruption works35:22 Which patterns should we keep?42:46 Why a Harvard professor blows bubbles in traffic48:53 Anti-convenience and doing things the long way52:05 What a bountiful life means to Jeff57:13 The most important experiment he has run on himself

Guest Bio

Dr Jeff Karp is a biomedical engineer and professor of anaesthesia at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital. His laboratory develops bio-inspired medical technologies, including tissue adhesives, targeted therapies and medical devices. He has co-founded numerous biotechnology companies and is the author of LIT: Life Ignition Tools, which draws on the strategies he developed while growing up with ADHD and learning differences.

https://www.jeffkarp.com/

About Bountifull Podcast

The Bountifull Podcast explores what it means to live a bountiful life through honest conversations with fascinating people from around the world.

Hosted by Sian Simpson, each episode brings together stories, ideas and experiences from science, psychology, relationships, creativity, culture, work and everyday life. From wellbeing and personal growth to resilience, connection, purpose and joy, Bountifull offers practical insight and fresh perspectives to help you build a richer, more meaningful life.

New episodes weekly.

https://www.bountifullworld.com/

In this episode, I’m joined by Renée DiResta, Associate Research Professor at Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy and author of Invisible Rulers: The People Who Turn Lies into Reality, who studies social media, online manipulation, AI, misinformation, and how messages move across the internet.

This conversation started with a simple question: how do we stay safe online? But it quickly became about something much bigger. How do we protect our attention? How do we know what is real? How do we keep our values intact in online spaces that are often designed to make us reactive, anxious, outraged, or hooked?

Renée explains how social media platforms are not neutral. They are built around growth, engagement, data, advertising, and keeping us there. Every scroll, pause, like, and click teaches the system more about us, which means the content we see is not random. It is selected, tested, and pushed towards us because the platform thinks it might hold our attention.

We talk about AI slop, scams, fake images, old videos being recirculated as new, online manipulation, audience capture, online conflict, and why it is becoming harder to tell the difference between what is real, what is fake, and what is technically real but being used in a misleading way.

One of the biggest ideas from this conversation is that discernment is now a practice. It is not just about fact-checking something after the fact. It is about noticing when something is trying to bypass your judgement in the first place.

Renée also shares how she talks to her own children about technology, online safety, chat platforms, privacy, and the importance of keeping communication open when something goes wrong.

This is a conversation about the internet, but really it is about agency. About slowing down, paying attention, and remembering that a bountiful life is one where your time, your attention, and your choices still belong to you.

Episode Highlights

Timestamps

00:00 Why the internet makes everything feel urgent
01:35 Renée’s path into studying social media and misinformation
09:18 What platforms and algorithms are really designed to do
18:10 Online communities, loneliness and rabbit holes
19:45 AI scams, fake content and online deception
26:51 Discernment, truth and learning to pause before reacting
31:08 Online manipulation and how new technology gets exploited
40:12 Audience capture and staying authentic online
47:53 Online behaviour, values and taking back your attention
55:33 Kids, online safety and open conversations about technology
01:00:18 AI chatbots, companionship and emotional risk
01:04:23 What it means to Renée to live a bountiful life

Guest Bio

Renée DiResta is an Associate Research Professor at Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy and the author of Invisible Rulers: The People Who Turn Lies into Reality. Her work focuses on adversarial abuse online, including social media manipulation, misinformation, scams, AI-generated content, influence operations and child safety. Before joining Georgetown, she was the research director at the Stanford Internet Observatory, where she studied the abuse of online platforms and how digital systems shape public conversation.

Bountifull Podcast 
Bountifull is a podcast exploring joy, wellbeing, creativity, connection and what it means to live a more meaningful life.

In this episode, I’m joined by Marley Rose Harris, founder of the Higher Self app and creator of the Clear the Fear method.

I wanted to speak to Marley because I was interested in how she works with fear. Where it starts, how it gets stored, and why it can keep showing up in decisions around money, love, work, safety and self-worth.

Marley’s life changed after losing her dad to suicide. That loss sent her into a lot of grief, but also into trying to understand what actually helps people heal. Over time, that became the work she now does with limiting beliefs, subconscious patterns and the stories people keep living from, often without realising it.

We talk about Clear the Fear, self-trust, emotional safety, family, money, and the strange ways fear can keep us attached to lives we say we do not want. Marley also walks me through one of my own money ceilings in real time, which was slightly confronting, but probably useful.

This is a conversation about fear, but really it is about what sits underneath it.

Episode Highlights

• Marley’s work with the Clear the Fear method
• How fear can show up in money, love, work, safety and self-worth
• Losing her dad to suicide and how grief changed the direction of her life
• Why Marley became interested in limiting beliefs and subconscious patterns
• The stories we carry without realising they are shaping our lives
• Why fear often comes back to a lack of safety
• Building self-trust and learning to feel safe within yourself
• What happens when you stop running from a feeling and actually let yourself feel it
• How old beliefs can create ceilings around what we allow ourselves to receive
• Marley walking me through one of my own money ceilings in real time
• The link between pain, pleasure and the choices we keep making
• Why family, friendship and feeling at home matter more than Marley once realised

Chapters

00:00 Marley on money, family and what really matters00:48 Meet Marley Rose Harris03:12 Marley’s story and choosing a different path06:58 Losing her dad and beginning to heal12:38 Scarcity, abundance and changing old beliefs15:03 Why fear often comes back to safety20:43 Self-trust and creating safety within yourself31:04 How Clear the Fear works41:03 The stories we carry without realising it54:08 Pain, pleasure, money and what we move towards

Guest Bio

Marley Rose Harris is the CEO and founder of Higher Self and creator of the Clear the Fear method. Her work focuses on subconscious reprogramming, limiting beliefs, fear, self-worth, money, relationships and the patterns that keep people stuck. Through the Higher Self app, Marley offers tools including hypnosis, meditations, affirmations, NLP, Clear the Fear and Neuro-Linking, designed to help people work with the beliefs and fears underneath the surface. She also works with clients through mentorship, combining subconscious reprogramming, emotional clearing and coaching. In this episode, Marley shares how grief, healing and her own experience of rebuilding her life shaped the work she does today.

https://www.marleyrose.ca/

About Bountifull

Bountifull is a wellbeing and personal growth podcast exploring what it means to live a bountiful life through stories of joy, resilience, creativity and connection.

Each episode features interesting people from diverse backgrounds sharing ideas, experiences and practical wisdom for living with more meaning, courage and joy.

https://www.bountifullworld.com/

In this episode, I’m joined by Holly Cardew, an Australian entrepreneur, founder and friend of mine, for a conversation about ambition, self-belief, work, independence and what it means to build a life that actually feels like your own.

Holly has always had a very practical kind of confidence. She does not wait until she knows everything before she starts. At 12, she was packing sponges for $5 an hour. At 14, she was working at McDonald’s and learning about systems, speed and efficiency. At 18, she moved to Paris, studied in French, and worked out how to get by as she went.

That same approach has shaped her life as a founder. When she did not know how to build websites, she Googled it. When she could not afford big teams, she found contractors. When she felt like an outsider in San Francisco, as a non-technical founder without the usual Silicon Valley background, she kept going anyway.

What I love about Holly is the way she thinks about life. She does not spend a lot of time worrying about whether the world is fair. Her view is that everyone is dealt a different hand of cards, and the real question is how you play yours.

In this conversation, we talk about building companies, raising money, remote work, failure, confidence, asking questions when you do not know the answer, and the emotional stamina it takes to keep going when things are hard.

But more than anything, this episode is about mindset. Holly is ambitious, but she is also clear-eyed about the sacrifices that come with ambition. For her, a bountiful life is about being true to what you want, finding the people and places that give you energy, and continuing to build, learn and grow in the direction that feels right to you.

Episode Highlights

• Playing the hand you have been dealt, rather than getting stuck on whether life is fair
• Learning independence early through work, money and figuring things out for yourself
• Starting before you feel ready, and learning what you need as you go
• Building confidence as an outsider, especially without the usual Silicon Valley background
• The value of asking questions, even when you do not know the technical answer
• Why ambition often comes with sacrifice, and how to be honest about that
• The emotional side of building companies, and the pressure founders quietly carry
• Remote work, team culture and treating people as part of the company, no matter where they are
• Failure as something to learn from, rather than something that defines you
• Designing a life around energy, curiosity, people and places that make you feel alive

Chapters

00:00 – Playing the hand you have been dealt02:06 – Growing up in Sydney and learning independence early06:17 – Early jobs, McDonald’s and learning systems10:37 – Moving to Paris at 1812:20 – What a bountiful life means to Holly13:38 – Learning by doing and building from scratch18:43 – Building ambitious things and solving hard problems26:24 – Raising money and finding the right investors29:25 – The emotional side of building companies31:34 – Feeling like an outsider in Silicon Valley35:08 – Remote work, team culture and designing a life that works37:34 – Ambition, sacrifice and what “enough” looks like

Guest Bio

Holly Cardew is an Australian e-commerce entrepreneur who has spent more than a decade building in online retail and technology. She splits her time between Sydney and San Francisco, and has been recognised by Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia for her work in retail and e-commerce.

Bountifull Podcast

The Bountifull Podcast explores what it means to live a bountiful life through conversations with interesting people from diverse backgrounds. Hosted by Sian Simpson, the podcast brings together voices from psychology, science, business, creativity, health, relationships, spirituality, food, nature and personal growth to explore how we can live with more joy, resilience, connection and meaning.

https://www.bountifullworld.com/

In this episode, I'm joined by Christopher Seward, a documentary filmmaker and editor whose work includes Fahrenheit 9/11, Sicko, Ariel Phenomenon (UFOs), One Child Nation, and more than 40 documentary films.

Christopher edited top-grossing documentaries including Fahrenheit 9/11, winner of the Palme d'Or at Cannes, and Sicko, both earning him American Cinema Editors Guild awards for Best Documentary Editor of the Year. He has also served as supervising and consulting editor on The Food Cure, Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead, Wake Up, and Fire in the Blood.

Christopher's work sits at the intersection of truth, emotion, curiosity, and perspective. As an editor, he has spent his career shaping complex, confronting stories into films that people can watch, feel, and understand.

This conversation explores the craft of documentary storytelling, and goes much deeper than film. We discuss curiosity as a way of moving through the world, the difference between facts and emotional truth, the role of humour in difficult stories, and why being seen may be one of the deepest human needs we share.

Christopher also shares his own story, from growing up surrounded by art, nature, and service, to the Navy, time on the Navajo reservation, studying cinematography at NYU, and building a life rooted in community, gratitude, and creative purpose.

In This Episode, You’ll Discover

• Why curiosity can create common ground, even when people disagree.

• How Christopher thinks about finding the universal human thread inside complex stories.

• Why facts alone are not always enough in a post-truth world.

• The role of emotional truth in documentary filmmaking.

• How humour can help people stay with difficult or painful subjects.

• Why documentaries need space, rhythm, and moments of relief.

• How Christopher’s time on the Navajo reservation shaped his spirituality and view of nature.

• What losing his father young taught him about impermanence, process, and savouring life.

• Why community requires showing up, not just belonging.

• How nature helps Christopher process the intensity of his work.
• Why a bountiful life may begin with changing how we define bounty.
  

Timestamps

00:00 – Opening reflection on truth, purpose, and being seen
01:20 – Introduction to Christopher Seward
02:39 – Growing up with art, nature, service, and imagination
06:44 – Spirituality, church, curiosity, and questioning
09:18 – What it means to live a bountiful life
12:30 – Advice to his 25-year-old self
14:34 – Self-trust, intuition, and learning to listen to your gut
17:00 – Losing his father young and learning impermanence
19:30 – Time on the Navajo reservation and indigenous wisdom
26:10 – Studying cinematography and finding documentary editing
30:13 – How to shape complex stories
32:39 – Facts, emotional truth, and storytelling in a post-truth world
35:34 – Working on intense documentaries and difficult subjects
38:24 – Nature, perspective, and staying well while telling hard stories
40:10 – Ariel Phenomenon and the power of first-person storytelling
45:08 – Authenticity over spectacle
46:02 – What Christopher looks for in a story
48:25 – Humour, pain, pacing, and making hard subjects watchable
51:04 – Tentpole scenes and the gravity of story
55:37 – Nature as our operating system
58:36 – Community, homecoming, and building belonging
01:04:42 – Quickfire round

Guest Bio

Christopher Seward is a documentary filmmaker and editor whose work spans more than 40 documentary films. His credits include Fahrenheit 9/11, Sicko, Ariel Phenomenon, One Child Nation, and many other projects exploring politics, human rights, social issues, identity, and the unseen stories that shape our world. His work is grounded in curiosity, emotional truth, and a deep interest in helping people see complex subjects through a more human lens.

Bountifull Podcast

Bountifull is a personal growth and wellbeing podcast exploring what it means to live a joyful and meaningful life.