Good Life Project

What if success was less about mastery and more about sight?

Simple truth: Most of us don’t see what is right in front of us.

Instead, we see mental models and imprints of what things “should” look like or what we’ve been told to see. And, we miss what's actually happening, along with all the critical details.

As entrepreneurs or professionals, it’s extremely difficult to become extraordinary at anything, to serve on the deepest level or build businesses, careers and lives that are tapped into their potential until we first understand how to see what’s in front of us.

Today’s guest, Amy Herman, can help. A former lawyer with a dual education in art, she saw how a pervasive inability to both see truth and details and then share them in a clear way was limiting the work of so many people. So, she developed The Art of Perception, a program to teach (non-artist) professionals strengthen their perception skills using classic works of art in a museum setting.

The impact has been astonishing. She now works with everyone from the NYPD FBI to the Department of Defense, doctors and med students, as well as leaders in the fields of education, finance, and policy. Amy’s new book, Visual Intelligence, describes her process and her work.

In This Episode You’ll Learn:

• The impetus behind the launch of Amy’s programs.
• The experience of The Art of Perception and what people can expect when they go through the program.
• The four As of Amy’s program and how they help professionals become better at their jobs.
• The importance of taking a step back and making sure you have enough information if you choose to rely on a bias.
• Why eyewitness testimonies are not a reliable source of information.
• Amy’s tip for getting the complete picture of a situation at hand.
• Why Amy prohibits certain words in her classes.
• The importance of self-perception and why it’s critical to self-development.
• Why Amy is unhappy with the state of the formal art education and what she suggests to those majoring in art.

Mentioned In This Episode:

• Connect with Amy: The Art of Perception
• Visual Intelligence by Amy Herman
• The Gift of Fear by Gavin de Becker
• The MET
• Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
• The Frick Collection

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How do you go from being a wine newbie to a sommelier at Thomas Keller’s famed French Laundry?

That was the journey that our today’s guest, André Mack, took. And that was just the beginning. From there, André became the head sommelier at Per Se, Thomas Keller’s restaurant in New York, before becoming a winemaker and creating his own, provocative wine brand, Mouton Noir.

In this episode of the Good Life Project, André shares his incredible journey and his love affair with learning, entrepreneurship, wine and design, as well as the deep insights he’s gained along the way. We talk about his consuming obsession with becoming extraordinary and how it moved him to become an award-winning sommelier, winemaker, designer & author. You won’t want to miss this inspiring episode!

In This Episode You’ll Learn:

• André’s experience growing up as a prototypical military kid and how it opened up his world.
• Why André and his wife decided to homeschool their kids.
• The reason why he left the finance world for the service industry.
• How the TV show, Frasier, inspired him to learn more about wine.
• André’s process for committing wines’ subtle nuances to memory.
• His journey to becoming a sommelier at The French Laundry and Per Se.
• His consuming obsession with becoming extraordinary.
• How André’s need for being creative drove him to starting his own business.
• The power of leveraging past relationships.
• The idea behind the Mouton Noir’s branding.

Mentioned In This Episode:

• Connect with André: andremack.com | Mouton Noir Wines | Small Thyme Cooks
• Frasier
• The French Laundry
• Per Se
• David Chang and Momofuku
• Hall & Oates

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Today's guest is Eileen Flannigan, the Founder and Managing Director of Girls on Fire Leaders, a non-profit that provides young girls in developing nations with personal and community leadership skills through immersive travel, experiential self-learning, authentic self-expression, and global connectivity.

Eileen was a successful digital marketing strategist for large tech startups in Silicon Valley. But after two decades in this field, she began listening to the voice inside her that called her to make a bigger contribution to the world.

When she turned forty, Eileen went to India and gave herself two guidelines: she would go alone, and she would follow her heart completely. For nearly two months, she hung out with street kids and young girls in brothels. Her time there set her life on a transformational course that blossomed into Girls on Fire Leaders, which now empowers adolescent girls all around the world.

Don’t miss this inspiring and insightful look into the life and mind of an entrepreneur who left her familiar world to serve the world in a deeper way.

In This Episode You’ll Learn:

• Why you don’t need to be an extrovert to be a leader.
• How her tendency as a kid to pay attention to the “underdog” manifested itself in surprising ways.
• The tension she felt between not wanting to destroy the life she had created, but wanting to do something that made a bigger difference.
• How Eileen literally followed her heart when she went to India.
• The story of how Eileen became involved with Kiva, and its connection to eventually quitting her job.
• The surprising insights Eileen gained about poverty through living and working with people in the slums.
• Why it’s so hard for women trapped in poverty to escape from it.
• Why people living under corrupt governments often don’t speak up for themselves.
• How leading Girls on Fire has impacted Eileen personally.
• How Eileen defines a “good life.”

Mentioned In This Episode:

• Connect with Eileen: Girls on Fire Leaders | LinkedIn
• Kiva
• Portfolios of the Poor by Daryl Collins
• Restore NYC
• Grab your spot at the Camp GLP at the Early Bird discount rate!

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Today's guest is obsessed with wonder. In fact, it's his vocation.

Jeffery Davis is the founder of Tracking Wonder, where he explores how to reconnect with wonder and also help people tell their their stories through books, businesses and beyond.

As a kid, he became concerned about paying attention to life and ensuring that he'd never lose his imagination. That led him to become a poet, a teacher, an author and then...everything fell apart.

He realized he'd been living entirely "from the neck up," largely disembodied and disconnected from his heart. That awakening launched a years-long quest to rediscover a deeper, more soulful driver. It brought him back to wonder as a driving force in his life and eventually as his career.

He has taught his signature approaches to creativity, writing, and branding at numerous universities, conferences, and centers around the world. An author, speaker, and online columnist for Psychology Today, he is in dogged pursuit of what helps creatives thrive amidst constant challenge and change. He lives in a farmhouse in the Hudson Valley with his wife and two girls.

Maybe his biggest true driver, though, is to be the kind of adult whose life reveals to his daughters the grace and beauty and joy of a wonder that never ends.

His new book of poetry is Coat Thief.

In This Episode You’ll Learn:

• The gift that his father gave him, passed down from his grandfather.
• How he ended up living with his bachelor father during high school.
• How he faked being an extrovert growing up.
• Why his friends called him 'The Mystery Man'.
• His decision between joining the monastery or becoming a poet.
• The entry point that broke him out of his intellect and into his body.
• The two-fold silent promise he made to his baby girl after she was born.

Mentioned In This Episode:

• Connect with Jeffrey: Tracking Wonder
• Quiet by Susan Cain
• Beat Generation
• William Carlos Williams: "The Red Wheelbarrow"
• Wallace Stevens
• Robert Creeley
• City Reservoir by Jeffrey Davis
• Focus by Daniel Goleman
• TKV Desikachar
• The Journey from the Center to the Page: Yoga Philosophies and Practices as Muse for Authentic Writing by Jeffrey Davis
• Shiva Suturas
• Grab your spot at the Camp GLP at the Early Bird discount rate!

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Today's Good Life Project Roundtable™ features guests-in-residence Daniel Lerner and Gabra Zackman. This is session 3 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-centered BOD SQUAD series. Her life philosophy is 'Say yes...and rock what you got'.

Our three topics in this episode:

• How do you find those near-mystical collaborations?
• The surprising origins of mentors, what's in it for the mentor?
• Why you need to hold on to your most precious relationships loosely.

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.

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Ever hear of the 10,000 rule? The idea that it takes 10,000 hours to become world-class at anything?

Well, what if it wasn't true?

And, what if the research it was based on actually said something very different? Something that somehow got "lost in translation" when the data went mainstream.

In today's conversation, we sit down with K. Anders Ericsson, PhD, Professor of Psychology at Florida State University. He studies what it takes to be the best in the world in domains such as music, chess, medicine, and sports. And it was his research that served of the basis for the now wildly popular 10,000 hour rule that's been cited in some of the biggest books of the last 10 years..

Problem is, as you're about to discover, it's a lie. There never was a 10,000 rule. That number, along with the idea of a "rule," is based on a series of misinterpretations of his work.

In this new book, Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise, and in today's conversation, Ericsson finally sets the record straight. He distills three decades of myth-shattering research into a powerful learning strategy that is fundamentally different from the way people traditionally think about acquiring new abilities.

EIn This Episode You’ll Learn:

• The difference between "traditional" practice, "purposeful" practice and "deliberate" practice.
• How Malcolm Gladwell may have misinterpreted Ericsson's research on the 10,000 hour rule.
• How Ericsson sees the importance of the role of a teacher in accelerating the path to expertise.
• What actually motivates someone to do the often grueling work for the years it takes to become great.
• How he's studied people who have learned and developed systems to memorize long strings of numbers.

Mentioned In This Episode:

• Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell
• Whiplash

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Today we're featuring a very special GLP Guest Riff with Melissa Ambrosini.

Melissa Ambrosini is the bestselling author of Mastering Your Mean Girl, an entrepreneur, motivational speaker, and self-love teacher.

In her signature straight-talking style, Melissa teaches women how to master their inner Mean Girl, smash through limiting beliefs, and ditch the self-doubt so that they can start truly living the life of their dreams.

THer mission is to inspire women across the globe to create a heart centred life that is wildly wealthy, fabulously healthy and bursting with love.

By now, there's a pretty good chance you've heard of FOMO or fear of missing out. In today's guest Riff, Melissa offers a provocative reframe, a little something she calls JOMO or the "joy" of missing out.

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Today, I’m excited to be talking to Emily Heyward, co-founder of white-hot, Brooklyn-based branding phenomenon, Red Antler.

While attending Harvard, Emily took a deep dive into the study of pop culture, ethical philosophy, and what drives people at the core. After college, she entered the advertising world where her career began to take off.

After realizing she loved being in control, Emily decided to enter the world of entrepreneurship, co-founding the groundbreaking branding agency, Red Antler, which quickly exploded into one of the hottest shops, with a unique business-model. They serve early-stage ventures, often becoming involved on a level that goes way beyond traditional brand-building. Or in their words, they "build brands for startups that are changing how the world works."

I invited Emily to the Good Life Project to explore her life and her influences. She shares her thoughts about creating something of your own, as well as helping other visionaries build something that becomes a global brand and makes a huge impact on the world.

Don’t miss this behind-the-scenes look into the life of a successful entrepreneur and an incredible human being, Emily Heyward. 

In This Episode You’ll Learn:

• Emily Heyward growing up.
• The impetus behind starting her own business.
• One of the greatest lessons Emily learned - the power of delegating.
• What it takes to produce a podcast like Serial and why there are not many copy-cats.
• Emily’s take on the power of storytelling.
• What made her want to leave the advertising industry.
• Why Emily and her team valued reputation much more than paying rent early on in their business.
• The shocking statistics about the success rate of entrepreneurs with day jobs vs. ones who go all in.
• How Red Antler came to be.
• Why Emily credits their success to launching during a recession.
• Her authentic thoughts on the idea of work-life balance.

Mentioned In This Episode:

• Connect with Emily: RED ANTLER | LinkedIn
• Serial
• This American Life
• Gimlet Media
• www.Duarte.com
• The Confidence Game by Maria Konnikova
• Give and Take by Adam Grant
• Behance

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This week's guest: 

This week, our in-depth conversation features David Burkus, dad, author, speaker, researcher, and associate professor of management at Oral Roberts University.

He teaches courses on organizational behavior, creativity and innovation, and strategic leadership and has made it his purpose to facilitate the transfer of good ideas.

THe is the author The Myths of Creativity: The Truth About How Innovative Companies Generate Great Ideas and writes regularly for Harvard Business Review, Forbes, PsychologyToday and 99U. He's also the founder and host of Radio Free Leader, a podcast that shares insights on leadership, innovation, and strategy.

His new book, Under New Management: How Leading Organizations Are Upending Business as Usual, draws on decades of research which has found that not only are many of our fundamental management practices wrong and misguided, but they can be downright counter-productive.

In This Episode, You'll Learn:

• How he ended up in a university teaching position he didn't see coming.
• Why paying people to quit is a great use of company funds, if you value culture.
• What happens when companies place their employees above their customers.
• That the smartest corporate leaders are the ones you've never heard of.
• Why some companies are re-evaluating or eliminating email all together.
• The benefits of pushing through the uncomfortableness of pay transparency.

Mentioned in This Episode:

• Zappos' Culture
• Zappos' transition to "Holacracy"
• Slack

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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.

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