Good Life Project

Sekou Andrews defies every preconceived notion you might have in your head about the voice and role of poetry in business, society and life.

In his words, when he "tells people that, before creating a new inspirational speaker category, he was a successful 'full-time poet,' you would think that he had said 'full-time mermaid,' or 'freelance unicorn' based on the reactions he gets."

A former elementary school teacher turned musician, national poetry slam champion, Sekou discovered the power of delivering larger ideas, stories, missions and even strategies to audiences not by traditional keynote or slides or visuals, but by meticulously crafted spoken word performances.

He calls this "Poetic Voice" and Sekou has now presented to everyone from the world's largest organizations to Barack Obama, Oprah, Maya Angelou, Quincy Jones, Larry King, Hillary Clinton, Norman Lear, Sean “P-Diddy” Combs, and Coretta Scott King and family and so many others.

In today's episode, we explore Sekou's remarkable journey, his exploration of acting, music, teaching and poetry, how he unbridled words from beat to make the leap from musician to poet and how he literally created an entirely new speaking category and is now turning around and teaching others how to discover their own Poetic Voices.

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Have you ever done something because you thought it would look good on your resume? Studied at a particular school or with a particular person?

What if, instead of trying to pile on credentials from esteemed people and institutions in the name of building a resume, you based your choices on what would let you increase your capabilities, your ability to make a difference, with the greatest speed and depth?

Sure, sometimes you can do both, but often times, we get lost in the quest to amass qualifications and forget the end game is not to have a "seemingly" glossy resume, but to cultivate the ability to leave others changed. To make a dent in the universe.

That's what we're talking about in today's GLP Riff.

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Janice Kaplan is filled with gratitude. But, it wasn't always that way.

Her career in the media has taken her from the TV sportscasting desk to producing dozens of shows, writing more than a dozen books and eventually serving as editor-in-chief of Parade Magazine, which at its height, boasted a circulation of about 30 million readers.

Her life was good, still is. But, she noticed that, as good as it was, there was always this feeling of yearning, of it not being enough.

Then, a few years back, a research project she'd been working on that focused on gratitude triggered her to reexamine her life and explore nearly every facet of her existence anew.

This launched a yearlong exploration of gratitude, with a series of experiments that revealed how profound an impact simple shifts and daily practices could have on her life. Unfolding in "seasons," Janice examines both the growing wellspring of research, as well as the direct effect of so many "gratitude interventions" we've heard about over the years in her book, The Gratitude Diaries.

In today's conversation, we dive into Janice's extraordinary career in media, her creative through-lines and fascination with human behavior and why we do what we do, and her values around family, women's voices, relationships, life and the life-changing impact of her year of gratitude.

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There's been a lot of pushback lately against the idea of mastery, choosing one thing and putting everything you've got into it.

Mastery, it seems, has become almost a dirty word. Why choose just one or two things to master, when your interests span four or five or 10 or 20? Why not just do them all? Isn't that a legitimate way to both feel good and contribute to the world? Isn't being a jack of all trades, master of none the type of person who is most in demand these days anyway?

For some, maybe. But, for many others, not so much. I wonder...

Is the pervasive refusal to say no to many thing and strive for mastery in one more about fabulosity or FOMO?

That's what we're talking about on today's GLP Riff.

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There's that old line. When you're thinking about opening a restaurant, the three most important things are location, location and location.

Edward Barnett agrees, but the way he chose the location for his first restaurant in what is now becoming a chain goes against nearly every bit of conventional wisdom and advice.

Edward was on a mission. Not just to do well, but to do good. So, along with his partner, Karim Webb, he opened their first Buffalo Wild Wings restaurant in one of the toughest neighborhoods in L.A., Crenshaw, a place where violence, crime and lack of opportunity was a way of life.

They wanted to offer a dining experience that wasn't available in Crenshaw. But, they also wanted to create a place of opportunity, jobs and community. A place where kids and adults alike could get off the streets, learn a trade and build a career. A place not just to work, but where they knew someone cared about them.

Where everyone cautioned them and said they'd fail, they've succeeded. It's still hard at times, but it's worth the effort. They've created a place where people not only come to eat, but come to gather. And for those who work there, they've also created a path to possibility and hope.

In this week's episode, I sit down with Edward to explore both his life and the lessons he's learned, along with what it's been like trying to build a sustainable business and an engine of impact in a place that's known so little of both.

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We spend so much time trying to "acquire" people and things.

In business, we talk about "acquiring a customer," like they're a commodity we're buying at the corner store and we even associate a price with each new person.

In our personal lives, we often do the same, thinking about the effort it takes to find and start a relationship with a new friend, lover or partner, yet it feels wrong to call that friend or lover or partner an "acquisition," so we come up with gentler words to remind ourselves no human actually gets to acquire or possess another human.

We use that word, acquisition, by the way, because it deludes us into believing "once we've got it, it's ours for life." Hahaha! So, silly!

We all know, that's not even close to reality. We don't own anyone. Not for life, not for a year, a month, an hour or a moment. We are gifted with their presence, their investment of love and energy and time and more. And that gift is something that must be nurtured, grown, tended over time or else it goes away, and so do they.

We have an opportunity to continue to invest in not only the process of discovery, but the continuing process of deepening and delight. Delight, in fact, is where the greatest magic happens and it's all too often completely ignored once you're past the courting stages.

What if, instead of focusing maniacally on finding and starting relationships, then letting them coast into oblivion, we spent equal if not more energy on delighting those we bring into our orbit once they're here.

That's what we're talking about on this week's short and sweet GLP Riff.

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Born and raised in a family of Irish surfers, and named after a surf break, Easkey Britton is a renowned Irish pro surfer, five-time National Surfing Champion and one of the top female big-wave surfers in the world. She's also an explorer, artist and scientist with a Ph.D. in Environment and Society.

On any given day, she may be traveling the world, getting towed into waves 10 times bigger than her, screaming down the face of walls of water that move like a steamroller, doing everything in her power to dance with the wave, rather than be crushed by it. Or, she may be researching the environment or bringing people to disparate parts of the world to come together and create social change around surfing.

I had a chance to sit down with Easkey and learn about her lifelong love of the ocean and relationship with water. We explored surfing not just as a feat or an activity, but a metaphor for life and growth. We also talked about how she is using surfing as a form of social impact, empowerment and cultural education, co-founding the Waves of Freedom Foundation and filming a documentary about her trip to bring together women from local communities around surfing in one of the poorest, most remote and dangerous regions of Iran.

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Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Mark Nepo is a renowned poet, philosopher, author, master storyteller and spiritual teacher.

He has appeared numerous times on Oprah, his Book of Awakening was a #1 New York Times bestseller and his newest book, Inside the Miracle, explores how we can move through suffering with grace and resilience.

As Mark shares in this wide-ranging conversation, his darkest moment came in 1987, when he was diagnosed with lymphoma, which then led him into three years of treatment that eventually brought him back to health, but also pulled him through a brutal, yet awakening experience in its own right.

Somehow, out of that moment, he was able to reconnect with a deeper sense of spirit and emerge not just in a different place, but a changed man.

We explore all of this, as well as his lens on God, spirituality, truth, expression, relationships and so much more. And, at the end, as a special offering, he reads two beautiful poems to close the conversation.

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We are wired to run from the unknown, to flee anything that leaves us in that raw, exposed place of uncertainty.

When our ideas take us to this place, we feel it and many of us shut down. It stops our true genius from emerging and turning into breakthrough discoveries, products, experiences, brands, businesses and art.

But there's another phenomenon that is even more alarming. And it happens when you take this idea and soul-crushing dynamic into larger organizations. Bosses, it turns out, have a hard time acknowledging other peoples' amazing, innovative ideas, too. The reason why and the implications are a bit scary, according to a recent study.

If you keep offering great ideas to supervisors and getting knocked down, or if you're a boss who keeps asking for ideas and feeling like nobody's offering up good ones, you need to listen to this week's episode.

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