Good Life Project

Somewhere in the last few years, a lot of us started asking a version of the same question: who am I now, and what am I actually here to do? The answers don't come from a quiz or a vision board. But they just might come from the one word that has been running your life all along, whether you knew it or not.

Erin Weed is a speaker coach, keynote speaker, and the creator of the Dig, a purpose-excavation method she has used with over a thousand leaders, founders, and changemakers across every stage of life and reinvention. Her new book, Just One Word: The Surprisingly Simple Method to Discover Your Purpose and Unleash Your Power, is the culmination of that work. She also spent over a decade as head speaker coach for TEDxBoulder, helping people find the one true thing they need to say and the courage to say it.

In this conversation, you get to watch the Dig happen in real time, because Jonathan sits down in the chair and lets Erin guide him through the full process.

What you will explore:

• What the Dig is and why close to 100% of people who think they know their word are actually wrong
• How your life story, all of it, from childhood to present day, contains a 10-word operating system that explains exactly how you tick
• Why your deepest violations, the things that make you genuinely angry, point directly toward your core word
• The difference between the word you think defines you and the one that actually does
• How knowing your word changes the way you make decisions, support the people you love, and build the things that matter most to you
• What Jonathan's word turned out to be, and the moment in the conversation where it landed

If you have ever felt like you were circling your purpose without quite landing on it, this conversation is for you.

You can find Erin at: Website | Instagram | Episode Transcript

Next week, we're sharing our conversation with Dr. Lucy Hone to talk about something most of us are carrying without ever calling it what it is: the grief that comes without a funeral, the losses that do not count as real loss in our culture but may be driving more of our suffering than we know. Be sure to follow Good Life Project wherever you get your podcasts so you don’t miss any upcoming episodes!

Check out our offerings & partners: 

• Join My New Writing Project: Awake at the Wheel
• Visit Our Sponsor Page For Great Resources & Discount Codes

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The voice telling you that you're not enough, that something is about to go wrong, that you should have done it differently, it sounds like you. That's exactly what makes it so hard to catch and so hard to stop.

Emiliya Zhivotovskaya has spent decades inside the science and practice of mental wellbeing, training thousands of coaches worldwide through her Certification in Applied Positive Psychology program. 

Her own path into this work began with a personal reckoning. An eating disorder that started in adolescence, years of thoughts she couldn't separate from herself, and the moment someone first told her she didn't have to be a passive recipient of what her mind was doing to her.

In this conversation, we go deep into the phenomenon most of us call overthinking and find out it's not one thing. It's five distinct types of chatter, each with its own voice, its own purpose, and its own specific antidote.

What you'll explore:

• The five types of mind chatter: worry, motivation, mindset, judgment, and regret. And how to tell which one is running you at any given moment
• Why high-level worriers actually problem-solve less effectively, and what to do with anxiety that won't respond to "just let it go"
• The "I can't... yet" reframe that shifts a fixed mindset in a single word, and why it works where positive affirmations don't
• How to take your brain to court, the evidence-based tool for the thoughts that insist you're not enough
• Why your chatter isn't trying to destroy you, and what it's actually asking for

If you've ever found yourself exhausted not by what's happening, but by what your mind keeps doing with it, this is the conversation for it.

You can find Emiliya at: Website | Instagram | Mind Over Chatter Course | Episode Transcript

Next week, we're sharing our conversation with Erin Weed, talking about her book Just One Word, and the surprisingly simple method she's used to help over a thousand people unlock their purpose and finally feel clear on who they are and where they're headed. If you've ever felt like you're searching for that through-line in your life, this conversation is for you.

Check out our offerings & partners: 

• Join My New Writing Project: Awake at the Wheel
• Visit Our Sponsor Page For Great Resources & Discount Codes

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

What if procrastination has been working exactly as intended? 

Not as a character flaw, not as laziness, but as a solution you invented for a problem you were more afraid of than the thing you kept putting off. That reframe changes everything about how you approach it.

Jon Acuff has spent decades thinking about why people with real ability, real ideas, and real desire still find ways to delay the work that matters most. His newest book, Procrastination Proof, is the result of working with hundreds of thousands of people on this exact struggle. He brings both the humor of someone who has personally been inside the loop and the precision of someone who has studied the patterns long enough to see what's actually underneath them.

In this conversation we get into:

• Why procrastination is a solution, just not the best one, and what that distinction means for how you actually change it
• The four permissions most of us never gave ourselves: to dream, to plan, to do, and to review
• How desire creates discipline, not the other way around, and why willpower is the wrong tool entirely
• The broken soundtracks that sound like reasons but are really just fear in disguise
• What "the opposite of procrastination" actually looks like, and why it has nothing to do with productivity

If there's something you've been wanting to do for months or years, and you keep finding new reasons why this isn't quite the right time, this conversation is worth your hour.

You can find Jon at: Website | Instagram | Episode Transcript

Next week, we're sharing our conversation with Emiliya Zhivotovskaya to talk about what's actually happening when you can't stop the spin cycle in your head, and more importantly, what to do about it.

Check out our offerings & partners: 

• Join My New Writing Project: Awake at the Wheel
• Visit Our Sponsor Page For Great Resources & Discount Codes

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

The anxiety you carry, the way you go silent in conflict, the relentless drive that never quite feels like enough, these didn't start with you. 

They started much earlier, in relationships and environments your body learned to survive before you had words for any of it. And according to Dr. Nicole LePera, until you understand what your nervous system actually encoded in those years, you'll keep bumping into the same walls, the same patterns, the same exhaustion.

Dr. Nicole LePera is a clinical psychologist trained at Cornell University and the New School for Social Research, a New York Times bestselling author, and the founder of the global SelfHealers community. Her new book, Reparenting the Inner Child, brings together neuroscience, attachment research, and epigenetics to explain not just why we are the way we are, but how real change actually happens in the body, not just the mind.

In this conversation, you'll explore:

• Why your childhood adaptations were brilliant at the time, and how they became the patterns holding you back now
• What the inner child actually is (the science, not the cliche), and why insight alone isn't enough to change it
• The neuroscience of emotional flooding: what's happening in your body when you can't just calm down, no matter how much you want to
• Why midlife is often the moment these old patterns finally surface, and why that's not regression, it's readiness
• The epigenetics of stress: how your ancestors' survival adaptations may be running your nervous system today
• Where to actually begin if you want to do this work without needing to excavate everything that happened to you as a child

If you've spent years doing the work and still find yourself reacting in ways that don't feel like you, this conversation will help you understand why, and what to do next.

You can find Nicole at: Website | Instagram | Episode Transcript

Next week, we're sharing our conversation with Jon Acuff about why procrastination is not actually your problem and the surprising permission shift that happens when you finally finish what matters most. Follow Good Life Project wherever you get your podcasts so you never miss an episode.

Check out our offerings & partners: 

• Join My New Writing Project: Awake at the Wheel
• Visit Our Sponsor Page For Great Resources & Discount Codes

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

Learn how to say what you think without blowing up your relationships. Most of us have been there. A conversation that starts completely normally and somehow ends with you lying awake at 2am wondering how it went so wrong, again. Whether it is a partner, a teenager, a colleague, or someone on the other side of a political divide, the cost of disagreement done badly is one of the quietest, most cumulative kinds of pain there is.

Julia Minson is a behavioral scientist and professor at the Harvard Kennedy School who has spent years studying the psychology of disagreement, researching how people handle opinions, judgments, and beliefs that differ from their own, and what it actually takes to navigate those moments without losing the relationship in the process. Her book How to Disagree Better distills that research into a practical, science-backed guide for anyone ready to do the real work of staying connected across difference.

In this conversation, you will discover:

• The single most common mistake people make at the start of a disagreement that almost guarantees it will escalate into a full argument
• The HEAR framework, a four-part behavioral science tool for expressing your view firmly without triggering defensiveness or shutting the other person down
• Why leading with facts and data backfires when you are talking to someone who already disagrees with you, and what to use instead that dramatically increases trust
• A critical practice for building disagreement skills on low-stakes conversations first, so you are not white-knuckling it when the big moments arrive
• Why empathy is wonderful in theory but unreliable in the heat of the moment, and what to focus on instead that actually shifts the dynamic

If you are tired of watching important relationships quietly erode one hard conversation at a time, this episode is for you. Press play and let's figure out how to disagree better, together.

You can find Julia at: Website | LinkedIn | Episode Transcript

Next week, we're sharing our conversation with Dr. Nicole LePera, New York Times best-selling author of Reparenting the Inner Child, about why so many of us feel stuck in patterns we can't seem to escape, no matter how hard we try. And what's actually happening in your nervous system when that happens. It's a grounding, hopeful conversation.

Check out our offerings & partners: 

• Join My New Writing Project: Awake at the Wheel
• Visit Our Sponsor Page For Great Resources & Discount Codes

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

Before you ever say a word, you've already told the room everything it needs to know. Your posture, your eye contact, the angle of your body, the openness of your chest — all of it is speaking. And most of us have no idea what it's saying.

Linda Clemons is a world-renowned body language and nonverbal communication expert who has spent more than three decades training Fortune 500 CEOs, sales teams, celebrities, and media leaders to master the silent signals that build trust, command respect, and create connection. Her bestselling book Hush: How to Radiate Power and Confidence Without Saying a Word is a practical guide to the conversation your body is having without you.

We explore why 93% of communication is nonverbal and what that actually means in practice, the four power zones of the body and why keeping them open changes everything from a job interview to a conversation with your teenager, how our biases show up in our bodies before they ever come out of our mouths, the three patterns that derail us in high-stakes moments — frozen, flooding, and flat — and how to move through them, and why the question that changes everything is not what do I want to say but how do I want this person to feel when they leave? A deeply practical, energizing conversation for anyone who wants to show up more powerfully, more warmly, and more authentically in every interaction that matters.

You can find Linda at: Website | LinkedIn | Episode Transcript

If you LOVED this episode:

• You’ll also love our conversation with Julia Minson about how to disagree better so you can have less drama and more impact in your life, your work, and your community.

Check out our offerings & partners: 

• Join My New Writing Project: Awake at the Wheel
• Visit Our Sponsor Page For Great Resources & Discount Codes

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

People who are genuinely engaged in spiritual practice live longer, experience 30% lower all-cause mortality, report more meaning, and suffer less depression. The data are remarkably clear. And yet, more people are leaving organized religion than at any point in modern history. So what happens when we walk away from the institutions but still carry the hunger for what they provided?

David DeSteno is a professor of psychology at Northeastern University who has spent his career studying the mechanisms behind moral behavior, social emotions, and what he calls spiritual technologies — the rituals and practices baked into faith traditions that science is now showing work on our minds and bodies in measurable, powerful ways, whether or not we believe in God. He is also the author of How God Works: The Science Behind the Benefits of Religion.

We explore what the research actually shows about why religious engagement improves health outcomes so dramatically, the Hindu concept of vana prastha and why midlife may be the exact moment to shift from accumulating to sharing wisdom, how rituals like contemplating death, practicing gratitude, and moving in synchrony with others change our brains and behavior, why extracting spiritual practices from their original containers can sometimes backfire, and what it might look like to build a new kind of spiritual life if you've left the one you were raised in. A rare conversation that takes both science and the sacred seriously — without asking you to choose between them.

You can find David at: Website | Bluesky | Episode Transcript

Next week, we're sharing our conversation with Linda Clemons about how your body is speaking for you before you ever open your mouth. Be sure to follow Good Life Project wherever you get your podcasts so you don’t miss any upcoming episodes!

Check out our offerings & partners: 

• Join My New Writing Project: Awake at the Wheel
• Visit Our Sponsor Page For Great Resources & Discount Codes

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

Elena Brower spent two decades as one of the most visible yoga and meditation teachers in the world, stages of thousands, a growing platform, the whole forward-facing life. Then she started doing the opposite. She got quieter. She trained as a chaplain. She began sitting with people in hospice, in silence, holding nothing but presence. Her new book, Hold Nothing, draws on that journey and on an ancient Chinese sutra that became her compass: Welcome nothing. Refuse nothing. Reflect everything. Hold nothing.

This is a conversation about what happens when the drive to impact as many people as possible gives way to the desire to impact as few as possible, as quietly as possible. We explore what Elena's time in hospice has revealed about presence as the ultimate offering, the hidden cost of living a double life while teaching wholeness, how the practice of letting go transforms the closest relationships in your life, why silence is the thing most of us are allergic to and also the thing we most need, and what it actually means to prepare, through every small daily choice, to die a good death, and why that might be the clearest definition of a good life.

A deeply honest, quietly powerful conversation for anyone in midlife who is beginning to sense that the most important work ahead isn't about building more, it's about becoming less.

You can find Elena at: Website | Instagram | Episode Transcript

Next week, we're sharing our conversation with Dave DeSteno about the 'spiritual technology' that can lower your stress and mortality risk, even if you don't consider yourself a person of faith.

Check out our offerings & partners: 

• Join My New Writing Project: Awake at the Wheel
• Visit Our Sponsor Page For Great Resources & Discount Codes

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

It’s getting late, you know you “should” go to bed. But you just can't…or won’t. You tell yourself, just one more episode, or a few more minutes of scrolling, or a little more work to sneak in. It seems innocuous, but what if it was actually causing a world of harm? To your health, relationships, state of mind, performance at work, and more?

Our guest is Vanessa Hill, PhD, a leading sleep scientist and Research Fellow at CQ University, who specializes in the science of bedtime procrastination. She is a Science Communication Fellow at the Museum of Science and an expert in how our digital habits shape our rest.

And today, we’re talking about:

• The near-addictive quality of sleep procrastination, and the hidden reason for it
• The surprising research showing why blue light might not be the sleep villain we’ve been told it is
• Why your "night brain" finds it nearly impossible to “do the right thing, and get to bed”
• The one habit that often matters more than the total minutes spent on your phone
• Why common sleep advice often fails, and what to do instead

If you find yourself stuck in a cycle of late nights and tired mornings, you are not alone. Listen to this episode to discover a more compassionate, science-backed way to reclaim your rest and feel like yourself again.

You can find Vanessa at: Vanessa's Substack | Instagram | Episode Transcript

Next week, we're sharing a conversation with Elena Brower about the wisdom of emptiness and the art of showing up to your life completely.

Check out our offerings & partners: 

• Join My New Writing Project: Awake at the Wheel
• Visit Our Sponsor Page For Great Resources & Discount Codes

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

Do you ever feel like you are just a reaction to other people's needs? Not just for days, or months, but years, maybe even…decades? It is easy to slip into a life where others take the wheel and leave you breathless, trying not to crumble. And you find yourself, in the middle years of life, wondering where you, the real you, went.

The cycle of autopilot busyness can feel like an invisible cage that keeps you from the life you once dreamed of living. Today, we explore how to break free and move from a state of constant frenzy to a place of grounded intention and ease.

Host Jonathan Fields is the founder of Good Life Project and creator of the Sparketypes. After a health crisis forced him to leave a high-pressure law career, he has spent decades researching what it actually takes to flourish.

• How Reactive Life Syndrome ends up controlling so much of our waking hours
• How other people’s agendas end up defining our daily existence.
• How to break out of the cycle of reactivity and reclaim a sense of agency and intention
• How to build practices and skills designed to bring peace and purpose back into your life

If you are tired of being dragged through your days and want to start choosing your life again, this episode is for you. Play the episode now to discover the 6 practical ways to get unbusy and feel alive again.

Episode Transcript

Next week, we're sharing our conversation with sleep scientist Vanessa Hill, about the science of bedtime procrastination and why your 'night brain' craves that extra hour of scrolling even when you know you should be sleeping.

Check out our offerings & partners: 

• Join My New Writing Project: Awake at the Wheel
• Visit Our Sponsor Page For Great Resources & Discount Codes

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