Good Life Project

How does a kid who grew up on a farm in the midwest, who struggled with mental illness on a level that led him to contemplate taking his own life, end up a rising star in industry, author, and the Head of Mindfulness and Compassion at mega tech-company LinkedIn? More than that, how does he end up deeply present, at peace, and alive with possibility and joy? That is the trajectory of today’s guest, Scott Shute.

For more than two decades now, Scott has been on a quest to weave together the modern workplace and ancient wisdom traditions, blending a lifelong spiritual practice and passion with practical leadership and operations. It’s been the expression of something akin to a “download” he got early in life to change work from the inside out. His approach has been “mainstreaming mindfulness” and “operationalizing compassion.” Which has not always been an easy sell. Scott is also the author of The Full Body Yes, and one of the powerful voices and teachers behind the InnerMBA, a nine-month online immersion for entrepreneurs, executives and employees who believe business is a force for good in the world, and want to achieve success while making a difference.

You can find Scott at: Website | Instagram

If you LOVED this episode:

You’ll also love the conversations we had with Tara Brach about finding equanimity and compassion.

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Have you discovered your Sparketype yet? Take the Sparketype Assessment™ now. IT’S FREE (https://sparketype.com/) and takes about 7-minutes to complete. At a minimum, it’ll open your eyes in a big way. It also just might change your life.

If you enjoyed the show, please share it with a friend. Thank you to our super cool brand partners. If you like the show, please support them - they help make the podcast possible.

My new book, Sparked: Discover Your Unique Imprint for Work that Makes You Come Alive is now available for order at https://sparketype.com/book/

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

There’s something big happening that few people are really talking about in a meaningful and constructive way. A sense of loss, on so many levels, even if there’s also hope and excitement. We hate talking about this stuff, but it’s so important.

Whenever I’m grappling with any kind of loss or grief, whether around a person or even just a broader sense of freedom, connection, humanity, or possibility, my go-to person is my dear friend, Megan Devine, who also happens to be today’s guest. Megan is a psychotherapist and grief advocate. She's the author of the best-selling book, It's OK that You're Not OK, and the new guided journal for grief, How to Carry What Can't Be Fixed.

Megan was on the show back in 2016, but I asked her to come back after a conversation we had about how so many of us are carrying an unacknowledged sense of loss and grief right now. I wanted to explore what that does to us, what it means for us, and how to work with it in a way that owns the reality, and also allows us to be changed, and move forward from a place of greater understanding, and maybe even lightness and grace. And, that’s what we dive into in today’s conversation.

You can find Megan at: Website | Instagram

If you LOVED this episode:

You’ll also love the conversations we had with Ocean Vuong about how loss and othering as a child led to creativity and insight as an adult.

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Have you discovered your Sparketype yet? Take the Sparketype Assessment™ now. IT’S FREE (https://sparketype.com/) and takes about 7-minutes to complete. At a minimum, it’ll open your eyes in a big way. It also just might change your life.

If you enjoyed the show, please share it with a friend. Thank you to our super cool brand partners. If you like the show, please support them - they help make the podcast possible.

My new book, Sparked: Discover Your Unique Imprint for Work that Makes You Come Alive is now available for order at https://sparketype.com/book/

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

Danielle Henderson is a TV writer, former editor for Rookie, cohost of the film podcast I Saw What You Did, and author of the achingly poignant and funny memoir, The Ugly Cry. Abandoned at ten years old by a mother who chose her drug-addicted, abusive boyfriend, she was raised by grandparents who thought their child-rearing days had ended in the 1960s. She grew up, in her words, “Black, weird, and overwhelmingly uncool in a mostly white neighborhood in upstate New York, which created its own identity crises.” Under the eye-rolling, profanity-laced, yet unconditionally loving tutelage of her uncompromising grandmother—and the horror movies she obsessively watched—Danielle found writing as a powerful outlet and form of creative expression. Along the way, she’s written for many major outlets, TV shows, and as she shares, “she drove from New York to Alaska by herself, survived a bear chase, four Alaskan winters, junior high school, working in a convent, Aquanet hairspray, acid wash jeans, and the entirety of the Mets' 1987 season.” We talk about it all in today’s conversation.

You can find Danielle at: Website | Instagram | I Saw What You Did podcast

If you LOVED this episode:

You’ll also love the conversations we had with New York Times bestselling author of the memoir Somebody’s Daughter, Ashley C. Ford.

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Have you discovered your Sparketype yet? Take the Sparketype Assessment™ now. IT’S FREE (https://sparketype.com/) and takes about 7-minutes to complete. At a minimum, it’ll open your eyes in a big way. It also just might change your life.

If you enjoyed the show, please share it with a friend. Thank you to our super cool brand partners. If you like the show, please support them - they help make the podcast possible.

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

This past year and a half has pushed many of us to the brink, in a lot of ways. Relationships. Work. Physical and mental health. It’s tested nearly every system, thought, belief, tool, practice and resource we rely on to find peace, ease, solace, hope, resilience, and grace. Over the years, we’ve had the great fortune to be able to sit down with many leading voices and innovators in the world of mental health, to learn from their lives, their stories, their experience and expertise. And, today, we’re sharing insight from four of those visionaries: Dr. Nzinga Harrison, Terri Cole, Lori Gottlieb, & Dr. Joy Harden Bradford.

I hope you'll enjoy this exploration of mental health from different lenses valuable and maybe it’ll plant a seed that opens you to exploring and being more intentional and proactive in your own pursuit of wellbeing.

You can find Dr. Nzinga Harrison at: Website | In Recovery Podcast

You can find Terri Cole at: Website | The Terri Cole Show

You can find Lori Gottlieb at: Website | Dear Therapist Podcast

You can find Dr. Joy Harden Bradford at: Website | Therapy for Black Girls Podcast

If you LOVED this episode:

You’ll also love the full-length conversations we had with Dr. Nzinga Harrison, Terri Cole, Lori Gottlieb, Dr. Joy Harden Bradford.

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Have you discovered your Sparketype yet? Take the Sparketype Assessment™ now. IT’S FREE (https://sparketype.com/) and takes about 7-minutes to complete. At a minimum, it’ll open your eyes in a big way. It also just might change your life.

If you enjoyed the show, please share it with a friend. Thank you to our super cool brand partners. If you like the show, please support them - they help make the podcast possible.

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

A member of the iconic Destiny's Child supergroup, along with Beyonce Knowles and Kelly Rowland, on the surface, Michelle Williams lived a life people dreamed of. Yet, on the inside, things were not as they seemed. Living under the weight of depression and anxiety, Michelle hid the darkness that had been with her since her teens. The blend of pressure to perform and millions of eyes on her every move only deepened the level of suffering, and the feeling that she had to keep her experience silent. 

When Destiny's Child came to an end, it caught her by surprise. She questioned her identity, career, and worth, and no longer had the singular focus - the group - to distract her from addressing her mental health. After years of navigating a range of professional projects, Michelle eventually found herself in the perfect storm of depression, anxiety, and anger that led her to seek help in a residential program. But that was just the first crashing wave. A tenuous relationship with her fiance crumbled under the bright lights of a reality show that, as she shares, never should have happened. She was devastated, felt abandoned, publicly judged, and inhabiting a world that felt like it no longer fit or supported her. Michelle had what she describes as a psychotic break or complete breakdown. 

That moment, and the suffering that led to it, opened a window of profound reckoning, self-examination, intense therapy, and a renewed sense of faith and devotion that fueled her path slowly back to wellbeing, a journey she shared in her moving memoir, Checking In (https://amzn.to/3hScMQa). And, she's the first to share, there's still a lot of work left to do, but she also very transparent about the moments along the way, with the hope that her story might help others.

We talk about it all, in a wide-ranging, vulnerable and open conversation.

You can find Michelle at:

Website : https://www.thomasnelson.com/p/checking-in/

Instagram : https://www.instagram.com/michellewilliams/

If you LOVED this episode:

You’ll also love the conversations we had with Grammy-winning singer, Lisa Fischer, about her life in music and the effect that proximity to mega-stardom has had on her, beyond her own personal taste of fame : https://pod.link/goodlifeproject/episode/148982c8b5c85a63948f03572f29be1e

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Have you discovered your Sparketype yet? Take the Sparketype Assessment™ now. IT’S FREE (https://sparketype.com/) and takes about 7-minutes to complete. At a minimum, it’ll open your eyes in a big way. It also just might change your life.

If you enjoyed the show, please share it with a friend. Thank you to our super cool brand partners. If you like the show, please support them - they help make the podcast possible.

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

Want to be great at something you love? Don’t follow the age-old tropes. For decades, we’ve been told that, in order to become truly great at anything, we need to devote ourselves to thousands of hours of deliberate practice or have mad talent. Even better if you have both. But, what if that was a lie? Or, at least not the full picture? What if there was a third path that was actually the secret to greatness for many of the world’s top performers across nearly every domain? 

According to today’s guest, Ron Friedman, there is. Ron is an award-winning social psychologist who specializes in human motivation. In his latest book, Decoding Greatness (https://amzn.to/2UPM2a6), he breaks down the counterintuitive strategies the world’s highest performers take to achieve excellence. He was inspired to write it by research on pattern recognition, skill acquisition, and creative genius, as well as a personal fascination with creators, entrepreneurs, and athletes who accomplish things that almost no one else can.

You can find Ron at:

Website : https://www.ronfriedmanphd.com/

If you LOVED this episode:

You’ll also love the conversation we had with Anders Ericcson, also known as the father of world-class performance, excellence and expertise and the person whose research is often misquoted as the basis for the famed 10,000-hour rule : https://www.goodlifeproject.com/podcast/anders-ericsson/

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Have you discovered your Sparketype yet? Take the Sparketype Assessment™ now. IT’S FREE (https://sparketype.com/) and takes about 7-minutes to complete. At a minimum, it’ll open your eyes in a big way. It also just might change your life.

If you enjoyed the show, please share it with a friend. Thank you to our super cool brand partners. If you like the show, please support them - they help make the podcast possible.

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

If I said the words, “I know this much is true,” a certain generation of humans would immediately start humming along with the lyric and the unforgettable melody from the iconic Spandau Ballet song, simply titled True. As the songwriter and guitarist for ‘80s music phenom, Gary Kemp wrote True, along with 23 hit singles, and the band’s androgynous, glam look changed the culture of music in a way that wouldn’t be truly understood for year. He later worked with everyone from Nelly to Lloyd and the Black Eyed Peas, wrote music that’s appeared on TV shows worldwide, including Spin City, the Simpsons and Ugly Betty a well as Hollywood blockbusters like the Wedding Singer, Charlie’s Angels, 50 First Dates, and Sky High.

When Spandau’s opening run came to close in the early 90s, Gary then followed a parallel muse into acting, appearing in the hit British gangster movie, the Krays, and then in Hollywood movies like the Bodyguard, and Quentin Tarantino’s, Killing Zoe. He also made his theatrical debut in the London West End production of Art. 

Gary began touring again with Saucerful of Secrets, alongside Pink Floyd drummer, Nick Mason, and bassist, Guy Pratt, rekindling a desire to be back in the studio writing and recording an album he produced during the pandemic called INSOLO, which is a deeply reflective look at his life, love and work.

You can find Gary at:

Website : http://smarturl.it/INSOLOgk

Instagram : https://www.instagram.com/garyjkemp/

If you LOVED this episode:

You’ll also love the conversation we had with music icon, Ben Folds, about music, creativity and the power of nonconformity : https://pod.link/goodlifeproject/episode/e4c6ed32b87354e9fe5773e88892207d

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Have you discovered your Sparketype yet? Take the Sparketype Assessment™ now. IT’S FREE (https://sparketype.com/) and takes about 7-minutes to complete. At a minimum, it’ll open your eyes in a big way. It also just might change your life.

If you enjoyed the show, please share it with a friend. Thank you to our super cool brand partners. If you like the show, please support them - they help make the podcast possible.

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

If you’re ever heard the term, “highly sensitive person,” or even been called highly sensitive and maybe even recoiled a bit when that happen, you’ll be deeply moved by the work of today’s guest, Dr. Elaine Aron. She first identified high sensitivity as a distinct character trait more than 25 years ago, introducing the term “Highly Sensitive Person” to describe someone who is easily overwhelmed by strong sensory input, subtleties in environment and other people’s moods, and deeply feels pressures and overstimulation. Since its publication in 1995, her preeminent book on the subject, The Highly Sensitive Person, has gone on to become an international bestseller translated into 30 languages. She is also the author of The Highly Sensitive Parent, and many others. 

Credited for first recognizing high sensitivity as an innate trait and pioneering the study of HSPs since 1990, she has established the Foundation for the Study of Highly Sensitive Persons and has published numerous scientific articles on sensitivity in the leading journals in her field.

Turns out, today’s conversation, was also personal, because in many ways, I am a highly sensitive person. But, I also discovered so much more about the way I move through the world, how this trait relates to introversion and extroversion - very surprising - and how you can be both highly sensitive, while also being high-sensation, which I’d never heard before. 

You can find Elaine at:

Website : https://hsperson.com/

If you LOVED this episode:

You’ll also love the conversations we had with Susan Cain, the author of Quiet, about the power of introverts : https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/susan-cain-introverts-power-and-the-quiet-revolution/id647826736?i=1000380458433

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Have you discovered your Sparketype yet? Take the Sparketype Assessment™ now. IT’S FREE (https://sparketype.com/) and takes about 7-minutes to complete. At a minimum, it’ll open your eyes in a big way. It also just might change your life.

If you enjoyed the show, please share it with a friend. Thank you to our super cool brand partners. If you like the show, please support them - they help make the podcast possible.

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

A refugee at the age of two, Ocean Vuong and his mom found themselves fleeing Saigon, Vietnam, traveling across the globe, then dropped into a world that was simultaneously a source of renewal and safety, while also delivering a daily dose of profound othering. The English language came slowly to Ocean, struggling to read at the age of 11. But, over time, his deep curiosity and sense of observation led to a love of language that grabbed hold and never let go. 

In 2016, he released a critically acclaimed poetry collection Night Sky that dazzled the literary world. His gorgeously written and deeply stirring first novel, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous (https://amzn.to/3htad7j), which became an instant New York Times bestseller, draws largely on his experience growing up in Hartford, Connecticut with a mom who shared a complex love in a community he seemed perpetually estranged from. A recipient of the 2019 MacArthur "Genius" Grant, Ocean is also the winner of the Whiting Award and the T.S. Eliot Prize. His writings have been featured in The Atlantic, Harper's Magazine, The Nation, The New Republic, The New Yorker, and The New York Times. 

You can find Ocean at:

Website : https://www.oceanvuong.com/

Instagram : https://www.instagram.com/ocean_vuong/

If you LOVED this episode:

You’ll also love the conversations we had with Axel Mansoor about the experience of being a third culture kid and how he found an outlet in music : https://pod.link/goodlifeproject/episode/3bd82ee46ef2d24985dfd3f9d7ffa52f

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Have you discovered your Sparketype yet? Take the Sparketype Assessment™ now. IT’S FREE (https://sparketype.com/) and takes about 7-minutes to complete. At a minimum, it’ll open your eyes in a big way. It also just might change your life.

If you enjoyed the show, please share it with a friend. Thank you to our super cool brand partners. If you like the show, please support them - they help make the podcast possible.

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

Dallas Graham never planned to help kids tell their life stories. A fiercely creative and compassionate Salt Lake City graphic designer, poet, and writer, he’s worked on a wide variety of projects over the years. But, his experience of one particular moment, family and child, would change everything. Setting him down a path to blend everything he’d learned about writing, poetry, and design with his deep love of kids and story to create an offering and an experience that would change so many lives. As the publisher and executive director of the Red Fred Project, Dallas is currently creating life legacies, in the form of books written and created by kids as a way to help them share their stories, ideas, and lens on the world at a moment of an otherwise profound challenge. After seven years of this life-altering work, his belief has strengthened in this idea: “We are producing the greatest stories ever told.” 

You can find Dallas at:

Website : http://redfredproject.com/

Instagram : https://www.instagram.com/redfredproject/

If you LOVED this episode:

You’ll also love the conversations we had with Mitch Albom about his love of story and service : https://tinyurl.com/GLP-Mitch

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Have you discovered your Sparketype yet? Take the Sparketype Assessment™ now. IT’S FREE (https://sparketype.com/) and takes about 7-minutes to complete. At a minimum, it’ll open your eyes in a big way. It also just might change your life.

If you enjoyed the show, please share it with a friend. Thank you to our super cool brand partners. If you like the show, please support them - they help make the podcast possible.

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