Good Life Project

To be amazing at any one thing, do you have to abandon everything and everyone else along the way? Or, is there a better way?

That's the question that has obsessed with week's guest, Dan Lerner, for his entire adult life.

The son of world-class classical musicians and an accomplished cellist himself at an early age, he was exposed to a world of devotion and mastery. He saw people in this community who'd figured out how to build a living around what they loved, become masters of their craft and also live rich, joyous, connected and full lives outside their careers. And, he assumed that's just "the way it was."

TUntil he took a job as an agent representing many of the best musicians in the world, and learned the cold, hard truth. For so many, the quest to be the best came not with fulfillment, but with abandonment of relationships, health, self-care and any semblance of humanity. He believed there had to be a different way.

This led Dan on a quest away from agenting and found him studying with legendary professors in the world of performance and positive psychology. He eventually pursued a Masters degree in positive psychology, became a strengths-based performance coach working with elite performing artists, athletes and executives and found himself teaching at NYU and University of Pennsylvania.

He now co-teaches the most popular elective class at New York University, “The Science of Happiness,” and his new book, “U Thrive: How to Succeed in College (and Life), is a compelling deep-dive into how to not just excel in academics or work, but how to do it in a way that also let's you live a great life along the way.

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How do you continue to grow, to honor the call of your "true self," when you're far enough into life that you've got responsibilities and people looking to you for some semblance of stability? When you don't want to rock that boat?

Put another way...

How do you do what you love when you don't want to blow up your life?

This was the question asked by one of our listening community, a married parent in his thirties who wants to align his career with his ability to evolve and do work that aligns with his true self, but not at the expense of mass disruption to his family.

In today's Good Life Project, we look at a few strategies that just might help you find work lights you up through a process of self-awareness and "conflict resolution."

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Camp GLP: Summer Camp for Creative Souls, Entrepreneurs & Change-Makers! Join us for 3 ½ mind-bending days that will change everything. The ultimate blend of deep-learning, epic stories, friends-for-life, juicy adventures and ideas, strategies and tools for accelerated personal and business growth! Camp GLP is, more than anything else, about finding your people. Letting your guard down and, maybe for the first time in years (maybe ever), just being you. And knowing that’s enough. Learn more now!

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Dani Shapiro is the New York Times bestselling author of five novels and four memoirs, including her latest, Hourglass: Time, Memory, Money.

A recent guest on Oprah Winfrey’s Super Soul Sunday, she's taught writing at Columbia, NYU, The New School and Wesleyan University. Dani is also the co-founder of the Sirenland Writers Conference in Positano, Italy and a contributing editor at Condé Nast Traveler.

Her new memoir, Hourglass, is a fiercely honest meditation on Dani's nearly 20 year marriage. In today's episode, we explore what it's like to build a life, a family and a career when both parents are creative professionals. We also dive into writing about a relationships that you plan to stay in, sharing deeply intimate awakenings, stumbles, fears and experiences along the way and piecing together the puzzle of your life in words.

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Today's guest, Vanessa Van Edwards , is a behavioral investigator and founder of human behavior research lab, the Science of People.

She's also known as a human lie-detector, master of influence and someone who has spent her adult life decoding human interaction, influence, social and power dynamics, charisma, likability and more.

As a geeky, modern-day Dale Carnegie, Vanessa Van Edwards' innovative work has been featured on NPR, Business Week and CNN. And, her book, CAPTIVATE: The Science of Succeeding with People, is a literal roadmap to decode and, to a certain extent, influence human interaction.

We wanted to learn all about these things, the ideas, the ethics and application. But even more, we wanted to know what unfolded in Van Edward's life that led her to become so obsessed with the study of what makes us tick. Because, it turns out, Vanessa wasn't always the social savant in the room. In fact, in her earlier life, she pretty much ran from interaction.

So, what happened? The answer, and the stories that emerged, took us by surprise, and also revealed why this pursuit is so close to her heart.

Mentioned in this Episode:

Body Map of Emotions

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Camp GLP: Summer Camp for Creative Souls, Entrepreneurs & Change-Makers! Join us for 3 ½ mind-bending days that will change everything. The ultimate blend of deep-learning, epic stories, friends-for-life, juicy adventures and ideas, strategies and tools for accelerated personal and business growth! Camp GLP is, more than anything else, about finding your people. Letting your guard down and, maybe for the first time in years (maybe ever), just being you. And knowing that’s enough. Lean more now!

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Suicide or psychedelics?

Those were the options this week's guest, Ayelet Waldman, found herself facing.

A married mother of four and novelist living in Berkeley, Waldman struggled with bipolar, anxiety and depression her entire life. According to her, mental illness ran wide and deep in her family. Over the years, she'd found a pharmaceutical regime that made life tolerable, until peri-menopause destroyed her ability to time her medication and things spiraled rapidly out of control.

Waldman found herself increasingly mired in suicidal ideation. Nothing seemed to be working any more. Then, she heard about decades old research on psychedelics and a non-trippy therapeutic approach called microdosing.

Through a series of events, Ayelet found herself in possession of a vial of pure LSD and, seeing few others options, decided to try following a 30-day psychedelic microdosing protocol shared in James Fadiman's The Psychedelic Explorer's Guide.

Those 30-day changed everything. Within hours, the gray numbness began to lift. Life got more vivid, connected, stable and alive. Waldman wrote about her psychedelic microdosing journey, its affects, her fears and concerns, along with the politics, history, mythology and truths, how microdosing affected her work, mindset, relationship with her husband and kids and more in her latest book, A Really Good Day.

Head's up. This is a raw, unfiltered and provocative conversation. The bigger questions, issues and potential applications extend far beyond Waldman's immediate circumstances and life. This episode is neither an endorsement, nor an indictment of her choices or the use of psychedelics, but rather an exploration of deeply-challenging, yet critical issues from mental health to parenting and drug policy to science-fiction vs. fact. 

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Michelle Gielan, national CBS News anchor turned positive psychology researcher, is the Founder of the Institute for Applied Positive Research.

She is partnered with Arianna Huffington to study how transformative stories fuel success and is an Executive Producer of “The Happiness Advantage” Special on PBS and a featured professor in Oprah’s Happiness course.

Michelle is also the best-selling author of Broadcasting Happiness.

In today's episode, we dive into her journey from "coder kid" to TV anchor to positive-psychology researcher and change-maker. We explore the deeper psychology behind media, rational optimism, how the stories we hear, see and tell affect us and how we relate to each other both at work and in life.

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