How do you hold on to that feeling of childlike enchantment that you remember as a kid?

In this captivating conversation, Mark sits down with Sam Lee, singer, composer, and author. We explore the nature of wonder, the role of ritual, and the significance of rite of passages and thresholds. He talks about his apprenticeship to Scottish traveller and balladeer Stanley Robertson and how that completely dismantled what he thought folk music was. We talk about songs as medicine and what it means to be their custodian, as well as being being dangerously surrounded by a dozen shepherd's dogs in the Carpathian mountains.

Sam Lee is a Mercury prize-nominated singer, composer, arranger, folksong interpreter, connecting his passion for nature and song into timeless unique ways. Collector of songs from across the British Isles & Ireland he’s also the creator of many live nature immersions including the annual sell-out Singing With Nightingales. Penguin recently published his debut novel 'The Nightingale, Notes on a songbird' telling the epic tale of this highly endangered bird. And his latest album is the critically acclaimed, Guardian 5 star and Mojo Album of the Month ‘songdreaming’. Sam is also an Ambassador for The Global Rewilding Alliance.

This conversation and Sam's stories are for anyone seeking more aliveness in this life.

For more from Sam Lee's work:
Website: https://samleesong.co.uk/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/samleesong/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/samleesong

For more from Mark McCartney:
Newsletter: https://www.whatisagood.life/
Website: https://www.mmcleadership.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-mccartney-14b0161b4/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@whatisagoodlife
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/markcmccartney

00:00  Does Wonder Ever Cease?
02:29  A Life of Proximity
05:00  The Gift of the Puffball
09:04  A Rite of Passage
17:30  On Ritual and Threshold
18:03  Bar Mitzvah to Bison Tracking
26:58  Surrounded by Shepherd's Dogs
35:10  Apprenticed to Stanley Robertson
48:30  Songs as Medicine
53:40  Walking Into Darkness
59:40  What is a Good Life?

Keywords: Meaning of Life Interviews | meaning of life conversations | exploring life | big life questions | meaning of life discussions | creating a meaningful life​

What does it mean to be fully alive?

Mark sits down with Joel Monk to explore the journey from spiritual bypassing to embodiment. They talk about dark nights of the soul, the "yum" of visceral wellbeing, trauma-informed healing, the role of grace and prayer, and what it actually means to feel safe, okay, and enough. An episode for anyone on a path of dropping deeper into their own humanity and body.

Joel Monk is the founder of Coaches Rising, one of the world’s leading platforms for transformational coaching, with a global community of more than 65,000 coaches. He is the host of the Coaches Rising Podcast and is known for his work in transformational coaching, embodiment, and human development. He has coached hundreds of entrepreneurs, CEOs, and senior executives — even a Zen master — helping high-level leaders unlock deeper presence, wiser action, and profound personal transformation.

For more from Joel Monk's work:
Company website: www.coachesrising.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joel-monk-33952613/
Coaches Rising Podcast: https://www.coachesrising.com/podcast/

For more from Mark McCartney:
Newsletter: https://www.whatisagood.life/
Website: https://www.mmcleadership.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-mccartney-14b0161b4/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@whatisagoodlife
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/markcmccartney

00:00  Awakening Into Full Humanity
02:00  Magic Mushrooms on the Moors
07:15  Coming Into the Body
10:20  The Yum
13:47  Clinging to Bliss
17:00  Safety, Okayness, and Intimacy
20:45  Intoxified by Life
27:42  Moving Beyond Renunciation
31:07  The Gift of Grace
38:52  Inquiring Into God
46:17  Fully Alive in Dark Times
51:37  What Is a Good Life

Keywords: Meaning of Life Interviews | meaning of life conversations | exploring life | big life questions | meaning of life discussions | creating a meaningful life​

What makes a life truly good? In this rich and wide-ranging conversation, Mark speaks with Bruce Anderson, Executive Director of the Core Gift Institute, about the three kinds of glue that hold relationships, communities, and the world together: gifts, welcoming, and ritual. Bruce shares why he believes our primary gifts are not earned but given to us through spirit and why they always emerge from our deepest wounds. They explore belonging, the question of how everything began, the wildness of love, and why a home in a wild place might just be the perfect metaphor for a life well lived.

Currently living on an island by Seattle, USA, Bruce has a storied life of living in remote Alaska, commercial fishing, log-cabin building, and being a schoolteacher and mayor. He is known for bringing intriguing ideas from other cultures and times, personal stories, and practical ideas into the international work he does with others.

Whether you're feeling lost, searching for direction, or simply curious about what a meaningful life looks like, this conversation will leave you with a lot to sit with.

For more of Bruce's work:
Core Gift Institue: https://www.coregift.org/home
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bruce-anderson-742a3722/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100011545838837

For more from Mark McCartney:
Newsletter: https://www.whatisagood.life/
Website: https://www.mmcleadership.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-mccartney-14b0161b4/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@whatisagoodlife
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/markcmccartney

00:00 – Three Kinds Of Glue
04:01 – Why Spirit Grounds Everything
10:50 – The Search For Faith
15:13 – How Did All This Begin?
18:26 – Where Beauty Comes From
22:05 – Home In The Wild
28:00 – Gifts & The Gift Exchange
33:25 – Seeing Gifts In Others
38:00 – Competence Isn't Your Gift
42:05 – Parker Palmer & Hospitality
47:14 – The Role Of Ritual
56:46 – What Is A Good Life?

Keywords: Meaning of Life Interviews | meaning of life conversations | exploring life | big life questions | meaning of life discussions | creating a meaningful life​

What does it mean to trust yourself when the path isn't clear?

Kaylyn Lehmann is Co-founder and Executive Coach at Simplified Coach, a former VP of HR, and a specialist in neuroscience leadership and character strengths. Over the past decade she has coached hundreds of C-level and high-potential executives across high tech, biotech and highly funded start-ups. 

Drawing on a formative experience of loss in her late twenties, Kaylyn has long carried a question from Tuesdays with Morrie: Is today the day? — not as something to fear, but as a guide. From walking away from a VP salary that no longer felt right, to building a business during a bed rest pregnancy in the middle of the 2008 recession, to a Ralph Waldo Emerson quote from her mother that reframed how she saw herself, this is a conversation that charts a path to greater autonomy and coherence. A life which realises the significance of awe and play along the way.

If you are in the middle of uncertainty that you are struggling to navigate, this will offer so much to consider and support.

🔔 Subscribe for weekly conversations on what it means to live a good life.

For more of Kaylyn's work:
Website: https://www.simplifiedcoach.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/simplifiedcoach/

For more from Mark McCartney:
Newsletter: https://www.whatisagood.life/
Website: https://www.mmcleadership.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-mccartney-14b0161b4/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@whatisagoodlife
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/markcmccartney

00:00  The Bird Question
02:03  Death as a Life Guide
05:49  Autonomy & Self-Direction
08:26  Living Your Values
12:15  Building Self-Trust
18:38  Permission to Redefine Success
22:23  Is Today the Day?
28:30  The Gift of Family Time
34:27  Fear & Starting the Business
39:53  Resilience & the Long Game
46:13  Play as a Life Essential
53:54  What is a Good Life?

Keywords: Meaning of Life Interviews | meaning of life conversations | exploring life | big life questions | meaning of life discussions | creating a meaningful life​

Most conversations about money stay on the surface. This one doesn't.

Mark McCartney sits down with Bogumil Baranowski — investment advisor, author of Crisis Investing and Money Life Family, host of Talking Billions podcast, and profound thinker on the intersection of wealth and human experience.

In this episode, they go deep on why money is one of the most emotionally charged forces in human life, what inheritance really carries alongside the numbers, why asking the right questions matters more than having the right answers, and how being present with another person is paramount in any field of work.

Whether you're interested in wealth, relationships, meaningful work, or simply living with more intention — this conversation is for you.

🔔 Subscribe for weekly conversations on what it means to live a good life.

For more of Bogumil's work:
Talking Billions Podcast: https://www.talkingbillions.co/
Blue Infinitas: https://www.blueinfinitascapital.com/
Website: https://www.bogumilbaranowski.com/

For more from Mark McCartney:
Newsletter: https://www.whatisagood.life/
Website: https://www.mmcleadership.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-mccartney-14b0161b4/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@whatisagoodlife
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/markcmccartney

00:00 – How can I help?
03:14 – When money stops being the point
06:28 – Holding someone's hand
11:13 – What clients really talk about
14:20 – Money as intimate conversation
18:21 – Inheritance and unasked questions
22:18 – Finding the story behind the number
27:47 – When words don't tell the truth
32:18 – Rediscovering presence and wonder
40:52 – Why idle minds light up
45:00 – The shift away from scarcity
56:02 – What is a good life for Bogumil

Keywords: Meaning of Life Interviews | meaning of life conversations | exploring life | big life questions | meaning of life discussions | creating a meaningful life​

What does it mean to be fully human — and to live from that place?

Nicholas Janni has been working with CEO’s and senior teams globally for over twenty-five years, and teaches at two of the world’s leading business schools, pioneering a new vision and practice of leadership. He bridges the worlds of creative, personal, spiritual and professional development in a uniquely powerful, relevant and accessible way.

His book “Leader as Healer, a new paradigm for 21 st century leadership” was published to wide acclaim in 2022, and won Business Book of the Year at the Business Book Awards 2023. His new book, “Leading in Chaos”, co-authored with Amy Elizabeth Fox, is available now in Europe, and from April 9th in the US. He is the co-founder of Matrix Development.

We explore:

- How we threw the baby out with the bath water with religion
- The difference between belief and direct experience
- How "life as effort" is programmed into our nervous systems
- What emptiness, receptivity and wonder have to do with innovation
- Why wellness alone won't cut it — and what transformation actually requires
- The concept of "somebody before nobody" and the melting of identity
- Why 2026 feels like a year of accelerated inner and outer collapse
- And what a good life really means

For more from Nicholas Janni's work:
Leading in Chaos: www.leadinginchaosbook.com
Matrix Development: www.thematrixdevelopment.com/

For more from Mark McCartney:
Newsletter: https://www.whatisagood.life/
Website: https://www.mmcleadership.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-mccartney-14b0161b4/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@whatisagoodlife
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/markcmccartney

00:00 – What is it to be fully human?
01:59 – Throwing the baby out with the bath water
06:32 – Theatre, emptiness & direct experience
10:17 – Resting as a radical act
17:35 – When word and energy align
23:57 – Transmission in corporate spaces
32:28 – We're already in collapse
38:00 – Being recoded right now
42:10 – Somebody before nobody
48:11 – Feeling alive vs. feeling small
55:53 – What is a good life?

Keywords: Meaning of Life Interviews | meaning of life conversations | exploring life | big life questions | meaning of life discussions | creating a meaningful life​

Dr Scilla Elworthy is a three-time Nobel Peace Prize nominee for her work with Oxford Research Group to develop effective dialogue between nuclear weapons policy-makers worldwide and their critics from 1983-2003. She founded Peace Direct in 2002 to fund, promote and learn from local peace-builders in conflict areas, was awarded the Niwano Peace Prize in 2003, the Luxembourg Peace Prize in 2020, the GOI Peace Award in 2023. Her TED talk on nonviolence has been viewed by over 1,500,000 people. She founded The Business Plan for Peace  to help prevent destructive conflict and build sustainable peace throughout the world, based on her latest books - The Business Plan for Peace: Building a World Without War (2017), The Mighty Heart: how to transform conflict (2020), and The Mighty Heart in Action (2022).

In this wonderful conversation, Scilla and Mark explore why the heart is the one faculty that will always tell you the truth, how learning to listen to it transformed her work with diplomats and military leaders, and why she believes the world is entering an era of profound change led by those willing to lead from the inside out. 

This is a conversation for people who sense there's a deeper way to live but haven't yet learned to trust it.

For more from Dr Scilla Elworthy's work:
Oxford Research Group: http://oxfordresearchgroup.org.uk/
Peace Direct: https://www.peacedirect.org/
The Mighty Heart: https://mightyheart.co.uk/

For more from Mark McCartney:
Newsletter: https://www.whatisagood.life/
Website: https://www.mmcleadership.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-mccartney-14b0161b4/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@whatisagoodlife
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/markcmccartney

00:00 – Introduction
02:06 – Why the Heart Doesn't Lie
07:07 – The Rhythm of Your Heart
10:46 – Learning to Meditate Deeply
15:02 – Meditators Beneath the Diplomats
21:04 – Inner Intelligence in Others
27:51 – Who Am I, Really?
33:45 – Nourishing a Hurting Heart
42:52 – The Mighty Heart Program
46:39 – What Is a Good Life?

Keywords: Meaning of Life Interviews | meaning of life conversations | exploring life | big life questions | meaning of life discussions | creating a meaningful life​

In this episode of What Is a Good Life?, Mark McCartney is joined by Jasper Walshe, coach, facilitator and founder of TRIPS Tank™, for an honest and wide-ranging conversation about identity, self-trust and what it really means to live well. Jasper traces his journey from fixating on high-performance coaching to a deeper, more grounded relationship with himself — touching on psychotherapy breakthroughs, psychedelic experiences, the trap of wrapping identity in achievement, and his present question: how can I live in wonder? This is a genuinely human conversation about accepting the full range of life, not just the optimised parts.

Topics covered:
- High performance identity & its hidden cost
- Psychotherapy & the power of unfiltered honesty
- Living in wonder vs chasing optimisation
- Self-respect as a core value
- Moments of unexpected clarity
- What is a good life?

This episode is for anyone who's hit the goals and found themselves asking — is this it?

For more from Jasper Walshe:
Company Website: https://tripstank.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasperwalshe/

For more from Mark McCartney:
Newsletter: https://www.whatisagood.life/
Website: https://www.mmcleadership.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-mccartney-14b0161b4/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@whatisagoodlife
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/markcmccartney

0:00 – Jasper's evolving life question
02:30 – The high performance Kool-Aid
06:00 – Curiosity beyond performance
10:33 – Letting go of identity
15:04 – "So, who are you?"
19:30 – Dropping the filtered answers
23:00 – The couch breakthrough moment
28:30 – How "wonder" emerged
36:30 – Visualising five years ahead
45:44 – What self-respect looks like
58:55 – What is a good life?

Keywords: Meaning of Life Interviews | meaning of life conversations | exploring life | big life questions | meaning of life discussions | creating a meaningful life​

What does it take to be happy? And why does happiness so often slip away?

In this episode of What Is a Good Life?, Mark McCartney is joined by Rasmus Hougaard for a conversation that moves from childhood questions about happiness, to monasteries in Nepal, to the boardrooms where he now works to transform leadership. Rasmus is the Founder and Chairman of Potential Project and was nominated by Thinkers 50 as one of the eight most important leadership thinkers in the world today. He's the author of The Mind of the Leader, Compassionate Leadership, and More Human: How the Power of AI Can Transform the Way You Lead.

Together, they explore:

• Why an eight-year-old's question about happiness became a life's work
• The cultural wisdom Rasmus found in Nepal that the West is missing
• How his brother's death inspired his life's purpose
• A profound encounter with an unknown monk that transmitted unconditional love
• The difficulty of being human, even with deep practice and good intentions
• The innate goodness we all carry (and why many of us have forgotten it)
• What changes when leaders ask "how are you?" before "what do we need to do?"

This conversation sits with both the challenge of being human and the incredible capacity we have for loving kindness. It's about the practice of returning to what matters again and again.

This episode is for anyone wondering if there's more to leadership, happiness, and being human than what we've been taught.

For more of Rasmus' work:
Potential Project: https://www.potentialproject.com/
Books: https://www.potentialproject.com/resources#01-books
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rasmushougaard/

For more from Mark McCartney:
Newsletter: https://www.whatisagood.life/
Website: https://www.mmcleadership.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-mccartney-14b0161b4/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@whatisagoodlife
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/markcmccartney

00:00  Why Aren't We Happy?
05:30  Finding a Practice at Seventeen
11:45  Wisdom in Himalayan Culture
17:20  Life's Purpose from Tragedy
24:30  Meeting Bodhisattva Charles
31:15  Our Innate Human Goodness
37:40  The Difficulty of Being Human
43:10  Forced Surrender and Self-Compassion
48:25  Transformation in Corporate Spaces
52:15  Multiple Lives, Less Pressure
54:30  What is a Good Life for Rasmus?

Keywords: Meaning of Life Interviews | meaning of life conversations | exploring life | big life questions | meaning of life discussions | creating a meaningful life​

What does it really mean to live a coherent life?

In this episode of What Is a Good Life, Mark McCartney is joined by João Sevilhano for a deep, reflective conversation on coherence, something that goes beyond rigid moral ideals and is more a lived, imperfect practice. João is a psychologist and learning experience designer. Co-CEO of Way Beyond, where he works on human development and organisational transformation. His background is in clinical psychology and psychoanalysis. He collaborates with Porto Business School and NOVA Doctoral School, and he tends to think meaningful conversation is underrated as a tool for change.

Together, they explore:

• What coherence feels like in everyday life
• The tension between values, actions, and changing our minds
• Why coherence is different from authenticity or consistency
• Parenting, work, and small decisions as tests of alignment
• “Slow activism” and the impact of how we show up with others

Rather than offering quick answers or formulas, this conversation sits with uncertainty, contradiction, and the discipline of paying attention - particularly when no one is watching.

This episode is for anyone feeling the pull between who they are, how they live, and what the world is asking of them right now.

For more of João's work:
Newsletter: https://useful-uselessness.com/
Way Beyond Website: https://www.waybeyond.pt/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joaosevilhano/

For more from Mark McCartney:
Newsletter: https://www.whatisagood.life/
Website: https://www.mmcleadership.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-mccartney-14b0161b4/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@whatisagoodlife
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/markcmccartney

00:00  Questions as Companions

07:00  Spirituality in Everyday Life

13:00  Coherence as Purpose

16:30  Flexibility and Awareness

22:30  Discipline and Practice
30:00  Helping Without Imposing

36:00  Slow Activism and Stubbornness

42:00  Living With Contradiction

49:00  Reflection on Sacrifice

54:00  Not Knowing as a Practice

Keywords: Meaning of Life Interviews | meaning of life conversations | exploring life | big life questions | meaning of life discussions | creating a meaningful life​