Good Life Project

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Fierce Sisters, Cool Stories and Poison Plants: Amy Stewart Oct 09, 2015

Show notes

At first glance, you might think Amy Stewart had an obsession with gardens and bugs. She's written a series of bestselling books on the topic and had her garden of poison plants hailed as one of the 18 strangest gardens in the world by Popular Mechanics.

Underneath that, though, lies a far deeper devotion, one that's fueled her since she was a kid. Amy Stewart is possessed by the craft of writing and storytelling. It's not so much gardens or bugs, it's the stories of people that arise out of those places and creatures that fascinate her. And the opportunity to tell them in her wonderful voice.

After tremendous success as a nonfiction writer, Amy decided to do something most people in the industry view as a huge risk. Having built a large audience around her nonfiction creations, she stumbled upon a bigger story that had to be told. One of three beautifully colorful sisters who decided to take the law into their own hands, leading to an outcome nobody saw coming.

But the story was old, the research was incomplete. There were gaps even living relatives couldn't fill. So she as forced to fill them in with her own imagination and write the story as historical fiction. When that book, Girl Waits With Gun, came out, Amy was faced with the usual anxious waiting every author faces. Would people like it? Had she done the story right?

Heaped on top of those emotional questions were whether the families of these real-characters would feel she'd done right by them. And, whether her long-won nonfiction readers would follow her down the fiction path.

We talk about all these questions, plus an exploration of the craft of writing and storytelling in this week's conversation. We talk about the writing life, and her time growing up in Texas. We also talk about indie bookstores, what it's like to own one (she does) and how that universe is changing.

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The Dark Side of Modeling Success Oct 06, 2015

Show notes

What if one of the biggest pieces of "success advice" was wrong?

There's a particular strategy that's become hot in the world of success and personal development. It's been hailed as the secret to accelerated results and success on a level and at a pace, that'd be near impossible without it.

It's called "modeling." On the most basic level, the advice is to find someone who has done what you want to do, deconstruct everything they've done to get where they are, then do those same things yourself.

Problem is, that can be pretty dangerous advice. It can and often does lead not to success, not to a good life, but to a whole lot of angst, anxiety and failure.

Why that happens and what to do about is what we're talking about on today's short and sweet GLP Riff.

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Cultivating Your Authentic Voice with Todd Henry Oct 01, 2015

Show notes

So often, the way the world perceives us conflicts with the what we "think" we're saying and the way we want to be seen and heard.

Truth is, so much of what we communicate all day long has nothing to do with the words that come out of our mouths.

In fact, often the things we do, the way we move, the things we telegraph contradict the words we offer, leaving people with a sense of cognitive dissonance.

Todd Henry is a master of cultivating the "voice beyond your spoken voice" or what he'd call your "authentic voice."

A former touring musician and now a bestselling author and international speaker on creativity, intentional living and presence, he's spent years on everything from country music stages to stadiums, learning how to create magic night after night. What he'd eventually come to realize was, it wasn't the music that pulled him from ahead, it was the opportunity to teach, to see lightbulbs go on, to create magic and leave people changed.

To do this on the level that made a real impact, though, he'd first need to cultivate his authentic voice and presence on a whole different level. Todd writes about this in his latest book, Louder Than Words.

In this week's wide-ranging conversation, we explore the lessons he learned from the music industry, from playing one night before 50,000 people, then the next at a bowling alley and even the occasional small joint where his band played behind chicken wire to keep them safe.

We also talk about why he walked away from that life, how he embraced a new season and chose to contribute in a way that was better aligned with the future he sought to build. We explore what fame is really about, responsibility and freedom. We dive into the invitation to be original and what stops so many from cultivating their true voices, from no longer being "cover bands." And so much more.

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Get Psychic With Your “Avatar” Sep 29, 2015

Show notes

If you've been to the movies or watched cartoons, you've seen the word "Avatar" before. But, when we talk about building a career or company, it has a very special meaning.

Your avatar is the person you're looking to help. The one you want and need to serve and elevate. It's your potential customer, client, diner, patient, participant, camper or student.

If you want to build a successful career, experience or venture, you need to get to know your avatar on the most intimate level.

You need to know her name, where she lives, her age, fears, desires, hopes, struggles, and influences. You need to understand a day in her life, then a week, a month, a year and a decade. You have to understand the conversations going on in her head, the language she used to talk to herself and the pictures she paints with her mind.

It's hard work to get this detailed, but it's also make or break. It lets you serve, solve and build on a different level.

But, here's the thing. The two reasons most commonly offered to "know your avatar"—to solve her problem better and to communicate with her more effectively—they matter, BUT they're not actually the most important reason to do this work.

There's something bigger, more important. Something nobody talks about. Ignoring this reason is a huge miss.

And that's what we're talking about in this week's short and sweet GLP Riff.

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Michael Port: Inside the Mind of a Public Speaking Phenom Sep 23, 2015

Show notes

The thing most people fear more than spiders and death is the very thing this week's guest, Michael Port, loves with every fiber of his being.

What am I talking about?

Public speaking.

Port began his career as an actor, featured often on screens of all sizes, before jumping into the fitness world and then creating the Book Yourself Solid business development juggernaut and a string of bestselling books.

He built an empire and, along the way, became a master not just of the screen, but of the speaking stage. There, he found his true home and built an astonishing career as an international speaker.

With the launch of a provocative new book, Steal the Show and a new speaker training venture, he's on a mission to transform the world's #1 fear into an experience of awe, joy and impact.

We go deep into the "real" backstory and his deeper "why" in this week's conversation. We talk about the tension between "performing" and being "authentic," and whether the two can really coexist. We talk about what trips us up when we think about taking stages of all sizes, from the dinner table (should that even be a stage or is that too sacred) to the boardroom, theaters and stadiums.

We also get into why he believes nearly everyone should script and memorize their talks, even if you believe yourself to be a "natural" speaker, and why it's not memorization that kills a great talk, but rather preparation.

We bust a lot of myths about the difference between persuasion, manipulation and whether either is good, bad or maybe even...massively desirable. And, we talk about what any and all of this has to do with building good relationships and living a good life.

We also get personal and explore why, after so much success, Michael decided to shift gears in a major way, where he's headed with his life and how his lens on living a good life has changed since I last sat down with him.

If you've been "public speaking curious," but you've struggled with fear or anxiety around it, this is a don't miss an episode.

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Pam Slim On The Power of Community Sep 23, 2015

Show notes

Pam Slim is one of those people.

You know, the ones who see the best in everyone. In everything. In every seeming barrier, she sees the lesson. The good. The opportunity to learn. To grow. To create. To collaborate.

The one whose lens I aspire to embrace, but still find myself failing more often succeeding (someday, lol).

She's also just an amazing human, dear friend and award-winning author who is in the midst of very cool 21-city Indispensable Community Tour.

And, it just happened that one of the stops on that tour was NYC a/k/a my little town. So before she swept out to the next city, I asked her to jump in and share a special GLP "Guest" Riff about the power of community, especially as it relates to makers and entrepreneurs.

In her short and sweet Guest Riff, she asks a big question:

What if we thought more about serving a community as a community?

Now, of course, the realist in me always kicks in when I hear things like that. Sounds good in theory, I snicker, but can it really happen in the real world?

According to Pam, yes. Sure, we still all need to build our own things. We still need to put food on the table, honor our paths and build what we're here to build. But in the end, she argues, all ships rise when we start thinking about community not just as a target market, but as a collective solution.

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Elizabeth Gilbert: The Creative Life Sep 22, 2015

Show notes

Elizabeth Gilbert exploded into the public's consciousness in 2006 with the release of her mega-bestselling memoir, Eat Pray Love.

Since then, she's published a series of books, given a TED talk on creative genius that's been viewed more than 10 million times, become a leading voice on the pursuit of a creative, connected and vital life.

Liz's latest book, Big Magic, takes you deeper into what it means to live a creative life, offering a wonderful blend of wisdom, unabashed magical thinking, amazing stories and a whole lot of unexpected myth-busting and contrarian insights.

I had a chance to sit down with Liz and, as often happens with these Good Life conversations, we ended up going all sorts of places I'd never planned. We touched on the power of curiosity and the fallacy of passion, where creativity comes from, what stops us from doing the thing we're here to do, the importance of caring for your vessel, what happens when you think you've reached the end of your capacity and her powerful lens on what it means to life a good life.

This is deeply moving, revealing, insightful and sometimes pretty funny conversation. In fact, we begin with a hard-hitting reveal of a relationship that Liz had kept secret for more than four decades. And, along the way, this beautiful thought came tumbling forth:

"When you come to the end of yourself is where all the interesting stuff starts." Tweet this.

If you've ever wondered how to step into a creative life, how to get that thing in your head and heart out into the world, this is an absolute "do not miss" conversation.

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Scott Dinsmore: A Legend Lives On Sep 22, 2015

Show notes

This is the first episode I've ever wished I didn't have a reason to air...

On Sunday, a good friend of mine, an amazing man, husband, brother and son, founder of Live Your Legend and beloved member of the Good Life Project family, Scott Dinsmore, lost his life.

Hiking Kilimanjaro with another amazing soul, his wife Chelsea, Scott was killed in a rockfall.

He was only 33.

I've shared more thoughts in writing here.

For now, I wanted to do something to keep Scott's beautiful energy and words alive. So, I'm airing a conversation Scott and I filmed a few years back as an audio podcast in tribute to him.

My heart is heavy, and my love and wishes for healing go out to Chelsea, to her and Scott's families and to all who've been touched by Scott's message, his presence and what he's created and now left behind.

With love & gratitude,

Jonathan

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Zuckerberg, Booker and One Journalist’s Quest For the Real Story Sep 22, 2015

Show notes

The story of a lifetime only comes around once...

Dale Russakoff spent more than three decades as a top news journalist, reporting for The Washington Post for more than 28 years.

When Facebook co-founder, Mark Zuckerberg, announced a $100 million grant, teaming with then rock-start mayor, Cory Booker, to revolutionize the Newark schools and create a model for national education reform, she'd found a story worthy of her full attention and her first-ever book.

Leaving her job, she spent four and a half years embedded in the lives, conversations and inner-most workings of what seemed, at first, to be positioned as a stunning transformational endeavor. What unfolded on the ground, though, was a profoundly different story. One that seemed straight out of a Shakespearian drama with a complex cast of players, each driven by their own personal and social agendas.

At play wasn't just the lives of tens of thousands of kids, many living in desperate poverty and violence, but also a $1 billion budget and thousands of jobs.

Russakoff tells this story in her riveting new book, The Prize: Who's in Charge of America's Schools?

In this week's conversation, we dive into this tense and complex drama, played out on both the highest levels of government and business and the most basic level of human interaction, one teacher, one kid, one life at a time.

We also explore how growing up in the deep south, the child of an "outlier" family who never bought into segregation, cultivated Russakoff's lens on people and equality. We dive into her career as a journalist and how that world is changing and being largely dismantled. We talk about the good and the bad and explore how the new golden age of podcasting just might end up saving the field.

Even if you have zero interest in education, you will love this conversation. Because it's about a breathtaking human drama. It's about power and corruption. It's about the desire to do the right thing and how that gets almost perversely "bent" to the will of too many interests along the way.

It's about the need for access to truth, to stories not only well-told but also vigorously researched and validated. It's about one woman's quest to shine the light, even when those who've given her the batteries for her flashlight end up unhappy with what that light ends up illuminating.

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Unplug to Plug In: Creating the Space for Brilliance Sep 10, 2015

Show notes

You want to be known as someone who changes the game.

Someone who brings amazing ideas, solutions, insights and potential to everything you do. You want to make real things happen. Things that matter.

So you plug in. You mainline digital information, entertainment, pretty much any and all forms of data. You squeeze every possible moment out of the time you have, consuming, creating, connecting, rinsing and repeating. Occasionally, you breathe, but only if forced.

Partly because it gives you more to think about, talk about and integrate and create. But, also, because it's just become your default. Space terrifies you. And maybe, just maybe, you're even driven by a little bit of FOMO.

Thing is...

It doesn't matter how productive you or how busy you are if the ideas you're building on don't represent the best you have to offer.

And your best ideas rarely, if ever, come when you're filling every millisecond of your life with something to do.

Genius comes when you disconnect from tasks and reconnect to space.

To plug into your best self, you've first got to unplug. To create the space for brilliance to emerge.

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

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