Good Life Project

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  Sleep Doesn't Have to Get Worse With Age | Dr. Rebecca Robbins 17.08.2026 1時間

  Every night, while you're asleep, your brain runs a cleaning cycle that clears out the kind of toxic buildup linked to Alzheimer's and dementia. And, with age, most of us sleep less. We are shortchanging the benefits without ever realizing how much control we actually have over sleeping longer, and better.Dr. Rebecca Robbins is an Assistant Professor in Sleep Medicine at Harvard Medical School and an Associate Sleep Scientist at Brigham and Women's Hospital, where her research spans sleep's relationship to cognitive function, cardiometabolic health, and long-term brain health. She's published more than 100 peer-reviewed studies, co-authored Sleep for Success!, and her work is exactly the kind of research most of us never hear about until someone frames it the way she does here.In this conversation, you'll explore:Why sleep really does shift around age 38 to 40, and what that shift does and doesn't mean for youThe neuroscience discovery of the brain's overnight "wash cycle," and what Dr. Robbins's own eight-year study found about sleep complaints and dementia riskWhy jumping your bedtime back an hour almost never works, and the fifteen-minute method that doesThe at-home test Jonathan didn't realize he'd already run on himselfThe "sleep divorce" reframe one of Dr. Robbins's patients calls a "sleep marriage," and what it means for couplesIf you've quietly decided your sleep is just what it is at this stage of life, this conversation will change what you think is actually possible tonight.You can find Rebecca at: Website | Instagram | Episode TranscriptNext week, we're sitting down with Tommy Wood to talk about what the research actually shows about keeping your brain sharp across decades, including which levers matter most, what's mostly noise, and what you can realistically start tomorrow, whether you're 45 or 65. Be sure to follow Good Life Project wherever you get your podcasts so you don’t miss any upcoming episodes!Check out our sponsors and resources: Visit Our Sponsor Page
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  The Self-Care Trap: Why Doing Everything Right Often Isn’t Enough | Jonathan Fields 13.08.2026 57分

  You can have a genuinely excellent self-care practice, the meditation, the training, the tracked sleep, the nutrition, and still be using every bit of it to avoid the one question that actually needed asking.In this episode, I turn the mic on myself. After 14 years and thousands of conversations about what it takes to live well, I trace the year my own "robust" wellness practice, meditation, training, nutrition, connection, everything, ended in a stress-induced medical diagnosis at the exact moment I'd have called myself the most dialed-in version of my life. Turns out, you cannot self-care your way out of a fundamental misalignment in a core area of your life. So, today, we’re exploring:The real distinction between self-care that restores you and self-care that just makes a misaligned life more bearable, or worse, hides what actually needs your true attention.Three 90-second tests, duration, imagination, intensity, that tell you honestly which one you're runningThe five places structural misalignment hides in midlife, including the "cumulative weight" version almost nobody namesWhy subtraction, not another practice, is usually the actual fixA six-move menu for making one concrete structural change in the next 30 daysIf your practice has been working harder for smaller returns lately, this conversation will tell you whether that's a regulation problem or a fit problem, and what to do about either one.Episode TranscriptIf you LOVED this episode, you can find the 1-page worksheet HERE.Mentioned in this episode: How to Finally Have the Talk You’ve Been Avoiding.Next week, next week we're sitting down with Dr. Rebecca Robbins to talk about why the sleep advice most of us are following was built for a body and a schedule most of us don't actually have anymore. Be sure to follow Good Life Project wherever you get your podcasts so you don't miss any upcoming episodes!Check out our sponsors and resources: Visit Our Sponsor Page
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  What 10-Year-Olds Know About Mental Health That the Rest of Us Forgot | Dr. Niobe Way 10.08.2026 1時間 13分

  We've been calling it a loneliness epidemic and treating it like a mental health problem. NYU developmental psychologist Niobe Way says that's the wrong diagnosis, and she has almost 40 years of data on teenage boys to make her case.Niobe Way has spent nearly four decades running longitudinal studies with teenagers, tracking the same kids from middle school into adulthood. Her research on boys, friendship, and masculinity has made her one of the go-to voices on loneliness, connection, and what's actually driving rising rates of depression, anxiety, and violence among young men, along with similar struggles with girls. And, these all tend to follow us well into adulthood. Her latest book is Rebels with a Cause: Reimagining Boys, Ourselves, and Our Culture.In this conversation, you'll explore:Why mental health is a symptom, not the root problem, and what Way calls "social health" insteadThe moment, around age 15, when boys start hiding their feelings in publicWhy boys learn to sacrifice the relationship to protect themselves, and girls learn to sacrifice themselves to protect the relationshipThe dinner-table questions that build real closeness instead of shutting kids downA simple, almost embarrassingly doable practice Way uses with total strangers to rebuild a sense of belongingWhether you're raising a teenager, trying to figure out why your own friendships have gone thin, or just wondering why everyone feels so alone lately, this conversation reframes the whole question.You can find Niobe at: Website | Instagram | Episode TranscriptNext week, it's just me, flying solo, to talk about the self-care trap: the difference between practices that actually help you thrive, and ones that just help you tolerate a life that no longer fits. Be sure to follow Good Life Project wherever you get your podcasts so you don't miss any upcoming episodes!Check out our sponsors and resources: Visit Our Sponsor PageShare your midlife reinvention story with us HERE.
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  Not All Pain Has a Purpose | Marisa Renee Lee 06.08.2026 56分

  What if the kindest thing someone told you about your pain was that it didn't have to mean anything?Marisa Renee Lee has spent her career inside other people's grief and her own. She's the bestselling author of Grief Is Love, a former deputy director in the Obama White House, and now CEO of Beacon Advisors. Her new book, Waiting for Dawn, comes out of her own experience with chronic illness, and it argues against nearly every wellness cliché about turning pain into purpose.In this conversation, you'll explore:Why Marisa refuses to promise anyone that their suffering serves a purpose, even her own family's"Gray grief": a name for the grief that has no end date, no diagnosis, and no cultural scriptThe difference between identity (what you built) and essence (what's still there when it's gone)Why she calls hope a discipline, not a feeling, and what that looks like on the worst daysHow her family held onto hope through her aunt's most devastating loss, and what happened afterIf you've ever felt ashamed for not finding the silver lining in something genuinely hard, this conversation is your permission to put that pressure down.You can find Marisa at: Website | Instagram | Holding Both Substack | Episode TranscriptNext week, we're sitting down with Dr. Niobe Way to talk about why so many of us feel lonelier than ever even when we're surrounded by people, and what decades of research say is actually driving it. Be sure to follow Good Life Project wherever you get your podcasts so you don’t miss any upcoming episodes!Check out our sponsors and resources: Visit Our Sponsor PageShare your midlife reinvention story with us HERE.
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  Top Headache Doc: Migraine Is Not What You Think 03.08.2026 1時間 7分

  For decades, migraine was explained to patients as a blood vessel problem: swelling, throbbing, treat it by shrinking things back down. That explanation is mostly a myth, and it may be part of why so many older treatments never worked.Dr. Fred Cohen is medical director of Headache Intervention and an assistant professor of medicine and neurology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. He's one of the few headache specialists in the country trained in both internal medicine and headache medicine, has over 40 publications in journals including The Lancet and Cephalalgia, and has lived with migraine himself since his teens.In this conversation, you'll explore:Why migraine is a neuroinflammatory condition, not a vascular one, and why some medical schools still teach the outdated versionThe "broken thermostat" phenomenon of chronic sensitization, and how untreated migraine can convince your brain that constant pain is normalWhy only about 30% of people with migraine ever experience aura, and the surprising range of ways it can actually show upThe current treatment landscape, from triptans to CGRP therapies, Botox, neuromodulation devices, and what's coming nextWhy Dr. Cohen calls this the golden age of headache medicine, and what that means if you gave up on treatment years agoIf migraine has ever made you feel like your body was working against you, or like you'd already tried everything, this conversation will change how you see both.You can find Fred at: Website | Instagram | Episode TranscriptNext week, we're sitting down with Marisa Renee Lee to talk about why the tidy stories we tell ourselves about grief and resilience tend to fall apart, and what it actually looks like to build a life around pain instead of waiting to get past it. Be sure to follow Good Life Project wherever you get your podcasts so you don’t miss any upcoming episodes!Check out our sponsors and resources: Visit Our Sponsor Page
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  Time Anxiety: Beating the Dread That You’ll Never Get Ahead | Chris Guillebeau 30.07.2026 50分

  You know that feeling, like you’re forever running behind in work and life? That you’ll never finally be “there,” or be able to relax and enjoy things. Like the days are just collapsing into each other? Welcome to the wacky world of time anxiety. You are not alone. Chris Guillebeau has spent fifteen years writing about the questions that keep smart, capable people stuck. He is back on the show to talk about his new book, Time Anxiety, the clearest thing he has written yet on why "get up an hour earlier" backfires and what actually helps.In this conversation, you'll explore:Why your brain is chronically wrong about how much time anything takes, and the fifteen-minute fix for chronic latenessThe eighth day exercise, a way to find out what you actually want to do with your time by imagining a day with zero obligation to anyone elseThe traffic light method for working with your real energy instead of fighting itWhy swapping the word "productive" for "valuable" changes how a day feelsThe shame so many caretakers feel about carving out time for themselves, and the answer Gretchen Rubin gave Chris that changed how he thinks about itIf you've ever felt like your calendar is lying to you about how much time you have, this is the conversation for it.You can find Chris at: Website | A Year of Mental Health Substack | Instagram | Episode TranscriptNext week, we're sitting down with Dr. Fred Cohen to talk about why almost everything you've been told about migraines is outdated, and what the science actually says about treating them. Be sure to follow Good Life Project wherever you get your podcasts so you don’t miss any upcoming episodes!Check out our sponsors and resources: Visit Our Sponsor Page
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  The 3 Things Every Room You Live In Must Have to Be Okay | Leidy Klotz 27.07.2026 51分

  Most of us think the biggest decision about a room is whether it's functional. Leidy Klotz thinks that's the wrong question, and the right one changes how a desk, a kitchen, or an entire return-to-office policy actually lands on the person living inside it.Leidy Klotz is a behavioral scientist and engineering professor at the University of Virginia who studies how and why humans design. His research has appeared in Nature and Science, and he's been interviewed everywhere from Hidden Brain to Freakonomics to The Atlantic. Before any of that, he spent 22 years as a professional soccer player and then built schools for a living, which is part of why his take on space is so physical and so lived-in.In this conversation, you'll explore:The three psychological needs that every space either feeds or starves, and why they trace straight back to hunter-gatherer survivalWhy Susan Cain's open-office backlash and today's return-to-office mandates are the same failure wearing different clothesThe strange, well-documented phenomenon of "habituation," including the story of an architecture student who walked past a six-story landmark building for years without ever seeing itA simple practice called "space before screen," and why the top of a parking garage might be the cheapest awe you'll ever findWhat it means to build a space that keeps someone's memory alive, drawn from one of the most personal stories Leidy has ever told on a podcastIf you've ever felt something shift the moment you walked into a certain room and couldn't say why, this conversation gives you the language for it.You can find Leidy at: Website | LinkedIn | Episode TranscriptNext week, we're sitting down with Chris Guillebeau to talk about why the anxious feeling that you're running out of time might be less about your calendar and more about a story you've never questioned. Be sure to follow Good Life Project wherever you get your podcasts so you don't miss any upcoming episodes!Check out our sponsors and resources: Visit Our Sponsor Page
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  How Much Money Is Enough? Your Confusing Money Questions Answered. | Leisa Peterson 23.07.2026 54分

   By the age of 7, most of us have absorbed the rules that run our financial lives…forever. And almost none of us checked to see if they were true. Not the numbers. The rules. The slogans we heard around the kitchen table about what money means, who deserves it, and what it says about us if we don't have enough of it.Leisa Peterson spent three decades inside the financial services industry before a near-fatal event forced her to see how far she had drifted from her own life. Today she coaches people, most of them women, on the inherited stories that quietly run their financial decisions long after childhood ends, and how to rewrite them, along with their financial futures.In this conversation, you'll hear:Why twins raised in the exact same household can end up in completely different financial and emotional places as adultsThe specific questions to ask a financial advisor before you hire one, and the one answer that should make you walk awayWhy financial regret research shows the real damage isn't the bad decision, it's the silence around itHow to start defining your own "enough" instead of borrowing someone else's numberWhat Leisa's husband's diagnosis taught her about the assets that never show up on a bank statementIf you've ever felt behind, ashamed, or just quietly unsure whether you're getting this right, this conversation will change how you think about all of it.You can find Leisa at: Website | Instagram | Episode TranscriptNext week, we're sitting down with Leidy Klotz to talk about how the rooms you live in every day shape how much control, connection, and competence you feel, often without you ever noticing it. Be sure to follow Good Life Project wherever you get your podcasts so you don’t miss any upcoming episodes!Check out our sponsors and resources: Visit Our Sponsor Page
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  Tapping: Surprising Science Behind Healing Claims (and how to do it) | Jessica Ortner 20.07.2026 1時間 2分

  Your body already knows you're stressed before your brain finishes the thought. That tightness in your chest before a hard conversation. The way your stomach drops before you walk into a room full of people. Logic doesn't reach it. Telling yourself you're fine doesn't touch it. What if you could send a direct signal to your nervous system that you're safe, and actually change the chemistry?Jessica Ortner is a New York Times bestselling author and co-founder of The Tapping Solution, a movement that has brought EFT Tapping to millions worldwide, fueling hundreds of published studies, a massively downloaded app with tens of millions of sessions completed, and work that now extends to veterans, schools, and communities in crisis.In this conversation, you'll explore:What tapping is, where it came from, and how it works.Why positive thinking and reframing often fail, and what the nervous system actually needs to release stressThe cortisol study that shows a serious reduction in stress hormones from a single session, and what that means for your daily lifeHow tapping physically rewires the brain's response to food cravings, trauma, and intrusive thoughts, with fMRI data to back itWhy your body can hold chronic pain in ways that have nothing to do with the original injury, and tapping might helpHow to use tapping covertly before a difficult conversation, a big presentation, or a social situation when anxiety tends to take overYou don't have to believe this works for it to work. You just have to try it.You can find Jessica at: Website | Instagram | Episode TranscriptNext week, next week we're sitting down with Leisa Peterson to talk about why the quiet question "am I actually behind with money?" never goes away, no matter how many articles you've read or podcasts you've listened to — and what it actually takes to resolve it at the level it lives. 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 WheelVisit Our Sponsor Page For Great Resources & Discount Codes Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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  Midyear Wake-Up Call | Part 2 16.07.2026 57分

  Share your midlife reinvention story with us HERE.You have a plan for how to succeed in the second half of the year, how to “get back on track.” And a plan, it turns out, is the most sophisticated way to actually stand still while feeling like you're moving.This is Part 2 of a special two-part midyear series on Good Life Project. In Part 1, Jonathan led a different kind of honest check-in, setting down the scorecard version of taking stock and actually looking at the one part of life that has been running quietly low. This episode is the moving part. It’s about taking action and building momentum, without waiting for a plan.In this episode, you'll explore:Why plans fail, and why the reason is not the one you've been told. The flaw isn't you. It's how plans are built.The difference between a plan and a move, and why only one of them has ever actually changed a life.Seven elements that make a move more likely to survive a bad week, including Peter Gollwitzer's research on implementation intentions.The four traps that turn a move back into a plan, and how to recognize them before they happen.Why the middle of the year is one of the most powerful fresh start landmarks available, and almost nobody uses it.A five-step sequence you'll work through before this episode ends, leaving with a specific move already made, not planned.This episode is for anyone who has spent the first half of this year meaning to do something and hasn't yet. Not because you lacked motivation, but because you were waiting for the right conditions that were never going to arrive. They don't have to. You just have to make one move.Episode TranscriptIf you LOVED this episode, you can find the 1-page worksheet HERE.Next week, I'm sitting down with an old friend, Jessica Ortner, to explore something that most people have never tried, that looks a little ridiculous at first, and that turns out to have a surprisingly serious body of research behind it. It's called tapping. We're not going to sell it, and we're not going to dismiss it. We're going to give it a genuinely honest look: what the science does and doesn't support, who it's actually for, and then Jessica is going to guide me through a real session, live, on the episode that you can follow along with in real time. Be sure to follow Good Life Project wherever you get your podcasts so you don't miss it.Check out our offerings & partners: Join My New Writing Project: Awake at the WheelVisit Our Sponsor Page For Great Resources & Discount Codes Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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  Midyear Wake-Up Call | Part 1 13.07.2026 53分

  You can hit every goal you set in January and still be running on empty in the parts of your life the list never thought to measure. That's not a failure story. That's a design flaw in the instrument most of us reach for at the midpoint of the year.Jonathan Fields has spent 14 years exploring what it takes to build a life that genuinely feels like yours. In this solo episode, he gets personal about a stretch that looked, by every external measure, like one of the best runs he'd had in years. A major work transition, real momentum in business, and every morning from 7:30 to 9, writing the first draft of his first novel. A genuinely good season. And one that was quietly drawing down on something no scorecard ever caught.What you'll explore in this conversation:Why grading yourself against January goals in July is the least useful thing you can do at the midpoint of the year, and what to reach for insteadThe three Good Life Buckets framework (Vitality, Connection, Contribution) as a practical audit tool, not an abstract ideaTwo ways a bucket drains that most driven, successful people never see coming: the leak and the missing refillWhy the most dangerous bucket is often not the one that aches, but the one filling and draining at the same timeThree reckoning questions that surface something more honest than any goal list you've ever writtenWhy so many of us would rather stay tired and certain than rested and unsure, and what it actually costs usThis is Part 1 of a two-part series. Part 2 arrives in a few days with the specific actions to take for your mid-year wake-up call.Episode TranscriptNext week, we're coming back for part 2 of this series with Jonathan to talk about what to actually do once you've named the bucket, and why you don't need a plan for the second half of your year. You need a move. One small, real, repeatable move. And we're going to figure it out together in real time before that episode is over. Be sure to follow Good Life Project wherever you get your podcasts so you don't miss it.Check out our offerings & partners: Join My New Writing Project: Awake at the WheelVisit Our Sponsor Page For Great Resources & Discount Codes Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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  Healing Family Estrangement: What To Say, And What Never to Say. 09.07.2026 1時間 2分

  Between 10 and 15 percent of mothers and 1 in 4 fathers are currently estranged from a child. If those numbers feel shocking, the harder truth might be this: most of the moves parents instinctively make once estrangement begins are the exact moves that keep the door shut.Dr. Joshua Coleman has spent more than four decades as a practicing psychologist and is a Senior Fellow with the Council on Contemporary Families. His own daughter once cut off contact with him. That experience, and everything he has learned since, shaped his work helping families find their way back to each other. He is one of the most trusted voices in the country on family estrangement and reconciliation.In this conversation, you will explore:Why estrangement rates are at historically high levels and what massive cultural shifts are driving themThe five defensive moves parents make that almost always make things worse, including why fighting for fairness is the most damaging trap of allWhat a genuinely healing apology actually sounds like, and why most apologies miss the mark entirelyWhy radical acceptance and hope are not opposites, and how to hold both at the same timeHow the principles of repair transfer to sibling estrangements and to grandparents cut off from grandchildrenIf someone you love has pulled away and you cannot figure out why, or if you are the one who has needed distance and are wondering what repair could look like, this is the conversation for it.You can find Joshua at: Website | Instagram | Family Troubles Substack | Episode TranscriptNext week, I am going solo, actually for the entire week, for a two-part midyear summer series about really taking a fresh look at where we are right now. Be sure to follow Good Life Project wherever you get your podcasts so you don't miss it.Check out our offerings & partners: Join My New Writing Project: Awake at the WheelVisit Our Sponsor Page For Great Resources & Discount Codes Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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  The Caregiving Conversation Everyone Postpones Until It's Too Late. 06.07.2026 48分

  Here is something most people never see coming: the hardest part of caring for an aging parent is not the logistics. It is the grief. The grief for who your parent used to be, for the life you thought you would be living by now, and for the version of yourself that is quietly disappearing inside a role you never planned to fill. Couple that with being there for kids, even adult kids, and it can feel like a lot.Candace Dellacona is a New York City estate attorney known as "a family's lawyer," advising families, athletes, and entertainers on estate planning, asset protection, and the full arc of what it takes to navigate a family through its most vulnerable seasons. Not just the logistics, but also the many, more nuanced shifts in identity, relationships, and responsibilities. She is also a member of the sandwich generation herself, which is what led her to launch The Sandwich Generation Survival Guide podcast. She brings both the legal expertise and the lived experience to this conversation.What you will explore in this conversation:Why the sandwich generation is far broader than you think, and why it applies to you even if your parents are healthy right now, or your kids are grownThe four shifts that happen inside you during a caregiving season, identity, ownership, grief, and loneliness, and why we almost never talk about themWhy the conversations about aging, death, and documents are almost always saved for the worst possible moment, and how to have them earlier in a way that actually feels like loveThe three-person team that can change everything, and what each one actually doesThe unexpected beauty that enters the equation in a caregiving season, the reconciliation, the closeness, the chance to usher someone you love throughIf you have a parent who is still healthy and you have never had a real conversation about what happens if that changes, this one is for you.You can find Candace at: Website | The Sandwich Generation Survival Guide Podcast | LinkedIn | Episode TranscriptNext week, I am sitting down with Dr. Joshua Coleman, a psychologist who has spent years studying something that is reshaping American families in ways most of us have not fully reckoned with: family estrangement. Why it is rising, what is actually driving it, and what to do if you are on either side of it. Be sure to follow Good Life Project wherever you get your podcasts so you do not miss it.Check out our offerings & partners: Join My New Writing Project: Awake at the WheelVisit Our Sponsor Page For Great Resources & Discount Codes Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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  When You Can't Stop Thinking About Something, Here's What To Do. | Donna Jackson Nakazawa 02.07.2026 56分

  There is something your brain is spinning right now, that you may never have been given a name for or a way out of. The thought you keep replaying. The conversation you keep recasting. The reel that loads up again and again without resolution, making you feel worse each time and no closer to clarity. That is rumination. And according to the neuroscience, it is the single greatest pre-diagnostic factor for depression and anxiety we have identified, and we are all doing it more than we ever have.Donna Jackson Nakazawa is an award-winning science writer whose work sits at the intersection of neurobiology, emotion, and mental health. Her new book, Mind Drama, is the most rigorous and humane investigation of rumination yet written: what it is, why your brain does it, what it is actually trying to tell you, and how to use a specific neurobiologically grounded framework to loosen its grip.In this conversation, you will explore:Why rumination is a survival response gone rogue, and why knowing that changes how you relate to your own spinning thoughtsWhat a brain scan of Donna's own ruminating mind revealed, and what those red swirls in the default mode network actually mean for your daily lifeWhy midlife may be the season when old ruminative patterns return with the most force, and what that signal is asking you to hearThe research showing that women ruminate at significantly higher rates than men, why this is, and what the neuroscience says about the acting-in pattern and its link to depressionThe MIST framework: a four-step neurobiological practice for naming the mental movies, emotions, and somatic sensations underneath your rumination so the brain can actually let goWhy rumination is never random, always circling the question of whether you matter to the people who matter most to youIf you have ever told yourself to stop thinking about something and found you could not, this conversation is for you.You can find Donna at: Healing Together Substack | Instagram | Episode TranscriptNext week, we are sitting down with Candace Dellacona, a trust and estates attorney who is also personally in this season, to talk about the caregiving years, and what it costs you when you are pulled in every direction at once, not just logistically but in terms of who you are and who you thought you would be by now. If you are caring for an aging parent, a younger dependent, or both at the same time, this one was made for you. Be sure to follow Good Life Project wherever you get your podcasts, so you do not miss any upcoming episodes.Check out our offerings & partners: Join My New Writing Project: Awake at the WheelVisit Our Sponsor Page For Great Resources & Discount Codes Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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  Why More Choices Make You Less Happy | David Epstein 29.06.2026 1時間 3分

  Most of us believe more options equals better outcomes. Research says no. In much of life, the opposite is true, and the gap between what we believe and what the data shows is one of the more quietly consequential misconceptions shaping how we live right now.David Epstein is the author of Range and the new book Inside the Box, both New York Times bestsellers. He spent years studying human performance and creativity, and this conversation picks up where Range left off. If Range was about why broad exploration matters early in life, Inside the Box is about what you actually do once you have all that range. The answer turns out to be counterintuitive: you box yourself in.In this conversation, you'll discover:Why people with more options to watch are consistently more bored than people with fewer, and what that reveals about how your brain actually works The difference between satisficing and maximizing, and why maximizers make worse decisions, feel more regret, and are less happy with their lives despite spending more time and energy on every choice How Keith Jarrett recorded the best-selling solo jazz piano album of all time on a broken, out-of-tune instrument he almost refused to play, and what that says about where creative breakthroughs actually come from The paired constraints process used by Monet, Dr. Seuss, and Isabel Allende, and how you can use the same structure to unstick your own creative projects Why our attention switches tasks every 45 seconds on average now, down from every three minutes 25 years ago, and what it's actually costing us in terms of stress, creativity, and the simple experience of loving our workThis is a conversation for anyone who has ever felt scattered across too many possibilities, half-committed to too many things, and quietly wondered if the constraint they've been avoiding might be exactly the thing they need.You can find David at: Website | Instagram | Range Widely Substack | Episode TranscriptNext week, we're sitting down with Donna Jackson Nakazawa to talk about why rumination feels so productive even when it's actively working against you, and what the neuroscience actually says about how to loosen its grip. She has a framework for this that I haven't been able to stop thinking about since we recorded. Be sure to follow Good Life Project wherever you get your podcasts, so you don't miss it.Check out our offerings & partners: Join My New Writing Project: Awake at the WheelVisit Our Sponsor Page For Great Resources & Discount Codes Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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  The Toll of Generalized Resentment (and What to Do About It) 25.06.2026 52分

  There is a feeling many people in midlife carry that does not have a name, a clear cause, or anyone to blame. It shows up when you have been the dependable one long enough that dependable starts to feel like a cage. Or when you have handled everything capably and walked away feeling hollowed rather than proud. Or when you have given more than you have received for so long that the imbalance stopped feeling like generosity and started feeling like the terms of your life.In this solo episode, Jonathan Fields examines what he calls diffuse resentment, a specific, accumulated form of feeling that is distinct from the anger or grievance most people recognize as resentment. It does not have an address. It does not require a villain. And because it feels illegitimate, because the voice in your head says you made these choices, you have so much to be grateful for, it tends to go unexamined, parked, managed, and silently expensive.In this solo episode, Jonathan draws on his own experience, research from psychologists Jennifer Lerner, Laura Carstensen, James Pennebaker, and Nick Epley, and thousands of conversations over 14 years of doing this work, to offer a way of looking at this feeling directly.In this episode, you will explore:The five territories where diffuse resentment most reliably lives, the calcified role, the invisible labor ledger, the deferred self, relational drift, and the unlived pathWhy midlife is specifically when this feeling tends to become unavoidable, and why it often intensifies precisely when things are going wellWhat the research on emotional suppression actually shows about the cost of carrying unexamined feelingsTwo movements (not steps) for beginning to look at this honestly, and why the first must come before the second is possibleWhat becomes available on the other side: accuracy, energy, and a different quality of closeness in the relationships that matter mostIf you have been explaining away a feeling you cannot quite name, this episode is for you.Episode TranscriptNext week, we're sitting down with David Epstein to talk about something that runs against just about everything the self-help world has told you about freedom and options: why the constraints, limits, and boundaries you have been trying to escape are often the very conditions that make creativity, focus, and satisfaction actually possible. It is a genuinely counterintuitive conversation, and it is the kind that stays with you. Be sure to follow Good Life Project wherever you get your podcasts so you don't miss it.Check out our offerings & partners: Join My New Writing Project: Awake at the WheelVisit Our Sponsor Page For Great Resources & Discount Codes Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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  You Spent Years Acting Normal Inside a Life That Never Fit | Sari Botton 22.06.2026 55分

  Gotta love a good midlife reinvention story, and today we’ve got a great one!Sari Botton built her career editing some of the most celebrated voices in American literary nonfiction. Then, in her mid-50s, she watched doors close in her face, turned down for jobs she was overqualified for, told by interviewers in their 30s that she had "done enough." Out of that experience, she launched Oldster Magazine on Substack, a publication dedicated to aging honestly, at every age. It became a global phenomenon, and led to a book deal. She turned 60 and called it the best moment of her career.In this conversation, Jonathan and Sari explore:Why the most painful thing about midlife is not getting older but realizing how long you spent performing a version of yourself that never quite fitWhat it costs to live at the intersection of "should" and "whatever," and what becomes possible when you stopThe Gen X inheritance: latchkey-kid freedom, zero parenting bandwidth, and a generation that had to figure out what normal even meantWhy the best memoir illuminates the mundane, and why women claiming that territory is a quietly radical actWhat it means to be "found-ish": knowing the truest part of yourself while staying open to how life keeps changing youSari arrived at the conversation we are having right now by surviving the wrong relationships, the wrong careers, and a deep reluctance to let herself want what she actually wanted. If any of that sounds familiar, this conversation is for you.You can find Sari at: Website | Instagram | Oldster Substack | Episode TranscriptNext week, I am doing a solo episode on something I have been sitting with for a long time: the hidden resentment you are probably carrying right now, and why it might be one of the most honest things about you. If you think you are not carrying any, that is especially worth your time. Be sure to follow Good Life Project wherever you get your podcasts so you do not miss it.Check out our offerings & partners: Join My New Writing Project: Awake at the WheelVisit Our Sponsor Page For Great Resources & Discount Codes Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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  The Midlife Muscle Loss Lie: How to Stay Strong at Any Age | Dr. Vonda Wright 18.06.2026 56分

  According to Dr. Vonda Wright, almost everything we believe about aging and muscle loss is wrong. The research that told you to expect decline was built on populations where 70 percent of participants barely moved. Which means the trajectory most of us are bracing for is not biology. It is behavior. You do not have to be a statistic.Dr. Vonda Wright is an orthopedic surgeon, researcher, and the founder of PRIMA, the Performance and Research Initiative for Masters Athletes at the University of Pittsburgh. She has spent her career studying what happens to the body when people stay active, not what happens when they don't. Her book, Unbreakable: A Woman's Guide to Aging with Power, distills what that research actually shows about muscle, bone, hormones, and aging in midlife.What you will explore in this conversation:The three MRI images that upended what we thought we knew about aging muscle, a visual comparison between a sedentary 74-year-old, an active 70-year-old, and a 40-year-old, that has become widely shared because of what it shows about what is actually possible.Menalescence, Dr. Wright's term for the hormonal, physiological, psychological, and social upheaval of perimenopause and menopause, and why naming it the way we named adolescence changes how women advocate for themselves in the doctor's office.The musculoskeletal syndrome of menopause, a connection between estrogen loss and total-body joint pain that has been documented in medical literature since 1925, is still not taught in most medical schools.The critical decade from 35 to 45, why this window is the highest-leverage moment for building the physical body you will have for the rest of your life, and exactly what to do if you are past it.Why lifting heavy is not optional for women in midlife, and what four reps, four sets actually does for strength and power that lighter lifting cannot.How much protein you actually need, why the math most people do is probably too low, and the leucine argument for animal protein.If you have been told that your MRI findings, your arthritis, your bulging disc, or your bone density numbers mean you cannot or should not lift, this conversation is for you.You can find Vonda at: Website | Instagram | Episode TranscriptNext week, I am sitting down with Sari Botton to talk about why the life you keep putting off might be the most honest thing about you — and what it actually takes to stop waiting for permission to live it. Be sure to follow Good Life Project wherever you get your podcasts, so you don't miss it. Check out our offerings & partners: Join My New Writing Project: Awake at the WheelVisit Our Sponsor Page For Great Resources & Discount Codes Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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  The 4 Chemicals That Run Your Brain…and Your Life | Tj Power 15.06.2026 1時間 3分

  Four chemicals, produced by your brain, serve as a master switch for nearly everything you think, do, and feel. In no small way, they also control our lives. But, all too often, instead of harnessing them to fuel amazing experiences and outcomes, we are controlled by them. Today, we learn how to take back control and harness them for good.Our guide is TJ Power, lead neuroscientist at the DOSE Lab and the author of The DOSE Effect. His research investigates how modern sedentary, digitally saturated lifestyles are reshaping the brain chemicals that govern how we feel, connect, focus, and recover from stress. He has delivered live experiences to over 75,000 people at institutions including Oxford University, Amazon, and the NHS.His DOSE framework centers on four chemicals: Dopamine, Oxytocin, Serotonin, and Endorphins. These chemicals evolved over hundreds of thousands of years for a very different experience of life. One with more movement, more connection, more sunlight, more sustained effort, and far less of what TJ calls dopamine land, the scroll-and-reward loop that phones have engineered into our days.In this conversation, you will explore:Why dopamine is not the reward chemical you were taught it was, and why the phone has hijacked the system that was supposed to motivate youThe difference between dopamine and oxytocin, and why TJ believes we are pursuing the wrong chemical as a speciesHow 90% of your serotonin is manufactured in your gut, and what ultra-processed food is actually doing to your moodWhy stress evolved to be released through physical movement, and why sitting still with your problems makes them worseThe 20 free behaviors from The DOSE Effect that recalibrate all four chemicals without cost, pills, or a major life overhaulIf you have been wondering why certain things that used to feel easy now feel effortful, this conversation gives you a biological explanation and a practical path forward.You can find Tj at: Website | Instagram | Episode TranscriptNext week, we are sitting down with Dr. Vonda Wright to talk about why most of what you have been told about aging is actually data about people who did nothing. The decline curve, it turns out, is negotiable, and ages 35 to 45 are the highest-leverage window. But she also makes the case that the door never closes. Be sure to follow Good Life Project wherever you get your podcasts so you don't miss it.Check out our offerings & partners: Join My New Writing Project: Awake at the WheelVisit Our Sponsor Page For Great Resources & Discount Codes Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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  What Lucky People Do Differently, According to Science | Tina Seelig 11.06.2026 51分

  Luck is not a personality trait you either have or you don't. It is something you build, and science tells us there are specific, learnable skills behind why some people consistently seem to be in the right place at the right time while others walk right past the same opportunities.Tina Seelig has spent over 25 years at Stanford teaching and studying exactly this. As Executive Director of the Knight-Hennessy Scholars program and a longtime faculty member at the Stanford d.school, she has watched thousands of students move through the world, and the differences between those who generate luck and those who don't are far more concrete and actionable than most people realize. Her new book is What I Wish I Knew About Luck: A Crash Course on Turning Aspirations into Achievements.In this conversation, you will explore:What separates fortune from luck, and why that distinction changes everything about where you actually have agency in your lifeThe ship, crew, and sail framework for understanding what it really takes to become luckier, and where most people skip a stepWhy your mental model of failure, whether it feels like a trampoline or a black hole, may be the single most powerful predictor of how much luck you createThe hidden social behaviors that consistently show up in the luckiest people, from thank-you notes to a very specific way of asking for helpWhy luck is a long game, and the story of how behavior at a disastrous Costa Rica resort determined the outcome of a job interview fifteen years laterIf you have ever looked at someone who seems consistently lucky and wondered what they are doing differently, this conversation will give you some clear answers.You can find Tina at: LinkedIn | Episode TranscriptNext week, we are featuring one of our most talked-about conversations from the archive, Tj Power on the four brain chemicals that are quietly running your life and why the modern environment is throwing them out of balance in ways that make everything from motivation to genuine connection harder than it should be. 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 WheelVisit Our Sponsor Page For Great Resources & Discount Codes Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.