Episodes

Don Miguel Ruiz Jr is the author of five books, including his latest publication The Seven Secrets To Healthy Happy Relationships. Don belongs to a family with a rich heritage in the Mexican Toltec tradition. Having learned the tradition from the teachings and preachings of his grandmother, Don now dedicates his life to helping others heal from the wounds that conditional love inflicted upon them. Don joins me today to discuss the importance and power of unconditional love, a mission that he an...

Oren Jay Sofer is a long-time mindfulness teacher, coach, and author of Say What You Mean: A Mindful Approach To Nonviolent Communication. Oren has spent many years studying and practicing Buddhism, Yoga, and Mindfulness. He has since used those skills to lead trainings in various companies on a wide range of mindfulness topics. Oren joins me today to discuss communication and the significant power that our words can have. We talk about the techniques we can use to keep our communication nonvio...

Tony Bartelme is a Three-Time Pulitzer Prize nominee, narrative storyteller, and investigative journalist. He has recently spent five months in Tanzania in order to capture and tell the story of brilliant brain surgeon Dilan Ellegala, which began with a post-residency vacation and ended with a revolution of Tanzania’s medical training programs. Tony documented Dilan’s story in a book which he titled A Surgeon in the Village: An American Doctor Teaches Brain Surgery in Africa. Tony joins me toda...

Mike Finkel’s bio reads more like Indiana Jones than a Journalist. He has traveled the world in his work for various magazines including climbing volcanos, delving into caves, meeting with native tribes in Tanzania, ascending the mountains of Afghanistan, hunting for extremely rare mushrooms in Tibet, and even investigating the black market human organ trade. He has written various, nonfiction books across a wide range of topics and has another on the way. Mike joins me this week to discuss his...

Shirley Hager is an advocate and activist for social and racial equality. From a young age she has had an eye for spotting discrepancies in the way we treat each other. Recently, she joined a group of thirteen indigenous and non-indigenous people who banded together to gain a deeper understanding of each other’s lives and culture. This group recently co-authored a book, The Gatherings: Reimagining Indigenous-Settler Relations. Shirley joins me today to discuss her first encounter with racial in...

Dr. Aaron Berkowitz is a leading voice in neurology, global health and medical education. He’s also concerned and involved with issues of social justice. Aaron has written a book called One by One by One: Making a Small Difference Amid a Billion Problems, to inspire others to see the world differently and get involved in making a positive change. Aaron joins me today to discuss the immense comforts we take for granted in this country, and in particular, modern medicine. We discuss his trips to ...

David McRaney has worked as an editor, a photographer, a voiceover artist, a television host, a public speaker, a TV producer, and a journalist. David, being a deeply intelligent and thoughtful man, has focused his work on revealing the self-delusions and cognitive biases by which we live our lives. He has written a book called You Are Not So Smart and also runs a blog and podcast by the same name to help provide the world with his findings. David joins me today to discuss this phenomenon of se...

Todd Rose is an extraordinary man. Convinced we has a bad student, he performed poorly in school and even dropped out of college. Little did he know he would later gain a PHD and become a professor at Harvard University. Todd has since been fascinated with the idea of motivation, and has founded the nonprofit Populace to help transform how we learn, work, and live to help us live more fulfilling lives. Todd joins us today to discuss the relationship between motivation, and the pursuit of happin...

Steven C. Hayes is an amazing thinker. He has written nearly 50 books, and hundreds of articles. He is an originator of ACT therapy and RFT (Relational Frame Therapy). Google scholar data ranks him among the top fifteen hundred most cited scholars in all areas of study, living and dead. His career has focused on human nature, language, cognition, and the application of this to an understanding and alleviation of human suffering. His latest book, and topic of our interview, is called “A Liberated...

Neal Allen describes himself as pink, fluffy, love. He’s written a book called Shapes of Truth: Discover God Inside You, which is an interesting book to write for someone who declared himself an atheist at the age of 14. In this conversation and in the book, he lays out some interesting ideas about how we can really get in touch with what’s truly inside us and what’s not. Neal worked for many years as a journalist, and he entered the corporate world where he worked as an executive. Ultimately, h...

Sadhguru is a yogi, a mystic, and an author of many books. His most recent book, as mentioned in this interview, is A Yogi’s Guide to Creating Your Destiny. He is no stranger to public speaking, having been an invited guest to the United Nations, Harvard, MIT, World Economic Forum, and so many more. In his work, Sadhguru has devoted himself to the betterment of mankind and this planet as both a humanitarian and environmentalist. For today’s short interview, we focus in on Sadhguru’s new Green E...

Adii Pienaar is someone who uses his strengths, gifts, and talents in a variety of ways to solve real problems for others. He has been able to implement self-expression into his career of building successful companies. He’s a family man, a seeker, and a learner. He’s also a founder of Cogsy, Conversio, and WooCommerce; which shows he knows a thing or two about building and growing a successful business from the ground up. One of the things that sets Adii apart is his ability to balance creating ...

I’ve traveled many places around this globe and talked to many people, some of whom have very interesting views. Today’s guest is one of those people. Rachel Harris has written a book called “Listening to Ayahuasca: New Hope for Depression, Addiction and Anxiety”. Over her thirty-five years of experience as a psychologist and 10 years of scientific research, she’s received multiple awards from the National Institutes of Health and published more than 40 scientific studies in peer reviewed journa...

Dr. Dennis Rebelo is the author of a book called “Story Like You Mean It: How to Build and Use Your Personal Narrative to Illustrate Who You Really Are”. Dr. D is a professor, speaker, a career coach. He’s the creator of the peak storytelling model, a research-based method for crafting the narrative of who you are, what drives you, and why. His method has been used by not only former professional athletes, guidance professionals, and advisors, but also nonprofit leaders, as well as entrepreneurs...

What does it mean to live a good life? Over the past few years I have tried to answer that question by interviewing nearly 200 guests from all walks of life. Each week I invite an author with a unique perspective to talk about the subject of their book and share their thoughts on what it means to live a good life, as well as their tips for getting books written and published! I also run each guest through my Enlightening Lightning Round, a series of 9 quick questions regarding all aspects of lif...

What does it mean to live a good life? Over the past few years, I have tried to answer that question by interviewing nearly 200 guests from all walks of life. Each week I invite an author with a unique perspective to share their thoughts on what it means to live a good life. Each guest shares a bit about themselves, the work they do and have done, and most importantly, their Keys to Good Living. These keys not only help us to live better lives, but also to understand ourselves better, to know wh...

163. Dawson Church – Bliss Brain: The Neuroscience of Remodeling Your Brain for Resilience, Creativity, and Joy Dr. Dawson Church is the author of “Bliss Brain: The Neuroscience of Remodeling Your Brain for Resilience, Creativity, and Joy”. Dawson decided to shift from his successful publishing career because of the great impact that meditation had on his ability to be happy despite some of the catastrophic events he has lived through. Dawson’s many scientific clinical trials have also helped h...

Pamela Seelig is the author of “Threads of Yoga: Themes, Reflections, and Meditations to Weave into Your Practice.” It’s a guide for students and teachers inspired by the yoga sutras. Pam is someone who began her yoga journey more than twenty-five years ago when an illness interrupted her Wall Street career. She began meditating as a complementary therapy with startling results. Along with speeding up her recovery, the impact of her meditation led to a lifelong pursuit of perceiving and sharing ...

Scott O’Neil is not only a successful person, but also very good at articulating the principles that he has used to achieve his success. Professionally, he’s a best-selling author, an award-winning sports business executive and leader. He’s the former CEO of Harris-Blitzer Sports and Entertainment, a 25-year tenured NBA, NFL, and NHL senior executive and a Harvard Business School alum. He was a straight-A student, president of the student body, captain of three sports teams, and even president o...

Matt Alt is a Tokyo-based translator, writer, and speaker. He has written for or writes for The New Yorker, CNN, Wired, Slate, The Japan Times, Newsweek Japan, Vice, and more. Matt’s curiosity and love for Japanese culture and inventions have led him to find the creators of what he calls “Fantasy Delivery Devices”; gadgets that changed our lives, things like the karaoke machine, the Walkman, the Nintendo entertainment system, the Gameboy characters like Hello Kitty and the Pokémon. He’s also tra...

Adam Stern, M.D is the author of “Committed: Dispatches From a Psychiatrist in Training.” It’s a memoir Adam wrote about his time learning to become a psychiatrist, which involved overcoming imposter syndrome and learning the value of human connection. Adam is well studied in psychology, medicine, psychiatry, clinical neurosciences, all kinds of smart, academic scientific stuff. But he’s a very approachable human being. He’s currently an assistant professor of psychiatry at Harvard, and he has w...

168. Suzanne McConnell – Pity The Reader: On Writing With Style Suzanne McConnell is the author of “Pity the Reader: On Writing with Style”. Suzanne was a student and a friend of Kurt Vonnegut’s, and she was asked to write this book by Kurt’s Trust. Kurt is the author of Slaughterhouse-five and several other works of primary fiction, but also nonfiction. He shares many stories from his life in ways that were sometimes humorous, sometimes touching, but almost always entertaining. In this book, S...

David Henkin is a life-long historian specializing in uncovering the ancestral events that are the roots to many of the social norms of today. He has published many of his findings in books that are available nationwide. I invited David onto the show today because I read his latest book “The Week: A History of the Unnatural Rhythms That Made Us Who We Are” and found it incredibly insightful. In the book David explains the events that led to the phenomenon of the entire world unanimously adopting...

Ron Lieber is the author of the “Your Money” column for The New York Times and the author or co-author of five books. His most recent book is called “The Price You Pay for College: An Entirely New Roadmap for the Biggest Financial Decision Your Family Will Ever Make.” He’s also written for Fast Company for The Wall Street Journal and for Fortune Magazine. Ron is a three-time winner of the Gerald Loeb Award, which is the most prestigious award in business journalism. Part of that is because his w...