Good Life Project || Inspiration | Motivation | Happiness | Meaning | Success

Stephanie Danler is a novelist, memoirist, and screenwriter. She is the author of the international bestseller, Sweetbitter, and the creator and executive producer of the Sweetbitter TV series on Starz. The book and series were based on her own experience being swept up by the intoxication of the New York City restaurant scene in her twenties. Danler's work has appeared in the Sewanee Review, Vogue, The New York Times, and The Paris Review. Her new memoir, Stray, (https://amzn.to/361FOpf) is a powerful reflection on the relationships, addictions, moments of awakening, revelation, and connection that defined her earlier life and shaped the person, the partner, the mother, and the writer she would become.You can find Stephanie Danler at:Website : http://www.stephaniedanler.com/Instagram : https://www.instagram.com/smdanler/-------------Have you discovered your Sparketype yet? Take the Sparketype Assessment™ now. IT’S FREE (https://sparketype.com/) and takes about 7-minutes to complete. At a

Simultaneously parenting her daughter while caring for a mom who was vanishing into dementia, Maya Shanbhag Lang, found herself reexamining nearly every part of her life, and reimagining how she wanted to tell her own story to her daughter. May's writing has been featured in The Washington Post, In Style, The Millions, and The Rumpus, among others. Her book, The Sixteenth of June was long-listed for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize, was an Audie Award Finalist for Best Audio Book. Her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. A passionate teacher, she loves working with aspiring writers. Her new memoir is What We Carry.  (https://amzn.to/3fqyo2Q)You can find Maya Shanbhag Lang at:Website : http://www.mayalang.com/Instagram : https://www.instagram.com/mayaslang/-------------Have you discovered your Sparketype yet? Take the Sparketype Assessment™ now. IT’S FREE (https://sparketype.com/) and takes about 7-minutes to complete. At a minimum, it’ll open your eyes in a

John Caglione, Jr. is an Academy Award and Emmy Award-Winning Makeup Artist. Obsessed with monster movies as a kid, he began studying makeup and special effects. A not-so-chance meeting with makeup legend, Dick Smith, turned him from a fan into a devotee of the craft. Graduating high-school, Smith then recommended John to the NBC Makeup Program where he ended up working with the original cast of "Saturday Night Live" for six years, before going out on his own. Having now built a decades-long career in film and TV, John's work includes "Quest For Fire", "Zelig", "Cotton Club", "Heat", "Dick Tracy" (for which he won the Oscar and British Academy Award). John also designed and applied Heath Ledger's 'Joker' character makeup in "The Dark Knight," and he's been Personal Makeup Artist to Al Pacino for 30 years. John's most current work with Al Pacino was "The Irishman" and "Hunters".You can find John Caglione, Jr. at:Website: https://www.johncaglionejr.net/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/johnny_cags/

Jacqueline Novogratz co-founded Rwanda’s first microfinance institution, Duterimbere, before launching the groundbreaking impact-investment and activist platform, Acumen. Nineteen years in, Acumen has helped build more than 128 social enterprises across Africa, Latin America, South Asia, and the United States, bringing affordable education, health care, clean water, and energy to more than 300 million people. Novogratz sits on the Advisory Councils of the Harvard Business School Social Enterprise Initiative, the Oxford Said Global Leadership Council, the NYU Stern Center for Business and Human Rights, and UNICEF. Her best-selling memoir The Blue Sweater chronicles her quest to understand poverty and challenges readers to grant dignity to the poor and to rethink their engagement with the world. Jacqueline's new book, Manifesto for a Moral Revolution (https://amzn.to/3c84n65) offers a revolutionary lens on leadership, activism, social responsibility, investing, and calls us to play a more active role in reshapi

Acclaimed comic, Adam Cayton-Holland, has appeared on Conan, The Late Late Show with James Corden, Comedy Central Presents, @midnight, and was named one of Esquire’s “25 Comics to Watch,” as well as one of “10 Comics to Watch” by Variety. Along with his cohorts in The Grawlix, he created, wrote and starred in “Those Who Can’t,” which aired for three seasons on truTV. His albums, “I Don’t Know If I Happy,” “Backyards,” and “Adam Cayton-Holland Performs His Signature Bits,” (voted one of Vulture’s Top Ten Albums of 2018) are all available on iTunes, and his writing has appeared in Village Voice, Spin, The A.V. Club, The New York Times, Esquire and The Atlantic. His first book, Tragedy Plus Time, (https://amzn.to/2VFJXdp) shares the moving story of his ascension into the world of comedy as his sister descended into mental illness and how he moved through that devastating moment of life.You can find Adam Cayton-Holland at: Website: http://www.adamcaytonholland.com/ |Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/caytonholl

Macy Gray's unmistakable rasp, soul, and powerful spirit established as a 21st-century music icon with her triple-platinum album On How Life Is in 1999, featuring the generation-defining song "I Try." She's sold over 25 million albums, winning a GRAMMY, two BRITs, and collaborating with everyone from Ariana Grande to Galactic, and sold out venues in nearly every corner of the globe. Macy’s talents resound beyond music as well. She starred in Tyler Perry’s Black Reel Award-winning For Colored Girls and graced the screen everywhere from Brotherly Love and Cardboard Boxer to NETFLIX’s hit Fuller House, and made a legendary appearance in Training Day alongside Academy Award winner Denzel Washington. Now, her tenth full-length album, RUBY (https://amzn.to/3d0T2Vg), reaffirms and reasserts that signature rarity millions continue to treasure. Channeling the spirit of the R&B and jazz closest to her heart, Gray made a leap forward by looking back to formative insp

Brad Montague is the co-creator of Kid President, the internet sensation featured on Soulpancake Youtube channel. As a writer and director his work has garnered more than 900 million views, been translated into countless languages, and captured the attention of people like Tom Hanks, Beyonce’, and even the Obamas. As an illustrator, his encouraging work is seen and shared daily online. It can also be found on newsstands in Joanna Gaines' Magnolia Journal. Brad is the force behind ‘Socktober’ the worldwide annual drive connecting people with their local homeless shelters and ‘Wondersparks’ - free classroom resources designed to cultivate empathy and imagination. He and his wife Kristi live in Tennessee. They have two small children and operate Montague Workshop, a creative studio working to reimagine the future. His newest book, Becoming Better Grownups, (https://amzn.to/34DqPkx) inspires us to spend more time discovering what matters.You can find Brad Montague at: Website: http://beabettergrownup.com/|In

Jennifer Louden is a personal growth pioneer who helped launch the concept of self-care with her first bestseller, The Woman’s Comfort Book. Since then, she’s written seven additional books on well-being and whole living, including The Woman’ s Retreat Book and The Life Organizer, with close to a million copies of her books in print in nine languages. Jennifer has lead retreats and workshops internationally since 1992, written a national magazine column for a Martha Stewart magazine, and been profiled or quoted in dozens of major magazines; two of Brené Brown’s books, Daring Greatly and Dare to Lead; and appeared on hundreds of TV, radio shows and podcasts—even on Oprah. Her new book ,Why Bother (https://amzn.to/2xfESk9), challenges you to choose what you devote yourself to in a more intentional way.You can find Jennifer Louden at: Website: http://jenniferlouden.com/| Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jenlouden.writer/-------------Have you discovered your Sparketype yet? Take the Sparketype As

Stephen Haff is the founder of Still Waters in a Storm, a one-room school serving mostly Spanish-speaking immigrant children in Bushwick, Brooklyn. Previously, he taught English at a public school in Bushwick for nearly a decade, before leaving to recover from the effects of extreme psychological stress that led him to re-evaluate how he would return to serve kids as an educator and activist. In his new book, Kid Quixotes (https://amzn.to/34zxPit). Stephen shares a powerful story about the kids and an incredible 5-year project to translate and perform a modern version of Don Quixote. He earned his MFA in Theater Studies at Yale, and has made a living directing plays and writing essays for the Village Voice and other publications.You can find Stephen Haff at: Website: http://www.stillwatersinastorm.org/-------------Have you discovered your Sparketype yet? Take the Sparketype Assessment™ now. IT’S FREE (https://sparketype.com/) and takes about 7-minutes to complete. At a minimum, it’ll open

Pete Holmes is a comedian, writer, cartoonist, spiritual seeker, and the host of the You Made It Weird (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/you-made-it-weird-with-pete-holmes/id475878118) podcast. He was the creator-star of the hit HBO show Crashing. From standup comedy to screens, large and small, Pete is constantly examining and commenting on life. You can see this in his performances on stage on screens of all sizes, as well as his latest memoir. Part autobiography, part philosophical inquiry, and part spiritual quest, Pete's book, Comedy Sex God (https://amzn.to/2QXVtPZ) is a sweeping, raw, funny and illuminating exploration of the deeper meanings of life, love, and comedy.We dive into the deep end of the pool today, with a no-holds-barred exploration of family, faith, atheism, mysticism, comedy, parenting, love and how they all tie together and inform each other. This conversation was taped during our LA Sessions in Pete's studio, aka, the garage behind his house.You can find Pete Holmes at: Websi

Dr. Sayantani Dasgupta has a foot in three worlds: medicine, teaching and writing. Growing up the daughter of Indian immigrants, she fell in love with writing at an early age. But she decided to focus on medicine as her early career, eventually becoming a pediatrician and then a professor, teaching med-students and others about the power of listening and peoples’ stories as a faculty member in Columbia University’s Master’s Program in Narrative Medicine (http://www.narrativemedicine.org/), and co-chair of Columbia’s University Seminar on Narrative, Health and Social Justice (http://universityseminars.columbia.edu/seminars/narrative-health-and-social-justice/).All the while, she was writing. She started with a memoir, then collaborated with her mother on a collection of Bengali folk tales, before creating her own fantasy series designed to not only capture the imagination of young adults but also feature a heroin with brown skin that her kids could relate to. Now with 3 books out, including The Serpent’s

Danny Koentopp wakes up every morning, gets dressed, has a bite to eat, kisses his wife and kids, and heads off to a garage in LA, often not coming out until long after the sun has set. For Danny, this garage is a creative temple. An innovative workshop, where he spends his days handcrafting some of the most breathtakingly-beautiful and sought after archtop acoustic jazz guitars and hollow-body electric guitars on the planet. He literally loses time there. But, his story runs deeper than a devotion to craft and music, family and mastery. When Danny steps into his workshop, he's not alone. He built his first guitar side-by-side with his dad in a home workshop. Danny's father passed-on shortly after, but he inhabits this little oasis, guiding and inspiring Danny along the way. In that magical space, they reconnect and make magic together.You can find Dan Koentopp at: Website https://koentoppguitars.com/| Instagram https://www.instagram.com/KoentoppGuitars/-------------Have you discovered your Sparketype&nb

For Samin Nosrat, cooking is love. A way to gather, delight and savor time with those you love. Maybe, at this time that finds more of us home and cooking, it can become the same for you.Samin's New York Times bestselling book, Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat, received the James Beard award and her Netflix series of the same name is a stunning exploration of food, culture, travel, and life. Called “the next Julia Child” by NPR’s All Things Considered, Samin has been cooking professionally since 2000, when she first stumbled into the kitchen at the legendary Chez Panisse restaurant in Berkeley, California.In this Best of episode, we explore Samin's journey, growing up the child of first-generation immigrant parents in southern California and feeling like the outsider. We dive into her lifelong love of writing and books, her experience with anxiety and depression and work to be present and joyful in her life. And, we track her "strange left turn" into the world of food and, now, with the massive success of her book

What if you could reverse the aging process? Sounds like science fiction, but the new science of aging is turning it into science fact. Today, we learn the truth about aging and how to potentially slow, stop and even reverse it from one of the world's leading voices in the science of aging, David A. Sinclair, Ph.D. He is a Professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School, co-Director of the Paul F. Glenn Center for the Biology of Aging Research at Harvard Medical School, Professor and Head of the Aging Labs at UNSW, Sydney, and an honorary Professor at the University of Sydney. Best known for his work on genes and small molecules that delay aging, including the Sirtuin genes, resveratrol and NAD precursors, he has published over 170 scientific papers, is a co-inventor on over 50 patents, and has co-founded 14 biotechnology companies in the areas of aging, vaccines, diabetes, fertility, cancer, and biodefense. And he's the author of Lifespan: Why We Age and Why We Don't Have To.You can find David A. Sinclair, P

Daina Trout thought she was starting a hair-growth company with her husband and best friend, before pivoting to become Health-Ade Kombucha, a national brand that is sold at 30,000 grocery stores and health food markets nationwide. In 2017, Food & Wine named Trout one of the most innovative women in food & drink and in early 2018 Create & Cultivate featured her in its C&C 100 list, celebrating 100 women who are masters of their field. In 2019, Daina was included on Inc’s Female Founder 100 list and was also named BevNet’s Person Of The Year.You can find Daina Trout at: Website | Instagram-------------Have you discovered your Sparketype yet? Take the Sparketype Assessment™ now. IT’S FREE (https://sparketype.com/) and takes about 7-minutes to complete. At a minimum, it’ll open your eyes in a big way. It also just might change your life.If you enjoyed the show, please share it with a friend. Thank you to our super cool brand partners. If you like t

Kate Murphy is a Houston, TX-based reporter whose writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Economist, Agence France-Presse, and Texas Monthly. Her book, You're Not Listening is equal parts cultural observation, scientific exploration, and a rousing call to action that's full of practical advice. Murphy explains why we’re not listening, what it’s doing to us, and how we can reverse the trend. She makes accessible the psychology, neuroscience, and sociology of listening while also introducing us to some of the best listeners out there (including a CIA agent, focus group moderator, bartender, radio producer, and top furniture salesman). It’s time to stop talking and start listening.You can find Kate Murphy at: The New York Times-------------Have you discovered your Sparketype yet? Take the Sparketype Assessment™ now. IT’S FREE (https://sparketype.com/) and takes about 7-minutes to complete. At a minimum, it’ll open your eyes in a big way. It also just might change your life.If you enjo

Anxiety is at an all-time high right now, and there are valid reasons for concern. At the same time, most of us have more control over how we experience this moment, psychologically and emotionally, than we realize. There are many practical, accessible ways to reduce anxiety and move away from panic.This is why we asked longtime collaborator and wellbeing advisor, Emiliya Zhivotovskaya, to help us better understand anxiety, and walk us through 20 highly-specific tools and techniques to reduce anxiety and bring yourself back to a place of relative ease and calm, no matter how groundless or anxiety-provoking the world around you may feel in this moment.Emiliya is the CEO and founder of The Flourishing Center, a New York City-based, B-Corp dedicated to increasing the flourishing of individuals, organizations, and communities. She is the creator of the Certification in Applied Positive Psychology, the Bounce Back Better® training on resilience, Positive Psychology Coaching Certification, the Flourishing Skills Gr

Born in a small village with no electricity or running water in Zimbabwe, Dr. Tererai Trent was married in her early teens as was the custom, had four children by age 18 and suffered repeated physical abuse from her husband. She is now an inspiring and dynamic scholar, educator, humanitarian, speaker, author, founder of Tererai International, and an acclaimed voice for women’s empowerment and education. Her book, The Awakened Woman, is a call to action that will awaken hearts, give permission to recapture dreams, and provide the tools to forge a brighter path for all. We explore her powerful journey and ideas in today's Best Of episode.You can find Dr. Tererai Trent at: Website | Instagram-------------Have you discovered your Sparketype yet? Take the Sparketype Assessment™ now. IT’S FREE (https://sparketype.com/) and takes about 7-minutes to complete. At a minimum, it’ll open your eyes in a big way. It also just might change your life.If you enjoyed the show, please share it with a fr

IN-Q is a National Poetry Slam champion, award-winning poet, and multi-platinum songwriter. His groundbreaking achievements include being named to Oprah's SuperSoul 100 list of the world's most influential thought leaders, being the first spoken word artist to perform with Cirque Du Soleil, and being featured on A&E, ESPN, and HBO's Def Poetry Jam. He's inspired audiences around the world through his live performances and storytelling workshops. Many of his recent poetry videos have gone viral with over 70 million views combined. Contemplating universal issues of love, loss, forgiveness, transformation, and belief, his new book, Inquire Within shines a light on our lives and provides a wholly unique and dynamic lens through which to think about ourselves and our world.You can find IN-Q at: Website |Instagram-------------Have you discovered your Sparketype yet? Take the Sparketype Assessment™ now. IT’S FREE (https://sparketype.com/) and takes about 7-minutes to complete. At a minim

John Hodgman started his career as a literary agent, but found himself launched into TV when, after an appearance to promote a book on “The Daily Show,” he was invited to return as a regular presence on the show. This let to an unexpected career before the camera, becoming the “Personal Computer” in a series of iconic commercials for Apple computer, and more recently appearing on Married, Bored to Death and The Knick. Along the way, he kept writing books, including his most recent, Medallion Status, while hosting the popular Judge John Hodgman podcast, where he settles serious disputes between real people, such as “Is a hot dog a sandwich?” and “Should we tell our children the TRUTH about Santa Claus.”You can find John Hodgman at: Website-------------Have you discovered your Sparketype yet? Take the Sparketype Assessment™ now. IT’S FREE (https://sparketype.com/) and takes about 7-minutes to complete. At a minimum, it’ll open your eyes in a big way. It also just might change your life.