Month: May 2020

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95. Isaac Bentwich – Gita: A Timeless Guide For Our Time

Isaac Bentwich is a practitioner and teacher of yoga and meditation, and the author of Gita: A Timeless Guide For Our Time, a poetic translation of the Bhagavad Gita. A medical doctor by training and entrepreneur by profession, Isaac has founded several tech companies, including Quris Technologies, Ripples Technologies, and CropX LTD, each leading disruptive revolutions in the fields of medicine, genomics, and environmental conservation. At the core of Isaac’s life work is his inner spiritual journey – touched by the teachings of the Bhagavad Gita’s wisdom and his mission to share it with people.

Isaac joins me today to share his journey in writing Gita: A Timeless Guide For Our Time. He explains what the Bhagavad Gita is and illustrates how it’s a guide to help us define the meaning of life. He discusses the poetic nature of the Bhagavad Gita and shares some verses that impacted him. He also shares his thoughts on the creative process of writing a book as well as the joys he finds in meditation retreats.

“The Bhagavad Gita beckons you to listen to the inner wisdom of your soul.” – Isaac Bentwich

This week on The School for Good Living Podcast:

  • What’s life about for Isaac and how his spiritual journey underpins his profession
  • Isaac’s first encounter with the Bhagavad Gita and what compelled him to write a translation
  • How Isaac has made his translation of the Bhagavad Gita accessible while preserving its poetic and meditative nature
  • What the Bhagavad Gita is, its history, its teachings, and how it defines the meaning of life
  • Isaac’s journey through yoga and the interconnection between his practice as a medical doctor and the Bhagavad Gita
  • The use of battle as a setting in the Bhagavad Gita and an excerpt that completely drew Isaac in
  • The people the Bhagavad Gita has impacted and how it inspired them
  • Why the Bhagavad Gita is a handbook on mindfulness and a guide on everyday living
  • How mastering the mind can help us create and write a book
  • Isaac’s experiences with months-long meditative retreats

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Thanks for tuning into this week’s episode of the School for Good Living Podcast, with your host, Bryan Miller. If you enjoyed this episode, please head over to Apple Podcasts to subscribe and leave us a rating and review.

Don’t forget to visit our website, like us on Facebook, and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn. And be sure to share your favorite episodes with your friends and colleagues on social media to inspire others to improve their lives and reach their full potential.

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94. Dandapani – Unwavering Focus

Dandapani is a Hindu priest and creator of the Unwavering Focus and Introduction to Meditation courses, as well as the Dandapani: Learn to Focus app. Before spending ten years of his life as a monk under the tutelage of the guru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami, Dandapani graduated from university with a degree in Electrical Engineering. In addition to his priesthood, Dandapani is an entrepreneur who has worked with athletes and organizations such as the Commonwealth Bank of Australia and Nike. Additionally, he is also a speaker whose TEDx Talk, Unwavering Focus, has garnered over 3 million views on YouTube. Dandapani empowers people all over the world by teaching them how to cultivate focus and concentration through the techniques that have been used by Hindu monks for thousands of years.

Dandapani joins me today to discuss the power of focus and concentration. He explains how concentration is something everyone is told to do but not taught how to do and underscores the importance of understanding the mind. He shares the story of how he became a monk and describes his mission to build a botanical garden in Costa Rica. He also enumerates the differences between the mind and awareness, as well as reveals how you can experience the divinity within yourself through the act of writing.

“Concentration is the first fundamental step to change.” – Dandapani

This week on The School for Good Living Podcast:

  • Why Dandapani has dedicated his life to teaching people to develop their focus and concentration
  • The importance of understanding the mind, how concentration can be taught, and why concentration comes before meditation
  • The guru that inspired Dandapani to live ten years in a monastery as a monk
  • The purpose of Dandapani’s botanical garden project in Costa Rica
  • Finding a philosophy you can commit to, and the fear of people over getting associated with a religion or spirituality
  • Why Dandapani recommends reading Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda
  • The difference between the mind and awareness, and how learning to control your awareness impacts the mind
  • The path of the householder and why there’s nothing wrong with making money
  • The power of writing as a creative tool to eradicate unresolved emotions

Resources Mentioned:

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Thanks for tuning into this week’s episode of the School for Good Living Podcast, with your host, Bryan Miller. If you enjoyed this episode, please head over to Apple Podcasts to subscribe and leave us a rating and review.

Don’t forget to visit our website, like us on Facebook, and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn. And be sure to share your favorite episodes with your friends and colleagues on social media to inspire others to improve their lives and reach their full potential.

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93. Maryanne Wolf – The Reading Brain

Maryanne Wolf is the author of Reader, Come Home: The Reading Brain in a Digital World, Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain, Tales of Literacy for the 21st Century, Dyslexia, Fluency, and the Brain as well as over 160 scientific articles. She is a scholar, teacher, and Director of the newly-created Center for Dyslexia, Diverse Learners, and Social Justice at UCLA. Maryanne began her work in Cognitive Neuroscience and Psycholinguistics at the Department of Human Development and Psychology at Harvard University, where she also completed her doctorate. A staunch advocate for children and global literacy, Maryanne designed the Rave-O, reading intervention for children with dyslexia and co-founded Curious Learning, a global literacy initiative.

Maryanne joins me today to discuss the neuroscience of reading. She explains how the act of reading creates circuits in our brains and allow us to gain a deeper perspective and cultivate empathy. She illustrates how the modern reader’s tendency to skim through reading mediums impacts their memory and democracy. She also underscores the need for every teacher to understand the science of reading and how reading helps children realize their fullest potential as human beings.


“Deep reading is the ability to bear all of our best and most sophisticated intellectual processes: the discernment and evaluation of truth, beauty, and ‘other’.” – Maryanne Wolf

This week on The School for Good Living Podcast:

  • Maryanne’s experience while teaching in Hawaii and how she was inspired to study neuroscience
  • How reading helps children achieve their fullest potential as human beings
  • The evolution and neuroscience of reading, and how we create circuits in our brain through the act of reading
  • The brain on processing different languages and how reading on a screen affects neuroplasticity
  • The definition of deep reading and how it helps us widen our perspectives and cultivate empathy
  • Linda Stone’s ‘continuous partial attention,’ and the sharp decline of empathy in our generation
  • How distraction affects memory, empathy, and democracy
  • Reading as a form of magic and how language helps create a bridge to the highest aspect of our being

Resources Mentioned:

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Thanks for tuning into this week’s episode of the School for Good Living Podcast, with your host, Bryan Miller. If you enjoyed this episode, please head over to Apple Podcasts to subscribe and leave us a rating and review.

Don’t forget to visit our website, like us on Facebook, and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn. And be sure to share your favorite episodes with your friends and colleagues on social media to inspire others to improve their lives and reach their full potential.

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92. Dr. Bob Nelson – Improving Employee Recognition

Dr. Bob Nelson is the bestselling author of multiple business management and employee engagement books, including 1,001 Ways to Engage Employees, Recognizing & Engaging Employees for Dummies, and 1,001 Ways to Reward Employees. He is the world’s leading expert on employee recognition, motivation, and engagement and has sold over 5-Million copies of his books, which have been translated into over 30 languages. Bob is a long-time collaborator and confidante of Dr. Ken Blanchard, the co-author of The One Minute Manager. He has earned notable recognition and awards, including the 2019 Top 20 Global Management Guru Award by Global Gurus. He has presented keynote speeches, webinars, and presentations on topics related to employee recognition, management, motivation, and engagement and has been featured in mainstream media publications, including The New York Times, CNN, 60 Minutes, Inc. Magazine, Fortune Magazine, and BusinessWeek.

Dr. Bob Nelson joins me today to discuss what it was like having Peter Drucker as a mentor and teacher. He explains what it really means to recognize your employees and shares tips and ideas on how employers can make employee recognition and engagement part of their daily management routine. We discuss what is required to create a great workplace culture and why accountability matters. We discuss strategies for giving effective feedback to your team and how to effectively acknowledge our colleagues, co-workers, and employees. We also discuss what ‘management’ truly means in the workplace and strategies managers can use to become more effective leaders.

“Don’t do stuff just to be nice. Do stuff to rally around performance that matters at the individual and group basis and organizational basis.” – Dr. Bob Nelson

This week on The School for Good Living Podcast:

  • Dr. Bob’s upbringing and his journey to becoming the world’s leading authority on employee recognition, motivation, and engagement
  • Dr. Bob’s experiences and the lessons he learned from Peter Drucker
  • How he helps organizations improve employee engagement and recognition
  • The importance of making employee recognition and engagement a top priority within your organization
  • Effective strategies you can use to increase their employee engagement
  • How to hire, train, and evaluate leaders and employees
  • The characteristics of a great leader and the importance of being a good role model for future leaders within your organization
  • How to address poor-performing employees, the concept of a ‘human relations bank account,’ and strategies to reward good performance
  • Managing employee expectations by being straight-forward and sincere
  • The importance of focusing employee recognition on their performance instead of their presence

Resources Mentioned:

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Thanks for tuning into this week’s episode of the School for Good Living Podcast, with your host, Bryan Miller. If you enjoyed this episode, please head over to Apple Podcasts to subscribe and leave us a rating and review.

Don’t forget to visit our website, like us on Facebook, and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn. And be sure to share your favorite episodes with your friends and colleagues on social media to inspire others to improve their lives and reach their full potential.

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