Month: June 2020

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100. Karla McLaren – Embracing Anxiety

Karla McLaren is a social science researcher and award-winning author of Embracing Anxiety: How to Access the Genius of This Vital Emotion and The Language of Emotions: What Your Feelings Are Trying to Tell You. Karla is a pioneer in the study of empathy whose trailblazing approaches and unifying theory of emotions – including the Dynamic Emotional Integration and Six Essential Aspects of Empathy – open new pathways to self-awareness, communication, and empathy.  In addition to her research on empathy, Karla is also the CEO and Founder of Emotion Dynamics and developer of the Empathy Academy online learning community.

Karla joins me today to discuss the genius that comes with emotions, the lessons they try to teach us, and how to work with them. She explores how we can embrace anxiety and illustrates how we can treat it as our friend instead of a problem. She discusses the 17 emotions and the four families they belong to and explains how the belief that there are positive and negative emotions impact our emotional skills. She also shares mindfulness practices to work with emotions, such as conscious complaining and resourcing, and describes society’s tendency to “veilance” emotions.

“Anxiety is the emotion that helps you complete your tasks and get things done. It has a lot of energy and a lot of work to do.” – Karla McLaren

This week on The School for Good Living Podcast:

  • Emotions as skills for survival
  • Karla’s beginnings in emotion research and how childhood abuse can turn-up empathy
  • What emotions are, why we have them, and their role in humanity’s survival
  • Why the idea that there are only four emotions hampers people’s emotional skills
  • The anger family of emotions and how it helps a person to work with boundaries
  • Emotions related to the sadness family and what it means to have suicidal urges
  • What the emotions of the fear family teach us about intuition and instinct
  • What it means to “unveilance” emotions
  • The definition of fundamental attribution error and how to channel emotions
  • Accessing and working the intelligence and genius behind emotions
  • How anxiety works with other emotions and why they feel so negative
  • The difference between task-oriented and deadline oriented-people
  • The backlash effect of positive affirmations on people with lower self-esteem
  • The art of conscious complaining and resourcing
  • Karla’s writing process, routines, habits, and the biggest influences on her writing

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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.

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99. John Perkins – Touching the Jaguar

John Perkins is a speaker, activist, and author of Touching the Jaguar: Transforming Fear Into Action to Change Your Life and the World and Confessions of an Economic Hitman. In addition to having worked as Chief Economist who advised the IMF, World Bank, and the United Nations, John worked with many shamans from six different continents, studying with them as their apprentice. John draws from this diverse experience in economics and shamanistic work to build the foundations of his writing. He is also the Founder and Board Member of Dream Change and Co-Founder of Pachamama Alliance, two non-profit organizations dedicated to creating a better world for the next generation.

John joins me today to share the wisdom and the lessons he learned from his journey in shamanism and his work in economics. He defines what the death economy is and differentiates it from the life economy and explains how we can help the world move toward the latter. He shares his experience as a shaman’s apprentice and illustrates how shamans are similar to psychotherapists. He also explains how our perception creates the world around us and demonstrates how we can confront the fears that hinder us from becoming the people we want to be.

“The jaguar represents fear. If you run away, it hounds you. But if you touch it, you can take its energy, courage, and wisdom.”  – John Perkins

This week on The School for Good Living Podcast:

  • John’s background in economics and his experience as a shaman’s apprentice
  • How Touching the Jaguar bridges John’s work in economics and shamanism
  • What the death economy is and how it contrasts to the life economy
  • How perception molds our reality as human beings
  • What John learned in his journey in shamanism and being a shaman’s apprentice
  • Why GDP is a lousy measure of a nation’s wealth and prosperity
  • Humanity’s indigenous roots and why we lost our connection to nature
  • How shamans are similar to the psychotherapists of western culture
  • What ayahuasca is and how people tend to abuse it
  • John’s advice to people who want to meaningfully contribute to the planet
  • What we can learn from William Shakespeare’s Macbeth
  • The challenges and difficulties John finds in writing and what he learned from working with editors
  • How 39 publishers declined Confession of an Economic Hitman and how John persisted through the rejections
  • John’s writing process and his words of encouragement for people who are pursuing, or want to pursue, their creative projects

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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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98. Tal Ben-Shahar – Happier

Tal Ben-Shahar is the best-selling author of Happier: Learn the Secrets to Daily Joy and Lasting Fulfillment, Being Happy: You Don’t Have to Be Perfect to Lead a Richer, Happier Life, and other books which have been translated to 25 languages. He is also the Co-founder and Chief Learning Officer of the Happiness Studies Academy. Tal is a leading expert in happiness studies who taught two of the most popular classes in Harvard University’s history: Positive Psychology and The Psychology of Leadership. As a speaker, lecturer, and consultant, Tal delivers lectures worldwide to people of all walks of life, from the executives of multi-national corporations to vulnerable populations.

Tal joins me today to discuss the lessons he learned about happiness and how we can be happier. He shares his experiences as a squash player and illustrates how winning the Israeli National Championship led him to pursue happiness studies. He describes how we can grow and learn from traumatic experiences and explains why anxiety and depression continue to rise in today’s society. He also shares his “hamburger model” of happiness and reveals the five elements that constitute true and sustainable happiness.

” Happiness is not binary; it resides in a continuum. It’s not about reaching a finite point but a lifelong journey.” – Tal Ben-Shahar

This week on The School for Good Living Podcast:

  • The importance of playing squash in Tal’s life and how it helped him develop his philosophy
  • How Tal learned the importance of hard work, failure, and teamwork from playing squash
  • How winning his first Israeli National Championships led Tal to find lasting happiness
  • What ‘learned helplessness’ is and why anxiety, depression, and suicide are on the rise
  • The arrival fallacy and why successful people are not necessarily the happiest
  • Tal’s ‘hamburger model’ and why happiness is not binary
  • The five elements of happiness and how to cultivate them
  • The two levels of suffering and how embracing unhappiness can lead to true happiness
  • How to stop procrastinating and using the ABCs of psychology to create lasting and sustainable behavioral change
  • Cultivating writing habits and why good writers are good readers
  • Tal’s process in finding, using, and organizing quotations and research for his books
  • Tal’s advice on marketing and selling books

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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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97. Beth Comstock – Imagine It Forward

Beth Comstock is the author of Imagine It Forward: Courage, Creativity, and the Power of Change. Beth served as NBC Universal’s President for Integrated Media as well as the General Electric Company’s Vice-Chair and Chief Marketing Officer, where she led efforts to promote growth and innovation. In her book, Imagine it Forward, Beth draws lessons from her 30-year career as a change-maker and offers her wisdom on cultivating courage, resilience, and creativity to spark innovation.

Beth joins me today to share her insights and wisdom on fostering creativity, innovation, and connection in an organization. She explains why she wrote her book and illustrate the process and challenges she experienced while writing it. She defines what social courage means and describes how she cultivated it. She explains what an agitated inquiry is and how you can use conflict and opposing perspectives to nurture innovation. She also discusses how fear prevents people from writing a book and shares her advice on promoting your work.

“People want to take different paths. To innovate, use that tension to get better ideas and a better view of the future.” – Beth Comstock

This week on The School for Good Living Podcast:

  • The inspiration behind her book, Imagine it Forward, and the challenges she encountered in writing it
  • Why Beth turned down Steve Jobs twice
  • The impact of drafting press releases as if they had already been announced
  • What social courage is and the micro-challenges Beth made to cultivate it
  • The risks Beth took in her career and why she invited herself to meetings she wasn’t part of
  • The meaning of agitated inquiry and how conflict can be leveraged to spark innovation
  • How Beth has always had coaches and the qualities of an effective coach
  • The importance of giving ourselves permission
  • What stops people from starting their book and the importance of knowing why you want to write a book
  • Beth’s writing rituals and how she planned the structure of her book
  • Beth’s advice on book promotions and why she recommends reading your book out loud before getting it published

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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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96. Steve Pavlina – Personal Development for Smart People

Steve Pavlina is an entrepreneur, motivational speaker, and the author of Personal Development for Smart People: The Conscious Pursuit of Personal Growth. After an arrest on charges of grand theft auto in 1991, Steve made a conscious decision to turn his life around. He founded Dexterity Software, a computer game development company that focused on nonviolent puzzle games. He has served as Vice President and later President, of the Association of Software Professionals. Seeing himself as an explorer and perpetual student, Steve closed his software company and started a personal development blog and website to create more meaningful ripples in the world. Steve has blogged over 2 million words of content and released the copyright encouraging people to take his work and merge it with their own. As a result he is co-author of at least 200 books.

Steve joins me today to talk about how he gets his ideas for his blog posts. We talk about his many personal experiments and passions including polyphasic sleep, vegetarianism, veganism, even 30 consecutive days at Disneyland, and a 40-day water fast. We also talk about a conscious growth club he runs and a time when he realized he could work fewer hours and get better results. A free thinker testing the conventional paths, he says the smarter we are, the faster we grow.

“I decided what I really wanted to do was create a bigger growth-oriented community. And the goal is we all come together and we encourage the heck out of each other. We all help each other grow. We work together as a team. We actually get to know each other and we care about each other. We cooperate.”  – Steve Pavlina

This week on The School for Good Living Podcast:

  • Twelve years in Catholic school where all the answers were given to you
  • A seminar with speaker Wayne Dyer changes Steve’s life
  • A dream for his twenties ran its course but it wasn’t meaningful enough
  • 2 million words on Steve’s blog and it’s all in the public domain
  • Writing for specific people
  • A long history of being connected with customers and readers of his blog
  • Steve’s process of asking the universe for writing inspiration, where it feels like a meditation
  • The accidental vegetarian (then vegan) – a 30-day experiment that just kept going
  • 30-day trial: Spending 30 consecutive days at Disneyland…voluntarily. What would it do to a person?
  • Steve created a group called Conscious Growth Club in 2017 and has now over 150 members
  • Find out how to connect to people – your tribe – of like-minded people aligned and interested in personal growth
  • What Steve finds many people struggle with is consistency and what that means
  • Finding that purpose you want to invest in for 20 years or more
  • 40-day trial: Water fasting
  • The toughest part of fasting is longer for women than men
  • Steve records every day of his fasting experience on his YouTube channel along  with a  personal growth lesson
  • The risks in fasting for long periods of time – it’s not what you might imagine
  • Experiments that are not worth doing
  • The benefits of group challenges
  • What there may be not-to-like about the personal growth field
  • Steven’s travel tips and why
  • The exercise that Americans don’t get enough of
  • What are you willing to say ‘Yes’ to?
  • Can you be wealthy without money? Holding wealth in the form of social goodwill
  • Steve’s favorite TV show and what it’s taught him
  • Social goals vs. Individual goals
  • The benefits of not holding grudges
  • The downfalls to focusing on individual success vs. investing in social bonds
  • Blocks to our more heart-centered paths
  • How being broke is an invitation to thinking about life differently

Resources Mentioned:

Connect with Steve Pavlina:

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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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