August, 2022 | School for Good Living Podcasts

August 30, 2022September 6, 2022

188. AJ Jacobs – The Puzzler: One Man’s Quest to Solve the Most Baffling Puzzles Ever, from Crosswords to Jigsaws to the Meaning of Life

My guest today, AJ Jacobs, is a man who’s in the puzzle business. He can help you solve puzzles. He can help you live a more meaningful, happier, healthier life by cultivating something he calls the puzzle mindset. His most recent book is called The Puzzler: One Man’s Quest to Solve the Most Baffling Puzzles Ever, from crosswords to jigsaw puzzles to the meaning of life. AJ sees his life as a series of experiments in which he immerses himself in a project or lifestyle, for better or for worse. And then he writes about what he’s learned. The puzzler helps us to live with more curiosity, and more flexibility.

In this interview, AJ joins me to talk about how we can become more curious and less furious. We talk a lot about riddles, questions, puzzles, and new ways of looking at things in our lives that can help us not be so frustrated by them. We also talk about his work before The Puzzler. When he was a guest on this show back in 2019, he had written a book called Thanks A Thousand, in which he wanted to thank, and he embarked on a quest to thank every person who had a hand in making his morning cup of coffee, from the barista to the roaster to the truck driver to the warehouse operators to the grower.

“Curiosity is the only thing that can save the human species.”

Bonus Riddle From the Interview:

What is greater than God, but worse than the devil? Poor men have it, and rich men need it. Dead men eat it, but if you eat it, you will die.

Watch the full interview to find the answer!

This week on the School for Good Living Podcast:

How puzzles can help us to live better lives
Keeping an open mind and remaining curious
The benefits of pattern finding and the dangers of apophenia
How puzzle games can help us overcome some of the damage in society

Resources Mentioned:

Connect With The Guest:

AJ Jacobs

Subscribe and sign up for more!

Thank you for listening to this week’s episode of the School For Good Living Podcast, I hope you found it as insightful as I did! If you enjoyed this episode, then be sure to head over to goodliving.com and sign up for our email list to receive special reminders and exclusive content sent right to your inbox. Explore our website to learn more about the many services I offer, like my Transformation Coaching Program, Coach Training Program, and my catalog of quotations to help you live a good life!

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

August 23, 2022August 25, 2022

187. Ralph De La Rosa – Don’t Tell Me to Relax: Emotional Resilience in the Age of Rage, Feels, and Freak-Outs

Ralph De La Rosa teaches about two things, the suffering that comes from emotional confusion and the freedom that comes from emotional intelligence. Ralph began practicing meditation in 1996 and has taught meditation since 2008. He was a student of Amma’s, the hugging saint, for 16 years. He began studying Buddhism in 2005. Ralph’s work has been featured in the New York Post, CNN, Tricycle, GQ, Women’s Health, and many other publications and podcasts. Ralph is a PTSD, depression, and opioid addiction survivor, and their work is inspired by the tremendous transformation he’s experienced through meditation, yoga, and therapy.

In this interview, Ralph joins me to discuss how we can live a better life, understand ourselves, and make the contribution we would make if only we could get out of our own ways. We also talk a good bit about Ralph’s books. The first is Monkey is the Messenger: Meditation and What Your Busy Mind is Trying to Tell You. Ralph offers an insightful perspective here that the mind, the monkey, is both an agitator and an ally. It’s not something to wish it would go away or shut up, it actually has some incredible messages for us of growth and healing. Ralph’s second book is called Don’t Tell Me to Relax: Emotional Resilience in the Age of Rage, Feels, and Freak-Outs, a book that’s very timely, even still as it was published a couple of years ago.

“Life is like an exploding train wreck of beautiful possibilities.”

This week on the School for Good Living Podcast:

Music and the role it has played in Ralphs’ journey
Neurodivergence and how it has helped Ralph understand himself
How our suffering can teach us compassion
Ralph’s new learning interest called “attachment styles”
Ralph’s writing journey

Resources Mentioned:

Connect With The Guest:

Ralph De La Rosa
Ralph@ralphdelarosa.com

Subscribe and sign up for more!

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

August 16, 2022September 6, 2022

186. Coaches Commonplace Book – #4

Dean Miles is a fellow member of the Marshall Goldsmith 100 coaches group. Dean joins me in this special series where we dive into some of our philosophies about coaching and good living.

Join us in this episode of the Coaches Commonplace Book where we dive into the information that we have been consuming recently, what things we have been learning from that information, emotional fitness, emotional resiliency, and a bit about making money and influencing others as a coach.

“There’s what you achieve and then there’s being happy. Don’t blend those two together.”

This week on the School for Good Living Podcast:

An update on Dean and Brilliant’s information Diet
Spending time and learning from Marshall Goldsmith
Wisdom of the Pages
- Brilliants magazine article “Damn Good Advice for Fathers”
- Dean’s magazine article “Six Ways to Spend a Mental Health Day”
How to be a coach

Resources Mentioned:

Connect With The Guest:

Dean Miles Linkedin
Brilliant@goodliving.com

Subscribe and sign up for more!

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

August 9, 2022August 9, 2022

185. Tamar Haspel – To Boldly Grow: Finding Joy, Adventure, and Dinner in Your Own Backyard

Tamar Haspel coined the term first-hand food. Food that you grow, you cultivate, you forage for, you fish for, or you hunt for so that you get yourself. Tamar writes the James Beard Award-winning Washington Post column “Unearthed,” which covers the intersection of food and science, exploring how what we eat affects us and our planet. She’s also written for Discovery, Slate, Fortune Eater, Edible, Cape Cod, and other magazines and publications.

For this week’s interview on the School for Good Living Podcast, Tamar joins me to talk about her book “To Boldly Grow: Finding Joy, Adventure, and Dinner in Your Own Backyard.” Join us as we discuss the structure of gardening, chickens, fishing, foraging, turkeys hunting, and many others, including the ethics of eating animals. We get into first-hand food, what it is, why it matters, and why it could matter to you. Relationships are another recurring theme in this interview and I think Tamar’s take on what it takes to create and sustain a lasting and fulfilling relationship is pretty cool, and I hope you like it too.

“You do your best and hope for the best, that’s all you can do.”

This week on the School for Good Living Podcast:

What is firsthand food and how it differs from our typical diets
What is non-overlapping magisterial and how accepting it can benefit relationships
How to determine what plants are edible
The ethics of raising, hunting, and eating animals
Tips for staying open-minded

Resources Mentioned:

Connect With The Guest:

Tamar Haspel

Subscribe and sign up for more!

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

August 2, 2022August 8, 2022

184. Leah Weiss – How We Work: Live Your Purpose, Reclaim Your Sanity, and Embrace the Daily Grind

Leah Weiss, Ph.D. is an author and a speaker who helps leaders be better humans. Leah has taught and spoken in more than 100 organizations worldwide, including Goldman Sachs, Nasser, the European Commission, Google Intuit and more. Her work has been covered by outlets including the New York Times, BBC TEDx, The Financial Times, A Harvard Business Review, and on and on. Leah co-founded Skylyte, a company that specializes in using the latest neuroscience and behavior change to empower high-performing leaders and managers to prevent burnout for themselves and their teams.

In this interview, Leah joins me to explore a lot of things that can help you not only be a better leader, but also a better human. We talk a lot about her first book “How We Work: Live Your Purpose, Reclaim Your Sanity, and Embrace the Daily Grind.” that was also endorsed by the Dalai Lama. One interesting thing we talk about is purpose, not just as a concept, but how we can incorporate it into our day to day lives. We talk about mindfulness, compassion, and balance. Leah has a particularly interesting perspective of balance that I think you might find useful. If you work in a professional environment, or if you’ve experienced Sunday dread, overwhelm, burnout, mom guilt, inertia, or a struggle for balance, then this interview is for you.

“Maybe there are external changes to make, but the first step is to do the internal work.”

This week on the School for Good Living Podcast:

Becoming a better leader and a better human
What truly matters to us and how we can incorporate it into our lives
Finding balance in our increasingly busy lives
Staying motivated and productive
Marketing and promoting books