All-Time Greatest Podcasts

Sam Carpenter is the author of Work the System: The Simple Mechanics of Making More and Working Less. Sam is an author, an entrepreneur, and has extensive experience in a variety of fields, including engineering, journalism, publishing, surveying, forestry, construction management, telecommunications, and a myriad of other blue- and white-collar enterprises and jobs. Sam has owned and operated Centratel, the leading telephone answering service in the United States, for nearly 40 years.

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...

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.

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.

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. She created the highly popular leading with mindfulness and compassion course at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and she’s a founding faculty member of Stanford's Compassion Cultivation Program, which was conceived by the Dalai Lama. Leah co-founded...

Gary Ferguson has written 27 books on Science and Nature, including a book called “The Eight Master Lessons of Nature: What Nature Teaches us About Living Well in the World.” Gary’s most recent book is called “Full Ecology: Repairing Our Relationship with the Natural World.” Garry has created an organization called Full Ecology with a cultural psychologist named Mary Clare, who is not only has co-founder and partner, but also his wife. Gary describes full ecology as an idea and an organization dedicated to breaking down the walls between the human psyche and the natural world. Together, he and Mary...

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.

Steven Kotler is a New York Times bestselling author and an award-winning journalist. He is the Executive Director of the Flow Research Collective, as well as the co-host of a podcast by the same name. He is one of the world’s leading experts on human performance and has appeared in over 100 publications. In addition, he has been nominated for two Pulitzer Prizes. In his latest book, The Devil’s Dictionary, he writes about what the world could look like in 15 years if we manage to solve some of the biggest problems we face as a species and what adjustments...

David McRaney is a science journalist fascinated with brains, minds, and culture. David is the creator of the blog, the book, and the podcast called “You Are Not So Smart.” His most recent book is “How Minds Change: The Surprising Science of Belief, Opinion, and Persuasion.” In this book, David writes “You are about to gain a superpower. A step-by-step script of how to change people's minds on any topic without coercion, by simply asking the right kinds of questions in the right order.” That's a pretty bold claim, but David has traveled the world to learn from experts in...

Join us in this unique podcast episode with my co-host, Dean Miles, and I explore a new thought activity where we read the headline of a magazine cover and share what things we would include if we were to write the articles ourselves.

Britt Frank is the writer of “The Science of Stuck: Breaking Through Inertia to Find Your Path Forward.” Britt’s upbringing exposed her to a lot of the things she now studies and the things that she helps others to understand about themselves. Her approach to therapy focuses on the physical reality of mental health by targeting the physiological processes that drive our sometimes illogical or unwanted decisions. She uses this knowledge to help others understand their different parts and how to effectively interact with them as an effective method of self-care.

Bernd Heinrich is the author of more than 12 books and 100 scientific papers. His most recent book is “Racing the Clock, Running Across a Lifetime.” Bernd holds many records as a runner. He ran a sub-two-minute half mile, at one point he set the American national records for any age in ultramarathon distances of 100 kilometers, 200 kilometers, 100 miles, and the longest distance run in 24 hours, totaling 156.8 miles. For many years Bernd’s work focused on the comparative physiology of insects, where he studied bumblebee behavior. He studied moths. He studied caterpillars very closely and their ecology...

Raymond Moody has a Ph.D., he's also a medical doctor, a world-renowned scholar, lecturer, and researcher. And he's widely recognized as the leading authority on near-death experiences, as he coined the term. He's the bestselling author, the bestselling author of many books, including Life After Life, Glimpses of Eternity, The Light Beyond Coming Back, and more. His work profoundly illuminates our understanding of death, dying, and grief, and offers compelling answers to the question Is there an afterlife? Dr. Moody has several books including My Life in Pursuit of the Afterlife and his latest book called God Is Bigger Than...

Kim Scott is the author of several very impactful books, some of which you may have heard of, such as "Radical Candor," that give some very useful perspectives on how to give feedback, and how to receive feedback. Her latest book is called "Just Work: How to Root Out Bias, Prejudice, and Bullying to Build a Kickass Culture of Inclusivity." Kim was a CEO coach at Dropbox, Qualtrics, Twitter, and other tech companies. She was a member of the faculty at Apple University and before that led teams at Google, including AdSense. She also managed a pediatric clinic in Kosovo...

John Philip Newell is a Celtic teacher and author of spirituality, who calls the modern world to reawaken to the sacredness of the Earth and every human being. John Philip's most recent book is called "Sacred Earth, Sacred Soul: Celtic Wisdom for Reawakening to What Our Souls Know and Healing the World." John Philip began the School of Earth and Soul, which was originally called the School of Celtic Consciousness. Reading John Philip's book and talking to him today has inspired me in so many ways. John Philip’s writing and his teaching offers the possibility of leaving others living and...

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 the structure of the seven-day week, and the many revisions that structure has...

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, Suzanne includes Kurt Vonnegut’s instructions and advice about writing, work and family balance, and sharing our talents.

Adam Stern, M.D. Adam 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 won several awards for psychiatry, for writing, and excellence in medical education, and he's also published more than two dozen scholarly publications.

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 tracked the roots of strange new forms of digital expression like the Tamagotchi, Emoji, anonymous imageboards, and he discovered how...

Scott O’Neil is the author of "Be Where Your Feet Are: Seven Principles to Keep You Present, Grounded, and Thriving". He 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 of the local...

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 yoga wisdom. Pam eventually trained at Integral Yoga Institute in New York and began teaching to friends at a...

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 him find many astonishing results in the techniques he uses. Dawson’s work comes from a place of first healing trauma, and then beyond that, achieving elevated states of consciousness, which, of course, is why he's named his book Bliss...

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 what we really want, and to...

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, 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 life, from travel and finances, to health and relationships.