All-Time Greatest Podcasts

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.

Dr. Dennis Rebelo is the author of a book called "Story Like You Mean It: How to Build and Use Your Personal Narrative to Illustrate Who You Really Are". Dr. D is a professor, speaker, a career coach. He's the creator of the peak storytelling model, a research-based method for crafting the narrative of who you are, what drives you, and why. His method has been used by not only former professional athletes, guidance professionals, and advisors, but also nonprofit leaders, as well as entrepreneurs and CEOs around the world. This book and this approach provide structure to really identifying...

I’ve traveled many places around this globe and talked to many people, some of whom have very interesting views. Today’s guest is one of those people. Rachel Harris has written a book called "Listening to Ayahuasca: New Hope for Depression, Addiction and Anxiety". Over her thirty-five years of experience as a psychologist and 10 years of scientific research, she's received multiple awards from the National Institutes of Health and published more than 40 scientific studies in peer reviewed journals.

Adii Pienaar is someone who uses his strengths, gifts, and talents in a variety of ways to solve real problems for others. He has been able to implement self-expression into his career of building successful companies. He’s a family man, a seeker, and a learner. He's also a founder of Cogsy, Conversio, and WooCommerce; which shows he knows a thing or two about building and growing a successful business from the ground up. One of the things that sets Adii apart is his ability to balance creating these successful businesses with the things he values most in life.

Sadhguru is a yogi, a mystic, and an author of many books. His most recent book, as mentioned in this interview, is A Yogi’s Guide to Creating Your Destiny. He is no stranger to public speaking, having been an invited guest to the United Nations, Harvard, MIT, World Economic Forum, and so many more. In his work, Sadhguru has devoted himself to the betterment of mankind and this planet as both a humanitarian and environmentalist.

Neal Allen describes himself as pink, fluffy, love. He's written a book called Shapes of Truth: Discover God Inside You, which is an interesting book to write for someone who declared himself an atheist at the age of 14. In this conversation and in the book, he lays out some interesting ideas about how we can really get in touch with what's truly inside us and what's not. Neal worked for many years as a journalist, and he entered the corporate world where he worked as an executive. Ultimately, he left that to explore a life of coaching and service....

Steven C. Hayes is an amazing thinker. He has written nearly 50 books, and hundreds of articles. He is an originator of ACT therapy and RFT (Relational Frame Therapy). Google scholar data ranks him among the top fifteen hundred most cited scholars in all areas of study, living and dead. His career has focused on human nature, language, cognition, and the application of this to an understanding and alleviation of human suffering. His latest book, and topic of our interview, is called "A Liberated Mind: How to Pivot Toward What Matters".

Todd Rose is an extraordinary man. Convinced we has a bad student, he performed poorly in school and even dropped out of college. Little did he know he would later gain a PHD and become a professor at Harvard University. Todd has since been fascinated with the idea of motivation, and has founded the nonprofit Populace to help transform how we learn, work, and live to help us live more fulfilling lives.

David McRaney has worked as an editor, a photographer, a voiceover artist, a television host, a public speaker, a TV producer, and a journalist. David, being a deeply intelligent and thoughtful man, has focused his work on revealing the self-delusions and cognitive biases by which we live our lives. He has written a book called You Are Not So Smart and also runs a blog and podcast by the same name to help provide the world with his findings.

Michael Moss is a Pulitzer prize winning reporter and author of Hooked: Food, Free Will, and How the Food Giants Exploit Our Addictions. Michael is known for his work as an investigative reporter and his time spent digging into the food industry and their questionable tactics. He has been a reporter for the Wall Street Journal before joining the New York Times in 2000. He has been a guest on various talk shows, including The Daily Show and CBS This Morning.

Edward Creagan is a two-time author, and the Mayo Clinic’s first provider to be board certified in hospice and palliative medicine. He has written over 500 scientific papers and has spoken at more than 1000 presentations around the world. Doctor Ed began his interest and journey toward hospice care at the early age of eight years old. He has since grown in his passion for end-of-life care and is determined to help caregivers do their job without burning out.

Pam as worn many hats in her time, but above all she is a traveler and a writer. Pam has lived a very eventful life, starting with her senior year trip to Israel just as they entered a war. She has hiked across the Middle East, relying heavily on the help and kindness of strangers. She has survived abusive relationships and talks heavily to the value of being listened to. She shares all these lessons and more in her new book The Same River Twice.

Pam joins me today to discuss the various powerful experiences she has been through in...

Roman Krznaric is the author of the book The Good Ancestor: A Radical Prescription for Long-Term Thinking, which shares six practical ways we can retrain our brains to be future-focused. He guides us on how we might shift our priorities to saving our planet and the quality of humanity beyond ourselves now. Roman is also the founder of the world’s first Empathy Museum, a founding faculty member at School of Life in London, and an empathy advisor to organizations including Oxfam and the United Nations. Both his book and life experiences offer advice on how to live in a way...

I lived in Japan for a period and love the country, culture, and language. It is what drew me to read Héctor García’s book, Ikigai: The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life, co-authored with Francesc Miralles. In my conversation with Héctor, we discuss how the book takes some Japanese concepts and combines them with other Eastern thought, Western philosophy, and practical philosophy.  Perhaps this melding of ideas is why the book has sold so well. Its influence has been far-reaching and remarkable – translated into at least 58 world languages and is the most translated book to have originally...

My guest today joined the Stanford Design Division faculty in 1962. He was the youngest member of the university faculty and now decades later, he’s the oldest faculty member. His name is Bernard (Bernie) Roth and he is the author of The Achievement Habit: Stop Wishing, Start Doing, and Take Command of Your Life. As one of the founders of Stanford’s d.school, he remains active in the d.school’s development and currently serves as the Academic Director. Bernie’s primary intention as both an educator and a person is to empower his students, family, and friends to have fulfilling lives. He’s the...

This week my guest is Jeff Speck, a city planner and urban designer who advocates internationally for more walkable cities. His book, Walkable City: How Downtown Can Save America, One Step at a Time was written not just for designers, but to also convert generalists to his cause. Walkability doesn’t just impact city planning; it has huge effects on economics, health, and the environment. Jeff’s TEDtalks on the subject has been viewed over 4 million times. We built our cities to accommodate pedestrians for centuries and they worked well. Now we’re building our cities structured around the idea of everyone...