New episodes come out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for free, with 1-week early access for Wondery+ subscribers. --- Today’s show features one of Dan’s personal musical heroes, Mike Diamond — “Mike D” from the Beastie Boys. Their conversation is wide ranging and covers topics from the role of failure in achieving success to Mike’s personal meditation practice. They say, “never meet your heroes”, but Mike D doesn’t disappoint in this smart and thoughtful discussion. Mike D formed the Beasti...
May 08, 2023•56 min•Ep. 597
New episodes come out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for free, with 1-week early access for Wondery+ subscribers. --- Virtue is a tricky topic. It’s often sold to us by religious leaders who are thundering judgmentally, and sometimes hypocritically, down to us from the mountaintop. But from the Buddhist perspective, there is actually a deeply self-interested case for ethics and virtue. The Buddhists are not trying to get you to follow a bunch of very specific rules: they are trying to get y...
May 03, 2023•42 min•Ep. 595
New episodes come out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for free, with 1-week early access for Wondery+ subscribers. --- Today’s guest is the legendary astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson. Tyson is the director of the Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History , the host of the Emmy nominated podcast, Star Talk , and the recipient of 21 honorary doctorates. He also has an asteroid named in his honor. Tyson’s latest book is right up our alley on the show. It's called Starry Mes...
May 01, 2023•1 hr 8 min•Ep. 594
New episodes come out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for free, with 1-week early access for Wondery+ subscribers. --- This episode kicks off our series on the Eightfold Path which will continue on Wednesdays for the next two weeks with Eugene Cash and Joseph Goldstein. DaRa Williams is a trainer, meditation teacher and psychotherapist and has been a meditator for the past 25 years. She is a practitioner of both Vipassana and Ascension meditation and is a graduate of the Spirit Rock/Insight ...
Apr 26, 2023•50 min•Ep. 592
New episodes come out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for free, with 1-week early access for Wondery+ subscribers. -------- Actor Michael Imperioli is best known for a string of memorable onscreen performances that include Goodfellas , The Sopranos , and most recently on The White Lotus . What you may not know is that he has a deep Buddhist practice and has actually grown into something of a meditation teacher. In this episode we talk about: The classic celebrity life crisis that brought Imp...
Apr 24, 2023•58 min•Ep. 591
New episodes come out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for free, with 1-week early access for Wondery+ subscribers. ---- Perhaps nobody is better at helping people unlock themselves than the Buddhist meditation teacher George Mumford who taught meditation to Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant. He's also worked with inmates, police officers, and corporate executives. There’s a reason why they call him the “Performance Whisperer.” George has an incredible story: he began teaching mindfulness and me...
Apr 19, 2023•56 min•Ep. 589
New episodes come out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for free, with 1-week early access for Wondery+ subscribers. --- Today’s guest is a happiness expert and devout non-meditator. In her latest book Life in Five Senses: How Exploring the Senses Got Me Out of My Head and Into the World , she describes how a routine visit to her eye doctor made her realize she’d been overlooking a key element of happiness: her five senses. Gretchen Rubin is the author of many books, including the New York Tim...
Apr 17, 2023•1 hr 8 min•Ep. 588
You may have heard our interview with Sharon Salzberg earlier this week where we talked about openness, not believing the stories you tell yourself, and why the most powerful tools often seem the most stupid at first. I’m a big fan of hers and everything she does, so we wanted to give you a special preview of her new book, Real Life: The Journey from Isolation to Openness and Freedom . In Real Life , Sharon sets a path out for us, merging the insights of inspiring voices with her own teachings t...
Apr 14, 2023•1 hr
New episodes come out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for free, with 1-week early access for Wondery+ subscribers. --- There’s so much to be grateful for in modern medicine. We can all agree that we would not do as well in a world with no Advil or dentistry. And yet, our guest today, who is a renowned doctor, says modern medicine is overlooking something crucial: the pernicious impact that modern living has on our minds and bodies. In other words, we are surrounded by these hidden societal a...
Apr 12, 2023•57 min•Ep. 586
New episodes come out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for free, with 1-week early access for Wondery+ subscribers. Alexander Dreymon is the star of a great show on Netflix called “ The Last Kingdom .” He plays a Viking, so you're literally not going to find a guy who is more stereotypically masculine. But I've gotten to know Alexander recently and he's also incredibly thoughtful. We cover a lot of ground in this conversation: marriage, parenting, anger therapy, sleep, human connection, medit...
Apr 10, 2023•57 min•Ep. 585
New episodes come out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for free, with 1-week early access for Wondery+ subscribers. --- It’s likely uncontroversial to assert that Jennifer Senior is one of our finest living journalists. She’s currently a staff writer at The Atlantic and before that she spent many years at the New York Times and New York magazine . Jennifer’s written on a vast array of topics, but she has a special knack for writing articles about the human condition that go massively, massive...
Apr 05, 2023•1 hr 4 min•Ep. 583
New episodes come out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for free, with 1-week early access for Wondery+ subscribers. --- Today’s episode is a rangy and fascinating conversation with a titan of the modern mindfulness scene: Sharon Salzberg. She is the co-founder of the Insight Meditation Society , a renowned meditation retreat center and has written twelve books. Her latest is called, Real Life: The Journey from Isolation to Openness and Freedom . We get personal and talk about a fascinating qu...
Apr 03, 2023•1 hr•Ep. 582
As a wrap up to our Work Life series, we want to share a preview of another podcast we love: Prof G hosted by Scott Galloway. His interview, "Scott Galloway on: the Impact of Work on Mental Health, the Role of Luck in Success, and How Much is Enough," kicked off this latest series. Scott's show combines business insight and analysis with life and career advice, and we're big fans. In this episode of Prof G, Scott shares his view on the "Future of Work"— from recruiting, to mentorship, to buildin...
Mar 31, 2023•19 min
New episodes come out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for free, with 1-week early access for Wondery+ subscribers. --- A beautifully weird conversation with the creator of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction. Jon Kabat-Zinn, Ph.D. is Professor of Medicine emeritus at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, where he founded its world-renown Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) Clinic in 1979, and the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care, and Society (CFM), in 1995. He i...
Mar 29, 2023•45 min•Ep. 580
New episodes come out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for free, with 1-week early access for Wondery+ subscribers. --- Today we have a truly incredible episode about how to meditate in hell. You’re going to meet a man named Jarvis Jay Masters, who I interviewed from his cell on death row at San Quentin prison in California. Any of us who meditate do our best to apply it to life’s ups and downs — but this person has been applying it in some truly extreme circumstances. Jarvis has now spent mo...
Mar 27, 2023•49 min•Ep. 579
New episodes come out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for free, with 1-week early access for Wondery+ subscribers. --- People have mixed feelings about the popularization of mindfulness and meditation over the last 10 or 15 years with some referring to it as “McMindfulness.” The critiques can be worthy and the mainstreaming of meditation and mindfulness also have helped millions of people upgrade their lives. One of the many areas where mindfulness and meditation have made inroads of late is...
Mar 22, 2023•55 min•Ep. 577
New episodes come out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for free, with 1-week early access for Wondery+ subscribers. --- This is the third installment in our Work Life series. In other episodes, we cover topics like imposter syndrome, whether mindfulness really works at work, and whether you should actually bring your whole self to the office. Today's episode is one that many of us struggle with: interpersonal conflict at work. Our guest is a true ninja on this topic. Amy Gallo is a workplace ...
Mar 20, 2023•1 hr 12 min•Ep. 576
New episodes come out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for free, with 1-week early access for Wondery+ subscribers. --- The phrase imposter syndrome has increasingly crept into the culture. If you haven’t heard of it, it basically means that you feel like you’re a fraud, despite evidence to the contrary. As this term has gained more purchase in our culture, it’s also been subjected to an increasing amount of scrutiny and criticism, and also confusion. So, today we’re going to try to cut throu...
Mar 15, 2023•1 hr 6 min•Ep. 574
New episodes come out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for free, with 1-week early access for Wondery+ subscribers. --- This is the first of a four part series on work that we’re calling, “Work Life.” Work can play a huge role in our sanity and happiness, or lack thereof. So today we're going to tackle some common and thorny questions with a guy who has been extremely successful at work and now teaches other people how to do so. We talk about questions such as how much work life balance shoul...
Mar 13, 2023•50 min•Ep. 573
New episodes come out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for free, with 1-week early access for Wondery+ subscribers. --- It’s hard not to like Lewis Howes. He’s extremely open about his personal struggles, from childhood trauma to romantic challenges, from family drama to failure and self-doubt. Lewis is a voracious learner, relentless in his pursuit of his interests–and he’ll bust his ass to get to the bottom of things in his own life. His main area of interest is what he calls greatness. He ...
Mar 08, 2023•54 min•Ep. 571
New episodes come out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for free, with 1-week early access for Wondery+ subscribers. --- There’s so much compelling research behind the notion of self compassion. Even though many of us think we need an internal cattle prod in order to retain our edge, research shows that people who have a supportive inner attitude — who have their own back — are more resilient and effective. Not to mention happier. And nicer. And yet, it is easy for skeptics to be turned off by...
Mar 06, 2023•1 hr 15 min•Ep. 570
New episodes come out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for free, with 1-week early access for Wondery+ subscribers. --- The human animal doesn’t love paradox. We love a clear, simple story. Us versus them. Good versus evil. But life is rarely like that. This is especially true when it comes to wrestling with history. Our guest today calls it the patriot’s dilemma. How do you love your country while also acknowledging the painful and horrifying stuff that has happened in the past? Dolly Chugh ...
Mar 01, 2023•56 min•Ep. 568
New episodes come out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for free, with 1-week early access for Wondery+ subscribers. --- Usually episodes of this show are organized around one big question, but today’s guest, Jonathan Haidt, is just too interesting for one clear focus. In this episode, we dig into a ton of fascinating topics, including: why it can make you happier to see your own irrationality and hypocrisy, the value of interacting with ideas you do not like, how to navigate social media sane...
Feb 27, 2023•53 min•Ep. 567
New episodes come out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for free, with 1-week early access for Wondery+ subscribers. --- Very often, when somebody pisses us off, our first instinct might be to plan some sort of revenge even if we rarely, if ever, actually follow through with it. Obviously, the trait of revenge seeking is counterproductive and it happens to also feel terrible. All the great wisdom traditions tell us that we should be forgiving instead and this isn’t just some sort of finger wag...
Feb 22, 2023•56 min•Ep. 565
New episodes come out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for free, with 1-week early access for Wondery+ subscribers. --- Meditation and mindfulness doesn’t uproot your capacity to be judgmental, but it can help you see the value in being judgmental by learning how to work with the judging mind. La Sarmiento has been practicing Vipassana meditation since 1998. La is a mentor for the Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Certification Program, a teacher with Cloud Sangha, and a contributor to the Ten P...
Feb 20, 2023•55 min•Ep. 564
New episodes come out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for free, with 1-week early access for Wondery+ subscribers. --- This is the last episode in our four-part series where we’re counter-programming against the way Valentine’s Day is often celebrated, and examining different kinds of relationships including romantic, friendship, and family. Today we’re probing a mystery: Why, from an evolutionary standpoint do we take heartbreak and rejection so hard? It can send the body and mind into a vi...
Feb 15, 2023•1 hr 5 min•Ep. 562
New episodes come out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for free, with 1-week early access for Wondery+ subscribers. --- Did you know that having friends can make you less depressed? One survey found that the average American had not made a new friend in the last five years but 45% of people said they would go out of their way to make a new friend if they only knew how. Our guest today, Dr. Marisa G. Franco, has written a bestselling book about how understanding your own psychological makeup a...
Feb 13, 2023•1 hr 10 min•Ep. 561
New episodes come out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for free, with 1-week early access for Wondery+ subscribers. --- If you’re part of a family, you’ve probably experienced some level of drama. Maybe it’s minor annoyances, like an uncle who chews too loudly. Maybe it’s divorce, sibling rivalry, or abuse. There are lots of flavors in this noxious cornucopia. Nedra Glover Tawwab is a licensed clinical social worker and the author of the new book Drama Free: A Guide to Managing Unhealthy Fami...
Feb 08, 2023•1 hr 5 min•Ep. 559
New episodes come out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for free, with 1-week early access for Wondery+ subscribers. --- This episode is part one of our four-part series where we’re counter-programming against the way Valentine’s Day is often celebrated, and examining different kinds of relationships including romantic, friendship, and family. Today’s guest hews a bit more closely to the traditional Valentine’s Day theme and will do some myth-busting around all the things we tend to get wrong ...
Feb 06, 2023•1 hr 7 min•Ep. 558
New episodes come out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for free, with 1-week early access for Wondery+ subscribers. --- So many people are interested in their family tree. What kind of lives did our ancestors lead and what do their stories say about us? Today’s guest, Spring Washam, asks us to reckon with the people who have come before us in order to fully understand who we are and why we do the things we do. Washam is a well-known teacher, author, and visionary leader based in Oakland, Cali...
Feb 01, 2023•1 hr 19 min•Ep. 556
