“The smarter you are, often the worse you are at rethinking because you can use your intelligence to contort the truth into what you want to hear and what you want to believe,” says organizational psychologist and beloved Wharton professor Adam Grant. After reading his new book, Think Again , GP spoke with Grant about applying his research and wisdom to nearly every facet of life, from our careers to our most intimate relationships. Why do people generally fear being wrong? Grant says that we li...
Mar 09, 2021•49 min
GP is joined today by an actress, producer, and director whose work she’s admired for many years, Robin Wright. Wright has just released her feature directorial debut, Land (which she also stars in), about a woman suffering immeasurable loss who retreats to an abandoned cabin in the Rockies to find a new way to heal. Today, they talk about making career pivots, executing an artistic vision, and betting on yourself. They also discuss how we heal from trauma and why Wright felt called to make a mo...
Mar 02, 2021•53 min
GP catches up with her friend and functional medicine practitioner Will Cole, DC. Cole is the author of the new book Intuitive Fasting: The Flexible Four-Week Intermittent Fasting Plan to Recharge Your Metabolism and Renew Your Health . GP has been following Cole’s protocol this past month, and he joins her today to talk about her experience and how she’s been feeling since she started (spoiler: never better). They also talk through the tenets of intermittent fasting, what it means to be metabol...
Feb 23, 2021•56 min
“When something bad is happening, we tend to focus on that problem really narrowly,” says psychologist Ethan Kross. “But if you lose the ability to step back and see the bigger picture, that's when it can become problematic.” Kross explains how negative chatter can impact our lives and how our ability to introspect can better serve us. He also walks GP through his tools to soothe our inner voice when we find ourselves ruminating. “Negative emotions like anger, sadness, anxiety—they're good for u...
Feb 16, 2021•54 min
“Sometimes the greatest strength comes from holding course when there aren’t answers, when there isn’t the best outcome around the corner,” says Kristine Gedroic, MD. Gedroic is a Harvard graduate, a fellow of the American Board of Family Medicine, and the author of A Nation of Unwell: What Went Wrong? . She’s spent the past decade helping thousands of patients heal from chronic illnesses. She’s the kind of doctor people turn to when they feel like they’ve already tried everything. She joins hos...
Feb 09, 2021•59 min
“There’s no such thing as a perfect harmony with nature,” says John Chester, the farmer and filmmaker behind The Biggest Little Farm . “There’s a comfortable level of disharmony. There is purposefulness in this disharmony.” Chester and his wife, Molly, founded a regenerative biodynamic farm (Apricot Lane Farm) that became famous through their stunning documentary. He joins GP today to talk about what he’s learned over the last decade being in deep relationship with the ecosystem of his land and ...
Feb 02, 2021•55 min
“When you have someone in your life who is experiencing illness, especially as a young person, it can be so impossible to bear witness to that,” says author Katherine E. Standefer. “Because then you are confronted with your own lack of control.” Standefer’s debut memoir, Lightning Flowers : My Journey to Uncover the Cost of Saving a Life , is stunning . Today, she joins host Elise Loehnen to tell the story of the rare diagnosis that led her on a mission deep into our fractured medical system. Sh...
Jan 26, 2021•58 min
“When people ask me about the biggest issues in mental health, I say: Stigma is problems one, two, and three,” says psychiatrist Nina Vasan, MD. In addition to seeing patients in her private practice, Vasan is the chief medical officer at the mental health company Real and the executive director of the Stanford Lab for Mental Health Innovation. She joins GP today to talk about the long-tail mental health impacts of disasters and how trauma sometimes strengthens one’s resiliency. They talk about ...
Jan 19, 2021•52 min
Daniel Lieberman is a professor of human evolutionary biology at Harvard University and the author of the new book Exercised: Why Something We Never Evolved to Do Is Healthy and Rewarding. Today, he joins host Elise Loehnen to break down the history and science behind why so many of us have trouble exercising even though we know it’s healthy for us. For one thing, Lieberman says, the pull to not exercise is a basic human instinct, which, if you ask us, is validating. They also chat through why t...
Jan 12, 2021•55 min
We’re kicking off 2021 with a different kind of episode. Today, instead of being joined by a guest, GP is doing a lightning round of AMA, where she answers a handful of listener-submitted questions. True to form, your questions ran the gamut: what her perfect night in looks like, which wellness habit never caught on for her, advice for moms launching new businesses, and more. (For more, see The goop Podcast hub.) To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.auda...
Jan 05, 2021•22 min
In Celeste Headlee’s book— Do Nothing: How to Break Away from Overworking, Overdoing, and Underliving —she examines our fractured relationships to work. Why do we use productivity as a measure of self-worth? Where does our obsession with efficiency come from? In this episode, she shares strategies for maintaining healthy boundaries around work and play and for developing more transparency between managers and employees. She also sells us on taking time off: “When someone takes all their vacation...
Dec 29, 2020•54 min
Resmaa Menakem is a trauma specialist and the New York Times –bestselling author of My Grandmother’s Hands , which examines how racial trauma is deeply embedded in the body. He joins Elise Loehnen today to discuss his work as a somatic healer, what he believes will happen nine generations from now, and why it’s not possible to “think” your way out of White supremacy. “To develop an individual response to a communal horror is inadequate,” he says. “Niceness is inadequate.” (For more, see The goop...
Dec 23, 2020•50 min
Otto Yang, MD, an infectious disease researcher at UCLA, is leading a global clinical trial on COVID-19 sponsored by the NIH. GP, who had COVID-19 in early March, is a part of the study and has gotten to know Yang’s work over the past several months. Today, they talk about the long-tail symptoms of the virus, what scientists have learned about antibodies and immunity, and what is still unknown. Yang answers questions about the vaccine and what we can expect to happen next year. He also shares, f...
Dec 22, 2020•57 min
“I didn’t want to just write about loss,” says religion scholar Elaine Pagels. “I wanted to write about coming back from it and finding you can still have joy and a wonderful life. Because for me, that was a surprise.” Pagels is a bestselling author and the Harrington Spear Paine Professor of Religion at Princeton University. Today, she joins host Elise Loehnen to discuss her books Why Religion? and The Gnostic Gospels and the journey that led her to writing them. They talk about how religious t...
Dec 17, 2020•54 min
GP catches up with her friend Pharrell Williams and, no surprise, the multihyphenate artist has a lot of ground to cover. They talk about his parenting philosophy and how its shifted during the pandemic. They talk about his creative process and being a pluralist in a world that wants everyone to pick a lane. They discuss the Black Lives Matter movement and his dreams for the future: “I love my nation because of its progression, but I’m really in love with its untapped potential,” he says. And he...
Dec 15, 2020•50 min
“They could have gone in one of two directions,” says author Lacy Crawford. “Either start asking real questions and listening for honest answers and face the reckoning of what these boys had done to me. Or go the other direction and bury the girl. And that’s what they did: They buried the girl.” In Crawford’s memoir, Notes on a Silencing , she shares the story of the assault she suffered at boarding school when she was fifteen years old and the subsequent attempts to silence her. Today she joins...
Dec 10, 2020•1 hr
Mellody Hayes, MD, is an anesthesiologist, a healer, a spiritual teacher, and a powerful voice in the psychedelic movement. Though Hayes has worked in traditional medicine for her whole career, she says her spiritual life greatly informs how she approaches human healing—and she keeps up with medical journals and Pema Chödrön in equal measure. Today, she joins host Elise Loehnen to talk about the societal stresses that contribute to illness, how psychedelic medicine could help heal intergeneratio...
Dec 08, 2020•48 min
In Katherine May’s newest book, Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times, she explores how we relate to the painful periods in our lives—and what we can gain from normalizing the need to rest and tend to our wounds. In her conversation with host Elise Loehnen, May says that one reason many of us feel ashamed about our dark periods is because we’re taught to look down on other people’s misfortunes. This in turn makes it difficult to respect our own pain. May shares what changed...
Dec 03, 2020•48 min
GP is joined by Ed Catmull, cofounder of Pixar, former president of Walt Disney Animation Studios, and author of the New York Times– bestselling book Creativity, Inc. They talk about what it takes to establish the kind of company culture Catmull is revered for. The first step, he says, is creating a space where people feel free to speak candidly, to be vulnerable, and to take risks. They talk about what can lead a team to feel disconnected from their creativity and how to help people cultivate i...
Dec 01, 2020•56 min
Kevin Weinfurt, PhD, is the vice chair for research in the Department of Population Health Sciences at Duke University School of Medicine. His work measures sexual function and satisfaction and how sexual well-being can be impacted by illness and other changes in health throughout our lives. Weinfurt talks about why he believes doctors tend to avoid the subject of sex and how he and his colleagues hope to change this. He also talks about the role that intimacy plays in sexual wellness—i.e., hold...
Nov 25, 2020•39 min
“The Northern Cheyenne people have a saying: A nation is not defeated until the hearts of its women are on the ground,” says Lucy Rain Simpson, executive director of the National Indigenous Women’s Resource Center. “And that was a primary tactic. If you want to break a nation down, you purposefully try to make women no longer respected.” In her role, Simpson works to safeguard Native women and children. Today, she unpacks much of what is misunderstood about the rampant sexual violence on Native ...
Nov 24, 2020•40 min
“The core of leadership should be care,” says psychiatrist Gianpiero Petriglieri, MD. “And then performance is a result of a system in which there is enough care.” Petriglieri is an associate professor of organizational behavior at INSEAD and an expert on leadership and learning in the workplace. Today, he joins host Elise Loehnen to talk about what is lost when we prize productivity above all else, why it’s important to give your team space to ask questions and be imaginative, why he thinks hav...
Nov 19, 2020•54 min
Isabel Wilkerson is a Pulitzer Prize–winning, number one New York Times–bestselling author. Her most recent book, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents , links the caste systems of America, India, and Nazi Germany. She examines how a caste system has shaped American history and the ways our lives are still defined by man-made hierarchies. In this conversation with host Elise Loehnen, Wilkerson explains the essential difference between racism and casteism and why these hierarchies negatively affe...
Nov 17, 2020•50 min
Our guest today is James Nestor, journalist and author of Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art, which explores the often overlooked and undervalued function of breathing and all the ways that breath is at the center of health—and potentially illness. Nestor spent a decade studying ancestral breathing techniques and New Age technology and diving deep into studies that have brought surprising information to light. For example, Nestor tells us about the Framingham Study, which has been going on fo...
Nov 12, 2020•47 min
GP is joined by two-time Olympic gold medalist, FIFA World Cup Champion, and New York Times –bestselling author Abby Wambach. Since retiring from her record-breaking soccer career, Wambach has become known for her work around equality and inclusion alongside her wife, activist and author Glennon Doyle. She’s also just published a young readers edition of her book Wolfpack , urging young people to break old rules and create their own path. Today, Wambach chats with GP about how to build a strong ...
Nov 10, 2020•57 min
The former CNN White House correspondent has become known as an independent news source and appreciated by followers for her cogent, insightful approach and for allowing people to draw their own conclusions—without all the added drama. For this special episode, Yellin joined Elise Loehnen on the afternoon of Wednesday, November 4, and talked through how she believes the next few weeks will play out. They also discuss why Yellin has never trusted exit polls, the state of TV news in this country, ...
Nov 05, 2020•41 min
Eli Finkel, PhD, is a psychology professor at Northwestern University and the author of the fascinating book The All-or-Nothing Marriage , which explores the surprising things that make marriages fulfilling and what can put them on the rocks. Today, he joins host Elise Loehnen to chat about how the definition of an ideal marriage has shifted over time, what he thinks of nonmonogamy, why he argues that there are some things you should not ask of your relationship, and whether it’s possible to mai...
Nov 02, 2020•58 min
Journalist Rebecca Traister has written three books, including her most recent New York Times bestseller, Good and Mad , which explores how women’s anger has provoked political and social change over centuries. Traister joined host Elise Loehnen to talk through all she’s uncovered in her research and why our society continues to consider anger to be acceptable only for White men. “This is one of the strategic functions of discouraging the expression of anger in women and other people in the marg...
Oct 29, 2020•53 min
Writer and attorney Christie Tate had big reservations when a therapist first suggested she pursue group therapy. The idea of voluntarily sharing her secrets and vulnerabilities with a group of strangers was not appealing. It was terrifying. But she went. Now she’s been in group therapy for 19 years—and probably will be for the rest of her life. Tate wrote a book about her experience called Group : How One Therapist and a Circle of Strangers Saved My Life. In her chat with Elise Loehnen, they ta...
Oct 27, 2020•48 min
“Hope isn’t an optimism that one day it will be okay,” says Austin Channing Brown. “Hope is what we owe to one another as human beings.” Brown is a media producer, a speaker, and the author of the New York Times bestseller I’m Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness . In her racial justice and leadership work, Brown doesn’t chase hope; she lives it. Brown joined host Elise Loehnen to talk about how she anchors herself amid the stress and emotional toll of her work, and why for ma...
Oct 22, 2020•55 min
