At 73, Denise Kaufman is the ultimate renaissance woman, an active member of the ‘60s Bay Area psychedelic rock scene who’s seen and done it all - and continues to do it all. The longtime singer and bassist is a member of Ace of Cups, the pioneering all-female psychedelic rock band that opened for Jimi Hendrix, The Band, Janis Joplin, and more, and that shared the stage with the likes of the Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane. She continues to play and record new music with the recently reunit...
Feb 18, 2021•1 hr 5 min•Transcript available on Metacast Miles Chamley-Watson is on a mission to take fencing mainstream. A British-born, 6-foot-four Black man, covered in tattoos with bleached blond hair, he breaks pretty much every generations-old assumption and mold about what the staid, traditionally-conservative and often elitist sport is about. Miles actually struggled a lot as a young kid, especially with focus, attention and school, until one day a teacher introduced him to fencing. That moment changed everything. He was obsessed and it gave h...
Feb 15, 2021•46 min•Transcript available on Metacast Born in New York City to a Tunisian father and a Swiss mother, Suleika Jaouad attended The Juilliard School's pre-college program for the double bass, and earned her BA with highest honors from Princeton University and an MFA in writing and literature from Bennington College. Leaving music behind, she thought she’d a war correspondent, but her plans were cut short when, at age 22, she was diagnosed with leukemia that led to a brutal 4-year stint in and out of the hospital, with multiple rounds o...
Feb 11, 2021•1 hr 6 min•Transcript available on Metacast Born in the short-lived West African country of Biafra, Louis Chude-Sokei and his mom fled the country during the war that would take the life of his father, a figure of such great reverence in the country that it would create a set of expectations about who Louis was and should be that would follow him well into his adult life. Landing first in Jamaica, where his mother was from, then eventually making their way through DC, to LA, he spent his life, as the line from the Bowie song, Space Oddity...
Feb 08, 2021•1 hr 6 min•Transcript available on Metacast My guest, today, Renee Jain, started into her career as a tech entrepreneur who secretly suffered with her own sometimes dizzying and even paralyzing anxiety. One day, a panic attack led her to step back and re-examine her life, seek help and begin to acquire the skills and understanding to live with more ease. It was transformative. But, along the way, something she never expected began to happen, she began wondering why every child doesn’t learn those same skills early in life, so they can liv...
Feb 04, 2021•1 hr 9 min•Transcript available on Metacast What would it take to make you rethink a deeply held point of view or belief? That’s one of Adam Grant’s recent fascinations. Adam is an organizational psychologist and TED speaker who helps people find meaning and motivation at work. He has been Wharton’s top-rated professor for 7 straight years. As an organizational psychologist, he is a leading expert on how we can find motivation and meaning, and live more generous and creative lives. He has been recognized as one of the world’s 10 most infl...
Feb 01, 2021•1 hr 2 min•Transcript available on Metacast Ellen Harper has been around the folk music scene her whole life. Her mother, Dorothy Chase performed and taught banjo and guitar at Hecht House in the 1950s in Boston with Bess Lomax Hawes and her dad, Charles Chase repaired any and all instruments that came his way. Ellen learned to play, perform and teach guitar and other folk instruments at her mother’s knee and eventually, the family moved west to Claremont, California where they create the iconic Folk Music Center that became a hub for all...
Jan 28, 2021•1 hr 1 min•Transcript available on Metacast My guest today, Tara Brach, has been one of my teachers for years, though she never knew it. Back in the early days of podcasting, I stumbled upon her weekly dharma talks or Buddhist teachings and meditations that she’d offer at her Insight Meditation Center in DC, record, then air as podcasts, and the blend of her gentle presence, her deep wisdom that was clearly not just studied, but also lived, her humility, real-world sensibility, and humor drew me in. Tara’s teachings blend Western psycholo...
Jan 25, 2021•1 hr 2 min•Transcript available on Metacast I first learned about today’s guest, Jason Naylor, through his art, which at that point, started appearing on walls and buildings all over New York City, and now is featured all over the world and on products, shows, in fashion and beyond. Jason is originally from Salt Lake City, Utah, where he grew up in a Mormon community and eventually felt called to step away and define his own path. After getting his BFA in graphic design from Brigham Young, he moved to New York City where he began his care...
Jan 21, 2021•1 hr•Transcript available on Metacast For generations, when it came to your brain, we pretty much assumed that once you reach adulthood, it pretty much is what it is. That meant you couldn’t get smarter or faster or wittier or optimize it to perform at a higher level and, on the other side, if you suffered an injury, there was very little you could do to help your brain recover or even rewire itself to function at a higher level again. Turns out, much of that was wrong, and my guest today, Dr. Ryan D’Arcy, is an acclaimed neuroscien...
Jan 18, 2021•59 min•Transcript available on Metacast Question, when was the last time you made a really good new friend, as a grown-up? Like the kind that actually knows you, not just online, but the real you? Turns out, it’s not actually so easy to create those kinds of friendships. But it is critically important to our ability to live good lives, especially during challenging times. My guest today, Kat Vellos, is here to help, She earns her living as a UX designer, which means Kat figures out how to make experiences as easy and organic as humanl...
Jan 14, 2021•1 hr 4 min•Transcript available on Metacast What if your work could make you come alive? What if it could fill you with meaning, purpose, and excitement like you're fully accessing and expressing all parts of yourself and stepping into your fullest potential? Like you're doing the thing you're here to do. We call this state being "sparked." The first step isn't about big, painful or disruptive change. It's about knowing yourself better, discovering your unique imprint for work that makes you come alive - your Sparketype® In today's episod...
Jan 11, 2021•1 hr 23 min•Transcript available on Metacast When I think about Peter Frampton, I’m immediately transported back to my teens when Peter’s musical juggernaut of a live-album, Frampton Comes Alive, took the world and my life by storm with anthemic songs like Do You Feel Like We Do, Show Me the Way, Lines On My Face and Baby, I Love Your Way. I cannot think about those songs without also hearing what became his signature voice-box sound vibrating through my body. Known in his earlier years for his fierce talent as a guitarist and musician, co...
Jan 07, 2021•52 min•Transcript available on Metacast Success is not just about knowing what to do. It's about doing it. Information, plans and goals, alone, will not get you where you want to go. Nor will willpower. Success at anything truly meaningful is about something bigger. Today’s show is going to be very different. Instead of deep-dive conversations with guests, it’s just going to be Jonathan, going deep into how to find success accomplishing big, meaningful things. There’ll be a ton of myth-busting and you'll learn something called Su...
Jan 04, 2021•1 hr 10 min•Transcript available on Metacast Over the history of this show, we’ve been incredibly blessed to not only have hundreds of guests in the physical and now virtual studio for conversation but also live performances from a wide variety of acclaimed artists, many of whom are icons in their chosen form of creation and expression. The performances have ranged from unaccompanied to fully sound-designed spoken word, to a capella or instrument-accompanied live music. Many of these performances represented moments of emotion and awakenin...
Dec 31, 2020•1 hr 1 min•Transcript available on Metacast There’s something about the sound of Mark Nepo’s voice that just puts me at ease. He’s been immersed in a path of spiritual inquiry for more than forty years, taught all over the world, authored more than twenty books, including the #1 New York Times bestseller The Book of Awakening, More Together Than Alone and others. His books have been translated into more than twenty languages and in 2014, Mark traveled the country with Oprah Winfrey on her sold-out The Life You Want Tour and has appeared s...
Dec 28, 2020•1 hr 6 min•Transcript available on Metacast We’re on a quest to help you live a more meaningful, connected and vital life. Every week we share inspirational, intimate and disarmingly-unfiltered conversations about living a fully-engaged, fiercely-connected and purpose-drenched life. We’ve been on a quest to find “embodied teachers,” then co-create in-depth, unscripted, often deeply-moving and fiercely wise conversations. From world-shakers like Brené Brown, Matthew McConaughey, Austin Channing Brown, Elizabeth Gilbert, Bishop Michael Curr...
Dec 26, 2020•1 min•Transcript available on Metacast Christen Brandt and Tammy Tibbetts are on a mission to unlock the potential of girls and women, especially in parts of the world where they’re often excluded from education and, in turn, much of life and the opportunity to help shape their communities and lives in a meaningful way. Both Christen and Tammy grew up in households where they were loved and supported, taught to believe in themselves and the power of education and become strong advocates. They were the first in their families to go to...
Dec 23, 2020•1 hr 2 min•Transcript available on Metacast I’ve been fascinated with alternative approaches to healing and medicine for my entire adult life. Especially when so many millions of us are walking around with pain and inflammation that doesn’t seem to fair well with a more Western approach. But, at the same time, I’ll also admit, I’m equally skeptical of a lot of solutions, practices, and claims. Which is why I’ve been deeply curious, for many years, about Ayurveda - a healing methodology that has been practiced, refined and sustained for so...
Dec 21, 2020•1 hr 4 min•Transcript available on Metacast Peter Tunney is a legitimate force of nature with boundless creative energy, who loves spreading positive messages in unconventional ways. After a career in finance, biotech and then nearly a decade defined by wild adventures, photo-curating and documenting travels through Africa with photographer and society fixture, Peter Beard, Tunney returned to New York in 1987 and declared himself an artist. He quickly became a central player, artist and gallerist in the legendary downtown art scene ...
Dec 17, 2020•1 hr 5 min•Transcript available on Metacast Kulap’s parents fled violence in Laos, finding themselves in a refugee camp in Thailand, before moving to DC, where Kulap would be born, and then Minnesota, where she’d grow up. Her world was blown apart when, at the age of 14, in the heat of a fight, Kulap’s mom revealed that her father was not, in fact, her biological dad. The trauma of that moment shook her, but would then get largely buried, as she left home, built a career and got married. Now, decades later, a successful writer/director, a...
Dec 14, 2020•1 hr 6 min•Transcript available on Metacast Ione is a British film, television and voiceover actress based in LA with many different credits including Marvel’s Black Widow, a leading role in a motion picture which premiered on the Syfy network, as well as guest-starring in hit TV shows on CBS, Spike TV, TLC, BBC and many others. Growing up biracial in West London’s Southall neighborhood, which has been known to many as little Punjab or Little India since the 60s, she was surrounded by different cultures, developed an early curiosity for p...
Dec 10, 2020•58 min•Transcript available on Metacast Over the past few decades, Seth Godin has made quite a ruckus in nearly every domain he's explored, from business to marketing to education, innovation and beyond, in no small part by encouraging us all to join him in purposeful ruckus-making, too. He's launched a number of successful companies, taught millions of people and left his mark on our creative culture. And, he’s written, just a bit. In fact he writes daily at Seths.blog, which is one of the most popular blogs in the world. He's the fo...
Dec 07, 2020•58 min•Transcript available on Metacast Jen Sincero wants you to be a badass in all parts of life. And, as we head into the end of the year and start thinking about what we want to make happen, she’s doubling down on building badass habits. A past guest, Jen is the author of #1 New York Times bestseller You Are a Badass, which has sold over three million copies, is available in over 35 languages, and has been on the New York Times bestseller list for over 4 years. Her follow-ups, You Are a Badass at Making Money - also a New York Time...
Dec 03, 2020•59 min•Transcript available on Metacast I first heard about my guest today, Michele Harper, when stumbled upon an essay she published earlier this year, entitled When This War is Over, May of Us Will Leave Medicine. It was about the reality of her day-to-day life as an ER doc during the early days of the pandemic. It was a devastating, powerful, deeply human read. That led me to her beautiful and, at times, heartbreaking, yet hopeful New York Times bestselling memoir, The Beauty in Breaking. ( https://bookshop.org/books/the-beauty-in-...
Nov 30, 2020•56 min•Transcript available on Metacast Five days into filming his first movie - Dazed & Confused - some 28 years ago, Matthew McConaughey’s dad, a towering force in his life, suddenly died. Matthew had to figure out a way to keep showing up, to keep going. His mantra became “just keep livin,” which has become a guiding ethos, a sort of lens through which he lives his life. Now, nearly three decades later, an Academy Award-winning actor, icon in the industry, married father of three, a master raconteur, entrepreneur, philanthropis...
Nov 25, 2020•2 hr 38 min•Transcript available on Metacast Ozan Varol is a rocket scientist turned award-winning professor and bestselling author. A native of Istanbul, Turkey, Ozan Varol grew up in a family of no English speakers. He learned English as a second language and moved to the United States by himself at 17 to attend Cornell University and major in astrophysics. While there, he served on the operations team for the 2003 Mars Exploration Rovers project that sent two rovers–Spirit and Opportunity–to Mars. He built stuff that went to the red pla...
Nov 23, 2020•59 min•Transcript available on Metacast Sara Hendren was drawn to painting as a kid, studied it in college, then began to build her body of work and career as a fine artist, focusing on painting. Then, a series of experiences sent her in what, from the outside looking in, may have seemed like a very different direction, but from the inside looking out, what a completely organic and aligned expression of her blended passion to see, to create, to design and to be of service. Now an artist, design researcher, writer, and professor at Oli...
Nov 19, 2020•1 hr 11 min•Transcript available on Metacast Growing up in Israel, Tal Ben-Shahar wanted to be the best squash player in the world. He turned pro at a young age and quickly rose up the ranks. Then a strange thing happened, he achieved his dream, but crashed hard, realizing it didn’t make him feel how he thought it would. That experience set in motion a lifelong journey into the science of happiness that led him to study at Harvard, then eventually teach what became the most popular course at Harvard on happiness. Tal is now a bestsel...
Nov 16, 2020•1 hr•Transcript available on Metacast Growing up in Nashville, Top Chef star, Carla Hall, was surrounded by soul food, especially dishes cooked by her beloved grandma. She loved eating it, but she had no interest in cooking it. In fact, she headed into the world of business, building a career in accounting when, in a moment of awakening, she took a hard left turn that took her through runway modeling in Europe, cooking and catering, and eventually onto Bravo’s Top Chef where he amazing, joyful energy and sense of possibility capture...
Nov 12, 2020•1 hr•Transcript available on Metacast 
