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Good Life Project

Good Life Project

Jonathan Fields / Acast 1156 Episodes Jul 2, 2026

Good Life Project is a podcast and video series for people navigating midlife with intention. Hosted by Jonathan Fields, each episode features deep, honest conversations about building a meaningful life through reinventions and reckonings. Grounded in science and genuine curiosity, it has been listened to and viewed more than 100 million times. New episodes are released weekly.

Episodes

When You Can't Stop Thinking About Something, Here's What To Do. | Donna Jackson Nakazawa Jul 2, 2026 54:07 There is something your brain is spinning right now, that you may never have been given a name for or a way out of. The thought you keep replaying. The conversation you keep recasting. The reel that loads up again and again without resolution, making you feel worse each time and no closer to clarity. That is rumination. And according to the neuroscience, it is the single greatest pre-diagnostic fa
Why More Choices Make You Less Happy | David Epstein Jun 29, 2026 1:00:19 Most of us believe more options equals better outcomes. Research says no. In much of life, the opposite is true, and the gap between what we believe and what the data shows is one of the more quietly consequential misconceptions shaping how we live right now.David Epstein is the author of Range and the new book Inside the Box, both New York Times bestsellers. He spent years studying human performa
The Toll of Generalized Resentment (and What to Do About It) Jun 25, 2026 47:14 There is a feeling many people in midlife carry that does not have a name, a clear cause, or anyone to blame. It shows up when you have been the dependable one long enough that dependable starts to feel like a cage. Or when you have handled everything capably and walked away feeling hollowed rather than proud. Or when you have given more than you have received for so long that the imbalance s
You Spent Years Acting Normal Inside a Life That Never Fit | Sari Botton Jun 22, 2026 54:09 Gotta love a good midlife reinvention story, and today we’ve got a great one!Sari Botton built her career editing some of the most celebrated voices in American literary nonfiction. Then, in her mid-50s, she watched doors close in her face, turned down for jobs she was overqualified for, told by interviewers in their 30s that she had "done enough." Out of that experience, she launched Ol
The Midlife Muscle Loss Lie: How to Stay Strong at Any Age | Dr. Vonda Wright Jun 18, 2026 54:16 According to Dr. Vonda Wright, almost everything we believe about aging and muscle loss is wrong. The research that told you to expect decline was built on populations where 70 percent of participants barely moved. Which means the trajectory most of us are bracing for is not biology. It is behavior. You do not have to be a statistic.Dr. Vonda Wright is an orthopedic surgeon, researcher, and the fo
The 4 Chemicals That Run Your Brain…and Your Life | Tj Power Jun 15, 2026 59:44 Four chemicals, produced by your brain, serve as a master switch for nearly everything you think, do, and feel. In no small way, they also control our lives. But, all too often, instead of harnessing them to fuel amazing experiences and outcomes, we are controlled by them. Today, we learn how to take back control and harness them for good.Our guide is TJ Power, lead neuroscientist at the DOSE Lab
What Lucky People Do Differently, According to Science | Tina Seelig Jun 11, 2026 49:25 Luck is not a personality trait you either have or you don't. It is something you build, and science tells us there are specific, learnable skills behind why some people consistently seem to be in the right place at the right time while others walk right past the same opportunities.Tina Seelig has spent over 25 years at Stanford teaching and studying exactly this. As Executive Director of the Knig
Why Rituals Matter More Than You Know, And How to Design Your Own | Bruce Feiler Jun 8, 2026 54:37 There is a particular kind of loneliness that hits in the middle of a full life. Not because you are isolated. Because the relationships that used to hold you steady are all being renegotiated at once. Your kids have left. A parent has died. A marriage needs new terms. A friendship has frayed. And the cultural rituals that once helped people move through moments like this are mostly gone.Bruc
Dating in Midlife…Oh My! | Bela Gandhi Jun 4, 2026 57:01 Here is something most of us have never been told: falling in love was never supposed to be easy, and the fact that it hasn't been isn't a character flaw. It's a design problem. Your biology may be working against you. Your cultural programming works against you. But, more than anything, the list you've been carrying around of what you want in a partner is almost certainly pointing you in the wron
Your Ambitions Might Not Be Yours | Tom Rath Jun 1, 2026 46:21 Most of us reach our 40s and discover something unsettling: the ambitions we've been chasing weren't entirely ours. They came from parents, from culture, from the two or three careers we happened to see up close. Tom Rath calls this looking through a pinhole, and he thinks it explains more midlife restlessness than most of us are willing to admit.Tom is one of the most widely-read researchers on h
Why Can’t Anyone Tell Me What’s Wrong? | Alexandra Sifferlin May 28, 2026 57:36 Ever have something clearly wrong, and yet no expert can tell you what’s causing it? Or, worse, they DO tell you, but they’re wrong?Nearly everyone will experience at least one diagnostic error in their lifetime. Not a minor mix-up, but a missed, delayed, or wrong diagnosis that shapes how long you suffer, what treatment you receive, and whether anyone believes something is actually wrong with you
How to Finally Have the Talk You've Been Avoiding | Jonathan Fields May 25, 2026 45:57 There is a conversation most of us are carrying right now. Not one we lack words for. We have plenty of those. One we keep finding reasons not to have. Not because we don't know what we'd say, but because we have become very skilled at building the case for staying quiet a little longer.Jonathan Fields has spent a lot of time in that particular waiting room. This solo episode starts with a story h

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