Home Podcasts What is a Good Life?
What is a Good Life?

What is a Good Life?

Mark McCartney 184 Episodes Aug 18, 2026

What Is a Good Life? is a podcast that explores the fundamental questions of how we live, who we become, and what truly matters. For five years, the host has asked over 300 people the deceptively simple question: 'What is a good life?' Each conversation offers a unique perspective through stories, ideas, struggles, and joys. The podcast invites listeners to reflect on their own answers and provides a richer understanding of what it means to be human. New episodes are released every Tuesday.

Episodes

What is a Good Life? #186 - Self-Sovereignty, Surveillance, and the Body as Art with OONA
What is a Good Life? #186 - Self-Sovereignty, Surveillance, and the Body as Art with OONA Aug 18, 2026 3545 In this episode I was joined by OONA – an anonymous performance artist known for her works Milking The Artist, Dear David, and Look Touch Own. Recognised by her mask and dark sunglasses, she treats anonymity itself as both method and performance, examining power, value, and identity within digital culture.We discuss data, extraction, the body as art, and what sovereignty means through phy
What is a Good Life? #185 - Sarah Marquis on Fear, Instinct, and Surviving Alone in the Wild
What is a Good Life? #185 - Sarah Marquis on Fear, Instinct, and Surviving Alone in the Wild Aug 11, 2026 3659 National Geographic Explorer Sarah Marquis has spent 25 years walking alone through some of the most remote landscapes on Earth — the equivalent of circumnavigating the planet on foot. Her expeditions include a 14,000km, 17-month crossing of the Australian Outback, three years walking solo from Siberia to Australia, and three months surviving off bush tucker in the Kimberley. In this epis
What is a Good Life? #184 - Resting in the Core of My Identity with Dr. Miriam Meckel
What is a Good Life? #184 - Resting in the Core of My Identity with Dr. Miriam Meckel Jul 21, 2026 2830 What does it actually mean to be human in an age racing toward AGI? In this episode of What is a Good Life?, Mark sits down with Dr. Miriam Meckel - award-winning journalist, professor of communication management at the University of St. Gallen, and founder of ada learning - to explore the question that has shaped her life's work: what is irreducibly human, and what are we at risk of losi
What is a Good Life? #183 - When Fear Becomes My Partner with Ralf Wetzel
What is a Good Life? #183 - When Fear Becomes My Partner with Ralf Wetzel Jul 14, 2026 3695 In this episode of What is a Good Life, host Mark McCartney sits down with Ralf Wetzel - a leadership scholar who has taught at leading European business schools, and a clown and mask performer whose solo show Absolutely Reliable! has played the Edinburgh Fringe. This episode is built around one question: what does it mean to have a good relationship with fear? Ralf grew up under surveill
What is a Good Life? #182 - Cities That Make Us Happier with Lior Steinberg
What is a Good Life? #182 - Cities That Make Us Happier with Lior Steinberg Jul 7, 2026 3355 In this episode of What is a Good Life, host Mark McCartney sits down with Lior Steinberg, a Rotterdam-based urban planner and co-founder of Humankind, a multidisciplinary team working toward urban happiness for all. Lior is also the author of the children's book The Car That Wanted to Be a Bike. Together they unpack why so many cities remain trapped in car-centric design decades after ur
What is a Good Life? #181 - Finding Peace Within Myself with Kadam Adam Starr
What is a Good Life? #181 - Finding Peace Within Myself with Kadam Adam Starr Jun 30, 2026 4172 What does it mean to live a truly meaningful life and why do so many of us feel an emptiness even at the height of our success?In this episode, Mark sits down with Kadam Adam Starr, who has been an international teacher of meditation and Buddhism for over 20 years and is the principal teacher at Tara Kadampa Meditation Centre in Dublin. Adam walked away from a corporate media career in 20
What is a Good Life? #180 - The Art of a Meaningful Life with Karen L. Jacob, PhD
What is a Good Life? #180 - The Art of a Meaningful Life with Karen L. Jacob, PhD Jun 23, 2026 3597 Dr. Karen L. Jacob is a clinical psychologist, Program Director of the Gunderson Residence at McLean Hospital, and Assistant Professor of Psychology at Harvard Medical School. She specialises in the assessment and treatment of personality disorders, with particular expertise in borderline personality disorder. In this conversation Karen talks about growing up with a love of art, spending
What is a Good Life? #179 - Trust, Water & Rewilding with Daniel Allen-Hörnfeldt
What is a Good Life? #179 - Trust, Water & Rewilding with Daniel Allen-Hörnfeldt Jun 16, 2026 3596 In this episode, Dan talks with Mark about trading 80-90 hour work weeks and a self-medicating lifestyle in London for the forests and lakes of northern Sweden. He shares how his father's death became a turning point, how cold water swimming became a doorway back into his body, and how a small group of friends turned a Sunday morning dip into a movement. The conversation explores trust, s
What is a Good Life? #178 - The Courage To Be Heard with Lucinda Millward
What is a Good Life? #178 - The Courage To Be Heard with Lucinda Millward Jun 9, 2026 3129 Lucinda Millward is the founder of The Baskerville Project and a practitioner in embodied relational practice - bringing creativity, the body, and the nervous system into collective inquiry. She works across executive education, the arts, and public contexts, holds degrees from the University of Oxford, the Guildhall School of Music & Drama, and RADA and King’s College London, and has
What is a Good Life? #177 - Complicated Locks, Simple Keys with Sam Smith
What is a Good Life? #177 - Complicated Locks, Simple Keys with Sam Smith Jun 2, 2026 3388 This week Mark McCartney sits down with Sam Smith. Sam sees life as a big old experiment. He used to play professional rugby, before starting a few businesses. Now he spends his time speaking to people, writing and loving his family. Last year he wrote his first book, The Door Was Never Locked. His latest project with his friend Garth, Conscious Soup launches soon, it's a Living Experimen
What is a Good Life? #176 - What Is It About Dogs? with Doug Skoke
What is a Good Life? #176 - What Is It About Dogs? with Doug Skoke May 26, 2026 3873 What is it about dogs?It's the question Doug Skoke has been sitting with and it turns out, trying to understand what makes his golden doodle Harley tick has become one of his most impactful explorations of how to actually live well.Doug is the Founder & CEO of LFG NOW!, a boutique executive search firm, and a Gallup-certified CliftonStrengths Coach - but what defines him more than any
What is a Good Life? #175 - Closing the Gap Between Values & Life with Jennifer Garvey Berger
What is a Good Life? #175 - Closing the Gap Between Values & Life with Jennifer Garvey Berger May 19, 2026 3531 In this episode of What is a Good Life?, Mark McCartney sits down with Jennifer Garvey Berger - author, global leadership coach, and co-founder and CEO of Cultivating Leadership - to explore one of the most honest questions a person can ask: am I actually living in alignment with what I say matters most?Jennifer has spent decades helping leaders untangle big questions and find more courag

Recommended