Good Life Project

Good Life Project

https://feeds.acast.com/public/shows/61de0665cc27c20014ea15cf
11.2K Followers 1.2K Episodes
Good Life Project is a podcast and video series for people navigating midlife with intention. Hosted by Jonathan Fields, each episode is a deep, honest conversation about what it actually takes to build a life that feels like yours, through the reinventions, reckonings, and reclamations that define your 40s, 50s, and beyond. Grounded in science, fueled by genuine curiosity, and always in service of the real work of living well. Often top-ranked, it’s been listened to and viewed more than 100 m...
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Episode List

How Much Money Is Enough? Your Confusing Money Questions Answered. | Leisa Peterson

Jul 23rd, 2026 9:00 AM

By the age of 7, most of us have absorbed the rules that run our financial lives…forever. And almost none of us checked to see if they were true. Not the numbers. The rules. The slogans we heard around the kitchen table about what money means, who deserves it, and what it says about us if we don't have enough of it.Leisa Peterson spent three decades inside the financial services industry before a near-fatal event forced her to see how far she had drifted from her own life. Today she coaches people, most of them women, on the inherited stories that quietly run their financial decisions long after childhood ends, and how to rewrite them, along with their financial futures.In this conversation, you'll hear:Why twins raised in the exact same household can end up in completely different financial and emotional places as adultsThe specific questions to ask a financial advisor before you hire one, and the one answer that should make you walk awayWhy financial regret research shows the real damage isn't the bad decision, it's the silence around itHow to start defining your own "enough" instead of borrowing someone else's numberWhat Leisa's husband's diagnosis taught her about the assets that never show up on a bank statementIf you've ever felt behind, ashamed, or just quietly unsure whether you're getting this right, this conversation will change how you think about all of it.You can find Leisa at: Website | Instagram | Episode TranscriptNext week, we're sitting down with Leidy Klotz to talk about how the rooms you live in every day shape how much control, connection, and competence you feel, often without you ever noticing it. Be sure to follow Good Life Project wherever you get your podcasts so you don’t miss any upcoming episodes!Check out our sponsors and resources: Visit Our Sponsor Page Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Tapping: Surprising Science Behind Healing Claims (and how to do it) | Jessica Ortner

Jul 20th, 2026 9:00 AM

Your body already knows you're stressed before your brain finishes the thought. That tightness in your chest before a hard conversation. The way your stomach drops before you walk into a room full of people. Logic doesn't reach it. Telling yourself you're fine doesn't touch it. What if you could send a direct signal to your nervous system that you're safe, and actually change the chemistry?Jessica Ortner is a New York Times bestselling author and co-founder of The Tapping Solution, a movement that has brought EFT Tapping to millions worldwide, fueling hundreds of published studies, a massively downloaded app with tens of millions of sessions completed, and work that now extends to veterans, schools, and communities in crisis.In this conversation, you'll explore:What tapping is, where it came from, and how it works.Why positive thinking and reframing often fail, and what the nervous system actually needs to release stressThe cortisol study that shows a serious reduction in stress hormones from a single session, and what that means for your daily lifeHow tapping physically rewires the brain's response to food cravings, trauma, and intrusive thoughts, with fMRI data to back itWhy your body can hold chronic pain in ways that have nothing to do with the original injury, and tapping might helpHow to use tapping covertly before a difficult conversation, a big presentation, or a social situation when anxiety tends to take overYou don't have to believe this works for it to work. You just have to try it.You can find Jessica at: Website | Instagram | Episode TranscriptNext week, next week we're sitting down with Leisa Peterson to talk about why the quiet question "am I actually behind with money?" never goes away, no matter how many articles you've read or podcasts you've listened to — and what it actually takes to resolve it at the level it lives. Be sure to follow Good Life Project wherever you get your podcasts so you don't miss any upcoming episodes.Check out our offerings & partners: Join My New Writing Project: Awake at the WheelVisit Our Sponsor Page For Great Resources & Discount Codes Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Why Plans Fail, and What To Do Instead | Midyear Reset Pt 2

Jul 16th, 2026 9:00 AM

Share your midlife reinvention story with us HERE.You have a plan for how to succeed in the second half of the year, how to “get back on track.” And a plan, it turns out, is the most sophisticated way to actually stand still while feeling like you're moving.This is Part 2 of a special two-part midyear series on Good Life Project. In Part 1, Jonathan led a different kind of honest check-in, setting down the scorecard version of taking stock and actually looking at the one part of life that has been running quietly low. This episode is the moving part. It’s about taking action and building momentum, without waiting for a plan.In this episode, you'll explore:Why plans fail, and why the reason is not the one you've been told. The flaw isn't you. It's how plans are built.The difference between a plan and a move, and why only one of them has ever actually changed a life.Seven elements that make a move more likely to survive a bad week, including Peter Gollwitzer's research on implementation intentions.The four traps that turn a move back into a plan, and how to recognize them before they happen.Why the middle of the year is one of the most powerful fresh start landmarks available, and almost nobody uses it.A five-step sequence you'll work through before this episode ends, leaving with a specific move already made, not planned.This episode is for anyone who has spent the first half of this year meaning to do something and hasn't yet. Not because you lacked motivation, but because you were waiting for the right conditions that were never going to arrive. They don't have to. You just have to make one move.Episode TranscriptIf you LOVED this episode, you can find the 1-page worksheet HERE.Next week, I'm sitting down with an old friend, Jessica Ortner, to explore something that most people have never tried, that looks a little ridiculous at first, and that turns out to have a surprisingly serious body of research behind it. It's called tapping. We're not going to sell it, and we're not going to dismiss it. We're going to give it a genuinely honest look: what the science does and doesn't support, who it's actually for, and then Jessica is going to guide me through a real session, live, on the episode that you can follow along with in real time. Be sure to follow Good Life Project wherever you get your podcasts so you don't miss it.Check out our offerings & partners: Join My New Writing Project: Awake at the WheelVisit Our Sponsor Page For Great Resources & Discount Codes Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Midyear Wake-Up Call | Part 1

Jul 13th, 2026 9:00 AM

You can hit every goal you set in January and still be running on empty in the parts of your life the list never thought to measure. That's not a failure story. That's a design flaw in the instrument most of us reach for at the midpoint of the year.Jonathan Fields has spent 14 years exploring what it takes to build a life that genuinely feels like yours. In this solo episode, he gets personal about a stretch that looked, by every external measure, like one of the best runs he'd had in years. A major work transition, real momentum in business, and every morning from 7:30 to 9, writing the first draft of his first novel. A genuinely good season. And one that was quietly drawing down on something no scorecard ever caught.What you'll explore in this conversation:Why grading yourself against January goals in July is the least useful thing you can do at the midpoint of the year, and what to reach for insteadThe three Good Life Buckets framework (Vitality, Connection, Contribution) as a practical audit tool, not an abstract ideaTwo ways a bucket drains that most driven, successful people never see coming: the leak and the missing refillWhy the most dangerous bucket is often not the one that aches, but the one filling and draining at the same timeThree reckoning questions that surface something more honest than any goal list you've ever writtenWhy so many of us would rather stay tired and certain than rested and unsure, and what it actually costs usThis is Part 1 of a two-part series. Part 2 arrives in a few days with the specific actions to take for your mid-year wake-up call.Episode TranscriptNext week, we're coming back for part 2 of this series with Jonathan to talk about what to actually do once you've named the bucket, and why you don't need a plan for the second half of your year. You need a move. One small, real, repeatable move. And we're going to figure it out together in real time before that episode is over. Be sure to follow Good Life Project wherever you get your podcasts so you don't miss it.Check out our offerings & partners: Join My New Writing Project: Awake at the WheelVisit Our Sponsor Page For Great Resources & Discount Codes Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Healing Family Estrangement: What To Say, And What Never to Say.

Jul 9th, 2026 9:00 AM

Between 10 and 15 percent of mothers and 1 in 4 fathers are currently estranged from a child. If those numbers feel shocking, the harder truth might be this: most of the moves parents instinctively make once estrangement begins are the exact moves that keep the door shut.Dr. Joshua Coleman has spent more than four decades as a practicing psychologist and is a Senior Fellow with the Council on Contemporary Families. His own daughter once cut off contact with him. That experience, and everything he has learned since, shaped his work helping families find their way back to each other. He is one of the most trusted voices in the country on family estrangement and reconciliation.In this conversation, you will explore:Why estrangement rates are at historically high levels and what massive cultural shifts are driving themThe five defensive moves parents make that almost always make things worse, including why fighting for fairness is the most damaging trap of allWhat a genuinely healing apology actually sounds like, and why most apologies miss the mark entirelyWhy radical acceptance and hope are not opposites, and how to hold both at the same timeHow the principles of repair transfer to sibling estrangements and to grandparents cut off from grandchildrenIf someone you love has pulled away and you cannot figure out why, or if you are the one who has needed distance and are wondering what repair could look like, this is the conversation for it.You can find Joshua at: Website | Instagram | Family Troubles Substack | Episode TranscriptNext week, I am going solo, actually for the entire week, for a two-part midyear summer series about really taking a fresh look at where we are right now. Be sure to follow Good Life Project wherever you get your podcasts so you don't miss it.Check out our offerings & partners: Join My New Writing Project: Awake at the WheelVisit Our Sponsor Page For Great Resources & Discount Codes Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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