What is a Good Life?
A project exploring the big questions around how we live, who we are and what actually matters.
Mark McCartney
Show overview
What is a Good Life? has been publishing since 2023, and across the 3 years since has built a catalogue of 186 episodes. That works out to roughly 190 hours of audio in total. Releases follow a weekly cadence.
Episodes typically run an hour to ninety minutes — most land between 58 min and 1h 5m — and the run-time is fairly consistent across the catalogue. None of the episodes are flagged explicit by the publisher. It is catalogued as a EN-language Education show.
The show is actively publishing — the most recent episode landed 6 days ago, with 31 episodes already out so far this year. Published by Mark McCartney.
From the publisher
A project exploring the big questions around how we live, who we are and what actually matters. Over the past four years, I’ve sat with more than 300 people — artists, parents, executives, wanderers, therapists, and strangers and invited them into a simple but profound inquiry, "What is a good life for you?" The conversations explore presence, paradox, uncertainty, and the moments that shape a life - love and loss, trust and fear, clarity and not knowing. It’s an invitations to slow down, to listen deeply, and to bring you into conversation with your own life. There are new episodes every Tuesday.
Latest Episodes
View all 186 episodesWhat is a Good Life? #186 - Self-Sovereignty, Surveillance, and the Body as Art with OONA
What is a Good Life? #185 - Sarah Marquis on Fear, Instinct, and Surviving Alone in the Wild
What is a Good Life? #184 - Resting in the Core of My Identity with Dr. Miriam Meckel
What is a Good Life? #183 - When Fear Becomes My Partner with Ralf Wetzel
What is a Good Life? #182 - Cities That Make Us Happier with Lior Steinberg
What is a Good Life? #181 - Finding Peace Within Myself with Kadam Adam Starr
What is a Good Life? #180 - The Art of a Meaningful Life with Karen L. Jacob, PhD
What is a Good Life? #179 - Trust, Water & Rewilding with Daniel Allen-Hörnfeldt
What is a Good Life? #178 - The Courage To Be Heard with Lucinda Millward
What is a Good Life? #177 - Complicated Locks, Simple Keys with Sam Smith
What is a Good Life? #176 - What Is It About Dogs? with Doug Skoke
What is a Good Life? #175 - Closing the Gap Between Values & Life with Jennifer Garvey Berger
What is a Good Life? #174 - Being In The Pulse Of Life with Laura Beckingham
What is a Good Life? #173 - The Place Of Multiple Belongings with Dave Snowden
What is a Good Life? #172 - What If It Were Easy? with Dr Myriam Hadnes
What is a Good Life? #171 - What Must My Life Be About with Robert J. Anderson
What is a Good Life? #170 - Recovering Right Relationship with Ally Kingston
Ep 169What is a Good Life? #169 - Wonder, Wildness And Song with Sam Lee
How do you hold on to that feeling of childlike enchantment that you remember as a kid?In this captivating conversation, Mark sits down with Sam Lee, singer, composer, and author. We explore the nature of wonder, the role of ritual, and the significance of rite of passages and thresholds. He talks about his apprenticeship to Scottish traveller and balladeer Stanley Robertson and how that completely dismantled what he thought folk music was. We talk about songs as medicine and what it means to be their custodian, as well as being being dangerously surrounded by a dozen shepherd's dogs in the Carpathian mountains.Sam Lee is a Mercury prize-nominated singer, composer, arranger, folksong interpreter, connecting his passion for nature and song into timeless unique ways. Collector of songs from across the British Isles & Ireland he’s also the creator of many live nature immersions including the annual sell-out Singing With Nightingales. Penguin recently published his debut novel 'The Nightingale, Notes on a songbird' telling the epic tale of this highly endangered bird. And his latest album is the critically acclaimed, Guardian 5 star and Mojo Album of the Month ‘songdreaming’. Sam is also an Ambassador for The Global Rewilding Alliance.This conversation and Sam's stories are for anyone seeking more aliveness in this life. For more from Sam Lee's work:Website: https://samleesong.co.uk/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/samleesong/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/samleesongFor more from Mark McCartney:Newsletter: https://www.whatisagood.life/Website: https://www.mmcleadership.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-mccartney-14b0161b4/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@whatisagoodlifeInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/markcmccartney00:00 Does Wonder Ever Cease?02:29 A Life of Proximity05:00 The Gift of the Puffball09:04 A Rite of Passage17:30 On Ritual and Threshold18:03 Bar Mitzvah to Bison Tracking26:58 Surrounded by Shepherd's Dogs35:10 Apprenticed to Stanley Robertson48:30 Songs as Medicine53:40 Walking Into Darkness59:40 What is a Good Life?Keywords: Meaning of Life Interviews | meaning of life conversations | exploring life | big life questions | meaning of life discussions | creating a meaningful life
Ep 168What is a Good Life? #168 - What It Means to Be Fully Alive with Joel Monk
What does it mean to be fully alive? Mark sits down with Joel Monk to explore the journey from spiritual bypassing to embodiment. They talk about dark nights of the soul, the "yum" of visceral wellbeing, trauma-informed healing, the role of grace and prayer, and what it actually means to feel safe, okay, and enough. An episode for anyone on a path of dropping deeper into their own humanity and body.Joel Monk is the founder of Coaches Rising, one of the world’s leading platforms for transformational coaching, with a global community of more than 65,000 coaches. He is the host of the Coaches Rising Podcast and is known for his work in transformational coaching, embodiment, and human development. He has coached hundreds of entrepreneurs, CEOs, and senior executives — even a Zen master — helping high-level leaders unlock deeper presence, wiser action, and profound personal transformation.For more from Joel Monk's work:Company website: www.coachesrising.comLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joel-monk-33952613/Coaches Rising Podcast: https://www.coachesrising.com/podcast/For more from Mark McCartney:Newsletter: https://www.whatisagood.life/Website: https://www.mmcleadership.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-mccartney-14b0161b4/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@whatisagoodlifeInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/markcmccartney00:00 Awakening Into Full Humanity02:00 Magic Mushrooms on the Moors07:15 Coming Into the Body10:20 The Yum13:47 Clinging to Bliss17:00 Safety, Okayness, and Intimacy20:45 Intoxified by Life27:42 Moving Beyond Renunciation31:07 The Gift of Grace38:52 Inquiring Into God46:17 Fully Alive in Dark Times51:37 What Is a Good LifeKeywords: Meaning of Life Interviews | meaning of life conversations | exploring life | big life questions | meaning of life discussions | creating a meaningful life
Ep 167What is a Good Life? #167 - Gifts, Rituals, & The Path To Belonging with Bruce Anderson
What makes a life truly good? In this rich and wide-ranging conversation, Mark speaks with Bruce Anderson, Executive Director of the Core Gift Institute, about the three kinds of glue that hold relationships, communities, and the world together: gifts, welcoming, and ritual. Bruce shares why he believes our primary gifts are not earned but given to us through spirit and why they always emerge from our deepest wounds. They explore belonging, the question of how everything began, the wildness of love, and why a home in a wild place might just be the perfect metaphor for a life well lived. Currently living on an island by Seattle, USA, Bruce has a storied life of living in remote Alaska, commercial fishing, log-cabin building, and being a schoolteacher and mayor. He is known for bringing intriguing ideas from other cultures and times, personal stories, and practical ideas into the international work he does with others.Whether you're feeling lost, searching for direction, or simply curious about what a meaningful life looks like, this conversation will leave you with a lot to sit with.For more of Bruce's work:Core Gift Institue: https://www.coregift.org/home LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bruce-anderson-742a3722/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100011545838837 For more from Mark McCartney:Newsletter: https://www.whatisagood.life/Website: https://www.mmcleadership.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-mccartney-14b0161b4/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@whatisagoodlifeInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/markcmccartney00:00 – Three Kinds Of Glue04:01 – Why Spirit Grounds Everything10:50 – The Search For Faith15:13 – How Did All This Begin?18:26 – Where Beauty Comes From22:05 – Home In The Wild28:00 – Gifts & The Gift Exchange33:25 – Seeing Gifts In Others38:00 – Competence Isn't Your Gift42:05 – Parker Palmer & Hospitality47:14 – The Role Of Ritual56:46 – What Is A Good Life?Keywords: Meaning of Life Interviews | meaning of life conversations | exploring life | big life questions | meaning of life discussions | creating a meaningful life