On the 143rd episode of What is a Good Life?, I’m delighted to welcome Kimbra. Kimbra is a New Zealand-born songwriter, musician, producer, and adventurous performer. Her 2011 debut, Vows, was certified platinum in Australia and New Zealand. The following year, “Somebody That I Used to Know,” her duet with Gotye, topped Billboard’s Hot 100, became the best-selling song of the year in the U.S., and earned her two Grammy Awards. Since then, she has toured with artists including Beck, David Byrne, and Jacob Collier, and has released four more albums: The Golden Echo, Primal Heart, A Reckoning, and Idols & Vices (Vol. 1). She hosts the podcast Playing With Fire and shares essays, poetry and watercolours on her Substack newsletter.

In this conversation, Kimbra reflects on her ongoing journey to find balance and rest within her life and career as a musician. She speaks about the importance of silence in shaping her artistic expression, the power of surrendering to spirit, and the grounding influence of nature.

This episode is an invitation to embrace the fullness of life — its joy, its suffering, and the many paradoxes in between.

For more of Kimbra's work:
Substack: https://kimbra.substack.com/
Website: https://www.kimbramusic.com/

Contact me at mark@whatisagood.life if you'd like to explore your own lines of self-inquiry through 1-on-1 coaching, my 5-week group courses, or to discuss team coaching to stimulate greater trust, communication, and connection, amongst your leadership teams.

- For the What is a Good Life? podcast's YouTube page: https://www.youtube.com/@whatisagoodlife/videos
- My newsletter: https://www.whatisagood.life/
- My LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-mccartney-14b0161b4/

00:00 How to find balance?

03:00 The experience of burnout

06:30 A silent concert

09:50 HoneyBones and nothing to lose

12:30 The generosity and connection of silence

16:00 Life, art, and work are not separate

19:30 Receiving a message from spirit

23:30 Being empowered by spirit

29:00 A mystical experience and calling

33:42 We all have a cross

38:50 Making a difference in the world

42:30 The power and role of nature

45:00 Rest, letting go, and liberation

51:15 Summary and what is a good life for Kimbra?

On the 142nd episode of What is a Good Life?, I’m delighted to welcome Jim Palmer, Founder of the Center for Non-Religious Spirituality. A critically acclaimed author, former megachurch pastor, adjunct professor, and chaplain with the American Humanist Association, Jim is also a trained counsellor in religious trauma and spiritual abuse.

In this conversation, he reflects on his journey through a crisis of faith, his experiences as a megachurch pastor, and his challenges of navigating religious culture. We explore theological deconstruction, rewilding spirituality, and the importance of embracing diverse perspectives. This episode invites you to consider a faith in life itself as a way to deepen our connection with existence.

For more of Jim's work:
Substack: https://substack.com/@jimpalmerauthor
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jimpalmerauthor/

Contact me at mark@whatisagood.life if you'd like to explore your own lines of self-inquiry through 1-on-1 coaching, my 5-week group courses, or to discuss team coaching to stimulate greater trust, communication, and connection, amongst your leadership teams.

- For the What is a Good Life? podcast's YouTube page: https://www.youtube.com/@whatisagoodlife/videos
- My newsletter: https://www.whatisagood.life/
- My LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-mccartney-14b0161b4/

00:00 Introduction and Setup

01:51 Exploring the Good Life

02:50 The More Than Human World

06:22 Personal Evolution and Crisis of Faith

12:22 Experiences as a Mega Church Pastor

17:35 The Challenges of Mega Church Culture

21:22 Theological Deconstruction and Reconstruction

26:38 Confronting Suffering and Injustice

33:03 Cognitive Dissonance in Religion

39:13 Processing Religious Trauma

42:55 Rewilding Spirituality

50:04 God as a Verb

54:20 The Good Life as a Process of Inquiry

58:06 Faith in Life and Interconnectivity

On the 141st episode of What is a Good Life?, I’m delighted to welcome Professor Megan Reitz. Megan is an Associate Fellow at Saïd Business School, Oxford University, and Professor of Leadership and Dialogue at Hult International Business School. She is a leading thinker on leadership and dialogue, featured in the Thinkers50 ranking of global business thinkers, and the author of Dialogue in Organizations, Mind Time, and, most recently, Speak Out, Listen Up. Her work explores how we create the conditions for transformative dialogue at work, and her latest research examines how we can foster spaciousness — the capacity to innovate, reflect, and build relationships in workplaces addicted to busyness.

In this conversation, we explore the impact of space, silence, attention, and an outward focus on our relationships and our experience of life.

This episode serves as an invitation to pause, question the busyness we’ve become entangled in, and reconsider the status quo of how we relate.

For more of Megan's work:
Website: https://www.meganreitz.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/meganreitz/

Contact me at mark@whatisagood.life if you'd like to explore your own lines of self-inquiry through 1-on-1 coaching, my 5-week group courses, or to discuss team coaching to stimulate greater trust, communication, and connection, amongst your leadership teams.

- For the What is a Good Life? podcast's YouTube page: https://www.youtube.com/@whatisagoodlife/videos
- My newsletter: https://www.whatisagood.life/
- My LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-mccartney-14b0161b4/

00:00 How do I encounter the world?

04:00 Flow amongst people

07:00 How our gestures affect others

11:45 The labels, assumptions, and roles that create distance

17:13 The energy drain of societal expectations

23:00 Allowing, inquiry, and meta awareness

26:20 Creating the space we require

33:45 How do we see the world?

37:00 Navigating pauses and big questions

44:00 How strange it has become to pause

47:30 Our focus moving from ourselves

53:30 Experiencing periods without an agenda

57:00 Summary and what is a good life for Megan?

On the 140th episode of What is a Good Life?, I’m delighted to welcome Robert Poynton. Rob is the author of Do Conversation, Do Pause, and Do Improvise. He divides his time between an off-grid home in rural Spain and Oxford, where he is an Associate Fellow at the Saïd Business School and convenor of the Oxford Praxis Forum at Green Templeton College. Rob is a designer, host, and facilitator of learning experiences; an amateur practical philosopher; a keeper of hens; and the founder of Yellow Learning.

In this conversation, Rob shares his sense of living with more aliveness. We explore following the energy rather than the “shoulds”, noticing visceral signals of “deathly” work, practising curiosity and softness in everyday tasks, infinite games versus fixed goals, and how trusting life’s unfolding leads to a life of joy.

This episode is an invitation to soften, to follow what feels alive, and to let life reveal itself through experience and energy rather than theory.

For more of Rob's work:
Website: https://robertpoynton.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robert-poynton-169402/

Contact me at mark@whatisagood.life if you'd like to explore your own lines of self-inquiry through 1-on-1 coaching, my 5-week group courses, or to discuss team coaching to stimulate greater trust, communication, and connection, amongst your leadership teams.

- For the What is a Good Life? podcast's YouTube page: https://www.youtube.com/@whatisagoodlife/videos
- My newsletter: https://www.whatisagood.life/
- My LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-mccartney-14b0161b4/

00:00 How can we make life more joyful?

04:20 Paying attention to that sinking feeling

06:40 Making decisions others found unusual

10:50 Following the breadcrumbs and energy

18:11 Noticing when we contract and soften

24:30 Noticing, allowing, and becoming

32:00 Life wants to happen

39:15 Collaboration more present than competition

42:30 The allure of drama and conflict

48:20 Holding two conflicting ideas at once

51:15 The surprises that bring us alive

57:50 Summary and is a good life for Rob?

On the 139th episode of What is a Good Life?, I’m delighted to welcome Simon Höher—a public designer, researcher, and strategist based in Berlin. Simon works at the intersection of systems, futures, and justice, partnering with public institutions, startups, and cultural organisations to rethink how we design, govern, and live together. He is Systems Change Lead at Dark Matter Labs and currently supports the European Commission’s Net Zero Cities Mission.

In this conversation, we explore big questions about life, governance, and personal evolution: the nature of change, how today’s decisions shape future generations, and the role of resilience and trust in navigating uncertainty. We also look at ways to move beyond the problem–solution dichotomy.

This episode is an invitation to consider what more patience, deliberation, and intention might bring to your life.

For more of Simon's work:
Website: https://simonhoeher.com/
Substack: http://simonhoeher.substack.com

Contact me at mark@whatisagood.life if you'd like to explore your own lines of self-inquiry through 1-on-1 coaching, my 5-week group courses, or to discuss team coaching to stimulate greater trust, communication, and connection, amongst your leadership teams.

- For the What is a Good Life? podcast's YouTube page: https://www.youtube.com/@whatisagoodlife/videos
- My newsletter: https://www.whatisagood.life/
- My LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-mccartney-14b0161b4/

00:00 How do we create deliberate transitions?

04:30 What to do about the state of the world?

08:00 Evolution and transitions

12:00 Shifting from private to public interest

14:30 How do we gauge impact?

19:40 Questioning are we part of the problem

23:50 The impact of trust & hope on resilience

32:45 Trusting yourself through change

37:00 We are incredibly adaptive creatures

39:30 The significance of openness

42:30 The problem-solution dichotomy

50:00 Minimal intervention

54:00 Summary and what is a good life for Simon?

On the 138th episode of What is a Good Life?, I’m delighted to welcome Edie "EdieArt" Pijpers. Edie is a self-taught painter, musician, and writer whose work flows across the porous borders between music, colour, story, dream, and video. Raised in the Netherlands, Edie travelled through Paris, Sydney, and Los Angeles before planting roots in the Hudson Valley. Over the years, she has released five albums, held art shows in Nashville and New York, painted murals, published mindful children’s books, created intimate video pieces, and collaborated on the oracle deck Healing the Inner Child via Hay House.

In this conversation, we explore the essence of creativity and the balance between doing and being. We explore the importance of giving space and time to ideas, as well as attuning to the muse that lives as presence in ordinary moments.

Ultimately, she highlights the significance of relationality, living attentively, and embracing the flow of existence.

For more of Edie's work:
Website: https://www.edieart.com/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@EdieArt77

Contact me at mark@whatisagood.life if you'd like to explore your own lines of self-inquiry through 1-on-1 coaching, my 5-week group courses, or to discuss team coaching to stimulate greater trust, communication, and connection, amongst your leadership teams.

- For the What is a Good Life? podcast's YouTube page: https://www.youtube.com/@whatisagoodlife/videos
- My newsletter: https://www.whatisagood.life/
- My LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-mccartney-14b0161b4/

00:00 What is trying to emerge?

04:45 Authority and uncertainty

10:00 Exploring how things are

13:00 Balancing masculine and feminine energies

17:30 The call into nature

25:00 Giving life more space

31:05 The seriousness and lightness of life

36:15 Parenting, relating, and space

42:00 Letting go of control

45:00 Meaningful and meaningless

48:00 Answering a call to creativity

51:30 The significance of place

54:30 Summary and what is a good life for Edie?

On the 137th episode of What is a Good Life?, I’m delighted to welcome Diane Button. Diane is a founding partner of the Bay Area End-of-Life Doula Alliance in Northern California, and the best-selling author of Dear Death: Finding Meaning in Life, Peace in Death, and Joy in an Ordinary Day and The Doula Tool Kit: The Complete Practical Guide for End-of-Life Doulas & Caregivers (co-authored with Angela Shook and Gabby Jimenez). She holds a master’s degree in Counselling Psychology, works as a practicing end-of-life doula, and serves as a lead instructor in the University of Vermont Larner College of Medicine’s End-of-Life Doula Certificate Program. Her latest book is the inspiring What Matters Most.

In our conversation, Diane shares the profound insights she has gained through her work, emphasising the power of presence, the value of embracing all emotions, and the joy found in life’s simplest moments.

Together, we explore how the beauty of ordinary days and the wisdom of those facing death can illuminate what it truly means to live well and meet life’s final chapter with grace.

For Diane's latest book, What Matters Most:
To buy your copy: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/768705/what-matters-most-by-diane-button/
About the book: https://www.dianebutton.com/what-matters-most
Website: https://www.dianebutton.com

Contact me at mark@whatisagood.life if you'd like to explore your own lines of self-inquiry through 1-on-1 coaching, my 5-week group courses, or to discuss experiences I create to stimulate greater trust, communication, and connection, amongst your leadership teams.

- For the What is a Good Life? podcast's YouTube page: https://www.youtube.com/@whatisagoodlife/videos
- My newsletter: https://www.whatisagood.life/
- My LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-mccartney-14b0161b4/

00:00 Reflections on the book

02:10 The depth of the role of an End of Life Doula

04:45 Experiencing everything

08:44 The cultivation of presence

14:00 Pausing and slowing down

17:00 An awareness of joy

21:20 An expression of gratitude

25:30 The process of writing the book

31:55 Not waiting to celebrate life

36:30 Distilling what matter most

40:30 The simple moments

43:30 Legacy work with the dying

48:00 Regrets over the little things

52:30 Self-love, acceptance, and authenticity

1:00:00 Comfort with grief and conflicting emotions

1:08:00 The importance of our small acts

On the 136th episode of the What is a Good Life? podcast, I’m delighted to welcome our guest, Aadita Chaudhury. Aadita is a researcher, writer and arts practitioner inhabiting the intersection of the arts, science, ecology, and spirituality. Her work is shaped by ethnographic approaches, poetic inquiry, embodied methodologies, sonic practices, photography, and encounters with mythology, folklore and ritual, guided by ethics of slow, non-extractive decolonial research. She is interested in perspectives from the Global South in relation to technoscientific imaginaries, decolonial, feminist and working-class social movements. Aadita has conducted research in the US, Canada, the UK, Italy, India and Mexico. Her academic and public work has appeared in International Relations, Conservation Letters and Al Jazeera.

In this conversation, Aadita explores the themes of rootedness, belonging, and identity amidst a rapidly changing world. She reflects on her journey through liminal spaces, the impact of cultural expectations, and the quest for enough-ness. The discussion delves into the implications of human exceptionalism, the importance of direct communication, and the value of community connections.

Ultimately, Aadita considers a good life as one that embraces honesty, embodiment, and the emergent flux of reality.

For more of Aadita's work:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aadita/
Website: https://www.aaditachaudhury.com/

Contact me at mark@whatisagood.life if you'd like to explore your own lines of self-inquiry through 1-on-1 coaching, my 5-week group courses, or to discuss experiences I create to stimulate greater trust, communication, and connection, amongst your leadership teams.

- For the What is a Good Life? podcast's YouTube page: https://www.youtube.com/@whatisagoodlife/videos
- My newsletter: https://www.whatisagood.life/
- My LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-mccartney-14b0161b4/

00:00 Navigating Liminal Spaces

04:00 A Practice of Presence

06:00 Rootedness, identity, and preference

09:55 Cultural expectations

14:30 The expectation of proving our worth

16:30 Exploring human exceptionalism

20:00 Conditional enough-ness

26:00 Concepts from human exceptionalism

30:00 Fear of death and immortality

34:00 Moving from abstract to embodied

42:30 Attentiveness to our community

53:00 The repression of forced politeness

59:15 An appreciation for directness

1:06:00 Summary and what is a good life for Aadita?