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  • Case Kenny: How to Become an Optimist

    Case Kenny: How to Become an Optimist
    2025/09/16
    In honor of Back-to-School season, throughout September, Everyday Better is sharing conversations inspired by the essential life skills we didn’t learn in school, but should have. This week on the show, mindfulness educator Case Kenny explains how we can change our mindsets and find a more optimistic outlook. If you watch the news, you won’t find much to be optimistic about. To realists, optimism might seem like denying reality. But in this conversation, you’ll hear why optimism isn’t about burying our heads in the sand; instead, it’s a learnable skill you can use to find more agency amidst chaos and build trust in yourself, your community, and the world. In this week’s episode of Everyday Better, Case shares what optimism really is and how we can authentically cultivate it in ourselves. He explains why changing our mindsets starts with addressing our self-talk and how we can learn to challenge negative beliefs. You can find Case’s new book The Opposite of Settling here. If you liked this episode, check out our conversation with cognitive scientist Maya Shankar on navigating life’s biggest transitions. Follow Leah Smart and Case Kenny on LinkedIn.
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    37 分
  • Maya Shankar: How to Navigate Life’s Biggest Transitions

    Maya Shankar: How to Navigate Life’s Biggest Transitions
    2025/09/09
    In honor of Back-to-School season, throughout September, Everyday Better is sharing conversations inspired by the essential life skills we didn’t learn in school, but should have. This week on the show, cognitive scientist and host of the podcast A Slight Change of Plans, Maya Shankar, reveals what happens to us when we encounter unexpected and unwanted changes in our lives. Finding a way to deal with disappointment, shock and unwanted change is one of the most quintessential skills of adulthood. So why do so few of us know how to do it? Even Maya—who studies change—found herself at a loss when she realized that her lifelong dream of becoming a mother might never be realized. In her conversation with Leah, Maya shares the psychological reasons why we all resist change and how we can learn to navigate events that stir up grief, shake our identities and change our realities. Pre-order May’s forthcoming book The Other Side of Change: Who We Become When Life Makes Other Plans here. Follow Leah Smart and Maya Shankar on LinkedIn.
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    31 分
  • Esther Perel: How to Balance Work, Family, and Fulfillment

    Esther Perel: How to Balance Work, Family, and Fulfillment
    2025/09/02
    In honor of Back-to-School season, throughout September, Everyday Better is sharing conversations inspired by the essential life skills we didn’t learn in school, but should have. This week on the show, world-renowned psychotherapist Esther Perel diagnoses our cultural obsession with work and offers a path forward. As children, we’re taught to measure ourselves by gold stars and report cards, and many of us carry those lessons into adulthood. For countless Americans, work has become the center of our identities, communities, and our source of meaning and belonging. In a time of uncertainty and shifting priorities, Leah and Esther sat down to explore how, in a culture that worships our careers, we can cultivate a healthier relationship to our work. Esther shares how major life transitions like becoming a parent can reshape our ambitions and offers practical tools for navigating conflict at work and building stronger human connections in an increasingly contactless world. If you’ve ever felt like your worth is tied to your work performance, or if you’re struggling to balance career ambitions with other life priorities, this conversation will help you rethink what success truly means. If you liked this episode, you’ll also love this one: How to Stop Fighting About Work With Dr. Alexandra Solomon. Follow Leah Smart and Esther Perel on LinkedIn.
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    35 分
  • The Enneagram: A Path to Discovering Who You Really Are

    The Enneagram: A Path to Discovering Who You Really Are
    2025/08/26
    Bea Chestnut is a psychotherapist, consultant and globally-recognized expert on the enneagram, a personality typing system based on ancient spiritual traditions. For the past 27 years, Bea has studied, written about and taught the enneagram in both therapeutic and business settings. She uses it as a map for guiding her clients towards a deeper understanding of themselves and others. On this week’s episode of Everyday Better, we are bringing back one of our favorites: Leah and Bea’s deep dive into the enneagram – what it is, where it comes from and how it can be used to raise your level of awareness. Bea describes each of the nine enneagram types, including each type’s growth path for reaching a higher level of consciousness. She also shares how she discovered the enneagram and explains why she thinks it’s one of the most powerful personal development tools in the world. If you liked this episode, you’ll also love this one: The Enneagram at Work: Leveling Up Your Leadership Skills. For more on the enneagram, check out Bea’s book The Enneagram Guide to Waking Up: Find Your Path, Face Your Shadow, Discover Your True Self. Follow Leah Smart and Bea Chestnut on LinkedIn.
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    55 分
  • Why Learning To Disappoint People Is the Key to an Authentic Life

    Why Learning To Disappoint People Is the Key to an Authentic Life
    2025/08/19
    On paper, Amber Rae had a dream life: she lived in Mexico with her husband and business partner. She was a budding memoirist and a speaker, teaching people how to be true to themselves and find emotional clarity. But beneath the surface, Amber felt disconnected and unfulfilled. Then one day she woke up. She realized she had built her entire life around the expectations of others and she set out to do something different. This week on Everyday Better, Amber shares her story of dismantling her old life in the pursuit of authenticity, breaking free from people-pleasing and learning to disappoint others along the way. She explains why disappointing others isn’t selfish, but instead a learnable skill we can use to live in alignment with our true selves. If you liked this episode, you’ll also love this one: Warning: This Podcast Will Remind You of Your Mortality with Jodi Wellman. Get Amber’s book Loveable: One Woman’s Path from Good to Free here. Follow Leah Smart and Amber Rae on LinkedIn.
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    38 分
  • What Your Self-Talk Says About You, and How To Change It

    What Your Self-Talk Says About You, and How To Change It
    2025/08/12
    Have you ever made a mistake and immediately thought, “I’m so stupid, what’s wrong with me?” Suddenly, you’re not just seeing a mistake, you’re facing a wall of shame, anxiety, distress and procrastination. Today, Leah and therapist Kimberley Quinlan discuss why being hard on yourself won’t actually make you perform any better, and how we can use self-compassion as a tool for recovering from a failure and moving faster towards our goals. Kimberley guides Leah through a test developed by Dr. Kristin Neff to measure how much self-compassion Leah actually has in challenging moments. Follow along with them, and write down your own answers to the questions to see where you fall on the self-compassion scale. If you liked this episode, you’ll also love this one: Everything You Think You Know About Happiness Is Wrong. Follow Leah Smart and Kimberley Quinlan ⁠on LinkedIn.
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    39 分
  • You Are the Author: How to Rewrite Your Most Difficult Chapters

    You Are the Author: How to Rewrite Your Most Difficult Chapters
    2025/08/05
    As humans, we’re natural storytellers. The stories we tell shape how we see ourselves, others and the world around us. But not all of our stories are helpful — some keep us trapped in cycles of fear, blame or regret. In this week’s episode, Leah shares a simple exercise from grief expert David Kessler to help you investigate how you tell your stories and rewrite the ones keeping you stuck. Using three examples from her own life, Leah breaks down her narratives, separating fact from fiction and discovering more empowering versions of her stories. To go deeper, check out David Kessler’s Finding Meaning: The Sixth Stage of Grief Workbook, which includes this and other tools for healing and reflection. Listen to Leah’s full conversation with David ⁠here⁠.
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    20 分
  • The Science-Backed Tool for Reducing Stress You’ve Probably Never Tried

    The Science-Backed Tool for Reducing Stress You’ve Probably Never Tried
    2025/07/29
    When author and entrepreneur Nick Ortner first discovered tapping, he had no idea the impact it would have on his life. Nearly two decades later, he’s helped millions manage stress, anxiety, chronic pain and other physical and mental health challenges using the research-backed practice also known as Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT). This week, Nick joins Leah to break down the science behind tapping, how it targets the brain’s stress response and why naming the negative emotions we carry with us is the first step to letting those emotions go. He also guides Leah through a short tapping exercise you can follow along with, and explains how tapping can be used in conjunction with other tools like meditation, therapy and mindfulness to support your mental and emotional well-being. If you liked this episode, you’ll also love this one: Can't Meditate? Just Breathe with JP Crimi Follow ⁠Leah Smart⁠ and ⁠Nick Ortner⁠ on LinkedIn.
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    40 分