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 instead
• The three Good Life Buckets framework (Vitality, Connection, Contribution) as a practical audit tool, not an abstract idea
• Two ways a bucket drains that most driven, successful people never see coming: the leak and the missing refill
• Why the most dangerous bucket is often not the one that aches, but the one filling and draining at the same time
• Three reckoning questions that surface something more honest than any goal list you've ever written
• Why so many of us would rather stay tired and certain than rested and unsure, and what it actually costs us

This 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 Transcript

Next 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 Wheel
• Visit Our Sponsor Page For Great Resources & Discount Codes

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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 them
• The five defensive moves parents make that almost always make things worse, including why fighting for fairness is the most damaging trap of all
• What a genuinely healing apology actually sounds like, and why most apologies miss the mark entirely
• Why radical acceptance and hope are not opposites, and how to hold both at the same time
• How the principles of repair transfer to sibling estrangements and to grandparents cut off from grandchildren

If 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 Transcript

Next 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 Wheel
• Visit Our Sponsor Page For Great Resources & Discount Codes

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Here is something most people never see coming: the hardest part of caring for an aging parent is not the logistics. It is the grief. The grief for who your parent used to be, for the life you thought you would be living by now, and for the version of yourself that is quietly disappearing inside a role you never planned to fill. Couple that with being there for kids, even adult kids, and it can feel like a lot.

Candace Dellacona is a New York City estate attorney known as "a family's lawyer," advising families, athletes, and entertainers on estate planning, asset protection, and the full arc of what it takes to navigate a family through its most vulnerable seasons. Not just the logistics, but also the many, more nuanced shifts in identity, relationships, and responsibilities. She is also a member of the sandwich generation herself, which is what led her to launch The Sandwich Generation Survival Guide podcast. She brings both the legal expertise and the lived experience to this conversation.

What you will explore in this conversation:

• Why the sandwich generation is far broader than you think, and why it applies to you even if your parents are healthy right now, or your kids are grown
• The four shifts that happen inside you during a caregiving season, identity, ownership, grief, and loneliness, and why we almost never talk about them
• Why the conversations about aging, death, and documents are almost always saved for the worst possible moment, and how to have them earlier in a way that actually feels like love
• The three-person team that can change everything, and what each one actually does
• The unexpected beauty that enters the equation in a caregiving season, the reconciliation, the closeness, the chance to usher someone you love through

If you have a parent who is still healthy and you have never had a real conversation about what happens if that changes, this one is for you.

You can find Candace at: Website | The Sandwich Generation Survival Guide Podcast | LinkedIn | Episode Transcript

Next week, I am sitting down with Dr. Joshua Coleman, a psychologist who has spent years studying something that is reshaping American families in ways most of us have not fully reckoned with: family estrangement. Why it is rising, what is actually driving it, and what to do if you are on either side of it. Be sure to follow Good Life Project wherever you get your podcasts so you do not miss it.

Check out our offerings & partners:

• Join My New Writing Project: Awake at the Wheel
• Visit Our Sponsor Page For Great Resources & Discount Codes

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.