Dr. Ellen Langer has been asking that question for over 40 years. As the first woman tenured in Harvard's psychology department and the author of 13 books — including Mindfulness and The Mindful Body — she has built one of the most compelling bodies of research in modern psychology. And her central argument is both simple and quietly radical: most of us are sleepwalking through our own lives, operating on autopilot, following rules we never wrote, and accepting limits we never tested.

In this conversation, Ellen and Shaun explore what it actually means to be mindful — not in the meditation-cushion sense, but in the radical, moment-to-moment act of noticing. She shares the now-famous Counterclockwise Study, where elderly men lived as their younger selves for one week and showed measurable improvements in vision, hearing, strength, and memory. She describes her Attention to Symptom Variability treatment for chronic illness — a protocol so simple it can run on your smartphone. And she unpacks why forgiveness, as most of us practice it, actually requires blame — and why understanding someone is a far more powerful alternative.

There's also the story that changed everything for Ellen: a horse that ate a hot dog. It's the moment she realized that what we're certain of is often just a conclusion we stopped examining. From that insight, she built a career around one principle — everything is always changing, and the moment you notice that, your whole relationship with health, identity, limits, and possibility shifts.

If you've ever followed a rule without knowing who wrote it, accepted a verdict without questioning whether it still applies, or assumed you know what you know — this episode is going to shake something loose. In the best possible way.

KEY TOPICS COVERED

• Mindfulness without meditation: What it actually is and why uncertainty is the entry point
• The Counterclockwise Study: How one week of living 'younger' changed measurable physical outcomes
• Behavior makes sense from the actor's perspective: The reframe that transforms relationships
• Why forgiveness requires blame — and what to do instead
• Attention to Symptom Variability: Ellen's treatment for chronic illness you can run on your phone
• The horse and the hot dog: The moment Ellen's research trajectory changed forever
• Mindful finance: Why the rules around money may not have been written for you
• Mindful schools: Ellen's current mission to flatten the vertical hierarchy of intelligence

MEMORABLE QUOTES

"I don't want you to forgive me. I want you to understand me." 📍 00:10:51

"Everything I thought I knew could be wrong. And for me, since I know I'm bizarre, that was actually a fun thought — because it meant all sorts of things were possible." 📍 00:16:55

"Virtually all of us are mindless almost all the time." 📍 00:41:39

"When you're mindless, you're no different from robots. And if you say to yourself, is a robot happy? Of course not." 📍 00:46:44

"The most important thing is that it's very easy to be mindful. All you need to do is know you don't know — and that's okay. And then you learn." 📍 00:54:13

ABOUT DR. ELLEN LANGER

Dr. Ellen Langer is a professor of psychology at Harvard University and the first woman to be tenured in Harvard's psychology department. For over four decades, she has studied the profound costs of mindlessness — and the equally profound benefits of what she calls mindfulness: not a meditation practice, but a way of being in the world defined by active noticing and an appreciation of uncertainty.

Her research has touched everything from aging and chronic illness to business, education, and the mind-body connection. In her landmark Counterclockwise Study, she demonstrated that the mind's perception of age could reverse measurable physical decline in elderly men over just one week. Her current work includes building mindful schools and developing psychological treatments for chronic conditions including MS, chronic pain, Parkinson's, and TBI — all grounded in the simple act of paying attention to what changes.

She is also a gallery-exhibiting painter, the author of 13 books including the bestselling Mindfulness (25th anniversary edition), Counterclockwise, and The Mindful Body — and someone who, by her own admission, wakes up happy every single day.

CONNECT WITH DR. ELLEN LANGER

• Website: https://www.ellenlanger.me/
• The Mindful Body — available at Penguin Random House
• Counterclockwise — available at Penguin Random House
• Mindfulness (25th Anniversary Edition) — available on Amazon

That's the thread running through this conversation. Alastair spent his twenties chasing scale — the bigger, the harder, the more extreme. Now at 49, he's after something different: depth. Noticing. The difference between knowing a place and actually seeing it.

We talk about money in a way most financial conversations don't. What happens when a million dollars becomes worthless? (He knows — it happened in the middle of the Atlantic.) What does voluntary poverty teach you about what you actually need? And what does it mean to live a rich life if money isn't the only currency?

This is also a conversation about what we're afraid of. Not the ocean. Not the bears. But the Tuesday. The obligation. The sense that the life we've carefully built might be the one thing standing between us and the life we actually wanted. Alastair doesn't push anyone to walk off a cliff. He suggests something harder: start smaller. Go outside. Climb a tree. Notice the season.

KEY TOPICS COVERED

• The Bruce Springsteen opening — what concerts reveal about community and joy
• The difference between what adventures teach you vs. what repetition teaches you
• The gain/loss framework: what you find and what you leave behind on a 4-year solo journey
• Why a million dollars was worthless in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean
• Perceived risk vs. real risk — and the one thing that actually keeps you safe
• Microadventures and the 5-to-9 framework for reclaiming everyday life
• The tree he's been climbing once a month for three years — and what it taught him
• Walking across Spain with a violin he couldn't play — and the one coin that changed everything
• Money as freedom: the two ways to live a rich life
• Home as an unanswered question — and the book it might become

MEMORABLE QUOTES

"I gained a huge amount of skills and general knowledge facts for pub quizzes... But I very much enjoyed the reduction part of going from having a normal life at home to then just all the stuff I could fit on my bicycle." 📍 13:19

"I would have paid a million dollars. Literally a million dollars... for that pillow and that fan. But equally, if I had suddenly had a million dollars of cash on that boat — completely and utterly worthless." 📍 16:08

"A lot of us who are not really living each day as though it's a ticking down finite number of days. We're sort of trundling along, assuming that at some point we will suddenly burst into life." 📍 25:23

"I think a more useful question is what would the old version of you say to you today? Because that's actionable wisdom that you can actually do something about." 📍 07:57

"There's two ways to live a rich life. You can either have loads of money or you can not spend much money. And the overall result was similar." 📍 54:04

"I want to be out in a beautiful, wild place now — but I can't because I've got to go to the supermarket. So the way I've been trying to help myself cope with that is by having what you mentioned as micro adventures." 📍 30:29

ABOUT ALASTAIR HUMPHREYS

Alastair Humphreys was named a National Geographic Adventurer of the Year and has spent the better part of two decades doing things that sound impossible until he explains why they aren't. He cycled around the world for four years starting at age 24, rowing the Atlantic, crossing deserts, and walking across India. He has written more than 13 books on adventure, mindset, and the human need to explore.

But what makes Alastair's work matter beyond the expeditions is the Microadventures movement — his argument that adventure is not a privilege of the extreme, the wealthy, or the fit. It's available to anyone, from their own front door, in the hours between 5pm and 9am. His upcoming book, Unwilded, extends this philosophy into the natural world: how we reconnect to the land we live on before it disappears.

He lives in England with his family, climbs a tree once a month, and still hasn't satisfactorily answered what he's going to do for the next 60 years of his life.

RESOURCES MENTIONED

• A Squash and a Squeeze by Julia Donaldson — the children's book Alastair references about learning to appreciate what you have
• As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning by Laurie Lee — the book that inspired his violin-in-Spain adventure
• Stoicism (Marcus Aurelius, Seneca) — the philosophy Alastair returns to when frustrated with ordinary life
• deathclock.com — the website Alastair uses as a deadline reminder (he has his death date in Google Calendar)
• Bruce Springsteen's South by Southwest keynote speech — worth reading online

What emerges in this conversation is a portrait of a man who has spent his entire life operating from a simple and radical belief: if you can see it before it exists, you can build it. Not as a motivational slogan — as a daily practice. DDP describes turning down a teaching career at 24, attempting to break into wrestling in his early 30s through sheer creative persistence (including a homemade tape that got him noticed by Paul Heyman), and eventually rebuilding his body and career after a devastating back injury at 42.

The conversation moves through territory most Hall of Famers don't touch. DDP talks openly about energy as a finite resource, about the cost of always being 'on,' and about why he still does what he does even though he's made more money than he'll ever spend. The answer — that helping others change their lives is the most selfish thing he does, because it fills him up — is one of the most honest things said on this show.

He also talks about time. Standing under the stars in Bora Bora for his 70th birthday, watching satellites move across the sky, thinking about how brief all of this is. 'We're a blip,' he says. And yet the work continues. Because the work, for DDP, is the point.

KEY TOPICS COVERED

• The Jersey Shore music scene: How watching Springsteen and Bon Jovi night after night taught DDP everything about energy, commitment, and leaving it all on the stage.

• Building the Diamond Dallas Page character: How a leopard skin jacket, a local TV segment, and a radio appearance to meet Captain Lou Albano became the unlikely origin of one of wrestling's most beloved personas.

• Starting at 35: The homemade tape, Paul Heyman, and the AWA — and why DDP's late start made him more relentless, not less.

• Belief before evidence: The philosophy that separates people who build things from people who only watch — 'I believe it because I see it' vs 'I'll believe it when I see it.'

• DDP Yoga origin: Breaking his back at 42 and creating a program that now has over 500 workouts and has helped hundreds of thousands of people reclaim their mobility.

• What the work gives back: Why DDP says helping others is 'selfish' — because nothing fills him up the same way.

• Time, money, and energy: A rare honest accounting of how DDP thinks about his finite resources as he approaches 70 — and why time is the only one he actually guards.

• The long game: Eight years of building before it became an 'overnight' sensation — and what that teaches about discipline, consistency, and commitment.

MEMORABLE QUOTES

"There's only one person that has to believe in you at anything and that's you." 📍 17:13

"The people who say I believe it when I see it — those people never see shit. But the people who say I believe it because I see it — those are the game changers." 📍 1:10:15

"Never underestimate the power you give someone by believing in them. More importantly, never underestimate the power you give yourself by believing in you." 📍 1:20:08

"I've never gotten off the mat and thought to myself, phew, I wish I didn't do that." 📍 1:21:35

"You can get whatever you want as long as you're willing to help people get what they want." 📍 1:16:34

"It took eight years for DDP Yoga to become an overnight sensation." 📍 1:11:12

ABOUT DIAMOND DALLAS PAGE

Diamond Dallas Page spent his twenties and early thirties running some of the most successful nightclubs in New Jersey and Florida. He was a natural entertainer — a connector, a performer, a man who knew how to read a room. But there was something else he wanted, something that seemed, by any reasonable measure, impossible. He wanted to be a professional wrestler. At 35.

What followed was not an overnight success story. It was eight years of creative persistence, several false starts, a broken back, and a complete reinvention — not once, but twice. DDP became a WWE Hall of Famer on his own terms. Then, at 42, he broke his back and was told it would define the rest of his life. Instead, it became the origin of DDP Yoga — a program that has since reached hundreds of thousands of people, including Jake 'The Snake' Roberts and Scott Hall, whose transformations are documented in the viral documentary 'Change or Die.'

Today, approaching 70, DDP is still on the mat every morning. Still building. Still helping people get off the couch, out of wheelchairs, and back into their lives.

CONNECT WITH DDP

• 🌐 Website: https://www.diamonddallaspage.com/

RESOURCES MENTIONED

• 'Change or Die' — documentary series featuring Jake The Snake Roberts, Scott Hall, Mick Foley

• Zig Ziglar — 'You can get whatever you want as long as you're willing to help people get what they want'

• Stone Pony, Asbury Park NJ — legendary venue in the Springsteen story

That dissonance sent Elizabeth on a 20-year journey — from studying economics at Tulane, to teaching indigenous women in Oaxaca how to build savings cooperatives, to a moment of being completely lost in a remote Mexican village where she first felt what “enough” actually feels like in the body. It wasn’t an intellectual insight. It was somatic — a shift beneath the fear, beneath the panic, into a deeper holding she didn’t know existed.

That experience led her to Schumacher College in the UK, where an elder named Satish Kumar told her to go back to the root word of economics — “management of the household” — and go within. She’s been sitting with that instruction ever since. She built a career as a financial advisor, co-founded Peak 360, wrote The Power of Enough (with a foreword by Lynn Twist), and developed the Wealth Mandala — a practical tool that maps human needs far beyond the financial stability slice of the pie.

This conversation is for anyone who has “enough” on paper but feels poor somewhere they can’t name. Elizabeth doesn’t offer platitudes. She offers a mirror — and a practice. Because as she puts it, you don’t go to the gym on January 1st and say you’re done for the year. Your relationship with money works the same way.

KEY TOPICS COVERED

1. Lynn Twist & The Foreword: How Elizabeth spent 20 years tracking down her mentor, joined a six-month workshop, traveled to the Amazon, and ultimately sat in Lynn’s living room on launch day to record her reading the foreword aloud.
2. Growing Up in New Orleans: How a city that celebrates everything — crawfish fest, jazz funerals, po’boys on the porch — taught her about non-monetary wealth before she had the words for it.
3. Oaxaca & The Reversal: Going to Mexico as the economics expert to teach indigenous women about savings cooperatives, and discovering they were richer than anyone she knew back home.
4. The Moment of Being Lost: A walk outside a remote village that turned into a panic — and then a somatic awakening about what lies beneath scarcity when you let yourself soften.
5. Financial DNA & Inherited Scarcity: How her grandfather’s wartime survival instinct became her father’s “no before yes” and her own complicated relationship with money as an entrepreneur.
6. Conversations With Money: The gestalt chair exercise where you speak to money, money speaks back, and you discover whether your relational style is anger, avoidance, or grasping.
7. The Wealth Mandala: A free tool that maps 12 human needs — not just financial stability — so you can see your actual wealth portfolio and where you feel poverty beyond money.
8. The 30-Day Satiation Challenge: A simple nightly practice of writing three things that satisfied you, building awareness of what’s already working before trying to fix what isn’t.

MEMORABLE QUOTES

“I had the privilege of knowing what enoughness felt like in my body before I understood what it meant in my brain.”

“Wealth and money are not the same thing. Money’s a tool. Wealth is a state of well-being.”

“God damn it, money, where have you been my whole life?”

“There was a sense of scarcity that had nothing to do with financial stability, but had everything to do with the need for safety. The need for belonging.”

ABOUT ELIZABETH HUSSERL

Elizabeth Husserl is a registered investment advisor, Certified Money Coach, and co-founder of Peak360 Wealth Management — a boutique wealth planning firm built on the radical idea that wealth is a state of well-being, not a number. She holds a B.S. in Economics from Tulane University and an M.A. in East-West Psychology from the California Institute of Integral Studies, where she also served as an adjunct professor. She holds the Series 6, 63, and 65 licenses.

Her book, The Power of Enough: Finding Joy in Your Relationship with Money, is a 20-year distillation of what she learned about scarcity, satiation, and what it actually means to feel wealthy — informed by her multi-generational story spanning Austria, Colombia, New Orleans, and the Bay Area. Lynn Twist, author of The Soul of Money, wrote the foreword. The book has been featured in Forbes, Oprah Daily, The Guardian, Yahoo Finance, and WBUR’s Here and Now.

Elizabeth is a highly sought-after speaker who has presented at Wisdom 2.0 (Los Angeles and San Francisco) and led workshops at Airbnb, Unity, and Google. She brings a mandala to a spreadsheet industry. She dances Zumba every Thursday morning during work hours because she knows that’s the strategy that keeps her grounded. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband, daughter, and two cats.

CONNECT WITH ELIZABETH HUSSERL

1. Website: https://elizabethhusserl.com/
2. Book: The Power of Enough (also available as an audiobook read by Elizabeth)
3. Instagram: @elizabethhusserl

RESOURCES MENTIONED

1. The Soul of Money by Lynn Twist
2. Small is Beautiful by E.F. Schumacher
3. Manfred Max Neif — Chilean economist, work on human needs and satisfiers
4. Satish Kumar — activist, writer, and founder of Schumacher College
5. The Wealth Mandala — free download at elizabethhusserl.com
6. Abraham Maslow — hierarchy of human needs
7. Sophia Sisters — workshop program by Lynn Twist
8. The Remarkable Women’s Journey — immersive journey to the Amazon with Lynn Twist
9. Vandana Shiva — environmental activist mentioned at Schumacher College

Dr. Mandich holds three degrees from Western University — all three hooded by her mother, who earned her own PhD while raising seven children in nine years and then went on to serve as Vice Provost and Dean of Health Sciences at Western. The image of those two women standing together in matching regalia, same institution, same arc — tells you everything about where Gillian's sense of what's possible comes from.

But this conversation isn't a credentials parade. It opens with Jocko — her 41-pound French bulldog who models for Canada Pooch, refuses to walk in boots, and volunteers in crisis and critical care at CAMH every Tuesday. And through Jocko, Gillian surfaces something the research keeps confirming: that the moments we rush past are often the ones that matter most. Savoring. Weak ties. The chin rest of a dog who somehow always knows when you need him.

The harder conversation is about happiness itself — and what the research actually says, which turns out to be more complicated than most people want to hear. Trying to be happy all the time makes you less happy. The struggle isn't an obstacle to a good life; it might be the mechanism. And money — which she calls 'a Trojan horse into a much bigger conversation' — is something she's personally wrestled with: the guilt of non-linear income, the story she inherited about what work is supposed to cost, the first vacation in her adult life where she didn't open her laptop for ten days.

She's now integrating happiness research into CBT at the University of Manitoba's psychiatry department — arguing that well-being is more than the absence of mental illness — and writing a book she keeps rethinking, because the more she sits with it, the more she believes that telling someone how to be happy is actually disempowering. What she can do is point the compass. The rest is yours.

KEY TOPICS COVERED

• Jocko's two jobs and what a dog teaches a happiness researcher about slowing down

• Savoring: Barbara Fredrickson's micro moments and why little things aren't small

• Her mother hooding her three times at Western — and the layered meaning of that moment

• Ikigai and what happens to identity when work ends

• The dark side of happiness: why trying too hard backfires

• Post-traumatic growth as a reframe for what struggle can do

• Broaden and build: the 1998 theory that changed how we understand resilience

• The morning routine trap and the grace she finally gave herself

• Integrating happiness with CBT in psychiatry — and why that's still a radical idea

• Her personal relationship with money: guilt, non-linear income, and the first real vacation

• Happiness as a practice, not a destination — and what that reframe changes

MEMORABLE QUOTES

"I'm a happiness researcher and I am not happy all the time, but nor do I wish to be." 📍 00:18:03

"A happy life doesn't mean that hard things don't happen. It means that as we start to build our happiness muscle, our highs get higher." 📍 00:19:03

"It's not that the weights get lighter. You get stronger." 📍 00:19:41

"Happiness is a Trojan horse into a much bigger conversation about emotional resilience and psychological flexibility." 📍 00:44:17

"I had this constant, like, gingivitis-level guilt — that low-grade guilt about I should be doing more all the time." 📍 00:48:46

"I think I'd be like, in a committed relationship — not married yet." 📍 00:59:30

ABOUT DR. GILLIAN MANDICH

Dr. Gillian Mandich is a happiness researcher, founder of the International Happiness Institute, and one of Canada's most prominent voices on the science of living well. She holds three degrees from Western University in health science — and her mother, a former Vice Provost and Dean at Western who earned her own PhD while raising seven children in nine years, hooded her at all three convocations.

Gillian started her career studying childhood obesity, pivoted when she discovered happiness was a science, and spent the next decade building the case that emotional wellbeing and physical health are inseparable. She's appeared on The Social, Breakfast Television, and two TEDx stages, and is now integrating happiness research with CBT in the psychiatry department at the University of Manitoba.

She lives in downtown Toronto with Jocko — a 41-pound French bulldog who volunteers in crisis and critical care at CAMH every Tuesday, models for Canada Pooch, and has his own calendar. She started at a grocery store cashier at 15. She still knows the code for bananas. It's 4011.

RESOURCES MENTIONED

• Barbara Fredrickson — Broaden and Build Theory (1998)

• Daniel Kahneman — 'happy in your life' vs 'happy with your life'

• Ikigai — Japanese concept meaning 'reason for living'

• CBT Hub, University of Manitoba — free 6-week CBT course (Manitoba residents)

• Melissa Leong — referenced from a previous YouPotential episode

• Hawksley Workman — musician, previous YouPotential guest

• Angela Duckworth — mentioned (new book referenced)

• Canada Pooch — dog brand (Jocko's modeling client)

This conversation traces the invisible thread from a wartime restaurant kitchen to a PhD in Elizabethan drama to one of the world’s leading voices on coaching and positive psychology. Along the way, Christian reveals how the Japanese concept of Mizushobai (“water business”) encoded a scarcity mindset he still carries, how his mother’s insistence on a chest freezer in England told the story of a lifetime of uncertainty, and how saving five-pound notes for fifteen years became a permission ritual he didn’t know he needed.

The emotional center of this episode is a single coaching question: “What’s stopping you?” When Christian’s coach asked him why he hadn’t ridden Route 66 on a Harley Davidson — a dream he’d held since age thirteen watching CHiPs in Beirut — he eliminated every excuse until only the real answer remained: he wasn’t giving himself permission. The man who teaches others to live their best life almost didn’t live his.

If you’ve ever felt like you’re waiting for someone to tell you it’s okay to do the thing you’ve always wanted to do — this conversation is for you.

MEMORABLE QUOTES

“I grew up in a war zone. I grew up in Beirut, Lebanon, and there’d be shelling and bombing and whatever else going on. And I just loved the way that music can transport you.”

02:24

“When I’m thinking or speaking in Japanese, I think differently. I think with more humility. I think with more care about how my words are gonna land with others.”

11:42

“She said, if you want this restaurant, it’s yours. But she also said, if you want to do your own thing, you can do it. And without that conversation, I would have never done anything else.”

18:50

“I always have had this idea of we need every opportunity, I have to take it. You can’t turn down an opportunity. It affects me even today.”

35:48

“She did say, I’ve brought this with me, haven’t I? This idea of just in case, make sure you’ve got enough stuff to keep you going.”

38:36

“I wasn’t giving myself permission. The only thing stopping me.”

59:09

“Investing or looking after our own wellbeing is not an indulgence. And that’s probably why I wasn’t doing Route 66. It sounded too selfish.”

01:15:18

RESOURCES MENTIONED

1. Mizushobai — Japanese concept: “water business” (the unpredictability of restaurant income)
2. Moktainai — Japanese concept: “use everything, waste nothing”
3. Joyce, B. & Showers, B. (1983) — Coaching increases implementation by ~80%
4. CHiPs (TV series) — California Highway Patrol
5. The Lotus of Thriving (forthcoming) — Buddhism and coaching
6. Radical Listening — with Robert Biswas-Diener
7. Coach on a Motorcycle YouTube Channel

Her six-year-old whispered it in the dark: "Mommy, I think there's something wrong with me." He didn't love his old stuffies anymore. This episode will change how you think about every dollar you spend — and every dollar you don't.

EPISODE SUMMARY

Melissa Leong is one of Canada's most respected voices at the intersection of money and psychology. A journalist, speaker, and author of Happy Go Money, she's spent years unpacking why smart people make irrational financial decisions — and she starts with herself.

In this conversation, Melissa opens up about her inherited scarcity mindset — rooted in her Chinese-Canadian family's history of war, immigration, and a 70-year-old restaurant in Winnipeg's Chinatown. Her grandfather helped build that community and quietly funded a pagoda in one of Winnipeg's biggest parks. Her mother taught her that money was scarce, that you worked for every dollar, and that the expensive toilet paper was not for your family. These stories didn't stay in the past. They followed Melissa into adulthood, into her marriage, and into how she eats breakfast (leftover toast crusts, if you're wondering).

But the heart of this conversation isn't about scarcity. It's about the pause. Melissa makes a case that our spending is often not a budgeting failure — it's a neurological response to a system designed to hijack our reward systems. Dopamine doesn't reward having, it rewards seeking. One-click buy, frictionless spending, personalized ads that never sleep. And in the middle of all this, a six-year-old kid is already feeling the pull of hedonic adaptation — he just doesn't have words for it yet.

Shaun and Melissa explore how couples with opposite money stories can stay connected (her husband's abundance mindset vs. her scarcity lens), what it means to feel "enough" in a world that profits from your dissatisfaction, and why the happiest time of her life involved cockroaches, five dollars, and dollar dumplings in a basement apartment in Taiwan. This is one of those episodes that sneaks past your defenses and sits with you for days.

KEY TOPICS COVERED

1. Hedonic Adaptation in Real Time: How a six-year-old's stuffie confession reveals what's happening to all of us
2. The Dopamine Trap: Why spending isn't a willpower problem — it's a neurological one
3. Inherited Money Stories: How war, immigration, and family restaurants shape financial behavior generations later
4. The Grandfather's Legacy: Philanthropy, Chinatown, and what generosity really looks like
5. Couples and Money Conflict: When scarcity mindset marries abundance mindset — and the ongoing negotiation
6. The Pause: Why friction in spending is actually a health practice
7. Financial Socialization: What your kids learn about money from watching you (not from any course)
8. Enough: What it feels like, why we can't find it, and the meditation of okayness

MEMORABLE QUOTES

"When I get new stuffies, I don't like my old stuffies anymore."

Timestamp: [02:20]

"We are swimming in this system that is designed to hijack our reward systems."

Timestamp: [03:30]

"I don't think that you are being irresponsible. I think you're tired. I think you're overwhelmed. I think you are stressed. I think you're overstimulated."

Timestamp: [06:18]

"Money is just an accelerant. Money shows you who you are because you use it to navigate this world."

Timestamp: [11:08]

"Right now, in this exact moment, I am okay."

Timestamp: [51:12]

"I love you forever. My love is forever, which means wherever I am, and even if I'm not here, you will feel my love."

Timestamp: [01:17:01]

ABOUT MELISSA LEONG

Melissa Leong is a journalist, author, and speaker who has spent her career making money conversations feel human. She's the author of Happy Go Money, a book that bridges personal finance and the science of happiness. A former Financial Post reporter, she's appeared on screens across Canada bringing warmth and wit to a topic most people avoid.

But what makes Melissa different isn't her credentials — it's her honesty. She openly talks about eating her kids' leftover toast crusts instead of buying herself breakfast, about the scarcity mindset she inherited from immigrant parents who survived war, and about the ongoing money arguments with her husband that she expects will never fully resolve. She's not teaching from a pedestal. She's teaching from the kitchen table.

Melissa grew up in Winnipeg, where her grandfather helped build Chinatown and ran a restaurant for 70 years. She now lives with her husband and two kids (ages 6 and 10), a collection of stuffies in various states of abandonment, and an arcade game with a price tag that may never be fully disclosed.

CONNECT WITH MELISSA LEONG

1. Website: melissaleong.com
2. Book: Happy Go Money

RESOURCES MENTIONED

1. Happy Go Money by Melissa Leong
2. Daniel Kahneman's research on money and happiness
3. Hedonic adaptation research
4. Study: Living next to a lottery winner increases bankruptcy risk
5. 2020 study: Giving $10K to 200 people — those who spent on others were happier
6. Viktor Frankl — "Between stimulus and response there is a space"

ABOUT YOUPOTENTIAL

YouPotential explores what it means to live a meaningful life — through conversations about money, purpose, relationships, and becoming. Hosted by Shaun Maslyk.

"Sometimes it's not the answers we learn from — but the questions."

But this conversation goes deeper than career highlights. Craig opens up about what it feels like to be told your culture doesn’t matter—on Day 1, and then repeatedly over 40 years. He talks about the tension between the art he loves and the business that profits from it, and why he believes the industry has traded culture for content and creativity for process.

We explore how growing up in Toronto while spending formative years in Antigua gave him the cultural fluency that would later become his superpower. How fatherhood changed his lens on everything—including music. And what led him to co-found ADVANCE, Canada’s Black Music Business Collective, to ensure the next generation doesn’t face the same barriers he did.

The episode closes with Craig’s definition of a good life—borrowed from a friend’s simple but devastating observation: go to bed easy, wake up excited. It’s a conversation about what you refuse to compromise when the machine asks you to trade in everything you believe.

KEY TOPICS COVERED

1. Fatherhood and Legacy: How becoming a father at an older age reshaped Craig’s priorities and his relationship with golf, music, and time
2. Music vs. Music Culture: The critical distinction between what you hear and the lifestyle, community, and meaning that surrounds it
3. Cultural Roots: How formative years in Antigua and Toronto created a unique lens for navigating the music business
4. Industry Gatekeeping: Being told on Day 1 that Black music wouldn’t succeed in Canada—and proving them wrong with Wu-Tang, Biggie, and Sean Paul
5. The 10% Rule: Why the music industry runs on a 10% success rate for new signings and what that means for patience and vision
6. ADVANCE and Systemic Change: Co-founding Canada’s Black Music Business Collective and changing internship policies across the industry
7. The Culture Erosion: How stripping culture from music turns art into noise—and why the future belongs to bespoke, mid-level companies
8. Hip Hop and Money: The evolution from aspirational to layered—and the financial education gap that still plagues artists

MEMORABLE QUOTES

"I’m not going to put on skates. I’m not going to play basketball. But I’ll golf with you. And so that’s what we did." 📍 Timestamp: 01:23

"Once you have people handling it that don’t respect the culture around it, it just becomes noise." 📍 Timestamp: 08:41

"We’re selling art here. It’s much more nuanced than that. This is art. It’s living, breathing." 📍 Timestamp: 09:24

"Every successful artist you see right now charting, they had a 3 to 5 year journey to get there. I guarantee it." 📍 Timestamp: 21:13

"My series isn’t canceled." 📍 Timestamp: 01:05:27

ABOUT CRAIG MANNIX

Craig “Big C” Mannix is a Toronto-based music industry executive with over 30 years of experience shaping the Canadian music landscape. His career spans Virgin Records, EMI Music, Sony Music, and Universal Music Canada, where he rose to Vice President of Black Music—integrating marketing and A&R to champion Black Canadian artists.

Beyond his corporate career, Craig is a founding member of ADVANCE, Canada’s Black Music Business Collective, and co-chairs The Remix Project’s Board of Directors. He sits on the boards of Massey Hall and Roy Thomson Hall and represented Canada on Universal Music Group’s Task Force for Meaningful Change.

In 2025, Craig joined the CMRRA as an Industry Relations Consultant for Community Engagement while running Big Consulting, his own firm focused on artist development, marketing, and protecting the culture he’s spent a lifetime championing. He’s a father, a golfer, and a man who wants to go to bed easy and wake up excited.

ABOUT YOUPOTENTIAL

YouPotential explores what it means to live a meaningful life—through conversations about money, purpose, relationships, and becoming. Hosted by Shaun Dwyer Maslyk.

“Sometimes it’s not the answers we learn from—but the questions.”

What began as technology for tracking jelly bean flavor preferences became a tool for political micro-targeting — suppressing paragraphs in newsletters based on a voter's tracked behavior. When John refused to sell to Philip Morris, his sales team learned a simpler lesson: don't ask the boss. And when the White House called asking for 24-hour tech support so they could send an email at 2 a.m. to declare war in Iraq, John knew he'd crossed a line he couldn't uncross.

This conversation traces the full arc — from a childhood watching his parents buy a Porsche with a legal settlement while facing bankruptcy, to making $100,000 in shareware donations by age 18, to selling Lyris and creating Magnatune, a fair trade music company with legal provisions so radical his own lawyer resisted. Now in Hong Kong, John builds high-end espresso machines with Decent Espresso, trying to create something that outlives him — not because it makes money, but because it matters.

What emerges is a portrait of someone who has wrestled with money, morals, and meaning across a dozen companies and three decades — and arrived at a deceptively simple philosophy: always be ready to die next year.

KEY TOPICS COVERED

1. The White House call: How building email software led to being part of the war effort — and the moral reckoning that followed.
2. The slippery slope: How small compromises — feminist porn, political newsletters, tracking dots — compound until you wake up somewhere you never intended to be.
3. The Porsche story: A childhood financial flashpoint — watching his parents buy a Porsche with a legal settlement while facing bankruptcy — that shaped everything.
4. The $3 million rule: A VC's advice on the number you need to never work again, and why John didn't listen until it was almost too late.
5. Fair trade music: Building Magnatune with legal poison pills so no acquirer could corrupt its mission — and convincing his lawyer to draft agreements that screwed the founder.
6. Decent Espresso: Why giving someone a better cup of coffee in the morning became John's most meaningful venture.
7. BookMooch: Creating BitTorrent for books, processing 10 million books a month, and receiving three lawsuit threats from Amazon.
8. "Why employees suck": John's contrarian argument that productive people should quit and sell the fruits of their labor instead of their time.
9. The immigrant mindset: Growing up in France until age 10, arriving in the US without English, and choosing to be a nobody again in Hong Kong.
10. Legacy and enough: Trying to build something that lasts five years after you leave — and why that's harder than it sounds.

MEMORABLE QUOTES

"And I realized at that moment, I was gonna be part of the war effort." 📍 Timestamp: 05:39

"It is absolutely a slippery slope. So I had a rule, which was no porn, no politics. That was our rule. Otherwise, freedom of speech." 📍 Timestamp: 08:49

"They're about to go bankrupt. And they got a settlement and they bought a Porsche." 📍 Timestamp: 21:19

"I've got the moving quality outlook of a Frenchman, but the business acumen of an American. And thank God it's not in reverse." 📍 Timestamp: 29:44

"I'm glad I found my limit. It's much, much worse to have that, could have been a contender." 📍 Timestamp: 01:06:35

"Always be ready to die next year." 📍 Timestamp: 01:12:07

"You gotta live well now. Even if you're working your brains out, if you're having a bad day, you gotta figure out how to get out of that because this might be all you got left." 📍 Timestamp: 01:12:30

ABOUT JOHN BUCKMAN

John Buckman is a serial entrepreneur who has started over a dozen companies across email technology, music, publishing, and coffee. He built Lyris, email software that at its peak powered one third of the email on the internet, and sold it after the moral compromises of scale became untenable. He then created Magnatune, a fair trade music company with legally binding ethical provisions, and BookMooch, a book-swapping platform that processed 10 million books a month and drew legal threats from Amazon.

Now based in Hong Kong, John runs Decent Espresso, a high-end espresso machine company competing with billion-dollar Italian families. He has served on the boards of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Creative Commons. He grew up in France until age 10, didn't speak English until arriving in the US, and describes himself as having the quality-of-life outlook of a Frenchman with the business acumen of an American.

His guiding philosophy: always be ready to die next year.

But in this conversation, Dave reveals something unexpected: the retired teachers in his life seem happier than the ultra-wealthy. And he wouldn't trade places with any of them.

What unfolds is a masterclass in gratitude, grounding, and what Dave calls "enoughness" — a disposition he admits he was lucky to be born with, but one we can all cultivate. He shares how his 93-year-old father's philosophy of radical acceptance shaped him, why he never changed his friend groups despite his success, and the one thing that still "knocks him backward" after all these years: the speed of time.

This isn't a conversation about money management. It's about what money can never manage — our relationships, our contentment, and our sense of enough.

KEY TOPICS COVERED

1. Tiger Stadium and three-generation bonding: How Dave's most powerful memory involves his father, grandfather, and the Detroit Tigers
2. The speed of time: Why this is the only thing that disrupts Dave's positive disposition
3. Great parent privilege: Dave's reflection on the advantage of loving parents
4. Staying grounded through success: Why he never changed friend groups and what that taught him
5. Billionaires vs. retired teachers: His observation that moderate wealth + good relationships = more happiness
6. The enoughness mindset: Why Dave has no interest in becoming a billionaire
7. His father's acceptance philosophy: "What has happened has happened — get to acceptance quickly"
8. Homeschooling and parenting: Trading opportunity for presence with his kids
9. Friends are family: The frame that's guided his most important relationships
10. Spending summaries: Why this simple tool creates the biggest ripple effect in financial planning

MEMORABLE QUOTES

"I've got friends who are ridiculously wealthy, like literally billionaires in some cases. And then I've got all my friends who tend to be teachers, retired teachers. I find that the latter group tends to be happier." 📍 Timestamp: 17:02

"I wouldn't even want to be a billionaire, by the way. I have no interest in that. I don't want a lot. I find stuff weighs you down." 📍 Timestamp: 18:42

"The only thing that tends to knock me backward is the speed of time. I do find it dismaying." 📍 Timestamp: 04:08

"You never lose your temper ever and are glad after the fact you did." 📍 Timestamp: 38:27

"Friends are family. And that's how I've always thought of my friends — that we're a family." 📍 Timestamp: 01:12:03

ABOUT DAVE CHILTON

Dave Chilton is a Canadian author, entrepreneur, and financial educator best known for The Wealthy Barber, which has sold over 3 million copies since its original publication in 1989. The book pioneered a storytelling approach to personal finance that made complex concepts accessible to everyday readers.

Dave appeared as a Dragon on CBC's Dragons' Den from 2011-2015 and has invested in numerous Canadian businesses. Despite his success, he still lives in a small house in Wellesley, Ontario, drives a Jeep with 120,000 kilometers on it (full of dog hair, he'll tell you), and measures his wealth primarily in relationships.

His 2025 updated edition of The Wealthy Barber brings his timeless principles to a new generation facing very different financial realities — and reminds us all that the psychology of money matters more than the math.

CONNECT WITH DAVE CHILTON

🌐 Website: thewealthybarber.com 📖 Book: The Wealthy Barber (2025 Updated Edition) — available at Indigo, independent bookstores, and thewealthybarber.com 🎧 Audiobook: thewealthybarber.com (read by Dave himself)

RESOURCES MENTIONED

1. The Wealthy Barber (2025 Updated Edition) by Dave Chilton
2. The Wealthy Barber Returns by Dave Chilton
3. Spending summaries — the simple tool Dave calls "the best starting point"

ABOUT YOUPOTENTIAL

YouPotential explores what it means to live a meaningful life — through conversations about money, purpose, relationships, and becoming. Hosted by Shaun Dwyer Maslyk.

"Sometimes it's not the answers we learn from — but the questions."

She had the beach house, the golden parachute, and all the time in the world. By 40, Marianne Oehser was living the dream. So why did it nearly destroy her marriage — and send her running back to work?

EPISODE SUMMARY

Marianne Oehser doesn't like the word "retirement." And after hearing her story, you'll understand why.

At 40, Marianne and her former husband both received golden parachutes after a hostile takeover. They had just built a house in Southwest Florida — a short walk to the beach, wide open water views. It was everything they'd dreamed of. Within months, she was bored, her mind was getting dull, and the conflict that followed ended their marriage.

That experience sent Marianne on a journey to understand what actually makes life meaningful after work ends. She became a relationship coach — and discovered that couple after couple was showing up at her door on the brink of divorce, all telling the same story: "We had a great relationship. Now all we do is bicker and fight." The problem wasn't the relationship. It was the transition.

In this conversation, Marianne shares her framework — the Happiness Portfolio — which breaks life into eight "asset classes" that matter as much as your financial portfolio. She talks about her father holding up his business card the weekend before retirement and saying, "Today, this card opens many doors. Tomorrow, it won't be worth the paper it's written on." And she challenges the listener with a question that stopped me cold: "At what cost? And how much is enough?"

If you're building a career, approaching a transition, or wondering what comes next — this one will make you think.

KEY TOPICS COVERED

1. The retirement honeymoon: Why the first 6-18 months feel great — and what happens when it ends
2. Inner kill: Richard Leiter's term for what happens when you lose your sense of purpose ("It's like you're dying and you don't even know it")
3. Gray divorce: Why divorce rates for people over 50 have more than doubled — and tripled for those over 65
4. The business card moment: Marianne's father's quiet warning the weekend before his retirement
5. The Happiness Portfolio: 8 areas of life that need conscious attention — not just your finances
6. Assumptions in relationships: The "laundry story" about a couple on the brink of divorce over unspoken expectations
7. Living on autopilot: Why Marianne now insists on intentional choices after realizing she spent years doing what she "thought she was supposed to"
8. The cost question: "The more time you spend, the more money you generate. But at what cost?"

MEMORABLE QUOTES

"He calls it inner kill. He said it's like you're dying and you don't even know it." 📍 Timestamp: 05:01

"today, this card opens many doors. Tomorrow, it won't be worth the paper it's written on." 📍 Timestamp: 14:13

"I'm bored. I'm not contributing in any way. My mind is getting dull." 📍 Timestamp: 08:09

"a whole bunch of my life I lived on autopilot doing what I was doing because I thought I was supposed to do it." 📍 Timestamp: 39:14

"But then I would say, at what cost? and how much is enough." 📍 Timestamp: 28:48

"you have to grieve that loss of that business card. No question about that. But you have to recognize also that you are much more than just that." 📍 Timestamp: 16:42

"It was the mindset that I had bought into. And so therefore, I thought it was the right way to do it." 📍 Timestamp: 40:09

ABOUT MARIANNE OEHSER

Marianne Oehser is a retirement coach, relationship specialist, and author who helps people design what she calls their "next chapter" — the decades after a career ends.

She's not your typical retirement expert. Marianne retired twice — and failed spectacularly the first time. At 40, with a beach house in Southwest Florida and a golden parachute, she thought she'd made it. Instead, she found herself bored, unfulfilled, and watching her marriage fall apart. She went back to work, eventually became a relationship coach, and discovered that couple after couple showing up in crisis had the same root cause: they hadn't prepared for the non-financial side of retirement.

That insight led her to create the Happiness Portfolio — a framework with eight "asset classes" for life. She's now on the faculty of the Exit Planning Institute, where she helps advisors and their clients plan for meaning, not just money. She holds a Master's of Management from Northwestern's Kellogg School of Management, and she's been happily married to "a wonderful man" for 25 years.

RESOURCES MENTIONED

1. The Power of Purpose by Richard Leiter — The book where the concept of "inner kill" originates
2. Live Long, Die Short by Roger Landry — Research on how 70% of physical aging is determined by lifestyle choices
3. Nancy Schlossberg — Marianne's mentor and expert on adult transitions (96 years old and still publishing)
4. Exit Planning Institute — Organization where Marianne serves on the faculty

ABOUT YOUPOTENTIAL

YouPotential explores what it means to live a meaningful life — through conversations about money, purpose, relationships, and becoming. Hosted by Shaun Dwyer Maslyk.

"Sometimes it's not the answers we learn from — but the questions."

Susan shares the story of Alan—a financially free retiree whose dream retirement in Florida fell apart—and contrasts it with people who thrive because they proactively make a plan. Along the way, we explore time, identity, money as an enabler (not the goal), and what it really means to live a “RichLife.” 

In this deeply human conversation, Daniel shares how a childhood surrounded by basement studios, tape decks, and a musician father evolved into a global career designing soundscapes for some of the world’s most iconic spaces.

From DJ booths and record labels to luxury hotels and creative leadership, Daniel reflects on music as memory, mood, and meaning — and how learning to curate experiences became both an art and a business. Along the way, he opens up about mentorship, resilience, being let go, starting again, and what it truly means to build a life that feels good from the inside out.

This episode is a powerful exploration of creativity, leadership, money, identity, and the quiet courage it takes to trust your instincts.

This week on the YouPotential podcast, Al shares what wrestling can teach us about belief, identity, and perseverance, especially when the path forward isn’t clear. Drawing on a 40+ year career shaped by rejection, reinvention, and unforgettable moments, Al shares why success isn’t built on confidence or certainty… but on commitment when things get uncomfortable.

This episode isn’t just about wrestling. It’s about what it takes to keep moving when the dream is still alive, but the outcome isn’t guaranteed.

If you’ve ever wondered whether to stay the course, pivot, or walk away altogether… this conversation is for you.

This episode of the YouPotential podcast weaves together special moments from every conversation in 2025. The voices, insights, and stories that left a lasting impact, peeling back layers to reveal deeper meaning beneath the surface.

As we turn the page to 2026, we are grateful for what’s been shared and excited for the stories still to come.

Follow along for the ride, there’s so much more ahead. 🎙️

In this deeply honest conversation, Adam traces the origins of his drive back to childhood approval, cultural expectations, and the fear of not being enough. He shares how running on what he calls “dirty fuel” helped him succeed—but at a real cost to relationships, emotional health, and alignment. A relationship breakdown, years of inner work, and a re-examination of money ultimately led Adam to re-aim his life, not away from ambition, but toward usefulness, family, community, and intention. 

This episode is for anyone who’s achieved a lot—and quietly wondered why it still doesn’t feel like enough. 

In this conversation, Dr. Tal Ben-Shahar gently but firmly dismantles that story. 

Tal shares how chasing squash championships and academic success led him to a painful realization: the “arrival” he was pursuing didn’t exist. That dissatisfaction became the spark for his life’s work on happiness, meaning, and what it really means to become happier over time — not perfectly happy once and for all. 

Together we explore the “arrival fallacy,” anti-fragility, his SPIRE model of whole-person well-being, the power of relationships and community, and why letting our kids struggle might be one of the greatest gifts we can give them. We also touch on money as a “hygiene factor” — something that can make us miserable when it’s missing, but can’t deliver a meaningful life on its own. 

If you’re a mid-career professional who has “checked the boxes” but still feels like something is missing, this episode will land close to home. 

In this heartfelt and practical conversation, Shaun sits down with organizational psychologist and author Dr. Zach Mercurio to explore the science of mattering: being seen, heard, valued, and needed. Zach shows how the smallest interactions—not big initiatives—transform culture, confidence, motivation, parenting, and human relationships. His stories from workplaces, youth sports, customer service environments, and everyday life will change how you lead and how you show up for the people around you. 

In this week’s episode of YouPotential, Shaun sits down with Dr. Paul Zak — neuroscientist, best-selling author, and pioneer of the “trust molecule” oxytocin — to explore the brain science behind human connection. From gorilla encounters in Uganda to taking blood samples at weddings, Dr. Zak reveals why shared, immersive experiences don’t just feel good — they rewire us in lasting ways. 

If you’ve ever wondered why great conversations, adventures with friends, or even live music leave you changed — you’ll want to listen to this one. 

In this week’s episode, Shaun sits down with legendary marketer, author, and teacher Seth Godin to unpack his latest book, This Is Strategy, and explore the deeper forces that shape how we work, create, and connect. From why we chase status and fit in with “people like us,” to how our culture tricks us into debt, conformity, and mediocrity — Seth offers a powerful reframing of what it means to be strategic in a world full of noise. 

Through stories about chocolate, systems, and finding your smallest viable audience, Seth invites us to rethink everything from how we learn, how we lead, and even how we spend our money. At its core — this is a conversation about becoming: Who are you becoming through the work you do? And what contribution are you willing to make that people would truly miss if it didn’t exist? 

Seth Godin is one of the most influential voices in modern marketing, creativity, and leadership. He’s the author of 21 international bestsellers, including Purple Cow, The Practice, This Is Marketing, and his newest book, This Is Strategy. Seth has written over 10,000 blog posts, created The AltMBA and The Marketing Seminar, and taught millions of people how to make work that matters through his books, courses, and talks. He’s a two-time TED speaker, a creator of iconic ideas like "permission marketing," and a hero to countless creators, leaders, and change-makers worldwide. 

In this episode, Dr. Susan Campbell — clinical psychologist, relationship coach, and author of 11 books including From Triggered to Tranquil — breaks down the science and psychology of conflict, emotional triggers, and self-compassion. We explore how childhood patterns shape adult relationships, why nervous system awareness matters more than “good communication,” and how truth-telling can become a pathway to intimacy, not rupture. 

Whether you’re a partner, parent, leader, or friend — this conversation gives you tools to repair faster, love better, and build the kind of relationships that support a meaningful life. 

Emile Studham is the Founder of EDS Education Inc. and Head Coach at Cooperation Works, where he helps organizations engineer environments that optimize human cooperation. With roots in kinesiology, teaching, NLP, and behavioral science—and a decade playing semi-pro Aussie Rules—Emile blends movement, mindset, and management into pragmatic systems teams actually use. He co-founded Aussie X and X Movement (Dragon’s Den S6), and today coaches leaders to turn culture into a compounding asset through clear codes, shared language, and repeatable rituals. 

If you’re a mid-career professional or founder who’s “done everything right on paper” but still feels restless, George offers a practical lens: meet the moment, then build a path you can’t ignore, and push for institutions that earn your trust. It’s a playbook for aligning time, energy, and money with a life—and a world—you’re proud to be part of. 

If you’ve “done everything right on paper” but still wonder what winning really looks like, Michael’s lens is refreshingly simple: focus on today, be kind, and use money to expand options for yourself and your people. 

Who this is for: mid-career leaders and business owners who look “successful” on paper but still wonder, is this it? 

Her insights will resonate with anyone who has ever asked: What really matters when everything changes? 

For leaders navigating money and meaning, Matt makes a simple, profound case: bet on yourself, iterate relentlessly, and remember that real wealth shows up at home. The metric that matters most isn’t attendance or AUM—it’s the kind of dad, partner, and human your family remembers. 

In this conversation, we unpack how leaders can use their voice, make good trouble with integrity, and why rest, reflection, and community aren’t luxuries—they’re leadership essentials. 

In this episode, Shaun Maslyk sits down with Dr. Robert Biswas-Diener — researcher, author, and one of the world’s top executive coaches — to explore why listening may be the most important leadership skill of our time. Robert introduces the concept of Radical Listening, a way of engaging that goes beyond active listening and creates deeper trust and connection. 

From rediscovering creativity in midlife to navigating parenting in a tech-driven world, Robert shares insights that challenge how we think about communication, connection, and true success. 

If you’ve ever felt that relationships are your greatest asset — at work or at home — this conversation will change how you listen. 

Dr. Robert Biswas-Diener is a researcher, author, and globally recognized executive coach whose work spans 30 countries and countless cultures. Known as the “Indiana Jones of Positive Psychology,” Robert has written more than 75 academic articles and several influential books, including Positive Provocation, The Upside of Your Dark Side, and Happiness. 

Recognized by Thinkers50 as one of the top 50 executive coaches worldwide, Robert has trained and advised organizations from Deloitte to the World Bank. His expertise spans happiness, strengths, leadership — and now, the art of listening as a pathway to connection and success. 

John breaks down his influential framework of the four ways of knowing, explains how self-deception drives the modern “meaning crisis,” and shows how cultivating humility, wisdom, and shared practices can transform both our leadership and our lives. 

If you’ve ever felt caught in the cycle of achievement but still wondered, “Is this all there is?” — this conversation will help you slow down, rethink what really matters, and lead with more clarity, presence, and connection. 

John Vervaeke, PhD, is an award-winning cognitive scientist, philosopher, and professor at the University of Toronto. He is best known for his groundbreaking YouTube series Awakening from the Meaning Crisis and his work on wisdom, relevance realization, and the science of meaning. John has published widely in cognitive psychology, artificial intelligence, and philosophy, and his teaching has inspired global audiences to rethink the role of wisdom in modern life. 

From hospital night shifts to international stardom with Glass Tiger, Alan Frew has lived many lives. But behind the fame, awards, and sold-out arenas, Alan’s story is one of resilience, reinvention, and a relentless commitment to creativity. In this deeply personal conversation, Alan shares how identity shifts under the weight of stardom, the life lessons that shaped his book The Action Sandwich, and why acceptance, loyalty, and creativity have been his guiding principles through adversity—including a stroke that nearly ended his career. 

This episode blends music, meaning, and money in ways that illuminate the human side of success. For anyone navigating life transitions or wondering what “success” really means, Alan offers timeless insights that will stay with you long after the episode ends. 

Alan Frew is the iconic frontman of Glass Tiger, a Grammy-nominated, Juno Award–winning Canadian rock band known for timeless hits like Don’t Forget Me (When I’m Gone). Beyond the stage, Alan is a painter, writer, speaker, and the author of The Action Sandwich, a book that distills his philosophy of receptivity, desire, belief, intention, action, and passion into a practical recipe for living. After surviving a stroke in 2015, Alan continues to inspire through music, storytelling, and a commitment to creativity in all its forms. 

Along the way, we dive into Finland’s value of quiet satisfaction, the role of autonomy and contribution in organizations, the cultural acceptance of negative emotions, and the resilience of Sisu. Listeners will walk away with science-backed tools, cultural wisdom, and practical actions to bring more meaning into their own lives. 

Frank Martela, PhD, is a philosopher and researcher at Aalto University in Finland, specializing in motivation, well-being, and the science of meaning. Known internationally for his expertise on why Finland consistently tops global happiness rankings, his work blends psychology, philosophy, and cultural insight to help people live more self-chosen and purposeful lives. 

Together, we explore what it means to live a self-authored life, how to embrace uncertainty, and why doing “your thing” matters more than any external benchmark. This is a conversation about money — but even more, it's about life, purpose, and finding beauty in the mess. 

Carl Richards is a financial planner, keynote speaker, author, and the creator of the Behavior Gap — a movement that blends financial advice with simple, powerful sketches. His work demystifies the complex emotional landscape of money. He’s the author of The One-Page Financial Plan, co-author of Your Money and Freedom, and founder of the Society of Advice. Carl’s mission is to spark one million meaningful money conversations. 

But beyond the penalty minutes and highlight reels, Barnaby shares the real story — of identity, perseverance, and finding meaning beyond the ice.

From growing up with adversity to carving out a 14-year NHL career, Matthew unpacks how deeply held beliefs about who he was helped him overcome the odds, stay grounded through fame and money, and find purpose in life after hockey.

This episode is about more than just sports. It’s about the power of choosing your identity — and the challenge of letting it go when the jersey comes off.

In this week's episode of YouPotential, Shaun Maslyk sits down with Tamara Myles, speaker, author, and expert in workplace flourishing, to explore how meaning at work is shaped not just by what we do, but how we experience it.

Together, they unpack the “Three C’s” of meaningful work and why psychological safety is the often-overlooked key to building thriving, high-performing teams.

Award-winning psychologist, founder of the Well-Being Lab, and bestselling author (The Art of Insubordination, Curious?, The Upside of Your Dark Side, among others). Todd’s research and insights have appeared in HBR, NYT, Forbes, Fast Company, and more. He translates rigorous psychological science into practical, everyday tools.

In this raw conversation, Thomas opens up about losing his career, family, and money to alcoholism, then finding unexpected healing through cold therapy and Bruce Springsteen's music. He shares his philosophy of "meliorism" — creating beauty from life's darkest moments — and why he believes "money is a false idol." Most importantly, he reveals how surrendering everything led him to discover his most authentic self. 

This isn't just another comeback story. It's about what it really means to live a life you're proud of. 

Thomas G. Waites is a Juilliard-trained actor who studied alongside Robin Williams and Christopher Reeve. He's known for cult classics "The Warriors" and "The Thing," plus extensive work with Al Pacino in "…And Justice for All" and on Broadway.

After losing everything to addiction, Thomas transformed his pain into purpose, becoming an advocate for authentic living and mental health. He now focuses on art, music, and the philosophy of meliorism — finding beauty in life's hardest moments. 

We explore the psychology behind wealth-building, how to develop a truly "rich mindset," and the harsh truths about financial success. Brad shares why experiences matter more than stuff, how childhood money scripts shape our futures, and why believing "if they can do it, I can do it" is the most important financial decision you'll ever make. 

Tune in for a powerful conversation about breaking generational patterns, building real wealth, and transforming not just your life, but your entire family's future.

Nathan shares insights on his unique comedic style of "positive anger" and his critical views on technology and AI, emphasizing their potential threats to humanity. The discussion touches on the importance of money and meaningful work in people's lives, highlighting the need for human connection and purpose in an increasingly automated world. From performing at iconic venues like the Comedy Cellar to appearing on late-night shows, Nathan reflects on the balance between satisfaction and the drive to create, concluding with thoughts on living a meaningful life centered around human connections.  

Nathan Macintosh is a stand-up comedian, writer, and social commentator who has performed on comedy's biggest stages, including Conan, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, and The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon (three times). Originally from the Maritimes, Nathan moved to Toronto at 19 to pursue comedy - a decision he once called "completely stupid" but has led to acclaimed comedy specials including "Money Never Wakes" and "Down With Tech." 

Known for his sharp social commentary and unique philosophy of "positive anger," Nathan transforms everyday frustrations into insightful comedy that challenges audiences to think critically about technology, money, and what it means to live meaningfully. His work explores the intersection of humor and human connection, making him a distinctive voice in contemporary comedy who uses laughter as both entertainment and social critique. 

We explore how childhood experiences from the backseat of a car can shape adult relationship patterns, why the quiet partner often wields the real power, and how to transform destructive dynamics into deeper connection. Debra shares insights from her transition from high-stakes trading floors to therapy rooms, offering hope for couples caught in cycles they don't understand. 

Tune in for an eye-opening discussion about the forces that can make or break relationships - and how to master them for genuine intimacy and fulfillment. 

Bio:  

Debra L. Kaplan, MA, MBA, LPC, CSAT-S is an author, speaker and licensed therapist. Debra transitioned from a successful career on Wall Street, where issues of sex, money, and power are prominent, to a focus on psychology, exploring relationships, money and related dynamics. She authored "For Love and Money: Exploring Sexual & Financial Betrayal in Relationships" and "Battle of the Titans: Mastering the Forces of Sex, Money, and Power in Relationships." In 2023, Kaplan co-authored "Coupleship Inc: From Financial Conflict to Financial Intimacy," a comprehensive guide praised for helping couples resolve money conflicts and fostering emotional and financial wellbeing. This work inspires her intensives and workshops, where she helps individuals and couples build emotional and financial intimacy in their relationships. 

Mike shares how the pursuit of meaning, if misunderstood, can actually create anxiety rather than happiness. He also questions whether current practices in positive psychology are enough to meet the demands of a changing world. The conversation dives into the tension between materialism and self-transcendence, how wealth has become a scorecard, and why the way we spend our moments shapes our experience of a life well lived.

Michael Steger 

• Website: http://www.michaelfsteger.com/ 
• LinkedIn: Michael F. Steger 
• Center for Meaning and Purpose at Colorado State University: Center for Meaning and Purpose 

We explore how challenges can reveal our true selves and why embracing vulnerability is key to thriving. Tune in for an inspiring conversation about courage, creativity, and the human spirit with Peter Katz.

From being labeled 'too much' as a kid to becoming a global creative force, James shares how embracing his so-called weirdness became his greatest strength. He talks about the emotional cost of choosing creative freedom over conventional success—and why it’s worth every penny.

This is not your typical career advice episode. It’s a manifesto for living out loud, reclaiming your voice, and leading a life that’s unmistakably your own.

Hawksley emphasizes the need to navigate dark times and the power of storytelling in shaping our lives, ultimately advocating for a life rich in self-value and personal fulfillment. He also reflects on the complexities of money, expressing a keen awareness of economic changes and their implications for personal finance.

Join us as we explore the intersection of creativity, resilience, and the pursuit of a life well-lived, guided by Hawksley’s unique insights and fearless approach to both art and life.

We explore how lies can actually serve a social purpose, why body language and storytelling are essential tools for influence, and how our early experiences shape the way we show up in the world. From his creative roots to becoming a trusted advisor to some of the world’s most powerful people, Mark opens up about failure, resilience, and what it really takes to live a meaningful, successful life.