Good Life Project

Morgan Harper Nichols is an artist and poet whose work is inspired by real-life interactions and stories. Morgan spent the first couple of years of her professional life as a college admission counselor, and then, as a full-time touring singer-songwriter and musician. It was on the road that she cultivated her curiosity and passion for writing, art, and design and slowly began to share her work online. In 2017, Morgan started a project where she invites people to submit the...ir stories to her website. From there, she creates art as a response to their stories and sends it to them before sharing the work publicly. All stories and names are kept private. The fruit of this project is shared daily around social media, in publications, and various creative collaborations and installations. As an artist, designer, and author Morgan has collaborated with a wide range of brands and stores. Her latest book, How Far You Have Come: Musings on Beauty and Courage is a beautiful collection of illustrations, poems and essays and we dive into the verse, experiences and moments that often reveal deeply personal, yet universal awakenings, in today’s Good Life Project conversation.

Imagine being a young photographer, working to stand out and rise up in a hyper-competitive industry, then getting a call one day from Iman and David Bowie, asking to shoot the cover of Iman’s next book, after two of the covers shot by two of the world’s top photographers had been rejected? That is exactly what happened with Indrani Pal-Chaudhuri. That moment would become an inciting incident, leading evermore opportunities to deepen into her wildly imaginative and compell...ing magical realism style and launch years of award-winning collaborations, image-making and storytelling with everyone from HBO, Vogue and Vanity Fair, to Pepsi and Nike to L’Oreal and icons like Beyonce, Gaga, Bowie, Kate Winslet, Pharrell Williams, Eugene Brave Rock, Jay-Z and countless others. Indrani’s work is exhibited in museums worldwide and in the permanent collections of the National Portrait Gallery at the Smithsonian. Over time, she’s integrated her love of image-making and storytelling with her passion for service in the name of social justice and impact, and expanded from still images to film, including directing the powerful Girl Epidemic documentary about sex trafficking and slavery. Beyond directing, advocacy has taken a much more central role in her work and life, with positions as the co-Host of the Global People’s Summit at the United Nations, host of the New York Live Arts’ Humanities Symposium, and Co-Founder and Executive Director of Shakti Empowerment Education for women and children in India. She also lectures at her alma mater, Princeton University, on Mobilizing Millions with Art and Film for Human Rights and Social Justice. [Listen wherever you get your podcasts or our link in the comments]

Growing up outside Rochester, New York, all Elizabeth Miki Brina knew was that she was different, an outsider, and she blamed her mom, a first-generation immigrant from Okinawa, for it all. Elizabeth’s mother was working as a nightclub hostess on U.S.-occupied Okinawa when she met the American soldier who was deployed during the Vietnam war who would become her husband. Leaving her home, family, friends and culture, to move to the U.S, the language barrier and power imbalan...ce that defined their early relationship followed them to the predominantly white, upstate New York suburb where they moved to raise Elizabeth, who felt perpetually othered among her peers, turning that feeling into a cocktail of anger and rebellion. Decades later, Elizabeth came to recognize the shame and self-loathing that haunted both her and her mother and began a process of reconciliation, not only to come to terms with the embattled dynamics of her family but also to reckon with the injustices that reverberate throughout the history of Okinawa and its people. She came to see the profound courage and strength and saw her parents enduring marriage in a profoundly different light. We dive deep into this journey, which is beautifully detailed in Elizabeth’s haunting memoir, Speak, Okinawa, which is a heartfelt exploration of identity, inheritance, forgiveness, and what it means to be at peace with who you are. [Listen wherever you get your podcasts]

Born and raised in Buffalo, NY, John Rzeznik is the founding-member, frontman and guitarist for iconic band, the Goo Goo Dolls. He’s a legend in the world of music, with 19 top-ten singles, including mega-hits like Iris (which spent 12-months on the Billboard charts), Name, Black Balloon and countless others. And, like so many who turned to music at a young age as both a way to cope with discord and a form of expression, he’s lived a life of extraordinary artistry and contr...ibution, and along with that, a certain amount of darkness and struggle that for many years found him turning to alcohol as a way to get through each day. Until it all fell apart, and he had to make a decision. One he keeps making every day. Now, sober, a devoted dad and husband, he’s telling a new story with his life and music, and taking the giant, global community of Goo Goo Doll fans along for the journey. And, as you’ll hear, he’s headed into the studio to create something that is truly representative not just of this moment in time, but also of how his lens on life, music, and creativity have evolved. [Listen wherever you get your podcasts]

With culinary training from Le Cordon Bleu in Paris, and a relatability that seems to light up the screen, many people know Giada De Laurentiis as the Emmy award-winning television personality of shows like Food Network’s Everyday Italian, Giada at Home, Giada’s Weekend Getaways, as a judge on Food Network Star and Winner Cake All, an NBC Today Show contributor, and a successful restaurateur with restaurants GIADA and Pronto by Giada in Las Vegas, as well as GDL Italian in ...Baltimore. Or, maybe you know her as the author of nine New York Times bestselling cookbooks, including her most recent, Eat Better Feel Better, which deftly navigates the sweet spot between delicious recipes and a more healthful approach to cooking and eating. But, what you may not know, and what Giada shares in the pages of this new book and our deep-dive conversation, is how her upbringing in a dynastic family of film, both in Italy and Hollywood, shaped everything from her love of food and cooking for others, to her early disdain for being in front of the camera. Her decision to step into the world of cooking on television, in fact, caused quite a dustup in the family. And the career that, in front of the camera, seemed so beautiful and glamorous, would eventually take a serious toll on her physical and mental health. There was a slowly-building dark side that would take years to acknowledge, then eventually step out of and do the work to reimagine both her mental and physical health, as well as the way she brought herself to her work, life and devotion to food and creativity. [Listen wherever you get your podcasts]

Connie Lim, whose artist name is MILCK, rose to widespread attention after a video of an a capella performance of her song Quiet on the street at the 2017 Women’s March exploded into the public’s consciousness going viral and becoming embraced as an anthem for the movement. That moment and the impact and reach of the song led to a major record deal and collaborations as a songwriter that launched the career she’s been working to build for years. But that career almost never... happened. MILCK grew up in an enclave of LA, the child of immigrants from China, and was drawn to music from her earliest days. She wrote her first song at 7 years old and studied classical piano and opera. Yet the pressure of intense perfectionism and the expectation she’d eventually leave music behind to follow the family tradition into medicine led her into years of profound emotional struggle. Eventually, she hit a point in college where she decided it was time to choose herself over the expectations of others, as well as the burden of perfectionism that had caused so many years of suffering and harm. MILCK left college and went all-in on music, performing as an independent artist for years, slowly building her name, before that fateful day in 2017 that changed everything. She’s now deep into writing, producing and performing her own work, while also writing with and for other artists and focusing on not just sharing her own creative voice, but also gathering community and shining the light on truth and inequity along the way. [Listen wherever you get your podcasts]

Jen Hatmaker grew up in the church, surrounded by family and community, eventually rising up to become a central figure. But, over the years, she became increasingly uncomfortable with not so much the core tenets and teachings, but rather the trapping and limitations of the institution. She struggled with what she saw as a stifling of power, expression and contribution in the context of women, the exclusion of LGBTQ+ and gender-fluid or nonconforming people and more. So, sh...e did something she knew would leave her labeled a pariah and outcast by many. Still, it was the thing she couldn’t not do. Jen had no idea what was next, or even if faith, or any approach to organized religion would play a role in her life, let alone her vocation. But, over time, she came back to those same core tenets, but in a way that felt far more expansive, equitable and inclusive, and build a new community that welcomed all into more of what she described as a wild faith. She’s since written numerous books, including NY Times bestsellers For the Love and Of Mess and Moxie. She hosts the For the Love Podcast, speaks and created the Jen Hatmaker Book Club where, in her words, she nerds out every month with thousands of women who believe good books are everything and stories still matter. And she leaders an online community of millions of women. Here latest book, Simple and Free: 7 Experiments Against Excess, is a fascinating take on excess, bundled with a series of experiments that invite us to explore what happens when we strip down key parts of life to their essentials. [Listen wherever you get your podcasts]

Melissa Bernstein, along with her husband Doug, is the Co-Founder of the legendary toy company Melissa & Doug, which has created over 5,000 children’s products and sold billions of dollars of toys since its inception. Melissa and Doug started the business in their garage in 1988, and they’ve been on a mission ever since to provide open-ended, inventive, non-technologically driven playthings for young children. Sounds like a dream life, but throughout Melissa’s remarkable car...eer, she kept secret her lifelong battle with severe, existential depression and anxiety. She spoke about it publicly for the first time on Good Life Project a few years back and that moment became a bit of an inciting incident to come more fully out of the shadows, share her story in a bigger way and begin to devote herself to building community, experiences, and solutions to help others moving through struggle and darkness feel less alone. Among those offerings is her moving new book, LifeLines: An Inspirational Journey from Profound Darkness to Radiant Light, that takes you deep into her story and then takes you along the journey of discovery and creation that would eventually become LifeLines.com, an online ecosystem she and Doug are underwriting to support those seeking support, guidance, and community on their mental health journeys.