What is a Good Life?
What is a Good Life?

What is a Good Life?

Mark McCartney

Overview
Episodes

Details

A project exploring the big questions around how we live, who we are and what actually matters. Over the past four years, I’ve sat with more than 300 people — artists, parents, executives, wanderers, therapists, and strangers and invited them into a simple but profound inquiry, "What is a good life for you?" The conversations explore presence, paradox, uncertainty, and the moments that shape a life - love and loss, trust and fear, clarity and not knowing. It’s an invitations to slow down, to listen deeply, and to bring you into conversation with your own life. There are new episodes every Tuesday.

Recent Episodes

What is a Good Life? #181 - Finding Peace Within Myself with Kadam Adam Starr
JUN 30, 2026
What is a Good Life? #181 - Finding Peace Within Myself with Kadam Adam Starr
What does it mean to live a truly meaningful life and why do so many of us feel an emptiness even at the height of our success?In this episode, Mark sits down with Kadam Adam Starr, who has been an international teacher of meditation and Buddhism for over 20 years and is the principal teacher at Tara Kadampa Meditation Centre in Dublin. Adam walked away from a corporate media career in 2005 to pursue a different kind of question. What began as a planned year or two away became a complete reorientation of his life.Together they explore the emptiness that often arrives in our late twenties and early thirties, the difference between fleeting pleasure and genuine peace of mind, and why Adam came to realise that the problem was never his career - it was how badly out of balance he'd become. They talk about the shift from an ego-driven life to one grounded in compassion, what a three-month silent retreat revealed about our shared humanity, and how living from a peaceful mind and a good heart can make life feel radically more simple.This is a conversation about self-knowledge, the attention economy, meeting difficult people with friendship rather than judgment, and the realisation that a good life may come down to how we choose to show up each day.For more of Kadam Adam Starr's work:Tara Kadampa Meditation Centre: https://meditateinireland.com/IG: https://www.instagram.com/tara_kadampa_meditation_centre/For more from Mark McCartney:Newsletter: https://www.whatisagood.life/Website: https://www.mmcleadership.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-mccartney-14b0161b4/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/ ⁨@whatisagoodlife3875⁩
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69 MIN
What is a Good Life? #179 - Trust, Water & Rewilding with Daniel Allen-Hörnfeldt
JUN 16, 2026
What is a Good Life? #179 - Trust, Water & Rewilding with Daniel Allen-Hörnfeldt
In this episode, Dan talks with Mark about trading 80-90 hour work weeks and a self-medicating lifestyle in London for the forests and lakes of northern Sweden. He shares how his father's death became a turning point, how cold water swimming became a doorway back into his body, and how a small group of friends turned a Sunday morning dip into a movement. The conversation explores trust, surrender, community, and what it means to dissolve the "thick border" between yourself and the world.Dan Allen-Hörnfeldt is Chairman of Umeå Kallbad, a community swimming and sauna association recently named one of Sweden's best places to visit in 2026, and Head of Nature for People at Rewilding Sweden. A former GB triathlete, he spent fifteen years in restaurants and pubs, winning two Michelin Bib Gourmands and twice being named London's Best Pub, before building a nationally recognised restaurant in northern Sweden with his wife. He has also competed at an elite level in open-water and ice swimming, including a podium finish at the Ice Swimming World Cup.Learn more about Dan Allen-Hörnfeldt's work:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danallenhornfeldt/Umeå: https://umeakallbad.se/For more from Mark McCartney:Newsletter: https://www.whatisagood.life/Website: https://www.mmcleadership.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-mccartney-14b0161b4/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/ ⁨@whatisagoodlife3875⁩ 
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59 MIN
What is a Good Life? #177 - Complicated Locks, Simple Keys with Sam Smith
JUN 2, 2026
What is a Good Life? #177 - Complicated Locks, Simple Keys with Sam Smith
This week Mark McCartney sits down with Sam Smith. Sam sees life as a big old experiment. He used to play professional rugby, before starting a few businesses. Now he spends his time speaking to people, writing and loving his family. Last year he wrote his first book, The Door Was Never Locked. His latest project with his friend Garth, Conscious Soup launches soon, it's a Living Experiment. They aren't sure what that means yet.In this conversation, Sam opens up about the moment he retired from rugby at 26 and collapsed on a bathroom floor crying, escaping this transition with work and alcohol, and how a simple repeated gesture from a coach changed the entire direction of his life.We explore identity, the stories we carry without questioning, what it really means to lead as a human, and why a good life for him is wanting all of it - even the hard parts. If you are navigating any big life transitions right now, this conversation may be particularly helpful.For more from Sam Smith: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/conscious-soup-studio/You can grab a copy of his book: https://amzn.eu/d/07QwCqFQAnd he'd love to hear from you: [email protected] out Sam’s next project with Conscious Soup here: www.conscioussoup.comFor more from Mark McCartney: Newsletter: https://www.whatisagoodlife.com/ Website: https://www.mmcleadership.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-mccartney-14b0161b4/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@whatisagoodlife3875
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56 MIN