What is a Good Life?

What does a truly good life look like - and how do we find our way back to it?
In this episode of What is a Good Life?, Mark McCartney speaks with Ally Kingston about recovering the capacity for "right relationship": with ourselves, with nature, with community, and with something greater.
Ally is a creative strategist and facilitator, and strategy lead at non-profit Purpose Disruptors and Agency for Nature. She designs interventions to galvanise public imagination and redirect our creative skills to work in harmony with the natural world. Also passionate about holding space for grief and loss in our changing times, she has also trained as a death doula and rites of passage holder. Once an advertising and sustainability leader, and one of Forbes’ 43 People Changing Advertising for the Climate, she writes & lectures on storytelling, imagination and new conceptions of the good life.   
They explore:
- What "right relationship" actually means — and why we've lost it
- Sobriety as a gateway to a fuller life
- The Artist's Way and morning pages as a daily return to self
- What four days alone in a forest teaches you about civilisation
- The imagination crisis - why our vision of the future is shrinking
- Death, grief, and why learning to let things end well matters now more than ever
If you're searching for meaning beyond consumption, or asking what it means to live well in uncertain times, this conversation is for you.
🎙️ What is a Good Life? - conversations that go to the heart of what matters.
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For more from Ally's work:
Purpose Disruptors: https://www.purposedisruptors.org/ally-kingston
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ally-kingston-75922025/
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/@whatisagoodlife
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/markcmccartney
00:00  How to be in right relationship?
03:45  Two Tomatoes and an Epiphany
08:25  The Word Recovery
09:45  Sobriety and the Paradigm Shift
17:02  Threads Pulling Together
21:24  Morning Pages and the Artist's Way
25:29  Four Days in the Forest
33:24  How Do I Help Things Die?
38:12  Accompanying Her Grandmother
48:30  The Shrinking Imagination
53:04  What is a Good Life?
Tags: good life, meaning, right relationship, sobriety, nature connection, death doula, climate, imagination, morning pages, the artist's way, wilderness, grief, belonging, mindfulness, purpose
Podcast Keywords: Meaning of Life Interviews | meaning of life conversations | exploring life | big life questions | meaning of life discussions | creating a meaningful life​

How do you hold on to that feeling of childlike enchantment that you remember as a kid?
In this captivating conversation, Mark sits down with Sam Lee, singer, composer, and author. We explore the nature of wonder, the role of ritual, and the significance of rite of passages and thresholds. He talks about his apprenticeship to Scottish traveller and balladeer Stanley Robertson and how that completely dismantled what he thought folk music was. We talk about songs as medicine and what it means to be their custodian, as well as being being dangerously surrounded by a dozen shepherd's dogs in the Carpathian mountains.
Sam Lee is a Mercury prize-nominated singer, composer, arranger, folksong interpreter, connecting his passion for nature and song into timeless unique ways. Collector of songs from across the British Isles & Ireland he’s also the creator of many live nature immersions including the annual sell-out Singing With Nightingales. Penguin recently published his debut novel 'The Nightingale, Notes on a songbird' telling the epic tale of this highly endangered bird. And his latest album is the critically acclaimed, Guardian 5 star and Mojo Album of the Month ‘songdreaming’. Sam is also an Ambassador for The Global Rewilding Alliance.
This conversation and Sam's stories are for anyone seeking more aliveness in this life.
For more from Sam Lee's work:
Website: https://samleesong.co.uk/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/samleesong/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/samleesong
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/@whatisagoodlife
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/markcmccartney

00:00  Does Wonder Ever Cease?
02:29  A Life of Proximity
05:00  The Gift of the Puffball
09:04  A Rite of Passage
17:30  On Ritual and Threshold
18:03  Bar Mitzvah to Bison Tracking
26:58  Surrounded by Shepherd's Dogs
35:10  Apprenticed to Stanley Robertson
48:30  Songs as Medicine
53:40  Walking Into Darkness
59:40  What is a Good Life?
Keywords: Meaning of Life Interviews | meaning of life conversations | exploring life | big life questions | meaning of life discussions | creating a meaningful life​

What does it mean to be fully alive?
Mark sits down with Joel Monk to explore the journey from spiritual bypassing to embodiment. They talk about dark nights of the soul, the "yum" of visceral wellbeing, trauma-informed healing, the role of grace and prayer, and what it actually means to feel safe, okay, and enough. An episode for anyone on a path of dropping deeper into their own humanity and body.
Joel Monk is the founder of Coaches Rising, one of the world’s leading platforms for transformational coaching, with a global community of more than 65,000 coaches. He is the host of the Coaches Rising Podcast and is known for his work in transformational coaching, embodiment, and human development. He has coached hundreds of entrepreneurs, CEOs, and senior executives — even a Zen master — helping high-level leaders unlock deeper presence, wiser action, and profound personal transformation.
For more from Joel Monk's work:
Company website: www.coachesrising.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joel-monk-33952613/
Coaches Rising Podcast: https://www.coachesrising.com/podcast/
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/@whatisagoodlife
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/markcmccartney
00:00  Awakening Into Full Humanity
02:00  Magic Mushrooms on the Moors
07:15  Coming Into the Body
10:20  The Yum
13:47  Clinging to Bliss
17:00  Safety, Okayness, and Intimacy
20:45  Intoxified by Life
27:42  Moving Beyond Renunciation
31:07  The Gift of Grace
38:52  Inquiring Into God
46:17  Fully Alive in Dark Times
51:37  What Is a Good Life
Keywords: Meaning of Life Interviews | meaning of life conversations | exploring life | big life questions | meaning of life discussions | creating a meaningful life​

What makes a life truly good? In this rich and wide-ranging conversation, Mark speaks with Bruce Anderson, Executive Director of the Core Gift Institute, about the three kinds of glue that hold relationships, communities, and the world together: gifts, welcoming, and ritual. Bruce shares why he believes our primary gifts are not earned but given to us through spirit and why they always emerge from our deepest wounds. They explore belonging, the question of how everything began, the wildness of love, and why a home in a wild place might just be the perfect metaphor for a life well lived.
Currently living on an island by Seattle, USA, Bruce has a storied life of living in remote Alaska, commercial fishing, log-cabin building, and being a schoolteacher and mayor. He is known for bringing intriguing ideas from other cultures and times, personal stories, and practical ideas into the international work he does with others.
Whether you're feeling lost, searching for direction, or simply curious about what a meaningful life looks like, this conversation will leave you with a lot to sit with.
For more of Bruce's work:
Core Gift Institue: https://www.coregift.org/home
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bruce-anderson-742a3722/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100011545838837
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/@whatisagoodlife
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/markcmccartney
00:00 – Three Kinds Of Glue
04:01 – Why Spirit Grounds Everything
10:50 – The Search For Faith
15:13 – How Did All This Begin?
18:26 – Where Beauty Comes From
22:05 – Home In The Wild
28:00 – Gifts & The Gift Exchange
33:25 – Seeing Gifts In Others
38:00 – Competence Isn't Your Gift
42:05 – Parker Palmer & Hospitality
47:14 – The Role Of Ritual
56:46 – What Is A Good Life?
Keywords: Meaning of Life Interviews | meaning of life conversations | exploring life | big life questions | meaning of life discussions | creating a meaningful life​

What does it mean to trust yourself when the path isn't clear?
Kaylyn Lehmann is Co-founder and Executive Coach at Simplified Coach, a former VP of HR, and a specialist in neuroscience leadership and character strengths. Over the past decade she has coached hundreds of C-level and high-potential executives across high tech, biotech and highly funded start-ups. 
Drawing on a formative experience of loss in her late twenties, Kaylyn has long carried a question from Tuesdays with Morrie: Is today the day? — not as something to fear, but as a guide. From walking away from a VP salary that no longer felt right, to building a business during a bed rest pregnancy in the middle of the 2008 recession, to a Ralph Waldo Emerson quote from her mother that reframed how she saw herself, this is a conversation that charts a path to greater autonomy and coherence. A life which realises the significance of awe and play along the way.
If you are in the middle of uncertainty that you are struggling to navigate, this will offer so much to consider and support.
🔔 Subscribe for weekly conversations on what it means to live a good life.
For more of Kaylyn's work:
Website: https://www.simplifiedcoach.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/simplifiedcoach/
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/@whatisagoodlife
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/markcmccartney
00:00  The Bird Question
02:03  Death as a Life Guide
05:49  Autonomy & Self-Direction
08:26  Living Your Values
12:15  Building Self-Trust
18:38  Permission to Redefine Success
22:23  Is Today the Day?
28:30  The Gift of Family Time
34:27  Fear & Starting the Business
39:53  Resilience & the Long Game
46:13  Play as a Life Essential
53:54  What is a Good Life?
Keywords: Meaning of Life Interviews | meaning of life conversations | exploring life | big life questions | meaning of life discussions | creating a meaningful life​