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Shaun Maslyk

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YouPotential explores what it truly means to live a life well lived — through the lens of psychology, money, and meaning. Hosted by Shaun Maslyk—Certified Financial Planner®, Financial Behaviour Specialist®, and Positive Psychology Practitioner—the podcast delivers science-backed insights, candid conversations, and real stories that help people live with more intention.

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The Deferred Life | Alastair Humphreys | Deep Cuts

Most of us made a deal somewhere in our twenties. Nobody handed us a contract. We just quietly agreed — work hard now, live later. Build the career first. Hit the number first. And then, finally, start doing the things we actually wanted to do. The problem is that later has a way of staying later. In this episode of Deep Cuts, Shaun Maslyk,— CFP®, FBS®, and MAPP — takes his conversation with Alastair Humphreys and goes below the surface. Alastair has biked around the world, rowed the Atlantic, and walked across Spain playing a violin he barely knew. But it’s not the expeditions that stayed with Shaun. It’s what Alastair said underneath all of them. This is a 15-minute episode about the cost of The Deferred Life — the quiet operating system most high-achievers run on without ever consciously choosing it. And what the research, the philosophy, and one coin in a Spanish plaza all say about how to step off it. In This Episode 00:29 — Alastair on the happiest nights of his life — not what you’d expect 07:35 — The admission that changes everything: the ordinary life might have been more contented 12:00 — Hedonic adaptation — why the raise, the house, and the milestone never feel the way we thought 18:30 — Seneca on time, and Jon Kabat-Zinn on the version of you that arrives at someday 22:00 — Two ways to live a rich life — what Alastair figured out rationing gum in Africa 28:00 — Badlands by Springsteen — the hedonic treadmill set to music 35:00 — The Spain story: empty pockets, busking badly, and one coin 47:02 — The most honest moment: completely nothing for the first time in his life 54:04 — The tree: once a month, first Wednesday, fifteen minutes 60:00 — The closing question: what is the tree in your life? The Story That Will Stay With You Alastair had been walking across Spain for weeks. Hundreds of miles. Sleeping on hilltops, cooking on campfires, busking — playing a violin he’d taught himself over seven months, badly — because it was the only way he could eat. One morning, before he left, he emptied his pockets. Every last coin. Left it on a park bench. And walked out into the plaza with nothing. He stood there for hours playing badly while strangers walked in wide circles around him. Humiliated. Terrified. Wanting to go home. And then one old man dropped a single coin in his case. “Eventually this old gentleman gave me one coin and my heart just sang. The generosity of that man, the kindness of strangers, the empathy, the kindness, the hope.” — Alastair Humphreys, 48:00 That moment — not the Atlantic, not the four continents — is the heart of this episode. Because it’s not a story about poverty or adventure. It’s a story about what presence actually feels like. And how rarely most of us let ourselves feel it. Three Things You’ll Take Away 1. The Deferred Life is running your life The Deferred Life isn’t a choice most people make consciously. It’s an operating system — installed early, rarely questioned. The research on hedonic adaptation (Lyubomirsky, Sheldon & Schkade, 2005) shows we return to a stable baseline of happiness regardless of what we accumulate. The raise becomes the baseline. The house becomes the floor. And we reach — again — for the next thing. Not because we’re greedy. Because nobody told us the deal had a flaw in it. 2. Sustainable happiness doesn’t come from circumstances Psychologist Sonja Lyubomirsky’s research at UC Riverside found that lasting well-being comes from intentional activity — small, deliberate, repeated acts of genuine engagement with your own life. Not the big milestone. Not the right number in the account. Change your actions and the gains last. Change your circumstances and you adapt right back. 3. The tree only happens if it’s scheduled Alastair has a calendar reminder. First Wednesday of every month. It says: go climb a tree. Same tree. Fifteen minutes. He’s done it for three years. And he says sitting up there, watching the seasons change, is one of the most grounding practices of his life. Psychologists Fred Bryant and Joseph Veroff call this savoring — the deliberate act of being present in a positive experience as it’s happening rather than only in memory. It’s one of the highest-leverage practices in well-being science. And it doesn’t happen unless it’s on the calendar. Memorable Quotes “I suspect I’d probably also be happier and more content with life, but who knows?” — Alastair Humphreys, 07:35 “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.” — Alastair Humphreys, 54:04 “The universe is going on. The seasons are changing. It helps you just pause and notice that. And maybe helps me remember that sending yet more emails is probably not the most important thing I need to do in life.” — Alastair Humphreys, 33:52 “Someday has a way of staying someday.” — Shaun Maslyk “The tree only happens if it’s scheduled. And so does most of what actually matters.” — Shaun Maslyk About Alastair Humphreys Alastair Humphreys is a National Geographic Adventurer of the Year, author of more than a dozen books, and the man who coined the concept of microadventures. He spent four years cycling around the world, rowed the Atlantic Ocean, and has walked across multiple continents — including Spain, where he busked with a violin he taught himself to play. But what makes Alastair worth listening to isn’t the expeditions. It’s the honesty about what they cost — and what they couldn’t deliver. His work is really about one question: what does it mean to live a life that’s actually yours? 🌐 Website: www.alastairhumphreys.com📸 Instagram: @alastairhumphreys📺 YouTube: Alastair Humphreys [NEED LINK]📖 Book: Microadventures — [NEED LINK]📖 Book: My Midsummer Morning — [NEED LINK] Research & References Every episode of Deep Cuts grounds the conversation in research. Here are the sources referenced in this episode: Lyubomirsky, S., Sheldon, K.M., & Schkade, D. (2005). Pursuing happiness: The architecture of sustainable change. Review of General Psychology, 9(2), 111–131. — The foundational paper on hedonic adaptation and why circumstantial changes don’t produce lasting happiness.Sheldon, K.M., & Lyubomirsky, S. (2006). Achieving sustainable gains in happiness: Change your actions, not your circumstances. Journal of Happiness Studies, 7(1), 55–86. — The research showing that intentional activity produces lasting well-being gains where circumstances don’t.Bryant, F.B., & Veroff, J. (2007). Savoring: A New Model of Positive Experience. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. — The research behind what Alastair is doing in the tree: being deliberately present in a positive experience as it happens.Seneca, Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium, Letter I, c. 65 AD. Translation: “Everything is alien to us; time alone belongs to us.” — The Stoic philosopher who watched Rome’s wealthiest men accumulate everything and still feel like something was missing.Kabat-Zinn, J. (1994). Wherever You Go, There You Are. Hyperion Books. — Jon Kabat-Zinn is the founder of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction and Professor of Medicine Emeritus at the University of Massachusetts Medical School.Springsteen, B. (1978). Badlands. Darkness on the Edge of Town. Columbia Records. — “Poor man wanna be rich, rich man wanna be king, and a king ain’t satisfied ’til he rules everything.”Sam Roberts Band (2003). Brother Down. We Were Born in a Flame. Universal Music Canada. — “Rich man’s crying cause his money’s time.”Ware, B. (2012). The Top Five Regrets of the Dying. Hay House. — Informing the concept of The Deferred Life. About Deep Cuts Deep Cuts is a podcast format from YouPotential. Every episode takes one conversation with a notable thinker, doer, or creator — and goes below the surface. The universal themes. The research applied. The wisdom distilled down to fifteen minutes of practical takeaways. Not more information to consume. A thinking tool. Something that helps you build the life you actually want. About Shaun Maslyk Shaun Maslyk is a Certified Financial Planner (CFP®), Financial Behaviour Specialist (FBS®), and holds a Master of Applied Positive Psychology (MAPP. His work sits at the intersection of money and meaning. He believes financial well-being belongs inside positive psychology — not outside it. And he thinks the most important financial decisions most people haven’t made yet are the small recurring ones.

25 мин.
16 АПР.

Stop Being Mindless: 40 Years of Harvard Research with Dr. Ellen Langer

What if your limits aren't real — they're just conclusions you stopped questioning? 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 pointThe Counterclockwise Study: How one week of living 'younger' changed measurable physical outcomesBehavior makes sense from the actor's perspective: The reframe that transforms relationshipsWhy forgiveness requires blame — and what to do insteadAttention to Symptom Variability: Ellen's treatment for chronic illness you can run on your phoneThe horse and the hot dog: The moment Ellen's research trajectory changed foreverMindful finance: Why the rules around money may not have been written for youMindful 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 HouseCounterclockwise — available at Penguin Random HouseMindfulness (25th Anniversary Edition) — available on Amazon

59 мин.
9 АПР.

Microadventures, Money & Meaning with Explorer Alastair Humphreys

Alastair Humphreys has done things most people only daydream about. He cycled around the world over four years. He rowed across the Atlantic with three other men in a tiny boat, no engine, no sail, just oars and stubborn determination. He walked across India. He crossed a desert. He played violin badly in Spanish plazas for coins he desperately needed to eat. And somewhere along the way, he arrived at a conclusion that surprises most people when they hear it: the single tree he climbs once a month, near his home in the English countryside, has given him as rich an experience as any of the expeditions. 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 joyThe difference between what adventures teach you vs. what repetition teaches youThe gain/loss framework: what you find and what you leave behind on a 4-year solo journeyWhy a million dollars was worthless in the middle of the Atlantic OceanPerceived risk vs. real risk — and the one thing that actually keeps you safeMicroadventures and the 5-to-9 framework for reclaiming everyday lifeThe tree he's been climbing once a month for three years — and what it taught himWalking across Spain with a violin he couldn't play — and the one coin that changed everythingMoney as freedom: the two ways to live a rich lifeHome 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 haveAs I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning by Laurie Lee — the book that inspired his violin-in-Spain adventureStoicism (Marcus Aurelius, Seneca) — the philosophy Alastair returns to when frustrated with ordinary lifedeathclock.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

1 ч. 11 мин.
1 АПР.

DDP on Discipline, Belief, and Becoming Who You Were Meant to Be

Diamond Dallas Page was running one of the hottest clubs in southwest Florida when he first started calling himself Diamond Dallas Page — before anyone else did. He was doing voice impressions of wrestlers in radio commercials, managing bars in leopard skin jackets, and watching Bruce Springsteen play 18 Sundays in a row at the Stone Pony. None of it looked like a path to the WWE Hall of Fame. That's exactly the point. 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

1 ч. 25 мин.
26 МАР.

Why You Feel Poor Even When You Have Enough | Elizabeth Husserl

Elizabeth Husserl grew up in New Orleans with a physician father and a therapist mother. By every measurable standard, her family had enough. But underneath the stability, there was a hum of scarcity that didn’t match the numbers — a felt sense passed down from her Austrian-Jewish grandfather who fled Europe during World War II, and a different kind of poverty carried by her Colombian mother who never quite felt she belonged in the United States. 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 COVEREDLynn 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.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.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.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.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.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.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.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 HUSSERLElizabeth 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 HUSSERLWebsite: https://elizabethhusserl.com/Book: The Power of Enough (also available as an audiobook read by Elizabeth)Instagram: @elizabethhusserl RESOURCES MENTIONEDThe Soul of Money by Lynn TwistSmall is Beautiful by E.F. SchumacherManfred Max Neif — Chilean economist, work on human needs and satisfiersSatish Kumar — activist, writer, and founder of Schumacher CollegeThe Wealth Mandala — free download at elizabethhusserl.comAbraham Maslow — hierarchy of human needsSophia Sisters — workshop program by Lynn TwistThe Remarkable Women’s Journey — immersive journey to the Amazon with Lynn TwistVandana Shiva — environmental activist mentioned at Schumacher College

1 ч. 7 мин.
19 МАР.

Happiness Is a Practice, Not a Destination | Dr. Gillian Mandich

Most people think happiness is something you find. Dr. Gillian Mandich has spent her career showing it's something you build — one rep at a time. 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)

1 ч. 6 мин.
12 МАР.

The Only Thing Stopping You Is You | Dr. Christian van Nieuwerburgh

Dr. Christian van Nieuwerburgh was born in 1971 to a Japanese mother and Belgian father in Beirut, Lebanon — in the middle of a civil war. He grew up in his mother’s Japanese restaurant, serving tables at eleven, managing the front of house as a young man. He assumed this was his life, permanently, until his mother said five words that changed everything: “You can do your own thing.” 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 Mizushobai — Japanese concept: “water business” (the unpredictability of restaurant income)Moktainai — Japanese concept: “use everything, waste nothing”Joyce, B. & Showers, B. (1983) — Coaching increases implementation by ~80%CHiPs (TV series) — California Highway PatrolThe Lotus of Thriving (forthcoming) — Buddhism and coachingRadical Listening — with Robert Biswas-DienerCoach on a Motorcycle YouTube Channel

1 ч. 23 мин.
5 МАР.

The Money Story You Inherited (And Can't Shake) | Melissa Leong

The Money Story You Inherited (And Can't Shake) | Melissa Leong 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 Hedonic Adaptation in Real Time: How a six-year-old's stuffie confession reveals what's happening to all of usThe Dopamine Trap: Why spending isn't a willpower problem — it's a neurological oneInherited Money Stories: How war, immigration, and family restaurants shape financial behavior generations laterThe Grandfather's Legacy: Philanthropy, Chinatown, and what generosity really looks likeCouples and Money Conflict: When scarcity mindset marries abundance mindset — and the ongoing negotiationThe Pause: Why friction in spending is actually a health practiceFinancial Socialization: What your kids learn about money from watching you (not from any course)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 Website: melissaleong.comBook: Happy Go Money RESOURCES MENTIONED Happy Go Money by Melissa LeongDaniel Kahneman's research on money and happinessHedonic adaptation researchStudy: Living next to a lottery winner increases bankruptcy risk2020 study: Giving $10K to 200 people — those who spent on others were happierViktor 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."

1 ч. 22 мин.

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YouPotential explores what it truly means to live a life well lived — through the lens of psychology, money, and meaning. Hosted by Shaun Maslyk—Certified Financial Planner®, Financial Behaviour Specialist®, and Positive Psychology Practitioner—the podcast delivers science-backed insights, candid conversations, and real stories that help people live with more intention.

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Shaun Maslyk
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