What is a Good Life?

What are the levers to pull for a good life? Bill Yost thinks of life as a character select screen: you only get so many stats, you can’t max them all, and every choice has a trade-off.
Bill leads talent data products at Netflix and spent nearly eight years in people analytics at Google. He’s a dad of two, and 38,000+ people follow him on LinkedIn for his deadpan work humour. He also co-hosts Dashboard Confessionals, and runs a small-batch cookie business, Cookies Worth Sharon, with his mom, Sharon. In this conversation, he explains how he uses a data analyst’s mindset to decide where his time goes, he talks about how a thyroid cancer diagnosis at 28 reshaped his priorities, and why he’s now more focused on being a great dad than on climbing the corporate ladder.
If you’ve ever wondered how to find work-life balance and to decide what matters most, this conversation is for you.
In this episode:
Why Bill noticed life was finite as a kid, long before he had a reason to
Choosing a frat-house life in DC over a bigger 401(k)
Riding his career at “mild” on the Taco Bell sauce scale
The phone call that sent him to bed for a weekend, and how he got through it
Living with annual scan anxiety, or “Schrödinger’s cancer”
Why he says yes to every stranger who messages him about thyroid cancer
How humor became his way of showing he knows his stuff
Why he wants “great dad” on his tombstone, not a job title

To support the podcast:
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/whatisagoodlife?
For more from Bill Yost:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/billyost/
Your Post Sucks: https://yourpost.sucks/
For more from Mark McCartney:
The Podcast's Newsletter: https://www.whatisagood.life/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-mccartney-14b0161b4/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@whatisagoodlife

Registered dietitian Angela Jenkins spent nearly 30 years inside the conventional medical system. Then her own kidneys began to fail, and she was told, “You look healthy. We’ll just watch it.” Lying on a gravel bar on a Missouri river, she decided to figure it out for herself. That moment changed her approach to health, food, and life.
In this conversation, Angela shares what she learned about convenience and cosmetics, and how they shape our health. We talk about honouring your own experience, why hyper-diligent biohacking can keep the body in fight or flight, and the simple practices that help us return to ourselves: deep breathing, time in nature, and hands in the soil. Angela also explains why she believes putting a face to your food has huge benefits, and how building your own food system is a countercultural act. We explore:
Why we get talked out of our own experience, and how to stop
Convenience, cosmetics, and the toxic load of modern life
The cost of living with one foot in a system you no longer believe in
How hyper-diligence and wearables can work against the body
Why medicating symptoms can create bigger problems later
Building your most immediate food environment
Aging without assuming you’ll feel worse
Angela Jenkins, RD/LD, is a registered dietitian, detoxification strategist, and founder of Health Is Local. With over 30 years of experience in nutrition, she helps people look beyond symptoms to understand the connections between cellular health, environmental exposures, lifestyle, and overall well-being. Her philosophy, All Health Is Local, reflects her belief that healthier people, healthier communities, and healthier environments are deeply interconnected.

To support the podcast:
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/whatisagoodlife?
For more from Angela Jenkins:
website: https://healthislocal.com
For more from Mark McCartney:
The Podcast's Newsletter: https://www.whatisagood.life/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-mccartney-14b0161b4/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@whatisagoodlife

I recently watched a documentary that blew my mind: Where Everything Disappears. It was hard to hold the beauty and the grief it shared at the same time. It follows Dmytro “Dok” Dokunov, a documentary filmmaker who was living in a countryside eco-community, practicing yoga, breathwork and meditation, when Russia launched its full-scale invasion. He joined the Ukrainian army, became a commander, and kept recording his experiences. 
This is one of the most fascinating conversations I’ve had in this series. We talk about:
Leaving a community built around nature and connection for the front line
Using mantras and the Bhagavad Gita in a war zone
Why he saw going to war as a form of love
The bonds formed when there are no masks left
Losing friends, and the weight of commanding others
Why he still believes in humanity’s future
A really moving conversation about presence, connection and keeping our hearts open, from a remarkable life.
The guest:
Dmytro “Dok” Dokunov is a Ukrainian documentary filmmaker, photographer, digital artist and Armed Forces veteran. For over 20 years, he has explored human stories, the beauty of everyday life, and the relationship between people, nature, and technology. As a co-founder of Pixelated Realities, he has worked on preserving cultural heritage through photography, 3D scanning, and digital art. When Russia's full-scale invasion began, Dmytro became a soldier, continuing to document life through his camera. His personal footage and experiences became the heart of the documentary Where Everything Disappears, directed by Oleksandr Tkachenko. Today, he is developing a nature-based creative and rehabilitation space for veterans and their families in Ukraine.

To support the podcast:
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/whatisagoodlife?
For more from Mark McCartney:
The Podcast's Newsletter: https://www.whatisagood.life/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-mccartney-14b0161b4/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@whatisagoodlife

What does a good life look like when your health is uncertain? Matt was born with a bone condition and has broken more than 40 bones. He’s had a liver transplant, and he’s now waiting on open heart surgery. He’s also one of the most positive, curious people I know, and I wanted to find out how he lives so fully.
Matt has been a basketball coach, an equipment manager for the Vancouver Grizzlies in the NBA, a stockbroker, and a boxing promoter. He still trades and invests, and today he’s a writer and creator in animation, developing a comedy series.
In this conversation, we talk about what living with medical uncertainty has taught him, and why he doesn’t let his health or his job define him. We also cover how saying hello to strangers has shaped his career and friendships, why you should change your mind when the facts change, what he learned from a boxing venture that didn’t add up, and his rule for new opportunities: if you can’t think of a downside, give it a go.
It is a conversation about curiosity, relationships and keeping an open mind.
To support the podcast:
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/whatisagoodlife?
For more from Mark McCartney:
The Podcast's Newsletter: https://www.whatisagood.life/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-mccartney-14b0161b4/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@whatisagoodlife

What happens when a hard-working founder is told by “the spirit world” to slow down and become a father? Philippe Birker is the co-founder of Climate Farmers, an organisation supporting the transition to regenerative agriculture across Europe. In this conversation he shares the question he’s living by: What do I want to leave behind?

We talk about:
A transformative ayahuasca retreat, and the messages that reshaped his work and family life
Moving from 70-hour weeks and near burnout to trusting the flow of life
What teenagers in a South African township taught him about money and happiness
Falling in love with regenerative farming, and the farmer who changed what he eats
Replanting a burned Portuguese hillside and what it means to increase a place’s “life-holding capacity”
Love, friendship, and the unconditional love of fatherhood
Originally from Germany, Philippe now lives in Portugal with his partner and two young sons. He also runs the social music label Hug Records and is rebuilding an abandoned village with friends.
This episode is filled with inspiration to pay more attention to how we live, to whom we love, and the power of working at something you find meaningful.
If you'd like to check out more of Philippe's work:
Climate Farmers: www.climatefarmers.org

To support the podcast:
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/whatisagoodlife?
For more from Mark McCartney:
The Podcast's Newsletter: https://www.whatisagood.life/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-mccartney-14b0161b4/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@whatisagoodlife