What is a Good Life?

On the 153rd episode of What Is a Good Life?, I’m joined by Ethan Hsieh for a wide-ranging and deeply human conversation on service, being, and what happens when self-work goes too far.

Ethan is currently undertaking his PhD research integrating performance-training with 4E cognitive science. With an MA in Professional Practice: Theatre and Drama Facilitation, he has designed and delivered transformational community-building programs, retreats, and workshops across Asia and Europe through his organisation 5ToMidnight, where he is Artistic Director. He also serves as Platform Manager for The Lectern and has co-designed select practices with John Vervaeke, including the Socratic Imaginal Self-Reflection and the Socratic Search Space. Ethan maintains a private coaching practice working with corporate leaders, professional athletes, and social organisations.

Together, we explore nihilism, play, embodiment, identity, and the question that now orients Ethan’s life: When does being itself become service?

This episode invites listeners to loosen self-fixation, recover participation, and rediscover what becomes possible when we allow life—and each other—to change us.

For more of Ethan's work:
Website: https://www.5tomidnight.org/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ethan-hsieh-828a63240/

For more of my work:
Contact me at mark@whatisagood.life if you'd like to explore your own good life through:
- 1-on-1 coaching and online group courses: https://www.whatisagood.life/p/individual-coaching
- The podcast's YouTube page: https://www.youtube.com/@whatisagoodlife/videos
- My newsletter: https://www.whatisagood.life/p/individual-coaching

00:00 A Question of Service
05:40 Self-Work’s Breaking Point 
08:04 From Optimization to Orientation
12:52 Not Knowing Intimately 
16:31 Returning to Play 
26:56 Letting Experience In 
31:31 Contact With Life
36:46 Seeing Others Anew
43:42 Identity Held Loosely
52:19 Embodiment and Coherence 
59:30 What is a good life for Ethan?

What is What is a Good Life??

This isn’t a podcast about fixing you. It’s about living life more fully.

What Is a Good Life? is a long-form conversation project exploring how people actually live, feel, and make meaning of their lives.

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?

These conversations aren’t about advice, formulas, or self-improvement. They explore presence, paradox, uncertainty, and the moments that quietly shape a life — love and loss, trust and fear, clarity and not knowing.

This podcast isn’t here to give you answers.
It’s here to slow you down, to listen deeply, and to invite you into conversation with your own life.

New episodes weekly.