On the 24th episode of the What is a Good Life? podcast, I am joined by Robbie Stamp, who is the is CEO of BIOSS International, a Senior Fellow at the Resilience and Sustainable Development Programme at Cambridge University, Chairman of HappenedHere, and was an Executive Producer on the Hitchhikers’s Guide to the Galaxy feature film.
In this episode, we discuss the quality and significance of paying attention, cultivating compassion for ourselves and others, becoming ok with not knowing, appreciating all phenomenological and conscious experiences, the mirror AI holds up to us and the limitations AI will have in accounting for all human experience, and how there will always be a tension between creative and destructive behaviour, both internally and collectively.
This episode will help you appreciate the messiness of being human and yourself, feel more comfortable with the uncertainty and paradoxes of life, exhibit more compassion for us all while striving to improve, and to cultivate some humility around the limitations of your own knowledge and perspective.
Subscribe for weekly episodes, every Tuesday, and check out my YouTube channel (link below) for daily clips and reflections.
Contact me at
mark@whatisagood.life to book a
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corporate workshops I am offering around this question.
Running Order:
01:31 Podcast begins
06:51 Compassion for the messiness of human beings
10:14 The paradox of needing to be hard and kind to yourself
17:29 Becoming ok with not knowing
21:32 Getting comfortable with uncertainty
28:19 AI and the mirror it holds up to us
33:11 What AI cannot capture
38:13 The significance of all conscious experiences
44:31 Suspending our labels and perspectives
48:08 How do we create better civil discourse
51:21 Burdening ourselves with ideas of Utopia
54:56 Paradox of humility
57:36 What is a good life for Robbie?
For further content and information check out the following:
- For the podcast's YouTube page: https://www.youtube.com/@whatisagoodlife/videos
- My newsletter: https://www.whatisagood.life/
- My LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-mccartney-14b0161b4/
- Robbie's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robbie-stamp-70254/
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.