This episode is sponsored by 99Designs and ExOfficio.

Maria Popova has written for amazing outlets like The Atlantic and The New York Times, but I find her most amazing project to be BrainPickings.org.

Founded in 2006 as a weekly email that went out to seven friends, BrainPickings now get more than 5 million readers per month (!). I read very few blogs regularly, but BrainPickings is one of the few.  It is a treasure trove.

BrainPickings is Maria's one-woman labor of love — her subjective lens on what matters in the world and why. It's also an inquiry into how to live and what it means to lead a good life.  From Mark Twain to Oscar Wilde and everyone in between, Maria finds hidden gems to share.

And that's what I hoped to do in this episode.  It takes me a few minutes to warm up in this interview, but as soon as we get going, we geek out like crazy, talking about almost every aspect of her life, her site, her business, and her writing.

I loved doing this interview, and I hope you love listening to it.  There are a lot of valuable nuggets.