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It’s tempting to believe that the self is a constant. That it’s a core component of who we are from the time we’re born.
But social psychologist and Stanford Professor Brian Lowery has a different view. He believes the self we are today is a product of our social relationships – our friends, our families, our communities, our technologies, even our geography. That as our circumstances change, so does the self we believe ourselves to be. In this interview, we talk about this and more from his book, Selfless: The Social Creation of You.
Brian’s argument explains so much about how we operate in the world, and he gives us another reason to prioritize social relationships in our lives.
Episode Links
A Provocative Theory of Identity Finds There is No ‘You’ in Self
Brian Lowery on the Myth of Rugged Individualism and What This Means for the America of the 2020s
Interview with Gregory Burns
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We need pleasure in our lives. We also need meaning. Pleasure gives us joy and delight. Meaning gives us purpose and a set of goals to work toward.
But have there ever been times in your life when you’ve experienced meaning and pleasure, yet felt something was missing? Turns out, you’re not alone.
What’s missing, according to recent research, is something called psychological richness. Think of it as mental stimulation. A combination of curiosity and wonder. Lorraine Besser writes about this in her book, The Art of the Interesting: What We Miss in Our Pursuit of the Good Life and How to Cultivate It. She also shares what she and her research colleagues have learned about how to get it.
This is a book that takes something we know we need – mental challenge and stimulation – and calls it out as a key component for living a good life.
Episode Links
What If You Pursued What's Interesting Instead of Happiness?
How Novelty Positively Impacts Your Brain
Interview with Rainesford Stauffer
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When we’re looking for insights on how to make friends, manage our anxiety, or just live a happier life, we rarely look to the past. Instead, we tend to focus on what today’s thinkers have to say.
But what if the recipe for happiness lies in the past, specifically the 2000-year-old past? What if the ancient writings of Greek philosopher Epicurus hold the answers?
That’s what modern-day philosopher, Emily Austin, argues in her book, Living for Pleasure: An Epicurean Guide to Life. She teaches us what Epicurus really thought about pleasure and why he made it a cornerstone of his life. She also points out the advantages of an Epicurean mindset over a Stoic one.
Emily’s book is proof that we still have much to learn, for our work and our life, from the ancient Greek philosophers, especially Epicurus!
Episode Links
The Good Life is the One Where Anxiety Falls by the Wayside
The Epicurean Search for Happiness and Serenity
Interview with Tali Sharot
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We often assume that stress and anxiety are the price we pay for success. Yet these feelings can lead to burnout and self-doubt, two debilitating outcomes that can get in the way of the very achievements we’re striving for.
This is a pattern psychologist Mary Anderson often sees in her high-achieving clients: their very success has left them so scarred that they can’t enjoy it, let alone build on it. The good news is that Anderson has developed a set of research-backed strategies to get us unstuck. Anderson shares these stories and strategies in her book, The Happy High Achiever: 8 Essentials to Overcome Anxiety, Manage Stress, and Energize Yourself for Success – without Losing Your Edge.
I walked away from the book – and our conversation – with tools to rethink some of my own limiting beliefs. I bet you will, too.
Episode Links
Perfectionism Is Not Healthy or Sustainable. Here’s What to Strive for Instead
5 Ways to Find Relief in a Moment of Overwhelm
Staying Determined on the Way to Achieving Your Goals
Interview with Michael Gervais
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As a knowledge worker, you face two challenges. First, you need to take in staggering amounts of information to stay current. Next, you're expected to convert that information into innovative solutions that benefit your team and your company.
While expectations for consuming and processing information have changed, most of our mental habits harken back to factory model days. Yet we’re ignoring the tremendous power of our human biology, namely, our brains.
What if we designed an optimal work style built around key features of the human brain? That’s the question Mithu Storoni works to answer in her book, Hyperefficient: Optimize Your Brain to Transform the Way You Work. She likens brain function to a car engine with multiple gears. Then she shares how to best put those gears to work for us, and how best to shift them as circumstances change.
It’s just the right book – with just the right information – for the age we’re living in.
Episode Links
Uncertainty is Uncomfortable, and Technology Makes It Worse. That Doesn’t Have to Be a Bad Thing
Help! It Turns out Breaks Make You More Productive
Interview with Ayelet Fishbach on the Science of Motivation
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We like the idea of the lone genius, that one person who developed a game-changing innovation. But whether or not we realize it, research shows that creativity is collaborative.
Yep. You heard that right. And we have lots of examples: the development of the airplane, the Internet, the mountain bike, and so many more.
We’re schooled in the notion that creativity is an individual thing, yet research shows, again and again, that it’s not. Instead, it’s through connecting with others, then working alone, and then connecting again, that we innovate.
Keith Sawyer has studied groups and creativity for decades. His book, Group Genius: The Creative Power of Collaboration, elucidates what group genius looks like, why it works, and what it takes to cultivate it, so we can develop game-changing innovations.
This book changed how I see groups, creativity, and the connection between the two, and the research findings are fascinating.
Episode Links
Group Creativity and Collaboration
Everyone Can Be More Creative – But Not Alone
Being More Creative in Everyday Life is Simple
Interview with Moshe Bar
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It’s become common knowledge that we need to prioritize our physical and mental health. In fact we’re encouraged to commit to regular exercise and good nutrition, and to engage with mental health professionals as part of a healthy lifestyle.
And if public health experts like Kasley Killam have their way, social health will become just as important. It’s why she wrote the book, The Art and Science of Connection: Why Social Health is the Missing Key to Living Longer, Healthier, and Happier.
Kasley’s book is the proactive solution to today’s loneliness epidemic. It’s also a research-backed argument for why social health needs to be on equal footing with mental and physical health.
Episode Links
Shifting the Focus from Loneliness to Social Health
What is Social Health? The Little-Known Idea that Could Make All the Difference
The Mental Health Industry is Booming. Next up? Social Health Innovation
Interview with Malissa Clark
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Each day, millions of doctors write prescriptions for drugs intended to help their patients. But what if many of our modern health ailments, like depression, anxiety, and chronic pain, would benefit as much, if not more, from a social prescription?
What if nature, art, movement, and service could reduce our symptoms, decrease doctor visits, and improve our health?
These are questions Julia Hotz set out to answer. Julia is author of the book, The Connection Cure: The Prescriptive Power of Movement, Nature, Art, Service, and Belonging. By sharing research findings, as well as people’s stories from around the world, we get to see a whole other side of medicine.
After reading her book, I’m more convinced than ever we need to seek out and prioritize healthy social time.
Episode Links
New Horizons in Medicine: Why Art, Service, and Nature Might Be What the Doctor Orders
What If Your Doctor Could Prescribe Fishing Trips or Art Classes? Social Prescribing on the Rise
Doctor’s Orders: A Social Prescription for Health
Interview with Geoffrey Cohen
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We know how important friendships are. At the very least, for our health and well-being. But we also know how hard it gets to make and keep friends over the course of a lifetime, especially as we move, change jobs, and have families.
That’s why Anna Goldfarb’s book, Modern Friendship: How to Nurture Our Most Valued Connections, is so important. We need friendships for good health, and Anna’s book teaches us ways to make, keep, and move on from toxic friends. And she readily shares what to say to build and deepen friendships.
I think it’s a terrific book for understanding how to be a better friend.
Episode Links
Let’s Make This the Golden Age of Friendship
The Secret to Modern Friendship, According to Real Friends
How to Deal with a Friendship Quiet Season
Interview with Kat Vellos
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Most of us believe we can make a difference in the world. That we can have an impact. What holds us back from acting on those beliefs are often the doubts. Doubts about our skills, our credentials, even our roles at work.
Alex Budak studied the research and interviewed the changemakers, and he argues we can all be changemakers, no matter our resumes. That’s what led him to write his book, Becoming a Changemaker: An Actionable, Inclusive Guide to Leading Positive Change at Any Level.
I was inspired by Alex’s book and our conversation. I walked away with a changemaker playbook on the mindset, leadership qualities, and behaviors to make it happen.
Episode Links
Finding Leadership Treasures in World Cup Trash
Stop Waiting for Permission
Be the Light
Interview with Sheena Iyengar
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This year, we witnessed a solar eclipse. Walking the streets of my neighborhood that day, looking through my solar eclipse glasses and sharing them with others, I felt a profound sense of awe.
And I saw that awe, that wonder, reflected in the faces of the people around me. For one or two hours, we were part of something bigger than ourselves. And that experience took us out of ourselves. It softened and connected us.
Experiences like that are what made me want to read Dacher Keltner’s latest book, Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life. In this conversation, we talk about what awe is, how it works, and why it matters. We also talk about how to build more awe into our lives.
Episode Links
Here’s Why You Need to Be Cultivating Awe in Your Life
An Awe Walk
Strengthen Your Leadership with the Science of Awe
Interview with Norman Farb author of Better in Every Sense
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Social connections are one of the keys to a happy and healthy life, yet few of us learn how to build them.
If we’re lucky, we have family and friends who model them. But even then, our biology equips us with cognitive biases that can get in the way.
Fortunately, award-winning science writer David Robson has studied the research. He shares what he’s learned in his latest book, The Laws of Connection: The Scientific Secrets of Building a Strong Social Network.
In this conversation, he talks about the biases we hold and how we can overcome them. It’s a terrific resource for rethinking your approach to social connection.
Episode Links
How Learning about the Science of Shyness Helped Me
The Big Idea: Why You Shouldn’t Be Afraid of Being a Mess
Interview with Marissa King on Social Networks and Social Chemistry
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There are many good reasons to look to others. For example, you might need expert advice or feedback to improve your performance. But there’s one reason not to, and, that is, to determine your self-worth.
When you look to someone else to define you or tell you how to live your life, you lose a lot. And if you find it hard to believe you’d ever let someone else influence you in those ways, you’d be surprised.
Michael Gervais is a high-performance psychologist who’s worked with elite athletes, artists, and leaders. Through his work, he’s learned that one of the biggest obstacles standing in their way is fear of other people’s opinions. And he’s seen just how crippling those fears can be. That’s why he’s written the book, The First Rule of Mastery: Stop Worrying about What People Think of You.
In talking to Michael, I learned how our biology sets us up to place a lot of weight on other people’s opinions. I also learned how social media is designed to reinforce that fear. Fortunately, Michael shared insights on what to do. I walked away feeling empowered.
Episode Links
Stop Basing Your Self-Worth on Other People’s Opinions
Free Your People from the Need for Social Approval
Build a Great Team on a Relationship-Based Culture, Not the Myth of Family
Interview with Jonathan Rhodes on Getting the Life You Want
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We’re surrounded by people with knowledge. The manager who can provide expert feedback or the colleague who has important information. These kinds of insights can help us achieve our goals.
Yet as much as we need that knowledge, we often don’t act in ways that invite it.
It’s when the project runs behind or we can’t make our numbers that we realize, often too late, that asking sooner could have made all the difference.
These are the results Jeff Wetzler can help us avoid. His book, Ask: Tap into the Hidden Wisdom of People around You for Unexpected Breakthroughs in Leadership and Life, is a call to arms for regularly making asks that elicit the insights we need. His strategies are important for individuals, teams, and organizations.
Episode Links
How to Get the Honest Input You Need from Your Employees
What Happens When You’re Blindsided at Work?
Why We Don’t Raise Tough Issues and How to Get Better at It
Interview with Anh Dao Pham on How to Succeed as a Project Leader
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We all want to be happy. In fact, it’s our desire for happiness that drives most of our decisions, like our friendships, our activities, even our purchases.
Yet, over time, we find that the things that made us so happy at the start – that new car or delicious meal – end up losing their luster.
I was curious about why this happens and what, if anything, we can do about it. That’s why I wanted to talk to Tali Sharot, cognitive neuroscientist, professor at University College London and MIT, and director of the Affective Brain Lab. In her latest book, Look Again: The Power of Noticing What Was Always There, she explains why the things that once made us happy no longer do. She also shares what we can do about it.
Episode Links
The Big Idea: This Simple Behavioural Trick Can Help You Get More out of Life
Your Life is Better Than You Think
Why People Fail to Notice Horrors around Them
David Robson on How Our Expectations Shape Us (Interview)
The Team
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We crave meaning and purpose, yet obtaining them can feel beyond our control, like they're merely products of luck and circumstance. Fortunately, researchers who’ve studied the power of ritual have found they’re more in our control than we think.
In this interview, I talk to one of these researchers, psychologist Michael Norton. He shares how rituals, especially ones we create, can provide the meaning and purpose we crave. And, unlike habits, rituals operate on an emotional level that deepens the experience.
In his book, The Ritual Effect: From Habit to Ritual, Harness the Surprising Power of Everyday Actions, Norton shares what rituals are, why they matter, and how they can help bolster us throughout our lives.
Episode Links
The Calming Power of Rituals
Forget Habits in the New Year. Find Joy in Rituals with Others
Breaking up Can Be Easier if You Have a Ritual
Interview with Eduardo Briceno on The Performance Paradox
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At some point, we all get stuck. Maybe it’s in a job or career. Maybe it’s a relationship or business venture.
Though it’s something we all experience, when it happens, we can feel alone and out of our depth. Emotions may overwhelm us. Mental traps lure is in. In no time at all, we can’t see a way out.
Award-winning professor, researcher, and author, Adam Alter, has spent decades studying how successful people get unstuck. In his latest book, Anatomy of a Breakthrough: How to Get Unstuck When It Matters Most, he shares what we can do to move forward. Adam’s recommendations can help us with what might be the most important times in our lives.
Episode Links
Life is in the Transitions: Mastering Change at Any Age by Bruce Feiler
How the ‘Creative-Cliff Illusion’ Limits Our Ideas by David Robson
Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
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When we’re feeling stuck, it’s tempting to believe more thinking is the answer. We stew and we ponder, and then we double down on solutions we’ve tried before. It’s no wonder we start to feel like we just can’t figure it out.
But what would happen if we put thinking aside and tried something else? Author and researcher, Norman Farb, has learned that there’s an entire canvas of sensory experience we can access any time we want. And by tapping into our senses, we may find ways to feel better. It’s what Norm writes about in his book, Better in Every Sense: How the New Science of Sensation Can Help You Reclaim Your life.
By the time I reached the last page of this book, I felt like I’d been let in on an incredible set of tools for enriching my life.
Episode Links
How Your 5 Senses Can Help You Stop Worrying
Feeling Sensations, Including Ones Connected to Sadness, May Be Key to Depression Recovery
Attending to the Present: Mindfulness Meditation Reveals Distinct Neural Modes of Self-Reference
Interview with Britt Frank on The Science of Stuck
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When we think of geeks, we tend to think of the people who built the tech we use – from our smartphones to search engines to AI.
But if we just focus on the tech, we’re missing out on a lot. We’re overlooking how these same geeks reinvented corporate culture using a repeatable set of norms that ensure sustainable innovation.
Andrew McAfee is a principal research scientist at the MIT Sloan School of Management and cofounder and codirector of the MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy. He’s been studying innovative companies for decades, and he’s taken what he’s learned and written about it in his latest book, The Geek Way: The Radical Mindset that Drives Extraordinary Results.
I’m convinced what Andrew’s learned about the geek way – and its four key norms – is a roadmap for where today’s – and tomorrow’s - companies are headed.
Episode Links
The Geek Way
New Book Explains the ‘Geek Way’ to Manage a Company
Forward Thinking on How Geeks are Changing the World
Interview with Roger Martin
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There’s more to being a workaholic than working long hours. Consider what motivates you to work more. Where you’re spending your energy. Think about the impact those longer hours have on family and friends.
These are some of the distinctions Malissa Clark makes in her book, Never Not Working: Why the Always-on Culture is Bad for Business and How to Fix it. She not only shares a helpful framework for thinking about workaholism but gives us ways to recognize it. Equally helpful, she explains steps we – and our organizations – can take to undo it.
Malissa’s book is a great resource for assessing workaholic tendencies and for changing them – as individuals, teams, and organizations.
Episode Links
Are You a Workaholic? Don’t Wear it as a Badge of Honor
These are the Four Drivers of Workaholism
Thomas Curran on The Perfection Trap
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