Episodes
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It’s not uncommon to find someone who has physical command of themselves, Discipline of their Body. Nor is there a shortage of brilliant people who have brought their Mind under control.
What is extraordinarily rare is someone who not only combines these two disciplines, but also manages to do so 'in the arena' - in public life, as a contributor to society.
With stories from the likes of Queen Elizabeth II, Martin Luther King Jr, and Angela Merkel, this episode (based on Ryan Holiday's book Discipline Is Destiny) shows us what's possible.
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Following on from the previous episode about discpline over our physical vessel, this episode is about discipline over our temperament.
Based on Ryan Holiday's book Discipline Is Destiny, we'll hear stories from the likes of Beethoven and Tom Brady to learn how we can improve our own attitudes.
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Missing episodes?
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When we're talking about discipline, the first and most obvious place to start is discipline over ourselves, over our exterior: discipline of the body.
In this episode, based on Ryan Holiday's book Discipline Is Destiny, we'll hear stories from basballer Lou Gehrig, inventor Thomas Edison, basketball coach John Wooden, and author Joyce Carol Oates, to learn some lessons that we can apply to our own lives.
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Over the next three days, we'll be learning from the book Discipline Is Destiny by Ryan Holiday.
Following on from his book Courage Is Calling (episode #xxx of the What You Will Learn podcast if you want to hear the best bits of that book), this is the second book in his four-part series on the cardinal virtues: Courage, Temperance, Justice & Wisdom.
Over the next three days, you’re going to hear storties of discipline from basballer Lou Gherig, inventor Thomas Edison, author Joyce Carol Oates, composer and musician Ludwig van Beethoven, footballer Tom Brady, politcal figures like Queen Elizabeth II, Martin Luther King Jr, Angela Merkel, and more.
We’re going to dive into discipline over three domains: the body, the mind, and the soul.
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Before we power ahead into the new year, let's take some time to look back at the year that was. As has been an annual tradition since 2016, I'm looking back at my top 10 favourite books I read in 2023.
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I had the pleasure of speaking with Oliver Burkeman, who is quickly becoming one of my favourite authors. His books HELP!, The Antidote and Four Tousand Weeks have all been winners and I can't wait for what he dishes up next.
In this episode we speak about happiness, making effect change, the power of identity, motivational seminars, writing, and all things self-help books.
You can find more about Oliver and his work here: https://www.oliverburkeman.com/
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It's one of the most pervasive cognitive errors in our human psychology. When we assess others, we overemphasise personality-based explanations and undervalue situational ones. If someone is late to a meeting, we assume it's because they're a lazy person, not because they were stuck in traffic. And vice versa - when we assess our own behaviour, we tend to discount the negatives based on circumstances outside of our control. When WE are late to a meeting, we know it's because our train was cancelled, not because we're an intentionally rude or disrespectful person. Looking at luck versus skill, when thigns go wrong for us it's because we were unlucky and when things go right it's because we worked hard.
You can see this in all areas of life, and in this episode I'll share a few more examples of where the Fundamental Attribution Error can rear its ugly head.
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You might've heard of Parkinson's Law, how tasks expand to fill the time alloted to them. Well this is Parkinson's on steroids. Hofstadter's Law says that: any task you’re planning to complete will always take longer than expected, even when Hofstadter’s Law is taken into account. It's a viscious cycle that feeds on itself - even when you expect a task to take longer than you expected, it exceeds your expectations and takes even longer still!
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Part 1 of a three-part mini series based on the book HELP! by Oliver Burkeman. This episode is inspired by the article titled 'How To Please None Of The People None Of The Time' that originally featured as a column in The Guardian.
In this episode, you'll learn how trying to please people is possible the worst way to make a decision, whether with family and friends or in the work and business setting.
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In preparation for my interview with Oliver Burkeman, I revisited his three books: Four Thousand Weeks, HELP!, and The Antidote.
This was originally Episode #400 of the What You Will Learn podcast (published in November 2022) about the book Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management For Mortals, which was in my top 3 books I read in 2022! I loved the contrarian views of time management and a new way to think about productivity (counterintuitively managing your time better by resisting the urge to manage your time). Burkeman went deep on productivity and came out the other side with some great ideas we can all apply to our own lives.
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After first interviewing Dan Ariely in November 2017, he's back for Round 2! This time, we speak about his brand new book, Misbelief.
Buy Misbelief: https://misbeliefbook.com/
Dan's website: https://danariely.com/
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Dan Ariely's 2008 book 'Predictably Irrational' highlighted "the hidden forces that shape our decisions".
Rather than the standard economic theory that looks at how we think people SHOULD behave, behavioural economics looks at how people ACTUALLY behave. Ariely found that rather being in the driver's seat (as we like to think), we're really just pawns in a game whose forces we don't understand and can't control.
This episode goes deep on one of those forces: the power of RELATIVITY.
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In preparation for my interview with Dan Ariely about his new book, Misbelief, I revisited a bunch of his previous books as well.
The Upside of Irrationality takes some of Ariely's research and findings into human behaviour and applies them to the world of work and motivation. This was originally Episode #338 of the What You Will Learn podcast (published in September 2021) but a bit of background into some of Dan's work will give some great context for the upcoming interview episode.
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Today I'm chatting with Owen Fitzpatrick. Owen is the author of 8 or 9 great books (with more on the way), he's the host of the Changing Minds podcast, and he delivered my favourite TED Talk of all time.
On this episode, we chat about Owen's compulsion for inputting new information, how he went deep into some personal development sub-cultures, and how he picks what to read next.
Owen's website: https://owenfitzpatrick.com/
Changing Minds podcast: https://changingmindspodcast.com/start-here/
Owen's legendary TED Talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBwQZv3_OXE
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A quick wrap up of the month of September:
Podcast updates (including stats) Emails and Voice Memos What I've been reading What's coming up next -
I met up with my old buddy Adam Jones (former co-host of the What You Will Learn podcast) to discuss our favourite short books. Some of these books are quick and easy reads, some are small in stature but hefty in nature, really packing a punch.
I guess the old adage holds true: it's not the size that counts, but how you use it.
This was quite an unstructured chat, rattling off books we liked (or didn't like) that were 150 pages or less. If any of these books tickle your fancy, check out the full episode we did on the WYWL podcast to go a little bit deeper on a specific book: https://whatyouwilllearn.com/
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Perhaps my new favourite framework for marketing and advertising - understanding where you customer currently is (in terms of their awareness of your product or service) and using that to inform your headlines and copywriting. You know the end point you want to get them to (buying from you), you'll now know where they currently are, so the job of your ad is to move them along the path from where they are to where you want them to be.
In this episode, I run through the 5 States of Awareness, as outlined in Eugene Schwartz's famous book, Breakthrough Advertising:
Completely Aware Product Aware Solution Aware Problem Aware Unaware -
Breakthrough Adveritising was written by Eugene Schwartz in the 1960s. Recently, over the last decade or so, it's had a real resurgence and developed a bit of an underground cult following. And for good reason!
While this book was originally written specifically about copywriting for newspaper ads, I see some of the underlying philosophies as one of the best lenses through which to view modern adveritsing and marketing in general.
I had to break this book into two episodes - this first part is about the ideas of "harnessing mass desire", then the next episoide goes deep on the five "states of awareness".
You can buy a second hand copy of this book for hundreds (and in some cases I've seen thousands) of dollars, or grab a new edition which is still not cheap but at least somewhat reasonable: https://breakthroughadvertisingbook.com/
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Tyler Cowen: Academic economist, author, podcaster, blogger, professor, online educator, reader, listener, foodie, and much much more.
Marginal Revolution: https://marginalrevolution.com/
Conversations With Tyler podcast: https://conversationswithtyler.com/
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Have you ever been sitting in a stock-standard, stale, boring, question-and-answer job interview? Whether you were doing the interviewing or being interviewed, it's not the best way to identify talent.
Tyler Cowen & Daniel Gross have some suggestions as to how to conduct better job interviews. In their book Talent, chapter 2 is titled 'How To Interview And Ask Questions'. Today's episode is the best bits of that chapter.
The first part of the episode is around the types of questions you ask (hint: if you google "top 15 most common job interview questions", you're doing it wrong). The second part of the episode is about the style of the interview: breaking out of pre-prepared canned responses and getting into conversation mode, changing the setting of the intetrview, and 'going meta'.
The next time your conducting a job interview (or the next time you want to showcase your talents in a job interview), these ideas will make things a hell of a lot better for everyone involved.
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