Episodes
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Have ‘survival of the fittest’ theories led to a breakdown of community? Dr Bruce Lipton argues that humanity’s best survival strategy is unity.
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What role does dub poetry have in the struggle for justice?
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Missing episodes?
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Why the world needs more sensitive people to embrace their egos.
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Exploring the fascinating history of positive psychology and how the pursuit of happiness became a global industry.
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How to claim full ownership of our bodies and sexuality.
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It’s pointless debating with someone who’s got their mind set on certain beliefs...right? We’ve all been in a situation where, despite a clear presentation of all the facts, we just can’t change someone’s mindset. But perhaps we try to influence others in all the wrong ways. Neuroscientist Tali Sharot says using facts and figures is incompatible with how the brain works.
When someone disagrees with us what we tend to do is either stop listening or we’ve come up with reasons while they’re talking why they’re wrong and I’m right.
She says the brain encodes information differently depending on how we relate to the other person and that emotion plays a bigger role than reason. When trying to influence others she says the best first step is find common ground.
When two people make decisions together, when they disagree…. the brain really fails to encode the information coming from the disagreeing partner. But when two people agree, each person is very precisely encoding the information coming from the agreeing partner.
Her latest book, The Influential Mind, explores the many ways our brain receives information and why.
Listen here to Tali Sharot explain the core elements that govern the human brain.
January 9th 201836:16
About Our Guest:
Tali Sharot is the founder and director of the Affective Brain Lab at University College London, and author of The Optimism Bias: A Tour of the Irrationally Positive Brain, and The Influential Mind: What the Brain Reveals about Our Power to Change Others. -
Psychologist Robin Grille has been theorising for some time that economic movements correlate directly with parenting and teaching trends. Right now, he says, the future is looking good.
There’s definitely a new kind of society emerging, far bigger than what the regular media would ever let you know.
He says people around the world are moving away from a top-down governance to a more community style model and believes it’s because we’ve also returned to a more needs based parenting style. He’s also linked it to an awareness of ‘flow’ and cites global research which shows that when children are engaged in activities where they find ‘flow,' their academic performance and behaviour improve.
We don’t want to beat each other up when we have access to being who we are...I know places where they’ve started to use democratic schooling systems as a treatment for social violence.
Listen to Robin Grille explain the link between economics and parenting here.
January 3rd 201833:52
About Our Guest:
Robin Grille is a psychologist and parenting educator. His articles on parenting and child development have been widely published and translated in Australia and around the world. He’s also the author of ‘Parenting for a Peaceful World’ and ‘Heart to Heart Parenting’. -
Everybody wants to be free. Freedom and liberty are central to happiness. But can we have too much freedom? Dr. Craig Hassed is one of Australia’s leading mindfulness experts and the author of The Freedom Trap. He says that contemporary definitions of freedom will not lead to happiness but are instead harming us and our planet.
Our modern notions of freedom are just removing more and more limitations, or barriers, to a person’s individual will and desire. Whatever we want to do, we should be able to do it as much as we want to. Stay up as late as we want to, eat what we want to...So we’ve got... more opportunity for indulgence than probably any other time in history.
All this, he says, is counter to notions of freedom expressed by the world’s great wisdom traditions.
Freedom wasn’t just a matter of satisfying every desire you’ve got. Freedom was a matter of transcending desire, being non-attached to desire, not driven by desire.
He says that constant desire and wanting only brings dissatisfaction and agitation.
If you want true freedom then it’s through non-attachment. It’s through not being subject to every whim or want that goes through the mind.
Listen to Dr Craig Hassed’s tips for true freedom here.
December 27th 201723:29
About Our Guest:
Dr Craig Hassed is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of General Practice at Monash University. He is an internationally recognised speaker on holistic, integrative and mind-body medicine in medical practice and connecting knowledge systems. -
Does 'hope’ have the potential to do more harm than good?
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Learn the secret to living a truly fulfilling life by revisiting your childhood.
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It’s difficult to think of a time when men and masculinity have been under more scrutiny. In his role as senior editor of the Good Men Project, Mark Greene is confronted on a daily basis with the complex challenges facing men today. He’s convinced that the problems begin from birth when boys are conditioned to lose touch with their emotions.
Culturally, we need to let go of this idea that emotional expression is a sign of weakness, or in case of men, that it’s a sign of being feminine. It is not. It’s a super power. It’s our capacity to connect and operate in the world, and to create trust and connection and meaning.
He also blames an epidemic of isolation which our culture has forced upon us and says that men in particular suffer from a lack of real connection with friends.
If we begin to form connection and communication….If my son can pick these skills up when he’s 12 ...he’s got the ability to begin connecting, self regulating, forming community, self empowering….. he won’t fall prey to peer pressure…..all of these capacities will give him the ability to feel like he has a place in the world and he has a community that he can be in connection with.
He also says that we’ve lost the art of truly listening to each other with an open heart and mind. He encourages both men and women to practice changing their listening habits.
If you set your mind to listening with the expectation that you’ll be surprised and that you’ll learn something, you pull more threads of the conversation than you would if you were listening with a reinforcement of what you already think.
Listen here to Mark Greene’s thoughts on Remaking Manhood.
December 5th 201739:37
About Our Guest:
Mark Greene is the author of Remaking Manhood and senior editor for the Good Men Project. He also contributes to the Shriver Report, the New York Times, Salon, the BBC and the Huffington Post. -
A former cosmetics manufacturer has convinced hundreds of thousands of women to take a pledge to reduce their carbon footprint. This is her story.
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Trust is the social glue which holds our communities together and once it’s diminished there are profound consequences for culture, society and economies. Author Rachel Botsman contends that we are at the beginning of the biggest trust revolution in history. Where we once placed our trust in institutions like banks, media and government, we’re now likely to place more trust in strangers via technology.
The rise of multi-billion-dollar companies such as Airbnb and Uber, whose success depends on trust between strangers, is a clear illustration of how trust can now travel through networks and marketplaces.
But she argues that we’re also beginning to lose trust in the new companies, like Facebook and Uber, which replaced the old ones.
How (do) we actually preserve this very precious asset that enables us to do things and take risks, and place our faith in remarkable people and places and things where we don’t know the outcome.
She’s urging us to take a ‘trust pause’ and examine the relationships and technologies in which we’re placing this new ‘distributed’ trust.
We don’t want more trust in the wrong people and the wrong places, we actually want more trust worthiness.
Listen here to Rachel Botsman explain why we should all take a “trust pause”.
November 23rd 201729:27
About Our Guest:
Rachel Botsman is the author of Who Can You Trust (How Technology Brought Us Together and Why It Might Drive Us Apart) and What’s Mine Is Yours: The Rise of Collaborative Consumption. -
Scarlett Lewis, whose son was killed in the Sandy Hook shooting, responds to the ongoing US gun violence with a surprising message.
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Dr. Bruce Lipton celebrates our 50th episode by answering your questions!
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Learn why trees are nature’s most magnificent networkers, and how they can enrich our understanding of biology, human nature and ethics.
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Barack Obama's sister says we can’t leave conflict resolution up to governments. This is what she suggests instead.
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Have we misinterpreted the true meaning of this popular phrase? Social philosopher, Roman Krznaric, explains five very different ways to seize the day.
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How to carry a transformative experience off the mat and into daily life.
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Yossi Ghinsberg spent three weeks lost and alone in the Bolivian Amazon. Listen to his extraordinary story of survival!
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