Episodes

Tiago Forte, creator of the Second Brain methodology, shares how attending five different schools in five consecutive years obliterated his social circles and forced him to become a chameleon—crossing between student governme...

Susan Magsamen, author of Your Brain on Art, explores creativity through neuroscience rather than philosophy or technique. Born to working-class parents who never attended college—her father worked his way up from nurseries t...

Robin Dellabough, writer and editor, shares her unconventional journey from growing up in a bohemian Greenwich Village household to spending decades supporting other people's creativity. Raised by beatnik parents who gave her...

Rob Bloom, creative director for Universal theme parks, shares his journey living with a stutter that shaped his entire life and career. He reveals how hiding his stutter for 30 years meant ordering food he didn't want, watch...

Rich Karlgaard, author of Late Bloomers, dismantles the toxic narrative that success must come early. Drawing from his father's reinvention in his 30s and his own struggles after college, he explains why our obsession with ea...

Rebecca Beltran shares her unconventional journey from polyamory to becoming a courtesan, challenging cultural stigma around sex work and intimacy. She reveals that her work is primarily about connection and being truly seen—...

Jenny Blake, author of "Free Time," reveals how her father—an architect who gives ruthless editorial feedback with his "WKIYB" abbreviation (we know it’s your book)—taught her to eliminate unnecessary qualifiers and strengthe...

Marc Elliott shares his controversial perspective on NXIVM, arguing that media narratives have distorted the truth about Keith Raniere and the organization. Living with severe Tourette syndrome for 20 years, Elliott found rel...

Luvvie Ajayi Jones challenges the cultural expectation that harmony is more important than justice. As a professional troublemaker, she argues that speaking up in rooms where bad ideas or unjust systems persist is not just ne...

Peter Krask, creator of Myth Merchant and former Hollywood producer, shares his journey from quitting grad school to producing reality TV to building a business around storytelling and mythology. After realizing a PhD wasn't ...

Oliver Burkeman, author of "The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking," dismantles the self-help industry's obsession with optimism and goal-setting. Raised as a Quaker with pro-social parents, Burk...

In this powerful conversation, former CBS news anchor and positive psychology researcher Michelle Gielan unpacks how we can rewire our communication habits to shape more resilient, empowered, and optimistic lives — both perso...

Michelle Florendo shares her journey from following the immigrant dream of Stanford, an MBA, and a "good job" to discovering she was miserable and needed to chart her own path. As a decision engineering expert, she reveals th...

Justin McRoberts, musician, pastor, and author of "It's What You Make of It," shares how confronting death early in life shaped his approach to creativity and faith. Having attended over 20 funerals by age 25, McRoberts expla...

Jeff Wald, author of The End of Jobs and CEO of WorkMarket, examines how robots and AI are creating the fourth industrial revolution—a massive power shift from workers to companies that mirrors past technological upheavals. D...

Jeff Spencer, former Olympic cyclist and performance coach to Lance Armstrong, Tiger Woods, and Olympic gold medalists, breaks down the precise architecture of champion-level achievement. From losing his father at age 10 to c...

Jason Naylor, artist and author of Live Life Colorfully, shares how growing up as the second of seven children in a Mormon family in Salt Lake City shaped his caretaker personality and his eventual escape to New York where he...

Jacob Sager Weinstein, comedy writer for Dennis Miller and author of How to Remember Everything, shares how growing up in privileged Washington DC where the vice president's daughter was in his debate club gave him confidence...

Hillary Weiss, brand strategist and positioning coach, reflects on growing up in suburban South Florida where attending the same school for 14 years meant everyone remembered who peed their pants in pre-K yet created lifelong...

Gautum Mukunda, Harvard professor and author of Indispensable: When Leaders Really Matter, reveals the paradox at the heart of leadership selection: the more effort you put into picking a leader, the less it matters who you p...

Cal Newport, computer science professor and author of Digital Minimalism, argues that the better analogy for social media is not big oil that must be broken up because it's vital to society but big tobacco that must be cultur...

Psychologist and bestselling author Ethan Kross breaks down the science of *chatter*—the internal voice that can either empower or paralyze us. Drawing on decades of research in neuroscience and emotion regulation, Kross expl...

Computer science professor and bestselling author Cal Newport explains why cognitive fitness matters as much as physical fitness for elite performance. Drawing from his work with NBA teams and hedge fund managers, Newport bre...

Eric Barker, bestselling author of Barking Up the Wrong Tree and Plays Well with Others, reveals what decades of social science research says about relationships, friendship, love, and meaning. From his journey through Hollyw...