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138: Bernard Roth - The Achievement Habit: Take Command of Your Life
My guest today joined the Stanford Design Division faculty in 1962. He was the youngest member of the university faculty and now decades later, he’s the oldest faculty member. His name is Bernard (Bernie) Roth and he is the author of The Achievement Habit: Stop Wishing, Start Doing, and Take Command of Your Life. As one of the founders of Stanford’s d.school, he remains active in the d.school’s development and currently serves as the Academic Director. Bernie’s primary intention as both an educator and a person is to empower his students, family, and friends to have fulfilling lives. He’s the...
137: Jeff Speck - Walkable City: Building Better Places
This week my guest is Jeff Speck, a city planner and urban designer who advocates internationally for more walkable cities. His book, Walkable City: How Downtown Can Save America, One Step at a Time was written not just for designers, but to also convert generalists to his cause. Walkability doesn’t just impact city planning; it has huge effects on economics, health, and the environment. Jeff’s TEDtalks on the subject has been viewed over 4 million times. We built our cities to accommodate pedestrians for centuries and they worked well. Now we’re building our cities structured around the idea of everyone...
136: Antonio Zadra - Exploring the Science and Mystery of Sleep
Dr. Antonio Zadra is the author of When Brains Dream: Exploring the Science and Mystery of Sleep alongside co-author Robert Strickgold, they detail a new theory on why we dream and call it the NEXTUP model. Antonio is a researcher who focuses on the scientific study of dreams, including everyday dreams, nightmares, lucid dreams, sleep terrors, and sleepwalking. Together with his students and collaborators, Antonio has published over one hundred research articles and collected thousands of firsthand dream reports.
135: Eve Joseph - The Intimate Strangeness of Dying
This guest is Eve Joseph, an award-winning poet, incredible storyteller, and the author of a book about death and dying (which also happens to be her memoir) entitled In the Slender Margin: The Intimate Strangeness of Death and Dying. The book flows out of Eve’s lessons and insights from working with and serving people at the end of their lives as a hospice care provider and represents the two central themes of the conversation: death and writing.
134: Matthew Gavin Frank - Passion, Travel & The Writing Life
Matthew Gavin Frank’s life has been filled with remarkable experiences. He has lived in Alaska, worked as a sommelier and grape harvester in Italy, spent time on the orange farm in South Africa where his wife is from, lived out of a Coleman Cimmaron in New Mexico, and held dozens of different jobs. He’s an accomplished cook and a travel addict, has learned through the past two decades how to live well in close relationship with another person, and is committed to fixating on and losing himself in all aspects of life - the simple, the complex, and the mystifying.
133: Stephan Aarstol - The Five Hour Workday: Live Differently
In this podcast, Stephan shares the origins of the 8-hour workday and his experience shifting his own employees to practicing the 5-hour workday. He dives into how the experiment came to be, the percentage increase in productivity, the people who influenced Stephan’s career, and the importance of company culture. Listen as Stephan brings you along on his journey of how he shifted his views on life and work.
132: Marcus Whitney - The Path to Claiming Your Creative Power
Marcus joins me today to share openly about the challenges he has faced, overcome and to explain his inspiring life journey. Marcus talks about his experience becoming and being an entrepreneur and author; offers thoughts on how he thinks about the world, himself and the concept of story; and comments on the power that entrepreneurship, words and healthy self-care all hold.     
131: Dean Burnett - Psycho-Logical: Why Mental Health Goes Wrong
Dean revisits with us today to discuss the science behind mental health and its treatments. We talk about what causes or contributes to depression, the concept of toxic positivity, the significance of social norms, and how it determines what is and isn’t considered mentally healthy.
130: Stephen Cope - Dharma and Deep Human Connection
Today Stephen Cope joins me to talk about his journey. He discusses the concept of Dharma, going into both how to recognize it and how to know when you have it.
129: Steven Kotler - The Art of Impossible: A Peak Performance Primer
Today, Steven Kotler joins me to expand on this principle. He discusses how stopping to think about the prospect of completing a task is the greatest obstacle to doing it. He talks about how beginning is the hardest part. He discusses curiosity, passion, and purpose, noting that with these most tasks don’t take more than twenty seconds of grit: the grit it takes to start. He mentions the three most important aspects of feedback on his writing, what defines a peak performer, and the importance of knowing where you’re going instead of just where you’re starting.
128: Peter McGraw - Shtick to Business: The Role of Humor in Business
Peter McGraw joins me to talk about his journey and what he’s learned from it. He talks about the common denominator of all comedy, what makes a good comic, and the “benign violation” theory.
127: Max Frenzel - Time Off: Building A Rest Ethic
Max joins me today to discuss his book Time Off and explain his philosophy on the importance of rest and downtime in relation to keeping healthy and sustainable productivity levels.
126: Chris Bailey - Hyperfocus: How to Manage Your Attention
In today’s episode Chris Bailey joins me to discuss the subject of productivity and the various ways we can savour and squander it. He explains why focusing on one task all day long could be the worst thing you can do for your productivity.
125: Charles Moore - Plastic Ocean: the Great Pacific Garbage Patch
Captain Charles Moore joins me today to share the story of his journey from seafaring adventurer to oceanic environmentalist whistleblower.
124: Brian C. Wilson - New Age Tycoon: The Life and Legacy of John Fetzer
Brian C. Wilson joins me today to discuss the path he has traveled, powered by a curiosity for the metaphysical questions in life and a desire to serve in a spiritual role.
123: Donald Rattner - My Creative Space: Design Your Home for Innovation
Donald Rattner joins me today to discuss the origins of My Creative Space and who he felt the book was written for: the architects, design professionals, interior designers, and the people who are simply passionate about shaping their home or workspaces.
122: Rebecca Henderson - Reimagining Capitalism in a World on Fire
Rebecca Henderson joins me today to share her ideas on Reimagining Capitalism and contemplate how we can contribute as individuals to social, political, and economic change. She illustrates how the idea of shareholder value maximization is destructive to the environment and society and reveals the two foremost causes of the world’s enduring predicaments. She also describes how working with others can act as an antidote to despair and highlights the need to reimagine democracy as a means to reimagine - and change - capitalism.
121: Darlene Green - In Service to Love: Discovering Our Divinity
Darlene Green joins me today to share her healing journey towards wholeness and what she has learned from overcoming trauma caused by the car accident she experienced. She illustrates humanity as divine beings and defines what it means to be a spiritual being living a human experience. She describes her spiritual life as a young girl and how she met the Council of Light. She also discusses how we can align with our divinity for creative inspiration and connect with our highest creative potential.
120: Beth Kempton - Wabi Sabi: The Beauty of a Simple Life
Beth joins me today to share perspectives and ideas from Japan. She describes wabi-sabi as a mode of how we experience beauty in the world and how shinrin-yoku, or forest bathing, can deliver the healing potential of nature. She highlights strategies to become a more mindful gift-giver and how to get through the holiday season to have a fantastic new year. She also shares her insights on writing and illustrates the writer’s role as a conduit for manifesting ideas into a book.
119: Barbara Waxman - The Middlescence Manifesto: Rethinking Middle Age
Barbara Waxman joins me today to share her ideas about “middlescence” and shares powerful tools we can utilize to age well. She discusses finding your life purpose, differentiates between the little ‘p’ purpose from big ‘P’ Purpose, and illustrates how the former can lead to the latter. She shares her “Five to Thrive” quiz and enumerates the five essential elements everybody needs to live an exuberant and vibrant life. She also rethinks the narrative that midlife is a crisis and emphasizes how we all can find happiness and fulfillment throughout the years until the end of our life.
118: - When Death Becomes Life
Joshua Mezrich joins me today to discuss the act of organ donation as a gift of life that can help families cope with death. He illustrates his beginnings as a doctor, from the first patient who died on his watch to meeting the family of an organ donor for the first time. He shares a brief history of surgery and transplanting and imparts his love of reading literature. He also underscores the value of empathy and humility not only in the medical field but also in life and the power of choosing to be kind.
117: BJ Fogg - Tiny Habits: Small Changes Change Everything
BJ Fogg joins me today to share his insights on behavior design and habit formation. He emphasizes the role of emotions in creating habits and explains the power of simplicity in cultivating behaviors. He reveals some of the biggest myths about habit formation and describes some factors that make it difficult for people to change their behavior. He also shares the Fogg Behavioral Model and discusses how self-confidence can help individuals form new habits.
116: Martha Alderson - Boundless Creativity: The Universal Story
Martha Alderson joins me today to explore the creative process and define what the universal story is. She discusses the ubiquity of opposition in all artistic pursuits and outlines how creatives can overcome them. She reveals the three major emotions with which all creatives face and explains how we are all in the world to heal. She also emphasizes the importance of forgiveness, its relationship with creative endeavor, and how we can give it to ourselves and extend it to others.
115: Annie Duke - How to Decide: Better Choices, Better Life
Annie Duke joins me today to explain why making a pros and cons list is an ineffective method to make decisions and outlines her six-step process for powerful decision-making. She discusses why people get stuck in analysis paralysis, describes how we can move past it, and defines the “resulting phenomenon.” She also emphasizes using happiness as a tool to measure the value of the choices we’re weighing and illustrates how the quality of our decisions impact the quality of our lives.
114: Tyson Yunkaporta - Changing the World Through Indigenous Knowledge
Tyson Yunkaporta joins me today to discuss how Indigenous knowledge and ideas can help change the world for the better and describes what makes a person or knowledge Indigenous. He explains why we need to have an agency in violence and describes how western civilization has subjugated women and femininity. He also highlights the importance of cultivating a connection with the land, defines Indigenous concepts - such as the Dreaming, totemic relationships, and songlines - and discusses how books should increase what can be known.
113: Houston Kraft - Deep Kindness: Practices for a Compassionate World
Houston Kraft joins me today to explore the skills we need to develop to create a more compassionate world. He discusses the factors that hinder us from being kind and how we can overcome them. He highlights the importance of bringing empathy into acts of kindness and shares his “To Be List.” He also defines what deep kindness is, differentiates it from what he calls “confetti kindness,” explains why the distinction matters, and discusses how we can develop deep kindness for others and ourselves.
112: Mark Gober - An End to Upside Down Living
Mark Gober joins me today to share the concept of how matter and the biology of the universe arises from consciousness and explain why understanding this idea matters.
111: Morgan Housel - The Psychology of Money
Morgan Housel joins me today to explore the highest form of wealth and the psychology that drives how we spend our money. He defines what a savings rate means and explains how one can build wealth without having a high income. He differentiates making reasonable financial decisions from making rational ones and describes our emotional relationship with money. He also illustrates the economic and social dynamics that occur underneath challenging events in the United States and reveals some surprising facts about money and financial trends in the country.
110: Jan Jones - The CEO’s Secret Weapon
Jan Jones joins me today to discuss what it takes to be an extraordinary executive assistant. She shares ideas she learned from renowned leaders such as Elon Musk on finding, interviewing, and hiring the right executive assistant. She underscores the monumental role executive assistants play in supporting executives, leaders, and businesses and explains why the job is widely misunderstood. She also illustrates what it’s like to work for author and coach Tony Robbins and explains why she believes everyone should write a book.
109: Philip Goldberg - Spiritual Practice for Crazy Times
Philip Goldberg joins me in this episode to share his spiritual journey. He illustrates the turning point in life that set him off in his spiritual path to find truth and wisdom. He imparts some of the lessons he learned from practicing Eastern spiritual traditions and explains what turiya, or the Fourth Mode of Consciousness, means. He also shares the practical benefits of spiritual practice and highlights the relevance of cultivating spirituality in today’s world of uncertainty.