All Episodes
Displaying 1 - 20 of 469 in total
The Focusing Illusion: A Science-Backed Life Trap
Imagine two different people on the same mid-January day. One lives in California. He walks outside in shorts and a t-shirt. The warm sun beams down on his face. He pu...
The Hidden Debt of Convenience
A few weeks ago, I came across a podcast clip of Conan O'Brien talking about why he doesn't pay to fly private. He likes going through the airport, chatting with peopl...
Why You Need to Subtract: The Vasa Effect
In 1628, Sweden's mightiest warship sank less than a mile into its maiden voyage -- not because of an enemy attack, but because a king couldn't stop adding to it. I ca...
Why You Need a Side Quest in Life
The seat you randomly chose on day one is the seat you'll sit in for the rest of the term. My college professor said that, and he was right -- not just about lecture h...
The Scarlet Robe Effect
A fancy robe nearly destroyed a philosopher's life. In 1765, Denis Diderot's financial means went from meager to extravagant. Soon thereafter, he came to own a fancy ...
The Traffic Jam Theory of Success
Everyone's asking: how do I stand out in the AI era? A 1968 German mathematician's traffic paradox holds the answer. When everyone floods the new shortcut, the fast la...
A Japanese Ritual to Improve Your Habits
In the early 1900s, an aging Japanese steam train engineer named Yasoichi Hori was growing increasingly concerned about his deteriorating eyesight. Hori's job relied ...
I Think I'm Having a Reverse Midlife Crisis
I think I'm having a midlife crisis." That's what my friend, who I'll call Joe, said to me at dinner a few weeks ago. Joe is in his early-40s. He's had a good career o...
The IKEA Effect: Why Effort Still Counts
Why do you value the things you build yourself so much more than anything you can buy? In this episode, I share a personal story from my first apartment and break down...
Stop Making a 5-Year Plan (Do This Instead)
"So, what's your 5-year plan?" That was the question posed to me by a mentor in January 2021. At the time, I was about seven years into my career, on the "track" in f...
How to Avoid Catastrophe: The Normalization of Deviance
On January 27, 1986, just 16 hours before the Space Shuttle Challenger was set to launch, an engineer named Roger Boisjoly presented data showing a catastrophic risk w...
A Few Things I've Changed My Mind On
I’m increasingly convinced that the willingness to change your mind is the ultimate sign of intelligence. The most impressive people I know change their minds often i...
How Old Will You Be If You Don’t?
Last week, I wrote a piece about reinvention. Specifically, the myth of too late and how to reinvent your life at any age or life stage. It clearly struck a chord. ...
The Cobra Effects of Life
In colonial India, a bounty on cobras was supposed to reduce the snake population. Instead, people started breeding cobras for profit — and when the policy ended, they...
The Life-Changing Magic of Active Optimism
There’s an old children’s fable I recently retold to my son about a farmer whose wagon wheel gets stuck in the mud. He calls on Hercules to come to his aid. Hercules ...
How to Reinvent Your Life in 30 Days
Every single week, I invariably get a handful of emails from readers around the world with a similar general message. Stuck on a path. Living a life they didn’t reall...
The Frog Pond Effect
Have you ever noticed that growth feels like destruction? That getting better feels like getting worse? You're not doing something wrong. You're just experiencing so...
Why Are You In Such A Rush?
There’s a beautiful Zen parable that goes something like this: A man is walking across a field when a tiger leaps out from the trees and runs toward him. Fearing for...
The Zipper Test: How to Stop Fooling Yourself
My son just turned four. One of the things I love most about the age is the unbridled curiosity with which he explores the world. He's deep in the classic "why" phase...
7 Lies I Finally Stopped Telling Myself
A few years ago, as part of the research for my first book, I asked a group of centenarians for the advice they'd most like to give to their younger selves. One of ...