The Science of Success

In this episode we discuss the inevitable technology shifts that will be impacting our future, the second industrial revolution, the importance of having an open mind, critical thinking and seeking disconfirming evidence, we explore how to ask better questions (and why it’s so important that you do), and talk about some of the biggest technology risks with Kevin Kelly.   Kevin Kelly is the Senior Maverick and Co-Founder of Wired Magazine. Kevin is also the co-founder of The All Species Foundation, which seeks to catalogue and identify every living species on earth as well as The Rosetta Project, building an archive of ALL documented human language and much much more. He is a New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestselling author of several books including The Inevitable: Understanding the 12 Technological Forces That Will Shape Our Future, his work has been featured in Forbes, Smithsonian, and more!   We discuss:   The 12 inevitable forces that are shaping the future of humanity and our lives How the physics of the “technological” terrain make tectonic technological shifts INEVITABLE and what you can do about it Why cars, telephones, light bulbs, and the internet were also “inevitable" Evolution keeps trying to make “minds” - is AI the next attempt? How we are “cognifying" the world around us and what that means How we will fill the world with a zoo of possible minds that think differently AI will become a commodity like electricity - it will be a utility that anyone can get or use What can I do with 1000 minds (like 1000 horsepower) working on a problem The second industrial revolution and how it will impact our entire society How our lack of understanding of intelligence currently hinders our ability to truly understand what makes intelligence You can’t optimize every dimension - there will always be trade-offs How much of today’s technology is akin to “flapping wings” versus artificial flight using fixed wings The chief asset for innovation and wealth generation in this new economy is being able to THINK differently How do we focus our attention in a world with such infinite possibilities of things to do and focus on? How do we battle against fake news, alternative facts, and the temptation to only filter information we want to hear? In the future - we may have to teach the “literacy” of filtering and understanding information as Kevin calls it “techno literacy”or “critical thinking” The vital importance of being open to having your mind changed - and how travel can be a tool to do that Why you should allow yourself to be challenged by other views Why asking great questions will be one of the most valuable skillsets and assets in the future How we can start to ask better questions right now There are no dumb questions - never be afraid to ask if you don’t understand  - and then really listen for the answer Why we should use lateral thinking to approach a question or challenge from a completely different angle - how we ask a question that has never been asked before How you can believe you are a martian and ask questions as if you were a machine and you didn’t know all the things humans normally know Don’t be afraid of obvious questions Why Kevin describes himself as a “protopian” - technology produces as many new problems as it solves. Progress is real even though technology creates additional problems The technology trend that Kevin Kelly is most afraid of and thinks is the biggest risk to humanity What would Kevin say to someone

In this episode we discuss the “experience trap” and why someone who has been doing their job for 20-30 years may be no better (and sometimes worse) than someone who has very little experience, look at the shocking truth that 35 years of research reveals separates world class performers from everyone else, how “Talent” is overrated, misunderstood, and most research says it doesn’t even exist, we go deep on the critically important concept of deliberate practice, and much more with our guest Geoff Colvin.     Geoff Colvin is an award winning speaker, writer, and broadcaster. Geoff holds a degree in economics from Harvard, an MBA from NYU, and is currently the the senior editor-at-large for FORTUNE. He is the bestselling author of several books including Talent Is Overrated: What Really Separates World Class Performers from Everyone Else, Humans Are Underrated: What High Achievers Know That Brilliant Machines Never Will and more. Geoff has delivered over 10,000 broadcasts on the CBS Radio Network and has been featured on Good Morning America, CNN, CNBC, and more.   The “experience trap” and why someone who has been doing their job for 20-30 years may be no better (and sometimes worse) than someone who has very little experience What do surgeons, auditors, parole officers have in common with their skillsets? Why the assumption that a lot of experience makes you good at something is fundamentally flawed  What the very best performers are constantly doing that most people simply don’t do Why going to a teacher and taking lessons is NOT enough to get better at singing (or any other skill) What separates world class performers from everyone else Why the concept of talent is a loaded term that most people don’t understand Why the conception of “talent” as an in-born gift is a mischaracterization How “Talent” is overrated, misunderstood, and why most research says “talent" simply does not exist What 35 years of research and science answer exactly what explains great performance better than anything else What is the concept of "deliberate practice" and why is it so vital to great performance? The road to great performance is long and hard, but most importantly its available to anyone Why deliberate practice is not what you typically think of when you think of practice The key components of deliberate practice: Deliberate practice is an activity designed especially for you, at your stage of development, at doing what you’re doing right now It is designed to push you just beyond what you’re currently capable of doing Can be repeated at high volume The vital importance of continual feedback Why high-volume deliberate practice changes the physical structure of your brain As you get better, your deliberate practice must be adjusted higher Why deliberate practice is neither work nor play The vital importance of training and practicing just outside your realm of ability How to harness deliberate practice for business & investing Simulation Software that lets you make these decisions at high volume Create simulators that put these decisions to the test at high volume These simulations have to be highly realistic and very demanding How a basketball team has used the lessons of deliberate practice to achieve over 100 consecutive wins “The real game is easy compared to the practice” - Practice harder than you play! The Battle of 73 Easting and how the military leveraged deliberat

In this episode we discuss how to master the universal skills required to succeed at work, the counter-intuitive truth of taking more responsibility for your own mistakes, flaws, and screw-ups can help you succeed more quickly, we look at how to cultivate and create accountability in your life, challenge yourself to rise to a higher level, and become more vulnerable, we talk about the Benjamin Franklin effect, and much more with Pete Mockaitis.   Pete Mockaitis is an award-winning trainer focusing primarily on helping professionals perform optimally at work. He’s delivered 1-on-1 coaching to over 700 clients across 50 countries, and every Ivy League school. He currently hosts the How to be Awesome at your Job podcast which has listeners in over 150 countries and has been ranked as a top 5 career podcast on iTunes.   We discuss:   The importance of reading to improving your knowledge The book that has had the biggest impact on Pete’s life How you can transform yourself into “peak state” so that you don’t feel scared or unmotivated How to master the universal skills required to succeed at work Grit - what it is, why its so important, and how you can cultivate The concept that had the biggest impact on Pete’s life Why its so important to take a hard look at yourself and your own shortcomings What to do when your paralyzed by fear in your job Why Everything you’ve ever wanted is on the other side of fear How to be a more effective communicator “Answer first communication” and how it can transform how you speak and present How “hypothesis driven testing” can make you a much better communicator Why you should ask: “What things need to be true for this to be a good idea” Numbers galvanize attention and focus for people listening to you If you’re stressed out in your current role, you’re not ready to make the next move up “The time to meet your neighbors is not when your house is on fire” How to cultivate and develop better relationships The power of making the ask and "ask not, have not” The Benjamin Franklin Effect and how it can help you build a powerful network of mentors You can achieve whatever you want in life, if you help enough other people achieve what they want in life How to be courageous How to ask for good feedback and how to give feedback Ask for role models and ideal next steps when asking for feedback Why you should never be afraid to ask for feedback and counterintuitively how demonstrating your weakensses can help you advance in your career The counter intuitive truth of taking MORE responsibility for your own mistakes, flaws, and screw-ups can help you succeed more quickly How to cultivate and create accountability in your life, challenge yourself to rise to a higher level, and become more vulnerable What you should do when your unsatisfied with your career

In this episode we ask can, and should, we set aside our emotions to make decisions in huge, high stakes environments (like trading)? How to channel and listen to your emotions to make even better decisions, learning from negative emotions, how historical echoes in our life create repeated behavior patterns, and much more with Denise Shull.    Denise Shull is a decision coach, performance architect, and founder of the Re-Think Group. She utilizes psychological science to solve the issues of mental mistakes, confidence crises, and slumps in Olympic Athletes and Wall Street Traders. Her Book Market Mind Games has been described as “The Best of It’s Genre” and “The Rosetta Stone of Trading Psychology”. She has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, CNBC, The New York Times, and consulted on the SHOWTIME Drama series Billions as one of the inspirations for Maggie Siff’s character - Wendy Rhodes.   We discuss:   How Denise studied the neuroscience of emotions and unconscious thought but ditched her PHD to become a trader Can (and should) we set aside our emotions in a high stakes environment like trading? Why you should consciously incorporate your emotions into your decisions to make the best decisions Feelings, thoughts, emotions, and physical body are all part of one integrated system and you have to think about it as an integrated continuum Your psyche is trying to get important information to you by turning up the volume of your emotions We should focus on finding the valuable kernel of information that our emotions are sending us How do we learn from negative emotions (such as fear and anxiety) Being able to differentiate between granularity of anxiety helps you process the feelings better If you didn’t have some level of anxiety you would never do the preparation necessary Define, as clearly as possible, the things you are afraid of, own it, connect head to stomach, and describe it with the word. (your psyche will feel like you got the message through) Once your anxiety and fear feel acknowledged it naturally dissipates The vital importance of journaling and being gentle and kind to yourself, to help you understand your emotions Everyone has all kinds of feelings, everyone doubts themselves on some level, the top performers, hedge fund managers, and olympic athletes  - its part of the human condition How can historical echoes create repeated behavioral patterns? The critical period for who we are and how we relate in the world happen very early - as Freud called them “the compulsion to repeat”, and as Denise calls them “echoes” or “fractals” How studying traders and their trades showed Denise that people would trade in accordance with their life stories, and the patterns and mistakes they made repeated themselves again and again Negative feelings are a mechanism to look and understand the fractals from our past and exploring child hood experiences can help you uncover more about them The importance of doing the historical work, digging into your childhood, asking yourself “how would I have felt” (so you can get past the filter of “oh that didn’t bother me”) An amazing question you can ask yourself about past events - how would someone else have felt about that? That question helps you break past the self denial that it did hurt you.  Repetitions of past mistakes are opportunities to reorganize things you weren't able to deal with in your past Always ask - what would someone else think about that, how would someone else feel about this in the situation? You will often project your own feelings onto someone else

In this episode we look at how Toyota turned the worst automobile factory in America into the best without changing any personnel, we discuss the paradox of choice, paralysis by analysis and the danger of having too many choices, the vital importance of having a multi-disciplinary viewpoint to truly understand reality, ask if there are quick fixes for wisdom, and much more with Dr. Barry Schwartz   Dr. Barry Schwartz is a Professor at the Haas school of business at UC berkley. He has authored over 10 books including The Paradox of Choice, Why We Work, and Practical Wisdom as well as more than 100 professional journal articles. He has been featured on the TED stage, in the The New York Times, USA Today, CNN, and much more.   We discuss:   How Barry’s work in animal learning, following in the footsteps of BF Skinner, led him down the path of his journey Why a focus on rewards and punishments is too narrow an understanding The importance of multi-disciplinary work to unearth the truth and understand reality How we can begin to think in a more multi-discplinary way The answers to the most important questions in life are very complex, and efforts to simplify them are doomed to failure The flaws in the dominant ideologies of western society in understanding and explaining why we work People don’t work only for pay - here are the other reasons people work: They want to be engaged They want discretion and control They want to be appreciated They want to be challenged They want to do something that has meaning Why only 10% of the world’s work force is “engaged in their work” How did Toyota turn around the worst automobile factory in America into the BEST factory in America without changing the work force? The importance of the big 3 factors - Autonomy, Control, and Discretion What has enabled the container store to be so successful How focusing on improving the quality of work and creating good work can be good for the bottom line as well How Aristotle defines “Wisdom” How excessive management and supervision has destroyed the ability of teachers to become effective How the the reliance on rules and incentives to get people to behave properly is the enemy of wisdom Wisdom is learned, but it can’t be taught - the way you learn to be wise is by trying and failing You learned by doing, by getting it wrong, and by correcting your mistakes Trial and error, mentoring, modeling - there’s no quick fix for wisdom, you have to be in it for the long haul Its OK to get it wrong We go deep into Barry’s famous book The Paradox of Choice Paralysis by analysis and the danger of having too many choices How can we simplify our lives and avoid the paradox of choice? “Good enough is virtually always good enough” People who aspire to “the best” get better results, and feel worse about them, than people who are happy with “good enough” Don’t be unambitious and have no standards, have high standards, but don’t feel like if you aren’t the absolute best you’re a failure And much more!

In this episode we dig into Negotiation. Why, no matter what you do, its essential to master the skill of negotiation, the barriers that prevent people like you from negotiating effectively, why the common sense rules of the real world are a fragile collection of socially reinforced illusions, the most powerful type of question you can use in a negotiation, the single biggest mistake you can make negotiating, and much more with Kwame Christian.   Kwame Christian is a business lawyer and owner of the Christian Law as well as the founder of the American Negotiation Institute. He also hosts the podcast Negotiation for Entrepreneurs, the top rated negotiation podcast on iTunes, where he interviews successful entrepreneurs and shares powerful persuasion techniques.   We discuss:   Why the majority of the conversations we have are negotiations and its a vital skill to work on and improve Whether or not you’re good at negotiation, you’re still going to be negotiating on a daily basis The “Three Pillars” of Succeeding at Negotiation What is “offensive negotiation” & how to maximize value for yourself What are the “defensive” uses of negotiation? And how you can use negotiation to avoid bad outcomes and resolve conflicts How you can use negotiation to build relationships How to become comfortable with asking for what you want The FIRST barrier everyone faces when they negotiate The SECOND barrier everyone faces when negotiating Rejection therapy and how it can transform and improve your ability to negotiate One question you should always ask to see how much flexibility you have The common sense rules of the real world are a fragile collection of socially reinforced illusions How to use framing to transform a negotiation and conversation (with concrete examples from Kwame’s work) How open ended questions decrease the perceived threat of a conversation How to become a “puppet master” controlling the conversation while the other party feels like they are in control How to cultivate information asymmetry and get the informational advantage in a negotiation How you can lead someone down a logical path where they convince themselves of what you want How do you develop the skill of asking questions How you can practice and improve the skillset of persuasion Why curiosity is a critical component of being an effective negotiator and communicator Why you need to be able to be persuaded to be able to persuade Why preparation is an essential component in a negotiation How, specifically, Kwame preps for a negotiation (specific checklists, questions, etc) The Three Characteristics of Master Negotiators How creativity fits into being an effective negotiator and why you should try to find inexpensive ways to solve other people’s problems The false belief that negotiation is a zero sum game Why great negotiators go out of their way to try and solve other people’s problems The single biggest mistakes you can make in a negotiation One of the biggest barriers to moving forward in a negotiation How to build strong working relationships, with trust, and free flow of communication And much more!

This episode is all about MINDSET. What is a mindset? What is the fixed mindset and how does it shape the way we act in the world, what is the growth mindset and how can it transform the way we live our lives? We look at research data from over 168,000 students, examine the mindset of champions, the dangers of blame and excuses, and much more with Dr. Carol Dweck.   Dr. Carol Dweck is a Professor of Psychology at Stanford University and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She is the author of the best-selling book Mindset: The New Psychology of Success - which is one of the single most important books in shaping my life. Her work has been featured in several publications including The New York Times, Washington Post, The Today Show, 20/20 and many more.   What is a mindset? What is the fixed mindset? We go deep into the “fixed mindset” and how they view challenges and the world What is effort and how does the fixed mindset perceive it? Is effort necessary to be successful or is it a sign that you’re not naturally talented? If you have a fixed mindset, how do you think about criticism? Do you often “need to be right?” - and how could that need be impacting your life? We examine in detail what the “growth mindset” is and what underpins its core perception of reality Setbacks are welcome and setbacks are inevitable This fundamental conclusion is backed by 35+ years of psychological research, hundreds of studies, and more A study of over 168,000 students (the entire 10th grade population of Chile) demonstrating all of these findings  Research data from everything from dating life to conflict in the middle east bears out the lessons of fixed vs growth mindset What is the most effective way to recover from devastating rejections? Is it possible to change your mindset? How to transform your mindset and specific steps you can take to move towards a growth mindset How to find the things that trigger your fixed mindset reactions Discover and name your “fixed mindset persona” Success as improvement vs success as superiority Self handicapping and the concept that effort robs you of your excuses Repairing your self esteem vs repairing your failure It’s impossible to learn from a mistake if you deny making it in the first place The grave danger of placing blame, making excuses, and denying failure in order to protect your self esteem The mindset of a champion and how champions rise to the occasion Viewing people as judges vs viewing people as allies How do we reconcile the lessons of mindset with the idea that you should focus on your strengths? What are the most common triggers of the fixed mindset? Taking on a challenge, out of your comfort zone Struggling, not making progress Setback, criticism, failure Strength and weakness are much more dynamic than we understand or give them credit for Don think your strengths will be strengths forever if you don't work on them and grow them The dangers of the self esteem movement and how it actually cultivates the fixed mindset And much more!

In this episode we go deep on sound – we discuss how sound changes your body and affects your heart rate, breathing, brain waves, and hormone secretions, the secret to cultivating soundscapes that make us happier and more productive, the incredible power of listening and how it can change your reality, how, like sound waves, we are all vibrating, from the smallest physical level, to the macro level, and much more with Julian Treasure.   Julian Treasure is the chair of the Sound Agency, a consultancy firm that advises worldwide businesses on how to effectively use sound. Julian has delivered 5 TED talks with more than 30 million views about listening, communication, and the effect sound has on the human brain. He is the author of the book Sound Business and the upcoming book How To Be Heard. His work has been featured in Time Magazine, The Economist, and many more.   We discuss:   Why musicians have slightly larger brains than non-musicians We are all vibrating, from the smallest physical level, to the macro level What is sound itself and how does it affect us? How sound changes your body and affects your heart rate, breathing, brain waves, and hormone secretions What sound to listen to if you have trouble sleeping How sound entrains all of your bodily rhythms How music and sound impacts your mood, feelings, emotions, and psychology It is possible to listen to two people talking at once? How ambient noise (especially human voice) can reduce your productivity by up to 66% How noise can negatively change your behavior, create stress, etc How noise kills 1 million health-years per year in Europe (via reduced life expectancy) The secret to cultivating soundscapes that make us happier and more productive The incredible power of listening and how it can change your reality The underutilized sensitivity and power in the ears Why it's a grave mistake to think that everyone listens the same way that you do How silence is a vital part of improving your ability to listen The power of 3 minutes of silence per day Why open plan offices are terrible for concentration and contemplation “The mixer” exercise you can perform to make yourself a better listener The importance of savoring the mundane sounds around us every day How you can use "listening positions” to transform how you listen The difference between critical listening vs empathic listening We all want to be heard, to be understood, and to be valued Do men and women have different default listening positions? Convergent listening vs divergent listening How “RASA” can make you a much better listener How truly listening to someone can be an amazing gift The human voice is one of the most complex and amazing instruments in the world The 4 communication channels - Reading, writing, speaking, listening The way you say something is much more important than how you say it The vocal toolbox and how you can use these tools to be a more effective communicator Posture is a critical component in the vocal toolbox The power of breath, and a simple breathing exercise we can all use The registers we can use to change the power of our voice The modal register  How to speak from the chest You want your voice to have the timbre of hot chocolate (rich, smooth) How changing pace, pitch, and tone can impact h

In this episode we dig into a massive framework for answers some of the biggest questions in life, ask if its possible to integrate 50,000 years of human knowledge into a single comprehensive map of reality, we look at the greatest good that a human being can achieve, we go deep on the path of “waking up” offered by thousands of years, hundreds of cultures, and what the clearest and strikingly similar paths to enlightenment are, we discuss how to integrate and understand the connections between art, morality, and science and much more with our guest Ken Wilbur.   Ken Wilbur is the founder of the Integral Institute which serves as a think tank aiming to synthesize all human experience and knowledge. He’s been called the “Einstein of consciousness”, and is the author of over twenty books with a focus on transpersonal psychology including A Brief History Of Everything, The Integral Vision, Sex, Ecology, Spirituality and more.   We dig into a massive framework for answers some of the biggest questions in life (who am I, why am I here, etc) Building bigger pictures that fits all of our knowledge into a cohesive framework for understanding reality Is it possible it to integrate 50,000 years of human knowledge into a single comprehensive map of reality? The different paths of showing up, cleaning up, growing up, waking up Most people, even experts, a completely unaware of the vast intersections of knowledge across human history and the major academic disciplines The “integral” approach tries to take everything into account to provide a truly comprehensive approach to human society, life, business, ecology, politics, and more The paths of “waking up” and “growing up” and why they are some of the most central and significant paths you can pursue in life The two major states of consciousness that humans experience Is it a misunderstanding to take ourselves as a single egoic self? How every single thing and event is interwoven with the entire universe as a whole What is the greatest good that a human being can achieve? What is it like to have an enlightenment experience? The seen self vs the seeing self? What is the observing self? The synthesis of zen koans, Jesus’s teachings, and philosophy The maps of “waking up” offered by thousands of years, hundreds of cultures, and what the clearest and strikingly similar paths to enlightenment are All the major religious traditions describe a strikingly similar path towards “waking up” Why mindfulness “resting in the witness” is the powerful path towards enlightenment Religion as a mythic story that you’re supposed to agree with Paths of waking up are not a “mythic story” but psychotechnologies of transformation Nobody is smart enough to be wrong all the time - there has to be partial truth in almost everything that can be integrated into a holistic understanding of reality The levels of human consciousness / understanding from developmental psychology  The great stages of human development of society mimic the develop of individuals “Waking up” and “growing up” are two very different things and you can be at different places on either of those paths There is some degree of truth in virtually every approach to reality you look at, how can all of these approaches fit together, how can embrace all of them in a coherent fashion? Hierarchies exist, but they don’t equate to moral superiority The “big three” - the beautiful, the good, and the true (art, morality, science) Is the current scientific perspective too limited to incorporate and under

In this episode we examine how mindfulness practices developed independently in cultures across the world, discuss how evolution shaped our brains to focus on survival instead of happiness and fulfillment, we ask what is success? How do we define it? What is the failure of success? We go deep into how to practice self-compassion, and much more with Dr. Ronald Siegel. Dr. Ronald Siegel is an Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychology at Harvard Medical School, where he has taught for over 30 years. Ronald also currently serves on the Board of Directors and Faculty of the Institute for Meditation and Psychotherapy. He is a longtime student of mindfulness meditation having authored and co-authored several books on the topic including The Mindfulness Solution, Mindfulness and Psychotherapy, and more. We discuss: Lessons about mindfulness from the Harvard medical school Why did mindfulness practices spring up independently in cultures across the world? You didn’t evolve to be happy (and why that’s super important) How evolution shaped our brains to focus on survival and not happiness and fulfillment How our minds are like Teflon for good things  & Velcro for bad things Type 1 Errors and Type 2 Errors (and why our minds evolved to make way too many Type 1 Errors) How evolution sculpted our brains to be incredibly concerned about social ranking and hierarchies Why we focus incessantly on what other’s think about us and how we compare to other people and how that drives much of what happens in the world around us The pain of “I, Me, My Mine” and how constant preoccupation with ourselves is a major cause of pain and suffering When we are preoccupied with proving ourselves, it harms our connections with other people What is success? How do we define it? What is the "failure of success?" The major misconceptions about what will make us happy The importance of connecting with others and engaging more fully in this moment The dunning-Kruger effect and how it clouds our understanding of mindfulness “High-resolution consciousness” and how you can create it The relationship between mindfulness and thought A huge amount of psychological suffering has to do with our thinking Thoughts are mental contents rather than realities Happiness stems from being FULLY PRESENT and ENGAGED Fantasizing about future/past etc creates suffering How does mindfulness relate to meditation? What’s the difference? Train the mind not to push away the unpleasant experiences We go through exercises explicitly design for cultivating acceptance How mindfulness helps you break out of a cycle of comparison and cultivate loving self-acceptance Identify the feeling states in your body and notice each time you get feelings of inflation and deflation The vital importance of self-compassion Feel your feelings and trust that it's OK to feel them Who was the King of England in 1361? (and why it's ESSENTIAL to understand that) The concepts of narcissistic recalibration and the hedonic treadmill The scientific reality that everything is a wave function Consciousness is a stream of experience that fluctuates up and down And much more!   If you want to master meditation and mindfulness, listen to this episode! 

In this episode we discuss learning how to learn, meta learning, how Salvador Dali and Thomas Edison practiced the art of “sleeping without sleeping” to hack their neural systems, the concept of Chunking - what the neuroscience says about it and how you can use it to become a learning machine, why “following your passion” is not the right thing to focus, and much more with our guest Barbara Oakley.   Barbara Oakley is an associate professor of engineering at Oakland University in Michigan. She has been described as the “female Indiana Jones” and her research adventures have taken her from Russian fishing boats to Antarctica. She has authored several books on topics ranging from genetics to neuroscience and has a recent book called Mindshift: Break Through Obstacles to Learning and Discover Your Human Potential.    We discuss:   -How Barbara’s journey has taken her from the Army to Russian Trawlers in the Bering Sea, to an outpost in Antarctica -How Barbara went from a math-phobe to a professor of engineering (and what she learned along the way) -Are you afraid of math? Why math can seem to be intimidating (and it doesn’t have to be) -Why the emphasis on memorization as the sole basis of learning has sabotaged our efforts to learn -How the concept of deliberate practice and why it's so important to learning -How you can augment deliberate practice to become an even more effective learner  -Meta learning and how you can "learn how to learn" -The concept of chunking - what the neuroscience says about it and how you can use it to become a learning machine -What learning an instrument can teach us about learning physics and math -How the brain learns - and the difference between “focused mode” and “diffused mode” -The “task positive network” and the “default mode network” within your brain -Why you can’t be in both the “focused mode” and the “diffused mode” at the same time -How Salvador Dali and Thomas Edison practiced the art of “sleeping without sleeping” to hack their neural systems and harness the benefits of both the “focused mode” and the “diffused mode" -How do we strike a balance between “focused attention” and “diffused attention”? -How you can harness learning limitations like ADHD or slow memory to your advantage -How the difference between a race car and a hiker illustrate the difference between divergent thinking styles and strategies -The curse of genius, why geniuses often jump to conclusi s, and have a hard time changing their minds when they are wrong -Illusions of competence and how they can short circuit our learning attempts -Is test anxiety real? Why do we feel anxious before a test? -Often limiting beliefs and excuses crop up when we haven’t done the work truly trying to learn something -How to test yourself and improve your knowledge and understanding of any topic -How you can think about math equations as a form of poetry to more deeply understand them -Why you should focus on distilling knowledge into the core elements and principles -Why you procrastinate (and the neuroscience behind what happens when you do) -The pomodoro technique and how it can help you conquer procrastination -Why “following your passion” is not the right thing to focus on -How testosterone impacts how women and men learn differently and why women often mistakenly don’t pursue analytical paths -Passions can lead you to dead ends in your career, you should focus on broadening your

In this episode we discuss how school gives you zero of the social and interpersonal skills necessary to be successful in life, the best starting point for build nonverbal communication, how to read facial expression and body language to discover hidden emotions, how to become a human lie detector, the secrets super connectors use to work a room, and much more with Vanessa Van Edwards.   Vanessa Van Edwards is the lead investigator at Science of People, a human behavior research lab. She is a Huffington Post columnist and published author. Her work has been featured on NPR, Business Week and USA Today. She has written for CNN, Fast Company and Forbes. Her latest book, Captivate, was chosen as one of Apple’s Most Anticipated Books of 2017.   We discuss:   School gives you zero of the social and interpersonal skills necessary to be successful in life The skills of nonverbal communication can be learned and trained Between 60% and 90% of our communication is non-verbal Why you shouldn’t put 100% of your eggs in the “verbal communication” basket How humans give more weight to non-verbal communication What is the best starting point for build nonverbal communication? The importance good eye contact & a strong handshake Why eye contact creates oxytocin and builds deeper connections The “sweet spot” for maintaining good eye contact What blind babies teach us about our facial expressions and the universality of much nonverbal communication How twins separated at birth have the same nonverbal affectations What are micro-expressions and why they are so important The facial feedback hypothesis and how our faces create a feedback loop The 7 micro-expressions that will change your life Research from mental patients who lied to their doctors How to read facial expression (or body language) to discover hidden emotions The “fake science” myths around human lie detection The statistical cues to deceit - things that liars most often do Do “truth wizards” exist? Average person is 54% accurate in detecting lies What is baselining? Encoding vs Decoding What research on thousands of hours on TED Talks tells us about successful body language & the importance of congruency Most people are better at decoding than encoding - start with what you are weakest at We cannot cover up what we feel, focus on opportunities where you can thrive instead of places where you are merely surviving  “The secrets of super-connectors,” how to “work a room” and the specific patterns they use  How to be someone’s "social savior” "Context conversation starters” You learn ALOT about someone from a handshake Handshakes produce more oxytocin than 3 hours of face to face time Make the handshake equal (firmness and direction)

In this episode we look at what rabbit populations, craters on the moon, files on your hard-drive and the GDP of countries have in common, we discuss The power of fractals, the math of chaos theory, and what that all has to do with the 80/20 principle, How your understanding of the 80/20 is only the tip of the iceberg, how to generate 16x more leverage to achieve your goals, we go deep into sales wisdom from one of the world's top marketing consultants and much more with Perry Marshall.     Perry Marshall is a trained engineer and one of the world’s most sought-after business consultants, helping clients across 300 industries by combining sales, engineering, art, and psychology. Perry is the bestselling author of several books including The Ultimate Guide To Google AdWord, 80/20 Sales and Marketing and Evolution 2.0.   How Perry went from being laid off and surviving on ramen and bologna sandwiches to becoming one of the world's top marketing consultants How your understanding of the 80/20 principle is only the tip of the iceberg What Fractals and Chaos Theory have to do with the 80/20 principle What the pattern that Earthquakes, volcanoes, tornados and hurricanes follow has to do with marketing strategy Fractals are everywhere in your life, nature, and the universe The raw power of the butterfly effect How the 80/20 principles rules everything in your life and business “Levers within levers, within levers” and how that can shape your focus Where to find the tiny hinges that swing huge doors What do rabbit populations, craters on the moon, files on your hard-drive and the GDP of countries have in common? How to align yourself with the 80/20 principle and harness its incredible power  Do you want to live in the IS world or the SHOULD BE world? If you deal with reality the way it is things become effortless Once you understand the 80/20 principle, it transforms what you focus on How most problems in life are a result of being on the wrong side of the 80/20 equation What is “racking the shotgun?” and why is it so important Don’t focus on fixing the bad 80%, focus on reproducing the successful 20% One of the jobs of civilization is to mitigate the 80/20 principle The world will always condition you to focus on the underperforms (the 80%) You can get “A's" in six different subjects, but you’re gonna make a living in ONE If you try 20 projects, the law of 80/20 says 1 should succeed! Failure is OK, you only have to go get rich once The 20% is 16x more leverage than the 80% that doesn’t generate results Everyone is in sales in some form or fashion in their lives Sales is not a convincing people process, sales and elimination process First thing you should do in sales is disqualify people as quickly as possible Never ask someone who can say no but who cannot say yes The key questions you need to ask to disqualify sales leads The story of the $2700 espresso machine The 8 different modalities of selling and how you can thrive by embracing your own unique sales strengths And much more!

In this episode we discuss how you can create success by mashing two seeming unrelated ideas together, why energy is the currency of the biological world (and how that impacts the evolution of money within our society), we go deep into understanding money and its role in our lives, and we look at why you should investigate your own biases about money with Kabir Sehgal.   Kabir is a former a vice president in emerging markets at JP Morgan. He is the new york times and wall street journal bestselling author of the book Coined and has served as a speechwriter for the John Kerry presidential campaign, having been featured in Fortune, The Harvard Business Review, and other publications. Kabir is a CNBC contributor as well as a grammy winning producer, composer, and Jazz musician.   We discuss:   Creating an opera about the financial crisis How you can create success by mashing two seeming unrelated ideas together  The idea of lateral combination vs incremental growth and how it amplifies possibility What is Money? Unit of Value Instrument of Exchange Counting mechanism Why Kabir defines money as a symbol of value The neurological triggers associated with money How a trip to the Galapagos islands transformed the way Kabir thought about money The “biology of exchange” and how money expresses something deeply biological and rooted in evolution Why energy is the currency of the biological world (and how that impacts the evolution of money within our society) The rich history of money Looking at financial decisions through brain scans and MRIs How talking about money can change the electrical conductivity of your skin Fascinating research data about how money impacts How making money creates a brain state almost identical to cocaine addicts What does research show gets men more excited - dead bodies, naked women, or money? How your genetic composition impacts your psychology of money How twin studies demonstrate people’s genetic preference for certain financial behaviors and risk profiles The anthropology of debt The history of bartering and how social debt was actually the first currency Think of money as a measurement of debt  What’s the difference between currency and money? What does Genghis Khan have to do with the history of money? What are Native American potlatches and what do they tell us about tipping behavior? What is Soft Money, what is Hard Money, and what are the differences? Does the weather impact your financial decisions? What is the Soul of Money? Misquoting Jesus? Do Jesus and the Hindu scriptures offer the same financial advice? Understanding money and its role in our lives Why you should start with investigating your own biases about money

In this episode we discuss the fundamental principles of game theory, we correctly guess the answers to SAT questions - without every knowing what the question was! We look at how to use game theory in practical ways, and go deep on how a college professor and his student started a beverage company, sold a billion bottles of tea, and competed against Coke, Nestle, and other major players to become incredibly successful with our guest Barry Nalebuff.   Barry is a Professor of Economics and Management at Yale School of Management. A graduate of MIT, a Rhodes Scholar and Junior Fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows, Barry earned his doctorate at Oxford University. Barry is the author of several books, an expert in game theory which he applies to business strategy, and the co-founder of Honest Tea which has been named one of America’s fastest Growing Companies   We discuss:   What is game theory? What are the fundamental principles of game theory? The difference between ego-centric and being alo-centric How do you design a system that avoids death spirals? Everything in life is a game Barry grills me on game theory with a fascinating example We crush through some SAT questions and find the correct answer - without every knowing the question! We use a simple game to understand Nash equilibrium and how that explains third world development challenges and corruption What is the prisoner’s dilemma and how does it apply to the real world? How global warming demonstrates a multi-person prisoner’s dilemma The concept of “signaling” in game theory and how Michale Spence won a noble prize studying it A real world example of how signaling can be used to change outcomes getting hired How to use game theory to negotiate and create the best possible outcomes A concrete example of how to "divide the pie” and reach a fair and “principled” conclusion in a negotiation Why its important to figure out what the pie is before you determine how to split it How a professor and his student pooled their resources, started a beverage company, sold a billion bottles of tea, and competed against coke, nestle, and other major players The concept of “declining marginal utility” and how that shaped the founding of Honest Tea We explain why a function is maximized when its derivative is zero The “Babysitter Theorem” and why it was critical to Honest Tea’s success How Barry and Seth used the Lean Startup approach to launch Honest Tea Would it make sense for Pepsi to release a perfect replica of Coke? Barry’s advice for aspiring entrepreneurs  Be radically different Solve a challenging problem Succeed without being copied How Honest Tea prevented their business model from being copied and knocked off And much more