Curious Minds at Work
Gayle Allen
Want to get better at work? At managing others? Managing yourself? Gayle Allen interviews experts who take your performance to the next level. Each episode features a book with insights to help you achieve your goals.
CM 286: Chris Lipp on Stepping into Your Personal Power
Most advice on power is about why we need it or how we can get it. And it's typically focused on things outside us, like titles or promotions.
While these external markers are important, they can leave us empty inside.
Advice that focuses solely on external power leaves out how to build and maintain the crucial internal power we need. That’s why Chris Lipp decided to mine the research on personal power and, ultimately, to write a book on it. In this interview we talk about his latest book, T
CM 285: Adam Galinsky Shares What Great Leaders Do
Adam Galinsky is a social psychologist and the Paul Calello Professor of Leadership and Ethics at Columbia Business School. He believes leaders are made, not born, and he’s spent decades proving it.
In this interview, we talk about his findings and how they apply to today’s leaders. We also discuss his latest book, Inspire: The Universal Path for Leading Yourself and Others. In it, he shares three characteristics people repeatedly bring up when describing truly great leaders: they act as vision
CM 284: Alison Wood Brooks on the Science of Conversation
Conversations play a big role in our personal and professional lives. It’d be hard to build or maintain a relationship without them.
That’s why Alison Wood Brooks, Harvard Business School Professor and conversation expert, has written the book, Talk: The Science of Conversation and the Art of Being Ourselves. She’s found that if we improve our conversations, even a little, the results can be game changing.
In this interview, we talk about the framework she’s developed to help us do that. We
CM 283: Sandra Matz on Protecting Our Privacy Online
With few exceptions, we have digital footprints. And each time we scroll social media, run a Google search, or use a smartphone to navigate, we’re adding data to that footprint. While we gain a lot from our ability to do all these things, we also feed companies the data they need to target us.
Sandra Matz is a computational social scientist and professor at Columbia Business School. Over the course of her career, she’s consulted with companies eager to profit from our data. In recent years, she
CM 282: Cassie Holmes on Happiness, Meaning, and Fulfillment – Rebroadcast
We go to the dentist, get our eyes checked, and get our cars inspected. These regularly scheduled health and safety audits let us know how we’re doing.
But we rarely audit how we spend our time.
Sure, most of us have a calendar. Yet few of us study how these calendar events impact our happiness. We rarely track the connection between what we spend our time doing and how well we’re flourishing.
As a result, we can find ourselves feeling unhappy, frustrated, and what scientists call “time poor.
CM 281: Alison Fragale on Women and Success
If you’re a woman in the workplace, you know the deck is rarely stacked in your favor. For example, promotions are harder to come by. The gender wage gap is real. And power can feel elusive.
Psychology professor and researcher, Alison Fragale, has studied the power problem for decades. What she’s figured out is that the solution lies with status. But, as she argues in her book, Likeable Badass: How Women Get the Success They Deserve, if women shift their focus to cultivating status, they get fu
CM 280: Michael Gervais on Overcoming Our Biggest Fear – Rebroadcast
There are many good reasons to look to others. For example, you might need expert advice or feedback to improve your performance. But there’s one reason not to, and, that is, to determine your self-worth.
When you look to someone else to define you or tell you how to live your life, you lose a lot. And if you find it hard to believe you’d ever let someone else influence you in those ways, you’d be surprised.
Michael Gervais is a high-performance psychologist who’s worked with elite athletes, a
CM 279: Brian Lowery on Who You Really Are
It’s tempting to believe that the self is a constant. That it’s a core component of who we are from the time we’re born.
But social psychologist and Stanford Professor Brian Lowery has a different view. He believes the self we are today is a product of our social relationships – our friends, our families, our communities, our technologies, even our geography. That as our circumstances change, so does the self we believe ourselves to be. In this interview, we talk about this and more from his b
CM 278: Lorraine Besser on Living a Richer Life
We need pleasure in our lives. We also need meaning. Pleasure gives us joy and delight. Meaning gives us purpose and a set of goals to work toward.
But have there ever been times in your life when you’ve experienced meaning and pleasure, yet felt something was missing? Turns out, you’re not alone.
What’s missing, according to recent research, is something called psychological richness. Think of it as mental stimulation. A combination of curiosity and wonder. Lorraine Besser writes about this i
CM 277: Emily Austin on a Recipe for Happiness
When we’re looking for insights on how to make friends, manage our anxiety, or just live a happier life, we rarely look to the past. Instead, we tend to focus on what today’s thinkers have to say.
But what if the recipe for happiness lies in the past, specifically the 2000-year-old past? What if the ancient writings of Greek philosopher Epicurus hold the answers?
That’s what modern-day philosopher, Emily Austin, argues in her book, Living for Pleasure: An Epicurean Guide to Life. She teaches u
CM 276: Mary Anderson on Success without Stress
We often assume that stress and anxiety are the price we pay for success. Yet these feelings can lead to burnout and self-doubt, two debilitating outcomes that can get in the way of the very achievements we’re striving for.
This is a pattern psychologist Mary Anderson often sees in her high-achieving clients: their very success has left them so scarred that they can’t enjoy it, let alone build on it. The good news is that Anderson has developed a set of research-backed strategies to get us unst
CM 275: Mithu Storoni on Working Smarter
As a knowledge worker, you face two challenges. First, you need to take in staggering amounts of information to stay current. Next, you're expected to convert that information into innovative solutions that benefit your team and your company.
While expectations for consuming and processing information have changed, most of our mental habits harken back to factory model days. Yet we’re ignoring the tremendous power of our human biology, namely, our brains.
What if we designed an optimal work st
CM 274: Keith Sawyer on Group Genius
We like the idea of the lone genius, that one person who developed a game-changing innovation. But whether or not we realize it, research shows that creativity is collaborative.
Yep. You heard that right. And we have lots of examples: the development of the airplane, the Internet, the mountain bike, and so many more.
We’re schooled in the notion that creativity is an individual thing, yet research shows, again and again, that it’s not. Instead, it’s through connecting with others, then workin
CM 273: Kasley Killam on the Art and Science of Connection
It’s become common knowledge that we need to prioritize our physical and mental health. In fact we’re encouraged to commit to regular exercise and good nutrition, and to engage with mental health professionals as part of a healthy lifestyle.
And if public health experts like Kasley Killam have their way, social health will become just as important. It’s why she wrote the book, The Art and Science of Connection: Why Social Health is the Missing Key to Living Longer, Healthier, and Happier.
Kasl
CM 272: Julia Hotz on the Connection Cure
Each day, millions of doctors write prescriptions for drugs intended to help their patients. But what if many of our modern health ailments, like depression, anxiety, and chronic pain, would benefit as much, if not more, from a social prescription?
What if nature, art, movement, and service could reduce our symptoms, decrease doctor visits, and improve our health?
These are questions Julia Hotz set out to answer. Julia is author of the book, The Connection Cure: The Prescriptive Power of Movem
CM 271: Anna Goldfarb on Modern Friendship
We know how important friendships are. At the very least, for our health and well-being. But we also know how hard it gets to make and keep friends over the course of a lifetime, especially as we move, change jobs, and have families.
That’s why Anna Goldfarb’s book, Modern Friendship: How to Nurture Our Most Valued Connections, is so important. We need friendships for good health, and Anna’s book teaches us ways to make, keep, and move on from toxic friends. And she readily shares what to say t
CM 270: Alex Budak Helps Us Become Changemakers
Most of us believe we can make a difference in the world. That we can have an impact. What holds us back from acting on those beliefs are often the doubts. Doubts about our skills, our credentials, even our roles at work.
Alex Budak studied the research and interviewed the changemakers, and he argues we can all be changemakers, no matter our resumes. That’s what led him to write his book, Becoming a Changemaker: An Actionable, Inclusive Guide to Leading Positive Change at Any Level.
I was insp
CM 269: Dacher Keltner on How Awe Helps Us Thrive
This year, we witnessed a solar eclipse. Walking the streets of my neighborhood that day, looking through my solar eclipse glasses and sharing them with others, I felt a profound sense of awe.
And I saw that awe, that wonder, reflected in the faces of the people around me. For one or two hours, we were part of something bigger than ourselves. And that experience took us out of ourselves. It softened and connected us.
Experiences like that are what made me want to read Dacher Keltner’s latest b
CM 268: David Robson on Overcoming Loneliness
Social connections are one of the keys to a happy and healthy life, yet few of us learn how to build them.
If we’re lucky, we have family and friends who model them. But even then, our biology equips us with cognitive biases that can get in the way.
Fortunately, award-winning science writer David Robson has studied the research. He shares what he’s learned in his latest book, The Laws of Connection: The Scientific Secrets of Building a Strong Social Network.
In this conversation, he talks abo
CM 267: Michael Gervais on Overcoming Our Biggest Fear
There are many good reasons to look to others. For example, you might need expert advice or feedback to improve your performance. But there’s one reason not to, and, that is, to determine your self-worth.
When you look to someone else to define you or tell you how to live your life, you lose a lot. And if you find it hard to believe you’d ever let someone else influence you in those ways, you’d be surprised.
Michael Gervais is a high-performance psychologist who’s worked with elite athletes, a
CM 266: Jeff Wetzler on Deepening Connections
We’re surrounded by people with knowledge. The manager who can provide expert feedback or the colleague who has important information. These kinds of insights can help us achieve our goals.
Yet as much as we need that knowledge, we often don’t act in ways that invite it.
It’s when the project runs behind or we can’t make our numbers that we realize, often too late, that asking sooner could have made all the difference.
These are the results Jeff Wetzler can help us avoid. His book, Ask: Tap
CM 265: Tali Sharot on How to Rekindle Happiness
We all want to be happy. In fact, it’s our desire for happiness that drives most of our decisions, like our friendships, our activities, even our purchases.
Yet, over time, we find that the things that made us so happy at the start – that new car or delicious meal – end up losing their luster.
I was curious about why this happens and what, if anything, we can do about it. That’s why I wanted to talk to Tali Sharot, cognitive neuroscientist, professor at University College London and MIT, and
CM 264: Michael Norton on How Rituals Improve Our Lives
We crave meaning and purpose, yet obtaining them can feel beyond our control, like they're merely products of luck and circumstance. Fortunately, researchers who’ve studied the power of ritual have found they’re more in our control than we think.
In this interview, I talk to one of these researchers, psychologist Michael Norton. He shares how rituals, especially ones we create, can provide the meaning and purpose we crave. And, unlike habits, rituals operate on an emotional level that deepens
CM 263: Adam Alter on Simple Ways to Get Unstuck – Rebroadcast
At some point, we all get stuck. Maybe it’s in a job or career. Maybe it’s a relationship or business venture.
Though it’s something we all experience, when it happens, we can feel alone and out of our depth. Emotions may overwhelm us. Mental traps lure is in. In no time at all, we can’t see a way out.
Award-winning professor, researcher, and author, Adam Alter, has spent decades studying how successful people get unstuck. In his latest book, Anatomy of a Breakthrough: How to Get Unstuck When
CM 262: Norman Farb on the Science of Sensation
When we’re feeling stuck, it’s tempting to believe more thinking is the answer. We stew and we ponder, and then we double down on solutions we’ve tried before. It’s no wonder we start to feel like we just can’t figure it out.
But what would happen if we put thinking aside and tried something else? Author and researcher, Norman Farb, has learned that there’s an entire canvas of sensory experience we can access any time we want. And by tapping into our senses, we may find ways to feel better. It’
CM 261: Andrew McAfee on the Geek Way
When we think of geeks, we tend to think of the people who built the tech we use – from our smartphones to search engines to AI.
But if we just focus on the tech, we’re missing out on a lot. We’re overlooking how these same geeks reinvented corporate culture using a repeatable set of norms that ensure sustainable innovation.
Andrew McAfee is a principal research scientist at the MIT Sloan School of Management and cofounder and codirector of the MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy. He’s bee
CM 260: Malissa Clark Asks, Are You a Workaholic?
There’s more to being a workaholic than working long hours. Consider what motivates you to work more. Where you’re spending your energy. Think about the impact those longer hours have on family and friends.
These are some of the distinctions Malissa Clark makes in her book, Never Not Working: Why the Always-on Culture is Bad for Business and How to Fix it. She not only shares a helpful framework for thinking about workaholism but gives us ways to recognize it. Equally helpful, she explains ste
CM 259: Geoffrey Cohen on the Science of Belonging
We associate the word epidemic with disease. Yet it’s a word we’re increasingly using to refer to a state of mind, namely, loneliness. Researchers have not only found a significant increase in people’s feelings of loneliness, but they’ve also learned how detrimental loneliness can be to our health and wellbeing.
One of the most effective antidotes to loneliness is feeling like we belong. In fact, researchers have discovered that feelings of belonging can spill over into every area of our lives
CM 258: Steven Rogelberg on the Perfect One-on-One Meeting
One-on-one meetings are the cornerstone of manager-employee relationships. For managers, they’re an opportunity to teach, coach, and mentor. For employees, they’re a chance to grow and develop.
But given how important these meetings are, how well are we using them? How effectively do we plan and run them? Bottom line - are they an afterthought or a priority?
These are just some of the questions, I asked meeting expert Steven Rogelberg, author of the book, Glad We Met: The Art and Science of 1:
CM 257: Anna Lembke on Our Digital Addictions
For many of us, the word addiction quickly conjures up images of drugs and alcohol. But we’re often slower to apply the term to compulsive, tech-induced behaviors like playing video games, checking social media, or shopping online.
We prefer to think of these pleasure-seeking activities as harmless distractions. Yet they can just as easily lead to addictive behaviors. And with our ever-present smartphones, the chance of mindlessly engaging in these activities, to the point of addiction, are mor
CM 256: Cassie Holmes on Happiness, Meaning, and Fulfillment – Rebroadcast
We go to the dentist, get our eyes checked, and get our cars inspected. These regularly scheduled health and safety audits let us know how we’re doing.
But we rarely audit how we spend our time.
Sure, most of us have a calendar. Yet few of us study how these calendar events impact our happiness. We rarely track the connection between what we spend our time doing and how well we’re flourishing.
As a result, we can find ourselves feeling unhappy, frustrated, and what scientists call “time poor.
CM 255: Kat Vellos on Mastering Friendship – Rebroadcast
I’ve spent a lot of time talking to guests about our relationships at work. For example, we’ve discussed how to listen better, how to navigate conflict, and how to influence others, just to name a few.
What I’ve spent less time talking about are the relationships that go beyond work. That’s why I invited Kat Vellos on the show this week to talk about her amazing book, We Should Get Together: The Secret to Cultivating Better Friendships.
Kat’s book is more than a callout to the power of friend
CM 254: Adia Harvey Wingfield on Racism at Work
In the U.S., we have laws and policies in place to prevent discrimination of Black workers. In addition, we have leaders who make public pledges in support of diversity goals. Yet the data continue to show that Black employees are less likely to be hired, more likely to stall out in mid-level positions, and stand little chance of gaining senior level positions.
Why is that?
Adia Harvey Winfield’s work lies at the intersection of labor and race, and her research reveals that, for Black workers,
CM 253: Karen Eber on Crafting the Perfect Story
A well-crafted story can fuel connection. It can inspire trust and entertain. Better still, it can have a ripple effect.
Yet most of us avoid telling stories. Instead, we stick to the facts and emphasize the data. Now, even if we believe this is the best way to convey information, our brains, if they could talk, would disagree. That’s why, if we want to connect, persuade, or just keep our audience’s attention, we need to get better at storytelling.
That’s why I wanted to speak with Karen Eber,
CM 252: Matt Abrahams on How to Speak on the Spot
We’re often put on the spot to say something of value. And when it happens, it can catch us off guard.
For example, you log in early to a conference call and need to make small talk with high status colleagues. Or you find out in a meeting that a co-worker is leaving the company, and you’re asked to say a few words.
These kinds of spontaneous interactions happen more often than we think. But unlike formal presentations or pitches, there’s no time to practice. We wonder how to manage our anxiet
CM 251: Eduardo Briceno on Improving Our Performance
Most of us are on a performance treadmill. We show up. We execute. Then tomorrow we do it all over again.
But this relentless focus on execution leaves little time for learning. As a result, our skills stagnate, and we accomplish less. Soon we find ourselves working harder while falling further behind.
Eduardo Briceno calls this The Performance Paradox: Turning the Power of Mindset into Action, a label that’s also the title of his book. In it, he shares how we can build learning into our day w
CM 250: Gloria Mark on Improving Our Attention
We live and work in a digital world where getting interrupted by communication tools is the norm. That means we shift our attention at least every 47 seconds. Then it takes us about 30 minutes to get back on task. At the same time, we continually interrupt ourselves – looking things up, tracking information down.
While some view this as a problem to be solved, Gloria Mark sees it simply as a new reality. And she believes we’re using old language and frameworks to navigate it. Things like flow a
CM 249: Daniel Simons on How to Avoid Being Fooled
As humans, we have certain default settings that help us navigate the world. Yet those same default settings make us vulnerable to fraud and deception.
For example, our ability to focus helps us concentrate on what’s right in front of us. But it also prevents us from seeing what’s missing. For example, we’re more willing to believe a presumed investment expert who touts a winning track record without thinking about the losses he never mentions.
Our brains also rely on past experiences to guide
CM 248: Vanessa Patrick On How To Say No
We’re often told that saying yes to everything will be the key to our success. It’ll strengthen our relationships, enhance our reputation, and help us achieve our goals.
But what if the reverse were true? What if learning how to say no is the game changer? What if mastering this skill is the way to achieve our goals?
Vanessa Patrick has written a book on the subject titled, The Power of Saying No: The New Science of How to Say No That Puts You in Charge of Your Life.
There are so many factors
CM 247: Thomas Curran on the Perfection Trap
Aiming for perfection seems like a noble goal. It’s like we’re holding ourselves to a higher standard or standing out from the crowd.
But striving for perfection means working toward the impossible. And the cost to our mental and physical health can be enormous.
London School of Economics Professor, Thomas Curran, experienced the impact of perfectionism firsthand. As a recovering perfectionist, he’s made the field the focus of his research.
Curran’s research led to his book, The Perfection Tr
CM 246: Simone Stolzoff On Our Relationship With Work
For many, work is the centerpiece of our lives. It’s not only a source of status and fulfillment, but also central to our identity.
But what do we miss out on when hold these expectations of our work? What does it cost us?
That’s the question Simone Stolzoff asks in his book, The Good Enough Job: Reclaiming Life from Work. In answering this question, he explains the drivers that got us here, the reasons society and culture reinforce them, and what life might look like if we reframed the role o
CM 245: Sally Jenkins on Elevating Your Performance
Winning athletes and coaches have a lot to teach us. They’re asked to perform at the highest level, day in and day out, and they face enormous pressure to succeed.
Faced with these expectations, the most successful ones must continually elevate their performance. But how?
That’s a question Sally Jenkins has spent a career trying to answer. Through her work as a sportswriter at The Washington Post, she discovered the formula great players use to succeed, and she shares it with us in her latest
CM 244: Jonathan Rhodes on Getting the Life You Want
There’s a lot to be said for the excitement we feel when we first set a goal for ourselves. The sense of exhilaration can give us the momentum we need to get started.
But when the exhilaration wears off – and it usually does – we’re faced with a choice. Will we revert to old habits or develop new ones?
These moments are what Jonathan Rhodes calls choice points, and the decisions we make can really add up. Ultimately, how we manage ourselves in these moments can be the difference between the li
CM 243: Sheena Iyengar on How to Be An Innovator
Coming up with good ideas is hard. But it’s not because we’re not creative or smart enough. It’s likely we just haven’t learned how.
Fortunately, Sheena Iyengar, Professor at Columbia Business School, has written a playbook that answers the question, how can I get my best ideas? It’s her latest book, Think Bigger: How to Innovate.
Sheena’s approach leads us, step by step, from generating ideas to assessing which ones are innovative enough to act on. It’s a method informed not only by others’ s
CM 242: Rainesford Stauffer on Reimagining Ambition
Ambition is complicated. Yet the messages we receive from an early age are simple: “Winners never quit.” “Reach for the stars.” “Follow your dreams.”
But like most simple messages, reality often paints a very different picture. Long hours that lead to burnout, or individual striving that results in loneliness.
Rainesford Stauffer ran up against these realities. And, in her work as a journalist, she spoke to others who did, as well. That’s what led her to rethink what ambition could be, and to
CM 241: Hal Hershfield on Creating Your Tomorrow
We’ve all had the experience of working toward goals today that would benefit us in the future. Goals like exercising more, losing weight, or saving for retirement.
Yet when faced with early-morning alarms or tempting desserts, we may lose sight of our goals.
But what if the answer to sticking with them was to form a relationship with a very special person – future you?
Hal Hershfield, author of the book, Your Future Self: How to Make Tomorrow Better Today, has spent his career studying what
CM 240: Adam Alter on Simple Ways to Get Unstuck
At some point, we all get stuck. Maybe it’s in a job or career. Maybe it’s a relationship or business venture.
Though it’s something we all experience, when it happens, we can feel alone and out of our depth. Emotions may overwhelm us. Mental traps lure is in. In no time at all, we can’t see a way out.
Award-winning professor, researcher, and author, Adam Alter, has spent decades studying how successful people get unstuck. In his latest book, Anatomy of a Breakthrough: How to Get Unstuck When
CM 239: Rina Bliss on Why IQ is a Myth
There’s never been a better time to question how we measure intelligence. With ChatGPT and other forms of artificial intelligence pushing the boundaries of what it means to be smart, there’s an opportunity – even an urgency – to reconsider everything we know.
That’s why I wanted to talk to Rina Bliss, author of the book, Rethinking Intelligence: A Radical New Understanding of Our Human Potential. A sociologist and genetics expert, Rina brings a fresh perspective to the discussion that expands w
CM 238: Rob Cross and Karen Dillon on How to Handle Microstress
Small things add up. And, for the most part, that’s a good thing. Like taking the stairs to get more exercise or swapping out something sugary for a piece of fruit. Over time, small actions like these can add up to a healthier lifestyle.
Yet there are times when the small things that add up work against our well-being. Every time your boss shifts your priorities. Each time you have to cancel connecting with a friend.
Rob Cross and Karen Dillon take a closer look at these moments in their book,
CM 237: Elaine Fox on Mental Agility
Change is a part of life, and it’s a big part of growing and developing. Yet, with change comes uncertainty, and that can cause us to get stuck.
To thrive during change, we need a mental agility that comes from self-awareness, emotional awareness, and situational awareness. It’s about what Elaine Fox calls, switch craft.
Elaine Fox is a leading psychologist and performance coach who’s spent her career working with athletes, military leaders, and executives. What she’s seen is that the most su
CM 236: Tess Wilkinson-Ryan on When to Play the Fool
No one wants to feel like a sucker. In fact, the very thought of being one – of playing the fool – shapes our behavior in powerful ways.
But what if our fear causes us to make choices that aren’t good for us? Or worse, what if people weaponize our fear in order to dominate or disempower us?
Tess Wilkinson-Ryan has written a stunning book on the topic called, Fool Proof: How Fear of Playing the Sucker Shapes Our Selves and the Social Order and What We Can Do about It. A psychologist and law pro
CM 235: Jonah Berger on How to Get Your Way
Almost everything we do – personally and professionally – is affected by the words we use.
They help us build relationships, persuade others, and communicate feelings. But what if I told you that 6 types of words were better at doing those things than all the others?
These findings are at the heart of Jonah Berger’s latest book, Magic Words: What to Say to Get Your Way. Jonah is a bestselling author who’s studied millions of words used in all kinds of settings. And he’s found that certain word
CM 234: Jill Schlesinger on the Great Money Reset
The pandemic caused many of us to rethink our lives. From the places we’ve been living to the work we’ve been doing. It’s been an opportunity to hit the reset button.
Of course, financial considerations play a central role, and that’s something Jill Schlesinger began to notice. It’s what prompted her to write her latest book, The Great Money Reset: Change Your Work, Change Your Wealth, Change Your Life. A financial analyst and former financial planner, Jill wants to give us the financial tools
CM 233: Daniel Willingham on Smarter Ways to Learn
As adults, we need to learn new things all the time.
Yet many of us are relying on the same outdated methods we used as adolescents to do it. Thinks like relentless highlighting and endless rereading.
If so, it may be time to take advantage of the latest research on learning.
That’s where Daniel Willingham comes in. In this interview, we discuss his latest book, Outsmart Your Brain: Why Learning is Hard and How You Can Make It Easy. Dan explains when our brains may be working against us. He a
CM 232: Vanessa Bohns on How We Influence Others – Encore
One of the messages our culture delivers is “not enough.” Not clever enough. Not busy enough. Not successful enough. It’s a cultural mantra that beats just below the surface of many conversations, especially the ones we have with ourselves.
That’s what’s so refreshing about Vanessa Bohns’ book, You Have More Influence Than You Think: How We Underestimate our Power of Persuasion and Why It Matters. Vanessa’s message, when it comes to influence and persuasion, is that we’re more than enough. That
CM 231: Nate Zinsser on Building Your Confidence – Encore
Confidence seems elusive. We do something that comes easily and we don’t think twice about it. Or we try something new, experience setbacks, and question our capabilities. It leaves us thinking that confidence is something other people just seem to have. All the time.
Performance psychologist Nate Zinsser knows that’s just not true.
For decades he’s been working with Olympians, professional athletes, military leaders, and other high performers in his role as Director of West Point's Performa
CM 230: Ayelet Fishback on Achieving Your Goals – Rebroadcast
Most of us have a love-hate relationship with New Year’s resolutions. We love that feeling of a fresh start. But we hate how our commitments seldom make it to Valentine’s Day.
So what if this year we had an expert teach us how to do it right?
Ayelet Fishbach is that expert. She’s a social psychologist at the University of Chicago and author of the book, Get It Done: Surprising Lessons from the Science of Motivation.
In this interview, we talk about how to choose goals that energize us and how
CM 229: Cassie Holmes on Happiness, Meaning, and Fulfillment
We go to the dentist, get our eyes checked, and get our cars inspected. These regularly scheduled health and safety audits let us know how we’re doing.
But we rarely audit how we spend our time.
Sure, most of us have a calendar. Yet few of us study how these calendar events impact our happiness. We rarely track the connection between what we spend our time doing and how well we’re flourishing.
As a result, we can find ourselves feeling unhappy, frustrated, and what scientists call “time poor.
CM 228: Woo-kyoung Ahn on Thinking Smarter
How we think about things can have an outsize impact on whether we achieve our goals.
Take, for example, the research we might do to make an important decision. If we’re already committed to a certain way of thinking, it’s likely we’ll only focus on information that confirms what we already believe. It’s what scientists call confirmation bias, and it can cause us to overlook, or even dismiss, information critical to things like our health, our finances, and our careers.
And it’s not the only m
CM 227: Gregory Berns on How You See Yourself
Who are you? It’s a question you’ve had to answer if you’ve ever moved, changed jobs, or started a new relationship.
And it’s natural that who you are will change with each new experience you gain and new memories you form. The “story of you” will be different.
At the same time, our brain is an incredible editor. With limited storage space for memories, it’s got to pick and choose. It does that by connecting the dots between them to give us the stories we tell about ourselves.
In other words,
CM 226: Amy Gallo on How to Work with Difficult People
Work relationships matter more than we think. They can be a key reason we stay in a job or the reason we leave. When they don’t go well, they can consume a lot of our time and energy, both in and out of work.
That’s why we need to get better at them. Even the difficult ones, like a boss who takes all the credit or a co-worker who’s perpetually negative.
Amy Gallo is an expert on conflict and a contributing editor at Harvard Business Review. In this interview, we discuss her most recent book, G
CM 225: Annie Duke on Knowing When to Quit
What if becoming a better quitter was something to aspire to?
Annie Duke thinks it is. She’s a national science foundation fellowship winner and bestselling author who’s used her background in psychology to become a successful poker player and business advisor. Lately, she’s spent time studying the power of quitting, a tool she argues is as important as grit, resilience, and sticking it out.
The science shows we’re not great at it. We don’t fire quickly enough. We don’t quit soon enough. We do
CM 224: Jennifer Garvey Berger on Thriving in Uncertainty
What if the skills we need to thrive in uncertainty were ones we already had?
That’s the case Jennifer Garvey Berger makes in her latest book, Unleash Your Complexity Genius: Growing Your Inner Capacity to Lead.
When life is good, we make time to connect, engage, and create. But when it’s uncertain, stress gets in the way of these healthy behaviors.
While we can’t always change life’s complexity, we can counter its effects by tapping into healthy features of our biology. These include our bre
CM 223: Chantel Prat on How Every Brain Is Different
Your manager sees it one way. Your colleague sees it another. Both ways are different from yours. Why is that? Well, our brains may have something to do with it.
Today’s brain researchers are studying what makes our brains different. They’re finding that these differences not only impact how we interpret situations, but also how well we’re able to focus, learn new things, and adapt to change. They’re also discovering what motivates us and how well we connect with teammates.
Chantel Prat is a n
CM 222: Steve Magness on Real Toughness
How we think about toughness needs a reset. Too often, it’s been associated with brute forcing our way through things. Ignoring our feelings. Making an outward show of confidence and dominance.
The problem is it just doesn't work.
Performance coach and bestselling author, Steve Magness, offers another way. He’s done a deep dive on the latest research on toughness and performance. In his book, Do Hard Things: Why We Get Resilience Wrong and The Surprising Science of Real Toughness, he discusses
CM 221: Julie Winkle Giulioni On Redefining Career Growth
What do you do when a promotion isn't an option? Maybe there aren’t enough positions to go around. It’s not the right moment in your career. Or maybe you don’t want the management responsibilities. In each case, you can feel stuck.
But what if there were other options for career growth and development?
That’s the case Julie Winkle Giulioni makes in her book, Promotions are So Yesterday: Redefine Career Development and Help Employees Thrive. In it, she shares seven areas for growth that leader
CM 219: Susannah Baldwin on Women’s Voices at Work
Is our cultural conditioning holding women back at work?
We don’t often notice how we’re culturally conditioned. Like when we walk into a store and the girls’ toys are pink and boys’ toys are blue. It’s a gender norm we may not question.
Now you might ask, in the big scheme of things, how much do kids’ toy colors really matter? But what about actual behaviors, like when girls are playing together and they’re told to be quiet and play nice?
Years later, these kinds of gender norms show up in
CM 219: Britt Frank on Getting Unstuck
There are times in our lives where we feel stuck, be it personally or professionally. It might be in our career. It might in a relationship.
We’re smart, so we try to think our way out of it. But when we’re really stuck, thinking can turn into ruminating. And the more we think, the more we stay stuck. That’s when the labeling kicks in. The voice in our head labels us lazy, or crazy, or just plain unmotivated.
Today’s guest, Britt Frank, is a licensed specialist clinical social worker (LSCSW).
CM 218: Michael Wenderoth on How to Get Promoted
Most of us believe that if we're smart, work hard, and hit our targets, we've got what it takes to get promoted. And, in some organizations, we might be right.
But, in many organizations, those skills only take us so far.
Research shows that there's an additional set of skills, one we don't often discuss. Things like, strategic networking, political intelligence, and likeability.
If you're like most people, these skills bring up a lot of strong emotions. You may even ask, why can't my work ju
CM 217: Anh Dao Pham on How to Succeed as a Project Leader
In most organizations, moving up means managing projects. And if you want to grow your project management skills, you’ve got a wealth of resources to choose from. Everything from books and podcasts to courses and certifications.
What’s much harder to find is information on how to lead a project, not just manage one. It’s the missing piece that may ultimately be more important to your project’s success.
That’s why I wanted to interview Anh Dao Pham, author of the book, Glue: How Project Leaders
CM 216: Megan Gerhardt on Navigating a Multi-Generational Workplace
For the first time in U.S. history, we have employees from five different generations working side by side. With so many different perspectives and life experiences, conflict is inevitable.
Unfortunately, this often leads to stereotyping. We classify colleagues as millennial snowflakes, entitled young people, or clueless boomers. When this happens, we miss out on some of the greatest business opportunities of the twenty-first century. Opportunities to build better products and services informed
CM 215: Roger Martin on Rethinking Management
The most successful leaders are always looking for an edge. It could be a competitive edge for their organizations, their teams, even themselves.
One of the most effective ways to gain that edge is to notice what others miss. It’s about rethinking accepted wisdom around things like, strategy, planning, and execution.
This week’s guest, Roger Martin, is someone who brought that kind of critical thinking to his own successful business and who now brings it to leaders around the world. He shares
CM 214: Moshe Bar On Our Creative Brains
Most of us are productivity junkies. We pride ourselves on how much we accomplish and how long we maintain our focus.
But our brains know better. Sooner or later, they start to wander. To the tune of nearly half our waking hours.
Moshe Bar, cognitive scientist and author of the book, Mindwandering: How Your Constant Mental Drift Can Improve Your Mood and Boost Creativity, argues that we need these daydreams. They promote connections that inform our sense of self, lift our mood and stimulate
CM 213: Todd Rose On The Hidden Costs of Fitting In
Research shows our desire to fit in is incredibly strong. If you've ever disagreed with a group, but were afraid to speak up, you know the feeling. It means we go along to get along.
Unfortunately, these feelings are the rule, not the exception. Millions of people experience them on a regular basis.
It’s a phenomena psychologists call pluralistic ignorance, and it distorts how we see the world. From racial segregation to discarding healthy kidneys slated for organ transplants, the effects can
CM 212: Zoe Chance on Influence, Charisma, and Persuasion
The best filmmakers are influencers. They direct your attention using words, sounds, and images, and, within seconds, they’ve got you seeing the world through their eyes.
But you don’t have to be a filmmaker to influence someone’s behavior.
Whether you’re managing a team or leading an organization, you have access to influence. It’s in the way you frame a conversation. How you negotiate. When you ask.
The most influential people spend time planning and practicing these skills in advance. Th
CM 211: Liz Wiseman on Standing Out at Work
If someone asked what they should do to succeed in their job, you’d probably have a quick response. You might say something like, just do what you’re asked, get your work done on time, or don’t step on anyone’s toes.
But what if the question wasn’t about how to succeed, but how to stand out as the best of the best?
These are the high performers Liz Wiseman calls “impact players.” They’re the ones who leave an indelible mark on their work and the people around them. Liz spoke with nearly 200 to
CM 210: Judson Brewer on Unwinding Anxiety
Humans have always lived with anxiety. Thousands of years ago, we feared attacks by wild animals. Today we worry whether we’ll have enough money to retire.
It’s not the anxiety that matters, but how we handle it. Our responses can often compound the problem.
For example, feeling anxious about a demanding customer, we reward ourselves with a pint of ice cream. As the pressure mounts, it becomes a daily habit, and then, an addiction. At that point, our response to anxiety is no longer giving us
CM 209: Joan Williams on Practical Solutions for Diversity
Imagine that fewer people are buying your organization’s product or service. It’s a shift you didn’t anticipate. To fix it, you study the data, identify the problem, and then take steps to address it.
Your plan may include changes in marketing or team incentives. What it won’t include is doing nothing or trying to turn things around with one grand gesture.
Yet that’s how we often approach meeting diversity, equity, and inclusion goals.
Joan Williams is author of the book, Bias Interrupted:
CM 208: Mary-Frances O’Connor on How We Learn from Love and Loss
Why do we grieve, and what happens when we do? For much of human history, answers to these questions have come primarily from writers and thinkers. While they’ve given us powerful language to describe how we feel, they’ve shed little light on the science behind our feelings.
Neuroscientists are changing that. Armed with innovative approaches for studying grief, coupled with modern technologies that capture it, researchers are learning what happens in our brains when we grieve. Their findings r
CM 207: David Robson on How Our Expectations Shape Us
From time to time, I’ll run across creative ways people are using apps I like. It often prompts me to learn more. I’ll watch some videos, read a few articles and, inevitably, what I discover is that I’ve been accessing just a fraction of what the software can do.
I got that same feeling while reading award-winning science writer, David Robson’s latest book, The Expectation Effect: How Your Mindset Can Change Your World. It made me realize that I’m leveraging far fewer of my brain’s features th
CM 206: Nate Zinsser on Building Your Confidence
Confidence seems elusive. We do something that comes easily and we don’t think twice about it. Or we try something new that’s challenging and we can't stop thinking about our mistakes. It can leave us thinking that confidence is something other people just seem to have. All the time.
Performance psychologist Nate Zinsser knows that’s just not true.
For decades he’s been working with Olympians, professional athletes, military leaders, and other high performers in his role as Director of West
CM 205: Claudia Goldin on Women, Careers, and Greedy Work
For women who want a career and a family, we might expect things would be easier today. After all, women have greater access to education and job opportunities. We’ve seen advances in reproductive health. And we’ve made inroads in anti-discrimination laws and policies. Yet gaps in pay and promotions remain a problem.
Today’s guest, Claudia Goldin, is a Harvard University economist who’s spent her career studying women in the workplace. She believes there’s an important factor we’ve overlooked,
CM 204: Ayelet Fishbach on Achieving Your Goals
Most of us have a love-hate relationship with New Year’s resolutions. We love that feeling of a fresh start. But we hate how our commitments seldom make it to Valentine’s Day.
So what if this year we had an expert teach us how to do it right?
Ayelet Fishbach is that expert. She’s a social psychologist at the University of Chicago and author of the book, Get It Done: Surprising Lessons from the Science of Motivation.
In this interview, we talk about how to choose goals that energize us and ho
CM 203: Azeem Azhar On Thriving In An Exponential Age
We hear it all the time, that the pace of technological change today is faster than ever before. But what does that really mean, and why does it matter?
It means that if you were born in 1920, technologies in your life changed slowly. Think electricity, cars, telephones. At the time, these were huge innovations. But they took over 40 years to reach 3 out of 4 households in the U.S.
Compare this to the experience of someone born just 50 years later. Digital technologies like social media took o
CM 202: Anne Helen Petersen on the Peril and Promise of Working from Home
Just a few years ago, the possibility of working from anywhere made us wistful. With family and friends, we’d play the “what if” game: What if we could work from home? What if we could live somewhere warmer? What if we could move to another country?
When the pandemic hit and remote work made “what if” possible, some responded, “why not?” And that’s when things got complicated.
Now we’re faced with a different set of questions; Why should we ever return to the office? When we’re not in the offi
CM 201: Rob Cross on Collaboration Overload
There are countless benefits to collaboration. We get new ideas. Solve problems more quickly. Produce higher quality work.
But too much of anything can turn toxic. And it doesn’t have to be that way.
Rob Cross, Professor of Global Leadership at Babson College, has spent time with hundreds of leaders who’ve figured out how to collaborate more effectively. What he learned led to him develop a framework to help others do the same. It’s a combination of guardrails and behaviors, all of which lead
CM 200: Jay Van Bavel on Our Changing Identities
We like to think of our identities as singular and stable: I’m an early riser (and will always be), or I’m a foodie (and can’t imagine otherwise).
But if we take a step back, we see how we not only hold multiple identities, but how many of these identities change over the course of our lives.
Remember when you were a student? Or a time when you were single?
While there are some identities we can’t change, like our race or birthplace, there are many that we can. It’s the difference between fi
CM 199: Michael Rousell on the Power of Surprise
How to change someone’s mind. It’s a topic that’s come up a few times before on the podcast. For example, I talked to Jonah Berger about how to make inroads by asking for less. I also spoke with Tali Sharot about how to get further by focusing first on what you have in common.
Yet there’s one tip that’s never made the list. And it’s one that’s proven to have an incredible impact. In fact, we’ve seen some of our most compelling entertainers regularly use it to their advantage, performers like c
CM 198: Eric Johnson on the Science of Decision-Making
We like to think we’re in complete control of the decisions we make. From the sandwich we ordered for lunch to the Netflix show we watched last night. Yet, in each case, we’ve got a hidden partner, one that influences nearly every decision we make.
That partner is the designer.
Whether we’re reading a restaurant menu or scrolling a website, we’re taking in information that’s been presented to us in a certain way. These conscious – or unconscious – choices that designers make can influence wha
CM 197: Stefan Thomke on How to Run Game-Changing Experiments
What do you think makes companies like Amazon or Google so innovative? With Amazon you might say their relentless focus on the customer. With Google, you might point to their powerful search engine or cloud computing.
What you might not think about is just how important experiments are to their success. Not just a few experiments, but tens of thousands run annually so they can improve on what they do.
And experiments aren’t just for tech companies with lots of data. Running thoughtful experi
CM 196: Kat Vellos on Mastering Friendship
I’ve spent a lot of time talking to guests about our relationships at work. For example, we’ve discussed how to listen better, how to navigate conflict, and how to influence others, just to name a few.
What I’ve spent less time talking about are the relationships that go beyond work. That’s why I invited Kat Vellos on the show this week to talk about her amazing book, We Should Get Together: The Secret to Cultivating Better Friendships.
Kat’s book is more than a callout to the power of friends
CM 195: Vanessa Bohns on How We Influence Others
One of the messages our culture delivers is “not enough.” Not clever enough. Not busy enough. Not successful enough. It’s a cultural mantra that beats just below the surface of many conversations, especially the ones we have with ourselves.
That’s what’s so refreshing about Vanessa Bohns’ book, You Have More Influence Than You Think: How We Underestimate our Power of Persuasion and Why It Matters. Vanessa’s message, when it comes to influence and persuasion, is that we’re more than enough. That
CM 194: Joe Keohane on the Benefits of Talking to Strangers
I have a confession to make. I enjoy talking to people I don't know. I like learning about them and hearing their stories. I'm sure it explains why I started this podcast nearly six years ago.
Yet I know a lot of people who avoid talking to strangers. And if, for any reason, they have to, they dread it. But these feelings of dread work against us. Study after study shows that when we talk to strangers, we nearly always feel good afterwards.
And in a time where people feel more isolated and lon
CM 193: Deborah Stone on How Data Can Lead Us Astray
Numbers have power. They convey certainty. For example, when we know whether cases of Covid-19 are rising or falling, we feel like we have more control. Like we’ve got the answer.
Yet numbers can be slippery too.
Sure. Counting the number of people in a sports stadium is objective. But what about race totals in the U.S. Census? The same goes for the number of people who fall below the poverty line or the number of people the Jobs Report counts as unemployed.
While those numbers might seem cer
CM 192: Leidy Klotz on Doing More with Less
So often, when we try to solve a problem, we focus on what we can add. Let’s say you're moving to a smaller space. Your first thought might be to research shelving or rent a storage unit.
But what if, instead, you subtracted? What if you thought about what you’d sell, donate, or just throw out?
That’s the question Leidy Klotz answers in his book, Subtract: The Untapped Science of Less. It’s a topic he was inspired to pursue while building a bridge of Legos with his son. Faced with a design ch
CM 191: Lisa Feldman Barrett On How Our Brains Work
I'll admit it. I'm a sucker for brain science. I love learning new things about how our brains work and how to get the most out of this amazing organ. That means I'm always scanning for my next book on the topic. And, when I find it, I'm usually placing an order before I've made it through the table of contents.
With this week's guest, I barely glanced at her book's title before I clicked "buy." That's because the author is the incredible neuroscientist, Lisa Feldman Barrett. Last time she was
CM 190: Jim Detert on Being Brave at Work
When you think about courage at work, what comes to mind? Most of us think of the whistleblowers, the people who speak out on illegal corporate practices.
Yet many who succeed in changing the workplace, do so on a smaller scale. They push back on sexist comments. Point out bias in hiring. Or challenge unequal promotion practices. Each is an example of courage at work, and it’s a form of courage most of us say we want to see.
But research shows many of us don't exercise this kind of courage, e
CM 189: Amanda Ripley on Breaking Free from High Conflict
Think of your family, your friends, and your colleagues. In each of these relationships, you can expect to experience conflict from time to time. Sometimes, it's unhealthy conflict that harms our relationships. Other times, it's healthy conflict that strengthens them.
High conflict is something different. It happens when we view the conflict as good versus evil. It's when the walls go up. When it's about us versus them. Right versus wrong. We double down on our assumptions, maybe about people w
CM 188: Lisa Genova on the Science Behind Memory
I've got a riddle for you. What do we need to get better at our jobs? To maintain relationships with family and friends? To find our keys?
The answer is memory.
Yet when it comes to what it is and how to get the most out of it, we may not know as much as we'd like. And that's too bad, because knowing even a little about how our memory works can give us a lot, including peace of mind.
That's what made me pick up Lisa Genova's latest book, Remember: The Science of Memory and the Art of Forgett
CM 187: David Smith and Brad Johnson on the Playbook for Male Allies at Work
Change happens through action. For example, if we want to solve the hunger problem in our local community, we donate to a food drive. We volunteer at a food bank. We do things that solve the problem.
But often the hurdle to taking action is knowing what action to take. Research shows that bystanders are often unsure of what to do. And when they don't know what to do, they tend to do nothing.
That's why I wanted to talk to David Smith and Brad Johnson about their book, Good Guys: How Men Can Be
CM 186: Ethan Kross on Changing Our Self-Talk
Most of us have a voice in our heads. On some days, it builds our confidence. On others, it tears us down.
Our inner voice is an invisible force that has a big effect on our work and our lives.
I've often been curious about this voice. What shapes it? What makes it louder? If we understood it better, could we get it to work for us, rather than against us?
Ethan Kross has spent the bulk of his career studying the power and perils of this voice. He's an award-winning psychology professor at th
CM 185: John Bowe on Mastering Public Speaking
For many of us, public speaking creates a lot of anxiety. And like all phobias, it comes at a cost. Researchers have linked a fear of public speaking to lower college graduation rates, lower wages, and fewer promotions.
But I think the biggest price we pay is the loss of our voice. It robs us of the ability to share our ideas. And it diminishes an important way for us to have an impact on the world.
I've known this was a topic I wanted to discuss on the podcast, but the challenge has been find
CM 184: Amelia Nagoski On Banishing Burnout
A hundred years ago, if you asked someone about burnout, they wouldn't know what you were talking about. Fast forward to today and there's a good chance they'd say they've experienced it.
Burnout's a term psychologist Herbert Freudenberger popularized in the 1970s. He used it to describe the experience of doctors and nurses exposed to long periods of stress and overwork. Over the past 20 years, use of the term has expanded to include people in other industries and roles. And today, during the p
CM 183: Therese Huston On Getting Feedback Right
Most of us are hungry for feedback. Whether it's from bosses, teachers, family, or friends, we know it's the key to getting better. And the research supports this: frequent, effective feedback improves our motivation and our performance.
Yet, when we become managers, we often forget this lesson, which means most of the people we manage don't get enough feedback. And it's not because we don't think it helps. It's often because we're afraid. We worry about hurting people's feelings, demotivating
CM 182: Lisa Feldman Barrett On How Our Brains Work
I'll admit it. I'm a sucker for brain science. I love learning new things about how our brains work and how to get the most out of this amazing organ. That means I'm always scanning for my next book on the topic. And, when I find it, I'm usually placing an order before I've made it through the table of contents.
With this week's guest, I barely glanced at her book's title before I clicked "buy." That's because the author is the incredible neuroscientist, Lisa Feldman Barrett. Last time she was
CM 181: Dan Cable On Unlocking Your Potential
For a good part of my life, I believed that focusing on my weaknesses was the key to achieving success. In fact, I didn't realize how much I'd embraced this way of thinking until I began working with an executive coach.
Soon after we started working together, my coach made an observation I've never forgotten. She said, "Gayle, you're great at pointing out your weaknesses - all the ways you feel you don't measure up - but I never hear you talk about your strengths." That's when I realized how th
CM 180: Fred Dust On Making Conversations Better
Meaningful conversations can be a creative lab space. At their best, they're a place to share perspectives and be heard. They can also be a place to stress test new ideas and catch the limits in our thinking.
When conversations work, we gain a stronger connection to the people we work with. We feel like we understand each other better and that we're channeling each other's knowledge and skills to achieve a bigger goal.
Yet these kinds of conversations are far too rare. And I don't think it's i
CM 179: Marissa King On Feeling Good About Networking
For most of us, networking is a topic that brings up a lot of strong feelings. And most of those feelings aren't all that positive.
Ultimately, we know we should network. But just thinking about it can make us uncomfortable. In fact, research shows that many of us associate networking with something dirty. On top of that, we feel guilty for not devoting more time to it.
That's why I wanted to interview Marissa King. Author of the book, Social Chemistry: Decoding the Elements of Human Connectio
CM 178: Catherine Sanderson on the Bystander Effect
When challenging situations arise, how do we make the shift from bystander to helper? What are the factors that determine whether or not we take action? And what if helping means disobeying an authority figure?
These are the kinds of questions that made me want to read Catherine Sanderson's latest book, Why We Act: Turning Bystanders into Moral Rebels, and to interview her on the show.
In particular, her discussion of the Milgram Shock Experiment, a study that's always fascinated me, got me th
CM 177: Julie Shah on the Future of Robots
What will the world look like when we're living and working with robots every day?
Robots work on assembly lines. They zoom around warehouses. And they even fly planes. Most of us aren't surprised to hear these stories anymore. But how will we work with robots when they're driving our cars or delivering our food?
When millions of robots populate our sidewalks, offices, and residential buildings - when they move beyond the factory floor - we'll need to learn how to interact with them, even teac
CM 176: Eugenia Cheng on Rethinking Gender
What if mathematics could help us rethink gender equality by questioning how society is structured?
Women are often told that, to succeed, they need to be more. More competitive. More confident. Even more resilient. In other words, women need to fit themselves into environments created mostly by men.
But Eugenia Cheng, author of the book, x + y: A Mathematician's Manifesto for Rethinking Gender, argues that it's not about what women lack but about how society operates. For her, the question is
CM 175: Roger Martin on the Efficiency Myth
What's driven our relentless obsession with economic efficiency and who are its winners and losers?
For much of the twentieth century, the U.S. economy benefited most individuals and families, no matter their social class. In recent decades, that's not been the case.
Roger Martin examines this shift in his latest book, When More is Not Better: Overcoming America's Obsession with Economic Efficiency. He shares data indicating that, while the wealthy continue to prosper, the average American fam
CM 174: Michael McCullough on the Kindness of Strangers
How did humans, a species of self-centered apes, come to care deeply about complete strangers?
From an evolutionary standpoint, we shouldn't be kind to strangers. Yet, history shows, time and again, we are.
Scientists see it as a puzzle to solve. Michael McCullough, Professor of Psychology at the University of California, San Diego, believes it's what sets us apart. He says, "[We] love to talk about ways in which humans are biologically unique, and there's a million ways. But I really do think
CM 173: Katherine Kinzler on How Language Shapes Us
We recognize the biases we hold around race, class, and gender, but what about language?
Katherine Kinzler, author of the book, How You Say It: Why You Talk the Way You Do - and What It Says about You, explains, "The language you speak, and the accent or dialect you use to speak it, is such a foundational part of social life."
Yet speech and language are often overlooked aspects of social identity. In fact, Katherine's research reveals that the way we speak can "determine who you might connect
CM 172: Ashley Whillans On How to Reclaim Your Time
How can we escape the time traps that keep us from living our best lives?
These are the traps that make us feel like there are never enough hours in the day. They leave us time poor, a term Ashley Whillans talks about in her book, Time Smart: How to Reclaim Your Time and Live a Happier Life.
Ashley is an Assistant Professor at Harvard Business School and a leading scholar on time and happiness research. She explains the negative impact feeling time poor can have on our health, our productivit
CM 171: Anne Helen Petersen on Workplace Burnout
How did we get to a place where life's become an endless treadmill of work?
In her latest book, Can't Even: How Millennials Became the Burnout Generation, Anne Helen Petersen tackles this question. Her book is for anyone who feels their life has become an endless to-do list.
In particular, Petersen describes the plight of today's millennials, a generation she believes is under constant pressure to perform. She explains how, for many millennials, it begins in childhood, when activities origina
CM 170: Nicholas Carr on What the Internet Does to Our Brains
Is the onslaught of online information eroding our brain's ability to think deeply and creatively?
In 2008, Nicholas Carr, asked the provocative question, "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" Two years later, he delved more deeply into this topic in his Pulitzer Prize-nominated book, The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains.
Writing at the dawn of the smartphone era, Carr was concerned about the shift many of us were making from deep reading to online scanning. It made him question the
CM 169: David Livingstone Smith On Resisting Inhumanity
What happens in our minds when we dehumanize others, and how can we resist it?
These are the kinds of questions David Livingstone Smith, author of the book, On Inhumanity: Dehumanization and How to Resist It, has found himself asking throughout his career.
Most of us are familiar with events of mass violence in recent history, such as the Holocaust, slavery in America, and the Rwandan genocide. David wants to know what motivates us to commit these atrocities.
By studying dehumanization, he'
CM 168: Deirdre Mask on How Addresses Change Lives
What can a simple street address reveal about a person’s identity, race, wealth and power?
For many of us, an address is something we don't spend a lot of time thinking about. It may be a string of numbers and letters we type into a GPS. A place we call home. Or just a placeholder where we get our mail.
Yet, for others, it can mean much more. A way out of poverty. A signal of economic status. Or an indicator of race and social history.
Street addresses can change lives. Deirdre Mask, author
CM 167: Stefanie Johnson On Inclusive Leadership
How can we recognize the blind spots that cause us to build less inclusive teams?
When we commit to achieving greater diversity in the workplace, we're taking an important step. But we need to see this step as just the beginning in an ongoing journey.
Stefanie Johnson, author of the book, Inclusify: The Power of Uniqueness and Belonging to Build Innovative Teams, created the word "inclusify" to call this out. She argues, "People don't experience inclusion just because they were included...it
CM 166: Jonah Berger On Changing People’s Minds
How can we get our staunchest opponents to come around to our way of thinking?
When we're trying to convince other people, we often start by sharing our ideas. If they resist our efforts, we usually just push harder. Sometimes it works, but, most of the time, our efforts fail.
That's what got Jonah Berger, author of the bestselling book, The Catalyst: How to Change Anyone's Mind, wondering, what do the most successful change agents do?
He discovered that they think and act more strategically
CM 165: Dan Heath On Innovative Problem Solving
What would happen if, instead of reacting to problems, we solved them at the source?
That's a question that Dan Heath, author of the book, Upstream: The Quest to Solve Problems Before They Happen, wants us to ask. He believes it's the linchpin of real change.
Dan explains, "So often in life, we get trapped in these cycles of reaction...and all of that action starves us of the energy that we need to get upstream and deal with these problems at the root level."
He shares enlightening stories o
CM 164: Stanislas Dehaene On How We Learn
What are the skills that can help us learn new things more quickly and efficiently?
Our ability to learn sets us apart from other species. Yet few of us understand how to maximize this ability.
Stanislas Dehaene, Director of the NeuroSpin Brain Imaging Center in Saclay, France, and Professor of Experimental Cognitive Psychology at the College de France, can help. In his latest book, How We Learn: Why Brains Learn Better Than Any Machine...for Now, he explains how the human brain is designed fo
CM 163: Frances Frei on Leadership
What if leaders spent less time building themselves up and more time building up others?
When leaders face challenges, they're often encouraged to take a long, hard look in the mirror. Frances Frei, co-author with Anne Morriss of the book, Unleashed: The Unapologetic Leader's Guide to Empowering Everyone Around You, agrees that leaders need to take responsibility. But she thinks they should replace the mirror with a window.
To do that, leaders must shift away from looking at themselves and, in
CM 162: Don Moore On How To Be Perfectly Confident
What if the biggest barrier to our success wasn't a lack of confidence but overconfidence?
We tend to associate a high degree of confidence with success. In fact, most of us believe it's a requirement for achieving our goals. Yet extensive research led Don Moore, author of the book, Perfectly Confident: How to Calibrate Your Decisions Wisely, to conclude that "the evidence for that relationship...is shockingly weak."
Instead, Don argues, it's about striking a balance between under confidence a
CM 161: Eitan Hersh On Making Real Change
What if the way we engage in politics today works against the changes we seek?
One-third of Americans say they spend at least two hours a day on politics. But according to Eitan Hersh, author of the book, Politics is for Power: How to Move beyond Political Hobbyism, Take Action, and Make Real Change, most of that time is spent consuming news, posting to social media, and signing online petitions.
Eitan labels these kinds of isolated, predominantly online behaviors "political hobbyism," and he
CM 160: Olga Khazan on the Upside of Being Weird
What if we transformed the word weird from an insult to a badge of honor?
When we call someone "weird," it's rarely positive. Growing up as a self-described "weirdo," Olga Khazan, author of the book, Weird: The Power of Being an Outsider in an Insider World, decided to explore the upside of being an outsider.
Olga interviewed dozens of successful people who'd been labeled "weird" at some point in their lives because of characteristics like their profession, race, religion or sexual orientation
CM 159: Wayne Baker On The Power of Asking
How much of a role can asking others for help play in achieving our goals?
It turns out, quite a bit. In fact, research shows that we're more likely to achieve success if we make asking for help a part of our strategy. Yet, according to Wayne Baker, author of the book, All You Have to Do Is Ask: How to Master the Most Important Skill for Success, most of us rarely do.
There are a number of reasons why. One of the most common is our fear that we'll be seen as incompetent. Another is our assumpt
CM 158: Emily Balcetis On How To Achieve Success
What if knowing how successful people see the world could help us achieve our goals?
When we see people achieving their goals, we may be tempted to give up. We tell ourselves they have advantages we lack, like more time, and maybe even traits we lack, like a better work ethic. While both may be true, what if there's a different reason they succeed, one that has to do with how they see their goals?
That's what Emily Balcetis, Associate Professor of Psychology at New York University and author o
CM 157: Kate Murphy On How To Listen
Listening improves our relationships, health, and workplaces. So how can we get better at it?
Think about the last time someone listened to you, a time when you felt heard. Those moments matter more than we realize. In fact, research shows that, over time, not feeling heard has a negative impact on our physical and mental well-being.
Curious how many people have someone in their lives who listens to them, Kate Murphy, author of the book, You're Not Listening: What You're Missing and Why It Mat
CM 156: Lydia Denworth on the Science of Friendship
What actions would you take if you knew how important friendships were for your health?
Most of us recognize that friendships play an important role in our lives. Yet few of us realize how crucial they are for our health and well-being.
In this interview, Lydia Denworth, author of the book, Friendship: The Evolution, Biology, and Extraordinary Power of Life's Fundamental Bond, shares fascinating research on the science of friendship. She argues that, "Friendship is as important as diet and ex
CM 155: Jenny Odell on How to Do Nothing
As we increasingly equate human worth with productivity, what does it mean to do nothing?
That's the question Jenny Odell explores in her book, How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy. In it, she deftly draws on the work of artists, laborers, and writers, past and present, to discuss how others have grappled with this question.
In attempting to clarify what she means by doing nothing, Jenny asks, "What's the difference between being allowed to be open...observant...reflective versus
CM 154: Laura Huang On Finding Your Edge
What happens when you actively shape how you're seen, rather than leaving it to chance?
At some point, many of us have felt overlooked, underestimated, or even ignored in our work. We may have responded by putting our heads down and working that much harder, in the hope that someone would finally recognize our talents and skills.
Yet working harder can leave us feeling frustrated, especially when our efforts fail to change other people's perceptions. Harvard Business School Professor Laura Hua
CM 153: Janelle Shane on How Artificial Intelligence Works
What happens when you teach an AI to write knock-knock jokes, recipes, and pick-up lines?
It's a rare week that goes by without someone talking about the power, and the perils, of artificial intelligence. But if you're not an expert in machine learning, how do you separate fact from fiction? That's where Janelle Shane's expertise comes in.
Janelle is the author of the book, You Look Like a Thing and I Love You: How Artificial Intelligence Works and Why It's Making the World a Weirder Place. As
CM 152: Wendy Wood on the Science of Habits
What if our success was less about channeling willpower and more about building sustainable habits?
Too often, when we think about goals we've failed to achieve, we blame it on a lack of willpower. Yet research has shown when we rely primarily on willpower, we're bound to fail. Willpower takes energy, and it's when our energy stores are at their lowest that we need it the most. That's when we default to our old habits, the ones we most want to change. They require a lot less energy because they
CM 151: James Clear on Making and Breaking Habits – Rebroadcast
We all have trouble changing our habits, but the problem isn't us. It's our systems.
Whether we want to adopt good habits or avoid bad ones, we need to think beyond willpower or setting bigger goals. According to James Clear, author of the book, Atomic Habits: An Easy and Proven Way to Build Good Habits and Break Bad Ones, we need to design a system of small, repeatable habits. James challenges us to ask, "How can we make...small changes...little one percent improvements...and in the process of
CM 150: Marc Brackett on Permission to Feel
How can recognizing, understanding, and managing our emotions contribute to our happiness, success, and well-being?
Emotions play a big role in our lives. Yet, for most of us, they're viewed as something to ignore or overcome. For these reasons, we often have little experience identifying our feelings. We say we're stressed out, when what we may actually be feeling is frustration, anger, or even disappointment.
While the distinction between stress and frustration may seem slight, it's actually
CM 149: Jamil Zaki on the Science of Empathy – Rebroadcast
In a world where empathy is in decline, how can we learn to care more?
If you sense we're less empathetic today than decades past, you're right. Studies show there's been a 48 percent decline in empathy between 1979 and 2009. Though human beings are wired to care about each other, we need the right conditions for those feelings to grow.
Jamil Zaki, author of the book, The War for Kindness: Building Empathy in a Fractured World, argues that a shift to online interactions and urban living has ma
CM 148: Adam Waytz on the Power of Human
What if the very tech that connects us is taking away our need to interact?
Technology connects us to more people than ever before. Yet, as Adam Waytz, author of the book, The Power of Human: How Our Shared Humanity Can Help Us Create a Better World, points out, the data shows we're interacting with one another a whole lot less.
We can turn to our apps for restaurant recommendations and our social media platforms for insights into our friends' lives. And we can do all this without ever having
CM 147: Bina Venkataraman on How to Think Ahead
How would our decision-making change if we shifted focus from the present to the future?
Instant gratification comes easily to us. But when we delay tackling long-term problems associated with things like, health, climate, or society, we cheat our future selves. Bina Venkataraman, author of the book, The Optimist's Telescope: Thinking Ahead in a Reckless Age, argues that it doesn't have to be this way.
Mining related research from the fields of biology, psychology, and economics, Bina shares s
CM 146: Lindsey Pollak on the Multigenerational Workplace
How does work change when we have five generations in the workplace at once?
For the first time in history, there are five different generations working alongside one another in the workplace. In some organizations, that makes for a potential 60-year age difference among employees and, for that reason alone, it makes sense that there might be generational divides and misunderstandings.
Lindsey Pollak, author of the book, The Remix: How to Lead and Succeed in the Multigenerational Workplace, is
CM 145: Susan Schneider on the Future of Your Mind
What does artificial intelligence mean for the future of machine consciousness and the human mind?
Every week, artificial intelligence is playing a bigger role in the products that we use. Think of Siri, Alexa, Netflix and Spotify. But are we seriously considering what the future holds when it comes to the role AI will play in our lives?
Susan Schneider, author of the book, Artificial You: AI and the Future of Your Mind, asks the questions that companies often don’t. Among those discussed in thi
CM 144: Sari Wilde On The Connector Manager
Is there a certain type of leader whose management approach gets more from their teams?
Gartner, a research and advisory firm, recently conducted a study of thousands of managers and employees. They wanted to find out if there were certain types of management practices that had the greatest impact on employee growth and development. In this interview, Sari Wilde, co-author of the book, The Connector Manager: Why Some Leaders Built Exceptional Talent – and Others Don’t, shares their findings.
CM 143: Paul Tough on How College Makes or Breaks Us
Does college have a greater impact on the lives we lead than we ever imagined?
Is college still a tool for upward mobility or is the system engineered to advance the wealthy? Paul Tough, author of the book, The Years that Matter Most: How College Makes or Breaks Us, answers this question and more. For example, he explains differences in how many rich and poor students choose their colleges and how those choices impact lifetime earnings. He also discusses how financial aid really works: “College
CM 142: Steve Magness on Finding Your Passion
What if advice we get to “follow your passion” is more complicated that it seems?
Steve Magness is co-author with Brad Stulberg of the book, The Passion Paradox: A Guide to Going All In, Finding Success, and Discovering the Benefits of an Unbalanced Life. Steve coaches some of the world’s top distance runners and has propelled numerous athletes to Olympic trials, world championship teams, and the Olympics. He has been a featured expert in Runner’s World and the New York Times.
When faced w
CM 141: David Robson on the Intelligence Trap
What if our IQ scores reveal far less about intelligence and reasoning than we think?
We often assume that people with high IQ scores are more intelligent. We may even believe they’re able to think more critically and make wiser decisions. But is that true?
In this interview, David Robson, author of the book, The Intelligence Trap: Why Smart People Make Dumb Mistakes, reveals that people with high IQ scores can actually be more prone to mental mistakes and that they don’t necessarily make
CM 140: Elizabeth Segal on Why We Need Social Empathy
How is our lack of social empathy affecting millions of people in surprising, unexpected ways?
To maintain and deepen our relationships with other individuals, we need empathy. To craft policies that effectively serve entire groups, we need what Elizabeth Segal, author of the book, Social Empathy: The Art of Understanding Others, refers to as social empathy.
Yet for most of us, social empathy is a blind spot, one with often devastating consequences when it comes to public policies in areas
CM 139: Kat Holmes on the Power of Inclusive Design
What if you design a product or service that prevents certain people from using it?
These kinds of mismatches are everywhere: a computer mouse that works only for the right-handed; credit-card-only payment systems that exclude those without credit; and even game controllers for gamers who can’t use their hands.
Inclusive design advocate, Kat Holmes, explains, “The design of the controller is an indicator of who gaming is for and who it is not for…to think that one little piece of plastic s
CM 138: Caroline Criado Perez on Invisible Women
What’s the cost when women are left out of healthcare, education, and public policy data?
Data drives decision making in critical areas. Yet, in most cases, as Caroline Criado Perez, author of the book, Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men, points out, women are simply absent from the data.
Why is this? Because we operate in a world where deeply ingrained cultural biases treat men as the data default and women as the exception. Caroline explains, “If we look at politics .
CM 137: David DeSteno on Emotions that Lead to Success
What if achieving our goals is not about willpower but about gratitude, compassion and pride?
It’s natural to experience negative emotions, like discouragement, frustration, and even fear when we’re working on something hard. And every time these feelings arise, we may be tempted to overcome them with willpower. But rather than dismissing our emotions, what if we put them to work on our behalf?
In this interview, David DeSteno, author of the book, Emotional Success: The Power of Gratitude,
CM 136: Jamil Zaki On The Science Of Empathy
In a world where empathy is in decline, how can we learn to care more?
If you’re sensing that people are less empathetic today than decades ago, your instincts would be right. We are. Though human beings are wired to care about each other, we need the right conditions for those feelings to grow.
Jamil Zaki, author of the book, The War for Kindness: Building Empathy in a Fractured World, argues that an increase in online interactions and urban living has made relationships more “…narrow, tr
CM 135: David Epstein On Generalists Over Specialists
Can we achieve greater success in life by choosing to generalize rather than to specialize?
If you want to be the best at something, the story goes something like this: Begin as early as you can. Focus on nothing else. And practice as if your life depends on it. It’s the story we associate with sports heroes and chess grandmasters.
But David Epstein, author of the book, Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World, argues that this story is incomplete. It never mentions the fact t
CM 134: Brian Gunia on a Fresh Approach to Negotiation
What if we entered negotiations with the goal of benefitting both sides, not just ours?
For many, the word negotiation conjures up images of a heated exchange, of master manipulators, expert wordsmiths, and of winners and losers. Victors earn the spoils by outsmarting opponents and preying on their weaknesses. It’s a daunting picture.
But Brian Gunia, author of the book, The Bartering Mindset: A Mostly Forgotten Framework for Mastering Your Next Negotiation, shows that this mindset is not
CM 133: Rob Walker on the Art of Noticing
How can paying more attention to the world around us increase our engagement and creativity?
Most of us are fighting a daily tug-of-war with distraction – from phone alerts to streaming video to open office plans. Yet, when it comes to what we can do about it, we're mainly encouraged to manage our tech and prioritize productivity.
Rob Walker offers a different goal, along with a very different set of solutions. Author of the book, The Art of Noticing: 131 Ways to Spark Creativity, Find Ins
CM 132: Donna Hicks on the Surprising Effects of Dignity
How can we ensure we not only respect people’s dignity, but also protect our own?
Violations of dignity lie at the heart of many conflicts, from the global stage to the corner office. Yet, dignity is a concept we rarely discuss.
Donna Hicks, author of the book, Leading with Dignity: How to Create a Culture that Brings out the Best in People, believes it all starts with understanding the difference between dignity and respect: “Respect is something that has to be earned, whereas dignity is
CM 131: James Clear on Making and Breaking Habits
We all have trouble changing our habits, but the problem isn’t us, it’s our systems.
Whether we want to adopt good habits or avoid bad ones, we need to think beyond willpower or setting bigger goals. Instead, James Clear, author of the book, Atomic Habits: An Easy and Proven Way to Build Good Habits and Break Bad Ones, argues that the secret is designing a system of small, repeatable habits. He challenges us to ask ourselves, “How can we make these small changes that we layer on top of each o
CM 130: Allison Schrager on Rethinking Risk
What if there were a better way for us to think through life’s riskiest decisions?
That’s where Allison Schrager comes in. She’s the author of the book, An Economist Walks into a Brothel: And Other Unexpected Places to Understand Risk. An economist, journalist at Quartz, and cofounder of LifeCycle Finance Partners, she led retirement product innovation at Dimensional Fund Advisors and consulted for international organizations, including the OECD and the IMF. Allison has also been a regular co
CM 129: Jennifer Eberhardt on the Impact of Hidden Racial Bias
Unconscious racial bias can influence what we see, what we do, and what we remember.
These are topics that Jennifer Eberhardt, author of the book, Biased: Uncovering the Hidden Prejudice that Shapes What We See, Think, and Do, has been studying for over twenty years. In one of her studies, participants were shown either black or white human faces and then asked to identify a crime-related versus a neutral object. She found that, “black faces facilitated the detection of the crime object, wher
CM 128: Kartik Hosanagar On How Algorithms Shape Our Lives
Are we making our own decisions or are machine learning algorithms making them for us?
Kartik Hosanagar, author of the book, A Human’s Guide to Machine Intelligence: How Algorithms are Shaping Our Lives and How We Can Stay in Control, explains that algorithms are merely a set of steps for making decisions. Yet he points out that artificial intelligence has become so pervasive in our lives that we’re often unaware of just how many decisions machines are making on our behalf: “The algorithms [a
CM 127: Steven Rogelberg on Making Meetings Great
How can we change boring, unproductive meetings into gatherings no one would want to miss?
Many of us dread meetings, even when we’re the ones leading them! But there are steps we can take to make them great – steps Steven Rogelberg, author of the book, The Surprising Science of Meetings: How You Can Lead Your Team to Peak Performance,has been studying for over two decades.
Though some argue we should get rid of meetings, Steven sees them as essential: “The elimination of meetings is a fal
CM 126: Hal Gregersen on Why Questions are the Answer
What if the secret to getting unstuck isn’t the right answer, but the right question?
Hal Gregersen, author of the book, Questions are the Answer: A Breakthrough Approach to Your Most Vexing Problems at Work and in Life, came to this conclusion after interviewing over 200 high-impact leaders. Through these conversations, he learned they were asking a different kind of question, one he calls catalytic. In this interview, he explains that these kinds of questions “…challenge an assumption that
CM 125: Cal Newport on Digital Minimalism
What if instead of improving our lives, our technology is actually making them less meaningful?
Many of us live in a hyperconnected world. Hourly, we’re responding to messages, writing emails, browsing social media, and combing the Internet. By the end of the day, we’re left wondering why we feel so unproductive and exhausted. These are feelings that Cal Newport, author of Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World, associates with the addictive nature of our devices.
Cal
CM 124: Liz Fosslien on Emotions at Work
Which emotions should we bring to work and which ones should we leave at home?
When it comes to most workplaces, it’s a difficult question to answer. That’s what drove Liz Fosslien and her co-author, Mollie West Duffy, to write their book, No Hard Feelings: The Secret Power of Embracing Emotions at Work. It’s a compelling guide for validating and managing our feelings in the workplace.
In this interview, Liz challenges the myth that emotions and work don’t mix: “This traditional notion tha
CM 123: Chris Bailey on Overcoming Distraction
How can we reclaim our attention in a world that’s increasingly filled with digital distractions?
Chris Bailey, author of the book, Hyperfocus: How to be More Productive in a World of Distraction, has some answers. He is a productivity expert whose work has been featured in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Harvard Business Review, and Fast Company. His first book was The Productivity Project: Accomplishing More by Managing Your Time, Attention, and Energy.
In this interview, he
CM 122: Amy Edmondson on Maximizing Team Performance
Which work environments are the most effective at leveraging their people’s talents, skills and abilities?
Amy Edmondson, award-winning Professor of Leadership and Management at Harvard Business School and author of the book, The Fearless Organization: Creating Psychological Safety in the Workplace for Learning, Innovation and Growth, has spent her career trying to answer that question. What she’s learned is that organizations that prioritize psychological safety do it best.
Amy has writte
CM 121: Chip Conley on Bringing Wisdom to Work
What can older workers contribute to fast-growing companies populated by digital natives? A lot.
Chip Conley, author of the book, Wisdom at Work: The Making of a Modern Elder, believes that older workers provide emotional intelligence, discerning judgment and humble wisdom. But to do this, they need to let go of past identities and adopt a learning mindset. In short, they need to become interns while embracing their positions as mentors.
Chip was the founder and CEO of Joie de Vivre Hospit
CM 120: Maryanne Wolf on Digital Reading
By reading on our devices, we’re losing abilities it took us thousands of years to develop.
That’s because reading from a screen – a computer, a tablet, a phone – lends itself to skimming. This lack of deep reading alters brain development and erodes essential skills, like critical thinking and empathy, according to literacy expert, Maryanne Wolf.
Author of the book, Reader Come Home: The Reading Brain in a Digital World, Maryanne is the Director of the Center for Dyslexia, Diverse Learner
CM 119: Chris Clearfield on Preventing Meltdowns
Disastrous events take place all the time, but could many be prevented? For example, could discount retailer, Target, have spared thousands of people their jobs rather than close 58 of its Canadian stores? Could the Fukushima nuclear catastrophe have been avoided?
Chris Clearfield, co-author with Andras Tilcsik of the book, Meltdown: Why Our Systems Fail and What We Can Do About It, sees a paradox at work in these events, that is, increasingly complex systems resulting in greater vulnerability.
CM 118: Dolly Chugh on Becoming the Person You Want to Be
Many of us strongly identify as supporters of equality, diversity and inclusion. Yet Dolly Chugh’s research suggests that by holding on to this identity too tightly, we may not live up to our own expectations.
Dolly is the author of the book, The Person You Mean to Be: How Good People Fight Bias, suggests An award-winning Professor of Social Psychology at NYU’s Stern School of Business, Dolly encourages us to aim for “good-ish” over good, that is, to view ourselves as works-in-progress, so that
CM 117: John Zeratsky on Creating Time for Things that Matter
It can seem like we’re working harder, yet rarely getting to what matters most. John Zeratsky understands how we feel and wants to help. He’s the co-author with Jake Knapp of the book, Make Time: How to Focus on What Matters Every Day. Their book is an innovative way to look at our work, inspiring by years of productivity hacks that ultimately left them unfulfilled.
John was a designer for tech companies like YouTube and Google before working at Google Ventures with close to 200 startups. There
CM 116: Jason Fried on Making Work Less Crazy
Long hours, 24/7 access, and crushing goals have become the norm in many workplaces. Jason Fried, co-author of the book, It Doesn’t Have to be Crazy at Work, thinks we need to stop celebrating this approach and, instead, actively work to create calmer organizations.
Jason is the Co-founder and CEO of Basecamp, an incredibly successful project management and team communication software company. He’s written three other books about work — Getting Real, Remote, and the New York Times Bestseller,
CM 115: Steven Johnson on Making Decisions that Matter the Most
What if you could make better decisions? Even with the biggest, life-altering choices, such as where to live, who to marry, or whether to start a company?
Steven Johnson, author of the book, Farsighted: How We Make the Decisions that Matter the Most, thinks we often face decisions like this with little to no training and that we could use more tools in our decision-making toolbox. Steven is the bestselling author of ten books, including Wonderland, How we Got to Now, Where Good Ideas Come From
CM 114: Michele Gelfand on What Makes Us Different
When we try to explain cultural differences, we often turn to descriptions of east versus west, rich versus poor or, in U.S. politics, red versus blue. But Michele Gelfand, author of the book Rule Makers, Rule Breakers: How Tight and Loose Cultures Wire Our World, argues that we’re overlooking the most comprehensive explanation of all – how tightly or loosely we adhere to social norms.
Michele is Professor of Psychology at the University of Maryland, College Park, and her pioneering research in
CM 113: Priya Parker on Designing Better Meetings
Gatherings play a big role in our lives. Weekly work meetings. Weddings. Holiday dinners. But over time, our gatherings can have a ho-hum feel. Priya Parker, author of the book, The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why It Matters, thinks it doesn’t have to be that way.
Priya is the founder of Thrive Labs, an organization that draws on her training and experience in conflict resolution, organizational design, and public policy to help others create transformative gatherings. From the momentous
CM 112: Nicholas Epley on How Well We Know Each Other
Do we know what others think? What about our partners or closest friends?
Nick Epley, author of the book, Mindwise: Why We Misunderstand What Others Think, Believe, Feel, and Want, explains that we can read the minds of others, but not nearly as well as we think. In fact, we can barely read our own minds.
Nicholas Epley is Professor of Behavioral Science at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. His research has appeared in more than two dozen journals, including the Journal of
CM 111: Kristin Neff on Self-Talk for Challenging Times
What kind of self-talk can best help us achieve our goals?
When we run into challenges, the voice inside our heads can be harsh and critical. Kristin Neff, Associate Professor in Human Development at the University of Texas, Austin, explains that this kind of self-talk does us more harm than good. What works instead, she says, is to speak to ourselves as we would to a close friend -- with kindness and understanding.
Kristin is the author of the book, Self-compassion: The Proven Power of Being
CM 110: Laura Vanderkam on Getting More Done
When it comes to time, most of us feel like there just aren’t enough hours in the day. Yet we’ve probably got more time than we think. It's just that the way to win back more hours is counterintuitive.
That’s what Laura Vanderkam reveals in her latest book, Off the Clock: Feel Less Busy While Getting More Done. In it, she shares research on how our brains perceive time, interpret new experiences, and make memories. She explains how this knowledge can change our relationship with time, especiall
CM 109: Heidi Grant on the Science of Asking for Help
How do you feel about asking for help? For most of us, asking for help feels uncomfortable, mainly because we expect we’ll be rejected when we ask.
Yet there's a good chance we're wrong. Heidi Grant, social psychologist and author of the book, Reinforcements: How to Get People to Help You, explains that a lot more people want to help us than we tend to predict. It’s the way we ask for help that determines the result, and that’s where Heidi’s practical tips can make all the difference.
Heidi i
CM 108: Leonard Mlodinow on Unleashing Our Creative Thinking
In times of rapid change, people who can think creatively are invaluable. Leonard Mlodinow, author of the book, Elastic: Flexible Thinking in a Time of Change, calls this type of thinking elastic. It is a bottom up approach that unleashes new ideas, and he believes anyone can employ it, since it is innate to us.
Leonard’s previous books include Subliminal (winner of the PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award), The Drunkard’s Walk (a New York Times Notable Book) and The Grand Design with
CM 107: Adam Alter – Are We Addicted to Our Technology?
Tech addictions don’t just happen to certain kinds of people. Increasingly we’re finding they can happen to any of us.
In today’s technology-rich world, many of us check our phones obsessively, binge watch television programs and pour over social media. Author and New York University Professor Adam Alter calls this behavioral addiction, an area of psychology he’s studied in relation to the irresistible games, apps and other software that compel us to play, watch, read, and respond.
Adam is a
CM 106: Daniel Cable on Happiness at Work
Unhappiness at work is at an all-time high. While some might blame bad attitudes or a lack of motivation, Daniel Cable offers another perspective. He believes that the routines of the modern workplace are simply out of step with how our brains are wired to explore and experiment.
Daniel Cable is Professor of Organizational Behavior at London Business School and author of the book, Alive at Work: The Neuroscience of Helping Your People Love What They Do. He believes our biological urge to learn
CM 105: Tali Sharot On How To Change Someone’s Mind
Can facts change someone’s mind? Most times, this approach is a dead end, especially when we try to convince those with top-notch analytical skills. In fact, neuroscience shows that analytical people will tend to use data to find fault with facts they don’t like.
If we want to bring someone closer to our way of thinking, Tali Sharot suggests another way in her book, The Influential Mind: What the Brain Reveals about our Power to Change Others. Tali is founder and director of the Affective Brai
CM 104: Janice Kaplan on Making Your Own Luck
We all know people who seem especially lucky or, in some cases, unlucky.
Janice Kaplan wondered whether this was due to random chance or luck overlooked, so she co-authored the book, How Luck Happens: Using the Science of Luck to Transform Work, Love, and Life. In writing the book, she learned how we can tilt the scales in our favor, even in cases where the odds are long.
Janice is the former editor in chief of Parade magazine and author of 13 popular books, including the New York Times bests
CM 103: Daniel Coyle on How to Build Amazing Teams
How do we build remarkable teams, the kind that are more than the sum of their parts? Daniel Coyle answers that question in his latest book, The Culture Code: The Secrets of Highly Successful Groups.
After talking to some of the greatest teams, such as the Navy Seals, IDEO, the San Antonio Spurs, and Pixar, Dan found a replicable pattern of three behaviors shared by these dynamic cultures. They each actively work to (1) Build Safety, (2) Share Vulnerability and (3) Establish Purpose. Dan shares
CM 102: Morten Hansen On Working Smarter
What sets top workplace performers apart?
To answer this question, Morten Hansen, Professor at University of California, Berkeley, studied over 5,000 U.S. corporate employees for his book, Great at Work: How Top Performers Do Less, Work Better, and Achieve More. Through his research, he found that top performers engage in 7 key practices that explain 66 percent of the differences in their level of performance.
Co-author with Jim Collins of the highly acclaimed book, Great by Choice, Morten is
CM 101: Idan Ravin on Rethinking Performance
Sometimes an outsider can offer a game-changing take on a tried-and-true process. When it comes to performance, that person is Idan Ravin, author of the bestselling book, The Hoops Whisperer: On the Courts and Inside the Heads of Basketball's Best Players.
Over the course of his career, Idan has worked with athletes like Kobe Bryant, LeBron James, Kevin Durant, and Steph Curry. Though he never played for or coached a professional basketball team, his outsider status coupled with his passion for
CM 100: Jeff Haden on How to Get Motivated
Many of us view motivation as the spark we need to achieve our goals. But Jeff Haden, author of The Motivation Myth: How High Achievers Really Set Themselves Up to Win, explains that it is actually the reverse.
To feel motivated, we actually need to take action, that is, to complete at least one small task toward our goal. That is because accomplishing an initial task causes our brains to release dopamine, the reward and pleasure chemical. The good feeling we get when we do this can spur us on
CM 099: Sean Young on the Science of Changing Your Life
What is the secret to changing our habits?
Too often, we are led to believe that we need to study successful people and then use our willpower to act like they do. But UCLA Medical School Professor, Sean Young, reveals that this approach mainly leads to failure. Instead, Young and his colleagues point us to seven forces that succeed in creating lasting change.
Sean is the author of the book, Stick with It: A Scientifically Proven Process for Changing Your Life - for Good. He is a Professor at
CM 098: Jon Kolko on Igniting Creativity in Organizations
What if you are creative, but your organization is not?
Many of us have worked in places that have tried to adopt more creative practices, and we know that it doesn’t always produce the desired results. In fact, if we introduce creativity, it can even seem to backfire.
But Jon Kolko has devised a formula for injecting creativity into resistant organizations. Author of the book, Creative Clarity: A Practical Guide for Bringing Creative Thinking Into Your Company, Jon is a Partner at Modernist
CM 097: Sam Walker on Creating Outstanding Teams
Do you have the seven qualities of a great leader?
As the former sports editor of the Wall Street Journal, Sam Walker chronicled the exploits of some of the most remarkable teams ever assembled. Fascinated by their success, he spent over a decade researching which teams performed best and how they did it.
Sam lays out his findings in his latest book, The Captain Class: The Hidden Force that Creates the World’s Greatest Teams. Initially, he expected to find a magical combination of factors suc
CM 096: Olivia Cabane and Judah Pollack on Breakthrough Thinking
Breakthroughs can take our work to new and exciting places, yet they rarely happen as often as we’d like. Are there ways to prompt these kinds of moments, so we can create them more often?
Olivia Fox Cabane and Judah Pollack tell us how in their book, The Net and the Butterfly: The Art and Practice of Breakthrough Thinking.
Olivia is the former Director of Innovative Leadership for Stanford StartX and bestselling author of The Charisma Myth. She has worked with companies like, Google, MGM, an
CM 095: Lynda Gratton On The 100-Year Life – Rebroadcast
Are you prepared to live to 100? Research shows that it is becoming the norm, but that few of us are planning for it. Many are surprised to learn that it not only requires rethinking saving and retirement, but also education, jobs, and relationships.
To guide us, London Business School Professor and future of work expert, Lynda Gratton, has written The 100-Year Life: Living and Working in an Age of Longevity. In addition to her many books, Lynda writes for Harvard Business Review, The New York
CM 094: Emiliana Simon-Thomas On How To Be Happier
We have more control over our happiness than we think. And if we follow the advice of the most cutting-edge happiness researchers, we can help others achieve it, as well.
Emiliana Simon-Thomas happens to be one of those researchers. A neuroscientist and Science Director of the Greater Good Science Center at the University of California, Berkeley, she speaks and writes about the connection between happiness, meaning, compassion and wellbeing. She also co-teaches an online course, The Science of
CM 093: Tasha Eurich on the Science of Self-awareness
Ninety-five percent of us think we are self-aware, but only ten to fifteen percent of us actually are. How important is that difference to our well being and happiness? Well, according to Tasha Eurich, self-aware individuals are are better at their jobs, more satisfied with their relationships, raise more mature children, are better students, lead more profitable companies, and choose better careers.
Tasha is the author of the book, Insight: Why We’re Not as Self-aware As We Think, and How Seei
CM 092: Barbara Oakley on Learning How to Learn
Most of us can learn anything, if we're taught how. Yet few of us find this to be the case. Why? Because we lack the skills we need to deal with the resistance and frustration we inevitably face when learning difficult topics.
Barbara Oakley wants to change that. Author of the book, A Mind for Numbers: How to Excel at Math and Science, and Professor of Engineering at Oakland University, she shares techniques for mastering any subject. And these are techniques over 2 million people have experie
CM 091: Seth Stephens-Davidowitz on Big Data as Truth Serum
Do you really know your neighbors or coworkers?
To understand human behavior, we need research participants who act and respond truthfully. But that is a tall order when it comes to topics that are embarrassing or even incriminating. Social scientists have found it hard to get honest answers when asked about topics that might reveal racism, sexism, gluttony or a slew of other socially unacceptable traits.
Researchers like Seth Stephens-Davidowitz have found a way around that problem by analyzi
CM 090: Dan Heath on Creating Moments that Matter
What's behind the extraordinary experiences that stay with us? Are they as random as we're led to believe or is there a pattern to them that, if we understood it, would allow us to create them ourselves?
In his research, Dan Heath, co-author of the book, The Power of Moments: Why Certain Experiences Have Extraordinary Impact, uncovers four key elements that characterize these kinds of moments. And he explains how we can create them not only for ourselves, but for our family, our friends, and t
CM 089: Daniel McGinn on Performing Under Pressure
Maybe performing under pressure is easier than we think.
In those moments before an interview, an exam, or a presentation, we often feel our worst. Yet Daniel McGinn, author of the book, Psyched Up: How the Science of Mental Preparation Can Help You Succeed believes we can decrease and even repurpose those anxious feelings to up our performance.
Senior Editor of Harvard Business Review, Dan has written for Wired, Inc., The Boston Globe Magazine, and Newsweek. In this book, he draws on the fiel
CM 088: Eric Liu on Your Hidden Power
When you hear the word power, what comes to mind? For most of us, we imagine power-hungry leaders or think of phrases like power corrupts. But when my guest, Eric Liu, considers power, he sees something different. He views power as a positive force. In fact, he believes it is a gift each of us can use to shape society.
At a time when many of us feel powerless, Eric offers a simple set of instructions for seizing power and using it to help shape our communities, our nation, and the world. He is
CM 087: Steven Sloman on the Knowledge Illusion
Few of us realize how dependent we are on the people and objects around us for our knowledge. But Steven Sloman does.
He reveals that we are constantly accessing expertise stored in our communities, our technologies, and in our environment. In fact, research reveals that many of us adopt positions on issues like climate change and health care from certain experts, without even realizing it. These findings have enormous implications for our increasingly polarized society, including the fact that
CM 086: Keith Payne on the Surprising Effects of Feeling Unequal
Most of us are aware of the negative effects of income inequality on health and well-being. But few of us realize that just seeing yourself as unequal can produce the same results.
Keith Payne, author of the book, The Broken Ladder: How Inequality Affects the Way We Think, Live, and Die, and Professor of Psychology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is an international leader in the psychology of inequality and discrimination, and his work has been featured in The Atlantic,
CM 085: Philip Auerswald on the Human Side of Code
Could our code be making us more human?
When most of us hear the word code, we think of computer code -- the digital instructions that drive our devices. But when Philip Auerswald hears the word code, he sees the instructions that drive the human race.
Phil is the author of the book, The Code Economy: A Forty-thousand Year History. He is an Associate Professor at the School of Policy and Government at George Mason University, a Senior Fellow at the Kauffman Foundation, and Executive Director o
CM 084: Mitch Prinstein on How Popularity Shapes Our Lives
Why are high-school memories of popularity so strong? Because they still shape our lives today.
Mitch Prinstein, author of the book, Popular: The Power of Likability in a Status-obsessed World and Professor of Psychology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, explains how teen popularity impacts adult happiness, our health, and our relationships. And surprisingly, not just for unpopular, but for popular people, too.
And, according to Mitch, if you thought there was only one kind
CM 083: Cesar Hidalgo on the Impact of Collective Learning
When it comes to economic growth, why are some countries and companies better than others?
While many experts look to factors in geography, finance, or psychology for the answers, César Hidalgo asks us to look instead at information and networks. Cesar is the author of the book, Why Information Grows: The Evolution of Order, from Atoms to Economies. He is also an Associate Professor of Media Arts & Sciences at the MIT Media Lab, where he leads the Collective Learning Group.
Cesar wants us to
CM 082: Scott Page on the Power of Diverse Teams
Does our obsession with the myth of the lone genius cause us to miss out on opportunities for high-impact innovation?
Scott Page helps us see how diverse teams repeatedly outperform not only smart individuals, but also teams of talented individuals with similar backgrounds and cognitive tools. Scott is the author of The Difference: How the Power of Diversity Creates Better Groups, Firms, Schools, and Societies, and Professor of Complex Systems, Political Science, and Economics at the Universit
CM 081: Future Partners on Overcoming Resistance to Innovation
Have you ever had a great idea only to have it rejected by your organization?
If you are nodding your head, you will want to read Think Wrong: How to Conquer the Status Quo and Do Work that Matters. The authors, John Bielenberg, Mike Burn, and Greg Galle, lead a Silicon Valley innovation firm called Future Partners that gives people the language, frameworks, and tools they need to drive positive change in their organizations and communities.
John, Mike and Greg explain the two important reaso
CM 080: Oliver Luckett and Michael Casey Rethink Social Media
Why is social media so pervasive?
Many have searched for just the right metaphor to capture its explosive growth, yet few have found ones that fit. Instead of turning to concepts like networks or connections, maybe we should be looking to biology.
And that is exactly what Oliver Luckett and Michael Casey have done in their book, The Social Organism: A Radical Understanding of Social Media to Transform Your Business and Your Life. In it, they offer a provocative theory: that social networks mi
CM 079: Jennifer Mueller on Leading Creative Change
Think we want creative ideas? Think again.
While most of us are swimming in creative ideas, the research shows that we tend to go with what we already know. This love-hate relationship with creativity discourages innovation and causes people and organizations to stagnate.
Jennifer Mueller, author of the book Creative Change: Why We Resist It . . . How We Can Embrace It, has spent years studying how leaders and organizations handle creative change. She understands why we resist creativity and
CM 078: Scott Sonenshein on Succeeding With Less
Why do some succeed with so little, while others fail with so much?
Scott Sonenshein, author of the book, Stretch: Unlock the Power of Less and Achieve More than You Ever Imagined, thinks it happens because we get caught up in a mindset of chasing. A Professor of Management at Rice University, Scott is also a strategy consultant for organizations in healthcare, education, manufacturing, and technology.
Drawing on research from psychology and management, Scott makes a case for doing more with
CM 077: Emily Esfahani Smith on Creating a Meaningful Life
Research shows that happiness is elusive. So how can we achieve a deeper, longer lasting sense of joy?
Emily Esfahani Smith, author of the book, The Power of Meaning: Crafting a Life that Matters, studies the powerful distinction between meaning and happiness and why it matters. An editor at the Hoover Institution, a policy think tank at Stanford University, and a columnist for The New Criterion, her writing has also been featured in the Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, and the New York Time
CM 076: Lisa Feldman Barrett on Rethinking Our Emotions
When we get angry or excited, our emotions can seem automatic. But are they?
For decades, scientists have described these feelings as hardwired, beyond our control, and associated with certain parts of the brain. But recent breakthroughs in neuroscience and psychology are upending this classical view, with revolutionary implications for how we understand ourselves and the world.
In her book, How Emotions are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain, Lisa Feldman Barrett, a Distinguished Professor o
CM 075: Andy Molinsky on Overcoming Your Fears
Do successful people possess talents that we lack? Or do they just do things that scare the rest of us?
Andy Molinsky wants to help us embrace difficult challenges that can lead to growth. He is the author of the book, Reach: A New Strategy to Help You Step Outside Your Comfort Zone, Rise to the Challenge, and Build Confidence, and a Professor of Psychology and Organizational Behavior at Brandeis International Business School.
Andy has spent his career studying how people learn to have diffic
CM 074: Lisa Kay Solomon On Designing Strategic Conversations
Leaders face an onslaught of new challenges that demand increasingly innovative solutions.
Yet their approaches to finding them often get stuck in either blue-sky brainstorming or bottom-line decision making. Instead, leaders need a path that blends these two approaches -- a middle road that engages not only the minds of their teams, but also their hearts.
To address these challenges, Lisa Kay Solomon co-authored the book, Moments of Impact: How to Design Strategic Conversations that Accelerat
CM 073: Joi Ito on Navigating Our Faster Future
How can we stay on top of changes that are not only getting faster, but more complex?
We need strategies to take advantage of breakthroughs in fields as diverse as data mining, artificial intelligence and machine learning, since they are changing the ways we work, research, and live. To navigate this change, Joi Ito, Director of the MIT Media Lab and author of Whiplash, shares insights from research at the Lab and offers us nine strategies for surviving our faster future.
In this interview, he
CM 072: Bill Taylor on Innovation in Everyday Organizations
Can extraordinary innovation happen in ordinary organizations? Yes, if you know how.
In his latest book, Simply Brilliant: How Great Organizations Do Ordinary Things in Extraordinary Ways, Bill Taylor shines a spotlight on innovation in organizations such as banks, fast-food joints, and nonprofits. And he shares how they do it.
Co-founder of Fast Company and bestselling author of the books, Practically Radical and Mavericks at Work, Bill has written for the NYTimes, the Guardian, and Harvard B
CM 071: Ibram Kendi on Rethinking Racist Ideas in America
Innovators often invent the future and some do so by rethinking the past. For example, innovative historical researchers not only help us understand what happened yesterday, they improve how we respond to those issues today.
Ibram Kendi is one of those researchers. In his book, Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America, he uncovers the history of racist ideas in America. Winner of the 2016 National Book Award, his research reveals that racist policies fuel i
CM 070: Francesca Gino on the Benefits of Nonconformity at Work
Employee engagement is at an all-time low, but why? Francesca Gino, an expert on employee engagement and productivity, advises that if we do only one thing to fix it, we should encourage our employees to stop conforming and be themselves. When she and members of her research team introduced small interventions that encouraged people to be more authentic, the results were dramatic.
Francesca is a Professor at Harvard Business School and author of the recent Harvard Business Review article, Foste
CM 069: Lipson and Kurman on Our Driverless Future
Self-driving cars are just around the corner. Are you ready?
With the advent of machine learning and related tech, autonomous cars are more technologically mature than most of us think. Yet old-school policies and regulations are lagging behind, making it difficult for large scale adoption to take place. Essentially, driverless tech has become a people, rather than a technology, problem.
To help us sort out the complicated landscape on our horizon, Hod Lipson and Melba Kurman wrote the book, D
CM 068: Michelle Segar on Exercise for Life
If you struggle with exercise, Michelle Segar has a secret for you: Stop blaming yourself! Blame the system!
After years of studying the science of motivation, Michelle Segar, Ph.D., Director of SHARP -- the Sport, Health, and Activity research and policy center at the University of Michigan -- has created a framework for rethinking exercise that swaps out prescription for meaning. Filled with practical tips and strategies, Michelle’s bestselling book, No Sweat: How the Simple Science of Motiva
CM 067: Mick Ebeling on Achieving the Impossible
Have you ever felt powerless to improve the lives of those less fortunate than you?
Mick Ebeling believes that the key to helping many is to start by helping just one. He shares details and examples of this in his book, Not Impossible, The Art and Joy of Doing What Couldn’t be Done. Mick explains that through this philosophy, we not only solve an immediate problem, but we also learn more about what else we can do.
Thought leader, speaker, and founder of Not Impossible, Mick and his team are c
CM 066: Cathy O’Neil on the Human Cost of Big Data
Algorithms make millions of decisions about us every day. For example, they determine our insurance premiums, whether we get a mortgage, and how we perform on the job.
Yet, what is more alarming is that data scientists also write the code that fires good teachers, drives up the cost of college degrees and lets criminals evade detection. Their mathematical models are biased in ways that wreak deep and lasting havoc on people, especially the poor.
Cathy O’Neil explains all this and more in her
CM 065: Tim Wu on Reclaiming Our Attention
What is the hidden impact of constant demands on our attention? How does it affect how we think, how we act, and how we live?
We have clickbait on our mobile devices and computer screens, ads on buses, and commercials on radio and TV. But as Tim Wu, author and Professor at Columbia University Law School points out, this is a fairly recent development that has turned into a constant monetization of our attention.
Tim is the author of three books: Who Controls the Internet?, The Master Switch
CM 064: Catherine Turco on Leadership in a Digital Age
Is it possible to lead with full transparency? Can openness be the cornerstone of a large, fast-growing tech organization?
These are just some of the questions that Catherine Turco answered when she spent 10 months observing all aspects of a fast-growing, high-tech company determined to build a new form of management. The result was something she calls The Conversational Firm. While she points out that it is not an easy or predictable path for leaders to choose, it is one with powerful benefits
CM 063: Janice Kaplan on the Power of Gratitude
Gratitude has a dramatic impact on well-being and success, yet many of us are not aware of this research.
In this groundbreaking book, The Gratitude Diaries: How a Year Looking on the Bright Side Can Transform Your Life, Janice Kaplan explains the science behind the power of gratitude. The author of twelve books, including The New York Times bestselling memoir, I will See you Again, Janice was an award-winning producer at ABC-TV Good Morning America, Executive Producer of the TV Guide Televisio
CM 062: John Maeda on Great Design
Everyone benefits from understanding great design. Whether you make products, program apps, or provide services, design plays a critical role in how effectively you accomplish your goals. And if you work in the field of design, there has never been a better time to showcase your skills.
In this thought-provoking interview, John Maeda talks about all of this and more. An award-winning designer who was described as a bellwether for the design industry by Wired Magazine, John sits at the crossroad
CM 061: Susan David on Emotional Agility
It is essential to achieve our goals, yet few of us practice it.
It is emotional agility -- the ability to navigate the thoughts, feelings, and stories we tell ourselves as challenges arise. This does not mean ignoring how we feel or wallowing in those emotions. And it is certainly not about just being happy all the time. It is about recognizing that the monologue inside our heads is not in control of us but, rather, we are in control of it.
That is something Susan David knows a lot about. Aut
CM 060: Stuart Firestein on How Breakthroughs Happen
How do breakthroughs happen? Not how we think.
Movies, books, and articles, constrained by time and word limits, often leave out the realities -- the messy work, filled with dead ends, abandoned questions, and accidental discoveries. That is what Stuart Firestein, Professor of Biological Sciences at Columbia University, wants to change.
He believes that the roles ignorance and failure play in the discovery process are vastly underappreciated, so much so that he has written two books about the
CM 059: Erika Andersen on Getting Good Fast
Want to succeed in work and life? Be bad first.
Do not confuse this with the familiar call to fail fast (so often heard in the startup world in recent years). This is a longer game. It is about getting comfortable with being novices and of committing to learning new, hard skills that take years to acquire. In a world of rapid-fire change, constant connection, and lots of choices, it is a necessary goal.
Erika Andersen, wants to teach us how to do just that. Erika is the Founder of Proteus, au
CM 058: Jessica Tracy on the Benefits of Pride
Is pride a deadly sin or a key to our survival? Will it lead us down a destructive path or can it actually help us resist temptation?
In this conversation, Jessica Tracy answers these questions and more. Jessica is a Professor of Psychology at the University of British Columbia and author of the book, Take Pride: Why the Deadliest Sin Holds the Secret to Human Success. Her research has unearthed findings that help us see just how important pride is for human progress and survival.
Her discus
CM 057: Gretchen Bakke On Innovations In Energy
We produce more wind and solar power than ever before, yet coal, oil, and gas constitute over 90 percent of our energy sources. Why? Blame it on the grid.
While our electrical grid was once an engineering marvel, today it is the Achilles heel of energy efficiency. In her book, The Grid: The Fraying Wires between Americans and Our Energy Future, McGill University Professor Gretchen Bakke explains why. A former Fellow in the Science in Society Program at Wesleyan University, she holds a Ph.D. in
CM 056: Mahzarin Banaji On The Hidden Biases Of Good People
Do good people discriminate more often than they think? That is exactly what a team of researchers found when they analyzed the thoughts and reactions of millions of people around the world.
Harvard University Professor of Social Ethics, Mahzarin Banaji, author of the book, Blindspot: Hidden Biases of Good People, shares surprising findings from Implicit Association Tests taken by over 18 million people from over 30 countries. What she reveals may surprise you.
Banaji is the recipient of fel
CM 055: Jocelyn Glei On Slaying The Email Dragon
What stands between us and meaningful work? Email!
It is killing our productivity and distracting us from the creative work we crave, yet we spend over a quarter of our work week on it. What is behind our addiction and what can we do about it?
Jocelyn Glei, author of the book, Unsubscribe: How to Kill Email Anxiety, Avoid Distractions, and Get Real Work Done, explains the science behind our addiction and offers strategies for prioritizing meaningful work. Jocelyn is the founding editor of 99U
CM 054: Amantha Imber On The Formula For Innovation
Is there a formula for innovation? Yes! And the most successful individuals, teams, and organizations rely on it to achieve their goals.
Innovation psychologist, bestselling author, and Founder of the leading innovation firm in Australia, Inventium, Amantha Imber has worked with organizations like Google, Disney, LEGO, and Virgin. In her book, The Innovation Formula: The 14 Science-backed Keys for Creating a Culture Where Innovation Thrives, she distills the science behind game-changing innovat
CM 053: Amy Whitaker on Carving Out Creative Space
How do we make time for creative work, and how do we sustain it?
Amy Whitaker, author of Art Thinking: How to Carve Out Creative Space in a World of Schedules, Budgets, and Bosses, tells us how. Writer, artist, researcher, and teacher, Amy works at the intersection of art and commerce. She holds an MBA from Yale and an MFA from the Slade School of Fine arts. She is also a professor at New York University.
In this interview, we talk about:
Why art and creativity are responsible for our great
CM 052: Tom Davenport On Avoiding Obsolescence in an Automated Age
Smart machines are coming, so what are we doing about it?
Instead of cowering in fear, what if we took a proactive approach? What if there were a playbook we could use to anticipate and thrive in an increasingly automated world?
In his book, Only Humans Need Apply: Winners and Losers in the Age of Smart Machines, Thomas Davenport, offers ways to accomplish that goal. His book is a guide for employees and students who want to know what they can do to work successfully with smart machines.
To
CM 051: Devora Zack on Singletasking for a Richer, Happier Life
Multitasking is a myth. And we are poorer for trying to do it.
The research shows that we have less productivity, more stress, diminished creativity, and poorer relationships when we try to do many things at once. And yet, in a hyper-connected world, we can often feel like we have no other choice.
And yet, if we honored how are brains are designed, we would see that singletasking is the answer. That is the message and the research that Devora Zack, author of Singletasking: Get More Done -- On
CM 050: Julia Shaw on the Science of Memory
Can you trust your memory? Probably not.
Research shows that we can be convinced fairly easily that we are guilty of a crime we did not commit. We not only misremember information, but we can misremember information about the wrong person. Add to that the fact that when someone else tells us how they remember something, it can alter our memory of that same event, person, or situation.
These insights, along with many others from memory research, are changing how we think about law and order, lea
CM 049: Arun Sundararajan on the Sharing Economy
We all share, but today, millions get paid for it. Is this new trend just a fad or is it radical rethink for how we work?
When we catch a ride with an Uber driver or contract with someone on Upwork, we marvel at the convenience. What we often overlook is the amount of trust it takes to ride with a stranger or to work with someone we may never meet. Yet that level of trust is what is driving the sharing economy, a form of commerce that harkens back to the 11th-century Maghribi traders.
In his b
CM 048: Dacher Keltner on the Power Paradox
Is there a secret to lasting power? Yes, and Dacher Keltner has been teaching leaders about it for decades. And the secret is not the ruthless, manipulative approach associated with 15th-century politician and writer Niccolo Machiavelli. It is actually the opposite.
As a University of California, Berkeley, Professor of Psychology, and Founder and Director of the Greater Good Science Center, Dacher Keltner shares research-based insights he has gained. And in his latest book, The Power Paradox: H
CM 047: Todd Rose on the Myth of Average
Average is a myth, so why should it control our lives? We measure ourselves -- and others -- against averages all the time. Think GPAs, personality tests, standardized test results, performance review ratings. These are average measures that tell us little about what makes us unique. And this is not just a feel-good argument. It is a mathematical fact.
In his bestselling book, The End of Average: How We Succeed in a World that Values Sameness, researcher, professor, and president of The Center
CM 046: Kevin Kelly On How Tech Shapes Our Future
Do we shape tech or does it shape us? Turns out it is both. And that is just 1 of the 12 big ideas Kevin Kelly explores in his latest bestseller, The Inevitable: Understanding the 12 Technological Forces That Will Shape Our Future. The Inevitable is a playbook to guide us through the seismic changes in life and work, caused by technologies becoming exponentially faster and smarter.
Kelly, Co-founder, former Executive Editor, and now Senior Maverick at Wired Magazine, takes us on a futuristic -
CM 045: Lynda Gratton on The 100-Year Life
Are you prepared to live to 100? Research shows that it is becoming the norm, but that few of us are planning for it. Many are surprised to learn that it not only requires rethinking saving and retirement, but also education, jobs, and relationships.
To guide us, London Business School Professor and future of work expert, Lynda Gratton, has written The 100-Year Life: Living and Working in an Age of Longevity. In addition to her many books, Lynda writes for Harvard Business Review, The New York
CM 044: Jonah Berger on Hidden Forces Shaping Our Behavior
More than 99 percent of our decisions are shaped by others. From the clothing we buy to the cars we drive to the political candidates we vote for, our choices are the results of the invisible influence of those around us. And once we recognize that, we start to see our behavior -- and the behavior of others -- in a whole new way.
Jonah Berger, marketing professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, has spent 15 years studying the ways that influence impacts our lives. He wr
CM 043: Iris Bohnet on Finding and Keeping Great Talent
Want to hire, evaluate, and collaborate more effectively? The same design principles that are changing how we think about products and services can improve our talent management. Iris Bohnet, author of What Works and Professor of Behavioral Economics at Harvard University, tells us how.
In this interview, Bohnet shares fast and inexpensive ways we can de-bias our organizations. She pinpoints how simple improvements can provide big gains for managers and employees.
In our conversation, we talk
CM 042: Matthew Crawford on Individuality in an Age of Distraction
What if our distractions are robbing us of our individuality? Philosopher-machinist Michael B. Crawford noticed just how much attention we give up -- often against our will -- to all the distractions strategically placed in front of us, from commercials on ATM screens to blaring airport televisions. He has written a guidebook to identifying the sources of lost attention, and he makes suggestions for how to get it back.
Matthew is a Senior Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture
CM 041: Liz Wiseman on Why Learning Beats Knowing
Do you fear becoming obsolete? Liz Wiseman offers a solution. Rather than run from challenging roles, seek them out. In fact, in a world where 85 percent of your knowledge could be irrelevant in as little as 5 years, this strategy may be the key to maintaining and advancing a successful career.
Liz is the bestselling author of Rookie Smarts: Why Learning Beats Knowing in the New Game of Work. She helps us see how taking on a new challenge, especially when it feels like a stretch, gives us the b
CM 040: Therese Huston Shatters Myths About Women Leaders
When it comes to risk, confidence, and stress, who handles them better, men or women? Believe it or not, just asking this question shows we have a lot to learn. Turns out it is not about better, but about different. And while conventional wisdom often has us thinking women are indecisive, risk averse, and fragile, those perceptions are far from what research reveals.
In her groundbreaking book, How Women Decide: What Is True, What Is Not, and What Strategies Spark the Best choices, Therese Hust
CM 039: Anders Ericsson on Peak Performance
If you are searching for your natural talents, think again. Award-winning psychologist, Anders Ericsson, is reshaping our conception of innate ability versus learned skills. Anders has spent decades unearthing the secrets of expertise, and his research shows that the experts sitting at the top of most fields do not have more innate ability than their peers, they have more time spent in guided practice.
Anders shares his fascinating findings in his book, Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Exp
CM 038: Dan Ariely Shares the Truth about Dishonesty
We like to think that cheating is limited to criminals and other wrongdoers. But what if it were true that the majority of people cheated most of the time?
That is exactly what has been revealed in the extensive research of Dan Ariely, Professor of Psychology and Behavioral Economics at Duke University. Dan has found that not only do most people cheat, but that it is true even of the service providers that we trust the most, such as our accountants and our doctors. Even more surprising, tradit
CM 037: Steve Case on the Next Wave of Internet Innovation
Steve Case, co-founder of America Online, believes that Internet companies have grown in three successive waves. Tech entrepreneurs spent the first wave getting us on the Internet. They spent the second wave connecting us to the apps and platforms they built on top of it. Now, in the third wave, innovative partnerships and policies will help entrepreneurs rethink large parts of our daily life, such as healthcare, food, and education.
That is the argument Steve makes in his award-winning and be
CM 036: Michael Casey on Bitcoin, Blockchain, and Our Economic Future
While bitcoin and blockchain may sound like something from science fiction, they have become powerful tools to help us rethink banking and finance. What began as a cypherpunk vision has become a viable model of currency and exchange for everyone with access to a Smartphone, from the unbanked in Afghanistan to the urban hipster in New York City.
Eager to learn more about where bitcoin and blockchain technology has come from and where it is headed, co-authors Michael J. Casey and Paul Vigna rese
CM 035: Greg McKeown on Achieving More by Choosing Less
Productivity strategies do not work if we are focused on the wrong things. What we really need is an effective system for determining what is absolutely essential and the discipline to work on that thing. We need criteria that empower us to select our highest priority, and a strategy for eliminating everything else.
My guest, Greg McKeown has designed this system, and he has written about it in his award-winning bestseller, Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less. In addition to his writi
CM 034: Amy Wilkinson on the Secrets of Successful Entrepreneurs
We may believe that successful entrepreneurs possess innate abilities that set them apart, but what if those skills are just the result of practice and experience?
That is the conclusion of Amy Wilkinson, bestselling author of The Creators Code: The Six Essential Skills of Extraordinary Entrepreneurs. She performed five years of interviews with the founders of organizations such as LinkedIn, eBay, Under Armour, Tesla Motors, Spanx, Airbnb, and PayPal. The result? She learned that these entrepre
CM 033: Karie Willyerd on Future-Proofing Your Career
Fear of job obsolescence ranks higher for most people than their fear of dying! Only half of workers today believe their skills will be valuable three years from now, and of this group, only a third feels their companies are providing the kinds of training they need to do anything about it.
That means the learning is on us, and we need strategies for navigating this strange new world.
Karie Willyerd has answers. Karie is the author of Stretch: How to Future-proof Yourself for Tomorrow’s Workp
CM 032: Doug Rushkoff on Redesigning the Economy
Named one of ten most influential thinkers in the world by MIT, Doug Rushkoff asks some seriously big questions on this episode of Curious Minds.
The biggest one is: what if an economy predicated on growth is unsustainable? Growth at companies like General Electric (GE) used to mean jobs for hundreds of thousands of people. That same growth, at companies like Facebook and Google, yields, at most, tens of thousands of jobs. As growth-oriented tech companies absorb more jobs through smarter tech
CM 031: Farai Chideya on the New World of Work
Technology and globalization are reshaping work, but what can we do about it? What approaches should we take as organizations do more with fewer employees? How can we think about our careers as we hold more jobs over the course of our lives, often from different fields? What skills do we need and what mindsets should we hold?
Farai Chideya, author of The Episodic Career: How to Thrive at Work in the Age of Disruption, helps us answer these questions. Through her research, reporting, and work ex
CM 030: Chris Guillebeau on Winning the Career Lottery
We each have work we were born to do, but it can take time and effort to find it. Becoming comfortable with the search is half the battle, because we need to try different kinds of jobs and work environments. With each experience we gain greater insight into the skills and knowledge we have to share, and we find our perfect blend of work, skills and meaning.
In his latest book, Born for This, Chris Guillebeau, bestselling author of The $100 Startup and The Happiness of Pursuit, shares his own e
CM 029: Herminia Ibarra on Learning to Lead
We are taught to think before we act. But what happens when we need to act in order for that thinking to make sense?
Herminia Ibarra’s research suggests that is exactly the case when learning to lead. Based on decades of research, teaching, experience, and interviews, her latest book, Act Like a Leader, Think Like a Leader, outlines ways that we can assume larger leadership roles. Her work also confirms that, until we adjust to these new roles and responsibilities, we may feel fake or unlike o
CM 028: Cal Newport on Deep Work
Should we expect distractions at work? Or are we unwittingly cooperating in our own ineffectiveness?
In this conversation, Cal Newport, bestselling author of Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World, shares how deep work has become the superpower of the 21st century. Cal argues that today’s workplace is a minefield of distractions. With email, open floor plans, and instant messaging systems, we’re continually pulled away from meaningful, productive work. And the very tools our
CM 027: Bee Wilson on How We Learn to Eat
Why do we love certain foods? What role do families and memories play in our tastes? How can we help our children to eat well and wisely? While we may think our food preferences are innate, most are learned when we are young. And that also means we can change our preferences if we choose.
In her bestselling book First Bite: How We Learn to Eat, Bee Wilson helps us rethink everything we thought we knew about eating. Bee is the author of four books, a writer for The Guardian & the London Review o
CM 026: Dan Gardner on Predicting the Future
How can you better forecast the future? What are the characteristics and habits of mind of those who are the best in the world at doing it? And why are those people rarely the forecasters featured in the national and international media?
In their bestselling book Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction, Philip Tetlock and Dan Gardner have shared their research on the elite few who correctly predict events that have not yet happened. Dan is an award-winning journalist, an editor, an
CM 025: Sydney Finkelstein on Leaders Who Move the World
If you are going to have a boss (or be a boss), make it a Superboss. Why? Because a Superboss leads individuals, teams, and organizations in ways that move the world.
Sydney Finkelstein, bestselling author of Super Bosses: How Exceptional Leaders Master the Flow of Talent, shares these insights in our interview. Sydney is Professor of Management and Faculty Director of the Tuck Executive Program at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth where he specializes in business leadership and strategy
CM 024: Adam Grant on Being Original
Abraham Lincoln, Lucy Stone, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Steve Jobs: What set them apart and helped them achieve such world-altering success? In his latest book, Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World, Adam Grant shares the research on the mindsets, behaviors, and emotional resilience that lead to incredible breakthroughs in innovation and creativity. He also explains how we can apply these findings to our own lives.
Adam Grant is the youngest tenured, highest-rated professor of manage
CM 023: Donald Sull on Making Smarter Decisions
Every day we have problems to solve and decisions to make. Too often, the steps we take to address them result in more complexity, rather than less. That is where simple rules come in.
Donald Sull, bestselling author of Simple Rules: How to Thrive in a Complex World offers a six-step framework for better decision-making that has been tested with individuals and with organizations. An expert in global strategy, Don is a senior lecturer at MIT and a former professor at Harvard University and the
CM 022: Miki Agrawal on Pursuing Your Passion
What does it take to pursue your dream? For Miki Agrawal, it took a catastrophic event that had a direct impact on her work and her life. It woke her up to three goals she had always wanted to achieve. And it led her to become the serial entrepreneur she is today.
Along the way, Miki has been upending industries and winning all kinds of awards, including the Tribeca Film Festival 2013 Disruptive Innovation Award and Forbes 2013 Top 20 Millenials on a Mission. Just this past year, she received
CM 021: Jocelyn Glei on Creativity, Happiness and Meaningful Work
We all want to do meaningful work that gives our lives purpose and lets us be creative. And yet, the very tools that help us stay organized and connected can cause the kind of distractions that erode time spent on meaningful work.
Jocelyn Glei, bestselling author and editor of Manage Your Day-to-Day, Founding Editor-in-Chief and Director of Behance’s 99U and the 99U Conference, talks about this and more in this episode. And she helps us rethink what we know about creativity, meaningful work, an
CM 020: Martin Ford on Artificial Intelligence, Automation and the Future of Work
Artificial intelligence, robotics, and automation technologies are fulfilling (and surpassing) predictions from the most creative science fiction. While the possibilities are exciting, these changes force us to ask what this means for the future of work. What jobs will they replace? Which industries will they decimate? What impact will they have on how we live and work in what many are calling a post-industrial age?
Martin Ford explores these questions and more, in his bestselling book, Rise of
CM 019: Gillian Tett on Breaking Down Silos
When we operate in silos, we narrow our perspective in ways that can limit, and even destroy, innovation. So where have we seen silos before and what can we learn from them?
In this fascinating conversation with Gillian Tett, award-winning journalist and U.S. Managing Editor of the Financial Times, she explains how silos reversed decades of innovation at Sony, limited innovation in a world-class hospital, and played a key role in the 2007 global financial crisis. Drawing on insights from her b
CM 018: Jeff Speck on Designing Cities that Fuel Innovation
Why do most people want to live in walkable cities and towns? What's the impact on innovation and well-being?
Jeff Speck, city planner, urban designer, TED Talk speaker, and bestselling author of Walkable City: How Downtown Can Save America, One Step at a Time, offers fascinating and fact-filled responses to these questions. Along the way, he tells us the changes needed to make cities the thriving places that most people want.
In this episode you will learn:
what is a walkable city
how wa
CM 017: Jonah Berger on Why Things Catch On
Why do certain products, services, or stories go viral? How can we make our own work contagious?
These are questions Wharton Professor, Jonah Berger, answers in his bestselling book, Contagious: Why Things Catch On. In this fascinating interview, he explains his six-part framework and discusses the behaviors that drive us to make certain ideas, products, and services contagious.
In this episode you will learn:
how to apply these techniques to your own work
what made the video for a seemi
CM 016: Michelle Segar on Rethinking Exercise and Motivation
If you are one of the millions of people who struggle to stick with an exercise program, Michelle Segar has a secret for you: It is not your fault; it is a faulty system.
After years of studying the science of motivation, Michelle Segar, Ph.D., Director of SHARP -- the Sport, Health, and Activity research and policy center at the University of Michigan -- has created a framework for rethinking exercise, one that replaces a prescriptive mindset with one more aligned with human behavior and emoti
CM 015: Warren Berger on Questions that Prompt Innovation
What if the secret to successful innovation lies in asking ambitious questions, the kinds most of us rarely ask? That is exactly what Warren Berger learned in speaking with some of the most recognized, global leaders in innovation. He discovered that they not only ask different kinds of questions, but they apply those questions to problems unsolved and unseen. Along the way, they change the world.
He shares these insights, and more, in his bestselling book, A More Beautiful Question: The Power
CM 014: Alvin Roth on the Secrets of Market Design
Nobel-prize-winning economist Alvin Roth explores the markets that shape our lives, particularly our work, our health care and our schools. He also explains how key technologies enable companies like Uber, Airbnb, and Google to thrive. His insights extend beyond products, services, and features to include how successful companies attract and hire the most talented employees.
Alvin Roth is a Stanford University Professor, and bestselling author of Who Gets What - and Why: The New Economics of Ma
CM 013: Jamie Holmes on the Surprising Benefits of Uncertainty
No one likes uncertainty, yet our success may depend on it. In the bestseller, Nonsense: The Power of Not Knowing, Jamie Holmes argues that uncertainty and ambiguity are invaluable mindsets in an increasingly complex world. In fact, he wants us to rethink our desire for order and closure, so that we can be better leaders, decision makers, and innovators.
A recent Future Tense Fellow at New America, Jamie has written for the New York Times, the New Yorker, the Philadelphia Inquirer, CNN, the Huf
CM 012: Thiel Fellow Madison Maxey on Making and Design
At 16, Madison Maxey was the youngest to intern at Tommy Hilfiger. Shortly after that, she founded her company, The Crated, a product innovation studio focused on second-generation wearable technology. Then, she went to college, like she was supposed to do.
But for Maddy, there was a disconnect between the feelings that she received from her work and sitting in college classes.So after one semester of college, she dropped out to accept a Thiel Fellowship. Since then her work has been featured i
CM 011: Thiel Fellow Alex Koren on Learning to Fail
Alex Koren had never considered dropping out of college. A successful high school student, he headed to Johns Hopkins University and was class president in his first year. Furthermore, that summer, Alex headed to a high-powered summer internship at Intel, seemingly the perfect opportunity for an undergraduate engineering major.
Then something happened. While working at Intel, Alex organized a hackathon that led to his first company, Hyv, which focused on solving big problems with data. The eng
CM 010: Thiel Fellow Jihad Kawas on Young Entrepreneurs
Jihad Kawas started his company, Saily, when he was 16 years old growing up in Lebanon. Now, two years later, after a recent public launch, his app has over 140,000 U.S. users and is gaining over 1,000 new users daily. Jihad is a 2015 Thiel Fellow who never attended college. Along the way, he was awarded a Forbes 30 Under 30 Scholarship, took first place at an MIT Social Innovation Camp, and has been a TEDx Talk speaker.
This week, in a special edition of Curious Minds, I share interviews with
CM 009: Thiel Fellow Charlie Stigler on College and Career
At the age of 16, Charlie Stigler built SelfControl, an app designed to block out online distractions. It has been downloaded by millions. Encouraged by that success, two years later, Charlie founded a successful ed tech company, Zaption, which rethinks the use of video for learning. He did both before the ink was dry on his high school diploma.
After graduation, Charlie did what everyone expected him to do. He headed off to college at Columbia University. Two years later, even he was surprised
CM 008: Mona Patel on What Drives Great Design
Design thinking and creativity are like muscles: we all have them, but they are more useful when they are strengthened! In this bestselling book Reframe: Shift the Way You Work, Innovate, and Think, Mona Patel gives you the perfect exercises for your design workout, giving you the tools you need to unleash your inner designer.
Mona is a regular contributor to Fast Company, Time Magazine, and Forbes, and she is the founder and CEO of Motivate Design. Mona is also an adjunct professor at Parsons
CM 007: Janice Kaplan on How Gratitude Changes Your Life
What happens when you dedicate a year of your life to practicing gratitude? Maybe everything.
In this groundbreaking new book, The Gratitude Diaries: How a Year Looking on the Bright Side Can Transform Your Life, Janice Kaplan explains the science behind the power of gratitude. The author of twelve books, including The New York Times bestselling memoir, I will See you Again, Janice was an award-winning producer at ABC-TV Good Morning America, Executive Producer of the TV Guide Television Group,
CM 006: Mick Ebeling on How to Achieve the Impossible
Mick Ebeling is the Founder of Not Impossible Labs, an online crowdsourcing platform that dramatically improves the lives of millions by creating low-cost, open-source, and do-it-yourself devices. For example, through a combination of marking and hacking, Not Impossible Labs developed 150-dollar devices that helped people with ALS communicate with loved ones for the first time in years, as well as prosthetic limbs for Sudanese children for as low as 50 dollars.
The philosophy of Not Impossible
CM 005: Nir Eyal on Rethinking Our Online Habits
Nir Eyal is the bestselling author of Hooked and a contributing writer for Forbes, TechCrunch, and Psychology Today. An entrepreneur, educator, and speaker, Nir writes about innovations at the intersection of psychology, technology, and business.
In this interview, Nir shares the psychology behind why we get hooked by our devices and apps. He talks about how product designers use this knowledge to deliberately build certain features into their products, and he encourages us to use this knowledg
CM 004: Wendy Suzuki on How Exercise Makes You Smarter
Wendy Suzuki is a Professor of Neural Science and Psychology at New York University. Wendy is an award-winning teacher and researcher, a TEDx speaker, and the author of the best-selling book Healthy Brain, Happy Life.
While we have become more familiar with ways exercise can improve our body, Wendy helps us understand what it can do for our brain. She shares how exercise can improve our memories, our learning abilities, and our creativity.
Things you will learn in this episode:
how exercis
CM 003: Bernie Roth on How to Design a Life
Bernie Roth is a Professor of Engineering and the Academic Director and Co-founder of the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design (the d.school) at Stanford University. A leader of international workshops on creativity and design thinking, Bernie is the author of the book, The Achievement Habit: Stop Wishing, Start Doing, and Take Command of Your Life.
Bernie talks about what it means to apply design principles to create a life well lived. His focus is on personal transformation and empowerment.
T
CM 002: David H. Hansson on How to Rethink Leadership
David Heinemeier Hansson is the Founder and CTO of Basecamp, best-selling author of Rework and Remote, and creator of the popular web application framework Ruby on Rails.
David is rethinking what it means to build a company in the digital age. He and his co-founder rejected the typical startup narrative in favor of a more traditional approach to building a global business. For this reason, Basecamp has the size of a typical startup, the reach of a global firm and the profitability of a mature
CM 001: Seth Godin on How to Author a Life
Best-selling author Seth Godin discusses how to reimagine life and work in the post-industrial age. His books include Linchpin, Tribes, The Dip, and Purple Cow.
In this interview, Seth talks about the liberating power of committing to a lifetime of projects. He also discusses the challenges involved and ways of overcoming them along the way.
Additional topics include:
how the resistance prevents us from living how we want to live
how seeing helps us innovate and inspire
what he and Guy