The Art of Manliness

In an age where a lot of formalized decorum has vanished, the holidays are still a time with rules, traditions, and unspoken expectations. It's also a time of heightened social interactions and increased opportunities to demonstrate warmth, hospitality, and all-around gentlemanly politeness.  Here to help us navigate the many scenarios for practicing good etiquette that the holidays present is Thomas Farley, aka Mr. Manners. Today on the show, Thomas shares the neglected aspects of flying etiquette, how to be a non-annoying houseguest, the paradoxes of party arrival punctuality, whether a dinner party host should accommodate the special dietary restrictions of guests, how to get lingering guests out of your home after a party, how to best navigate an office holiday party, the rules of regifting, guidelines for holiday tipping, and much more.

Many people think becoming wealthy is all about having the right job, inheritance, or just lucky breaks. And those things can certainly give you a leg up. But according to my guest, the biggest key to building wealth is your mindset, as research shows that even high earners can stay broke forever if they’re trapped in poor thinking patterns, while others can build lasting wealth on modest incomes by developing the right mental approach. Dr. Brad Klontz is a financial psychologist, wealth manager, and professor, and the co-author of Start Thinking Rich: 21 Harsh Truths to Take You from Broke to Financial Freedom. Today on the show, Brad explains the critical difference between being broke and being poor, how learned helplessness keeps people financially stuck, and practical ways to develop an agentic, wealth-building mindset. We also tackle thorny issues like the role of homeownership in building wealth and how to handle relationships that might be holding back your financial future.

Endurance activities, like distance running, have existed since ancient times. But humans' relationship to those pursuits has changed, according to time and place. In the West, we've currently turned endurance sports into a science — tracking every metric and chasing personal records through sophisticated technology and personalized training plans. But as my guest, who's spent years studying the running cultures in different societies, knows well, this modern, individualized, data-driven approach isn't the only way to pursue the art of endurance. Michael Crawley is a competitive runner, social anthropologist, and the author of To the Limit. On the show today, we first examine how Western athletes have "workified" running through technology and social media. We then look at how other cultures approach running differently, including why East African runners emphasize group training over individual goals and how the Rarámuri people of Mexico incorporate spiritual dimensions into their running. We end our conversation with how we might rediscover more meaningful, holistic ways to approach our own physical pastimes.

These days, you hear more and more about parents and adult children being estranged from each other. Some individuals have even decided to go "no contact" with their parents; they don't want anything to do with their mom and/or dad at all. To understand what's behind this phenomenon, today I talk to Joshua Coleman, a psychologist who's spent 40 years counseling families and the author of Rules of Estrangement: Why Adult Children Cut Ties and How to Heal the Conflict. Joshuagoes beyond the typical one-sided narratives around parent-child estrangement that tell the story of parents who got what they deserved or overly entitled adult children who wrongly blame their parents, to unpack the larger cultural context for why these tensions have arisen. We discuss how society has moved from upholding a honor-thy-father-and-mother sense of obligation to prioritizing individuality and optionality, and why despite the fact that we're more child-focused and psychologically aware than ever, familial estrangements are on the rise. We get into the common reasons for estrangement, the role that expanding ideas of what constitutes abuse and trauma and an adult child's therapist can play in it, and how much parents can really be blamed for how their kids turn out. And we get into what parents who are estranged from their children can do to reconcile with them. Even if you're not personally estranged from a family member, the discussion of the underlying dynamics influencing all our modern relationships is a fascinating one.

Think about a hot loaf of bread fresh out of the oven. There's a lot going on with that loaf. On one level, it's a literal food that's been created through chemical processes. A delicious — your mouth might be watering right now — form of sustenance. But there's also more to it than that. There's something about bread, the so-called staff of life, that's different from other foods and resonates on a deeper level. There's a reason bread has been a rich symbol throughout times and cultures and figures prominently in religious scriptures. Today on the show, Peter Reinhart will take us on an exploration of the many facets of bread, from the spiritual to the scientific. Peter is a baker, educator, and the author of numerous books, including The Bread Baker's Apprentice: Mastering the Art of Extraordinary Bread. In the first half of our conversation, Peter unpacks the deeper, mystical meanings of bread by walking us through the twelve steps of how it's made. We then get into why sourdough is the future and final frontier of bread, and the technical secrets to mixing, fermenting, and baking a killer loaf.

It’s not uncommon for former law enforcement officers and intelligence agents to write self-help books where they share how the lessons they learned in their professional careers can apply to people in any walk of life. What is rare is for one of these officers-turned-authors to publicly prove they know what they’re talking about and that their tips work, as Derrick Levasseur did by winning the reality show Big Brother. Derrick is a former undercover detective, current private investigator, and the author of The Undercover Edge: Find Your Hidden Strengths, Learn to Adapt, and Build the Confidence to Win Life’s Game. Today on the show, Derrick shares how he became an undercover police officer, what he learned from that job, how he applied those lessons on Big Brother, and how you can use similar techniques to influence others, know when someone is lying, and bounce back from adversity.

When it comes to weight management and all-around good metabolic health, we most often think about what to eat. But my guest would say that it's also crucial to think about when to eat, Emily Manoogian is a chronobiologist and clinical researcher at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies. Today on the show, Emily shares how to create an optimal schedule for a healthy metabolism by aligning your eating schedule with your circadian rhythm. She explains when to start eating after waking, when to stop eating before bed, the importance of sticking to a set schedule, and what happens to your metabolism when you don't follow these timing guidelines. We also talk about how to best distribute your calorie intake throughout the day and how to eat to mitigate the metabolic problems that come with being a shift worker.

In 18th century America, this book was second in popularity only to the Bible. It was a favorite of many thinkers and leaders throughout history, including Emerson, Napoleon, Machiavelli, Nietzsche, and even President Truman. Yet, you probably haven't read it. It's Plutarch's Parallel Lives. If you're not familiar with Plutarch's Lives, you're in for a treat, as today's episode offers a great intro. My guest, Alex Petkas, found that even though he's a former classicist and professor, Plutarch's Lives is still a tough read, which is why he started a podcast, The Cost of Glory, to make it more accessible to people. He does the same thing on today's episode, sharing the background on Plutarch's set of biographies and its major themes. Alex explains why Plutarch thought that biography was a powerful way to transmit morals and how the Homeric virtue he had in mind differed from that of just having good, upstanding character. Alex then gives us a taste of Plutarch as we discuss the lives of two obscure Greek and Roman figures. We end our conversation with how to get started studying Plutarch yourself.

This episode starts off a little differently than others — with a short quiz, something called the Brief Sensation-Seeking Scale, which will tell you whether you're what psychologists call a high sensation-seeker or a low sensation-seeker. Read the following eight statements, and then pick a number from 1 to 5 that corresponds to your level of agreement, where 1 is "Not at all like me," 2 is "Not like me," 3 is "Unsure or both like and not like me," 4 is "Like me," and 5 is "Very much like me." I would like to explore strange places. I would like to take off on a trip with no pre-planned routes or timetables. I get restless when I spend too much time alone. I prefer friends who are excitingly unpredictable. I like wild parties. I would love to have new and exciting experiences, even if they are illegal. I would like to try bungee jumping. I would like to do frightening things. Now add up all the numbers together. If you scored between 8 and 16, you are a low sensation-seeker. If you scored between 16 and 28, you're about average for sensation-seeking. If you scored over 28, you're a high sensation-seeker. Today on the show, I unpack what these categories of personality mean with Dr. Kenneth Carter, a clinical psychologist, a professor, and the author of Buzz!: Inside the Minds of Thrill-Seekers, Daredevils, and Adrenaline Junkies. Ken explains how sensation-seeking exists on a spectrum between chill seekers, who like safety and calm routine, and thrill seekers, who enjoy chaos, risk, and novelty. He shares how there are actually four components to high sensation-seeking, and which two tend to get people in trouble. And we talk about whether being high or low sensation-seeking is a matter of nature or nurture, how high sensation-seekers fare in romantic relationships and what they should consider in choosing a career, and what the world's chill seekers can learn from its thrill seekers.

“Nothing takes the taste out of peanut butter quite like unrequited love,” Charlie Brown once said. Indeed, being spurned by one's crush, or, for that matter, by a friend or potential employer, not only ruins the taste of one's favorite sandwich spread, but causes great psychological distress and even physical pain. Here to walk us through one of life's worst feelings is Mark Leary, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Duke University, and the editor of Interpersonal Rejection. Today on the show, Mark unpacks the experience of social rejection, including why we're so sensitive to it and the emotions and behaviors it causes, which can be positive and prosocial or maladaptive and even violent. We discuss the role that is played by the sociometer, a concept Mark originated, in monitoring our social acceptance and rejection and what influences its sensitivity to fluctuations in your relational value. And Mark offers advice on how to remove some of the sting of rejection and civilly reject others.

Note: This is a rebroadcast. Nietzsche's maxim, "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger," isn't just a sound philosophical principle. It's also a certifiable physiological phenomenon; toxins and stressors that could be deadly in large doses, actually improve health and resilience in smaller, intermittent ones. The ironic thing, my guest points out, is that it's the fact that we're not getting enough of this sublethal stress these days that's really doing us in. Paul Taylor is a former British Royal Navy Aircrew Officer, an exercise physiologist, nutritionist, and neuroscientist, and the author of Death by Comfort: How Modern Life is Killing Us and What We Can Do About It. Today on the show, Paul discusses the science of hormesis, how small doses of intermittent stress can make us more resistant to chronic stress, and why you need to embrace what Paul calls "discomfort harvesting." We talk about some now-familiar topics like fasting and cold and heat exposure with fresh inspiration as to how important they are to practice and how to do them effectively. We discuss how hot a sauna needs to be to get the benefits of heat exposure, Paul's suggestion for how to make an ice bath on the cheap, what may be the single best type of food to eat to improve your gut's microbiome, a form of fasting that's got anti-cancer benefits but is so accessible it won't even feel like fasting, what supplement to take to mitigate the effects of a bad night's sleep, and much more. We end our conversation with how to use what Paul calls a "ritual board" to stick with your healthy habits and resist the "soft underbelly" of modern life.

In creating the Jack Reacher character, Lee Child launched a series of books that now boast 100 million copies in print and have been turned into movies and a popular Amazon streaming series. Today on the show, I talk to Lee about what makes Reacher so compelling and much more. We first discuss how Lee didn't get started with writing until he was almost forty, and what prompted him to change careers. We then unpack the Reacher character, discussing the ancient, archetypal roots of this vigilante, drifter detective, what he has in common with the knight errant, and the enduring appeal of the lone wolf. We also talk about Lee's writing process, why midlife is the best time to write, and why, after writing more than two dozen Reacher novels, he's chosen to hand off the series to his brother and fellow writer, Andrew.

Money can't buy happiness. It sounds good as a bumper sticker platitude. But the truth is, money can buy happiness. At least sometimes. In certain circumstances. If we view it and use it in the right ways. Here to unpack the conditions under which money can buy happiness and facilitate our flourishing is Dr. Daniel Crosby, a psychologist and behavioral finance expert and the author of The Soul of Wealth: 50 Reflections on Money and Meaning. Today on the show, Daniel shares the minimum income level at which money buys happiness, at least in the sense of avoiding pain. We talk about how to purchase material things in a way that increases happiness, while avoiding materialism, and the value of using your money to buy health and freedom. And we discuss the importance of finding an overarching why that guides the way you allocate your money and doing a values audit to see if your purpose and spending habits are aligned.

Are leaders born or made? Judging by the 50 billion dollar leadership development industry, the answer is definitely the latter. From schools to workplaces, everyone is seen as a potential leader and expected to become one by undergoing leadership training. My guest questions the assumptions underlying this phenomenon, which he calls "the leadership industrial complex," and says that the cult of leadership, and its idea that everyone can and should become a leader, can create burnout and unhappiness. Elias Aboujaoude is a Stanford professor of psychiatry and the author of A Leader's Destiny: Why Psychology, Personality, and Character Make All the Difference. Today on the show, Elias describes the state of the leadership industrial complex, the mathematical impossibility it forwards that everyone can be a leader and no one is a follower, and the primary presumption it makes that leadership can be taught. Elias argues that, in fact, a lot of what makes for good leadership is innate and potentially unchangeable. We discuss the implications of this fact, and why it's actually okay not to want to be a leader.

When people think about living more fully and making better use of their time, they typically think of finding some new organizational system they can structure their lives with. Oliver Burkeman says that what you really need instead are perspective shifts — small, sustainable changes in how you view and approach your day-to-day life. He provides those mindset shifts in his new book, Meditations for Mortals: Four Weeks to Embrace Your Limitations and Make Time for What Counts. And we talk about some of them today on the show, including why you should view life's tasks and problems like a river instead of a bucket, stop feeling guilt over your "productivity debt," make peace with your decisions by embracing an unconventional reading of the poem "The Road Not Taken," aim to do your habits "dailyish," be more welcoming of interruptions, and practice "scruffy hospitality."

We often think of the difference between a boy and a man as a matter of age. But Brian Tome says that there can be 15-year-old men and 45-year-old boys, and that the real difference maker in being grown up isn't a matter of the number of years you accumulate but the qualities, behaviors, and mindset you possess. Brian is a pastor and the author of The Five Marks of a Man. Today on the show, Brian unpacks what he thinks are the marks of mature manhood. We talk about the need to have a vision and how life-giving hobbies can create that vision. Brian argues that manhood requires staking out a minority position, being part of a pack, and creating more than you consume. And we discuss the ways men can still be protectors in the 21st century.

Imagination is the ability to form mental images and concepts that don't exist or haven’t happened yet, think outside of current realities, and form connections between existing ideas to create something new and original. If the number of movie sequels and the outsized popularity of music made decades ago is any measure, our current age is suffering from a deficit in imagination. And indeed, tests show that creativity, which takes the possibilities generated in the mind and produces something with them, has been in decline for many years now — a phenomenon that has repercussions for our personal edification, professional advancement, and societal flowering. But if our imagination has indeed atrophied, the good news is that it can be strengthened. So argues my guest, Albert Read, the former managing director of Condé Nast Britain and the author of The Imagination Muscle: Where Good Ideas Come From (And How to Have More of Them). Today on the show, Albert shares his ideas on how our imagination can be built back up. We discuss how to get better at observation and how to use a commonplace book and the way you structure your reading to cross-pollinate your thinking and generate more fruitful ideas. We also discuss how to overcome the unthinking habit, resist stagnation as you age, and embrace imaginative risk.

In an age that doesn't think too much about history, you might be forgiven for thinking that a culture of exercise only emerged in the 20th century. But the idea of purposefully exercising to change one's body — what folks used to call "physical culture" — likely goes back to the very beginnings of time. Here to unpack the origins, evolution, and future of fitness is Dr. Conor Heffernan, a Lecturer in the Sociology of Sport at Ulster University and the author of The History of Physical Culture. Today on the show, Conor takes us on a fascinating and wide-ranging tour of physical culture, from the ancient Egyptians, who made their pharaohs run around a pyramid to test their fitness to rule, to the ancient Greeks who used their gymnasiums for both bodily training and intellectual philosophizing, to modern strongmen who became proto fitness influencers, and many periods and societies in between. We discuss how training practices changed over time, where they may be going next, and the evergreen principles from past eras that we could still learn from today.

Do you have trouble feeling comfortable when socializing? Maybe sometimes you do fine, but other times you feel nervous, shy, and awkward. Or maybe socializing always feels like a struggle. Either way, you know how frustrating and even debilitating social anxiety can be. It cannot only lead to avoiding potentially enriching experiences and a failure to make desired connections, it can sometimes be hard to understand. So what's going on when you socially misfire? Here to unpack that question is Thomas Smithyman, who is a clinical psychologist and the author of Dating Without Fear: Overcome Social Anxiety and Connect. Today on the show, we get into the dynamics of social anxiety in both romantic and platonic contexts. Thomas explains what defines social anxiety, how it exists on a spectrum from mild shyness to an outright disorder, and what causes it, from genetics to faulty thinking. We talk about the protection strategies people often use to avoid the pain of social judgement, and why they actually backfire. We then get into what you can do to be more socially comfortable and confident, including a key to effective flirting, why you should try to make a "mediocre first impression," and how to find your way into what Thomas calls the "warm social world."

With over 300 million books sold, Louis L'Amour is one of the bestselling authors of all time. All 120 of his books remain in print. But the greatest story L'Amour ever penned was his own. He spent the early part of his life traveling in a circus, working as a lumberjack and miner, circling the world as a seaman, winning over 50 fights as a professional boxer, and serving in WWII. Today on the show, I talk about both the personal and professional aspects of Louis' life with his son, Beau L'Amour. We discuss some of Louis' adventures and the autodidactic education he gave himself by way of a voracious reading habit. We then turn to how Louis got started as a writer and how he cut his teeth writing for pulp magazines before breaking through as a Western novelist and becoming a blockbuster success in his sixties.

What if there was a supplement that could build muscle, maintain bone health, fortify the brain against cognitive decline due to age and stress, and alleviate depression, has been proven safe, and comes with almost no side effects? Well, there is such a supplement, it's been around a long time, and it isn't even expensive. It's creatine. Here to unpack the myths, benefits, and recommended ways to use creatine is Darren Candow, a professor of exercise physiology and nutrition who supervises the Aging Muscle and Bone Health Laboratory at the University of Regina. Darren specializes in studying creatine and has published over 70 papers on the subject. Today on the show, Darren explains how a supplement often associated with bodybuilders may actually be beneficial for just about everyone — athletes and non-athletes and the young and old alike. He unpacks what creatine does in the body, and how its benefits extend beyond the body and into the brain. He offers recommendations on the formulation of creatine to use, a suggested dosage and whether it should increase with age, and how to avoid the bloating effect. He also shares what we know about creatine's safety, including its effects on the kidneys, and whether it can cause hair loss.

Self-control, the ability to resolve a conflict between two competing desires, is frequently touted as the golden key to success. But many of the most popular ideas about self-control are actually at odds with how it really operates. Here to unpack some of the lesser-understood and counterintuitive ideas around discipline and willpower is Michael Inzlicht, a professor of psychology who has studied the nature of self-regulation in depth. In the first part of our conversation, Michael unpacks the popular ego depletion model of willpower and how it hasn't held up to scientific scrutiny. We then turn to the surprising fact that the people who seem to exhibit a lot of self-control don't actually exercise a lot of discipline and restraint in their lives, that the achievement of goals is more a function of having virtuous desires, and what contributes to having those desires.

For decades, some researchers have argued that the notable human capacity for endurance evolved from the hunting practices of our ancestors, which produced physiological adaptations that make us uniquely well suited for running. But this theory has always had its detractors. As my guest explains, a new study addresses these long-standing criticisms and adds evidence that, indeed, we were all born to run. Alex Hutchinson is a journalist who covers the science of endurance and fitness, and today on the show, he explains what those criticisms were and how this new research counters them. We talk about the role running held amongst peoples of the past, how running is not only primal but cultural and even spiritual, and why we continue to run today, even though we’re not hunting for food. And we discuss how, even if we are born to run, that doesn’t mean everyone will always enjoy running all of the time, and how to get into running if you’re someone who doesn’t feel an innate desire for it.

In a family, a lot of the dynamics around devices and screens are reactive in nature. Kids bug for their own smartphones, parents worry they'll be left out without one, and without weighing the pros and cons, give in to their kids' requests. Parents let children have a ton of screen time because it lets the parents do what they want; then, they reach a moment where they feel disturbed about how much time their kids are on screens, berate their children for this habit, which they've facilitated, and vow that things are going to abruptly turn around. Rather than basing your policies about kids and screens on mood, fear, and impulse, it would be better to do so based on reason and reflection. Emily Cherkin has some ideas on how to get there. Emily is a former teacher, a screentime consultant who helps parents and educators balance the role of devices in kids' lives, and the author of The Screentime Solution: A Judgment-Free Guide to Becoming a Tech-Intentional Family. Today on the show, Emily unpacks the state of screentime amongst kids today, how the "displacement hypothesis" explains how its impact extends beyond a decline in mental health, and why parents give their kids smartphones even when they're not sure it's good for them. We then turn to how families can become more tech intentional, and how that starts with parents taking a look at their own behavior. We discuss why putting parental controls on devices isn't the ultimate solution, why a better one is based on your relationship with your kids, why you need to live your digital life out loud, and some considerations to think through before getting your kid their first smartphone.

Although they may call it different things and approach its attainment in different ways, many of the world’s religions and philosophies have a similar goal: achieving a life of virtue, peace, and flourishing. In his new book, Seriously Happy, Ben Aldrige explains how anyone can use the wisdom of ancient traditions to improve themselves and live the Good life. Today on the show, Ben offers a thumbnail sketch of Buddhism, Cynicism, Taoism, Stoicism, Epicureanism, and Aristotelianism, along with practices and challenges inspired by these philosophies, including walking a banana, listening to a music performance without music, and taking a Wu Wei adventure, that you can use to put ancient wisdom into action and become a better and happier man.

Note: This is a rebroadcast. Over the last year, my 12-year-old son has been doing one challenge every week as a rite of passage and chance to earn a special trip. Some of these challenges have involved reading a book in a week, and the most recent book we gave him to read was How to Win Friends & Influence People by Dale Carnegie. His review? He said it was the best book he's read so far. So a book written almost 90 years ago can still be a favorite of a kid in the 21st century. Talk about some staying power. The advice in How to Win Friends & Influence People, and Dale Carnegie's other classic, How to Stop Worrying and Start Living, is timeless. But to help introduce it to a new audience, my guest, Joe Hart, has recently co-authored the book Take Command, which synthesizes, updates, and adds to the principles of Carnegie's two perennial bestsellers. Joe is the President and CEO of Dale Carnegie & Associates, which continues Carnegie's work in the present day, and we begin our conversation with some background on the guy who kicked off this work back in 1936. We then talk about what principles we can take from How to Stop Worrying and Start Living on developing a positive mindset. From there, we talk about the big overarching principle of How to Win Friends & Influence People, and how you can use it to improve your relationships. We end our conversation with advice on how to live life with more intentionality and meaning.

As you get older, you can start to feel like you'll never achieve your dream or receive recognition for your contributions to a field, or that your best work is behind you. Mo Rocca has compiled stories that demonstrate that you shouldn't give up hope, and that no matter your age, the best may yet be to come. Mo is a humorist, journalist, and the co-author of Roctogenarians: Late in Life Debuts, Comebacks, and Triumphs. Today on the show, Mo shares the stories and lessons of entrepreneurs, artists, actors, and more who achieved greatness or adulation in their twilight years or had a new spurt of creativity when they thought the well had run dry, including KFC founder Colonel Sanders, the artist Matisse, a couple of guys who didn't receive their first war wounds until they were old enough to qualify for the senior citizen discount at Denny's, and even a virile 90-year-old tortoise.

Your relationship with your mother is likely the first and most foundational connection in your life. At its best, this bond can be a source of comfort, strength, and love that lasts a lifetime and changes in healthy, appropriate, and adaptive ways as you mature into adulthood. But sometimes, the attachment between a mother and her son can become unhealthy, resulting in a phenomenon called mother-son enmeshment, in which a man can become a kind of surrogate husband to his mom. Here to unpack this complex issue is Dr. Kenneth Adams. Ken is a clinical psychologist who has spent much of his career working with what he calls "mother-enmeshed men" and is the author of When He's Married to Mom. Today on the show, Ken unpacks the characteristics of mother-enmeshed men and how to know if you are one, and he explains what can happen in childhood that would cause a mother to enmesh with her son. We discuss the problems enmeshment can create in men's relationships and other areas of life and how it can lead to things like compulsive porn use. And we unpack what it means for a man to become independent and emancipate from his mother, how it's different from cutting her off, and what it looks like to have a healthy relationship with your mom.

You probably know your body follows a circadian rhythm, and probably think of it as primarily regulating your sleep/wake cycle, which it certainly does. But your body's internal clock also regulates many other physical, mental, and behavioral changes that occur every 24 hours, and working with your circadian rhythm, rather than against it, can boost your health and happiness. Here to unpack how to do so is Russell Foster, a professor of circadian neuroscience and the author of Life Time: Your Body Clock and Its Essential Roles in Good Health and Sleep. In the first part of our conversation, we discuss some science and background on circadian rhythm and its connection to light exposure. We then turn to the practical implications of having an internal clock, including whether you need to worry about viewing blue light at night, the significant mental and physical harms that can accrue from working the night shift and what can be done to mitigate them, what influences your chronotype and whether you're a morning lark or a night owl, whether you should be concerned if you're waking up in the middle of the night, why you wake up to pee in the night, the best times of day to exercise, and how the circadian rhythm can influence when you should take medication.

A fair amount of gear is involved in making a camping or backpacking trip a success, and choosing that gear can be a little intimidating as there are lots of options, and it's expensive to boot. Here to offer some tips on selecting gear and getting the most out of it is Craig Caudill, an avid outdoorsman, the director and lead instructor of the Nature Reliance School, and the author of Ultimate Wilderness Gear: Everything You Need to Know to Choose and Use the Best Outdoor Equipment. Today on the show, Craig and I discuss some things to know when purchasing things like boots, tents, sleeping bags, and more, and we offer some specific recommendations as to the gear that's worked for us respectively. Craig also offers tips on using outdoor equipment, including how to dry wet boots without damaging them, whether you should put a tarp under your tent, what to do if you get hot and sweaty or cold in your sleeping bag, a hack for sleeping more comfortably on the ground, and the best kind of knife for an outdoorsman to carry.

You may know Nate Silver as an election forecaster. But he’s a poker player as well. And his experiences operating in a world of competition and risk led him to explore what his fellow gamblers, as well as hedge fund managers, venture capitalists, and many other kinds of maverick types do differently than other people. Amongst the findings Nate shares in his new book, On the Edge: The Art of Risking Everything, are the “13 habits of highly effective risk-takers.” Nate and I discuss some of these habits today on the show, including exercising strategic empathy, avoiding the pitfalls of resulting, taking a raise or fold stance toward life, and more.

To train the body, strengthening its muscles, increasing its cardiovascular health, and improving its agility, you need to do exercises like stretching, running, and lifting weights. To train the soul, expanding its capacity, you likewise need to perform exercises, in this case, what are called "spiritual disciplines" — practices like fasting, silence, self-examination, study, and simplicity. As a pastor, John Mark Comer approaches the spiritual disciplines from a Christian perspective, as the habits and practices from "the way of Jesus" that allow individuals to make deeper layers of themselves available to grace and access the transforming power that's necessary to become what John Mark calls "a person of love." But the practices that are considered spiritual disciplines can be found across different religions, and even philosophies like Stoicism, and can be utilized by people from varied backgrounds to deepen their inner life and strength, center themselves in chaos, find greater purpose, and subdue baser desires to reach for higher ideals. Today on the show, John Mark offers an introduction to the spiritual disciplines, and the way they can be an act of resistance, a way for us to form our own values and rhythms in life, instead of allowing our lives to be formed by the defaults and external forces of our age.

If you’re a parent, teacher, coach, or manager who lives, loves, and works with tweens, teens, and 20s-somethings, you know that young people sometimes act in seemingly head-scratching ways, that you don’t always feel like you’re being listened to, and that it can be frustrating to try to guide them in acting towards positive ends. The source of these challenges is often chalked up to the underdeveloped brains and hormones that tweens through young twenty-somethings possess. But my guest would say that what’s more to blame is the ineffective way mentors often approach young adults. David Yeager is a developmental psychologist and the author of 10 to 25: The Science of Motivating Young People: A Groundbreaking Approach to Leading the Next Generation—And Making Your Own Life Easier. Today on the show, David and I discuss the “mentor’s dilemma” — the idea that you either have to be a tough authoritarian who holds young adults to high standards or a softie push-over who doesn’t crush a kid’s spirit — and how to navigate through this unnecessary dichotomy. David explains the critical importance of understanding what really drives young adults, what approaches cause them to shut down and disengage, and the best practices that parents, teachers, and other mentors can take to leave young adults feeling inspired, enthusiastic, and ready to contribute.

When many people try to lose weight, they choose a specific, cookie-cutter diet that claims to be the one true way to shed pounds. My guest says that approach is bound to backfire, and that there's a better way to lose weight and change your body composition. Alan Aragon is a researcher and educator, a pioneer of evidence-based nutrition, and the author of Flexible Dieting: A Science-Based, Reality-Tested Method for Achieving and Maintaining Your Optimal Physique, Performance & Health. Today on the show, Alan offers an intro to his method of flexible dieting, in which, as long as you stay in a caloric deficit and hit your daily protein target, you can decide on how much fat and carbs to consume according to personal preference. We discuss what to keep in mind as you create your own individualized nutrition plan, including how much protein you need a day, the minimum amount of fat to get in your diet to avoid a decrease in testosterone, and the minimum of carbs to consume to maximize muscle gain. And, because flexible dieting is also about not rigidly sticking with your diet 100% of the time, Alan shares how often you should take a break from your diet to eat what you want.

When we think about anxiety, we typically think of something that is generated and felt within an individual. But Murray Bowen, a psychiatrist of the mid-20th century, argued that anxiety was also created by the interactions between individuals and could spread like a contagion in a group, an idea known as "Family Systems Theory." Here to offer an introduction to Family Systems Theory and how its implications extend far beyond the family is Steve Cuss, who is a former hospital chaplain, a pastor, the founder of Capable Life, which offers coaching and consultation, and the author of Managing Leadership Anxiety: Yours and Theirs. Today on the show, Steve and I discuss how individuals in both families and organizations can "infect a situation with [their] own assumptions and expectations" and create a sense of anxiety that permeates a group. Steve unpacks the false needs that create chronic anxiety in an individual, how this anxiety spreads to others, and the unhealthy ways people deal with this tension, including becoming fused together. And we talk about how to put this anxiety back where it belongs, and how a single person can change a group dynamic by differentiating from it and becoming a rooted self.

Do moments where you run up against your dependence on modern technology get you wondering about the ways some of your personal capabilities seem to be atrophying? Graham Lee has spent years thinking about this idea. While he's a digital skills educator who appreciates the way technology can enhance our abilities, he worries that our ever-increasing reliance on algorithms and artificial intelligence may be robbing us of elements that are vital to the core of who we are. Lee is the author of Human Being: Reclaim 12 Vital Skills We’re Losing to Technology, and today on the show, we talk about some of those dozen endangered skills, including navigation, reading, writing, craftsmanship, and solitude. Lee offers case studies on how these skills enhance our humanness, why their loss matters, and how we can reclaim these capabilities and a greater sense of satisfaction and self-efficacy.

You have a relationship with family, with friends, with a romantic partner. You may not have thought about it this way, but you also have a relationship with your job — a quite serious one, in fact; after all, you spend a third of your life working. Just like the relationship you have with your significant other, there are ups and downs with your relationship with your job. It can start out with exciting honeymoon feelings, but along the way, you can end up drifting apart from your job, lose interest in it, or not feel appreciated. And there can come a time when you start wondering if you and your job should part ways. Here to help you figure out if you should break up with your job is Tessa West, a professor of psychology and the author of Job Therapy: Finding Work That Works for You. Tessa interviewed thousands of people who have recently switched jobs or undergone career changes and found that there are five forms that job dissatisfaction typically takes. Today on the show, Tessa shares those five job dissatisfaction profiles, and how to know when you need to try to move into a new role within your company, or move on altogether and even change careers.

Kelly Starrett, a doctor of physical therapy, has trained professional athletes, Olympians, and military special operators, helping them unlock peak performance. But as he approached his fifties, he started to see cracks appearing in the health of the folks around him. What had worked for his peers in their 20s and 30s, wasn’t working anymore; they were gaining weight, having surgeries, and just didn’t feel good. So he and his wife and fellow trainer, Juliet, decided to write a book — Built to Move: The Ten Essential Habits to Help You Move Freely and Live Fully — that took all that they’ve learned from training elite performers and distilled it into the foundational practices that everyone, at every age, can use to develop lasting mobility, durability, and all-around health. Today on the show, Kelly unpacks some of those essential physical habits, sharing the “vital signs” — tests that will help you assess how you’re doing in that area — as well as daily practices that will help you strengthen and improve that capacity.

The journey of personal development, of becoming a more excellent and extraordinary individual, can sometimes seem a little abstract. That’s why it’s helpful to imagine it as Mark Divine does, as a set of five metaphorical mountains to scale. Mark is a retired Navy SEAL Commander, a professor of leadership, a yogi, the creator of fitness and mindset programs like SEALFIT and Unbeatable Mind, and an author. He combines his two decades of military service with his study of martial arts and zen meditation to create the holistic warrior monk development philosophy that informs his work, including his latest book, Uncommon: Simple Principles for an Extraordinary Life. Today on the show, Mark acts as a guide to the topography of the five mountains of personal development and the daily practices that will help you summit them. We talk about why mastering the physical mountain comes first and climbing the intuitional mountain comes fourth, the Navy SEAL breathing practice that will help you develop your metacognition, how the Japanese concept of ikigai can help you find your purpose in life, and much more.

Filling out paperwork. Making travel reservations. Paying bills. Shopping for groceries. Returning packages. These are all examples of life admin — the little tasks we have to do to keep our lives moving along. Life admin is typically pretty tedious and annoying. But staying on top of it is essential to reducing the stress and chaos that would otherwise burden our relationships, muck up the gears of our schedules, and prevent us from participating in all the fun and fulfilling parts of life. Fortunately, there are ways to better manage your life admin. Here to share some of them is Dinah Rowe-Roberts, the co-host of the Life Admin Life Hacks podcast and the co-author of a book of the same name. Today on the show, Dinah explains what lists you should be keeping, including the 10-minute time killers list, why you should do a regular “hour of power” to stay on top of things, how to schedule your life admin, how to keep track of and divvy up chores between you and your spouse, how to get all your meal planning and grocery shopping done in less than 15 minutes a week, how to streamline your kids’ schedules and your vacation planning, and much more.

There has been a lot of media coverage and dialogue about the struggles men are facing in the modern day. There's been some solutions forwarded to these struggles as well. Among these, Dr. Anthony Bradley has a more surprising idea that you don't hear every day: revitalizing college fraternities. Anthony is a research fellow and professor and the author of Heroic Fraternities: How College Men Can Save Universities and America. In the first part of our conversation, Anthony offers his take on the state of men in the modern day, the difference between heroic and disordered masculinity, the insights that a writer from the mid-20-century can shed on the forms that disorder can take, and why many men today are choosing the path of resignation. We then turn to Anthony's idea that college fraternities can be the training ground for virtue. We talk about the loftier origins of fraternities, why, at some universities, they devolved into organizations that have become symbolic of the worst traits of masculinity, and Anthony's six principles for reviving the potential of fraternities to shape great men.

You probably think of the health effects of sunlight as a mixed bag. On the one hand, sun exposure helps your body make vitamin D. But on the other, it can cause skin cancer. To get around this conundrum, dermatologists frequently recommend avoiding sun exposure when you can, slathering on sunscreen when you can't, and taking a vitamin D supplement to make up for the lack of sunlight in your life. Yet in seeking to solve one problem, this advice may open up many others and be contributing to ill health in the West. Today on the show, Rowan Jacobsen, a science journalist who has spent years investigating the health impacts of sunlight, will unpack the underappreciated benefits of sun exposure, and that, crucially, they're not primarily a function of the production of vitamin D and can't be replaced with a pill. We talk about what else is at work in ultraviolet radiation's positive effects on blood pressure, autoimmune diseases, insulin resistance, mood, and more. We also get into how to weigh these benefits against the risk of skin cancer, why health officials in Australia, which has the highest rate of skin cancer in the world, have changed their recommendations around sun exposure, and if there's a role sunscreen should still play in your routine.

Note: This is a rebroadcast. When men think about optimizing their hormones, they tend only to think about raising their testosterone. But while increasing T can be important, an ideal health profile also means having testosterone that's in balance with your other hormones as well. Today on the show, Dr. Kyle Gillett joins me to discuss both of those prongs of all-around hormone optimization. We start with a quick overview of the different hormones that affect male health. We then get into what qualifies as low testosterone and how to accurately test yours. We also discuss what causes low testosterone in individual men, and how its decline in the general male population may be linked to both birth control and the world wars. In the second half of our conversation, we discuss how to both raise testosterone and get rid of excess estrogen, including the use of some effective supplements you may never have heard of. We then get into the risks and benefits of taking TRT, before ending our discussion with what young men can do to prepare for a lifetime of optimal T and hormonal health.s

A lot of self-improvement advice and content feels empty. And there's a reason for that. It often offers routines and habits to practice, but doesn't offer a strong, overarching reason to practice them. That's why the self-improvement advice of the Founding Fathers is particularly compelling. Though they were imperfect men, they had a clear why for trying to become better than they were. For the Founders, life was about the pursuit of happiness, and they equated happiness with excellence and virtue — a state that wasn't about feeling good, but being good. The Founders pursued happiness not only for the personal benefit in satisfaction and tranquility it conferred, but for the way the attainment of virtue would benefit society as a whole; they believed that political self-government required personal self-government. Today on the show, Jeffrey Rosen, a professor of law, the president of the National Constitution Center, and the author of The Pursuit of Happiness, shares the book the Founders read that particularly influenced their idea of happiness as virtue and self-mastery. We talk about the schedules and routines the Founders kept, the self-examination practices they did to improve their character, and how they worked on their flaws, believing that, while moral perfection was ultimately an impossible goal to obtain, it was still something worth striving for.

Friendships are a central part of the lives of both men and women. But from personal observation, you've probably noticed that the dynamics of male and female friendships aren't always the same. You may not, however, have been able to articulate what those differences are or have known what's behind them. While there's still a lot of facets of friendship that haven't yet been researched, Dr. Jaimie Krems, who runs UCLA's Social Minds Lab, has a lot of interesting insights about what we do know about how and why men and women approach friendship differently. Today on the show, she explains why men and women form friendships and the differences in the size and nature of their social circles, how long their friendships last, and what they look for in friends. We also discuss why men have a greater tolerance for their friends' flaws than women do, why men and women would want to be friends with each other, and how each sex experiences friendship jealousy.

Businesses and individuals often feel overwhelmed and stretched — that they can't get done all the work they need to. The solution they frequently turn to is finding a new app to use or hiring more employees to spread the load. But my guest would say that you can steal back hours of productive time simply by using the tools and teams you have now, if you learn to use them in a more efficient way. Nick Sonnenberg is the founder and CEO of Leverage, an efficiency consulting business and the author of Come Up for Air: How Teams Can Leverage Systems and Tools to Stop Drowning in Work. Today on the show, Nick explains how people spend almost 60% of their time doing work about work, and why hiring more people can actually make the problem worse rather than better. He then shares his "CPR Business Efficiency Framework," and how making changes in how you communicate, plan, and manage resources can open up hours of time. We talk about how to organize your communication channels so your work day isn't taken up by what Nick calls "The Scavenger Hunt," one of the most underutilized tools for taming your inbox, how to stop wasting time on meetings, and tiny changes that will add up to many hours saved each year. Along the way, we talk about how some of these tactics can save you time in your personal life as well.

Fifteen years and more than 200 million downloads later, this episode marks the 1,000th installment of the Art of Manliness podcast! It begins with a bit of a retrospective on the podcast and then segues into an interview with one of the show's earliest guests: Walker Lamond, author of Rules for My Unborn Son. Walker and I revisit the origins of the book and the early days of the internet and have a fun discussion of which of his rules have become obsolete and which remain evergreen. Tune in and enjoy! A big thanks to our listeners for helping us reach this cool milestone. The support is deeply appreciated!

Plenty of famous explorers and frontiersmen emerged from America's periods of expansion and exploration, and today the likes of Daniel Boone, Kit Carson, and Davy Crockett remain household names. You're probably not familiar, but should be, with the name of another prominent pioneer: Jedediah Smith. Smith was a hunter, trapper, writer, cartographer, mountain man, and explorer who notched a lot of firsts: He was the first to lead a documented exploration from the Salt Lake frontier to the Colorado River and was part of the first parties of U.S. citizens to cross the Mojave Desert, the Sierra Nevada, and the Great Basin Desert. Having survived three attacks by Native Americans and one mauling by a grizzly bear, Smith's explorations became resources for those who followed after and led to the use of the South Pass as the dominant route across the Continental Divide for pioneers on the Oregon Trail. In the new book he co-authored, Throne of Grace: A Mountain Man, an Epic Adventure, and the Bloody Conquest of the American West, my guest, Bob Drury, uses the oft-forgotten Smith as a guide to an oft-forgotten period in American history. Today on the show, Bob paints a picture of a volatile American landscape in which trappers and Native Americans collided and clashed in the early decades of the 19th century. We discuss how the Lewis and Clark expedition created a lust for adventure among young men, how the humble beaver played an outsized role in settling the Western frontier, and how warfare changed amongst Native American tribes with the introduction of the horse. Along the way, Bob shows us how the life of Jed Smith intersected with all these historic trends and shares the epic exploits that he and other mountain men took part in while exploring and mapping the American West.

As compared to mothers, fathers are sometimes thought of as a secondary, almost superfluous, parent. But my guest says that fathers actually saved the human race, and continue to do so today. Anna Machin is an evolutionary anthropologist, a pioneer of fatherhood science, and the author of Life Of Dad. Today on the show, we talk about the role of fathers in human history and how their main role continues to be teaching kids the skills they need to take risks, become independent, and navigate the world beyond their family. We also talk about the physiological changes that happen when a man becomes a father and how dads are just as biologically primed as mothers to parent. In the second half of our conversation, we talk about the experience of being a dad. Anna shares how long it typically takes a man to bond with a baby and transition into the role of fatherhood, how roughhousing is key in building that bond as well as developing your child's resilience, and how your personality and background will affect your parenting. We end our conversation with the difference in how the relationship between Mom and Dad affects how they parent, and the implications of that for building a strong family.

Everyone has heard about the incredible benefits that come to mind, body, and spirit from having strong relationships. The quality of our social ties has a huge impact on our physical and mental health and our overall feeling of flourishing. Yet many people still struggle to create these strong relationships in their lives, and often figure that things like weakening communities and digital technology are to blame. But my guest says that the barriers to establishing bonds with others may actually be more psychological than physical, and he shares research-backed tips for breaking through them in his new book, The Laws of Connection: The Scientific Secrets of Building a Strong Social Network. Today on the show, David discusses how we can feel lonely even when we're surrounded by people if we don't have what he calls a "shared reality." We then discuss ways to build that shared reality with others. We talk about why frenemies are so bad for you, how to overcome the "liking gap," why you might want to interrupt someone to connect with them, the need to be aware of the novelty penalty in conversations, why you should stop telling white lies, and much more.

On D-Day, June 6, 1944, 160,000 troops participated in the invasion of Normandy. Today just a few thousand of these veterans are still alive, with the youngest in their late nineties. As their voices, and those of the million combatants and leaders who swept into motion across Europe 80 years ago, fall silent and pass from living history, Garrett Graff has captured and compiled them in a new book: When the Sea Came Alive: An Oral History of D-Day. Drawing on his project of sifting through and synthesizing 5,000 oral histories, today Garrett takes us back to what was arguably the most consequential day in modern history and helps unpack the truly epic sweep of the operation, which was hard to fathom even then, and has become even more difficult to grasp with the passage of time. We talk about how unbelievably involved the planning process for D-Day was, stories you may never have heard before, a couple of the myths around D-Day, and the sacrificial heroism born of this event that continues to live on.

Over a decade ago, I remember reading a story that stuck with me. I think it was connected to the famous Harvard Study on Adult Development that studied a group of men across their lifetimes, but I can no longer find the reference. A much-beloved doctor, upon his retirement, was given a notebook filled with letters of praise and appreciation from his patients. After he received it, he put it up in his attic, and never opened it or read the letters. I've often thought of this story since I first heard it, wondering about what motivated the doctor's behavior, and the larger question of why praise is typically welcomed and makes us feel good, but can also make people feel uncomfortable or embarrassed. In today's episode, I take a stab at answering this question with Christopher Littlefield, a speaker and consultant who specializes in employee appreciation. But first, we talk about the power of recognition, why we can be so stingy in giving compliments, how compliments can go wrong, and how we can offer them more effectively. We then turn to why getting compliments can make you cringe, how people deflect them and how this deflection affects relationships, and how to get better at receiving compliments graciously.

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the publication of the book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig. It's a peculiar book, especially for a bestseller. Not a lot of it is actually about zen or motorcycle maintenance, it combines a travelogue, a father/son story, and philosophical musings, and the structure of its narration makes it hard to follow. Thus, it's the kind of book people often buy, start, and then put down without finishing. That's initially what happened to Mark Richardson, an author and automotive journalist who was born in the UK but has lived most of his life in Canada. But when the book finally clicked for Mark, he was so inspired by it that he actually undertook Pirsig's motorcycle pilgrimage himself. Mark shares that story in Zen and Now, which intersperses stories from his own road trip with an exploration of Pirsig's life and famous book. If you've wanted to read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, but haven't been able to get into it, today Mark will offer an introduction to what it's all about. We discuss Pirsig's ideas on the metaphysics of quality and our relationship to technology, and how he tried to combine the ethos of Eastern and Western thought into a unified philosophy of living. We also get into why Mark wanted to recreate Pirsig's road trip, the joys of traveling by motorcycle, and what Mark learned along the way.

Note: This is a rebroadcast. Matthew Dicks wears a lot of hats. Among other things, he’s a storyteller, communications consultant, writer, and schoolteacher. In order to excel in his professional life, as well as do what he loves in his personal life, he’s developed a set of strategies that help him be more creative and productive, and can be used by anyone who wants to start making the most of life. Matt writes about these tactics and mindset shifts in his latest book Someday Is Today: 22 Simple, Actionable Ways to Propel Your Creative Life, and he shares some of them with us today on the show, including why you need to think in minutes, be an eagle rather than a mouse, practice deliberate incuriosity, and always do your best to act like a decent human being. Along the way, Matt and I talk about why you should floss in the shower and how restaurants that make guacamole at your table are a great example of the folly of making a thing, a thing.

There are a lot of unspoken challenges and hidden battles that men face in modern society. They often manifest themselves in a uniquely male malaise where a man feels apathetic, frustrated, cynical, and lost. Jon Tyson has thought a lot about the problems men face and has been on the ground trying to help them as a pastor in New York City. In today's episode, I talk to Jon about the sources of this male angst that he explores as the co-author of a new book, Fighting Shadows: Overcoming 7 Lies That Keep Men From Becoming Fully Alive. Jon and I discuss how men often try to solve their malaise and why those approaches don't work. We then explore some of the shadows men fight in their lives, including the shadows of despair, loneliness, unhealthy ambition, futility, and lust. Jon offers some advice to overcome these shadows, including sitting around a fire pit with your bros, taking time to develop your telos or aim as a man, and injecting a bit more playfulness in your life to counteract grumpy dad syndrome.

General George S. Patton is known for his aggressive, action-oriented tactical brilliance. His character was also marked by a lesser-known but equally fundamental mystic piety. Those two qualities would come together in the lead up to and execution of Patton's greatest achievement during WWII: the relief of Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge. Alex Kershaw tells this story in his new book Patton's Prayer: A True Story of Courage, Faith, and Victory in World War II. Today on the show, Alex shares how, when the Third Army's advance into Germany was stalled by plane-grounding clouds and road-muddying rain, Patton commissioned a prayer for better weather that was distributed to a quarter million of his men, and how that prayer became even more urgent after the commencement of the Battle of the Bulge. We also talk about Patton's qualities as a leader and a man, including his reading habits, how he combined a profane assertiveness with a pious faith and a belief in reincarnation, and what happened to him as the war came to a close.

We often think happiness will be found in the completion of a goal. We often think happiness will be found in ease and comfort. My guest says real joy is found in the journey rather than the destination, and that if difficulty and discomfort are part of that journey, that's all the better. Dr. Adam Fraser is a peak performance researcher and the author of Strive: Embracing the Gift of Struggle. Today on the show, we talk about what Adam calls the "strive state," where we have to grow and be courageous to tackle a meaningful challenge, and why this state is the source of the greatest fulfillment in life. We discuss why we often resist embracing the strive state and what happens when we don't have to struggle in life. We also talk about what successful strivers do differently.

If you didn’t grow up doing your own laundry, once you headed out on your own, you probably just figured things out on the fly, hoped for the best, and have been doing things the same way ever since. But, while you may be getting the job done okay, you also might be making some mistakes that are costing you time, money, and cleaner clothes. In this episode from the Art of Manliness department of essential life skills, we’ll cover all the things you should have learned as a young man but never did, and how to do your laundry effectively. Our guide is Patric Richardson, aka the “Laundry Evangelist,” a laundry expert who runs how-to-do-laundry camps, hosts the television show The Laundry Guy, and is the author of Laundry Love. Today on the show, Patric shares the one cycle and water temperature you should use for all of your clothes, exactly how much detergent you should be using (which is a lot less than you think), how often you should wash your clothes (which is less often than you think), why you shouldn’t ever use dryer sheets (and what to throw in your dryer instead), how regardless of what the tag says, you can wash anything at home (including a wool suit), how to easily get rid of stains (including yellow pit stains), and many more tips that will save you time, money, and hassle in doing your laundry.

Life revolves around learning—in school, at our jobs, even in the things we do for fun. But we often don’t progress in any of these areas at the rate we’d like. Consequently, and unfortunately, we often give up our pursuits prematurely or resign ourselves to always being mediocre in our classes, career, and hobbies. Scott Young has some tips on how you can avoid this fate, level up in whatever you do, and enjoy the satisfaction of skill improvement. Scott is a writer, programmer, and entrepreneur, and the author of Get Better at Anything: 12 Maxims for Mastery. Today on the show, Scott shares the three key factors in helping us learn. He explains how copying others is an underrated technique in becoming a genius, why, contrary to the sentiments of motivational memes, we learn more from success than mistakes, why experts often aren’t good teachers and tactics for drawing out their best advice, why you may need to get worse before you get better, and more.

When you’re lifting weights, you might be thinking about setting a new PR or doing your curls for the girls. But throughout history, philosophers have thought about physical fitness on a deeper level and considered how exercise shapes not only the body, but also the mind and the soul. My guest today, Joe Lombardo, is a strength enthusiast who follows in this tradition and has explored the philosophy of bodily exercise in his writing. Today on the show, Joe and I discuss several different ways the philosophy of strength has been expressed over time. We begin our conversation with how the ancient Greeks thought of physical training as a way to develop personal as well as social virtues, and why they thought you were an "idiot," in their particular sense of the word, if you didn't take care of your body. We then discuss early Christianity's relationship with physical exercise and the development of the muscular Christianity movement in the 19th century. We end our conversation by looking at the philosophy of physicality espoused by the Japanese writer Yukio Mishima, and what he had to say as to how strength training moves us out of the life of the night and towards the light of the sun.

Jim VandeHei didn’t have an auspicious start in life. His high school guidance counselor told him he wasn’t cut out for college, and he went on to confirm her assessment, getting a 1.4 GPA at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh and spending more time drinking beer than planning his career. Eventually, though, Jim turned things around for himself, going on to co-found two of the biggest modern media outlets, Politico and Axios. Jim shares how he started moving up the rungs of success and building a better life for himself in his new book Just the Good Stuff: No-BS Secrets to Success (No Matter What Life Throws at You). Today on the show, Jim shares the real-world lessons he’s learned in his career. We discuss the importance of matching passion to opportunity, making your own luck, surrounding yourself with the right people, keeping the buckets of your happiness matrix filled, understanding the difference between wartime and peacetime leadership, harnessing the energy of healthy revenge, and more. Connect With Jim VandeHei Jim at Axios

There are different philosophies one can have when it comes to money. Jared Dillian’s is built around eliminating as much anxiety around it as possible, so you hardly think about money at all. Jared is a former trader for Lehman Brothers, the editor of The Daily Dirtnap, a market newsletter for investment professionals, and the author of No Worries: How to Live a Stress-Free Financial Life. Today on the show, Jared talks about the two biggest sources of financial stress — debt and risk — and how you can eliminate the stress they can cause. We discuss how three big financial decisions — buying a car, buying a house, and managing student loans — ultimately determine your financial health, and how to approach each of them in a stress-eliminating way. We also talk about how to minimize risk by creating what he calls an “awesome portfolio,” a mix of assets that has nearly the return of the stock market with half its risk. And Jared shares whether cryptocurrency fits into his “no worries” financial philosophy.

Have you ever noticed the guy in a fighting stance on the Art of Manliness logo? That’s not just some random symbol; it’s an actual dude: John L. Sullivan, the greatest bare-knuckle boxer of the 19th century. While most people think bare-knuckle boxing came to an end during Sullivan’s era, in fact, it never entirely went away. In his new book, Bare Knuckle: Bobby Gunn, 73–0 Undefeated. A Dad. A Dream. A Fight Like You’ve Never Seen, Stayton Bonner charts bare-knuckle boxing’s rise, fall, and resurgence, as well as the improbable story of its modern chapter’s winningest champion. Today on the show, Stayton describes bare-knuckle boxing’s incredible popularity a century ago, and why gloved boxing took its place while bare-knuckle got pushed into a shadowy, illicit underground. Stayton takes us into that secret circuit which still exists today, revealing the dark, sweaty basements and bars where modern bare-knuckle fights take place and the ancient code of honor that structures them. And Stayton introduces us to a dominant figure in that world, Bobby Gunn, an undefeated bare-knuckle fighter who combines a love of faith, family, and fighting and has helped turn bare-knuckle boxing into what is now the world’s fastest-growing combat sport.

Do you sometimes walk to another room in your house to get something, but then can’t remember what it was you wanted? Do you sometimes forget about an appointment or struggle to remember someone’s name? You may have chalked these lapses in memory up to getting older. And age can indeed play a role in the diminishing power of memory. But as my guest will tell us, there are other factors at play as well. Charan Ranganath is a neuroscientist, a psychologist, and the author of Why We Remember: Unlocking Memory’s Power to Hold on to What Matters. Today on the show, Charan explains how factors like how we direct our attention, take photos, and move through something called “event boundaries” all affect our memory, and how our current context in life impacts which memories we’re able to recall from the past. We also talk about how to reverse engineer these factors to improve your memory.

If you read most first aid guides, the last step in treating someone who’s gotten injured or sick is always: get the victim to professional medical help. But what if you found yourself in a situation where hospitals were overcrowded, inaccessible, or non-functional? What if you found yourself in a grid-down, long-term disaster, and you were the highest medical resource available? Dr. Joe Alton is an expert in what would come after the step where most first aid guides leave off. He’s a retired surgeon and the co-author of The Survival Medicine Handbook: The Essential Guide for When Help is NOT on the Way. Today on the show, Joe argues that every family should have a medical asset and how to prepare to be a civilian medic. We discuss the different levels of first aid kits to consider creating, from an individual kit all the way up to a community field hospital. And we talk about the health-related skills you might need in a long-term grid-down disaster, from burying a dead body, to closing a wound with super glue, to making an improvised dental filling, to even protecting yourself from the radiation of nuclear fallout.

Over the last decade, there's been an increase in the number of people, particularly young adults, who struggle with low moods, distractibility, and anxiety and consequent difficulties with getting their life on track and making progress in work, friendship, and romance. In addressing these difficulties, people are often given or adopt a mental health diagnosis, and look for a solution in therapy and/or medication. My guest isn't opposed to these remedies. She is herself a clinical psychologist who's maintained a practice for a quarter century that specializes in treating clients in their twenties. But Dr. Meg Jay, who's also the author of The Twentysomething Treatment, believes that a lot of what young adults, and in fact adults of all ages, struggle with, aren't disorders that need to be treated, but problems that can be solved. In the first half of our conversation, Meg explains what's behind the decline in mental health for young adults and how it's bigger than just smartphones. We discuss the dangers of self-diagnosis, the potential downsides of using medications to treat mental health issues, and why she advocates for "skills over pills." In the second half of our conversation, we talk about how mental health gets better when we get better at life, and what skills twentysomethings, and many older adults, need to develop, including the skills of thinking, feeling, working, socializing, and even cooking. We also discuss how porn is affecting the young men in her practice and an alternative to being a self-assurance junkie.

When we think of rituals, we tend to think of big, inherited, more occasional religious or cultural ceremonies like church services, holidays, weddings, and funerals. But as my guest observes, we also engage in small, self-made, everyday rituals that help us turn life's more mundane moments into more meaningful ones. In the The Ritual Effect: From Habit to Ritual, Harness the Surprising Power of Everyday Actions, psychologist and Harvard Business School professor Michael Norton explores the way our DIY rituals shape, and enhance, our lives. We take up that survey on today's show. Michael explains the difference between a habit and a ritual and how individuals and families create unique "ritual signatures" even within more standard rituals like holidays. We discuss the different areas of life in which rituals show up and what they do for us, including how they help us cope with uncertainty, savor life, and connect to the past. We get into the function DIY rituals perform in romantic relationships, from deepening intimacy to facilitating a break-up, the role that "kinkeepers" play in keeping a family together, the tricky business of combining family traditions when people get married, how to know when a family tradition should be retired, and much more.

Millions of young adults know what it's like to graduate from college with student debt. For some, it's a frustrating annoyance. For others, it's a worry-inducing burden. For Ken Ilgunas, it was a dragon in need of slaying and a pathway to adventure. Ken is the author of Walden on Wheels: On the Open Road from Debt to Freedom, and today on the show, he shares the story of how his quest to erase his debt led him to the Arctic Circle and through the peaks and valleys of living a totally unshackled life. Ken explains why he went to Alaska to work as a truckstop burger flipper and park ranger to pay off his student debt, what it's like to hitchhike across the country, how reading Thoreau's Walden got him questioning how we live our lives, and how that inspiration led him to living in his van while attending grad school at Duke. Along the way, Ken shares his meditations on nonconformity, engaging in romantic pursuits, and the benefits of both de-institutionalizing and re-institutionalizing your life.

Jake Knapp loves tech. He grew up using Apple II and then Mac computers, browsing bulletin boards, and making his own games. As an adult, he worked at Microsoft on the Encarta CD-ROM, before being hired by Google, where he worked on Gmail, co-founded Google Meet, and created Google Ventures' Design Sprint process. Today, he's a venture capitalist and consultant for start-ups, as well as a writer. But, if Jake was an early adopter and booster of the upsides of technology, he was also early in sensing its not-so-positive side effects. Twelve years ago, unhappy with the pull his smartphone was exerting on him, he decided to curb its distractions. He continues to use this distraction-free phone today. Today on the show, I talk to Jake about what motivated him to change his relationship with his phone over a decade ago and what steps he took to do so, including how and why he lives life without a web browser or email app on his phone. We get into what realizations about work and life Jake's gotten from having a distraction-free phone, why he doesn't think using tools like Screen Time or a dumbphone are always the best solutions to reducing the phone itch, and how he also cuts down on distractions on his desktop computer.

Happiness and depression can feel like slippery and befuddling things. We can do the things we've been told will make us happy, while still not feeling satisfied. Or, on paper, our lives can look great, yet we feel depressed. And the advice that's out there about these states doesn't always seem to correspond to our lived experience. Ryan Bush has created a new map he thinks can help us make better sense of life. Ryan is a systems designer with a long-standing interest in psychology and philosophy, the founder of Designing the Mind, a self-development organization, and an author. His latest book is Become Who You Are: A New Theory of Self-Esteem, Human Greatness, and the Opposite of Depression. Today on the show, Ryan explains the two dimensions along which we usually plot our happiness, and what he thinks is the missing third dimension: virtue or admirability. Ryan then unpacks his "virtue self-signaling theory" which he thinks can heighten happiness and reduce depression, and which is premised on the idea that if you want to live a flourishing life, you have to give yourself reasons to admire yourself. I really think this is a valuable idea that everyone can get something from and recommend listening through.

In resolving hundreds of kidnap-for-ransom cases involving gang leaders, pirates, and extortionists, Scott Walker, a former Scotland Yard detective, has learned a thing or two about how to negotiate and communicate in a crisis. He shares how to apply those lessons to the difficult conversations we all have in our everyday lives in his book Order Out of Chaos: Win Every Negotiation, Thrive in Adversity, and Become a World-Class Communicator, and we talk about his tips on today's show. Scott and I discuss what a "red center" means in a kidnap-for-ransom scenario and how to create one in your personal life, the "immediate action drill" that can help you stay in that red center, the importance of separating the decision-maker from the communicator in a negotiation and having a "battle rhythm," why you don't give hostage takers the money they ask for right away and how to structure a negotiation instead, and more.

In the 19th century, Cerro Gordo, which sits above Death Valley, was the largest silver mine in America, a place where dreamers came to strike it rich. In the 21st century, Brent Underwood used his life savings to buy what had become an abandoned ghost town, and ended up finding a very different kind of wealth there. Brent has spent four years living in Cerro Gordo and has documented the details of the mines he’s explored, the artifacts he’s found, and how he’s restoring the town on his popular YouTube channel, Ghost Town Living. Now, in a book by the same name, he takes a wider-view lens on his adventures there and shares the big lessons he’s learned from his experiences and from the original residents of Cerro Gordo. We get into some of those lessons on today’s show. We first talk about how and why Brent bought a ghost town as a way of escaping a typical 9-5 life and finding a deeper longer-term purpose. We then discuss what restoring Cerro Gordo has taught him about the necessity of getting started and taking real action, how learning the context of what you do can add greater meaning to it, the importance of understanding the long-term consequences of short-term thinking, the satisfactions that come with being a high-agency person, and more.

From work to chores to entertaining distractions, there are many options for what you can be doing at any moment in the modern world. We often endlessly toggle between these options and, as a result, feel frazzled and frustratingly unproductive. We feel ever haunted by the question, "What should I be doing right now?" (Or "What am I even doing right now?") My guest will share a simple but effective productivity method that will quash this feeling of overwhelm, answer that question, and help you make much better use of your time. Marc Zao-Sanders is the CEO and co-founder of filtered.com, a learning tech company, and the author of Timeboxing: The Power of Doing One Thing at a Time. In the first half of our conversation, we unpack what timeboxing — which brings your calendar and to-do list together — is all about and its benefits as a time management system, including how it can help you get more done, live with greater intention and freedom, and even create a log of memories. In the second half of our conversation, we get into the practicalities of timeboxing, from how to capture the to-dos that will go on your calendar to how to deal with things that might pull you away from it. We end our conversation with how you can get started with timeboxing right now and have a more focused, productive, and satisfying day tomorrow.

Note: This is a rebroadcast When you think about someone having a midlife crisis, you probably think of a man getting divorced, stepping out with a younger woman, and buying a sports car. But my guest today says the often jokey, mockable trope of the midlife crisis we have in our popular culture discounts the fact that the sense of dissatisfaction people can feel in their middle years is quite real, and that the questions it raises are profond, philosophical, and worth earnestly grappling with. His name is Kieran Setiya, and he's a professor of philosophy and the author of Midlife: A Philosophical Guide. Kieran and I first discuss what researchers have uncovered about whether the midlife crisis really exists, how it might be better described as a kind of midlife malaise, and how Kieran's own sense of life dissatisfaction began when he was only in his mid-thirties. We then explore the philosophical reframing that can help in dealing with the existential issues that the journey into midlife often raises, including feeling like you've missed out on certain possibilities and feeling regret over your mistakes and misfortunes. We also talk about how to shift out of one primary cause of the midlife malaise — the sense that your life is merely about putting out fires and checking off boxes.

Even if you're not very into jazz, you probably know Kind of Blue, the jazz album that's sold more copies than any other and is widely considered one of the greatest albums ever, in any genre. Among the sextet of musicians who played on the album, three stand out as true jazz geniuses: Miles Davis, Bill Evans, and John Coltrane. Today on the show, James Kaplan, author of 3 Shades of Blue: Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Bill Evans, and the Lost Empire of Cool, unpacks the stories behind these towering figures. We discuss their background, their demons, their passion for musical greatness, and what they contributed to the evolving world of jazz. And we discuss why, when they got together to record Kind of Blue, the result was the most timeless and beloved jazz album in history.

It's a tough job to manage a household. Things need to be regularly fixed, maintained, and cleaned. How do you stay on top of these tasks in order to keep your home in tip-top shape? My guest knows his way all around this issue and has some field-tested, insider advice to offer. Charles MacPherson spent two decades as the major-domo or chief butler of a grand household. He's also the founder of North America's only registered school for butlers and household managers and the author of several books drawn from his butlering experience, including The Butler Speaks: A Return to Proper Etiquette, Stylish Entertaining, and the Art of Good Housekeeping. In the first part of our conversation, Charles charts the history of domestic service and describes why the practice of having servants like a butler and maid ebbed in the mid-20th century but has made a comeback today. We then turn to what average folks who don't have a household staff can do to better manage their homes. Charles recommends keeping something called a "butler's book" to stay on top of household schedules and maintenance checklists. We then discuss how to clean your home more logically and efficiently. Charles shares his golden rules of house cleaning, the cleaning task you've probably neglected (hint: go take a look at the side of the door on your dishwasher), his surprising choice for the best product to use to clean your shower, how often you should change your bedsheets, and much more.

The last several years have seen the rise of a sort of anti-productivity movement. Knowledge workers who feel burned out and that work is pointless, meaningless, and grinding, have been talking more about opting out, “quiet quitting,” and doing nothing. My guest would argue that, in fact, productivity itself isn’t the problem and that most people actually want to do good work. Instead, he says, it’s our whole approach to productivity that’s broken and needs to be transformed. Cal Newport is a professor of computer science and the author of books like Deep Work and Digital Minimalism. His latest book is Slow Productivity: The Lost Art of Accomplishment Without Burnout. Today on the show, Cal explains what’s led to the rise of what he calls “pseudo-productivity” and the fallout when we apply the structures of the industrial revolution to modern work. He then unpacks the tenets and tactics of the “slow productivity” approach to work, and how to implement them whether you work for yourself or for a boss. We discuss why you need to do fewer things in the short-term to do more things in the long term, the artificiality of working at the same intensity every day and how to inject more seasonality in your work, the role quiet quitting can play in achieving greater balance, and many other ideas on how to make modern work more sustainable, humane, and fruitful.

Whether you’re a teacher, parent, or entrepreneur, you want to be able to persuade your students, children, and customers with your messages. That’s a tall task in the modern age, when people are bombarded with 13 hours of media a day. How do you cut through all that noise to make sure you’re heard? My guest would say it’s all about keeping things simple. Ben Guttmann is a marketing educator and consultant who’s helped promote everything from the NFL to New York Times-bestselling authors. He is himself the author of Simply Put: Why Clear Messages Win—and How to Design Them. Today on the show, Ben explains the gap between how people like to receive messages and the self-sabotaging, complication-introducing ways people tend to send them. We then talk about the five factors of effective marketing that anyone can use to close this gap and craft simple, effective, influential messages. We discuss why you should highlight something’s benefits rather than its features, the question to ask to figure out what those benefits are, how to replace “and” with “so” to create more focused messages, how the fad of using the F-word in book titles shows the transience of salience, how to make your message minimal by imagining it as a Jenga tower and how minimal isn’t the same thing as short, and much more, including Ben’s most immediately actionable tip for crafting better, simpler messages.

You've probably heard of HIIT — high intensity interval training. In fact, you may feel so familiar with the idea that you think you understand it. But do you? People often hold some popular misconceptions about HIIT, and today we'll unpack what some of those are with Dr. Martin Gibala, a foremost researcher of this fitness modality and the author of The One-Minute Workout: Science Shows a Way to Get Fit That's Smarter, Faster, Shorter. Martin explains the main, underappreciated advantage of HIIT, which revolves around the "intensity-duration trade-off": the higher intensity you make exercise, the shorter your workouts can be while still triggering improvements in metabolism, cardiovascular health, and mitochondrial capacity. We get into the fact that the intensity of HIIT needn't be as high as you might think and that, contrary to popular belief, sprinting at intervals is actually a predominantly aerobic rather than anaerobic workout. Martin answers questions like whether Zone 2 cardio has an advantage over HIIT, if the so-called "afterburn effect" of HIIT is real, if you can do HIIT if you're older or have heart problems, and whether you should worry about the way HIIT can raise cortisol in the body. He also shares specific HIIT workouts you can do, including a walking interval workout and one of the best higher-intensity protocols to try.

Perhaps you’ve read Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations, a book many turn to to learn and internalize the teachings of Stoic philosophy. But what do you know of the man who penned that seminal text? Here to help us get to know the philosopher and ruler is Donald Robertson, a cognitive-behavior psychotherapist and the author of Marcus Aurelius: The Stoic Emperor. Drawing on the Meditations, three ancient histories about Marcus’ life and character, and a cache of private letters between him and his rhetoric tutor, Donald unpacks how Marcus’ life shaped his approach to Stoicism, and how Stoicism shaped him. We discuss Marcus’ childhood and influences, his idea of manliness, the surprising significance of who he does and doesn’t mention in the Meditations, and how he used that journal as a kind of father figure. We also discuss how Marcus may have undergone training modeled on the Spartan agoge, how he came to attention as a successor to the emperorship, how he got turned on to Stoicism as medicine for the soul, and how he used the philosophy to deal with his tumultuous rule.

Have you ever known one of those people who seemed to be able to connect with anyone? The kind of person who had the ability to make others feel understood and smoothly navigate even the trickiest of conversations? Charles Duhigg calls these folks "supercommunicators," and he's the author of a new book by the same name. Today on the show, Charles explains that what underlies supercommunicators' skill in connection is something called the matching principle, and he unpacks how it works and how you can put it to use in your own conversations. We discuss several techniques for how to figure out what kind of conversation you're having, so you can align your language and energy with the other person. And because emotional conversations can be particularly difficult, we dig into tactics for successfully navigating them, even when they contain a high degree of conflict. We also get into how to carry the skills of connection into your digital conversations.

In my twenties and early thirties, I was a regular journaler. Several years ago, however, I stopped journaling almost entirely because I wasn’t getting anything out of it anymore. But my guest has helped me see that my problem wasn’t with journaling itself, but that I had gotten into a journaling rut, and he’s introduced me to some new ways to journal that have inspired me to get back into the practice. Campbell Walker is an illustrator, animator, podcaster, and YouTuber, as well as the author of Your Head is a Houseboat: A Chaotic Guide to Mental Clarity. Today on the show, Cam shares how journaling transformed his life and what it can do for yours. We discuss why it’s helpful to do a journaling brain dump and how to then move beyond that to incorporate different techniques that will help you get greater insight into the problems you’re facing and how to solve them. We unpack those techniques, which include how to journal to break mindset, conduct a lifestyle and habits audit, and quell anxiety. We also talk about an experiment Cam did where he only used the social media apps on his phone when he was posting something, and every time he got the itch to check social media for fun, he engaged in something he calls “microjournaling” instead. We end our conversation with how Cam’s journaling changed after he became a dad and his tips on making journaling a consistent habit in your life.

The marriage rate has come down 65% since 1970. There are multiple factors behind this decrease, but one of them is what we might call the poor branding that surrounds marriage in the modern day. From all corners of our culture and from both ends of the ideological spectrum come messages that marriage is an outdated institution, that it hinders financial success and personal fulfillment, and that it's even unimportant when it comes to raising kids. My guest would say that these ideas about marriage are very wrong, and he doesn't come at it from an emotionally-driven perspective, but from what's born out by the data. Dr. Brad Wilcox is a sociologist who heads the nonpartisan National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia, which studies marriage and family life. He's also the author of Get Married. Today on the show, Brad discusses the latest research on marriage and how it belies the common narratives around the institution. We dig into the popular myths around marriage, and how it not only boosts your finances, but predicts happiness in life better than any other factor. Brad also shares the five pillars of marriage that happy couples embrace.

If you’ve ever read the classic book Endurance, you probably shivered and shuddered as you wondered what it would have been like to have undertaken Ernest Shackleton’s famously arduous Antarctic rescue mission. The adventurer Tim Jarvis did more than wonder. When Alexandra Shackleton challenged him to re-create her grandfather’s epic journey, he jumped at the chance to follow in the legendary explorer’s footsteps. Today on the show, Tim, the author of Chasing Shackleton: Re-creating the World’s Greatest Journey of Survival, first shares the story of Shackleton’s heroic effort to save the crew of his failed Antarctic expedition. Tim then tells us how he and his own crew replicated Shackleton’s journey over land and sea, from taking the same kind of rowboat to eating the same kind of rations — and the lessons in resilience and leadership he learned along the way.

When you really stop to think about it, it’s an astonishing fact that we spend a third of our lives asleep. And part of that time, we’re dreaming. What goes on during this unconscious state that consumes so much of our lives, and how can we use our dreams to improve our waking hours? Here to unpack the mysterious world of dreams is Alice Robb, the author of Why We Dream: The Transformative Power of Our Nightly Journey. Today on the show, Alice first shares some background on the nature of dreams, why their content is often stress-inducing, and how they can influence our waking hours, from impacting our emotional health to helping us be more creative. We then turn to how to get more out of our dreams, including the benefits of keeping a dream journal and talking about your dreams with others. We also get into the world of lucid dreaming and some tips for how you can start controlling your dreams.

When people think of the plays of Shakespeare, they tend to think of his comedies and tragedies that spotlight interpersonal dynamics like love and jealousy, pretense and reality. But my guest would say that many of Shakepeare's plays, especially his sometimes overlooked histories, are also unmatchable in revealing the dynamics of power. Eliot Cohen is a military historian, political scientist, professor of international studies, and former State Department counselor, as well as the author of The Hollow Crown: Shakespeare on How Leaders Rise, Rule, and Fall. Today on the show Eliot takes us through what Shakepeare's plays can teach us about navigating the three-part arc of power: acquiring power, exercising power, and losing power. Along the way, we discuss how these lessons in leadership played out in the lives of real-life historical figures as well.

Have you always wanted to be an entrepreneur but don’t have an idea for a business? Or have you been sitting on a business idea for years but have never gotten going with it? Well, after listening to this podcast and by the end of this weekend, you can have a business started that could ultimately make you a million bucks. Here to walk you through the process of becoming a near-overnight entrepreneur is Noah Kagan. Kagan is the founder of AppSumo, a software deals site, and half a dozen other multi-million-dollar businesses, as well as the author of Million Dollar Weekend: The Surprisingly Simple Way to Launch a 7-Figure Business in 48 Hours. Today on the show, Noah and I first discuss the two biggest obstacles that hold people back from starting a business and how to overcome them. We then turn to the practicalities of coming up with and vetting a business idea, how to find your first customers, and how to keep growing from there. Along the way, Noah and I share insights into how we turned AppSumo and Art of Manliness, respectively, from side hustles into rewarding careers.

Attend the graduation of a college senior, and the commencement speech is likely to include a few themes: Do something big. Make a name for yourself. Change the world. My guest is not a fan of this advice, and says that rather than focusing on solving large-scale problems, we ought to concentrate on making things better in our own backyards. Brandon Warmke is a professor of philosophy and the co-author of Why It's OK to Mind Your Own Business. Today on the show, Brandon explains why what he calls "commencement speech morality" distorts our moral vision by emphasizing one version of the good and valuable life, at the expense of the value and good of a life marked by "ordinary morality." Brandon first unpacks the dangers of intervening in other people's business, including becoming a moralizer and a busybody. He then makes a case for the benefits of minding your own business and putting down roots, creating a good home, and living in solitude, and for how a smaller, quieter life can still be generous, important, and noble.

Forty years ago, now retired professor of sociology Daniel Chambliss performed a field study in which he observed an elite swim team to figure out what it was that led to excellence in any endeavor. As Chambliss shared in a paper entitled “The Mundanity of Excellence,” the secret he discovered is that there really is no secret, and that success is more ordinary than mystical. As mundane as the factors and qualities that lead to excellence really are, they can still run contrary to what we sometimes think makes for high achievement. Today on the show, I unpack the sometimes unexpected elements of excellence with Daniel. We discuss how desire is more important than discipline, the central role of one’s social group and surrounding yourself with the best of the best, the outsized importance of the small things, why you need to make being good your job, why motivation is mundane, and why you need to keep a sense of mundanity even as you become excellent.

When Sam Rosenberg was 20 years old and working as a bouncer in a bar, a disgruntled patron pointed a gun directly at his chest and told him: “Now I’m going to kill you.” Sam survived the incident but it caused him to question what he thought he knew about self-defense and sent him on a decades-long quest to figure out how people can best protect themselves and others. Today on the show, I talk to Sam, an expert in personal protection and the author of Live Ready: A Guide to Protecting Yourself in an Uncertain World, about his self-defense philosophy and how you can use it in your life to stay safe from violent threats. Sam makes the case that understanding how the mind works under life-or-death stress is the foundation of protecting yourself. We unpack that idea, as well as the phases of the timeline of violence, the phase you can exercise the most control in to deter a violent encounter and how to know when you’re in that phase, how to convey you’re a hard target that predators don’t want to mess with, and much more.

Reflect on something for a second: when was the last time you had fun? Are you having trouble remembering, and if you think about it, is it actually kind of hard to even describe what fun is, even? Don’t worry, if you feel like fun’s gone missing from your life, and are feeling a little dead inside as a result, Catherine Price and I are here to offer you a fun-tervention. Catherine is the author of The Power of Fun: How to Feel Alive Again, and today on the show we discuss the three elements of true fun and how it differs from fake fun, how to conduct a fun audit so you can identify your personal fun magnets, how to get a greater kick out of your life, and why you really need to have a Ferris Bueller day.

You're probably familiar with the American mafia, at least through its portrayal in popular culture. But how did this infamous secret society come to be? Louis Ferrante traces its origins in the first volume of his slated trilogy on the subject, entitled Borgata: Rise of Empire: A History of the American Mafia. While there's been plenty written on the mafia, Ferrante, who was incarcerated for being a mobster himself, offers the first insider's history of this crime organization. Today on the show, he shares the surprising influences on the formation of the mafia in Sicily, why Louisiana and not New York was actually the mob's American Plymouth Rock, the unexpected collaboration between the government and the mafia during WWII, the real reason J. Edgar Hoover didn't go after the mob, why that hands-off approach changed, and much more.

Brian Grazer is a Hollywood producer whose films and television shows have been nominated for 43 Academy Awards and 217 Emmys and grossed $15 billion worldwide. He's produced everything from my favorite TV show of all time, Friday Night Lights, to critically-acclaimed and Oscar-winning films like Apollo 13 and A Beautiful Mind. Grazer credits much of his success to his commitment to a practice he calls "curiosity conversations." Today on the show, I talk to Grazer, who's also the co-author of A Curious Mind Expanded Edition: The Secret to a Bigger Life, about why he considers curiosity conversations the “superpower” that fueled his rise as one of Hollywood’s leading producers. We talk about how these curiosity conversations are beneficial to have with everyone from VIPs to ordinary folks, how the ideas and connections they foster can enhance both your personal and professional life, what makes a curiosity conversation effective, and how to make them happen.

The social theorist Charles Taylor says that part of what characterizes a secular age is that there are multiple competing options for what constitutes the good life. The sociologist Hartmut Rosa argues that modern citizens most often locate that good in optionality, speed, and reach, which creates a phenomenon he calls “social acceleration.” Professor of theology Andrew Root explores the ideas of Taylor, Rosa, and social acceleration in his work, including in his book The Congregation in a Secular Age. While Andy largely looks at social acceleration through the lens of its effect on churches, it has implications for every aspect of our lives, from work to family. We explore those implications today on the show, unpacking the way that seeking stability through growth leads to feelings of depression, exhaustion, and discombobulation, how we collect possibilities while not knowing what we’re aiming for, and how we’ve traded the burden of shoulds for the burden of coulds. We discuss how social acceleration has shifted the horizons and significance of time, how time has to be hollowed out to be sped up, and how the solution to the ill effects of social acceleration isn’t just slowing down, but finding more resonance.

Do you have a goal to lose weight? If so, you're probably thinking about how you need to exercise more. And that can certainly help. But what about the 23 hours a day you're not at the gym? How much you move during those hours — from walking to the mailbox to fidgeting at your desk — can be just as important in winning the battle of the bulge. Here to explain the importance of what's called non-exercise activity thermogenesis, or NEAT, is Dr. James Levine, a professor, the co-director of the Mayo Clinic's Obesity Solutions Initiative, the inventor of the treadmill desk, and the author of Get Up!: Why Your Chair Is Killing You and What You Can Do About It. James explains how much more sedentary we are than we used to be and what happens to your body when, as the average American does, you spend two-thirds of your day sitting. He shares how doing the lightest kinds of physical activity, even standing more, can help you lose a significant amount of weight and improve other aspects of health, from your sleep to your mood. And we talk about how to easily incorporate more NEAT into your day.

When we think about getting more done, we tend to think about working harder, exerting more willpower, and buckling down; we tend to think of doing things that are unpleasant, but that we deem worth it, for the productivity boost they offer. But what if the key to greater productivity ran the other way round, and the easier and more enjoyable you made your work, the more of it you’d get done? That’s the premise of Ali Abdaal’s new book Feel-Good Productivity. In addition to being a new author, Ali is a doctor, a YouTuber, and the world’s most followed productivity expert. Today on the show, Ali unpacks the three prongs of his feel-good approach to productivity: energerize, unblock, and sustain. We talk about how to inject your work with more play, flip the confidence switch, find joy in increasing your power, harness relational energy, and use the 10-10-10 rule for overcoming hesitation in taking action. We also discuss why smart goals aren’t always effective and what’s a better alternative, why you might want to put a five-minute hourglass on your desk, the three types of burnout and how to overcome each, and much more.

Note: This is a rebroadcast. When it comes to losing weight, you can find plenty of complicated programs that involve long, intense workouts and strict calorie-counting diet plans. But my guest today takes an approach to fat loss that’s awesomely simple, and even more effective because of that fact. His name is Dan John and he’s a strength coach, a competitive thrower and weightlifter, and the author of many books about health and fitness, including Fat Loss Happens on Monday. Today on the show, Dan talks about the importance of not only picking a specific number where you want your weight to be, but enriching that goal so that it lights up multiple parts of your brain. We then discuss how and how often to measure your weight, how to deal with setbacks as you shed the pounds, and Dan’s uncomplicated approach to eating. Dan also explains why he recommends drinking hot water with lemon, practicing intermittent fasting, and working out in a fasted state. We go over the “Easy Strength” exercise program he suggests for fat loss, and why these short weightlifting sessions are always followed by a walk. We end our conversation with how to break through a weight loss plateau by doing something called “reverse rucking.”

Note: This is a rebroadcast. You want to declutter. You want to downsize. You want to live more simply. So what’s been holding you back from getting closer to those ideals? My guest today sorts through both the psychological and practical roadblocks that can get in the way of living more minimally, and more in the present. His name is Matt Paxton, and he’s a downsizing and decluttering expert, a featured cleaner on the television show Hoarders, the host of the Emmy-nominated show Legacy List With Matt Paxton which showcases people’s heirlooms and treasures, and the author of Keep the Memories, Lose the Stuff: Declutter, Downsize, and Move Forward with Your Life. We begin our conversation with how Matt got into cleaning out houses and working with hoarders, and some of the worst cases of hoarding Matt’s seen. We then get into both the mindset and brass tacks tips he’s learned from the most extreme cases of clutter that can be used by regular people who just want to pare down their stuff. We talk about why we can feel so attached to our possessions, and how to let them go, while still preserving your and your family’s memories. Matt recommends how and where to get started with your decluttering, and offers tools, including creating a “maybe pile” and a “legacy list,” for deciding what to keep and what to chuck, whether you’re dealing with big items like furniture or small stuff like documents and pictures. Matt explains what to do with your stuff whether trashing, donating, upcycling, or selling, and how much you can reasonably expect to get when you do the latter (spoiler alert: it’s a lot less than you think). We end our conversation with how, after you’ve decluttered your place, to keep it from getting clogged up again. Oh, and we also discuss where to find hidden stashes of money when you’re cleaning out the house of an older person who’s died. This is a really fun and interesting conversation that definitely motivated me to clean out our house.

The Battle of the Bulge commenced on the morning of December 16, 1944. The Allies were ill-prepared for this last, desperate offensive from the Germans, and the campaign might have succeeded if a few things hadn’t gotten in their way, including a single, green, 18-man platoon who refused to give up their ground to the Nazis. Alex Kershaw shares the story of these men in his book, The Longest Winter, and with us today on the show. He first explains the background of the Battle of the Bulge and how an Intelligence and Reconnaissance unit that had never seen combat ended up in the thick of it. And he describes the platoon’s 20-year-old leader, Lyle Bouk, who was determined to carry out his orders and hold their position despite being massively outmanned and outgunned, and how his men fought until they were down to their last rounds. Alex then shares how what Bouk thought was a total failure — being captured as POWs after just a day of combat — turned out to have been an effort that significantly influenced the outcome of the Battle of the Bulge, and how an unlikely platoon of heroes who initially went unrecognized for their valor became the most decorated American platoon of WWII. You’ll find such an inspiring lesson in this show about living up to your duty and holding the line.