In celebration of How Minds Change, my new book, turning one-year-old, in this episode Michael Taft interviews David McRaney about how minds do and do not change, the process behind writing a book about that, and what he has learned since writing and promoting it.

Michael is a meditation teacher, bestselling author, and  a mindfulness coach – and he specializes in secular, science-based mindfulness training. If you are interested in a science-based, secular book about meditation and and mindfulness, I highly recommend his book,The Mindful Geek, snd I recommend guided meditation with him. He offers that at The Alembic in Berkeley. You can join them virtually, over the internet. Links below.

I also recommend his podcast, Deconstructing Yourself. It is all about entheogens and neurofeedback and brain hacking. If you are a Carl Sagan loving, science endorsing, evidence based sort of person – a nerd, geek, or skeptic or humanist who wants to know more about meditation and deep dive into what we do and do not know about it – that’s what his podcast is about. Sam Harris will be a guest on there soon, and I think many of you will love that episode.

 RSS – Simplecast – Amazon Music – Audible

OFFICIAL DESCRIPTION OF THE BOOK

A brain-bending investigation of why some people never change their minds—and others do in an instant—by the bestselling author of You Are Not So Smart

What made a prominent conspiracy-theorist YouTuber finally see that 9/11 was not a hoax? How do voter opinions shift from neutral to resolute? Can widespread social change only take place when a generation dies out? From one of our greatest thinkers on reasoning, HOW MINDS CHANGE is a book about the science, and the experience, of transformation. 

When self-delusion expert and psychology nerd David McRaney began a book about how to change someone’s mind in one conversation, he never expected to change his own. But then a diehard 9/11 Truther’s conversion blew up his theories—inspiring him to ask not just how to persuade, but why we believe, from the eye of the beholder.

Delving into the latest research of psychologists and neuroscientists, HOW MINDS CHANGE explores the limits of reasoning, the power of groupthink, and the effects of deep canvassing.

Told with McRaney’s trademark sense of humor, compassion, and scientific curiosity, it’s an eye-opening journey among cult members, conspiracy theorists, and political activists, from Westboro Baptist Church picketers to LGBTQ campaigners in California – that ultimately challenges us to question our own motives and beliefs. In an age of dangerous conspiratorial thinking, can we rise to the occasion with empathy? 

An expansive, big-hearted journalistic narrative, HOW MINDS CHANGE reaches surprising and thought-provoking conclusions, to demonstrate the rare but transformative circumstances under which minds can change. 

READ A SAMPLE CHAPTER

DISCUSSION GUIDE

WATCH A ROUNDTABLE DISCUSSION

Apple – RSS – Simplecast – Spotify – Amazon – Audible – Google Podcasts

Previous Episodes

Deconstructing Yourself

The Alembic

Michael Taft

How Minds Change

David McRaney’s Twitter

YANSS Twitter

Show Notes

Newsletter

Patreon

In this episode we welcome back author Will Storr whose new book, The Status Game, feels like required reading for anyone confused, curious, or worried about how politics, cults, conspiracy theories communities, social media, religious fundamentalism, polarization, and extremism are affecting us – everywhere, on and offline, across cultures, and across the world.

What is The Status Game? It’s our primate propensity to perpetually pursue points that will provide a higher level of regard among the people who can (if we provoked such a response) take those points away. And deeper still, it’s the propensity to, once we find a group of people who regularly give us those points, care about what they think more than just about anything else.

In the interview, we discuss our inescapable obsession with reputation and why we are deeply motivated to avoid losing this game through the fear of shame, ostracism, embarrassment, and humiliation while also deeply motivated to win this game by earning what will provide pride, fame, adoration, respect, and status.

 RSS – Simplecast – Amazon Music – Audible

OFFICIAL DESCRIPTION OF THE BOOK

For centuries, philosophers and scholars have described human behaviour in terms of sex, power and money. In The Status Game, bestselling author Will Storr radically turns this thinking on its head by arguing that it is our irrepressible craving for status that ultimately defines who we are.

From the era of the hunter-gatherer to today, when we exist as workers in the globalised economy and citizens of online worlds, the need for status has always been wired into us. A wealth of research shows that how much of it we possess dramatically affects not only our happiness and wellbeing but also our physical health – and without sufficient status, we become more ill, and live shorter lives. It’s an unconscious obsession that drives the best and worst of us: our innovation, arts and civilisation as well as our murders, wars and genocides. But why is status such an all-consuming prize? What happens if it’s taken away from us? And how can our unquenchable thirst for it explain cults, moral panics, conspiracy theories, the rise of social media and the ‘culture wars’ of today?

On a breathtaking journey through time and culture, The Status Game offers a sweeping rethink of human psychology that will change how you see others – and how you see yourself.

Will Storr is an award-winning writer. He’s the author of six critically acclaimed books, including the novel The Hunger and The Howling of Killian Lone and the Sunday Times bestseller The Science of Storytelling. His journalism has appeared in titles such as The Guardian, The Sunday Times, The New Yorker and The New York Times. His prizes include a National Press Club award for excellence and the AFM award for Best Investigative Journalism. His work on sexual violence against men earned the Amnesty International Award and a One World Press Award. He’s also been presented with the AIB Award for Best Investigative Documentary for his BBC radio series.

He teaches popular storytelling classes in London and has been invited to present his Science of Storytelling workshop all over the world. He’s an in-demand ghostwriter whose books have spent months at the top of the Sunday Times bestseller chart and have sold more than two million copies.

Apple – RSS – Simplecast – Spotify – Amazon – Audible – Google Podcasts

Previous Episodes

Will Storr’s Website

How Minds Change

David McRaney’s Twitter

YANSS Twitter

Show Notes

Newsletter

Patreon

Sedona Chinn, a researcher who studies how people make sense of competing scientific, environmental, and health-related claims, joins us to discuss her latest research into doing your own research. In her latest paper she found that the more a person values the concept of doing your own research, the less likely that person is to actually do their own research. In the episode we explore the origin of the concept, what that phrase really means, and the implications of her study on everything from politics to vaccines to conspiratorial thinking.

 RSS – Simplecast – Amazon Music – Audible

Sedona Chinn is an Assistant Professor in Life Sciences Communication at the University of Wisconsin-Maidson.

She researches how social media influence perceptions of expertise and accuracy of beliefs surrounding science and health. Her ongoing work explores how empowering messages and aspirational wellness content on social media are associated with perceptions of experts, health beliefs, and political attitudes.

USDA Hatch-funded research is currently investigating how Instagram influencers inform beliefs about nutrition and agriculture. I explore how influential opinion leaders online cultivate credibility and use emotional appeals to spread accurate and inaccurate information about food and agriculture.

She also investigates the prevalence and effects of scientific disagreements in media to better understand how people evaluate uncertain information.

In this research, she has used computational content-analytic methods to measure politicization and polarization in climate change news and COVID-19 news.

She pairs large-scale content analyses with experimental work to investigating effects of civil and uncivil scientific disagreement messages and the efficacy of consensus messages in the context of climate change.

• Mapping digital wellness content
• ‘Doing your own research” associated with misinformation, mistrust

Apple Podcasts – RSS – Google Podcasts – Simplecast – Amazon Music – Audible – Spotify

Previous Episodes

Sedona Chinn’s Website

Sedona Chinn’s Twitter

Sedona Chinn’s Paper

The Other Paper Mentioned

How Minds Change

David McRaney’s Twitter

YANSS Twitter

Show Notes

Newsletter

Patreon

We sit down with Brian Brushwood to discuss how he put together this most recent season of The World’s Greatest Con, his podcast about incredible scams. This season is all about how two boys pulled off an incredible hoax called Project Alpha, a con job and a publicity stunt meant to improve scientific rigor and methodology when it comes to studying the possibility of the existence of psychic phenomena.

 RSS – Simplecast – Amazon Music – Audible

“Cons don’t fool us because we’re stupid, they fool us because we’re human.”

In this episode, we sit down with Brushwood, a famed stage magician and infamous instructor of the school of scams whose podcast explores the world’s greatest con artists and con jobs from World War II to modern game shows. In the new season, he tells the story of how two teenagers scammed a group of scientists into believing their subjects were powerful psychics. 

BRIAN’S TWITTER

THE WORLD’S GREATEST CON WEBSITE

The World’s Greatest Con Season Three is all about about how, in the 1970s, as teenage boys – as teenage magicians – two people worked their way into a secret psychic soldier program conducted at a hidden laboratory. Then they held a press conference about it, and things got messy.

Apple Podcasts – RSS – Google Podcasts – Simplecast – Amazon Music – Audible – Spotify

Previous Episodes

Brian Brushwood

Brian’s Twitter

The World’s Greatest Con Website

In this episode we sit down with Jennifer Shahade, a two-time U.S. Women’s Chess Champion, author, speaker, and professional poker player whose new book, Chess Queens, is the true story of the greatest female players of all time interwoven with her own experiences as a chess champion.

RSS – Simplecast – Amazon Music – Audible

OFFICIAL DESCRIPTION OF THE BOOK

For fans of The Queen’s Gambit, this is the real life story of a female chess champion travelling the world to compete in a male-dominated sport with the most famous players of all time.

Jennifer Shahade, a two-time US Women’s Chess Champion, spent her teens and twenties travelling the world playing chess. Tournaments have taken her from Istanbul to Moscow, and introduced her to players from Zambia to China. In this ultra male-dominated sport, Jennifer found shocking sexism, as well as an incredible history of the top female players that has often been ignored. But she also found friendships, feminism and hope.

Through her own story as well as in-depth profiles of pioneers of the game , Jennifer invites us into the extremely competitive world of chess. She shows us the rivalry and the camaraderie; the ecstatic highs and the excruciating losses; the glamour and the hard work. She describes the coach who told her that her period will affect her standard of play, and gives us thrilling blow by blow accounts of the matches that made history.

Intertwined with Jennifer’s own story are those of the top female players from around the world. We meet the famous Polgar sisters, the three Hungarian girls who were all child prodigies; we meet the glamorous jet setters who travel the world partying, and the players who escaped war-torn countries to become champions against the odds.

Chess Queens is a fascinating glimpse into the exhilarating world of chess and an essential book for all the aspiring chess queens of today.

Jennifer Shahade grew up in a family of gamers.

Her brother is IM Greg Shahade is founder of the PRO Chess League and the US Chess School, while her mother, Dr. Sally Solomon (1940-2013), was an avid bridge and poker player. Her father, FM Michael Shahade is a four-time state champion and taught her chess at five. Jennifer did not take to the game right away, gravitating instead to acting and writing. When she got back into it in high school, she fell in love and quickly improved, becoming a National Master at the age of 16, and the first female to win the US Junior Open. She went on to win two US Chess Women’s Championship titles and a Silver Olympic medal.

Jennifer’s joint passion for games and art led to dozens of creative projects through her career, including authoring Chess Queens, which chronicles the true stories of the top women players in history, intertwined with Jennifer’s own life. She’s also the host of two award-winning podcasts, the GRID and Ladies Knight. The show is a game within a game, as Jen fills out the entire 169 grid of possible poker hands, with no repeats.

Jennifer is the MindSports Ambassador at PokerStars and loves to show how games like poker and chess can help anyone make better decisions. Her titles include a Championship belt at the Open Face High Roller Championship in Prague. Jennifer fights to make games more inclusive through her work with US Chess Women, where she helps bring chess to girls, gender minorities and women. She’s also an ambassador for Poker Power, an organization that aims to “flip the table” and teach one million women poker.

Apple Podcasts – Google Podcasts – Spotify

 RSS – Simplecast – Amazon Music – Audible

Previous Episodes 

Jennifer Shahade’s Website

Jennifer Shahade’s Instagram

Jennifer Shahade’s Twitter

How Minds Change

David McRaney’s Twitter

YANSS Twitter

Newsletter

In an era in which we have more information available to us than ever before, when claims of “fake news” might themselves be, in fact, fake news, Daniel Simons and Christopher Chabris, authors of The Invisible Gorilla, are back to offer us a vital tool to not only inoculate ourselves against getting infected by misinformation but prevent us from spreading it to others, a new book titled Nobody’s Fool. 

 RSS – Simplecast – Amazon Music – Audible

— OFFICIAL DESCRIPTION OF THE BOOK–

From two New York Times-bestselling psychologists, “an engaging master class in how to foil purveyors of false promises” (Philip E. Tetlock, author of Superforecasting)
 
From phishing scams to Ponzi schemes, fraudulent science to fake art, chess cheaters to crypto hucksters, and marketers to magicians, our world brims with deception. In Nobody’s Fool, psychologists Daniel Simons and Christopher Chabris show us how to avoid being taken in. They describe the key habits of thinking and reasoning that serve us well most of the time but make us vulnerable—like our tendency to accept what we see, stick to our commitments, and overvalue precision and consistency. Each chapter illustrates their new take on the science of deception, describing scams you’ve never heard of and shedding new light on some you have. Simons and Chabris provide memorable maxims and practical tools you can use to spot deception before it’s too late. 
 
Informative, illuminating, and entertaining, Nobody’s Fool will protect us from charlatans in all their forms—and delight us along the way.  

It’s no secret that American health care has become too costly and politicized to help everyone. So where do you turn if you can’t afford doctors, or don’t trust them? In this book, Matthew Hongoltz-Hetling examines the growing universe of non-traditional treatments — including some that are really non-traditional.

With costs skyrocketing and anti-science sentiment spreading, the so-called “medical freedom” movement has grown. Now it faces its greatest challenge: going mainstream. In these pages you’ll meet medical freedom advocates including an international leech smuggler, a gold miner-turned health drink salesman who may or may not be from the Andromeda galaxy, and a man who says he can turn people into zombies with aerosol spray. One by one, these alternative healers find customers, then expand and influence, always seeking the one thing that would take their businesses to the next level–the support and approval of the government.

Should the government dictate what is medicine and what isn’t? Can we have public health when disagreements over science are this profound? No, seriously, can you turn people into flesh-eating zombies? If It Sounds Like a Quack asks these critical questions while telling the story of how we got to this improbable moment, and wondering where we go from here. Buckle up for a bumpy ride…unless you’re against seatbelts.

Dr. Daniel Simons [pronounced: SY-muns] is a professor of psychology at the University of Illinois where he heads the Visual Cognition Laboratory and has courtesy appointments in the Charles H. Sandage Department of Advertising and the Gies College of Business. Dan received his B.A. from Carleton College and his Ph.D. from Cornell University. His research explores the limits of awareness and memory, the reasons why we often are unaware of those limits, and the implications of such limits for our personal and professional lives. For more information, visit dansimons.com.

Dr. Christopher Chabris [pronounced: shuh-BREE] is a cognitive scientist who has taught at Union College and Harvard University and is a Fellow of the Association for Psychological Science. His research focuses on decision-making, attention, intelligence, and behavior genetics. Chris received his Ph.D. in psychology and A.B. in computer science from Harvard University. He is a chess master, poker amateur, and games enthusiast; for three years he wrote the “Game On” column in The Wall Street Journal. For more information, visit chabris.com.

Apple Podcasts – RSS – Google Podcasts – Spotify

 RSS – Simplecast – Amazon Music – Audible

Previous Episodes 

How Minds Change

David McRaney’s Twitter

YANSS Twitter

Newsletter

Dan Simon’s Website

Christopher Chabris’ Website

Nobody’s Fool

Deliberation. Debate. Conversation. Though it can feel like that’s what we are doing online as we trade arguments back and forth, most of the places where we currently gather make it much easier to produce arguments in isolation rather than evaluate them together in groups. The latest research suggests we will need much more of the latter if we hope to create a new, modern, functioning marketplace of ideas. In this episode, psychologist Tom Stafford takes us through his research into how to do just that.

 RSS – Simplecast – Amazon Music – Audible

Our guest in this episode is psychologist Tom Stafford whose latest research takes lessons learned from the Wason Selection Task, a problem 90 percent of people get wrong in isolation but that most people get right when allowed to discuss their reasoning in groups, and applies them to virtual conversation spaces with fascinating results.

Tom Stafford studies learning and decision making at the University of Sheffield. “Much of my research looks at risk and bias, and their management, in decision making. I am also interested in skill learning, using measures of behaviour informed by work done in computational theory, robotics and neuroscience. More recently a strand of my research looks at complex decisions, and the psychology of reason, argument and persuasion.”

He is the author of Mind Hacks and For Argument’s Sake, and he helps run the blog Mind Hacks. He’s written for BBC Future, The Guardian, Lifehacker, and many other publications. 

He also created The Tea Taste Test – explaining why statistics are important to psychology, using a controversy of how to make a cup of tea.

Apple Podcasts – RSS – Google Podcasts – Spotify

 RSS – Simplecast – Amazon Music – Audible

Previous Episodes 

How Minds Change

David McRaney’s Twitter

YANSS Twitter

Newsletter

Tom Stafford’s Website

Tom Stafford’s Substack

Tom Stafford’s Twitter

At the peak of COVID-19, Matthew Hongoltz-Hetling set out to write a book about the widespread pushback against masks and vaccines as away to discuss the rise of the medical freedom movement in America. But after meeting a series of people within that movement his efforts took a sharp turn into the motivations, tribulations, and personal lives of the people who sell miracle cures and dietary supplements, skirting the law when they can, and heading to jail when they can’t. The book is titled, If It Sounds Like a Quack, and it is a deep dive into the marketplace of snake oils and magical procedures sold by people who each claim to have found the one true cure for any and everything that could ever ail you. 

 RSS – Simplecast – Amazon Music – Audible

— OFFICIAL DESCRIPTION OF THE BOOK–

A Pulitzer Prize finalist’s bizarre journalistic journey through the world of fringe medicine, filled with leeches, baking soda IVs, and, according to at least one person, zombies.

It’s no secret that American health care has become too costly and politicized to help everyone. So where do you turn if you can’t afford doctors, or don’t trust them? In this book, Matthew Hongoltz-Hetling examines the growing universe of non-traditional treatments — including some that are really non-traditional.

With costs skyrocketing and anti-science sentiment spreading, the so-called “medical freedom” movement has grown. Now it faces its greatest challenge: going mainstream. In these pages you’ll meet medical freedom advocates including an international leech smuggler, a gold miner-turned health drink salesman who may or may not be from the Andromeda galaxy, and a man who says he can turn people into zombies with aerosol spray. One by one, these alternative healers find customers, then expand and influence, always seeking the one thing that would take their businesses to the next level–the support and approval of the government.

Should the government dictate what is medicine and what isn’t? Can we have public health when disagreements over science are this profound? No, seriously, can you turn people into flesh-eating zombies? If It Sounds Like a Quack asks these critical questions while telling the story of how we got to this improbable moment, and wondering where we go from here. Buckle up for a bumpy ride…unless you’re against seatbelts.

Matt Hongoltz-Hetling is a George Polk Award–winning journalist and author of A Libertarian Walks Into a Bear and If It Sounds Like a Quack.

In Matt’s words, he could be described chronologically as a “stockboy to server to business owner to poker player to cabbie to social worker to Pulitzer finalist & award-winning journalist.”

As an international journalist driven by narrative features and investigative work, he has ranged from Maine’s stately Governor’s Mansion to the mud hut of a witch doctor in Sierra Leone. When he writes, my goal is to immerse the reader into the subject’s world while telling a story with nuance and meaning. Matt enjoys enjoy finding unexplored topics, and bringing fresh perspective to existing topics.

My first book was published in September of 2020. It features the strange-but-true story of Grafton, NH, a small town that became the nexus of a collision between bears, libertarians, guns, doughnuts, parasites, firecrackers, taxes and an angry llama.

Apple Podcasts – RSS – Google Podcasts – Spotify

 RSS – Simplecast – Amazon Music – Audible

Previous Episodes 

How Minds Change

David McRaney’s Twitter

YANSS Twitter

Newsletter

Matt’s Twitter

Matt’s Website

Book Website

Marina Nitze is a professional fixer of broken systems – a hacker, not of computers and technology, but of the social phenomena that tend to emerge when people get together and form organizations, institutions, services, businesses, and governments. In short, she hacks bureaucracies and wants to teach you how to do the same. In this episode she sits down to share a variety of the insights from her book Hack Your Bureaucracy.

 Stitcher – RSS – Soundcloud – Simplecast – Amazon Music – Audible

— OFFICIAL DESCRIPTION OF THE BOOK–

Whether you just started your first entry-level job, run the entire company, or just feel trapped by your condo association bylaws, it’s time to learn how to get big things done. From local government to the White House, Harvard to the world of venture capital, Marina Nitze and Nick Sinai have taken on some of the world’s most challenging bureaucracies—and won.

Now, they bring their years of experience to you, teaching you strategies anyone can use to improve your organization through their own stories and those of fellow bureaucracy hackers. Regardless of your industry, role, or team, Hack Your Bureaucracy shows how to get started, take initiative on your own, and transform your ideas into impact.

Marina Nitze, co-author of the new book Hack Your Bureaucracy, is currently a partner at Layer Aleph, a crisis response firm that specializes in restoring complex software systems to service. Marina is also a fellow at New America’s New Practice Lab, where she works on improving America’s foster care system through the Resource Family Working Group and Child Welfare Playbook. Marina was most recently the Chief Technology Officer of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs under President Obama, after serving as a Senior Advisor on technology in the Obama White House and as the first Entrepreneur-in-Residence at the U.S. Department of Education. She serves on the advisory boards of Foster America, Smartsheet, and Think of Us; created TaskTackler, the personal productivity app for Type-A personalities; and previously authored the book Business Efficiency for Dummies. She lives in Seattle, WA.

Apple Podcasts – Stitcher – RSS – Google Podcasts – Soundcloud – Simplecast – Amazon Music – Audible – Spotify

Previous Episodes 

How Minds Change

David McRaney’s Twitter

YANSS Twitter

Newsletter

Under Alien Skies Website

Hack Your Bureaucracy

Marina Nitze 

Marina’s Twitter

Feeling stuck? Can’t build momentum to escape all the loops keeping you from moving forward? Our guest in this episode is professor, author, therapist, and speaker Britt Frank, a trauma specialist who treats people with unique and powerful techniques and approaches which help clients to get out of the feeling of being stuck.

 Stitcher – RSS – Soundcloud – Simplecast – Amazon Music – Audible

In the show, we nerd out with Britt about how hard it is to be a person, and though this interview is supposed to be about her new book – “The Science of Stuck: Breaking Through Inertia to Find your Path Forward” – at least of half of this interview turned out to be was wide-ranging conversation chasing down many nested tangents about everything from procrastination to somatic markers to trauma to the multitudes of the self and more.

— OFFICIAL DESCRIPTION OF THE BOOK–

A research-based tool kit for moving past what’s holding you back—in life, in love, and in work.

We all experience stuckness in our lives. We feel stuck in our relationships, career paths, body struggles, addiction issues, and more. Many of us know what we need to do to move forward—but find ourselves unable to take the leap to make it happen. And then we blame and shame ourselves, and stay in a loop of self-doubt that goes nowhere.

The good news is you’re not lazy, crazy, or unmotivated. In this empowering and action-oriented guide, you’ll discover why we can’t think our way forward—and how to break through what’s holding us back. Using an eclectic approach and a customizable plan that’s as direct or as deep as you want, this life-changing guide empowers you to:
 
  •  break old habits and patterns
  •  gain perspective on pain and trauma from the past
  •  free yourself from the torturous “why” questions
  •  take control of your choices to create the life you want
 
Bringing together research-backed solutions that range from shadow work to reparenting, embodied healing, and other clinical practices, along with empowering personal stories, this book is a hands-on road map for moving forward with purpose, confidence, and the freedom to become who you’re truly meant to be.

Britt Frank is a therapist, teacher, speaker, and trauma specialist who is committed to dismantling the mental health myths that keep us feeling stuck and sick.

Her work focuses on empowering people to understand the inner mechanisms of their brains and bodies. When we know how things work, the capacity for choice is restored and life can and does change. 

Whether she’s leading a workshop, teaching a class, or working individually with private clients, Britt’s goal is to educate, empower, and equip people to transform even their most persistent and long-standing patterns of thinking and doing.

This is a link to her Instagram.

Apple Podcasts – Stitcher – RSS – Google Podcasts – Soundcloud – Simplecast – Amazon Music – Audible – Spotify

Previous Episodes  

How Minds Change

Britt Frank’s Practice

The Science of Stuck Website

How to manage procrastination according to Margaret Atwood, how to work around your first-instinct fallacy, the upsides of imposter syndrome, the best way to avoid falling prey to the Dunning-Kruger effect, how to avoid thinking like a preacher, prosecutor, or politician so you can think like a scientist instead – and that’s just the beginning of the conversation in this episode with psychologist, podcast host, and author Adam Grant.

 Stitcher – RSS – Soundcloud – Simplecast – Amazon Music – Audible

In the show, we discuss both his new book – Think Again: The Power of Knowing What you Don’t Know – and his TED Original Podcast, WorkLife, in which he interviewed Margaret Atwood, the author of The Handmaid’s Tale, to learn how she deals with the constant allure of social media and streaming videos in a future where giving in to procrastination is easier than it has ever been. 

In the show, you’ll hear portions of that interview followed by a lengthy interview with Grant about his new book in this all-over-the-place, extensive exploration of how to rethink your own thinking.

— OFFICIAL DESCRIPTION OF THE BOOK–

“Intelligence is usually seen as the ability to think and learn, but in a rapidly changing world, there’s another set of cognitive skills that might matter more: the ability to rethink and unlearn.

In our daily lives, too many of us favor the comfort of conviction over the discomfort of doubt. We listen to opinions that make us feel good, instead of ideas that make us think hard. We see disagreement as a threat to our egos, rather than an opportunity to learn. We surround ourselves with people who agree with our conclusions, when we should be gravitating toward those who challenge our thought process. The result is that our beliefs get brittle long before our bones. Intelligence is no cure, and it can even be a curse: there’s evidence that being good at thinking can make us worse at rethinking. The brighter we are, the blinder to our own limitations we can become.
 
Bringing together research-backed solutions that range from shadow work to reparenting, embodied healing, and other clinical practices, along with empowering personal stories, this book is a hands-on road map for moving forward with purpose, confidence, and the freedom to become who you’re truly meant to be.”

Adam Grant is an organizational psychologist who has been recognized as one of the world’s 10 most influential management thinkers and was named one of Fortune’s 40 under 40.

​He is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of 5 books that have sold millions of copies and been translated into 45 languages: Think Again, Give and Take, Originals, Option B, and Power Moves. His books have been named among the year’s best by Amazon, Apple, the Financial Times, and the Wall Street Journal. His viral piece on languishing was the most-read New York Times article of 2021 and the most-saved article across all platforms.

Adam hosts WorkLife, a chart-topping TED original podcast. His TED talks on languishing, original thinkers, and givers and takers have been viewed more than 30 million times. He has received a standing ovation at TED and was voted the audience’s favorite speaker at The Nantucket Project. His speaking and consulting clients include Google, the NBA, Bridgewater, and the Gates Foundation. He writes on work and psychology for the New York Times, has served on the Defense Innovation Board at the Pentagon, has been honored as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum, and has appeared on Billions. He has more than 6 million followers on social media and features new insights in his free monthly newsletter, GRANTED.

Apple Podcasts – Stitcher – RSS – Google Podcasts – Soundcloud – Simplecast – Amazon Music – Audible – Spotify

Previous Episodes  

How Minds Change

Adam Grant’s Website

Adam Grant on Twitter

Think Again

In this episode, astronomer and world-famous science communicator Phil Plait joins us to discuss his new book, Under Alien Skies, in which he describes what it would be like (through human eyes and real physical experiences) to actually travel to Saturn, Mars, asteroids, and distant stars. Also, we discuss the recent surge in UFO sighting as well as his famous talk at The Amazing Meeting more than a decade ago in which he asked all science communicators and critical thinkers to approach those who believe in pseudoscience with empathy and respect instead of scorn and vitriol. And, we run through the history of James Randi’s popularization of the big-S Skeptic movement.

 Stitcher – RSS – Soundcloud – Simplecast – Amazon Music – Audible

— OFFICIAL PREVIEW OF THE BOOK–

A rip-roaring tour of the cosmos with the Bad Astronomer, bringing you up close and personal with the universe like never before.

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to travel the universe? How would Saturn’s rings look from a spaceship sailing just above them? If you were falling into a black hole, what’s the last thing you’d see before getting spaghettified? While traveling in person to most of these amazing worlds may not be possible—yet—the would-be space traveler need not despair: you can still take the scenic route through the galaxy with renowned astronomer and science communicator Philip Plait.

On this lively, immersive adventure through the cosmos, Plait draws ingeniously on both the latest scientific research and his prodigious imagination to transport you to ten of the most spectacular sights outer space has to offer. In vivid, inventive scenes informed by rigorous science—injected with a dose of Plait’s trademark humor—Under Alien Skies places you on the surface of alien worlds, from our own familiar Moon to the far reaches of our solar system and beyond. Try launching yourself onto a two-hundred-meter asteroid, or stargazing from the rim of an ancient volcano on a planet where, from the place you stand, it is eternally late afternoon. Experience the sudden onset of lunar nightfall, the disorientation of walking—or, rather, shuffling—when you weigh almost nothing, the irritation of jagged regolith dust. Glimpse the frigid mountains and plains of Pluto and the cake-like exterior of a comet called 67P. On a planet trillions of miles from Earth, glance down to see the strange, beautiful shadows cast by a hundred thousand stars.

For the aspiring extraterrestrial citizen, casual space tourist, or curious armchair traveler, Plait is an illuminating, always-entertaining guide to the most otherworldly views in our universe.

Philip Plait, PhD, is an astronomer, sci-fi dork, TV documentary talking head, and all-around science enthusiast. The author of Under Alien Skies, Bad Astronomy, and Death from the Skies!, he writes the Bad Astronomy newsletter and lives in Colorado.

Apple Podcasts – Stitcher – RSS – Google Podcasts – Soundcloud – Simplecast – Amazon Music – Audible – Spotify

Previous Episodes 

How Minds Change

David McRaney’s Twitter

YANSS Twitter

Show Notes

Newsletter

Phil Plait’s Substack

Under Alien Skies Website

Is a hotdog a sandwich? Well, that depends on your definition of a sandwich (and a hotdog), and according to the most recent research in cognitive science, the odds that your concept of a sandwich is the same as another person’s concept are shockingly low.

In this episode we explore how understanding why that question became a world-spanning argument in the mid 2010s helps us understand some of the world-spanning arguments vexing us today. 

Our guest is psychologist Celeste Kidd who studies how we acquire and conceptualize information, form beliefs around those concepts, and, in general, make sense of the torrent of information blasting our brains each and every second. Her most recent paper examines how conceptual misalignment can lead to semantic disagreements, which can lead us to talk past each other (and get into arguments about things like whether hotdogs are sandwiches).

 Stitcher – RSS – Soundcloud – Simplecast – Amazon Music – Audible

Celeste Kidd is a psychologist at Berkeley. She is a cognitive scientist and developmental psychologist who is well known for her research on human curiosity and certainty how human brains develop knowledge.

Her lab, the Kidd Lab, studies the processes involved in knowledge acquisition, especially in young children, using a combination of computational and behavioral methods.

The Kidd Lab employs a range of methods, including eye-tracking and touchscreen testing with human infants, in order to show how learners sample information from their environment and build knowledge gradually over time.

Celeste Kidd’s work has been published in PNAS, Neuron, Psychological Science, Developmental Science, and elsewhere. Her lab has received funding from NSF, DARPA, Google, the Jacobs Foundation, the Human Frontiers Science Program, and the Templeton Foundation. She is a recipient of the Hellman Fellows award, the American Psychological Science Rising Star designation, the Glushko Dissertation Prize in Cognitive Science, and the Cognitive Science Society Computational Modeling Prize in Perception/Action.

Kidd was also named as one of TIME Magazines 2017 Persons of the Year as one of the “Silence Breakers” for her advocacy for better protections for students against sexual misconduct.

Apple Podcasts – Stitcher – RSS – Google Podcasts – Soundcloud – Simplecast – Amazon Music – Audible – Spotify

Previous Episodes 

Why can’t we settle the “is a hot dog a sandwich?” debate?

How Minds Change

David McRaney’s Twitter

YANSS Twitter

Newsletter

Celeste Kidd’s Website

Celeste Kidd’s Twitter

Latent Diversity in Human Concepts

This is the third episode in a three-part series about how to have difficult conversations with people who see the world differently, how to have better debates about contentious issues, and how to ethically and scientifically persuade one another about things that matter – in short, this is a three-part series about How Minds Change (which is also the title of my new book).

There seems to be a movement afoot, a new wave of nonfiction about how to reduce all this argumentative madness and epistemic chaos. I want to boost everyone’s signal on this issue, so I thought it would be nice to collaborate instead of compete, since that’s part of what we are all proselytizing with these books.

So this episode’s guest is Anand Giridharadas, the author of The Persuaders – a book about activists, politicians, educators, and everyday citizens who are on the ground working to change minds, bridge divisions, and fight for democracy.

 Stitcher – RSS – Soundcloud – Simplecast – Amazon Music – Audible

— OFFICIAL PREVIEW OF THE BOOK–

The Persuaders is a stunning insider account of activists, politicians, educators, and everyday citizens who are on the ground working to change minds, bridge divisions, and fight for democracy.

Many Americans have grown alienated from an idea at the heart of democratic theory: that you change things by changing minds—by persuading.

This challenge to persuasion has taken myriad forms. Social movements that need to grow to win have often seemed to devote more energy to keeping people out than pulling people in. Political campaigns frequently receive advice to focus on mobilizing sympathetic voters more than winning over skeptics. People have watched as tens of millions of their loved ones mentally disappear into online rabbit holes and cults, but little organized effort is made to bring them back or protect future victims. Leaders who attempt outreach have been attacked by their own as sellouts, chided for centering those who would never ally with them anyway over those who have long had their back, if not their attention.

The tendency to write off is rooted in the assumption that differences of identity are unbridgeable, that people are too invested in their privileges and interests to change, that the failure to achieve change in the past predicts failure in the future, that people and their opinions are monolithic and strong rather than complicated and fragile, and therefore the purpose of politics is to protect yourself from Others and galvanize your own instead of trying to reach across.

In the change-making circles I had begun to follow, the political culture of the write-off had made itself strongly felt. It had helped to open an ever-widening, seemingly unsustainable gap between the ambitions for structural, material change and the utter pessimism about individual people changing. How could social transformation come to pass when so many, even those most thirsting to change things, had written off the very possibility of changing people’s minds?

The stakes of this writing off were high: some of the most dangerous and antidemocratic movements of our time had managed, in spite of those features, to make their causes appear welcoming and make newcomers feel at home, whereas some of the most righteous, inclusive, and just movements gave many the feeling of being inaccessible, intractable, and alienating.

I became drawn to a group of activists, organizers, politicians, educators, and others in these change-making circles who dissented from the great write-off and were seeking another way.

Anand Giridharadas is a writer. He is the author of Winners Take All, The True American, India Calling, and now The Persuaders. A former foreign correspondent and columnist for The New York Times for more than a decade, he has also written for The New Yorker, The Atlantic, and Time, and he is the publisher of the newsletter The.Ink. He has spoken on stages around the world and taught narrative journalism at New York University. He is a regular on-air political analyst for MSNBC.

Apple Podcasts – Stitcher – RSS – Google Podcasts – Soundcloud – Simplecast – Amazon Music – Audible – Spotify

Previous Episodes 

How Minds Change

David McRaney’s Twitter

YANSS Twitter

Show Notes

Newsletter

Anand’s Twitter

The Persuaders

This is the second episode in a three-part series about how to have difficult conversations with people who see the world differently, how to have better debates about contentious issues, and how to ethically and scientifically persuade one another about things that matter – in short, this is a three-part series about How Minds Change (which is also the title of my new book).

There seems to be a movement afoot, a new wave of nonfiction about how to reduce all this argumentative madness and epistemic chaos. I want to boost everyone’s signal on this issue, so I thought it would be nice to collaborate instead of compete, since that’s part of what we are all proselytizing with these books.

So this episode’s guest is Bo Seo, the author of Good Arguments – a book about how he became a world debate champion in which he not only teaches us how to apply what he has learned to everyday life, but imagines communities built around, not despite, constant arguing and disagreement.

Seo says that a political life without constant disagreement would be impoverished. As he puts it, quote, “Nations are, at their best, evolving arguments. As he writes, “In a liberal democracy, good arguments are not what societies should do but also what they should be.” See believes that on well curated, well moderated platforms, ones that value good faith interactions, arguing and disagreement would flip from being catalysts for polarization to the very engine of depolarization and change. In the interview, he not only tells us how to defend ourselves against bad arguments, but explains how in his mind a great democracy isn’t a place where everyone agrees and sees eye-to-eye, but one where we work to have better quality disagreements.

 Stitcher – RSS – Soundcloud – Simplecast – Amazon Music – Audible

— OFFICIAL DESCRIPTION OF THE BOOK–

Two-time world champion debater and former coach of the Harvard debate team, Bo Seo tells the inspiring story of his life in competitive debating and reveals the timeless secrets of effective communication and persuasion

When Bo Seo was 8 years old, he and his family migrated from Korea to Australia. At the time, he did not speak English, and, unsurprisingly, struggled at school. But, then, in fifth grade, something happened to change his life: he discovered competitive debate. Immediately, he was hooked. It turned out, perhaps counterintuitively, that debating was the perfect activity for someone shy and unsure of himself. It became a way for Bo not only to find his voice, but to excel socially and academically. And he’s not the only one. Far from it: presidents, Supreme Court justices, and CEOs are all disproportionally debaters. This is hardly a coincidence. By tracing his own journey from immigrant kid to world champion, Seo shows how the skills of debating—information gathering, truth finding, lucidity, organization, and persuasion—are often the cornerstone of successful careers and happy lives.

Drawing insights from its strategies, structure, and history, Seo teaches readers the skills of competitive debate, and in doing so shows how they can improve their communication with friends, family, and colleagues alike. He takes readers on a thrilling intellectual adventure into the eccentric and brilliant subculture of competitive debate, touching on everything from the radical politics of Malcom X to Artificial Intelligence. Seo proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that, far from being a source of conflict, good-faith debate can enrich our daily lives. Indeed, these good arguments are essential to a flourishing democracy, and are more important than ever at time when bad faith is all around, and our democracy seems so imperiled.

Bo Seo is a two-time world champion debater and a former coach of the Australian national debating team and the Harvard College Debating Union. One of the most recognized figures in the global debate community, he has won both the World Schools Debating Championship and the World Universities Debating Championship.

Bo has written for The New York Times, The Atlantic, CNN, and many other publications. He has worked as a national reporter for the Australian Financial Review and has been a regular panelist on the prime time Australian debate program, The Drum. 

Bo graduated from Harvard University and received a master’s degree in public policy from Tsinghua University. He is currently a Juris Doctor candidate at Harvard Law School.

Apple Podcasts – Stitcher – RSS – Google Podcasts – Soundcloud – Simplecast – Amazon Music – Audible – Spotify

Previous Episodes

Bo Seo’s Website

Good Arguments

How Minds Change

Newsletter

David McRaney’s Twitter

YANSS Twitter

This is the first episode in a three-part series about how to have difficult conversations with people who see the world differently, how to have better debates about contentious issues, and how to ethically and scientifically persuade one another about things that matter – in short, this is a three-part series about How Minds Change (which is also the title of my new book).

There seems to be a movement afoot, a new wave of nonfiction about how to reduce all this argumentative madness and epistemic chaos. I want to boost everyone’s signal on this issue, so I thought it would be nice to collaborate instead of compete, since that’s part of what we are all proselytizing with these books.

So this episode’s guest is Mónica Guzmán, the author of I Never Thought of It That Way – a book with very practical advice on how to have productive conversations in a polarized political environment via authentic curiosity about where people’s opinions, attitudes, and values come from. In short, it’s about how to reduce polarization and learn from those with whom we disagree by establishing the sort of dynamic in which they will eagerly learn from us as well.

 Stitcher – RSS – Soundcloud – Simplecast – Amazon Music – Audible

— OFFICIAL DESCRIPTION OF THE BOOK–

We think we have the answers, but we need to be asking a lot more questions. Journalist Mónica Guzmán is the loving liberal daughter of Mexican immigrants who voted—twice—for Donald Trump. When the country could no longer see straight across the political divide, Mónica set out to find what was blinding us and discovered the most eye-opening tool we’re not using: our own built-in curiosity.

Partisanship is up, trust is down, and our social media feeds make us sure we’re right and everyone else is ignorant (or worse). But avoiding one another is hurting our relationships and our society. In this timely, personal guide, Mónica, the chief storyteller for the national cross-partisan depolarization organization Braver Angels, takes you to the real front lines of a crisis that threatens to grind America to a halt—broken conversations among confounded people.

She shows you how to overcome the fear and certainty that surround us to finally do what only seems impossible: understand and even learn from people in your life whose whole worldview is different from or even opposed to yours.

Drawing from cross-partisan conversations she’s had, organized, or witnessed everywhere from the echo chambers on social media to the wheat fields in Oregon to raw, unfiltered fights with her own family on election night, Mónica shows how you can put your natural sense of wonder to work for you immediately, finding the answers you need by talking with people—rather than about them—and asking the questions you want, curiously.

Whether you’re left, right, center, or not a fan of labels: If you’re ready to fight back against the confusion, heartbreak, and madness of our dangerously divided times—in your own life, at least—Mónica’s got the tools and fresh, surprising insights to prove that seeing where people are coming from isn’t just possible. It’s easier than you think.

Mónica Guzmán is Senior Fellow for Public Practice at Braver Angels, a nonprofit working to depolarize America, founder and CEO of Reclaim Curiosity, an organization working to build a more curious world; and author of I Never Thought Of It That Way: How to Have Fearlessly Curious Conversations in Dangerously Divided Times.

Moni was a 2019 fellow at the Henry M. Jackson Foundation, where she studied social and political division, and a 2016 fellow at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University, where she studied how journalists can better meet the needs of a participatory public. Her work has been featured in The New York Times, the Glenn Beck Podcast, Reader’s Digest, BookTV, and EconTalk, and she is an advisor for Starts With Us and the Generations Over Dinner project.

Before committing to the project of helping people understand each other across the political divide, Mónica cofounded the award-winning Seattle newsletter The Evergrey and led a national network of groundbreaking local newsletters as VP of Local for WhereBy.Us.

She was named one of the 50 most influential women in Seattle, served twice as a juror for the Pulitzer Prizes, and plays a barbarian named Shadrack in her besties’ Dungeons & Dragons campaign.

Apple Podcasts – Stitcher – RSS – Google Podcasts – Soundcloud – Simplecast – Amazon Music – Audible – Spotify

Previous Episodes

Mónica Guzmán’s Website

Mónica Guzmán’s Twitter

I Never Thought of it That Way

Braver Angels

How Minds Change

Newsletter

David McRaney’s Twitter

YANSS Twitter

In this episode, we sit down with famed stage magician, infamous instructor of the school of scams, Brian Brushwood, whose new podcast explores the world’s greatest con artists and con jobs from World War II to modern game shows. 

 Stitcher – RSS – Soundcloud – Simplecast – Amazon Music – Audible

“Cons don’t fool us because we’re stupid, they fool us because we’re human.”

In this episode, we sit down with Brushwood, a famed stage magician and infamous instructor of the school of scams whose new podcast explores the world’s greatest con artists and con jobs from World War II to modern game shows. 

BRIAN’S TWITTER

THE WORLD’S GREATEST CON WEBSITE

We cover everything in this episode from why you can’t con an honest person to the power of shame and fame to folk psychology to how the British conned Hitler using one of the oldest tricks in the book to how one man broke the code for Press Your Luck earning him the most money ever awarded in a single day on any program in the history of game shows.

Apple Podcasts – Stitcher – RSS – Google Podcasts – Soundcloud – Simplecast – Amazon Music – Audible – Spotify

Previous Episodes

Brian Brushwood

Brian’s Twitter

The World’s Greatest Con Website

It’s February. It’s that time of year when we start to wonder if we might not follow through with our New Year’s resolutions. It’s that time of the year when procrastination becomes a centerpiece of our psychological concerns.

If you only just now started working and answering emails and eating properly, that this just means you are a normal human living in really weird times, and everyone else is also slowly, and begrudgingly, starting to accept the fact that it is 2023 as well

Our guest in this episode is professor, author, therapist, and speaker Britt Frank, a trauma specialist who treats people with a unique and powerful set of techniques and approaches which, taken together, help clients to get out of the feeling of being STUCK. Author of The Science of Stuck, she says, “Procrastination is not a character flaw. Nor is it a sign of weakness. Nor is it a sign of laziness.⁣ Procrastination is an indicator that internal consent has not been given. When our inner parts are distressed, afraid, sad, angry, grief-stricken or anxious, it is important to listen to their concerns, not to shame them or coerce them into action.⁣”

In the show you’ll learn about the physiological origins of procrastination – the inner brake pedal and gas pedal – and what to do to escape the two different versions of this universal challenge to getting unstuck and getting things done.

Apple Podcasts – Stitcher – RSS – Google Podcasts

Soundcloud – Simplecast – Amazon Music – Audible – Spotify

— OFFICIAL DESCRIPTION OF THE BOOK–

A research-based tool kit for moving past what’s holding you back—in life, in love, and in work.

We all experience stuckness in our lives. We feel stuck in our relationships, career paths, body struggles, addiction issues, and more. Many of us know what we need to do to move forward—but find ourselves unable to take the leap to make it happen. And then we blame and shame ourselves, and stay in a loop of self-doubt that goes nowhere.

The good news is you’re not lazy, crazy, or unmotivated. In this empowering and action-oriented guide, you’ll discover why we can’t think our way forward—and how to break through what’s holding us back. Using an eclectic approach and a customizable plan that’s as direct or as deep as you want, this life-changing guide empowers you to:
 
  •  break old habits and patterns
  •  gain perspective on pain and trauma from the past
  •  free yourself from the torturous “why” questions
  •  take control of your choices to create the life you want
 
Bringing together research-backed solutions that range from shadow work to reparenting, embodied healing, and other clinical practices, along with empowering personal stories, this book is a hands-on road map for moving forward with purpose, confidence, and the freedom to become who you’re truly meant to be.

Britt Frank is a therapist, teacher, speaker, and trauma specialist who is committed to dismantling the mental health myths that keep us feeling stuck and sick.

Her work focuses on empowering people to understand the inner mechanisms of their brains and bodies. When we know how things work, the capacity for choice is restored and life can and does change. 

Whether she’s leading a workshop, teaching a class, or working individually with private clients, Britt’s goal is to educate, empower, and equip people to transform even their most persistent and long-standing patterns of thinking and doing.

This is a link to her Instagram.

Apple Podcasts – Stitcher – RSS – Google Podcasts

Soundcloud – Simplecast – Amazon Music – Audible – Spotify

Previous Episodes

Britt Frank’s Practice

The Science of Stuck Website

Britt Frank’s Instagram

How Minds Change

Newsletter

David McRaney’s Twitter

YANSS Twitter

Quotes About Procrastination

Nick Sonnenberg doesn’t believe there just aren’t enough hours in the day to get everything done.

That’s because when his business was in crisis mode, he developed a framework for eliminating inefficiencies and preventing the sort of metawork – working on working – that leads to scavenger hunts and meetings that could be emails, and for that matter, email runarounds that get everyone ever farther from inbox zero. He turned that framework into a consultancy business, and put it all together in a new book for people who feel underwater titled Come up For Air.

iTunes – Stitcher – RSS – Soundcloud – Simplecast – Amazon Music – Audible – Spotify

OFFICIAL DESCRIPTION OF THE BOOK

“Forget the old concepts of time management and the hustle culture of working until you burn out. With the right blueprint, you and your entire team can get more done in far fewer hours. Come Up For Air is that blueprint.

Through years of building leading efficiency consulting business, Nick Sonnenberg has discovered the primary reason why so many teams are overwhelmed. It’s not because they don’t have enough time, managers expect too much of their employees, or there aren’t enough people. The problem is that everyone is drowning in unnecessary work and inefficiencies that prevent them from focusing on the work that drives results.

In Come Up For Air, you’ll discover the CPR Business Efficiency Membership, a proven system for leaders, managers, and teams to maximize their performance and reduce overwhelm by using the right tools in the right way at the right time. The end result? More output, less stress, happier employees, and the potential to gain an extra full day per week in productivity to use however you’d like.

You’ll learn the proven empirical strategies from someone who not only turned his company around when it was on the verge of bankruptcy but has also helped thousands of organizations worldwide become more efficient, leverage the right productivity tools and prepare for explosive growth.”

Nick Sonnenberg is an entrepreneur, columnist, and guest lecturer at Columbia University. He is the founder and CEO of Leverage, an operational efficiency consultancy that helps companies with time management, efficiency, and automation.

iTunes – Stitcher – RSS – Soundcloud – Simplecast – Amazon Music – Audible – Spotify

Previous Episodes

Nick Sonnenberg on Twitter

Come up for Air Website

How Minds Change

Newsletter

David McRaney’s Twitter

YANSS Twitter

Temple Grandin was born at a time when words like neurodivergent and neurotypical had yet to enter the lexicon and autism was not well understood. Since she didn’t develop speech until much later than most children, she might have led a much different life if it hadn’t been for people around her who worked very hard to open up a space for her to thrive and explore her talents and abilities. In this episode we discuss all that as well as her latest book, Visual Thinking, all about three distinct ways that human brains create human minds to make sense of the world outside of their skulls. 

iTunes – Stitcher – RSS – Patreon – Soundcloud – Simplecast – Spotify – Amazon – Audible

In this episode we sit down with psychologist Dacher Keltner, one of the world’s leading experts on the science of emotion, the man Pixar hired to help them write Inside Out. In his new book – Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life – he outlines his years of work in this field, the health benefits of awe, the evolutionary origins and likely functions, and how to better pursue more awe and wonder in your own life.

OFFICIAL DESCRIPTION OF THE BOOK

Awe is mysterious. How do we begin to quantify the goose bumps we feel when we see the Grand Canyon, or the utter amazement when we watch a child walk for the first time? How do you put into words the collective effervescence of standing in a crowd and singing in unison, or the wonder you feel while gazing at centuries-old works of art? Up until fifteen years ago, there was no science of awe, the feeling we experience when we encounter vast mysteries that transcend our understanding of the world. Scientists were studying emotions like fear and disgust, emotions that seemed essential to human survival. Revolutionary thinking, though, has brought into focus how, through the span of evolution, we’ve met our most basic needs socially. We’ve survived thanks to our capacities to cooperate, form communities, and create culture that strengthens our sense of shared identity—actions that are sparked and spurred by awe.

In Awe, Dacher Keltner presents a radical investigation and deeply personal inquiry into this elusive emotion. Revealing new research into how awe transforms our brains and bodies, alongside an examination of awe across history, culture, and within his own life during a period of grief, Keltner shows us how cultivating awe in our everyday life leads us to appreciate what is most humane in our human nature. And during a moment in which our world feels more divided than ever before, and more imperiled by crises of different kinds, we are greatly in need of awe. If we open our minds, it is awe that sharpens our reasoning and orients us toward big ideas and new insights, that cools our immune system’s inflammation response and strengthens our bodies. It is awe that activates our inclination to share and create strong networks, to take actions that are good for the natural and social world around us. It is awe that transforms who we are, that inspires the creation of art, music, and religion. At turns radical and profound, brimming with enlightening and practical insights, Awe is our field guide, from not only one of the leading voices on the subject but a fellow seeker of awe in his own right, for how to place awe as a vital force within our lives.

Dacher Keltner is a professor of psychology at the University of California, Berkeley and the faculty director of the UC Berkeley Greater Good Science Center.

A renowned expert in the biological and evolutionary origins of human emotion, Dr. Keltner studies the science of compassion, awe, love, and beauty, and how emotions shape our moral intuition.

His research interests also span issues of power, status, inequality, and social class. He is the author of the best-selling book Born to Be Good: The Science of a Meaningful Life and of The Compassionate Instinct.

iTunes – Stitcher – RSS – Patreon – Soundcloud – Simplecast – Spotify – Amazon – Audible

Previous Episodes

Dacher Kelter

Greater Good

How Minds Change

Newsletter

David McRaney’s Twitter

YANSS Twitter