Crazy Wisdom

The guys at Podcast Notes take notes on the best podcasts on the planet as a business and I thought it would be interesting to interview them about all the things they have learned. Check it out for a good synthesis of the best knowledge being produced at the moment.

I sit down with Annie Duke who is an author about randomness and uncertainty and how to work intelligently with these things while also trying to live a good life.

This is part 2 of a special series I did with Dr. Cameron Sepah about Stress and how to work with it intelligently. This particular episode goes into Dr Sepah's particular specialty, ACT or Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, which Dr. Sepah uses both clinically in his private practice and studies its efficacy at UCSF.

This is one of my favorite episodes because Dr. Cameron Sepah has done years of training on the topic of my show and just puts it all out there. All the evidenced-based knowledge we have on what stress is and the most effective ways we can work with it. Not only that but Dr. Sepah has operating experience in how to build a company in addition to clinical and academic experience in this field. This is the truth straight from someone who has experience in both theory and practice. Very good idea to listen all the way through.

I interview Nate about why he is always a customer of a product before he works or invests in the company that creates that product. We also talk about nature, fitness, ego, the gold rush and much more.

This is part of a special series I'm doing where I ask someone what they are reading, I read it, and then we have a conversation about it. Jake Chapman and I both read the book Doomsday Machine by Daniel Ellsberg about the regulation and governance around Nuclear Weapons in the United States and abroad.

Stay away from this episode if you dislike exposing yourself to things you probably consider to be "Woo". This content isn't for you. Here I talk to Howard Teich and we talk about Jung and I even do a little online therapy for everyone to see the process!

I talk with Arianna Simpson about her contrarian views on remote work as well as the current crypto market and the most interesting projects which have benefited from the quiet of the bear market.

This is part of a new series where I ask someone what they are reading, I read it, and then we record a conversation to get the main points of the book. The point is to let you the listener get access to the wisdom of a book without necessarily reading it. We both read the book "The New Dark Age" by James Bridle about the unintended consequences of technology.

I really enjoyed sitting down with Kuval who lives in India and is spitting fire on Twitter about how to make money doing what you love. We get into that as well as first principles, and the transmission of morals in the time of globalization.

Vinay is one smart dude and lays down the knowledge about neural networks as well as the stress of growing up in the middle of Illinois as a person of color. Also how that lead him to be who he is today and propels him towards success. This guy has a lot of valuable things to say.

Another episode with Kapil Gupta laying down the Truth with a capital T

Sumon is an Angel Investor and Entrepreneur, Current Chief revenue office in Plato design and had invested in 25 companies in AI, the extension of human life, and many others. We talk about the intersection of wisdom practices that are thousands of years old and modern technology.

Just interviewed @kylebrussell about his thoughts on the relationship between stress and creativity. This was one of my favorite interviews. His reading and the way he uses the knowledge he gains from reading is truly astonishing. Insights as follows. Mental models: best way to learn is to see how the mental models of others have failed or succeeded and then update your own mental model based on that. There are drawbacks to only playing with mental models. This is where intuition comes in. Intuition can be trained. Intuition can be balanced by checking intuition against the intellect. It's a process between weighing both of these and adapting the feedback from what happens back into the mental model and training intuition. System 1 and system 2 from D Kahneman. Two general types of creativity with overlap include business person and artiste. A business person is motivated to solve large problems due to external motivations such as legacy and status. They build and buy into a narrative that they are the ones to solve this huge problem. Artiste is motivated by an internal motivation to express that which is inside them. They are tortured by their un expressed creativity and must manifest it into reality. @theartistsway is a great book. Artistes are often uncomfortable with the things that they do that don't conform to the status quo. Yet this is what they have to offer the world. So the process of the artiste is to become comfortable with that which sets them apart.

Woah. This one was the hardest interview I've ever done. Kapil warned me that what he had to share was not what any of my other guests had shared before and he was right. I actually had to cut out 8 minutes of the interview because all that could be heard was silence and heavy breathing as a tried to integrate the intense truth he shared. My life has changed drastically in the few days since I have done this interview. Yours will too if you listen to this. You have been warned.

Paul drops some knowledge on how to find yourself, live more creatively while being less stressed, and find your purpose here on the planet. Really deep. I hope you enjoy.

I just interviewed Lavinia Cerasela Ionita about her work using stress biomarkers and personalized video conferencing with doctors to help people get a handle on their stress.

I sit down with my roommate David Zangwill who has a lot of interesting things to say about the relationship between stress and creativity.

I've been doing Improv for the last month to improve my ability to be more spontaneous on the podcast and I've started to fall deeply in love with doing improv. I interviewed Jill Eickmann the founder of the local improv studio I go to called Leela and I ask her about her upcoming improv festival called Femprovisor Fest.

I interviewed Maria in both English and Portuguese. This one is the English one and we go pretty deep metaphysically speaking. We even talk about moving into the 5th dimension and Maria's thoughts on the evolution of mankind and whether aliens are helping us.

I sit down with Tommy Leep who does BD at AngelList and also helps people find their life's work with his company Jetstream. We talk about how people can minimize stress while finding a new career and stress in the context of raising money from investors.

Here is my interview with Peter Rex where I interview him about his fast growing company MakeRise, as well as his experience going against the status quo.

It was very interesting interviewing someone about stress and creativity in the context of relationships. Its not something that I have thought a lot about, but lead to some wide-ranging insights. If you ask a genius where their ideas come from, none of them are able to actually tell you the answer. It comes from this place of emptiness. This is why meditation can help you become more creative. You already are creative because each thought you think is an example of fascinating creativity. You are creating your reality right now. Your brain is creating meaning out of all the information coming into your brain from your senses. Think about language and all the meanings we prescribe to it even if the other person speaking it meant a completely different thing! I asked her: How does having a stable and secure romantic partnership allow people to become more creative and to manage stress better? She gave a really powerful story about how her own relationship helped support her partner in creating an amazing statue for burning man after crowdfunding it. His car was stolen the night before filming for the crowdfunding campaign. Talk about stress!

Just did an interview with the CEO of Gitlab, Sid Sibrandij. Gitlab is a multibillion dollar company that helps developers become more efficient with less stress. One of the most interesting values they have is that they are totally transparent. They post lots of their meetings and code reviews to youtube so that everyone can see. I was able to ask Sid pretty much anything about the company and he would answer. This could be a source of stress because there is always this line between honesty and kindness. There is such a thing as being too honest and it can hurt people. A really interesting side effect of their strategy of transparency and publishing everything online is they get a whole lot of business because people just find them. That's how I found them too!

Taylor Jacobson is the CEO of Focusmate an amazing product that pairs you with a virtual coworking buddy. Both you and your coworker keep each other accountable for an hour while you pound through tasks. I reached out to Taylor because I'm a user of the product and wanted to hear his thoughts on the connection between stress and creativity.

In this episode I do things a little differently, instead of interviewing Henri Meijer, he helps me to remove limiting beliefs that get in the way of me starting and running a business. Its kind of like business therapy and I'm getting all vulnerable by showing it to my audience. Mentorship and coaching are so important but if you have never done it before it can seem quite abstract. If you've ever been interested in what it might be like, listen to this episode. Check out Henri Meijer's Linkedin for more on what he does! https://www.linkedin.com/in/henri-meijer-55461b26/

Francis has read widely and understands greatly the connection between stress and creativity as the CEO of a company that helps to automate repetitive work. We also go into how remote work is changing the relationship between stress and creativity in the corporate world.

I sit down with Eliot Peper and we talk about how the world is going through a time of great uncertainty and Eliot shares his advice on how to thrive in this uncertainty. Technological breakthrough is reaching the point of breakout acceleration and this is causing people stress because they don't know where they will end up. The old rules are gone and now the rules are changing every few years. Listen to this episode if you want to understand how to make it through.

Today I sit down with Jason and interview him about the stress that comes from managing other people. One of the most interesting things I learned is that managers should not try to be therapists. They should focus on coaching and if one of their employees is needs more therapeutic help they should be able to refer out to specialists.

In this episode I sit down with my father Stewart Alsop II to talk about being a journalist, being a VC, his favorite investments, and how he thinks about stress and anxiety.

In this episode, I sit down with Marisa Toriggino to talk about Yoga Garden and her process for starting and growing her studio.

In this episode, I sit down with Mike Maples Jr. to talk about the role stress plays in entrepreneurship.

In this episode I speak with Mark Lutter.

I sit down with Julian Weisser, who does Growth for a company called Virta Health which has figured out a way to reverse type II diabetes without the use of medication. Julian was an absolute blast to talk to and is one of those behind the scenes geniuses. He even has a framework for attaining happiness!

I sit down with Michael Gasnoriek, founder of the Truth Cartel and former co-director of Startup Grind. We talk about how to live an effective life which starts with your personal philosophy. When you've figured out your personal philosophy then you can easily figure out your strategy, tactics, and goals. Start with why and then work from there and life becomes filled with flow.

In this episode, I sit down with Arik Gohl to talk about pain, stress, and the human body.

Stewart interviews Mak Gutierrez of Hackers and Founders in Guadalajara, Mexico

Stewart interviews Chris Saad, a serial entrepreneur and former head of developer relations at Uber. We talk about how stressful it was to work for Uber, the difference between stress and anxiety and a lot of tips to actually work with anxiety, particularly what worked for Chris.

Interview with Patrick Larsen the CEO of ZenLedger

John Block of Effective Presentations

Jeff Bercovici: SF bureau chief of INC magazine

Terrence Yang of Yang Ventures

Ryan Marchman - Author and Chiropractor

Andy Alsop - CEO of The Receptionist

Cecilia Tham: Founder of MOB coworking

Julia Dujmovits - Olympic Gold Winner

Joey Greiner - CEO of Woojo