Curious Minds at Work

Have you ever felt powerless to improve the lives of those less fortunate than you? Mick Ebeling believes that the key to helping many is to start by helping just one. He shares details and examples of this in his book, Not Impossible, The Art and Joy of Doing What Couldn’t be Done. Mick explains that through this philosophy, we not only solve an immediate problem, but we also learn more about what else we can do. Thought leader, speaker, and founder of Not Impossible, Mick and his team are crowdsourcing solutions through tech to help people around the globe. Along the way, he is helping us to see how powerful each one of us is to create change in the world. Here are some of the things that came up in our conversation: How it all started when Mick connected with LA graffiti artist Tony Quan The value he places on tech to meet human and social needs The power of committing first and then figuring it out - where it leads The important role diverse team members play in solving real-world problems How taking the time to see others in your world can lead to incredible change After 7 years with ALS Tony got to draw and communicate again with the Eyewriter What happened when Tony could no longer blink? He used brain waves. The inspiring story of 3D printing and Project Daniel The story behind the powerful quote to preach always and when necessary, use words How Mick wound up taking charge on printing out 3D limbs What we learn and the impact we can have when we help start by helping one person How he got to his philosophy of helping one to help many Why his organization strives to keep innovative tech prices low How emotion plays a key role in determining which projects to take on The role of inspiring stories in picking projects and spreading the words How we do not need expertise to effect change in the world Ask why something needs to happen rather than how - why that is key Every single thing that surrounds us today was once impossible How not knowing what you cannot do is so freeing Episode Links @MickEbeling www.notimpossible.com Mick Ebeling TED Talk Tony Tempt One Quan Time Magazine Top 25 Inventions EyeWriter Cameron Rodriguez Optical character technology Open source The BrainWriter Consumer EEG Devices Project Daniel Dr. Tom Catena Richard Van As Maker Faire Gait Trainer If you enjoy the podcast, please rate and review it on iTunes - your ratings make all the difference. For automatic delivery of new episodes, be sure to subscribe. As always, thanks for listening!

Algorithms make millions of decisions about us every day. For example, they determine our insurance premiums, whether we get a mortgage, and how we perform on the job. Yet, what is more alarming is that data scientists also write the code that fires good teachers, drives up the cost of college degrees and lets criminals evade detection. Their mathematical models are biased in ways that wreak deep and lasting havoc on people, especially the poor. Cathy O’Neil explains all this and more in her book, Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy. Cathy earned a Ph.D. in mathematics from Harvard, taught at Barnard College, and worked in the private sector as a data scientist. She shares her ideas on the blog mathbabe.org and appears weekly on the Slate Money podcast. Here are some of the things that came up in our conversation: The shame she felt as a data scientist working for a hedge fund during the financial crisis How most of us trust and fear math to the point where we stop asking questions How a faulty algorithm cost a high-performing teacher her job How value-added models of evaluation miss the mark How a mathematical model is nothing more than an automated set of rules The fact that every mathematical model has built-in blindspots What is hard to measure typically does not get included in an algorithm The cost to colleges and applications of leaving price out of college ranking algorithms Crime prediction models can fail because of incomplete data The big error in the findings of A National at Risk report and how we still pay for it How poverty lies at the heart of the achievement gap What allows big data to profile people efficiently and effectively Where we may be headed with individual insurance costs because of big data Why we need rules to ensure fairness when it comes to health insurance algorithms Data scientists have become de facto policy makers and that is a problem The set of questions all data scientists should be asking The fact that FB serves up an echo chamber of emotional content to hook us How data is just a tool to automate a system that we, as humans, must weigh in on Why healthy algorithms need feedback loops Why we have a problem when we cannot improve a model or reveal it as flawed Why we need to stop blindly trusting algorithms Questions we should be asking to demand accountability of algorithm designers Episode Links @mathbabedotorg https://mathbabe.org/ Sarah Wysocki U.S. News & World Report college ranking system PredPol Rise of the Robots by Martin Ford A Nation at Risk The Achievement Gap If you enjoy the podcast, please rate and review it on iTunes - your ratings make all the difference. For automatic delivery of new episodes, be sure to subscribe. As always, thanks for listening!

What is the hidden impact of constant demands on our attention? How does it affect how we think, how we act, and how we live? We have clickbait on our mobile devices and computer screens, ads on buses, and commercials on radio and TV. But as Tim Wu, author and Professor at Columbia University Law School points out, this is a fairly recent development that has turned into a constant monetization of our attention. Tim is the author of three books: Who Controls the Internet?, The Master Switch, and most recently, The Attention Merchants: The Epic Scramble to Get Inside Our Heads. He has written for the New Yorker, the Washington Post, Forbes, and Slate magazine. He points out that this constant barrage of messaging actually shapes who we are, often without our realizing it. Highlights from our conversation include: How does what we are exposed to determine what we decide? The connection between early war propaganda and the rise of advertising How the science of advertising was built on engineering demand Why early suffragettes were hired to sell cigarettes How the Paris poster period led to an early revolt against the attention merchants How Consumer Reports grew out of frustration with ads The original remote control took the shape of a gun to blow away commercials Bringing TVs into our homes meant attention merchants now had more access 1950s provided a captive prime time TV programming audience for advertisers How advertising convinces us that to be individuals we need to buy things How novelty and unpredictability makes things addictive How idealistic tech founders work against own values in reliance on ads Tech innovation of today focused more on getting inside our minds and featuring ads Why harvesting captures so well how our attention is sought and used How such a tiny sector of the economy has such a big impact on us and how we live How spending time with others is actually a revolt against advertising Where are the sacred spaces in our lives? What is the role of public virtue in decision making today? Episode Links Tim Wu @superwuster William James Benjamin Day Herbert Kitchener George Washington Hill French Poster Period Singletasking by Devora Zack Timothy Leary Mad Men Coca-Cola Commercial Charlie Brown Christmas Special Space Invaders You’ve Got Mail Addiction by Design by Natasha Dow Schull Buzzfeed Netflix Temenos If you enjoy the podcast, please rate and review it on iTunes. For automatic delivery of new episodes, be sure to subscribe. As always, thanks for listening!

Is it possible to lead with full transparency? Can openness be the cornerstone of a large, fast-growing tech organization? These are just some of the questions that Catherine Turco answered when she spent 10 months observing all aspects of a fast-growing, high-tech company determined to build a new form of management. The result was something she calls The Conversational Firm. While she points out that it is not an easy or predictable path for leaders to choose, it is one with powerful benefits for the organization and its employees. Catherine Turco is the author of the book, The Conversational Firm: Rethinking Bureaucracy in the Age of Social Media, and an Associate Professor of Organization Studies at MIT. An ethnographer and economic sociologist, her work has appeared in the American Sociological Review and the American Journal of Sociology. In this interview, we discuss: What happens when openness in products gets applied to organizational culture What it means to apply principles of holacracy to an organization What an ethnographer learned after spending 10 months immersed in a tech company What it means to be a conversational firm How open communication and hierarchical decision making can exist side by side How leaders sharing company information can rally employees to offer solutions The power of collective problem solving through radical information sharing Why trust makes all the difference for leaders and employees The important role design plays in crafting a healthy corporate culture How an open culture is self-reinforcing How openness encourages employees to see themselves as problem solvers How openness increases employee engagement Why new approaches to company culture require new images of leadership Building a different kind of organization requires intention and focus Making the shift from punitive to educative approaches to management and leadership How the public nature of social media is helping companies get past thoughtless policies How the pros can outweigh the cons of an open work space Why the influx of tech in any org makes it easier to rethink traditional hierarchies Why harnessing the collective wisdom of employees ups meaning and engagement Why we need new models of leadership where leaders want to listen The important role thoughtful organizational culture plays for everyone Episode Links Catherine Turco Holacracy TINYpulse Silo Effect by Gillian Tett Dilbert Adria Richards Sendgrid PyCon Hipchat Slack If you enjoy the podcast, please rate and review it on iTunes. For automatic delivery of new episodes, be sure to subscribe. As always, thanks for listening!

Gratitude has a dramatic impact on well-being and success, yet many of us are not aware of this research. In this groundbreaking book, The Gratitude Diaries: How a Year Looking on the Bright Side Can Transform Your Life, Janice Kaplan explains the science behind the power of gratitude. The author of twelve books, including The New York Times bestselling memoir, I will See you Again, Janice was an award-winning producer at ABC-TV Good Morning America, Executive Producer of the TV Guide Television Group, and Editor-in-Chief of Parade Magazine. In this episode, Janice explains the surprising, counterintuitive connection between gratitude and happiness. She also shares simple steps we can take today to increase the amount of gratitude we express and how doing it can change your life. Here are some things that came up in our conversation: how a mindset of gratitude gives us control over our own happiness simple steps you can take to express gratitude right now with family and friends the mental and physical health benefits of practicing gratitude 90 percent believe gratitude makes us happier yet under 50 percent express it Our attitude toward life events determines how they impact us Choosing gratitude means gaining control and not waiting for happiness to arrive Gratitude is as simple as finding one thing each day to be grateful for When we appreciate others and show gratitude, they flourish Gratitude changes our brain Gratitude helps us sleep better, and lowers stress and blood pressure Experiences and interactions with others makes us happier than buying stuff Prioritizing gratitude helps us pay more attention Recognizing how fortunate we are helps us be more generous 81 percent say they would work harder for a grateful boss 90 percent believe grateful bosses are more successful Being appreciated is highly motivating Ambition and gratitude play nicely together - can achieve and be appreciative Gratitude can get us out of the comparison game We are built to find redeeming value in difficult life events It is not happiness that makes us grateful but rather gratitude that makes us happy Ancient Greek and Roman philosophers figured out gratitude a long time ago Share a photo of something you are grateful for Send a text of gratitude Episode Links Parade Magazine John Templeton Foundation National Gratitude Survey TSA Habituation Massachusetts General Hospital Tom Gilovich Paul Piff Monopoly game Daniel Gilbert David Steindl Rast Essentialism by Greg McKeown If you enjoy the podcast, please rate and review it on iTunes - your ratings make all the difference. For automatic delivery of new episodes, be sure to subscribe. As always, thanks for listening!

Everyone benefits from understanding great design. Whether you make products, program apps, or provide services, design plays a critical role in how effectively you accomplish your goals. And if you work in the field of design, there has never been a better time to showcase your skills. In this thought-provoking interview, John Maeda talks about all of this and more. An award-winning designer who was described as a bellwether for the design industry by Wired Magazine, John sits at the crossroads of business, design, and technology.. His TED talks have been viewed by millions, and his books have been translated into dozens of languages. John began his career Professor and Head of Research at The Media Lab at MIT. He then served as President of the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), authored a number of books, and then left academia to work as Design Partner for venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins. He now works as Global Head of Computational Design and Inclusion at open-source tech firm, Automattic. John shares what he has learned along the way. Insights from our interview include: How the arduous practice of engineering informs his perspective on design How he was raised not to know what he could not be How curiosity is about having an openness to now knowing How much of what he saw in Silicon Valley was reminiscent of MIT How resilience can increase with curiosity How each challenge he has chosen stretches him How creatives often lack confidence - a normal occurrence for them How a brilliant professor taught him to say I do not know The three kinds of design that exist right now How digital design is constantly changing, immature How design thinking is a powerful strategy for understanding users How schools can benefit from real-world practice Why stepping out of academia was important for his understanding of the world Why the addictive aspect of tech is not a problem for him How he is always looking for new people to learn from Why he wishes we were talking less about beauty in design and more about effectiveness How he wishes design were more about who we can serve rather than trends How he is asking how design can be more inclusive How we can get caught up in making things in our own image through design The fact that design tends to come to the foreground only once the tech matures The challenges of leading and working with people in design How he is learning to work in a 100 percent remote tech company Episode Links John Maeda @JohnMaeda MIT Media Lab Rhode Island School of Design Kleiner Perkins Automattic Rudolf the Red-nosed Reindeer Design Report 2016 Walker and Company, Bevel Brand Grindr Jackie Xu Justin Sayarath The Inevitable by Kevin Kelly Harry Potter by J. K. Rowling Matt Mullenweg of Automattic Paul Graham of Y Combinator CRISPR If you enjoy the podcast, please rate and review it on iTunes. For automatic delivery of new episodes, be sure to subscribe. As always, thanks for listening!

It is essential to achieve our goals, yet few of us practice it. It is emotional agility -- the ability to navigate the thoughts, feelings, and stories we tell ourselves as challenges arise. This does not mean ignoring how we feel or wallowing in those emotions. And it is certainly not about just being happy all the time. It is about recognizing that the monologue inside our heads is not in control of us but, rather, we are in control of it. That is something Susan David knows a lot about. Author of the book, Emotional Agility: Get Unstuck, Embrace Change, and Thrive in Work and Life, she is a psychologist on the faculty of Harvard Medical School, Co-Founder and Co-Director of the Institute of Coaching at McLean Hospital, and CEO of Evidence Based Psychology. Her writing has been featured in numerous publications, including Harvard Business Review, Time, Fast Company, and The Wall Street Journal. Insights from our interview: How we deal with our thoughts and emotions impacts our well being In a time of unprecedented complexity we need to be agile and responsive We get hooked when we treat our thoughts and emotions as facts How we can be blind to what is right in front of us The fact that we will look for information to support the stories we make up We engage with thought blaming when we give too much power to our thoughts We need to let go of our need to be right Between stimulus response, there is a space where we can choose When we bottle emotions our emotions, we miss out on what they can teach us When we brood or give too much space to thoughts and emotions, we get stuck Brooding prevents closure and moving forward Our consumer culture can make us feel that we are not good enough When we extend compassion to ourselves we are more open to change Constant comparison to others sets up a never ending competition Giving language to our emotions helps us make plans and solve problems Journaling thoughts and feelings for just 20 minutes a day can be life changing When we walk our why, we are more resilient and focused Walking our why helps us overcome social contagion The value of tweaking our emotions from have to to want to Making the shift from have to to want to is about prioritizing our values Have to language makes our brains rebel and is about obligation and shame Our brains are wired to make us comfortable - the unfamiliar feels unsafe Aim for a state of whelm, rather than over- or underwhelmed Emotional labor is the difference work demands and how we feel How many workplaces are operating out of old industrial models? How to raise emotionally agile children? Help them identify and label emotions. Courage is not the absence of fear. Courage is fear walking. Faced with complexity, we are less likely to collaborate, innovate or relate Complexity requires we develop inner skills Episode Links Susan David @SusanDavid_PhD Emotional Agility article in HBR Victor Frankl Charles Darwin James Pennebaker Take Pride by Jessica Tracy NYTimes article - Teaching Your Child Emotional Agility The Quiz - Emotional Agility Report - Susan David How Levis Is Building Well-Being Programs Where They Matter Most: In Factories by Adele Peters If you enjoy the podcast, please rate and review it on iTunes. For automatic delivery of new episodes, be sure to subscribe. As always, thanks for listening!

How do breakthroughs happen? Not how we think. Movies, books, and articles, constrained by time and word limits, often leave out the realities -- the messy work, filled with dead ends, abandoned questions, and accidental discoveries. That is what Stuart Firestein, Professor of Biological Sciences at Columbia University, wants to change. He believes that the roles ignorance and failure play in the discovery process are vastly underappreciated, so much so that he has written two books about them, Ignorance: How It Drives Science, and Failure: Why Science is So Successful. An advisor for the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation program for The Public Understanding of Science, Stuart shares insights from his own work as a successful researcher and scientist and from those of his peers, as well as scientific philosophers and historians. Insights from our interview: Knowledge and facts are important insofar as they help us ask better questions Conscious ignorance offers a useful playground for discovery The messy process of science and discovery is where the value lies The disconnect between scientific textbooks and courses and actual science The innovative course he teaches that helps students gain a scientific mindset What it is that makes a problem interesting How scientists, researchers, and creatives look for connections Why failure can be useful even if it never leads to an eventual success The fact that the more expert a person is the less certain they will be How systems limit innovation Why we need better tools for assessment and evaluation in schools Why we need feedback tools that are more diagnostic and less judgmental Why he worries most about people who dislike or are disinterested in science Why he sees his lab as a cauldron of curiosity How writing books requires a different way of looking at things How philosophy and history can impact science in an interactive way Episode Links Stuart Firestein @FiresteinS Be Bad First by Erika Andersen Is the Scientific Paper a Fraud by Peter Medawar James Clerk Maxwell Principles of Neuroscience Eric Kandel Kenneth Rogoff D.H. Lawrence Do No Harm by Henry Marsh MCAT NIH NSF Sidney Brenner Michael Krasny Karl Popper Thomas Kuhn Isaiah Berlin If you enjoy the podcast, please rate and review it on iTunes. For automatic delivery of new episodes, be sure to subscribe. As always, thanks for listening!

Want to succeed in work and life? Be bad first. Do not confuse this with the familiar call to fail fast (so often heard in the startup world in recent years). This is a longer game. It is about getting comfortable with being novices and of committing to learning new, hard skills that take years to acquire. In a world of rapid-fire change, constant connection, and lots of choices, it is a necessary goal. Erika Andersen, wants to teach us how to do just that. Erika is the Founder of Proteus, author of three books on leadership, and a Forbes contributor. She shares concrete tips and great examples in her latest book, Be Bad First: Get Good at Things Fast to Stay Ready for the Future. Insights from our interview: The key skill for success in the 21st century Why being bad first is not about failing fast or failing forward How open are we to learning new ideas? Less open than we say. How we hate being bad at things but love getting good at things How our desire for mastery can work in our favor with new challenges How hard are you clinging to the skills you have? How is that working for you? Four mental skills crucial for learning How Michelangelo successfully navigated being bad first The role innovation plays in getting ourselves to learn new things How to put our self talk to work for us rather than against us How we cannot get the help we need if we do not know our gaps How to revise and reframe our negative self talk What does healthy curiosity look like in adulthood? Confused about curiosity? Watch a 3-year-old! Get curious by unleashing your drive to understand Value the expertise of others enough to ask them questions Expected to be expert in your field? Beware of asking these questions. Want to reclaim your innate curiosity? Start with your hobbies! Anti-curiosity strongly connected to negative self talk Risk-free way to practice being bad first? Write with your non-dominant hand. It is impossible to be good at something you have never done - remember that Learning something new? Find your bridge - the part you know something about. Three things we need to believe in order to change our behavior. When leaders model new behaviors, change goes faster in their orgs Every year, pick something new to be bad at. Episode Links @ErikaAndersen Erika Andersen Rookie Smarts by Liz Wiseman Duolingo If you enjoy the podcast, please rate and review it on iTunes. For automatic delivery of new episodes, be sure to subscribe. As always, thanks for listening!

Is pride a deadly sin or a key to our survival? Will it lead us down a destructive path or can it actually help us resist temptation? In this conversation, Jessica Tracy answers these questions and more. Jessica is a Professor of Psychology at the University of British Columbia and author of the book, Take Pride: Why the Deadliest Sin Holds the Secret to Human Success. Her research has unearthed findings that help us see just how important pride is for human progress and survival. Her discussion of pride takes us beyond associations of boastfulness and arrogance, in order to understand how feelings of pride can boost creativity, encourage altruism, and confer power and prestige in ways that benefit us as individuals and as a society. In this interview, we talk about: Why we need pride to feel good about ourselves The fact that pride is innate, rather than learned The body language we associate with pride and what it signals How residents of Burkina Faso helped us recognize that pride is universal How philosophers like Aristotle and Rousseau helped us see pride as positive How studying narcissism clued us into key aspects of pride The fact that there are two kinds of pride - authentic and hubristic What we learned when we asked people to talk about times when they felt pride How the speech of one political candidate included both aspects of pride Why asking if you are a voter vs if you will vote makes you more likely to vote How we can resist temptation by imagining the pride we will feel if we do How displays of pride convey status and why that is important What residents of Fiji taught us about pride, status, and evolution Why we evolved to have hubristic pride and the dominance that comes with it The connection between prestige and authentic pride How people with hubristic pride dominate through fear How dominant leaders are better at helping groups solve problems How prestigious leaders cultivate creativity and innovation in groups The fact that cultural ideas evolve through learning How pride motivates us to create and make things better How pride helps us want to teach and share and let others copy When people show pride in answering questions observers will copy them The fact that pride guides social learning How pride helps helps scientists make progress - they want to be right and it feels good when that happens Why we did not evolve to be selfless - we evolved to build a sense of self How hubristic pride is about a false sense of self and why it leads to shortcuts Why our sense of self is different from that of any other animal To what extent do pride and shame drive bad behaviors? Episode Links http://ubc-emotionlab.ca/people/dr-jessica-tracy/ @ProfJessTracy Dean Karnazes and Ultramarathon Man The Gratitude Diaries by Janice Kaplan Cumulative cultural evolution Lance Armstrong If you enjoy the podcast, please rate and review it on iTunes. For automatic delivery of new episodes, be sure to subscribe. As always, thanks for listening!

We produce more wind and solar power than ever before, yet coal, oil, and gas constitute over 90 percent of our energy sources. Why? Blame it on the grid. While our electrical grid was once an engineering marvel, today it is the Achilles heel of energy efficiency. In her book, The Grid: The Fraying Wires between Americans and Our Energy Future, McGill University Professor Gretchen Bakke explains why. A former Fellow in the Science in Society Program at Wesleyan University, she holds a Ph.D. in cultural anthropology from the University of Chicago. In this interview, Bakke shares how our grid became what it is today and offers fascinating insights into the technologies, personalities, and policies that got us here. Along the way, she explains all the fascinating ways innovators are helping us rethink it and what the future of energy looks like. In this interview, we talk about: What the U.S. electrical grid actually is The history that informs the grid Why it matters when we use electricity Why the more we invest in green energy the more fragile our grid becomes How our current grid binds us to non-renewable energy sources How overgrown trees, sagging power lines, and a computer glitch caused a massive blackout in 2003 How electricity became a monopoly and a commodity How grid complexity works against complete reliance on alternative energy The good, the bad, and the ugly of smart meters Why energy storage is the holy grail of the energy business The innovation of vehicle-to-grid initiatives The feasibility of wireless electricity How an energy platform can help us reimagine the grid How an energy cloud can help us de-regionalize our reliance on energy sources What a cultural anthropologist brings to our understanding of the grid The values and history embedded in our electrical grid The fact that we made the grid and the grid makes us Whether choreography serve as a tool for helping us rethink power Episode Links Arc lamp Charles Edison Charles Brush Samuel Insull National Energy Act PURPA Energy Policy Act of 1992 Enron Walkable City by Jeff Speck Vehicle to grid Elon Musk The Paris Talks Energy cloud If you enjoy the podcast, please rate and review it on iTunes. For automatic delivery of new episodes, be sure to subscribe. As always, thanks for listening!

Do good people discriminate more often than they think? That is exactly what a team of researchers found when they analyzed the thoughts and reactions of millions of people around the world. Harvard University Professor of Social Ethics, Mahzarin Banaji, author of the book, Blindspot: Hidden Biases of Good People, shares surprising findings from Implicit Association Tests taken by over 18 million people from over 30 countries. What she reveals may surprise you. Banaji is the recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim and Rockefeller Foundations, as well as the Radcliffe and Santa Fe Institutes. She and her co-author Anthony Greenwald, Professor at Washington University, have spent their careers uncovering the hidden biases we all carry when it comes to issues like race, gender, age, and socioeconomics. In this interview, we talk about: How knowing our blindspots can help us innovate How we can measure the extent of our biases with the Implicit Association Test How the implicit association test can launch a dialogue around bias Who we say is American versus who we really believe is American How our tendency is to be curious and to want to learn about ourselves How much we want to know is a measure of our smart we are The role competition and social knowledge play in motivation to learn and grow Why we need to get beyond learning about it to doing something about it The importance of what we are willing to do to address our biases Knowledge of bias helps us rethink hiring, law, admissions, medicine, and more Bias in our minds hurts us, too The fact that implicit bias starts as young as 6 years old Disappointing differences in explicit vs implicit love of our ethnic or racial group What is not associated with our groups in society gets dropped from our identities Bias and discrimination can come from who we help How referral programs can reinforce bias and lack of diversity A tip on how to ensure referral programs cultivate diversity The fact that we all like beautiful people and how that harms us Ways to outsmart our biases What symphony orchestras can teach us about overcoming bias in hiring The fact that good people can and do have bias How we will be perceived by future generations if we can address our biases Whether Mahzarin likes science fiction Episode Links @banaji http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~banaji/ Anthony Greenwald Implicit Association Test Fitbit Inclusion Conference 2016 What Works by Iris Bohnet Social imprinting Group identity Stanley Milgram Abu Ghraib My Lai Massacre If you enjoy the podcast, please rate and review it on iTunes. For automatic delivery of new episodes, be sure to subscribe. As always, thanks for listening!

What stands between us and meaningful work? Email! It is killing our productivity and distracting us from the creative work we crave, yet we spend over a quarter of our work week on it. What is behind our addiction and what can we do about it? Jocelyn Glei, author of the book, Unsubscribe: How to Kill Email Anxiety, Avoid Distractions, and Get Real Work Done, explains the science behind our addiction and offers strategies for prioritizing meaningful work. Jocelyn is the founding editor of 99U and editor of three productivity books, including the bestseller, Manage Your Day-to-Day. In this interview, we talk about: The challenge of living in an age of distraction Why it is easier to be busy than to focus on meaningful work How, on average, we check email 11 times an hour and process 122 emails daily How we spend over a quarter of work time on email How the random rewards of email keep us addicted How completion bias makes us strive for inbox zero How designs like progress bars and percentages speak to our completion bias How our negativity bias influences every email that we read How empathy, emoticons, and punctuation can compensate for negativity bias The fact that email goes awry because of a missing social feedback loop How empathy goes a long way in overcoming email negativity bias Email is great for asking but awful for declining The difference between an email asker and an email guesser What it means to do creative, meaningful work Steps we can take to ensure meaningful work rules the day The role momentum plays in doing meaningful work Why we need to synchronize calendars with to-do lists How scarcity of time and resources impacts capacity, mindset, and attitude Tech setups to help us avoid frequent email checks How the best way to fail at email is to rely on program defaults Why the more we check our email, the less happy we are How segmenting emails senders helps us decide which emails to ready by when The fact that not all email messages are created equal How quickly we respond to emails sets expectations How to ensure your emails stand out How productivity can be about what we choose not to do Why we need to spend more time deciding than doing Why it is about leaving a legacy Episode Links @jkglei http://jkglei.com/ B. F. Skinner Daniel Goleman and emotional intelligence Mark McGuinness Scarcity: Why Having Too Little Means So Much Gloria Mark Manage Your Day to Day Clayton Christensen If you enjoy the podcast, please rate and review it on iTunes. For automatic delivery of new episodes, be sure to subscribe. As always, thanks for listening!

Is there a formula for innovation? Yes! And the most successful individuals, teams, and organizations rely on it to achieve their goals. Innovation psychologist, bestselling author, and Founder of the leading innovation firm in Australia, Inventium, Amantha Imber has worked with organizations like Google, Disney, LEGO, and Virgin. In her book, The Innovation Formula: The 14 Science-backed Keys for Creating a Culture Where Innovation Thrives, she distills the science behind game-changing innovation and offers concrete examples of what leaders can do to cultivate it in their teams. In this interview, we talk about: What it means to democratize innovation in our organizations Innovation as change that adds value What happens when we assign projects for challenge vs capacity The Imagination Breakthroughs Project at GE The diminishing returns of cash rewards for performance Why leaders are trading cash for time to support innovation Guarding against groupthink in long-standing teams The value in walking in stupid for doing innovative work The kind of leadership that sets the most innovative organizations apart Why leaders should do innovative work rather than delegate it How the Kickbox project helps companies like Adobe spark innovation Why blue-sky brainstorming is a lazy way to innovate Innovative ways Engineers without Borders and Tata Group learn from failure The power of assuming abundance by sharing generously Why we need a certain level of noise to do creative work Hack-in-a-box to support student innovation and entrepreneurship Episode Links @amantha http://www.inventium.com.au/ Jeff Immelt of GE Imagination Breakthroughs at GE Wieden + Kennedy Advertising Originals by Adam Grant Adobe Kickbox project Tata Group Engineers without Borders If you enjoy the podcast, please rate and review it on iTunes. For automatic delivery of new episodes, be sure to subscribe. As always, thanks for listening!

How do we make time for creative work, and how do we sustain it? Amy Whitaker, author of Art Thinking: How to Carve Out Creative Space in a World of Schedules, Budgets, and Bosses, tells us how. Writer, artist, researcher, and teacher, Amy works at the intersection of art and commerce. She holds an MBA from Yale and an MFA from the Slade School of Fine arts. She is also a professor at New York University. In this interview, we talk about: Why art and creativity are responsible for our greatest human contributions That art is the opposable thumbs equivalent of what makes us human How creativity is about personal discovery and contribution The fact that creativity is not a distant land of mythic geniuses and art theorists The value in taking a wide-angle or systems view for art thinking The role of play and creativity in important scientific discoveries How to develop a habit of studio space for creative work Why it is normal to feel disoriented and vulnerable while creating The importance of working in the weeds to feel alive Why we need to trade discernment for judgment Whether we are standing at the easel versus sitting in the armchair The power of becoming a good noticer How creatives are inventing point B rather than moving toward it When Roger Bannister broke the 4-minute mile and what it did for running Inspiring ways to manage creatives Why managing is about creating the space for creatives to do their work The importance of good enough versus perfect or right Why creatives need to think about the letter versus the envelope Why we need to have our own metaphors Thoughts on Leonardo da Vinci if he were alive today Why we need to find language for the middle space Episode Links http://www.amywhit.com/ @theamywhit Thomas J. Fogarty Takahiko Masuda Target blindness Brene Brown Amy Poehler Harper Lee Actor-observer bias Truman Capote Reframe: Shift the Way You Work, Innovate, and Think by Mona Patel Kristian Still Dialectical behavioral therapy Amy Schumer Cubism Brexit Roger Bannister and YouTube video of him breaking the 4-minute mile Donald Keough and New Coke If you enjoy the podcast, please rate and review it on iTunes. For automatic delivery of new episodes, be sure to subscribe. As always, thanks for listening!

Smart machines are coming, so what are we doing about it? Instead of cowering in fear, what if we took a proactive approach? What if there were a playbook we could use to anticipate and thrive in an increasingly automated world? In his book, Only Humans Need Apply: Winners and Losers in the Age of Smart Machines, Thomas Davenport, offers ways to accomplish that goal. His book is a guide for employees and students who want to know what they can do to work successfully with smart machines. Tom is a Professor in Management and Information Technology at Babson College and co-founder of the International Institute for Analytics. He is also a Fellow of the MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy and a Senior Advisor to Deloitte Analytics. He teaches analytics and big data at Babson, Harvard, MIT, and Boston University and has written over 17 books In this interview, we talk about: What the number of bank tellers working today can tell us about smart machines 10 reasons to look over your shoulder for smart machines in your own work What separates humans from machines The 4 markers of machine smartness and which one we are living now Why employers should aim for augmentation vs automation wherever possible How smart machines can liberate us to do more creative and valuable work Augmentation at its best in freestyle chess How we can step in with machines in the workplace Why we would want to step up with machines in the workplace What it looks like to step forward with machines in the workplace How we might step aside with machines in the workplace How some are stepping narrowly with machines in the workplace Why every organization needs an Automation Leader Why we need to get past STEM as the only solution The important role organizations play in providing professional learning Why Tom argues against universal basic income How companies can be more resilient in a digital age with increased competition The fact that so few of our political leaders are talking about this big shift Episode Links @tdav http://www.tomdavenport.com/ Oxford Study on The Future of Employment Bricklaying Robots Ex Machina Freestyle chess Former WaMu Risk Officer Stretch by Karie Willyerd 2020 Workplace Report If you enjoy the podcast, please rate and review it on iTunes. For automatic delivery of new episodes, be sure to subscribe. As always, thanks for listening!

Multitasking is a myth. And we are poorer for trying to do it. The research shows that we have less productivity, more stress, diminished creativity, and poorer relationships when we try to do many things at once. And yet, in a hyper-connected world, we can often feel like we have no other choice. And yet, if we honored how are brains are designed, we would see that singletasking is the answer. That is the message and the research that Devora Zack, author of Singletasking: Get More Done -- One Thing at a Time, wants you to hear. And she gives practical tips about how to do it even in the most frenetic of moments. Devora is the author of two previous books, Networking for People Who Hate Networking and Managing for People Who Hate Managing, and CEO of Only Connect Consulting. She’s worked with clients at Cornell University, London Business School, and Deloitte, and is a visiting faculty member at Cornell University. Her work has been featured in Fast Company, Forbes, and the Wall Street Journal. In this interview, we talk about: The myth of multitasking How single tasking ups our productivity and creativity and state of flow Using time shifting to avoid a multitasking mindset The price we pay for multitasking The fact that excessive media multitaskers have trouble remembering Why single tasking requires us to commit to a choice Tips for starting small with single tasking The three different ways most of us make sense of the world and why they matter How accessibility and our need to please can prevent us from single tasking Why single tasking lets us bring the best version of ourselves to what we do The fact that some prefer to shock themselves than sit in silence How device-free staff meetings can increase focus and productivity A great tip for being more fully present with friends and family Ways to build fences to prevent interruptions before they occur The power of cluster tasking with tasks we do daily What we can do and say when colleagues interrupt us Tips for open plan offices and colleague interruptions What team members think and feel about leaders who single task The connection between happiness and single tasking Episode Links @Devora_Zack http://www.myonlyconnect.com/ Deep Work by Cal Newport People Prefer Electric Shocks to Being Alone with Their Thoughts Slow Reading Club If you enjoy the podcast, please rate and review it on iTunes. For automatic delivery of new episodes, be sure to subscribe. As always, thanks for listening!

Can you trust your memory? Probably not. Research shows that we can be convinced fairly easily that we are guilty of a crime we did not commit. We not only misremember information, but we can misremember information about the wrong person. Add to that the fact that when someone else tells us how they remember something, it can alter our memory of that same event, person, or situation. These insights, along with many others from memory research, are changing how we think about law and order, learning, and what makes us human. False memory researcher and criminal psychologist, Julia Shaw, is one of only a handful of experts in the field. A senior lecturer and researcher in the Department of Law and Social Sciences at London South Bank University and author of The Memory Illusion: Remembering, Forgetting, and the Science of False Memory, she works with members of the military and law enforcement. She is also a regular contributor to Scientific American. In this interview, we talk about: What the blue-gold dress phenomenon revealed about how our brains work Why we need less evidence to convict someone who looks less trustworthy Why we form stronger memories when others are same race, age, or gender Why we reminisce most strongly about moments from our teens and 20s Why we have rosy memories of most of our firsts in life What actually happens in our brains when we form a memory How memories get stamped in our brains The fact that we simply cannot multitask - it is humanly impossible - and why Why it is that whenever we remember we also forget How to get someone to think they saw Bugs Bunny at Disneyland Why we should write things down rather than try to remember them Why understanding how unreliable our memories can be is liberating How attention is the glue between reality and your memory The vital importance of sleep to build lasting memories How we all suffer from overconfidence when it comes to our memories Why there is a right way to ask questions when we need to gather information How to avoid asking leading questions that may create false memories How photos can prompt false memories The fact that we implant false memories in each other all the time How creating memories with others may ensure more accurate memories How social media can result in muddled memories Why we need to continually update memories to learn Why the flexibility of our brains -- and our memories -- is a beautiful thing How we can convince people they committed crimes that never happened How false memory research can change the legal system How we can mistake the false memories of others for lying Episode Links http://www.drjuliashaw.com/ @drjuliashaw London South Bank University The Dress Own race bias Reminiscence bump Rohypnol Retrieval-induced forgetting The Honest Truth about Dishonesty by Dan Ariely If you enjoy the podcast, please rate and review it on iTunes. For automatic delivery of new episodes, be sure to subscribe. As always, thanks for listening!

We all share, but today, millions get paid for it. Is this new trend just a fad or is it radical rethink for how we work? When we catch a ride with an Uber driver or contract with someone on Upwork, we marvel at the convenience. What we often overlook is the amount of trust it takes to ride with a stranger or to work with someone we may never meet. Yet that level of trust is what is driving the sharing economy, a form of commerce that harkens back to the 11th-century Maghribi traders. In his book, The Sharing Economy: The End of Employment and the Rise of Crowd-based Capitalism, NYU Stern Professor Arun Sundararajan provides the context and the history for how we got here. He also paints a picture for where we are headed, particularly when it comes to labor and safety policies and regulations. A recognized authority on the sharing economy, he has written for the New York Times, Wired, the Financial Times, and Harvard Business Review. In this interview, we talk about: What makes the sharing economy similar to 18th-century commerce How we are making the shift away from corporate buying to peer purchasing How the sharing economy is blurring the lines between personal and professional How the pendulum is swinging back to relationships, connections, and gifts How the sharing economy speaks to our yearning for making and connection What the 11th-century Maghribi traders can teach us about trust and commerce Ways the sharing economy encourages us to do a better job Whether the sharing economy can reduce inequality How the sharing economy requires different labor regulations and policies How the government can partner with platforms to rethink regulations How labor regulations were designed for an era of full-time workers Why our economy will increasingly rely on stakeholders other than government How blockchain tech promises a world where crowd is market maker Why trust is embedded in this economic shift How new forms of trust will enable new forms of commerce What is it about digital cues that help us trust one another? Episode Links Arun Sundararajan @DigitalArun The Gift by Lewis Hyde Robert Nesbitt Sherry Turkle Karl Marx Emile Durkheim Maghribi Traders Capital by Thomas Piketty The Inevitable by Kevin Kelly New York University Stern School of Business Upcounsel HourlyNerd Gigster Upwork BlaBlaCar Blockchain technology If you enjoy the podcast, please rate and review it on iTunes. For automatic delivery of new episodes, be sure to subscribe. As always, thanks for listening!

Is there a secret to lasting power? Yes, and Dacher Keltner has been teaching leaders about it for decades. And the secret is not the ruthless, manipulative approach associated with 15th-century politician and writer Niccolo Machiavelli. It is actually the opposite. As a University of California, Berkeley, Professor of Psychology, and Founder and Director of the Greater Good Science Center, Dacher Keltner shares research-based insights he has gained. And in his latest book, The Power Paradox: How We Gain and Lose Influence, he discusses a new science of power and 20 guiding power principles. In this interview, we talk about: How the legacy of Niccolo Machiavelli continues to inform power Why power is about so much more than dominance, manipulation, and ruthlessness Why we need to question a coercive model of power The short- versus long-term impact of different kinds of power Why power is about lifting others up Why lasting power is given, not grabbed The important role that reputation, gossip and esteem play in who gains power How, within days, group members already know who holds the power What makes for enduring power How our body language and words speak volumes about power Why Abraham Lincoln is a fascinating study of empathetic power The fact that great and powerful leaders are incredible storytellers How feeling powerful makes us less aware of risk How feeling powerful makes us less empathetic, attentive and responsive to others How feeling powerful actually overrides the part of our brain that signals empathy How drivers of more expensive cars (46 percent) tend to ignore pedestrians How powerful people often tell themselves stories to justify hierarchies The price we pay for powerlessness Concrete ways we can cultivate enduring, empathetic power Gender and power Why the key to parenting is to empower children to have a voice in the world Episode Links Dacher Keltner Greater Good Science Center Frans de Waal The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli Thomas Clarkson and the abolition movement Why Civil Resistance Works by Erica Chenoweth and Maria J. Stephan House of Cards The 100-Year Life by Lynda Gratton and Andrew Scott What Works by Iris Bohnet Arturo Behar and Facebook Greater Good in Action Science of Happiness course on edX If you enjoy the podcast, please rate and review it on iTunes. For automatic delivery of new episodes, be sure to subscribe. As always, thanks for listening!

Average is a myth, so why should it control our lives? We measure ourselves -- and others -- against averages all the time. Think GPAs, personality tests, standardized test results, performance review ratings. These are average measures that tell us little about what makes us unique. And this is not just a feel-good argument. It is a mathematical fact. In his bestselling book, The End of Average: How We Succeed in a World that Values Sameness, researcher, professor, and president of The Center for Individual Opportunity at Harvard, Todd Rose, explains the history of average and how it became so embedded in our culture. He goes on to explain why now, more than ever, we need to move beyond its impact on our schools and our workplaces. In this interview, we talk about: How the concept of average has done us more harm than good The courage of a brilliant scientist to question average for the greater good What newborns and chubby thighs can teach us about the limitations of average How innovative organizations are tapping into the wisdom of jaggedness for hiring Why organizations are relying on CodeFu to find great programming talent Why the personality test industry is bigger than ever and more bankrupt Why personality traits are context dependent, not inherent or static Why unlocking the context of behavior can be game changing in helping kids The important connection between environment and self control Why faster does not equal smarter Why we need to get rid of fixed-pace learning in schools Thoughts on competency-based versus grade-based learning Shifting from diplomas to micro-based credentials Giving individuals more say in their learning pathways What Todd Rose thinks about personalized learning and personalization Why we need to keep equity at the forefront What dark horses may have to teach us Episode Links @ltoddrose http://www.toddrose.com/ The Center for Individual Opportunity Adolphe Quetelet Francis Galton Edward Thorndike Peter Molenaar Esther Thelen and her study on newborn stepping reflex IGN CodeFu Matthew B. Crawford and The World Beyond Your Head: Individuality in an Age of Distraction Yuichi Shoda Celeste Kidd Khan Academy Equifinality Ogi Ogas Kevin Kelly and Wired If you enjoy the podcast, please rate and review it on iTunes. For automatic delivery of new episodes, be sure to subscribe. As always, thanks for listening!

Do we shape tech or does it shape us? Turns out it is both. And that is just 1 of the 12 big ideas Kevin Kelly explores in his latest bestseller, The Inevitable: Understanding the 12 Technological Forces That Will Shape Our Future. The Inevitable is a playbook to guide us through the seismic changes in life and work, caused by technologies becoming exponentially faster and smarter. Kelly, Co-founder, former Executive Editor, and now Senior Maverick at Wired Magazine, takes us on a futuristic -- and highly believable ride -- from start to finish. Former publisher and editor of Whole Earth Review and Cool Tools, he is the author of other thought-provoking and visionary books, like New Rules for the New Economy, Out of Control, The Silver Cord, and What Technology Wants. Kelly embodies what it means to be curious! In this interview, we talk about: Why continual tech upgrades will make us perpetual newbies Why Kevin favors protopia, instead of utopia or dystopia What it means to cognify Why artificial intelligence is a feature, not a bug Why we want and need the different kinds of intelligence that comes with AI How we will work with robots to solve big problems How robots will free us up to be artists, scientists, inventors, and creatives How many of our jobs will be to invent jobs for the robots around us How our technology places us in streams and flows that are dynamic, interactive, and chronological Why personalization and immediacy will be better than free How filters may negotiate on our behalf and sharpen our understanding of who we are Why virtual reality is about presence and, more importantly, interactivity Why one day anything that is not interactive will be considered broken How interactivity will one day extend beyond our bodies to our emotions, facial expressions, voices, and more Why if it matters, we will be able to tell whether it is human or nonhuman Why tracking is inevitable and transparency around our data is a must What Kevin means by covalence when it comes to our data How we will come to a deeper, more nuanced understanding of privacy Two things Kevin worries about As AIs become more capable and integrated into our lives, how will we treat them? As cyber conflicts and cyber wars continue, what rules will we establish? How will our technology change us? The importance of thinking much longer term than a generation or a corporate quarter What a global government might look like and how we might get there Episode Links @kevin2kelly http://kk.org/ Wired Whole Earth Review Protopia Game of Thrones The Third Wave by Steve Case The Quantified Self The Fitbit Blockchain Bitcoin Boston Dynamics Quadrupeds Star Trek If you enjoy the podcast, please rate and review it on iTunes. For automatic delivery of new episodes, be sure to subscribe. As always, thanks for listening!

Are you prepared to live to 100? Research shows that it is becoming the norm, but that few of us are planning for it. Many are surprised to learn that it not only requires rethinking saving and retirement, but also education, jobs, and relationships. To guide us, London Business School Professor and future of work expert, Lynda Gratton, has written The 100-Year Life: Living and Working in an Age of Longevity. In addition to her many books, Lynda writes for Harvard Business Review, The New York Times, and Forbes. She points out the possibilities, as well as the challenges, associated with living longer lives. Lynda also encourages us to plan for what lies ahead, so that we can take full advantage of this opportunity. In this interview, we talk about: What learning will look like as we continue working into our 70s and 80s Why working well with robots will decrease our odds of obsolescence How generational markers, such as millennials, limit how we think about work and life Why we will become age agnostic as people of all ages learn and work together Are you building, maintaining, or depleting current skills? The secret to increasing our adaptability and willingness to change Three new life stages that are upending how we think about life and work Are you spending your free time in recreation or re-creation, and why it matters? The important role experimentation will play in our lives as we live longer How marriage and friendships will change as we live longer lives Why juvenescence holds the key to navigating a longer life Why we should be worried about wealth disparity Why living longer will push organizations to rethink work policies and expectations Why individuals and families - not most organizations - will guide us in innovating Episode Links @lyndagratton www.100yearlife.com 100 Year Life Diagnostic London Business School World Economic Forum Andrew Scott Future of Work Consortium The Shift: The Future of Work is Already Here by Lynda Gratton Stretch by Karie Willyerd and Barbara Mistick If you enjoy the podcast, please rate and review it on iTunes. For automatic delivery of new episodes, be sure to subscribe. As always, thanks for listening!

More than 99 percent of our decisions are shaped by others. From the clothing we buy to the cars we drive to the political candidates we vote for, our choices are the results of the invisible influence of those around us. And once we recognize that, we start to see our behavior -- and the behavior of others -- in a whole new way. Jonah Berger, marketing professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, has spent 15 years studying the ways that influence impacts our lives. He wrote about it in his bestselling book, Contagious: Why Things Catch On, and, now, in his latest book, Invisible Influence: The Hidden Forces that Shape Behavior. In this fascinating and compelling interview, he shares insights on: Two reasons why we often overlook the power of influence What animals can teach us about learned behaviors When peers can improve our performance and when they can work against it A common trait among most elite athletes The power of the Goldilocks Effect when it comes to designing products and services What cockroaches can teach us about performance and peers The secret to changing behavior The power of proximal peers in motivating ourselves and others Episode Links @j1berger www.jonahberger.com Contagious: Why Things Catch on By Jonah Berger Livestrong Monkeys Adept at Picking up Social Cues The Goldilocks Effect Segway The Horsey Horseless Robert Zajonc and Social Facilitation Dan Yates and Opower If you enjoy the podcast, please rate and review it on iTunes. For automatic delivery of new episodes, be sure to subscribe. As always, thanks for listening!

Want to hire, evaluate, and collaborate more effectively? The same design principles that are changing how we think about products and services can improve our talent management. Iris Bohnet, author of What Works and Professor of Behavioral Economics at Harvard University, tells us how. In this interview, Bohnet shares fast and inexpensive ways we can de-bias our organizations. She pinpoints how simple improvements can provide big gains for managers and employees. In our conversation, we talk about: How behavioral design can help us hire and retain the best talent Why interviews are a poor predictor of future performance How work sample tests ensure better hiring How blind employee screening widens opportunities for job candidates What we can learn from how orchestras hire musicians Why we need to stop holding group interviews The challenges of employee self-evaluation Why we need gender-neutral language in job descriptions Why diverse groups are more effective and less enjoyable What critical mass does for groups and organizations How tokenism can overshadow expertise The important role political correctness plays in resetting norms How acting differently - or watching others act differently - can change behavior Episode Links Iris Bohnet Heidi Roizen Competence but disliked dilemma Implicit association bias Hannah Riley Bowles Work Rules by Laszlo Bock @ThereseHuston How Women Decide by Therese Huston If you enjoy the podcast, please rate and review it on iTunes. For automatic delivery of new episodes, be sure to subscribe. As always, thanks for listening!

What if our distractions are robbing us of our individuality? Philosopher-machinist Michael B. Crawford noticed just how much attention we give up -- often against our will -- to all the distractions strategically placed in front of us, from commercials on ATM screens to blaring airport televisions. He has written a guidebook to identifying the sources of lost attention, and he makes suggestions for how to get it back. Matthew is a Senior Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture at the University of Virginia. He is also a fabricator of components for custom motorcycles. His first book, Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry into the Value of Work, prompted a rethinking of education and labor policies in the U.S. and Europe, leading the London Sunday Times to call him “one of the most influential thinkers of our time.” His latest book, The World Beyond Your Head: On Becoming an Individual in an Age of Distraction gets at the heart of what it means to be human. In this conversation, we talk about: Silence as a resource as important as air, food, and water The high price we are increasingly forced to pay to avoid distractions All the ways distractive tech makes us more alike The connection between deep work and independent thinking The overlooked intellectual side of hard labor How personalizing experiences can make them unreal How reclaiming the real requires submitting to something or someone else Why doing and taking action results in knowing The Maker Movement as an attempt to reconnect with what makes us human How machine-based design can lead to addiction, compulsion, and loss of control The fact that most schooling is disconnected from real-world learning Why trust lies at the heart of deep learning How traditions of learning offer opportunities for deep connections Episode Links Matthew B. Crawford Reclaimed Fabrication Cal Newport Deep Work by Cal Newport Shop Class as Soulcraft by Matthew B. Crawford Addiction by Design by Natasha Dow Schull Aristotle Descartes Michael Polanyi If you enjoy the podcast, please rate and review it on iTunes. For automatic delivery of new episodes, be sure to subscribe. As always, thanks for listening!

Do you fear becoming obsolete? Liz Wiseman offers a solution. Rather than run from challenging roles, seek them out. In fact, in a world where 85 percent of your knowledge could be irrelevant in as little as 5 years, this strategy may be the key to maintaining and advancing a successful career. Liz is the bestselling author of Rookie Smarts: Why Learning Beats Knowing in the New Game of Work. She helps us see how taking on a new challenge, especially when it feels like a stretch, gives us the best chance of staying relevant in an ever-changing world. She also points out the immense value of rookies for our organizations, particularly in leadership and mentoring roles traditionally reserved for more experienced workers. A frequent contributor to Harvard Business Review, Fortune, the Wall Street Journal, Fast Company, Entrepreneur, Inc. and Time, Liz has been named one of the top 10 leadership thinkers in the world, and her firm has worked with organizations like Apple, Disney, eBay and Google. In this conversation, we talk about: Why what we know is less important than how fast we can learn Why we should take jobs that we are not qualified for How experience may get in the way of what we most need to learn How experience can actually decrease our relevance and performance over time How choosing jobs that involve inquiry and discovery will keep us relevant Why one of the most valuable aspects of learning something new is the struggle involved Why rookies bring in 5 times the expertise of experts Why we need to watch out for mediocre thinking to stay relevant The link between surfing with the rookies and testing your assumptions What effective reverse mentoring looks like Why the word leadership may not mean what you think Anti-perfectionism and the power of keeping things small Liz is curious about what distinguishes between a rookie and a novice with rookie smarts. She wonders why some people persist while others give up. She is equally curious about why so many senior leaders look and feel so broken and what we can do about it. Episode Links @LizWiseman The Wiseman Group Oracle and Oracle University and Larry Ellison Fortran Growth Mindset and Carol Dweck Stretch by Karie Willyerd Herminia Ibarra and Act Like a Leader, Think Like a Leader Bob Hurley of Hurley International Wayne Bartholomew C K Prahalad of the University of Michigan Pareto Principle If you enjoy the podcast, please rate and review it on iTunes. For automatic delivery of new episodes, be sure to subscribe. As always, thanks for listening!

When it comes to risk, confidence, and stress, who handles them better, men or women? Believe it or not, just asking this question shows we have a lot to learn. Turns out it is not about better, but about different. And while conventional wisdom often has us thinking women are indecisive, risk averse, and fragile, those perceptions are far from what research reveals. In her groundbreaking book, How Women Decide: What Is True, What Is Not, and What Strategies Spark the Best choices, Therese Huston, founding Director of the Center for Excellence in Teaching & Learning at Seattle University, clues us in. Armed with a doctorate in cognitive psychology from Carnegie Mellon, she is a contributing writer for The New York Times and Harvard Business Review. Therese pinpoints what the research reveals around perceptions of women. Perhaps even more importantly, she discusses several research-based strategies for overcoming these misperceptions. In this conversation, we talk about: How we misunderstand female decision making The mistake parents make when dealing with daughters on the playground The bias in the term risk averse and the term that should replace it Two traits that make the top 10 list for men but not for women Who pays a higher price for failure The risks women take when they speak up A dating app with unique features for women Confidence as a dial we need to turn up or down, depending on the situation Which gender has the more appropriate level of confidence Two things women can do to overcome negative perceptions of self-promotion How men and women differ when under pressure to make a crucial decision Strategies to avoid being nervous before an important event Why failure trumps regret Episode Links @ThereseHuston Daniel Kahneman The Honest Truth about Dishonesty by Dan Ariely Chip and Dan Heath Pew Research Center 2015 Study on What Makes a Good Leader Barbara Morrongiello What Women and Men Should Be by Deborah Prentice and Erica Carranza Victoria Brescoll We Are Way Harder on Women Who Make Bad Calls by Therese Huston The Center for Advanced Hindsight Siren dating app and CEO Susie Lee OkCupid Linda Babcock If you enjoy the podcast, please rate and review it on iTunes. For automatic delivery of new episodes, be sure to subscribe. As always, thanks for listening!

If you are searching for your natural talents, think again. Award-winning psychologist, Anders Ericsson, is reshaping our conception of innate ability versus learned skills. Anders has spent decades unearthing the secrets of expertise, and his research shows that the experts sitting at the top of most fields do not have more innate ability than their peers, they have more time spent in guided practice. Anders shares his fascinating findings in his book, Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise. Along the way, he corrects our misconceptions around 10,000 hours of practice, and helps us see how we can master just about any skill at any age. He also points out how important it will be to understand high performance as we change jobs and careers with increasing frequency. In this conversation, we talk about: The myth of the prodigy or naturally talented performer Choosing a goal and pursuing it rather than waiting to find a particular gift or talent The advantages for children when parents enjoy the skill they are teaching How gaining expertise in one area helps us gain expertise in other areas What high performers do that is different from the rest of us Differences in our brains as we shift from amateur to expert The difference between what experts and novices do with information How hard it is to get good by yourself and why nothing beats an expert teacher Anders plans to spend more time learning about the kind of concentration involved in deliberate practice. He hopes to develop ways for us to find the time and energy to engage in the kinds of training and to develop the kinds of habits needed to perform at the highest level. Episode Links Improvement in Memory Span by Pauline Martine and Samuel Fernberger (1929) William G. Chase The Knowledge London cab drivers test Alexander Alekhine Mental representations Top Gun Project Guitar Zero by Gary Marcus If you enjoy the podcast, please rate and review it on iTunes. For automatic delivery of new episodes, be sure to subscribe. As always, thanks for listening!

We like to think that cheating is limited to criminals and other wrongdoers. But what if it were true that the majority of people cheated most of the time? That is exactly what has been revealed in the extensive research of Dan Ariely, Professor of Psychology and Behavioral Economics at Duke University. Dan has found that not only do most people cheat, but that it is true even of the service providers that we trust the most, such as our accountants and our doctors. Even more surprising, traditional deterrents, such as harsher punishments, do not have any effect. His work has profound implications for our work, our families and our society. Founder and Director of the Center for Advanced Hindsight, Ariely is the author of the bestselling books, Predictably Irrational, The Upside of Irrationality, Irrationally Yours, and the book we discuss in this interview, The Honest Truth about Dishonesty: How We Lie to Everyone -- Especially Ourselves. In this conversation, we talk about: How dishonesty is a lot more common than we think How most punishments do very little to eliminate dishonesty Why conflicts of interest, like team or company loyalty, make it harder to be honest The role creativity plays in dishonesty Why it is so important to get a second medical opinion The reason the slippery slope of dishonesty is so frightening How a good cause - a charity or a loved one - can cause us to cheat even more The important role simple rules can play in keeping us honest Dan also shares his theory on what may actually have caused the Volkswagen emission crisis, and he talks about the topic of his most recent work - hate. Episode Links @danariely danariely.com Mensa Enron Gary Becker and Simple Model of Rational Crime (SMORC) Cost-benefit analysis Mortgage-backed security Prada Harpers Bazaar Signaling Coach Donald Sull and Simple Rules: How to Thrive in a Complex World The Dishonesty Project documentary Joseph M. Papp cyclist Volkswagen Yael Melamede of Salty Features Pilates If you enjoy the podcast, please rate and review it on iTunes. For automatic delivery of new episodes, be sure to subscribe. As always, thanks for listening!

Steve Case, co-founder of America Online, believes that Internet companies have grown in three successive waves. Tech entrepreneurs spent the first wave getting us on the Internet. They spent the second wave connecting us to the apps and platforms they built on top of it. Now, in the third wave, innovative partnerships and policies will help entrepreneurs rethink large parts of our daily life, such as healthcare, food, and education. That is the argument Steve makes in his award-winning and bestselling book, The Third Wave: An Entrepreneurs Vision of the Future. Steve was the co-founder of America Online, the first Internet company to IPO, and Chair, Founder, and CEO of Revolution, a DC-based investment firm. In this interview he talks about the challenges early tech entrepreneurs like him faced, and he paints a picture of the challenges and opportunities to come. He also talks about the power of entrepreneurship to support ongoing innovation in the kinds of sectors that impact the lives of millions of people around the world. In this conversation, we also talk about: How Steve got his start as a tech entrepreneur Key differences between entrepreneurship today versus decades ago The story behind AOL Lessons learned from the TimeWarner acquisition Why entrepreneurs need vision and thoughtful execution to succeed Key factors and skills that will set Third Wave entrepreneurs apart Possibilities for healthcare, education, and food industry disruption The important role government will play in the Third Wave What Steve means by the Rise of the Rest for Third Wave entrepreneurship Why Steve gets so excited about food entrepreneurship The power of impact investing for companies, employees, and investors Why he chose to write a book about the future instead of the past Steve plans to spend the next 10-15 years of his life making the ideas of the Third Wave a reality. He believes his book offers a framework and that it is up to leaders like him to support the kinds of diverse people and companies who will put that framework into action. Episode Links @SteveCase The Third Wave: An Entrepreneurs Vision of the Future by Steve Case The Third Wave: The Classic Study of Tomorrow by Alvin Toffler Agricultural Revolution Industrial Revolution P&G Pepsico Atari Modem AppleLink Apple IBM Sears RadioShack White Label product Time Warner Microsoft Thomas Edison The Creators Code by Amy Wilkinson Khan Academy MOOCs Snapchat Drones Driverless cars Total addressable market (TAM) Revolution Foods Sweetgreen Impact investing BlackRock Bain & Company If you enjoy the podcast, please rate and review it on iTunes. For automatic delivery of new episodes, be sure to subscribe. As always, thanks for listening!

While bitcoin and blockchain may sound like something from science fiction, they have become powerful tools to help us rethink banking and finance. What began as a cypherpunk vision has become a viable model of currency and exchange for everyone with access to a Smartphone, from the unbanked in Afghanistan to the urban hipster in New York City. Eager to learn more about where bitcoin and blockchain technology has come from and where it is headed, co-authors Michael J. Casey and Paul Vigna researched and wrote the bestselling book, The Age of Cryptocurrency: How Bitcoin and the Blockchain are Challenging the Global Economic Order. In this interview, Michael J. Casey, Senior Advisor to the Digital Currency Initiative at the Media Lab at MIT and former global finance columnist for The Wall Street Journal, shares what they learned and why we should care. In this episode, we talk about: Connections to science fiction, cryptography, and cypherpunks The blockchain and bitcoin origin story What it means to decentralize the banking system The mystery of Satoshi Nakamoto Trust and the huge role it plays in launching a new currency How it all started when someone bought a pizza What bitcoin and blockchain mean for us as customers and as business owners How blockchain and bitcoin can upend industries from medicine to music What this tech means for the poor and unbanked How mobile tech, bitcoin, and blockchain are empowering millions Ways Wall Street is already co-opting ledger tech for its own purposes How this tech will govern the economy of the future Episode Links @mikejcasey http://www.michaeljcasey.com/ Satoshi Nakamoto Cypherpunk Cryptography Michel Foucault Hyperinflation Deflation Casa de cambio Laszlo Ripple Ethereum MIT Internet of Things Micropayment www.dougrushkoff.com Oliver Luckett The Audience If you enjoy the podcast, please rate and review it on iTunes. For automatic delivery of new episodes, be sure to subscribe. As always, thanks for listening!

Productivity strategies do not work if we are focused on the wrong things. What we really need is an effective system for determining what is absolutely essential and the discipline to work on that thing. We need criteria that empower us to select our highest priority, and a strategy for eliminating everything else. My guest, Greg McKeown has designed this system, and he has written about it in his award-winning bestseller, Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less. In addition to his writing and speaking, Greg is CEO of THIS, Inc., a Young Global Leader for the World Economic Forum, and a lecturer at Stanford University. In this interview he shares incidents in his own life that led him to develop this system, as well as the elements that make the system powerful. In this episode, we talk about: How we forget our power to choose How our language shapes how we view the world How our priority became priorities and what that means for our lives Non-essentialism as a form of malware that has infected all areas of our lives How the smartest, most driven, capable, and curious people are the most vulnerable to non-essentialism Why we need to retire in our roles in order to gain perspective and get our lives back How a list of 6 can get us to our number one priority A game-changing way to use our journals as reflective, proactive tools The power of small wins The downside of email-to-email living Why technology makes a good servant but a poor master What it means to protect the asset in order to lead an essential life The unimportance of practically everything How discerning what is essential gives us the courage to push back on what is not Teaching young people how to focus on what is essential The three historical waves of non-essentialism or how we got here Why you want to be an essentialist before the busyness bubble bursts The trade off between our highest contribution versus what we got done today Greg also talks about how he is making a deliberate choice to hold off on his second book in order to focus on his highest contribution. He explains how challenging it is to do that and how aware he is of the trade offs he is making along the way. Episode Links @GregoryMcKeown http://gregmckeown.com/ Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown Panem - bread and circuses World War II Facebook Tulip mania Deep Work by Cal Newport @JaniceKaplan2 http://www.janicekaplan.com/ If you enjoy the podcast, please rate and review it on iTunes. For automatic delivery of new episodes, be sure to subscribe. As always, thanks for listening!

We may believe that successful entrepreneurs possess innate abilities that set them apart, but what if those skills are just the result of practice and experience? That is the conclusion of Amy Wilkinson, bestselling author of The Creators Code: The Six Essential Skills of Extraordinary Entrepreneurs. She performed five years of interviews with the founders of organizations such as LinkedIn, eBay, Under Armour, Tesla Motors, Spanx, Airbnb, and PayPal. The result? She learned that these entrepreneurs share six common skills that made them successful. Perhaps more importantly, she contends that these are things that any of us can learn. Wilkinson is a strategic adviser and lecturer at Stanford Business School. Her career spans leadership roles with McKinsey and J.P. Morgan. She has served as a White House fellow, special assistant to the U.S. Trade Representative, and as a senior fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School. In this episode, we talk about: How successful entrepreneurs seek not to be first, but rather, to be only Why creators hold the key to a new economy The importance of finding the gap between what is and what can be How we can train ourselves to spot problems and see them as opportunities How Starbucks built its success on the concept of lift and shift Ensuring success by looking forward versus looking back Why you might need to fire yourself in order to innovate How nostalgia holds us back What the OODA Loop can teach us about entrepreneurship Why we all need to build a failure ratio into our work in order to grow The power of networking minds to solve big problems How you can be creative, innovative, and entrepreneurial within your current organization Episode Links @amywilkinson AmyWilkinson.com Elon Musk and Tesla and Zip2 Kevin Plank and Under Armour and the University of Maryland and the Terrapins Howard Schultz and Starbucks Nascar Driving School Chris Guillebeau and Born for This: Find the Work You Were Meant to Do Andy Grove of Intel Gordon Moore of Intel John Boyd and OODA Loop and Paypal Billpoint Palm Pilot Youtube Yelp Digg Founders Fund Clarion Capital Palantir Jessica Herrin and Stella and Dot InnoCentive BP Oil AOL If you enjoy the podcast, please rate and review it on iTunes. For automatic delivery of new episodes, be sure to subscribe. As always, thanks for listening!

Fear of job obsolescence ranks higher for most people than their fear of dying! Only half of workers today believe their skills will be valuable three years from now, and of this group, only a third feels their companies are providing the kinds of training they need to do anything about it. That means the learning is on us, and we need strategies for navigating this strange new world. Karie Willyerd has answers. Karie is the author of Stretch: How to Future-proof Yourself for Tomorrow’s Workplace. She is the Workplace Futurist for SuccessFactors, an SAP company, and the co-author of The 2020 Workplace: How Innovative Companies Attract, Develop, and Keep Tomorrows Employees Today. Her articles and blogs appear regularly in Harvard Business Review, and she has been a Chief Learning Officer for five Fortune 500 companies. In this episode, we talk about: How, no matter where we work, it is on us to manage our professional learning What our professional learning has to do with Al Capone Why millennials really are not that different from everyone else The one thing that 83% of executives agree on Five practices we can use to stay current The power of a diverse network What it means to: learn a living A powerful system for reflection with a triple loop for learning What a reverse mentor is and why we each need one Why we need new experiences in our work When to throttle down on productivity in order to learn new skills Why bouncing forward is so much better than bouncing back What it means to become an enhanced employee Karie also shares insights on the power of virtual reality for learning and building relationships. Episode Links @angler Gallup Report - Employee Engagement Findings SAP Oxford Economics Al Capone Sell-by date David Kelly and IDEO Farai Chideya and The Episodic Career Mark Granovetter and the concept of weak ties Adam Grant and Give and Take Harvard Learning Innovation Labs New York Times New Work Summit NFL Disney If you enjoy the podcast, please rate and review it on iTunes. For automatic delivery of new episodes, be sure to subscribe. As always, thanks for listening!

Named one of ten most influential thinkers in the world by MIT, Doug Rushkoff asks some seriously big questions on this episode of Curious Minds. The biggest one is: what if an economy predicated on growth is unsustainable? Growth at companies like General Electric (GE) used to mean jobs for hundreds of thousands of people. That same growth, at companies like Facebook and Google, yields, at most, tens of thousands of jobs. As growth-oriented tech companies absorb more jobs through smarter tech and automation, is this an opportunity to rethink the nature of work, jobs, and the overall economy? Doug Rushkoff asks us to consider that topic in his latest bestselling book, Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus: How Growth Became the Enemy of Prosperity. Rushkoff is a professor of media theory and digital economics at Queens College, CUNY. He is the bestselling author of a dozen other books, including Present Shock, Program or Be Programmed, and Life Inc. In this episode, we talk about: Why Doug sees growth as the culprit in our current economy The unmet promise of technology and the long tail for artists and creatives How big data analytics reduces unpredictability and, thereby, innovation Ways more of us can take ownership of the platforms putting us out of work How it is not the job we want but the meaning, purpose, and material benefits work gives Money as a verb How currency tools like blockchain can help us rethink power and authority Twitter as a textbook case of tech success but growth company failure How digital distributism can trump digital industrialism The shift from tech as energizing to energy sucking Ruskhoff also talks about how he thinks about technology use in his own life, including which tools he chooses to use and why. Episode Links @rushkoff www.rushkoff.com Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus by Doug Rushkoff eBay Etsy Operating system Bazaar Crusades Burning Man Acquisition IPO Wired Chris Anderson Long Tail The Long Tail by Chris Anderson Free by Chris Anderson Mondo 2000 Boing Boing Ponzi scheme Alan Greenspan Taylor Swift Power law dynamics Distributism Venture capital Capital gains tax Blockchain Bitcoin PGP - pretty good privacy Distributism Marxism Capitalism Marshall McLuhan Peer-to-peer economy Lendingtree Fintech Faustian bargain Private equity Flip this house Michael Dell The Sixth Extinction by Elizabeth Kolbert If you enjoy the podcast, please rate and review it on iTunes. For automatic delivery of new episodes, be sure to subscribe. As always, thanks for listening!

Technology and globalization are reshaping work, but what can we do about it? What approaches should we take as organizations do more with fewer employees? How can we think about our careers as we hold more jobs over the course of our lives, often from different fields? What skills do we need and what mindsets should we hold? Farai Chideya, author of The Episodic Career: How to Thrive at Work in the Age of Disruption, helps us answer these questions. Through her research, reporting, and work experience, she offers insights into what has changed and what we can do. Farai is a Distinguished Writer in Residence at New York Universitys Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute, an award-winning author, journalist, professor, and she frequently appears on public radio and cable television, speaking about race, politics, and culture. In this episode, we talk about: The most important step you can take before starting a job search Counterintuitive ways to find local jobs and to use your social network How a learning mindset can ensure greater career success Why emotional resilience is the new superpower The upside of an episodic career Why a tech-informed mindset is a must-have no matter your job Farai also shares her curiosity about American life and the American dream and how a changing world of work is influencing these things. She wonders how new technologies will change how we live. Episode Links @Farai http://www.farai.com The Episodic Career: How to Thrive at Work in the Age of Disruption by Farai Chideya New York University Journalism Institute Facebook Google Virtual reality Artificial intelligence Robotics Automation Data journalism Farai and the FiveThirtyEight Blog Decision tree Rise of the Robots by Martin Ford Encore.org CRISPR If you enjoy the podcast, please rate and review it on iTunes. For automatic delivery of new episodes, be sure to subscribe. As always, thanks for listening!

We each have work we were born to do, but it can take time and effort to find it. Becoming comfortable with the search is half the battle, because we need to try different kinds of jobs and work environments. With each experience we gain greater insight into the skills and knowledge we have to share, and we find our perfect blend of work, skills and meaning. In his latest book, Born for This, Chris Guillebeau, bestselling author of The $100 Startup and The Happiness of Pursuit, shares his own experiences and the stories of the many people he has interviewed, to help us navigate this process and choose our own path. Chris is the creator and host of The World Domination Summit, and a successful entrepreneur, speaker, and blogger. After a 10-year personal quest, he has visited every country in the world. In this episode, we talk about: Why you see yourself as self-employed, even if you work for someone else The joy-flow-money framework for evaluating creative opportunities What it means to bet on yourself The environments that support your best work The skills you most need to learn (and they are not what you think they are) Why giving up is actually a good thing Strategies for hacking new products and services Why curiosity is so important Episode Links @ChrisGuillebeau ChrisGuillebeau Born for This by Chris Guillebeau The $100 Startup by Chris Guillebeau The Happiness Pursuit by Chris Guillebeau The World Domination Summit Steve Jobs Seth Godin Facebook Shenee Howard Manifest Destiny If you enjoy the podcast, please rate and review it on iTunes. For automatic delivery of new episodes, be sure to subscribe. As always, thanks for listening!

We are taught to think before we act. But what happens when we need to act in order for that thinking to make sense? Herminia Ibarra’s research suggests that is exactly the case when learning to lead. Based on decades of research, teaching, experience, and interviews, her latest book, Act Like a Leader, Think Like a Leader, outlines ways that we can assume larger leadership roles. Her work also confirms that, until we adjust to these new roles and responsibilities, we may feel fake or unlike ourselves. All of that is normal. Herminia is a Professor of Leadership and Learning at INSEAD and the Founding Director of The Leadership Transition program. In this episode, we talk about: The small but crucial changes we can take on a daily basis to step up to leadership Ways to redefine our jobs to make more strategic contributions What it means to diversify our networks for learning Ways to inject playfulness into how we see ourselves to ensure growth and change Why it is natural to feel like a fake when we take on new roles and responsibilities How to network within rather than outside of or on top of our jobs The importance of taking action over spending time endlessly reflecting and thinking Episode Links @HerminiaIbarra http://herminiaibarra.com Act Like a Leader, Think Like a Leader by Herminia Ibarra Working Identity: Unconventional Strategies for Rethinking Your Career by Herminia Ibarra Outsight Principle Mark Snyder Steal Like an Artist by Austin Kleon Zelig If you enjoy the podcast, please rate and review it on iTunes. For automatic delivery of new episodes, be sure to subscribe. As always, thanks for listening!

Should we expect distractions at work? Or are we unwittingly cooperating in our own ineffectiveness? In this conversation, Cal Newport, bestselling author of Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World, shares how deep work has become the superpower of the 21st century. Cal argues that today’s workplace is a minefield of distractions. With email, open floor plans, and instant messaging systems, we’re continually pulled away from meaningful, productive work. And the very tools our workplaces rely on to promote productivity are actually contributing to increased distraction and inefficiency. Learning to take control of our own attention is not only the key to a meaningful life, but it is the key to economic viability in a distracted age. Cal is Assistant Professor of Computer Science at Georgetown University, as well as the bestselling author of five books. His ideas and writing are frequently featured in major publications, and he is author of the popular blog, Study Hacks. In this episode, we talk about: What makes deep work so valuable How deep work makes life more meaningful What deep work looks like and how little distraction it takes to ruin it Why boredom is actually the key to doing deep work Why relationships hold the key to deep work Why we should be teaching young people to engage in deep work The value of being lazy when it comes to deep work Why you need a philosophy for doing deep work Cal also shares his deep curiosity to rethink cognitive workflows in a post-industrial age. Episode Links @CalNewport Calnewport.com Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World Georgetown University MIT Slack Eric Barker The Second Machine Age by Andrew McAfee and Erik Brynjolfsson Madmen Adam Grant Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania Sophie LeRoy and attention residue Jack Dorsey Square Twitter Industrial Revolution Henry Ford Scientific management Assembly lines Knowledge worker Wilhelm Hofmann Roy Baumeister How to Live on 24 Hours a Day by Arnold Bennett Downton Abbey The Collaboration Curse in The Economist If you enjoy the podcast, please rate and review it on iTunes. For automatic delivery of new episodes, be sure to subscribe. As always, thanks for listening!

Why do we love certain foods? What role do families and memories play in our tastes? How can we help our children to eat well and wisely? While we may think our food preferences are innate, most are learned when we are young. And that also means we can change our preferences if we choose. In her bestselling book First Bite: How We Learn to Eat, Bee Wilson helps us rethink everything we thought we knew about eating. Bee is the author of four books, a writer for The Guardian & the London Review of Books, and the BBC Radio Food Writer of the Year. In this episode, we talk about: how our food likes and dislikes are less about biology and more about learned habits whether children know instinctively how to eat healthy foods how our home environment shapes our preferences why children reject new foods and how to get them to eat a wide variety the fascinating role of schools in influencing our eating habits how to change the types of foods that we like the role that gender plays in the formation of eating habits choices Japan made to change its eating patterns how we often overlook the single biggest influence on our eating habits Bee also speculates on how our healthcare systems could improve our health and save billions of dollars by teaching how to eat. Episode Links @KitchenBee Bee Wilson Consider the Fork First Bite: How We Learn to Eat Clara Davis Supertasters Food neophobia Lucy Cook Tiny Tastes Keith Williams and Tiny Tastes Karl Duncker Julie Mennella Bulimia Anorexia Eating in Post-War Japan If you enjoy the podcast, please rate and review it on iTunes. For automatic delivery of new episodes, be sure to subscribe. As always, thanks for listening!

How can you better forecast the future? What are the characteristics and habits of mind of those who are the best in the world at doing it? And why are those people rarely the forecasters featured in the national and international media? In their bestselling book Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction, Philip Tetlock and Dan Gardner have shared their research on the elite few who correctly predict events that have not yet happened. Dan is an award-winning journalist, an editor, and the author of two other books, Risk and Future Babble. He recently joined the Canadian Prime Minister’s office as a senior advisor. In this episode, we talk about: what separates superforecasters from others making predictions the limits of even the best forecasters the two types of forecasters -- Hedgehogs and Foxes -- and which one is better how the intelligence community learned surprising things about their predictions the most common mistakes of amateur forecasters why the best forecasters are not smarter and don’t have more access to information the role of intellectual humility in forecasting how to learn to be a superforecaster Dan also shares the things he’s most curious about working on next. Episode Links @dgardner @ptetlock Philip Tetlock Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction The Good Judgement Project The Fox and the Hedgehog George Soros IARPA Groupthink John F. Kennedy Bay of Pigs Cuban Missile Crisis Daniel Kahneman Thinking Fast and Slow Paul Slovic If you enjoyed the podcast, please rate and review it on iTunes. For automatic delivery of new episodes, be sure to subscribe. Thanks for listening!

If you are going to have a boss (or be a boss), make it a Superboss. Why? Because a Superboss leads individuals, teams, and organizations in ways that move the world. Sydney Finkelstein, bestselling author of Super Bosses: How Exceptional Leaders Master the Flow of Talent, shares these insights in our interview. Sydney is Professor of Management and Faculty Director of the Tuck Executive Program at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth where he specializes in business leadership and strategy. In this episode, we talk about: why working for a Superboss may be the best thing you ever do for your career what sets Superbosses apart when it comes to hiring why Superbosses dismiss textbook approaches to leadership how Superbosses leverage collaboration and competition in teams how losing incredible talent only strengthens Superbosses and their organizations what you can do right now to become a Superboss how Superbosses pursue deep passions outside of work Sydney shares incredible stories from his research and captures how Superbosses often act in fascinating and counterintuitive ways. Episode Links @sydfinkelstein Superbosses: How Exceptional Leaders Master the Flow of Talent by Sydney Finkelstein NFL, Bill Walsh, 49ers Lorne Michaels and SNL, Tina Fey, Jimmy Fallon, Mike Myers Norman Brinker and Chilis, Steak and Ale Jon Stewart Ralph Lauren Larry Ellison Marc Benioff and Salesforce.com Julian Robertson Jay Chiat Bill Sanders George Lucas and Skywalker Ranch, Industrial Light and Magic Pixar Alice Waters and Chez Panisse Chase Coleman, III General Electic (GE) Harvard Business Review and Why Chief Human Resource Officers Make Great CEOs Network effect Thomas Frist and HCA If you enjoyed the podcast, please rate and review it on iTunes. For automatic delivery of new episodes, be sure to subscribe. Thanks for listening!

Abraham Lincoln, Lucy Stone, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Steve Jobs: What set them apart and helped them achieve such world-altering success? In his latest book, Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World, Adam Grant shares the research on the mindsets, behaviors, and emotional resilience that lead to incredible breakthroughs in innovation and creativity. He also explains how we can apply these findings to our own lives. Adam Grant is the youngest tenured, highest-rated professor of management and psychology at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. He is a contributing writer for the New York Times, and he’s consulted with organizations like Google, the United Nations, and the U.S. Army. He is also the bestselling author of Give and Take: Why Helping Others Drives Our Success. In this episode, we talk about: why Originals rarely accept the status quo breadth versus depth -- which one drives innovation and creativity? the role of risk in the mindset of Originals what Originals do differently when faced with the same fears as everyone else why we are the worst judges of our own ideas and who can help us the importance of status over power in rallying others around our ideas why enemies can become our biggest advocates what really causes groupthink and prevents innovation the power of getting pulled into leadership roles role models versus mentors and how it can be easier to find them why we need to rethink optimism, happiness, and contentment for achievement and innovation why your first 15 ideas are less original than your next 20 Adam also shares how he uses these ideas in his classroom. Episode Links @AdamMGrant Adam Grant website Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World by Adam Grant vuja de Albert Einstein Tiger Mom Galileo Galilei Dean Simonton Segway Steve Jobs Jerry Seinfeld and Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee Frenemies Basecamp David Heinemeier Hansson Abraham Lincoln Martin Luther King, Jr. Michelangelo Irving Janis and Groupthink Devils advocates and Charlan Nemeth at University of California, Berkeley Mark Cuban and Shark Tank and Mavericks Elon Musk Peter Thiel Lord of the Rings Sheryl Sandberg Jeff Bezos A Wrinkle in Time Mark Zuckerberg Enders Game Disney Michael Eisner The Lion King King Lear Hamlet Bambi Uber TED Talk If you enjoyed the podcast, please rate and review it on iTunes. For automatic delivery of new episodes, be sure to subscribe. Thanks for listening!

Every day we have problems to solve and decisions to make. Too often, the steps we take to address them result in more complexity, rather than less. That is where simple rules come in. Donald Sull, bestselling author of Simple Rules: How to Thrive in a Complex World offers a six-step framework for better decision-making that has been tested with individuals and with organizations. An expert in global strategy, Don is a senior lecturer at MIT and a former professor at Harvard University and the London Business School. Using vivid examples and powerful stories, Don helps us see the creative impact of developing and applying simple rules. In this episode, we talk about: ways simple rules support strategy and encourage innovation the ways simple rules beat out one-size-fits-all rules the six-part framework to make simple rules of your own why we need to involve the users of the rules in the creation process how feedback only makes rules better over time how simple rules can support personal and organizational agency and ownership Episode Links @simple_rules donsull.com Simple Rules: How to Thrive in a Complex World by Donald Sull and Kathleen Eisenhardt Oakland As Billy Beane The Gates Foundation Why the French Do Not Get Fat Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think by Brian Wansink Collin Payne Pierre Chandon Murmuration Craig Reynolds Orcs Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien Zipcar and Robin Chase Votorantim Contagious: Why Things Catch On by Jonah Berger Young Presidents Organization Elmore Leonard Tina Fey and 30 Rock If you enjoyed the podcast, please rate and review it on iTunes. For automatic delivery of new episodes, be sure to subscribe. Thanks for listening!

What does it take to pursue your dream? For Miki Agrawal, it took a catastrophic event that had a direct impact on her work and her life. It woke her up to three goals she had always wanted to achieve. And it led her to become the serial entrepreneur she is today. Along the way, Miki has been upending industries and winning all kinds of awards, including the Tribeca Film Festival 2013 Disruptive Innovation Award and Forbes 2013 Top 20 Millenials on a Mission. Just this past year, she received the 2015 World Technology Summit Social Entrepreneurship award for her company, THINX, a stain-resistant line of sustainable underwear for women. In this episode, we talk about: the event that prompted Miki to rethink her life the wish list that led her to entrepreneurship the secret to asking others to participate in your dreams how freelance work primed her for working for herself how passion and ignorance go a long way in risk taking the role trial and error play in building a new product Miki shares the ways she is disrupting an industry and prioritizing social responsibility. She also talks about her passion for rethinking culture and confronting cultural taboos. Episode Links Do Cool Sh*t WILD Tao Restaurant and Rich Wolf Alex Koren Toms Warby Parker AFRIPads Tushy If you enjoyed the podcast, please rate and review it on iTunes. For automatic delivery of new episodes, be sure to subscribe. Thanks for listening!

We all want to do meaningful work that gives our lives purpose and lets us be creative. And yet, the very tools that help us stay organized and connected can cause the kind of distractions that erode time spent on meaningful work. Jocelyn Glei, bestselling author and editor of Manage Your Day-to-Day, Founding Editor-in-Chief and Director of Behance’s 99U and the 99U Conference, talks about this and more in this episode. And she helps us rethink what we know about creativity, meaningful work, and happiness. In this episode, we talk about: why creative work is so important how being busy can distract us from doing work that matters the creative rituals and routines that result in more meaningful work why we need to redesign and manage our relationship with technology the positive roles of productive procrastination and anxiety in creative, meaningful work short-term happiness versus long-term purpose and meaning Jocelyn also gives us a glimpse into her upcoming book on the distractions of email. She is the author of two additional books, Make Your Mark and Maximize Your Potential. Episode Links @JKGlei Brene Brown Jonathan Adler Zine MIT Press The Acceleration of Addictiveness by Paul Graham Hooked by Nir Eyal The Achievement Habit by Bernie Roth Out of Sheer Rage by Geoff Dyer Miranda July Evernote Scrum The Gift by Lewis Hyde The Concept of Anxiety by Soren Kierkegaard Seth Godin If you enjoyed the podcast, please rate and review it on iTunes. For automatic delivery of new episodes, be sure to subscribe. Thanks for listening!

Artificial intelligence, robotics, and automation technologies are fulfilling (and surpassing) predictions from the most creative science fiction. While the possibilities are exciting, these changes force us to ask what this means for the future of work. What jobs will they replace? Which industries will they decimate? What impact will they have on how we live and work in what many are calling a post-industrial age? Martin Ford explores these questions and more, in his bestselling book, Rise of the Robots: Technology and the Threat of a Jobless Future. Named 2015 Business Book of the Year by the Financial Times and McKinsey, his book is helping to drive a much-needed conversation around the dark side of innovative technologies. As a software company founder who has worked in the industry for over 30 years, Martin saw how automation was eliminating more and more jobs. This led him to research the impact of cutting-edge technologies on labor, wages, and productivity. In this episode you will learn: why this time is different when it comes to the impact of automation on jobs the important role education will play in how we respond and adapt why we need to rethink income and healthcare policies to ensure a healthy economy the pressing need to raise awareness around this issue and to incentivize solutions Episode Links @MFordFuture Luddite Martin Luther King, Jr. Triple Revolution Machine learning Deep Learning Artificial intelligence The Three Breakthroughs That Have Finally Unleashed Artificial Intelligence on the World by Kevin Kelly Everlaw Long tail distribution Ray Kurzweil Basic or guaranteed income Single-payer healthcare X Prize Peter Diamandis If you enjoyed the podcast, please rate and review it on iTunes. For automatic delivery of new episodes, be sure to subscribe. Thanks for listening!

When we operate in silos, we narrow our perspective in ways that can limit, and even destroy, innovation. So where have we seen silos before and what can we learn from them? In this fascinating conversation with Gillian Tett, award-winning journalist and U.S. Managing Editor of the Financial Times, she explains how silos reversed decades of innovation at Sony, limited innovation in a world-class hospital, and played a key role in the 2007 global financial crisis. Drawing on insights from her bestselling book, The Silo Effect: The Peril of Expertise and the Promise of Breaking Down Barriers, she helps us see the patterns that create these tendencies, and the simple steps we can take to avoid or overcome them. In this episode you will learn: what makes smart people do apparently stupid things how rewards and incentives can reinforce a silo mentality why success can lead to silo perspectives steps we can take to overcome mental and organizational silos the value of an insider-outsider perspective Also in this interview, Gillian encourages us to recognize how the silos begin erected in the information technology industry have begun to mirror those that led to the 2007 global financial crisis. She is the other of two other bestselling books, Saving the Sun and Fools Gold. Episode Links @GillianTett Octopus Pots British Press Awards Cleveland Clinic Pierre Bourdieu Mental Maps Securitizations Sir Paul Tucker Paul McCulley PIMCO Shadow banking Zoltan Poszar Nicolaus Copernicus Cultural anthropology Brett Goldstein Open Table Toby Cosgrove Robin Dunbar It is Complicated by danah boyd Liquidated by Karen Ho If you enjoyed the podcast, please rate and review it on iTunes. For automatic delivery of new episodes, be sure to subscribe. Thanks for listening!

Why do most people want to live in walkable cities and towns? What's the impact on innovation and well-being? Jeff Speck, city planner, urban designer, TED Talk speaker, and bestselling author of Walkable City: How Downtown Can Save America, One Step at a Time, offers fascinating and fact-filled responses to these questions. Along the way, he tells us the changes needed to make cities the thriving places that most people want. In this episode you will learn: what is a walkable city how walkable cities drive innovation by attracting talent what makes cities safer than suburbs how more traffic signals actually make cities less safe why the most popular solutions to congestion actually increase it what the cheapest solution is for making a city more walkable how great urban design trumps weather every time Jeff also shares a fascinating insight regarding a possible downside of self-driving cars. Episode Links @JeffSpeckAICP The Walkable City TED Talk by Jeff Speck Externalities Millenials Seek Walkable Cities Bowling Alone by Robert Putnam Single Family Housing Oklahoma City Mayor Mick Cornett Induced demand and traffic Free Good Donald Shoup Prospect-refuge Theory and Jay Appleton Charrettes for Design Andres Duany Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk Happy City: Transforming Our Lives Through Urban Design by Charles Montgomery Inclusionary zoning Granny flats Wyandanch, New York Suburban Nation: The Rise of Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream by Andres Duany, Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, and Jeff Speck Jarrett Walker - Human Transit If you enjoyed the podcast, please rate and review it on iTunes. For automatic delivery of new episodes, be sure to subscribe. Thanks for listening!