Episodi

  • Peter Krask: From PhD Dropout to Hollywood Producer—Building Myth Merchant and Finding Creative Freedom

    Peter Krask: From PhD Dropout to Hollywood Producer—Building Myth Merchant and Finding Creative Freedom
    Jan 6 2026
    Peter Krask, creator of Myth Merchant and former Hollywood producer, shares his journey from quitting grad school to producing reality TV to building a business around storytelling and mythology. After realizing a PhD wasn't his path, Krask dove into the entertainment industry, learning the business side of creativity—budgets, staff, international shipping, and legitimacy through visibility. He explains how being on television instantly validated his work in ways that years of independent effort couldn't, why many people stay in PhD programs despite knowing it's not right for them, and what he's learned about balancing artistic ambition with commercial viability. This conversation explores the tension between creative freedom and financial sustainability, the cultural weight of visible success, and how mythology and narrative shape the way we understand our lives and work.

    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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    1 ora e 2 min
  • Oliver Burkeman: Why Positive Thinking Fails and the Paradox of Pursuing Happiness

    Oliver Burkeman: Why Positive Thinking Fails and the Paradox of Pursuing Happiness
    Jan 5 2026
    Oliver Burkeman, author of "The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking," dismantles the self-help industry's obsession with optimism and goal-setting. Raised as a Quaker with pro-social parents, Burkeman explores why chasing happiness often makes us miserable, how negative visualization (imagining worst-case scenarios) builds resilience, and why acceptance of uncertainty is more valuable than relentless positivity. He explains that we already know the five or six things required for a meaningful life—good relationships, sleep, nature, exercise—but consuming more books and courses becomes procrastination disguised as progress. The conversation tackles spiritual bypassing, why new information rarely solves our problems, and how shifting perspective at an emotional level matters more than intellectual understanding. This is a contrarian, practical take on self-improvement that challenges the tyranny of positive thinking.

    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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    54 min
  • Michelle Gielan: How Small Shifts in Communication Create Big Changes in Happiness and Resilience

    Michelle Gielan: How Small Shifts in Communication Create Big Changes in Happiness and Resilience
    Jan 2 2026
    In this powerful conversation, former CBS news anchor and positive psychology researcher Michelle Gielan unpacks how we can rewire our communication habits to shape more resilient, empowered, and optimistic lives — both personally and collectively. Drawing on research from her book *Broadcasting Happiness*, Gielan shows how small shifts in the way we speak, frame problems, and open conversations have a measurable impact on our mindset, productivity, and relationships.She explores the science behind “power leads,” fueling facts, and positive priming — including how a single sentence can increase workplace performance, family resilience, and mental well-being. Gielan also breaks down the dangers of passive news consumption, the psychology of negativity bias, and how to apply fact-checking to rewrite the personal stories that keep us stuck in stress or fear.From practical strategies for dealing with pessimism and toxic people to the data-driven case for gratitude and solution-oriented media, this episode offers a toolkit for becoming a more intentional broadcaster of hope — at work, at home, and in your own mind.

    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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    45 min
  • Breaking Free from the Plan: How Decision Engineering Can Transform Your Life with Michelle Florendo

    Breaking Free from the Plan: How Decision Engineering Can Transform Your Life with Michelle Florendo
    Jan 1 2026
    Michelle Florendo shares her journey from following the immigrant dream of Stanford, an MBA, and a "good job" to discovering she was miserable and needed to chart her own path. As a decision engineering expert, she reveals the three essential elements of every decision (options, objectives, and information), explains why we confuse decision quality with outcome quality, and shares how embracing uncertainty—not just managing risk—can unlock possibilities we never imagined.

    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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    44 min
  • Justin McRoberts: Mortality, Meaning, and Giving Away Everything You've Got

    Justin McRoberts: Mortality, Meaning, and Giving Away Everything You've Got
    Dec 22 2025
    Justin McRoberts, musician, pastor, and author of "It's What You Make of It," shares how confronting death early in life shaped his approach to creativity and faith. Having attended over 20 funerals by age 25, McRoberts explains why understanding mortality is essential to living fully and why the cultural narrative of imperviousness keeps people from taking creative risks. He explores how opportunities—not rigid plans—defined his multi-hyphenate career, why narrative holds human lives together, and how we're taught that art is something you earn after being responsible to the system. McRoberts makes the case for flipping that script: using your gifts now, taking financial and social risks, and approaching life as something to give away rather than protect. This is a conversation about death, creativity, faith without absolutes, and why your life should be a gift.

    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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    48 min
  • Jeff Wald: Navigating the Fourth Industrial Revolution and Why Personal Responsibility Defines the Future of Work

    Jeff Wald: Navigating the Fourth Industrial Revolution and Why Personal Responsibility Defines the Future of Work
    Dec 9 2025
    Jeff Wald, author of The End of Jobs and CEO of WorkMarket, examines how robots and AI are creating the fourth industrial revolution—a massive power shift from workers to companies that mirrors past technological upheavals. Drawing from labor history, on-demand platforms, and regulatory battles like California Prop 22, Wald reveals why the lifetime employment contract was always a myth with average job tenure at 5 years in 1960 and 4.2 years today. He introduces the hard tech vs. hard human framework: thriving in automation requires either technical skills like software, AI, and data or human skills that machines cannot replicate such as creativity, empathy, and sales. Wald unpacks how income inequality, personal responsibility, and opportunity gaps threaten societal stability, why unions must reinvent themselves through movements like Fight for 15, and how lifelong learning became non-negotiable when skills now decay within 4-6 years instead of lasting a 30-year career.

    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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    51 min
  • Jeff Spencer: The Champion Blueprint and the Eight Inevitable Steps to Peak Performance

    Jeff Spencer: The Champion Blueprint and the Eight Inevitable Steps to Peak Performance
    Dec 8 2025
    Jeff Spencer, former Olympic cyclist and performance coach to Lance Armstrong, Tiger Woods, and Olympic gold medalists, breaks down the precise architecture of champion-level achievement. From losing his father at age 10 to competing in the Munich Olympics to coaching nine Tour de France victories, Jeff reveals the eight sequential steps every prolific performer navigates: prepare, perform, achieve, pause. He explains why most people burn out by chasing every opportunity instead of choosing goals with appropriate return, why rest is not weakness but a competitive advantage, and how to focus on the critical 1-2 percent that must go right rather than everything that could go wrong. This is the operating system of sustained excellence.

    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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    43 min
  • Jason Naylor: The Psychology of Color and Why Bright Hues Unlock Positivity, Memory, and Human Connection

    Jason Naylor: The Psychology of Color and Why Bright Hues Unlock Positivity, Memory, and Human Connection
    Dec 5 2025
    Jason Naylor, artist and author of Live Life Colorfully, shares how growing up as the second of seven children in a Mormon family in Salt Lake City shaped his caretaker personality and his eventual escape to New York where he discovered creative liberation. Naylor reveals the symbiotic relationship between color and messaging in his work—the more positive and uplifting his messages became, the more color naturally emerged because he couldn't visualize kindness without bright hues. Drawing from color theory and neuroscience, he explains how yellow triggers hunger, why fast food brands use red and yellow strategically, how bright saturated colors ignite short-term memory while muted colors remain in long-term memory, and why a woman in a red dress commands attention not just culturally but neurologically. Naylor explores how color impacts space design, fashion choices, and personal presence, arguing that the right color is not about inherent qualities but about how confidently you wear it and how it makes you feel.

    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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    49 min