Best Class Ever

Great stories often say twice as much with half as many words. Through clever double meanings, oxymorons, and paradox, good writing often rewards multiple readings. Movies and television are no different. 

As teams, we need to interact, update each other, and remain flexible so that we can consider new ideas, while also being allowed to keep our heads down and focus without distraction. So how do we both manage and produce when the two seem to be at odds with one another?

How do the software companies of Silicon Valley grow from two man teams in garages, to world dominating monoliths like Microsoft, Apple, Google, and Facebook? How is it possible that teams of engineers could completely revolutionize the way we interact with the world. Or at the very least, how can we organize our teams to solve problems as quickly and effectively as they have?

How quickly can we get to critical mass or just the right cultural catalyst to trigger a viral response from the community? We need advocates who are so passionate that the audience will generate on its own so long as we keep providing the platform. And as anyone who has survived this recent pandemic knows, virality can be measured.

What would you need to start an organization? What does it take to make a new business successful? Does it take a lot of money to make money? Not according to Eric Ries, the author of the popular book on entrepreneurship titled, “The Lean Startup.”

Have you ever wondered how two guys living in San Francisco starting a small business out of their garage could disrupt an entire industry? And yet time and time again, we have seen Stanford school dropouts become international billionaires and outperform corporate giants like the music industry, Walmart, and IBM. What is the slingshot that is allowing these Davids to strike these Goliaths down?

Have you ever thought about starting a business, a side hustle, or a non-profit? Or maybe you dream of starting a movement, or being a pivotal part of one. Well for those of us who do, I think there is a lot we can learn from the world of entrepreneurship. 

Classrooms are designed to have us sit down and focus on the speaker, but some students are more creative, some like to dance or be physically active, and some are more easily distracted. In America a lot of students are being prescribed Adderall and Ritalin for ADHD which floods their brain with dopamine like a narcotic. What do medical health professionals have to say about this?

Do you think a great leader would typically be higher or lower in openness? Conscientious? We might expect extraverts to be great leaders, but why wouldn’t introverts be good at leading? Extraverts might be more willing to try and win elections but that doesn’t necessarily make them better leaders does it?

In the last lesson we began to explain the Big 5 person traits, including Creativity, IQ, and Conscientiousness. They are by far the biggest indicators of success. But today we will look at Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism, which are also critical.

The Big 5 personality traits have become the standard by which psychology uses data science to determine what are the major differences between people. How are you different and similar to others? Let’s find out.

Thousands of years ago Socrates told us, “Know Thyself.” But this turns out to be much harder than we might have thought. If we look at the brain, it doesn’t appear to be just one, but two brains. And ourselves too, are we really just one person? Or multiple personalities all fighting for control over this one person moving through space called you?

Have you ever had to compete against someone way out of your league? What strategy should you employ when you are in way over your head?

I love to write things down. Especially things that I want to remember, but don’t want to deal with at the moment. I feel especially proud of myself when I make lists. But how many of us feel good about those same lists when we see them again later in the day or revisit them the next day?

While there is a lot of self help and self improvement gurus out there explaining about how to be happy, research has shown that most of these techniques may temporarily boost your happiness but most people soon return to what for them is a certain consistent base level of happiness. But there is one technique that research has shown dramatically and consistently raises people’s reported base level happiness.

I love learning. I find it both meaningful and fun, which is a magical combination. This is also why I love teaching and why I love school. But somehow schools have managed to take the fun out of learning. While I love a great class, I no longer believe the best learning is taking place in schools. The best learning is taking place on YouTube.

What do you think life after death looks like? Is it so different from the life we are living now, is it the end, or just another beginning? Today let’s talk about life after life.

Want a clever way to time travel and cheat death? Play your favorite music from when you were a teenager and take a look at some old photos or journal entries. Write an email or letter to your future self and write your own eulogy to be read at your funeral. But if you are going to go on this adventure, there is one critical ingredient you will need...

We would all love to be people who really get big things done. But so much of our day is spent procrastinating and avoiding the work we really need to do, and we are so busy doing things we really don’t need to do. By the end of the day we are left wondering whether we really made progress or not. So today I want to introduce a really great tool for discerning the difference between work that is urgent and work that is important.

Even Jesus the Messiah of Christianity and the ultimate archetype of all that is good got angry and publicly denounced the religious leaders of his time period. Obviously those benefiting from the status quo are not going to agree with these revolutionary thinkers and will find such self-righteousness to be condescending. So who can judge between these opposing factions?

In the last lesson we spoke about the two leading political ideologies, liberalism and conservatism, and how they might be related to differences in common personality traits. This episode talks about how we talk about politics.

Which do you consider more important? Equality or Patriotism? Compassion or Societal Order? Which do you prefer, dogs or cats?  Through personality tests and questions about preferences we can often tell which side of the political spectrum people fall into. When it comes to political ideologies, do you fall into the left also known as liberal, or the right, also known as conservative?

Whether in a galaxy far far away like Star Wars, or in the very near, very possible future like Black Mirror, science fiction deals with issues that we face in the here and now. Issues like race, politics, and religion might be too hot to discuss directly for a lot of us, but fictional realities allow us to take a step back and talk about what ifs. So let’s explore today’s world by looking at stories about tomorrow.

What does the third Star Wars film also known as Episode 6, the third Lord of the Rings, the Matrix trilogy, and the Lion King have in common?

In 1936 J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Luis flipped a coin to see which of them should write a space-travel story, and which should write a time-travel story. C.S. Luis went on to write the Chronicles of Narnia, and J.R.R. Tolkien went on to write the single most influential fantasy fiction trilogy, Lord of the Rings. Today let's look at Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, and the Hunger Games. 

Developing games is fun but it takes a long time and a lot of work. But recently I found an easy way to take any great story from history or literature and make it into a simple game.

Have you ever had to make a life and death decision that could determine the fate of your nation? No? Well today you are King Henry V, and you are outnumbered five to one. What will you do?

Socrates pointed out that democracies don’t necessarily promote the best leaders, and Machiavelli pointed out that virtues don’t always lead to success. Ultimately we can see how this played out in history through Shakespeare’s historical dramas. Today we will take a look at Shakespeare’s young Christian leaders. One of his most tragic, Hamlet, and one of his most successful young leaders, King Henry V.

Let's look at what the famous Greek philosophers, Machiaveli from Italy, and Shakespeare have to say about great political leaders and how that would apply to today.

These days we are talking about some of the fundamental lessons we can learn about the human predicament from classical literature. We are looking more specifically at Shakespeare. So today let me introduce you to Shakespeare’s Christian Tragedies.

Great storytellers are able to capture the full complication of the human situation by presenting totally different views as entirely valid even if somewhat contradictory. By showing that both sides contain some evil and some good, just as each human heart also contains some good and some evil, storytellers can produce a far more engaging experience for the audience.

Organisms need rest. So if you want to live a meaningful and productive life, then it would be a good idea to analyze and apply wisdom to how you live when you’re not working. So the question today is how should we go about resting and having fun?

We will discuss a Stoic mental simulation for dealing with the scariest parts of making plans and taking action. And we will also discuss the importance of distinguishing between results and success. How do you deal with uncertainty? How do you go about making big decisions?

How should we define success? Many people define success by using very specific metrics concerning resources like time, money, or status. But in reality these are really just arbitrary vanity metrics, and achieving them will rarely be satisfying enough to relieve the pressure to attain more. We also have little to no control over these outcomes, so how can we define success by something we have more direct control over and take responsibility for?

There is a principle in statistics that not so many people know about, but is extremely useful to know, known mathematically as, “The Pareto distribution.” It’s also referred to as Price’s Law or the Matthew Principle based on the scripture in Matthew 25:29 quoting Jesus, “to everyone who has will more be given; but from him who has not, even what he has will be taken away.”

Mathematicians and business majors are exploring political science theory and philosophy through game theory. Game theory is a college level math class that is typically attended by math majors and business majors. Why business majors? Because game theory is the study of how to use logic to find the optimal strategy in a competitive situation. And the most common simulation to come out of game theory is the Prisoner’s Dilemma. Here is the scenario.

Today we will return to an idea presented earlier two weeks ago the lesson titled, “The Truth of Myth,” in which we presented the idea that nonfiction presents truth objectively, but that fiction and mythology, though objectively true, present a subjective truth that often feels even more deeply accurate than true stories. To do so we will dive deeply into the story of the popular book and film called, “Life of Pi.”

Q: What is today’s most popular mythology? We may look down on the old stories of mythology as superstition or meaningless fictions, but where do we turn when we face chaos that we cannot explain? We all watch stories about zombies, aliens, science fiction, and fantasy. We look to modern day demigods, humans with supernatural abilities. We turn to SuperHeroes.

Q: What Can Myths Tell Us About Truth? Myths are the grand old epic poems, the ancient archetypal stories we have been telling about creation and the evolution of man. Stories that go beyond the facts of who, what, when, and where to help us understand the deeper more critical question--why. These are stories so old and so common among so many various people groups that they are older than our oldest writings. 

Today I want to introduce an academic approach to the importance of religious belief systems. So first let’s start with an interesting question. We'll be discussing Pascal's Wager, Jordan Peterson's ideas from Maps of Meaning, and the famous child development psychologist Jean Piaget.  Q: Can one be certain that God exists or doesn’t exist? How much are you willing to gamble on it?

Even though games may seem like a meaningless waste of time, I have since found them to be an amazing tool for managing relationships and introducing people to deeply meaningful subjects. Today I want to introduce you to the world of designer board games.

Samson is one of the legendary strongmen of history and for those of you who have learned about parables and revelations of nature from Bible Study, I think you’ll recognize a great example of how God used a parable to foreshadow the tragedy that would eventually consume Samson’s life. Listen to the story from Judges chapter 14 for yourself and see if you can recognize it.

Have you ever noticed the similarities between murder mystery plots and every Harry Potter plot? How can we make what we have to say more beautiful, majestic, and mysterious? 

Today I would like to ask the question, “Why Art?” And more specifically, "Why Draw?" I have been teaching art classes for seven years. I love to draw. But what purpose does it serve? Why should anyone take up a pencil and try to render the world?