Podcast appearances and mentions of Adam Grant

Even the most capable professionals can struggle in interviews. In this episode, Brian and job interview coach Tali Shlafer break down why, and what to do instead. Overview In this episode of the Agile Mentors Podcast, Brian welcomes interview coach Tali Shlafer for a practical, clear-eyed conversation about how to approach job interviews as a skill, not a personality trait. Tali shares why being great at your job doesn’t automatically translate to interview success, especially in collaborative fields like product development, Agile coaching, and project management. She outlines a straightforward way to prepare for interviews by identifying the real challenges behind a role and building stories that speak directly to them, without sounding rehearsed or robotic. From reframing “bragging” as problem-solving to handling tough questions with clarity and self-awareness, this episode is full of grounded advice for professionals navigating their next move. References and resources mentioned in the show: Tali Shlafer Free Job Interview Tip Vault Tali's LinkedIn Tali's Instagram #93: The Rise of Human Skills and Agile Acumen with Evan Leybourn #111: Adapting to the Future of Work with Heather McGowan Blog: Entry-Level Scrum Masters: Seven Tips on How to Get Your First Scrum Master Job by Mike Cohn AI Prompt Pack for Product Owners & Scrum Masters Subscribe to the Agile Mentors Podcast Want to get involved? This show is designed for you, and we’d love your input. Enjoyed what you heard today? Please leave a rating and a review. It really helps, and we read every single one. Got an Agile subject you’d like us to discuss or a question that needs an answer? Share your thoughts with us at podcast@mountaingoatsoftware.com This episode’s presenters are: Brian Milner is a Certified Scrum Trainer®, Certified Scrum Professional®, Certified ScrumMaster®, and Certified Scrum Product Owner®, and host of the Agile Mentors Podcast training at Mountain Goat Software. He's passionate about making a difference in people's day-to-day work, influenced by his own experience of transitioning to Scrum and seeing improvements in work/life balance, honesty, respect, and the quality of work. Tali Shlafer is a certified interview coach who helps high performers turn nerves into clarity and confidence so they can land roles they’re truly excited about. Her practical frameworks—rooted in psychology, communication, and performance—ditch the gimmicks and empower candidates to show up as their best, most authentic selves. Auto-generated Transcript: Brian Milner (00:00) Welcome in everyone. We're back for another episode of the Agile Mentors Podcast. I'm with you as always, Brian Milner. And today I have Miss Tali Schläufer with us. Welcome in Tali. Tali Shlafer (00:11) Thanks, Brian. I'm excited to be here. Brian Milner (00:13) Very excited to have Tali with us. She is a job interview coach so you can kind of See the direction we're going in here one of her tagline is that she she helps you know professionals get offers they're really excited about and She's got some really interesting insights here because I know in today's world in today's environment There is a lot of shifting going on. There's a lot of transitioning between different places of work. And that interview is always kind of the forgotten portion of it, right? You get past all the other stuff, you get to the point where you're in the interview. So Tali, from your perspective, I know you see and help a lot of people with that portion of it. What are some of the biggest mistakes that people make that you see routinely as you help people prepare for their interviews? Tali Shlafer (01:01) Yeah, absolutely. I think one of the things that you just mentioned where, you know, people really struggling with the interview piece, you do all this work in your job search to update your resume, update your LinkedIn network, all this stuff, and then you get to the interview and it's like, okay, we're close. It's actually the interview is actually a completely different stage than anything else. And one mistake that I often see people making is just the mindset around interviews. A lot of people think, if I'm great at my job, I'll just interview really well. Like I'm a top performer. I'm good to go. But interviewing is actually a skill that's completely separate from anything else we do in the workplace. It requires you to be able to articulate what you've done in the workplace and the results and the impact that you brought in a way that most of us don't have to do in our day-to-day jobs. And you have to do it better than everybody else. So just because you are a top performer doesn't necessarily mean that that translates into your ability. to talk about yourself and talk about your career, especially in a way that resonates with the specific job culture and the specific job that you're applying for. So I think that's kind of the top mistake that I would just from a mindset level, is seeing interviews as something that you're naturally good at rather than as a skill that you can really develop and build in order to set yourself up for success. Brian Milner (02:12) Yeah. Yeah, that's a great point because, know, just because, as you said, just because I'm a top performer in something that I do, have a huge skill set or knowledge area that I'm really good at, doesn't mean that I'm necessarily good at an interview process because it is kind of a whole set of other communication skills that you have to have in that kind of environment. I know when I've talked to people about it sometimes, they feel sort of this, I don't know, dichotomy a little bit back and forth about... I know I'm supposed to plug myself here. I know I'm supposed to kind of brag a little bit, but I also don't want to sound cocky. I don't want to sound, you know, I don't know, just brash or anything. How do you help people or what do you advise people about in that area? Tali Shlafer (03:06) Yeah, and I think this is really common for people who are top performers and people who are very team oriented and collaboration oriented. It's really difficult for those folks to go, hey, I did all this stuff by myself and to kind of put themselves in that spotlight. So it's a very common challenge. It's also very common for folks who are really good at their job and have been doing this for a long time to actually be able to articulate. what that secret sauce is, like why they're actually good at their job, which is part of the challenge. Remind me the question that you just asked. Brian Milner (03:38) No, I'm just, in talking about kind of like how people prepare for these kind of things, the way they communicate this stuff, sometimes it's kind of more this worry about am I being a little too overbearing or brash in how I'm bragging about myself? Will I come off seeming cocky? or overconfident, how do they walk that fine line? Tali Shlafer (04:03) Yeah, I think this is a really big mindset piece where a lot of people who are those top performers and are very collaborative in nature are afraid to talk about themselves and be in the spotlight and kind of take credit where, especially in something like in the agile world or project management, product management, it's a very collaborative space. people are afraid to like, people are afraid to say, here's what I did. And Part of the mindset shift that I really encourage clients and job seekers to have is rather than to see it as, hey, the interview is all about you and the spotlight's on you and you're a used car salesman trying to promo yourself and it feels really icky so we don't want to do it. We end up not doing it at all. Think of it rather as you're trying to help this employer solve a problem. You're on the same side of the table with them. You're essentially a consultant for them. Their problem is... Hey, I've got this role. I have this challenge in my company. I have this opportunity. I have this thing that I need help with and I need to find who's going to be able to help me do that. And so you're essentially being an advisor for them and sharing here's how my previous experiences and what I've done in the past might be able to help you with your challenges. So it's really, it's really a partnership type of conversation where you're exploring, well, what are you struggling with? and how, let me share ways that I think I might be able to help. I think having that mindset is a lot more helpful for people who are more collaborative in nature. I think there's also a part of it that is getting really clear on how your work has actually delivered results. Being really confident, a lot of folks who are more collaborative in nature, which is a lot of people that I work with. tend to really get stuck in the we. So they say, we deliver this, we manage this, we strategize in this way. And then the interviewer ends up losing the thread of, well, what did this person sitting across from me do? What did they lead? What did they manage versus what did they do collaboratively? so getting really clear and even getting some language around how to talk about your contributions with respect to the team. So saying, I led this strategy session or I facilitated the collaboration of this, or I made the suggestion to people who then made a decision. Those kind of nuanced pieces of communication can help us feel more comfortable with actually owning our story in a way that doesn't feel gross. Brian Milner (06:39) Yeah, I think you make a great point there about the partnership aspect of it because having been on both sides of the table there, I know when I was hiring people as a software manager of some kind, the thought is always when the person comes in, you want to hire them. When they've reached that stage, when you finally bring them in, you're excited about the people that you decided to bring in and you're pulling for them. You want them to actually be successful. So I think it's important to keep that in mind too, that they want you to be successful. They want that role filled or they wouldn't have put out the job wreck and all the other things. If you, so let's just kind of talk through on a practical level. If you, you've done the work, you've put out the resume, you've got the call, maybe you've even gone through, well, I guess we should talk about that as well. Kind of the difference between a virtual or phone interview and an in-person interview. Is there a difference in level of prep or in how you, you know. tricks to being more successful if it's virtual versus in person. Tali Shlafer (07:50) I think the preparation itself should be the same. At the end of the day, your preparation should be about what are the challenges that this company, that this organization is facing and how does this role help solve those challenges? What are the skills? What are the top five skills that I need to demonstrate? Hard and soft skills. And in order to show them that I can be the top performer for this role and what are stories that I can share for each one of those skills. to prove that, I have what it takes, I can actually walk the walk as well. I've gotten results in this area before. So the prep work itself in the days leading up to the interview should be more or less the same. I would say the difference between a virtual interview versus an in-person interview is just people's comfort level. I think a lot of people are really comfortable in in-person interviews because it feels like you're actually talking to a human, right? You have a full-size person sitting across from the table from you. So it's a lot more comfortable. And I think even though through COVID, we had a lot more virtual conversations, there's still a very performative feeling element to it when it comes to virtual interviews. So one of my top tips for virtual interviews is please turn off your self view. So if you're in the Zoom call and if you're in a meeting, because it makes people so nervous and self-conscious. So when you get on that Zoom call, that Teams call, whatever platform you're using, make sure you're in the frame, right? Make sure that your lighting is good, all that stuff, and then turn off that camera so that you're not just watching yourself and being super self-conscious the entire time. Because think about it, in what other context in your life, when you're having a conversation with someone, do you have a mirror that you're looking at? Brian Milner (09:36) Right, right, I mean, if you're in their interview room, unless there's a mirror all the way around, you're not really getting that view. And even if you did, you probably wouldn't watch yourself in the mirror the entire time. So yeah, that's a great tip. And I think you're absolutely right. It can lead to being very, very self-conscious then. I think it's, I want to go back a little bit to the prep because I think your tip there is a really important thing is to try to understand the challenges, understand what it is they're looking for. And it just struck me as you were saying that it seems very similar to, in my kind of line of work, I do a lot of consulting work with people. And when I have a client that's a prospective client, it's almost the same thing. where you have to research a little bit about the company ahead of time. If you're doing kind of a sales call prior to the engagement, it's very similar. And I just thought about that. There is an overlap there between that and job interviews because you are selling yourself. You are selling your services to that company. Tali Shlafer (10:36) And a lot of people, here's another mistake that a lot of people, a lot of well-meaning people make is as part of their prep work, going online and finding a bunch of questions that they can then prepare for. So it's a very, I kind of call it whack-a-mole where, hey, let me try to figure out all the possible questions I might get asked and write out answers for those. Brian Milner (10:51) Ha ha. Tali Shlafer (10:59) That might get some people results. And if it's getting you results, that's great. But what I really encourage people to do is really reverse engineer your talking points from the job description, from what you know, even, you know, once you've had the conversation with the recruiter, you know, a little bit more about the position than maybe is even listed on the job description. So compile everything that you know about this opportunity and figure out, okay, what are the most important things for me to be able to articulate rather than just guessing at. random questions that the internet says you might get asked. Brian Milner (11:32) Yeah, that's a great point. I know we all want to get past that and get to the job, but I think there's also an element there of, let's say you do memorize these questions and they just happen to ask you the exact questions you had prepared for. If you don't really have that knowledge, then you're not going to really do well in that job even if you get it. So it's almost a blessing to not get that job, you know, if you didn't know that information, because they're going to be counting on you to do that. And you're not going to be a you're not going to do your job well then. Yeah. Tali Shlafer (12:06) Yeah, and the memorizing piece that you just mentioned is really, really easy for people to fall into the trap of trying to memorize their answers, especially with chat GPT and AI. Everybody's thinking, well, let's use these AI tools to help us come up with interview answers. so we plug in, job seekers will plug in, here's a bunch of questions that I might get. Look at my resume, tell me how can I answer these questions? And it feels safe. It feels like, this very smart robot or technology is gonna say this in a better way than I can. Brian Milner (12:36) you Tali Shlafer (12:40) But it really sets people up for failure most of the time because number one, most people aren't good at memorizing things, right? Most of us don't have to do that as our job. So most of us are really bad at memorizing. Number two, it makes you sound like a robot. It doesn't sound human. You lose the attention of the person who you're talking with. And number three, doesn't when you just memorize answers rather than thinking about it as what are talking points that I can riff off, riff on and kind of reuse and recycle and tell stories with. When you memorize, it puts you in the position of, well, yeah, it's great if they ask you that exact question. And some questions you will get asked, like tell me about yourself, you're going to get 99 % of the time. But for the most part, if you memorize a set of 10 questions and one of those questions gets a slight variation, or they ask a question that's not on there, you end up panicking. You don't know how to think on your feet because you're reliant on your tool. You've used AI or you've used your script as a strategy rather than a tool. Brian Milner (13:42) Yeah, that's a great point. I'm kind of wanting to get your take on this because this is a big thing that I know often comes up in these kinds of interviews is those questions that we all hate to get that you just know, no one ever knows how to answer these things. So I'm just curious how you advise people, you know, the awful question like, you know, give me some of your weaknesses or give me some of the things that you're not good at. How do you advise people to handle those kind of questions when they get asked in interviews? Tali Shlafer (14:14) Yeah, so there are definitely some questions that we tend to hear more often than others, especially when it comes to those recruiter interviews. The tell me about yourself, what are your strengths? What are your weaknesses? Tell me about a time you had to deal with a conflict. Tell me about a time you had to deal with a mistake. Those are pretty common, I would say, in that initial recruiter conversation. It's always an interview in my book. The weakness question I know is one of the that and the tell me about yourself is what really stresses people out. Brian Milner (14:40) Ha Tali Shlafer (14:43) My general advice for the weakness is actually something that I heard Adam Grant, who's an organizational psychology at Wharton share, which is pick something that is real but not disqualifying. So if you're an Agilist, your weakness should probably not be scrum or not be, you know, understanding business requirements. But it could be something like public speaking. Brian Milner (15:00) Ha Tali Shlafer (15:08) Or it could be something like delegating, where, you know, it's something real and it's not... It's something authentic. Authenticity is really, really important, especially nowadays in interviews. But it doesn't stop you from being able to perform well. So what I typically advise is pick a weakness, like Adam Grant says, that's real but not disqualifying. And this is important, and where a lot of people miss out, share what are you doing to actually address it? Because what we want to do, the point of that question isn't tell us what's wrong with you so we can judge you and disqualify you from the job. It's the subcontext of it is do you have self-awareness? Are you somebody who is aware enough and humble enough to know your shortcomings? And are you someone who's proactive about fixing them? and about becoming a better person. So the second part of that answer should be, well, what have you done to try to improve? What are specific steps that you've taken in order to improve? Brian Milner (16:09) Yeah, that's a great response. I know I've heard the traditional, you try to say one of your strengths as, I guess my weakness is I work too hard, like that kind of thing. Which I agree, it's not sincere. If I'm hearing that and I'm interviewing someone, that could disqualify him in my book, because I could think, this person is not going be honest with me. ⁓ Tali Shlafer (16:20) Yeah. or the I'm a perfectionist piece? The most common answer to that question. Brian Milner (16:33) Alright, I'm a perfectionist, right? Yeah, exactly. Well, you hit on the other big one too, the tell me about yourself. How do you advise people to handle that? Do you have a script in mind? you kind of detail out a couple of things? What's important to hit when someone asks you to just tell me about yourself? Tali Shlafer (16:54) Yeah, I'm a big fan of formulas over scripts. So I'll share my formula, but let me share a couple things that derail people. Let's kind of establish what's not helpful. And then we can kind of talk about this formula, which by the way, lots of different career coaches have different formulas. There's not necessarily one that works. It's just pick something and learn to do it really well. A lot of people will go in and start well. I graduated from the University of Washington in 1995, and they give kind of their entire history. And we lose the interviewer right away when we do that. So rather than giving them a chronological history of everything that's happened in your career and asking them, when we do that, we are essentially asking them, hey, here's all this information and data. You make sense of it. You figure out how it's relevant to you. I think it's actually really kind to use a formula to help them understand. Here's everything you need to know about me as it pertains to this role. So taking everything, taking your history and your career through the filter of what is important to demonstrate for this role. So the formula that I teach is sharing a super quick background. Hey, I'm Tali, I've been a project manager for the last 10 years. That's not true, that's not, let me reset that. So I think starting with a very brief. Brian Milner (18:12) You Tali Shlafer (18:16) sentence about yourself, your relevant role, how long you've had experience. Hey, I'm John. I've been project manager for the last 10 years, sharing the three key skills that you need to have in order to succeed at this job. And for each of those three skills, can you list an accomplishment or a metric or a success story? And we're not telling a whole story. We're just giving them here's the highlight reel, here's the headline, and then you'll click into all of those stories later. So quick little background about yourself, three main skills that you've developed that are relevant for this role, and super high level accomplishment to demonstrate those skills. So that's a little bit, that kind of is the first half, and that talks more about your previous experiences. And then in the second half of this answer, we want to pivot it to the future. So the first half is really about the past, it's about yourself. And then in the second half, we want to pivot to the future. what are you looking for in your next role? And hopefully that thing is also in that, that whatever you're looking for in your next role should dovetail really nicely into what they're offering as a company and as, as a, as an organization. What are you looking for specifically in your next role? And why are you so excited about interviewing with this company? And we want to share something really specific that We want to share something specific that feels personal. Where a lot of people go wrong is they'll share something like, I really want growth in my next role. And I'm excited about this team because I know you guys really value innovation. That doesn't really tell us anything. So we want one level of detail lower. So I'm really excited. What I really want in my next role is more leadership opportunities, so opportunities to mentor. And I'm really excited about this particular opportunities because I looked on your website, I looked at your blog posts, I looked at your, you know, CEO's posts that they share on LinkedIn. And I can tell that this is a really important part of your culture is being able to mentor people up into higher positions, right? Getting that specific, and there's not a right answer. I remember when I was interviewing for... out of college, I was interviewing for T-Mobile for an internship. And my answer was, I've talked to a lot of people, I've networked with a lot of people at T-Mobile. And one thing that really strikes me is the fact that a lot of people will leave for local companies like Microsoft, Amazon, and then they come back. There's a lot of people who spend a lot of time here. really does. There's a lot of loyalty and the culture, like I shared things that are specific to the culture and there's not a right answer here. It just needs to be. specific and it needs to be something that when you talk about it you kind of start getting butterflies because that's contagious. Brian Milner (21:07) That's awesome. Well, I want to ask about kind of the other half of the interview or the other portion of the interview as well. They, you know, I often hear people say, you know, you should walk into the interview understanding that it's a two way interview. They're interviewing you, but you're interviewing them as well because you want to know, is this the right place for me? So I can make the right decision about where I'm going to end up. What kind of things do you advise people to ask about or to focus on? What are some things that might expose some hidden things about the organization, warning signs or anything like that that might pop up in an interview to ask about? Tali Shlafer (21:45) That's a really good question. think one thing, it really depends on the opportunity and what you're looking for. So I don't think that there's one magic question that if you ask it, oh, the person's gonna be super impressed. Let me back up. What I really like about what you just said, is the framing of the questions that you ask at the end as a two-way conversation and as a way for you to understand more about the company so you can see if it's a good fit. I think a lot of people, especially in tough job markets, tend to kind of close their eyes and hope they get something and they almost blind themselves to the fact that they need to also do the work to make sure that it's a good fit. Or I see a lot of people who go, well, what can I ask that's impressive? What questions can I ask that's going to really wow them at the end, rather than seeing it as an opportunity to really understand what they offer more? So I would sit down and prioritize what is really important for you in a culture. if getting feedback, if growth is important for you, making sure to ask about, can you tell me about recently on your team, somebody who was promoted or how you helped somebody grow in the company? The best way that we can learn about something is through examples. The best proof that somebody values something is through the examples that they share. So we want to ask, kind of like you hear behavioral questions, you get asked, like, tell me about a time when. You can also use that, figure out what's important for you, and then create. Ask questions specifically about those things. One question that I think can be really helpful to get you to get a sense of what kind of person succeeds on this team and what the team really values is kind of the inverse of that. can you tell me about, can you tell me about what type of person doesn't do well here? Because then if they say, you know, The type of person who doesn't do well here isn't committed to working 60 hours a week. They expect to take their vacations and not be able to unplug. That kind of being able to hear who isn't successful gives you some context around some of their values as well. Brian Milner (24:01) Yeah, that's an excellent question because I agree. Presumably, this is someone you're going to be working with if you get the job. That immediate relationship, think, is going to really be impactful on the expectations, that sort of thing. Yeah, if I'm interviewing and I ask that kind of question, and they do come back and say, yeah, the person who doesn't work 60 hours or anything. Yeah, that's a good sign that maybe this is, I don't know, unless I enjoy working 60 hours a week, that maybe this is not the right cultural fit for me. So that's an excellent question, because I think that would expose some of that behind the scenes stuff, cultural things. ⁓ Tali Shlafer (24:42) And you really want to ask about questions about your dynamic with the manager. So what kind of people succeed under them? Because that's the number one people. I believe I'd have to fact check this, but you always hear that the number one people reason people don't like their jobs or people leave their jobs is because of their boss. So you want to understand you're essentially going on a date with them and you want to understand what is it like to hang out with you for 40 hours a week? Brian Milner (25:05) you Tali Shlafer (25:09) So asking specific questions to really understand what's their working style, what are their expectations, what are their positive experiences, what does feedback look like? Is it a once a year thing? Is it a every time we touch base during our one-on-ones you get feedback? That is really important. The other thing that's important to think about is do you understand the role itself? Like what questions do you have? What gaps in your understanding do you have about the role? Really clarifying to make sure that you know what you're signing up for. Brian Milner (25:40) Yeah, that's a great response as well. I know I remember from back in the day getting told that it's a good kind of question to ask what would success look like? If you really got someone to nail this and you were really happy with the hire and it was perfect, what would be the biggest thing that would contribute to that? And I've always liked that approach as well because it kind of gives you the expectation from the start to know here's what's most important in that manager's mind of what they're looking for. Yeah, just in my memory of interviewing people, would say I've never, I don't think I've ever not hired someone because of a question that they asked at the end, but... I have felt sometimes like when they don't ask questions that they're a little unprepared. Tali Shlafer (26:30) Yeah, and I think it, I think part of the not asking questions, one is being not prepared, not thinking thoroughly about the job. But it's also a little bit of a sense of desperation, like, I've been applying for four months, I don't care, I'm willing to take anything. So I don't have questions, because let me just take any first job that comes available. There's kind of that mindset. And I think it manifests as, I don't have any questions. And I think Brian Milner (26:48) You Tali Shlafer (26:58) People can kind of feel that when you're not critical, when you're not trying to figure out, am I really going to be able to succeed here? People kind of pick up on that and it either looks like desperation or it looks like disengagement and disinterest. We want people not, we don't want to hire the first person off the street who can do the job. We want to hire somebody who's excited to be there and who we know isn't going to leave six months later when they find something better. Brian Milner (27:23) Yeah, that's really good. Well, this has been really enlightening. I think there's a lot of gems in here that I think people can apply. we all find ourselves in that position from time to time of having to interview for things. As I said, even as a consultant, it's an interview when you talk to a potential new client. So I think these are all really great tips for that. We're going to make sure that there's contact information for Tali at the show notes of this so you can get a hold of her. Anything you want to shout out about, any places you want to point people to to get in contact with you? Tali Shlafer (27:56) So for the last few years, I've been posting usually about two short form videos a day to LinkedIn, all the social medias. Over the last couple of years, I've posted over 700 short form videos on social media. I've actually had over a hundred million views on LinkedIn, which is really crazy. Somebody recognized me at the dog park the other day, which was wild. But I created an interview tip-ball that took the best... The most helpful videos the ones that have gone viral received the best feedback gotten people the biggest results in their interviews And I compiled them all in one Interview tip bolt so that's my little thing that I like to share with people You'll see everything in there from how to tell me about yourself To answering why do people ramble and what other mistakes are people making? and also special tips for senior leaders and executives. So that's my little freebie that I like to share out for folks who are interested in the stuff that I'm talking about. Brian Milner (28:56) Awesome, awesome. we will definitely make that available to people in the show notes and links to your socials as well so people can follow you and stay on top of your tips as they come out. So thank you so much for coming on, Tali, and I appreciate you spending some time with us and sharing your knowledge with us. Tali Shlafer (29:13) Thanks so much, Brian. It was a pleasure.

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Criticism rarely comes wrapped in a shiny gift box, tied with a bow. As a trailblazing leader, one of Mellody Hobson's gifts is finding the diamond in the rough. She and Adam unpack how to look for the grain of truth in any critique, when to discount feedback, and what it takes to be honest without being brutal. This episode originally aired on June 15, 2021.For the full text transcript, visit ted.com/podcasts/fixable-transcriptsFor a chance to give your own TED Talk, fill out the Idea Search Application: ted.com/ideasearch. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Adam Grant (NYT bestselling author of Think Again and organizational psychologist at Wharton) joins us to unpack why everything we believe about confidence might be backward. From navigating failure and perfectionism to learning how to detach worth from work, Adam explores why passion isn't something you “find,” how spirituality intersects with identity, and how reframing narratives can lead to a more meaningful life. Plus, the secret to motivation might not be what you think. THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS! Fetzer

On this episode of Impact Theory with Tom Bilyeu, he lays out the most fundamental aspects of a good leader. Adam and Tom discuss humility, integrity and the importance of being a giver, not a taker. They also delve deep into the idea of “cognitive entrenchment”, which is a deadly trap that everyone has to deal with, no matter how educated, informed, or driven they are. [ORIGINAL AIR DATE: 6-16-20]. SHOW NOTES:  What are the universal principles of leadership? [1:29] Are you a giver or a taker? [2:42] Adam explains how to be successful as a giver, and the main traps to avoid [4:31] I f you want to lead, you must keep people's attention on the message, not on you [6:30] A leader is like a shepherd, very rarely out in front of the flock [10:03] Adam describes the skills leaders need to acquire, and the criticism they need to seek [13:12] Adam explains why he works so hard to avoid getting caught up in being right [17:01] Teams who have too many superstars don't win championships [20:53] The leader of a team is often the person who most exemplifies what the group stands for [24:48] Adam describes “cognitive entrenchment” where experts get mentally stuck [25:37] Tom and Adam discuss the need for hyper-specific goals and testable hypotheses [28:47] Is there a point where the constant need for personal growth actually becomes harmful? [33:33] Tom talks about being a synthesizer, instead of being the thinker of original thoughts [37:13] Do you care about what you want to say, or about what people will actually hear? [40:36] Adam talks about why he doesn't always follow his intuition [42:04]  FOLLOW:  WEBSITE: www.adamgrant.net INSTAGRAM: https://bit.ly/3cVIYMQ  FACEBOOK: https://bit.ly/2MMhyhU  TWITTER: https://bit.ly/3dTIjNv  SUPPORT OUR SPONSORS: Get 5 free AG1 Travel Packs and a FREE 1 year supply of Vitamin D with your first purchase at https://impacttheory.co/AG1pod. Secure your digital life with proactive protection for your assets, identity, family, and tech – Go to https://impacttheory.co/aurapod to start your free two-week trial. ********************************************************************** What's up, everybody? It's Tom Bilyeu here: If you want my help... STARTING a business: Join me inside ZERO TO FOUNDER here SCALING a business: Click here to see if you qualify Get my battle-tested strategies and insights delivered weekly to your inbox: sign up here. ********************************************************************** Join me live on my Twitch stream. I'm live daily from 6:30 to 8:30 am PT at www.twitch.tv/tombilyeu ********************************************************************** LISTEN TO IMPACT THEORY & MINDSET PLAYBOOK AD FREE + BONUS EPISODES on APPLE PODCASTS: apple.co/impacttheory ********************************************************************** FOLLOW TOM: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tombilyeu/ Tik Tok: https://www.tiktok.com/@tombilyeu?lang=en Twitter: https://twitter.com/tombilyeu YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TomBilyeu Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Do you hate the taste of cilantro and chocolate? You might be a super taster! Rachel Herz is a neuroscientist at Brown University who specializes in taste and smell. In this episode, Adam, Rachel, and Adam's wife Allison Sweet Grant investigate the sources of their different food preferences, uncover the overlooked power of smell, and analyze the effects of the gene that can turn some people into picky eaters. This episode originally aired on ReThinking with Adam Grant July 22, 2025.For a chance to give your own TED Talk, fill out the Idea Search Application: ted.com/ideasearch. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Zach Mercurio reveals the hidden epidemic that's plaguing the workplace—and what we can do about it.— YOU'LL LEARN — 1) The root of disengagement and quiet quitting2) How to help others feel valued in just 30 seconds3) The questions that help people feel seenSubscribe or visit AwesomeAtYourJob.com/ep1083 for clickable versions of the links below. — ABOUT GINO — Zach Mercurio is a researcher, leadership development facilitator, and speaker specializing in purposeful leadership, mattering, and meaningful work. He advises leaders in organizations worldwide on practices for building cultures that promote well-being, motivation, and high performance. Mercurio holds a PhD in organizational learning, performance, and change and serves as one of Simon Sinek's Optimist Instructors, teaching a top-rated course on creating mattering at work. His previous book is The Invisible Leader.• Book: The Power of Mattering: How Leaders Can Create a Culture of Significance• Study: “The Lived Experience of Meaningful Work in a Stigmatized Occupation: A Descriptive Phenomenological Inquiry”• LinkedIn: Zach Mercurio• Website: ZachMercurio.com— RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THE SHOW — • Study: “Human Workplace Index: The Price of Invisibility” from Workhuman• Study: “Age, Perceptions of Mattering, and Allostatic Load” by John Taylor, Michael J. McFarland, and Dawn C. Carr• Study: “Undervaluing Gratitude: Expressers Misunderstand the Consequences of Showing Appreciation” by Amit Kumar and Nicholas Epley• Study: “It's not all about me: motivating hand hygiene among health care professionals by focusing on patients” by Adam Grant and David A. Hofmann• Book: Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl• Past episode: 500: Building Unshakeable Self-Esteem and Confidence with Victor Cheng• Past episode: 972: Amy Edmondson on How to Fail Well— THANK YOU SPONSORS! — • Strawberry.me. Claim your $50 credit and build momentum in your career with Strawberry.me/Awesome• Plaud.ai. Use the code AWESOME and get a discount on your order• LinkedIn Jobs. Post your job for free at linkedin.com/beawesome• Quince. Get free shipping and 365-day returns on your order with Quince.com/AwesomeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In this season of WorkLife, we're pairing each of our regular episodes with a companion interview to do a deeper dive into the topic. This is the deeper dive for our episode on how to say no. Linda Babcock is a professor emerita of economics at Carnegie Mellon and co-author of “The No Club,” a club of people who help each other set boundaries. Linda and Adam share some of their personal struggles and lessons with around no, discuss Linda's research on why women take on more non-promotable tasks at work, and explore novel strategies for us all to guard our time against people who don't respect it.To listen to our previous episode, "How to Say No," click here!For a chance to give your own TED Talk, fill out the Idea Search Application: ted.com/ideasearch.Interested in learning more about upcoming TED events? Follow these links:TEDNext: ted.com/futureyouTEDSports: ted.com/sportsTEDAI Vienna: ted.com/ai-viennaTEDAI San Francisco: ted.com/ai-sf Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Discover all of the podcasts in our network, search for specific episodes, get the Optimal Living Daily workbook, and learn more at: OLDPodcast.com. Episode 1775: Mike Smerklo explores how our inner fears, what he calls the “monsters under the bed,” can sabotage our potential, especially when we don't have mentors to guide us. By revealing his personal struggles and lessons learned, he highlights how intentional mentorship can quiet self-doubt and accelerate growth in both career and character. Read along with the original article(s) here: https://www.mikesmerklo.com/mentorship-and-the-monster-under-the-bed/ Quotes to ponder: "Left unchecked, this voice of fear can keep you from realizing your true potential." "A mentor is someone who has faced their own monsters and lived to tell the tale." "The monster under the bed never really goes away, but you can learn to live with it." Episode references: Give and Take by Adam Grant: https://www.amazon.com/Give-Take-Helping-Others-Success/dp/0143124986 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Discover all of the podcasts in our network, search for specific episodes, get the Optimal Living Daily workbook, and learn more at: OLDPodcast.com. Episode 1775: Mike Smerklo explores how our inner fears, what he calls the “monsters under the bed,” can sabotage our potential, especially when we don't have mentors to guide us. By revealing his personal struggles and lessons learned, he highlights how intentional mentorship can quiet self-doubt and accelerate growth in both career and character. Read along with the original article(s) here: https://www.mikesmerklo.com/mentorship-and-the-monster-under-the-bed/ Quotes to ponder: "Left unchecked, this voice of fear can keep you from realizing your true potential." "A mentor is someone who has faced their own monsters and lived to tell the tale." "The monster under the bed never really goes away, but you can learn to live with it." Episode references: Give and Take by Adam Grant: https://www.amazon.com/Give-Take-Helping-Others-Success/dp/0143124986 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

本集由《經理人》總編輯齊立文，導讀《開創心態》。 想突破現狀，卻總被計畫綁住？《開創心態》告訴你，別怕犯錯，試錯才是成功的祕密武器！以《逆思維》《給予》等書爆紅的華頓商學院最年輕的終身聘教授亞當．格蘭特 （Adam Grant），在這本書裡拆解創新的關鍵思考和行動策略：如何突破慣性思考、從不同角度觀察問題、有效連結資源，並在組織內推動變革。 本集重點整理： 1.使用什麼瀏覽器，決定一個人的離職率高低？ 2. 那些企業家或用產品改變世界的人，有什麼共同特質？ 3. 面對機會和風險，開創者的評估方式是什麼？解析創業家性格的風險組合觀念！ Powered by Firstory Hosting

In this episode of Grow a Small Business, host Troy Trewin interviews Suzanna Chaplin, founder of ESB Connect, shares her incredible journey from starting an email marketing business with her father to building a powerhouse with over 17 million email addresses and £1.5M in revenue. She opens up about overcoming £250K in debt, navigating the emotional toll of a family business, and pioneering the UK's first email retargeting tech that matches anonymous site visitors with emails. Suzanna also dives into scaling with profitability, building a resilient team, and why owning your audience is more critical than ever. Her story is packed with real challenges, bold moves, and powerful insights for any business owner chasing sustainable growth. Why would you wait any longer to start living the lifestyle you signed up for? Balance your health, wealth, relationships and business growth. And focus your time and energy and make the most of this year. Let's get into it by clicking here. Troy delves into our guest's startup journey, their perception of success, industry reconsideration, and the pivotal stress point during business expansion. They discuss the joys of small business growth, vital entrepreneurial habits, and strategies for team building, encompassing wins, blunders, and invaluable advice. And a snapshot of the final five Grow A Small Business Questions: What do you think is the hardest thing in growing a small business? According to Suzanna Chaplin, the hardest thing in growing a small business is navigating the emotional rollercoaster—the constant ups and downs. One day everything feels great with strong sales and a happy team, and the next day, key clients might pull budgets or team members might resign. It's the ability to stay consistent, keep showing up every day, and push through the tough times that truly tests a business owner's resilience. What's your favorite business book that has helped you the most? Suzanna Chaplin's favorite business books that have helped her the most include “Winners” by Alastair Campbell for its insight into what makes successful people tick, and “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” by Stephen Covey, which she values for its lessons on communication and understanding people's core motivations. She also mentioned “Good to Great” by Jim Collins and books by Adam Grant as powerful resources that have shaped her business thinking. Are there any great podcasts or online learning resources you'd recommend to help grow a small business? Suzanna Chaplin recommends several powerful podcasts and online resources to help grow a small business, including How I Built This by Guy Raz for inspiring founder stories, Diary of a CEO for raw and insightful conversations (especially earlier episodes), and Sweat Equity by the founders of Hype for practical branding tips. She also suggests Founders for deep dives into entrepreneurial mindsets and The Spark by Emma Grede for valuable perspectives from a female founder's lens. Suzanna emphasizes that podcasts, books, and mentorship have been key to her learning, offering real-world solutions to everyday business challenges. What tool or resource would you recommend to grow a small business? Suzanna Chaplin recommends Xero as a must-have tool to grow a small business, emphasizing the importance of knowing your numbers and staying on top of cash flow. While it may seem basic, having clear visibility into your finances is crucial for making smart decisions. She also highlights the value of implementing a solid CRM system as the business scales, helping manage team workflows, forecasting, and client communication more efficiently. These tools, she says, are essential for building a strong operational foundation. What advice would you give yourself on day one of starting out in business? Suzanna Chaplin's advice to herself on day one of starting out in business would be: “It's going to be okay—keep going and stay consistent.” She emphasizes the importance of trusting the journey, making quicker decisions when needed (especially around hiring), and not holding onto people or situations that no longer serve the business. She'd also remind herself to stay organized, believe in her instincts, and understand that the hard days will pass—and every small step forward adds up to big progress. Book a 20-minute Growth Chat with Troy Trewin to see if you qualify for our upcoming course. Don't miss out on this opportunity to take your small business to new heights! Enjoyed the podcast? Please leave a review on iTunes or your preferred platform. Your feedback helps more small business owners discover our podcast and embark on their business growth journey.     Quotable quotes from our special Grow A Small Business podcast guest: You don't truly own your audience until you own their email address – Suzanna Chaplin Every small step you take during hard times becomes a giant leap in hindsight – Suzanna Chaplin Delegation isn't weakness — it's the key to real growth – Suzanna Chaplin      

Welcome back to the Moonshots Podcast! In this episode, your hosts, Mike and Mark, deeply dive into the fascinating world of mental models, drawing inspiration from Shane Parrish's thought-provoking book, "The Great Mental Models: General Thinking Concepts." Join us as we explore key insights and practical advice that can revolutionize the way you make decisions.Buy The Book on Amazon: https://geni.us/MentalModelsGet the summary https://www.apolloadvisor.com/the-great-mental-models-book-summary/Become a Moonshot Member https://www.patreon.com/MoonshotsWatch this episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/GYejGQHHxGY?si=jTs-VpdSTqBbANnhIntroduction: Rethinking Cycles and Prioritizing Outcomes (3:13)To kick things off, we begin with an engaging discussion between Adam Grant and Shane Parrish. They delve into the concept of rethinking cycles, emphasizing the importance of searching for outcomes over ego. This insightful conversation reminds us of the value of humility and adaptability in our decision-making processes.Breaking Problems Down: The Power of Inversion (1:49)When it comes to problem-solving, we all encounter challenges occasionally. That's where the Productivity Game's ingenious idea comes in: try solving the opposite problem first. This technique, known as inversion, is discussed in detail, showcasing its effectiveness in tackling complex problems head-on.Finding Better Solutions with First Principles (1:33)Building on our problem-solving exploration, we introduce the concept of First Principles thinking. Inspired by the Productivity Game once again, we discuss how breaking a problem down to its fundamental elements can lead to innovative and effective solutions. Principles thinking is a powerful tool for those seeking to revolutionize their approach to problem-solving.Forward-Thinking Decisions: Embracing Second-Order Thinking (1:17)In the realm of decision-making, forward-thinking is critical. We introduce the concept of Second-Order Thinking, which involves considering the potential consequences of decisions beyond their immediate impact. Drawing on insights from the Productivity Game, we provide valuable guidance on incorporating second-order thinking into your decision-making process.Circle of Competence: Wisdom from Warren Buffett (1:29)We delve into the wisdom of Warren Buffett, one of the world's most successful investors. His philosophy revolves around the Circle of Competence, encouraging individuals to stay within their areas of expertise and resist the temptation to act or react. This principle is a valuable addition to your toolkit for making better decisions.Cultivating Better Thinking Patterns (2:47)In our final segment, we wrap up the discussion with insights from Shane Parrish on how to cultivate a better thinking pattern. We emphasize the significance of surrounding yourself with people who challenge your perspectives and think differently from you. By following people you respect but disagree with, you can enhance your ability to make well-rounded decisions.In this enlightening episode of the Moonshots Podcast, Mike and Mark provide you with practical strategies and mental models to enhance your decision-making skills and tackle complex problems with confidence. Don't miss this opportunity to unlock your potential for better thinking and decision-making. Tune in now and embark on your journey to becoming a more effective decision-maker! Thanks to our monthly supporters Britt Fogg Steve Edwin Deitch Jamie Dorward Emily Rose Banks Malcolm Magee Natalie Triman Kaur Ryan N. Marco-Ken Möller Edward Rehfeldt III 孤鸿 月影 Fabian Jasper Verkaart Andy Pilara ola Austin Hammatt Zachary Phillips Mike Leigh Cooper Gayla Schiff Laura KE Roar Nikolay Ytre-Eide Stef Roger von Holdt venkata reddy Ingram Casey Ola rahul grover Ravi Govender Craig Lindsay Steve Woollard Lasse Brurok Deborah Spahr Barbara Samoela Jo Hatchard Kalman Cseh Berg De Bleecker Paul Acquaah MrBonjour Sid Liza Goetz Konnor Ah kuoi Marjan Modara Dietmar Baur Bob Nolley ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

Send us a textWhat if everything we thought we knew about training correctional officers was based on flawed assumptions? In this eye-opening conversation with Myles Cook, we explore how questioning basic training objectives can transform outcomes across corrections.Miles brings 15 years of diverse experience spanning corrections, patrol, narcotics, investigations, and academy instruction to tackle one of our profession's most fundamental challenges - training that actually works. With a master's degree, military service, and recognition as one of the International Association of Police Chiefs' 40 Under 40 Award recipients, Myles understands both theory and practical application.The conversation dives deep into how objective-based training has revolutionized physical fitness programs at his academy, resulting in remarkable 34-38% improvement rates across all fitness metrics. Rather than forcing everyone through identical workouts, their individualized approach ensures every recruit progresses at their optimal pace - creating not just fitter officers, but lifelong healthy habits.We explore why corrections training often gets stuck in outdated patterns, from focusing on policy over actual ethics to teaching shooting techniques that don't match real-world needs. Myles challenges listeners to look beyond their field for solutions, whether that's learning from athletic coaches for fitness training or competitive shooters for firearms instruction.Perhaps most valuable is Myles' framework for problem-solving: questioning assumptions, reframing problems, and finding innovative solutions by focusing on the true objective rather than apparent issues. His classic elevator example demonstrates how sometimes the real solution isn't making things faster, but making the experience better.For any corrections professional who's sat through mandatory training, wondering "what's the point?" - this episode offers a refreshing perspective and practical tools to transform your approach to teaching and learning. Connect with Miles at milescook@ws.edu to continue the conversation about revolutionizing corrections training.Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know – by Adam GrantOriginals: How Non-Conformists Move the World by Adam Grant  PepperBallFrom crowd control to cell extractions, the PepperBall system is the safe, non-lethal option.OMNIOMNI is cutting-edge software designed to track inmates and assets within your prison or jail. Command PresenceBringing prisons and jails the training they deserve!Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.Support the showContact us: mike@theprisonofficer.comFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/ThePrisonOfficerTake care of each other and Be Safe behind those walls and fences!

On this episode of Impact Theory with Tom Bilyeu, he lays out the most fundamental aspects of a good leader. Adam and Tom discuss humility, integrity and the importance of being a giver, not a taker. They also delve deep into the idea of “cognitive entrenchment”, which is a deadly trap that everyone has to deal with, no matter how educated, informed, or driven they are. ORIGINAL AIR DATE: 6-16-20 SHOW NOTES: What are the universal principles of leadership? [1:29] Are you a giver or a taker? [2:42] Adam explains how to be successful as a giver, and the main traps to avoid [4:31] If you want to lead, you must keep people's attention on the message, not on you [6:30] A leader is like a shepherd, very rarely out in front of the flock [10:03] Adam describes the skills leaders need to acquire, and the criticism they need to seek [13:12] Adam explains why he works so hard to avoid getting caught up in being right [17:01] Teams who have too many superstars don't win championships [20:53] The leader of a team is often the person who most exemplifies what the group stands for [24:48] Adam describes “cognitive entrenchment” where experts get mentally stuck [25:37] Tom and Adam discuss the need for hyper-specific goals and testable hypotheses [28:47] Is there a point where the constant need for personal growth actually becomes harmful? [33:33] Tom talks about being a synthesizer, instead of being the thinker of original thoughts [37:13] Do you care about what you want to say, or about what people will actually hear? [40:36] Adam talks about why he doesn't always follow his intuition [42:04] FOLLOW: WEBSITE: www.adamgrant.net INSTAGRAM: https://bit.ly/3cVIYMQ FACEBOOK: https://bit.ly/2MMhyhU TWITTER: https://bit.ly/3dTIjNv What's up, everybody? It's Tom Bilyeu here: If you want my help... STARTING a business: join me here at ZERO TO FOUNDER SCALING a business: see if you qualify here. Get my battle-tested strategies and insights delivered weekly to your inbox: sign up here. ********************************************************************** If you're serious about leveling up your life, I urge you to check out my new podcast, Tom Bilyeu's Mindset Playbook —a goldmine of my most impactful episodes on mindset, business, and health. Trust me, your future self will thank you. ********************************************************************** Join me live on my Twitch stream. I'm live daily from 6:30 to 8:30 am PT at www.twitch.tv/tombilyeu ********************************************************************** LISTEN TO IMPACT THEORY AD FREE + BONUS EPISODES on APPLE PODCASTS: apple.co/impacttheory ********************************************************************** FOLLOW TOM: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tombilyeu/ Tik Tok: https://www.tiktok.com/@tombilyeu?lang=en Twitter: https://twitter.com/tombilyeu YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TomBilyeu Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode from 2021, organizational psychologist and bestselling author Adam Grant joins Gwyneth Paltrow to explore what it really takes to change your mind—about your work, your worth, and even your identity. They unpack the hidden cost of certainty, the surprising upside of imposter syndrome, and why rethinking your path is a sign of strength, not failure. It's a conversation about ambition, burnout, and the uncomfortable—but essential—growth that happens when we stop to question ourselves. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In this solo episode, I'm diving into something we all run into: how to ask for help or feedback in a way that actually gets you what you need, and how to give focused, respectful feedback when someone else asks. We've all been there: you crowdsource advice and end up with a flood of tangents, venting, or random noise before you get anything useful. I break down why vague questions lead to scattered responses, share my C + B + F formula (Context + Boundaries + Format), and explain how small changes can improve the way we interact, collaborate, and support each other, whether online, in meetings, or in everyday life. Along the way, I share insights from Amanda Palmer, Adam Grant, Chris Voss, and Priya Parker, plus some relatable stories (including one about asking if anyone's been to the zoo, you'll laugh!). This episode is packed with actionable advice you can use right now to improve communication at work and beyond. Resources & Links: TED Talk: The art of asking by Amanda Palmer Give and Take: A Revolutionary Approach to Success by Adam Grant Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It by Chris Voss The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why It Matters by Priya Parker Join The Directory Of The West Get our FREE resource for Writing a Strong Job Description  Get our FREE resource for Making the Most of Your Internship Email us at hello@ofthewest.co Subscribe to Of The West's Newsletters List your jobs on ⁠Of The West Connect with Jessie: Follow on Instagram @ofthewest.co and @mrsjjarv Follow on Facebook @jobsofthewest Check out the Of The West website Be sure to subscribe/follow the show so you never miss an episode! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Episode NotesWhy listening is the most underutilized leadership superpowerThe hidden root causes of burnout (hint: it's not just overwork)How to give and receive feedback without triggering egoBuilding psychological safety one honest moment at a timeThe surprising reason why emotionally intelligent leaders are the most effectiveRecommended Resources:Dare to Lead by Brené BrownLeaders Eat Last by Simon SinekThink Again by Adam GrantPodcast: WorkLife with Adam Grant www.YourHealth.Org

In part two of our interview with Eric Topol, author of the New York Times bestseller Super Agers, we cover how to get a good night's sleep, why one day everyone may take GLP-1s, and how AI is poised to transform medicine. 1️⃣ Missed Part 1? Listen now on Apple Podcasts or Spotify

There are 5 different generations in the workplace today, and strong views can lead to conflict between age groups. But are generational differences really the problem? In this episode, Adam investigates the root causes of age stereotypes, why they hold us all back, and how to overcome generational divides at work. Guests: journalist Nicole Smith and research scientist Jennifer Deal.For the full text transcript, visit ted.com/podcasts/fixable-transcriptsFor a chance to give your own TED Talk, fill out the Idea Search Application: ted.com/ideasearch. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to another enriching edition of the Do Good to Lead Well podcast series, where we explore the power of meaningful work and its profound impact on personal and professional growth. In this episode, I am thrilled to be joined by Wes Adams and Tamara Miles, the authors of "Meaningful Work". A serendipitous encounter evolved into extensive research and collaboration, gaining endorsements from global thought leaders like Adam Grant.Listen in as we challenge the common misconceptions about meaningful work, often assumed to be exclusive to certain professions. Wes and Tamara eloquently argue that meaningful work can be found in any role when it aligns with three core pillars: community, contribution, and challenge. Through compelling examples of janitors and hairstylists who find deep meaning in their daily tasks, we emphasize the role of leadership in shaping perceptions of meaningful work. Our conversation also addresses the hurdles leaders face with employees primarily motivated by financial incentives and how fostering a sense of community and purpose can enhance their work experience.Finally, we explore strategies for building meaningful work cultures within organizations. Wes and Tamara share valuable insights into the importance of aligning organizational values, particularly in remote work environments, and the significance of measuring progress towards creating meaningful work. We discuss how role modeling, clear communication, and understanding employees' unique narratives can foster a thriving work environment. Don't miss this enlightening episode where we uncover the science and practice of meaningful work.What You'll Learn- How to align any job with the pillars of community, contribution, and challenge to find fulfillment.- Insights into the transformative power of leadership in creating meaningful work.- Meaningful work in a remote world.- The importance of community in achieving meaningful work.Podcast Timestamps(00:00) – What is Meaningful Work?(07:27) – Common Misconceptions About Meaningful Work(13:49) – The 3 Pillars of Meaningful Work(20:44) - Creating A Culture for Meaningful Work(31:13) - Measuring Progress Towards Meaningful Work(40:12) – Meaningful Work as a Foundational Building Block for Scaling Organizations(51:20) - Meaningful Work and Employee EngagementKEYWORDSPositive Leadership, Meaningful Work, Professional Growth, Maximizing Fulfillment, Positive Psychology, Organizational Structures, Peak Performance, Fostering Innovation, Increasing Resilience, Creating Community, Values-Based Leadership, Managing Remote Work, Organizational Culture, Authenticity, Role Modeling, Employee Engagement, CEO Success

In this week's episode of The Workplace Podcast, William Corless sits down with Sabina Nawaz, elite executive coach and author of "You're the Boss: Become the Manager You Want to Be and Others Need." Sabina brings incredible credentials - 14 years at Microsoft where she advised Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer directly, plus extensive work with Fortune 500 companies. Her book has received high praise from Adam Grant, Marshall Goldsmith, and Rita McGrath!

What does it take to lead a $1.5 billion dairy cooperative without losing the soul of the family farm? In this episode of The Family Biz Show, Michael Palumbos sits down with Kevin Ellis, CEO of Upstate Niagara Cooperative, to explore the path from third-generation dairy roots to modern-day manufacturing leadership. This isn't just a story about dairy. It's about what happens when a family business mindset meets scale, legacy meets innovation, and community values get tested in a corporate structure. Whether you're navigating your own transition, scaling fast, or wondering how to bring next-gen thinking into a legacy business—this episode delivers powerful, practical insight. From Barn to Boardroom: Kevin's Unlikely Journey [00:45] Kevin's roots run deep in Central New York, where his family expanded from 100 to 300 cows. Initially considering veterinary school, he pivoted into animal science and eventually business, landing at Cornell and later earning his MBA from the University of Rochester. [02:30] His career is marked by reinvention—from nutritionist to banker to co-op founder. When former clients asked him to help start a breakaway processing plant, he said yes. That move eventually led to his role at Upstate Niagara, overseeing more than 260 family farms and 1,800 employees.

John Corcoran is a recovering attorney, an author, and a former White House writer and speechwriter to the Governor of California. Throughout his career, John has worked in Hollywood, the heart of Silicon Valley, and ran his boutique law firm in the San Francisco Bay Area, catering to small business owners and entrepreneurs. Since 2012, John has been the host of the Smart Business Revolution Podcast, where he has interviewed hundreds of CEOs, founders, authors, and entrepreneurs, including Peter Diamandis, Adam Grant, Gary Vaynerchuk, and Marie Forleo. John is also the Co-founder of Rise25, a company that connects B2B businesses with their ideal clients, referral partners, and strategic partners. They help their clients generate ROI through their done-for-you podcast service. In this episode… It's easier than ever to create content, but standing out and building meaningful relationships remains a major challenge. How can B2B leaders and entrepreneurs use podcasting and AI tools to drive growth, deepen connections, and establish thought leadership in today's noisy landscape? John Corcoran tackles this challenge by sharing specific tools and strategies that have proven effective. He explains how ChatGPT can be transformed into personalized AI coaches across multiple life areas, using uploaded documents and tailored prompts to enhance its utility. John also outlines how podcasting can serve as a relationship-building mechanism, whether reconnecting with past contacts like Ed O'Keefe or converting existing content into multi-platform episodes. Additionally, he shares a simple yet powerful method for boosting YouTube engagement through paid views and follow-up emails, which helps elevate guest exposure and strengthens ongoing partnerships. Tune in to this episode of the Smart Business Revolution Podcast as Chad Franzen interviews John Corcoran, Co-founder of Rise25, about leveraging AI and podcasting for business growth. John dives into AI productivity hacks, how to repurpose content effectively, and why guest interviews build lasting credibility. He also touches on using podcasting to rekindle professional relationships, the benefits of tools like Gemini and Veo 3, and his top podcast recommendations in the investment and wellness spaces.

In this episode, Kaila and Kyle discuss the difference between extrinsic and intrinsic motivation, and how to artificially generate it when you find yourself lacking motivation.  00:00 Intro 00:51 Intrinsic motivation vs extrinsic motivation 03:08 Kyle's intrinsic motivation vs Kaila's extrinsic motivation 08:56 How Kaila hacks her motivation 14:52 Research-backed strategies for increasing motivation 19:24 Self-Determination Theory 21:50 Manufacturing competition 27:19 Two more tactics for hacking extrinsic motivation 32:52 Adam Grant's study on radiologists  Want to get all of Kaila & Kyle's career resources? Subscribe to Per My Last Email: https://www.permylastemailshow.com/  Watch Per My Last Email on YouTube:   @PerMYLastEmailShow Follow Per My Last Email Instagram: @permylastemailshow TikTok: @permylastemailshow Twitter: @permylast_email Have a question for us? Send us an email or voice note to permylastemail@morningbrew.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Each week on Per My Last Email, Morning Brew's resident career experts Kaila and Kyle – whose careers have collectively spanned the corporate, government, nonprofit and startup sectors – debate the trickiest challenges in work life, and share tactics on how to overcome them. Share the show with a friend, and leave us a review on your favorite podcast app! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Many people don't use all their paid time off from work—and struggle to relax and recover on nights and weekends too. What does it take to make our breaks more restorative? Adam examines the evidence on recovery and burnout, explores how workplaces can reimagine vacation policies, and highlights what kinds of hobbies are best suited to different times of day. Available transcripts for WorkLife can be found at go.ted.com/WLtranscripts Want to help shape TED's shows going forward? Fill out our survey!Learn more about TED Next at ted.com/futureyouFor the Idea Search application, go to ted.com/ideasearch Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Send us a textWhat it really takes to grow into the leader you're meant to be—on your terms, over time, and from the inside out.As we head into the July 4th holiday, a time when we reflect on freedom, progress, and reinvention, it feels fitting to bring you this powerful new episode with Dr. Bryan Deptula, leadership expert and author of Leaders Are Born to Be Made.Bryan is one of the most grounded, engaging, and purpose-driven voices I've come across. His philosophy? That leadership isn't reserved for the chosen few. It's a skill, one we can all build, train, and strengthen over time.In our conversation, Bryan opens up about his own unlikely path from corporate sales leader to PhD, professor, and consultant. He shares how pivotal moments in his life—like a tough-love lesson from his godmother “Mama Sis” and a tent-bound self-reflection under the Indian River Inlet Bridge—helped him shed old versions of himself to grow into who he's meant to become.We dive deep into his MUSCLE framework:M: Me – Start with self-leadershipU: Understanding – Grow your leadership intelligenceS: Strategy – Align with vision, mission, and valuesC: Conflict – Use it productivelyL: Learning – Commit to growthE: Entrepreneurship – Own your path, whether you run a business or lead from withinThis isn't just theory, Bryan brings real-world experience, relatable stories, and an unfiltered look at what leadership looks like when it's done with heart, humility, and a willingness to get uncomfortable.He also reminds us that the best leaders are the ones who keep learning, keep failing forward, and keep living. As Bryan puts it: “Start leading by treating yourself as the most important individual you can work on first.”This is a conversation for anyone at a crossroads, whether you're a seasoned executive, a rising manager, or someone wondering what it takes to lead your own life a little better.Books mentioned in this episode:Leaders Are Born to Be Made – Bryan DeptulaEssentialism – Greg McKeownTeam of Rivals – Doris Kearns GoodwinUnique Ability – Dan SullivanPlus shoutouts to Adam Grant and the value of failing forwardWhether you're tuning in from the car, the beach, or your morning walk, I hope this one leaves you thinking a little differently about what it means to be a leader—starting with you.

住近美術館，把握最後機會 《惟美術》3房熱銷倒數 輕奢品味，全新完工，即刻入住 近鄰輕軌C22站，設籍明星學區 預約來電 07-553-3838 https://sofm.pse.is/7tq7wz -- NISSAN為提升車主夏季駕乘感受，限時推出X-TRAIL、KICKS及SENTRA「涼夏特仕版」限量各200台，雙前座升級通風座椅，提供涼爽舒適的駕駛體驗。 本月入主NISSAN任一車款再贈Dyson時尚吹風機組，及零利率方案，讓消費者輕鬆入主、無壓升級NISSAN車款。 https://sofm.pse.is/7tzvjg －－－－以上訊息由 SoundOn 動態廣告贊助商提供－－－－ 飛碟聯播網《飛碟早餐 唐湘龍時間》2025.07.02 週三財經產業趨勢單元 專訪：天下雜誌出版總編輯兼行銷長｜吳韻儀 主題：《高成效一對一會議寶典：不緊張、不虛工，善用前饋增進互信、激發動力，主管、部屬都受用的溝通指南》天下雜誌 好書收藏：https://reurl.cc/OY2xjD 做主管的，聽到一對一會議就皺眉頭。 流於形式浪費時間，更怕踩到地雷惹來後患。 身為部屬，聽到一對一會議就眼前一黑。 我出了什麼問題嗎？到底要怎麼準備才好？ 研究顯示，全球每天有高達2到5億場的一對一會議， 相當全世界每天投資在一對一會議的金額為12億5千萬美元！ 投資龐大，但是成效往往難讓人滿意。主管嫌煩也害怕，部屬焦慮又擔心。 該如何將這些會議轉化為有意義的成長，為我們帶來實際效益？ 本書作者史蒂文．羅吉伯格將幫助我們最大限度地發揮這些關鍵對話的潛力。 作者簡介 史蒂文．羅吉伯格博士（Steven G. Rogelberg） 組織心理學家，獲得北卡羅來納大學夏洛特分校（UNC Charlotte）校長教授職銜，因其在國內、國際和跨學科領域的傑出貢獻而獲此殊榮。史蒂文是一位屢獲獎項的教師，他不僅是工業與組織心理學學會（SIOP）人道主義獎的首屆獲獎者 ，並因其對會議的研究而獲得非常著名的「洪堡獎」。 本書是他的最新著作，《華盛頓郵報》評之為「最值得關注的領導力書籍」第一名。他和本書曾被CBS電視台《今晨》（This Morning）節目、《怪誕經濟學》（Freakonomics）、《哈佛商業評論》、美國全國公共廣播電台（NPR）、《華爾街日報》，以及《BBC World》等媒體採訪。亞當．格蘭特（Adam Grant）稱史蒂文為「世界頂尖的會議安排專家」。 #商業理財 #職場 #會議 #領導力 #天下雜誌 #效率 #組織 #成長 #高成效一對一會議寶典 ▶ 《飛碟早餐》FB粉絲團 https://www.facebook.com/ufobreakfast/ ▶ 飛碟聯播網FB粉絲團 https://www.facebook.com/ufonetwork921/ ▶ 網路線上收聽 http://www.uforadio.com.tw ▶ 飛碟APP，讓你收聽零距離 IOS：https://reurl.cc/3jYQMV Android：https://reurl.cc/5GpNbR ▶ 飛碟Podcast Apple Podcasts : https://apple.co/3jFpP6x Spotify : https://spoti.fi/2CPzneD KKBOX：https://reurl.cc/MZR0K4 -- Hosting provided by SoundOn

John Morgan doesn't lead quietly—and he doesn't build small. In part two of his conversation with Steve Riley, he shares the systems, standards, and mindset that built a law empire. On this episode of Great Practice, Great Life®, Steve Riley welcomes back John Morgan, founder of Morgan & Morgan, for an insightful continuation of their conversation. In this episode, you'll discover John Morgan's leadership lessons on how to grow a law firm with integrity. He also shares how long-term vision, and well-built systems can support both business growth and personal success. John shares the systems he created that allow his firm to scale without losing control. He highlights the importance of structure and transparency, sharing how internal checks to eliminate rogue behavior and uphold the firm's standards. For any attorney managing a growing team, John's insights on leadership, oversight, and operational discipline are invaluable. The conversation shifts into legacy and personal life. John opens up about raising four humble and successful children. He emphasizes that leadership isn't just about being a visionary; it's about being a visionary maker. His insight into parenting, business, and firm culture shows how strong values translate across every part of life. Throughout the episode, John shares analogies that bring his approach to life—from magic tricks and oil fields to casinos and card tables. He reflects on overcoming insecurity, navigating unpredictability, and creating opportunity through generosity, gratitude, and persistence. John Morgan's leadership lessons are rooted in hard-earned experience and deep human insight. This episode is more than a conversation; it's a roadmap for building sustainable law firm leadership, straight from one of the most successful legal entrepreneurs in the country. Tune in for candid advice, actionable takeaways, and a clear blueprint for creating a lasting legacy, and building a great practice and a great life. In this episode, you will hear: How to balance a successful legal career with a fulfilling personal life John Morgan's insights on creating harmony between work and home Building accountable and transparent systems in your law firm Why adopting audited financials can accelerate growth and trust The surprising connection between magic tricks and trial law strategy How to recognize and seize opportunities in an unpredictable world Teaching discipline, humility, and work ethic to the next generation Overcoming vision blockers like self-doubt and envy The role of gratitude and generosity in building a great life Follow and Review: We'd love for you to follow us if you haven't yet. Click that purple '+' in the top right corner of your Apple Podcasts app. We'd love it even more if you could drop a review or 5-star rating over on Apple Podcasts. Simply select “Ratings and Reviews” and “Write a Review” then a quick line with your favorite part of the episode. It only takes a second and it helps spread the word about the podcast. If there's a topic you would like us to cover on an upcoming episode, please email us at steve.riley@atticusadvantage.com. Supporting Resources: John Morgan: www.forthepeople.com/attorneys/john-morgan Morgan & Morgan: www.forthepeople.com Episode 137: Grow or Die: John Morgan's Relentless Strategy for Law Firm Expansion – Part 1: atticusadvantage.com/podcast/grow-or-die-john-morgan Contact Atticus for a Free Assessment: atticusadvantage.com/contact-us Zendesk: www.zendesk.com WonderWorks: www.wonderworksonline.com Alcatraz East: www.alcatrazeast.com You Can't Teach Hungry: Creating the Multimillion Dollar Law Firm by John Morgan: www.amazon.com/You-Cant-Teach-Hungry-Multimillion-ebook/dp/B0CW1KSZ1M You Can't Teach Vision: The Twenty-First Century Law Firm by John Morgan: www.amazon.com/Teach-Vision-Twenty-First-Century-MORGAN/dp/1941007384 Give and Take: Why Helping Others Drives Our Success by Adam Grant: www.amazon.com/Give-Take-Helping-Others-Success/dp/0143124986 The Summit: atticussummit.com John's 2018 Summit Keynote Presentation: www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TOxZ9terqA  Episode Credits If you like this podcast and are thinking of creating your own, consider talking to my producer, Emerald City Productions. They helped me grow and produce the podcast you are listening to right now. Find out more at https://emeraldcitypro.com Let them know we sent you.

“To navigate proof, we must reach into a thicket of errors and biases. We must confront monsters and embrace uncertainty, balancing — and rebalancing —our beliefs. We must seek out every useful fragment of data, gather every relevant tool, searching wider and climbing further. Finding the good foundations among the bad. Dodging dogma and falsehoods. Questioning. Measuring. Triangulating. Convincing. Then perhaps, just perhaps, we'll reach the truth in time.”—Adam KucharskiMy conversation with Professor Kucharski on what constitutes certainty and proof in science (and other domains), with emphasis on many of the learnings from Covid. Given the politicization of science and A.I.'s deepfakes and power for blurring of truth, it's hard to think of a topic more important right now.Audio file (Ground Truths can also be downloaded on Apple Podcasts and Spotify)Eric Topol (00:06):Hello, it's Eric Topol from Ground Truths and I am really delighted to welcome Adam Kucharski, who is the author of a new book, Proof: The Art and Science of Certainty. He's a distinguished mathematician, by the way, the first mathematician we've had on Ground Truths and a person who I had the real privilege of getting to know a bit through the Covid pandemic. So welcome, Adam.Adam Kucharski (00:28):Thanks for having me.Eric Topol (00:30):Yeah, I mean, I think just to let everybody know, you're a Professor at London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and also noteworthy you won the Adams Prize, which is one of the most impressive recognitions in the field of mathematics. This is the book, it's a winner, Proof and there's so much to talk about. So Adam, maybe what I'd start off is the quote in the book that captivates in the beginning, “life is full of situations that can reveal remarkably large gaps in our understanding of what is true and why it's true. This is a book about those gaps.” So what was the motivation when you undertook this very big endeavor?Adam Kucharski (01:17):I think a lot of it comes to the work I do at my day job where we have to deal with a lot of evidence under pressure, particularly if you work in outbreaks or emerging health concerns. And often it really pushes the limits, our methodology and how we converge on what's true subject to potential revision in the future. I think particularly having a background in math's, I think you kind of grow up with this idea that you can get to these concrete, almost immovable truths and then even just looking through the history, realizing that often isn't the case, that there's these kind of very human dynamics that play out around them. And it's something I think that everyone in science can reflect on that sometimes what convinces us doesn't convince other people, and particularly when you have that kind of urgency of time pressure, working out how to navigate that.Eric Topol (02:05):Yeah. Well, I mean I think these times of course have really gotten us to appreciate, particularly during Covid, the importance of understanding uncertainty. And I think one of the ways that we can dispel what people assume they know is the famous Monty Hall, which you get into a bit in the book. So I think everybody here is familiar with that show, Let's Make a Deal and maybe you can just take us through what happens with one of the doors are unveiled and how that changes the mathematics.Adam Kucharski (02:50):Yeah, sure. So I think it is a problem that's been around for a while and it's based on this game show. So you've got three doors that are closed. Behind two of the doors there is a goat and behind one of the doors is a luxury car. So obviously, you want to win the car. The host asks you to pick a door, so you point to one, maybe door number two, then the host who knows what's behind the doors opens another door to reveal a goat and then ask you, do you want to change your mind? Do you want to switch doors? And a lot of the, I think intuition people have, and certainly when I first came across this problem many years ago is well, you've got two doors left, right? You've picked one, there's another one, it's 50-50. And even some quite well-respected mathematicians.Adam Kucharski (03:27):People like Paul Erdős who was really published more papers than almost anyone else, that was their initial gut reaction. But if you work through all of the combinations, if you pick this door and then the host does this, and you switch or not switch and work through all of those options. You actually double your chances if you switch versus sticking with the door. So something that's counterintuitive, but I think one of the things that really struck me and even over the years trying to explain it is convincing myself of the answer, which was when I first came across it as a teenager, I did quite quickly is very different to convincing someone else. And even actually Paul Erdős, one of his colleagues showed him what I call proof by exhaustion. So go through every combination and that didn't really convince him. So then he started to simulate and said, well, let's do a computer simulation of the game a hundred thousand times. And again, switching was this optimal strategy, but Erdős wasn't really convinced because I accept that this is the case, but I'm not really satisfied with it. And I think that encapsulates for a lot of people, their experience of proof and evidence. It's a fact and you have to take it as given, but there's actually quite a big bridge often to really understanding why it's true and feeling convinced by it.Eric Topol (04:41):Yeah, I think it's a fabulous example because I think everyone would naturally assume it's 50-50 and it isn't. And I think that gets us to the topic at hand. What I love, there's many things I love about this book. One is that you don't just get into science and medicine, but you cut across all the domains, law, mathematics, AI. So it's a very comprehensive sweep of everything about proof and truth, and it couldn't come at a better time as we'll get into. Maybe just starting off with math, the term I love mathematical monsters. Can you tell us a little bit more about that?Adam Kucharski (05:25):Yeah, this was a fascinating situation that emerged in the late 19th century where a lot of math's, certainly in Europe had been derived from geometry because a lot of the ancient Greek influence on how we shaped things and then Newton and his work on rates of change and calculus, it was really the natural world that provided a lot of inspiration, these kind of tangible objects, tangible movements. And as mathematicians started to build out the theory around rates of change and how we tackle these kinds of situations, they sometimes took that intuition a bit too seriously. And there was some theorems that they said were intuitively obvious, some of these French mathematicians. And so, one for example is this idea of you how things change smoothly over time and how you do those calculations. But what happened was some mathematicians came along and showed that when you have things that can be infinitely small, that intuition didn't necessarily hold in the same way.Adam Kucharski (06:26):And they came up with these examples that broke a lot of these theorems and a lot of the establishments at the time called these things monsters. They called them these aberrations against common sense and this idea that if Newton had known about them, he never would've done all of his discovery because they're just nuisances and we just need to get rid of them. And there's this real tension at the core of mathematics in the late 1800s where some people just wanted to disregard this and say, look, it works for most of the time, that's good enough. And then others really weren't happy with this quite vague logic. They wanted to put it on much sturdier ground. And what was remarkable actually is if you trace this then into the 20th century, a lot of these monsters and these particularly in some cases functions which could almost move constantly, this constant motion rather than our intuitive concept of movement as something that's smooth, if you drop an apple, it accelerates at a very smooth rate, would become foundational in our understanding of things like probability, Einstein's work on atomic theory. A lot of these concepts where geometry breaks down would be really important in relativity. So actually, these things that we thought were monsters actually were all around us all the time, and science couldn't advance without them. So I think it's just this remarkable example of this tension within a field that supposedly concrete and the things that were going to be shunned actually turn out to be quite important.Eric Topol (07:53):It's great how you convey how nature isn't so neat and tidy and things like Brownian motion, understanding that, I mean, just so many things that I think fit into that general category. In the legal, we won't get into too much because that's not so much the audience of Ground Truths, but the classic things about innocent and until proven guilty and proof beyond reasonable doubt, I mean these are obviously really important parts of that overall sense of proof and truth. We're going to get into one thing I'm fascinated about related to that subsequently and then in science. So before we get into the different types of proof, obviously the pandemic is still fresh in our minds and we're an endemic with Covid now, and there are so many things we got wrong along the way of uncertainty and didn't convey that science isn't always evolving search for what is the truth. There's plenty no shortage of uncertainty at any moment. So can you recap some of the, you did so much work during the pandemic and obviously some of it's in the book. What were some of the major things that you took out of proof and truth from the pandemic?Adam Kucharski (09:14):I think it was almost this story of two hearts because on the one hand, science was the thing that got us where we are today. The reason that so much normality could resume and so much risk was reduced was development of vaccines and the understanding of treatments and the understanding of variants as they came to their characteristics. So it was kind of this amazing opportunity to see this happen faster than it ever happened in history. And I think ever in science, it certainly shifted a lot of my thinking about what's possible and even how we should think about these kinds of problems. But also on the other hand, I think where people might have been more familiar with seeing science progress a bit more slowly and reach consensus around some of these health issues, having that emerge very rapidly can present challenges even we found with some of the work we did on Alpha and then the Delta variants, and it was the early quantification of these.Adam Kucharski (10:08):So really the big question is, is this thing more transmissible? Because at the time countries were thinking about control measures, thinking about relaxing things, and you've got this just enormous social economic health decision-making based around essentially is it a lot more spreadable or is it not? And you only had these fragments of evidence. So I think for me, that was really an illustration of the sharp end. And I think what we ended up doing with some of those was rather than arguing over a precise number, something like Delta, instead we kind of looked at, well, what's the range that matters? So in the sense of arguing over whether it's 40% or 50% or 30% more transmissible is perhaps less important than being, it's substantially more transmissible and it's going to start going up. Is it going to go up extremely fast or just very fast?Adam Kucharski (10:59):That's still a very useful conclusion. I think what often created some of the more challenges, I think the things that on reflection people looking back pick up on are where there was probably overstated certainty. We saw that around some of the airborne spread, for example, stated as a fact by in some cases some organizations, I think in some situations as well, governments had a constraint and presented it as scientific. So the UK, for example, would say testing isn't useful. And what was happening at the time was there wasn't enough tests. So it was more a case of they can't test at that volume. But I think blowing between what the science was saying and what the decision-making, and I think also one thing we found in the UK was we made a lot of the epidemiological evidence available. I think that was really, I think something that was important.Adam Kucharski (11:51):I found it a lot easier to communicate if talking to the media to be able to say, look, this is the paper that's out, this is what it means, this is the evidence. I always found it quite uncomfortable having to communicate things where you knew there were reports behind the scenes, but you couldn't actually articulate. But I think what that did is it created this impression that particularly epidemiology was driving the decision-making a lot more than it perhaps was in reality because so much of that was being made public and a lot more of the evidence around education or economics was being done behind the scenes. I think that created this kind of asymmetry in public perception about how that was feeding in. And so, I think there was always that, and it happens, it is really hard as well as a scientist when you've got journalists asking you how to run the country to work out those steps of am I describing the evidence behind what we're seeing? Am I describing the evidence about different interventions or am I proposing to some extent my value system on what we do? And I think all of that in very intense times can be very easy to get blurred together in public communication. I think we saw a few examples of that where things were being the follow the science on policy type angle where actually once you get into what you're prioritizing within a society, quite rightly, you've got other things beyond just the epidemiology driving that.Eric Topol (13:09):Yeah, I mean that term that you just use follow the science is such an important term because it tells us about the dynamic aspect. It isn't just a snapshot, it's constantly being revised. But during the pandemic we had things like the six-foot rule that was never supported by data, but yet still today, if I walk around my hospital and there's still the footprints of the six-foot rule and not paying attention to the fact that this was airborne and took years before some of these things were accepted. The flatten the curve stuff with lockdowns, which I never was supportive of that, but perhaps at the worst point, the idea that hospitals would get overrun was an issue, but it got carried away with school shutdowns for prolonged periods and in some parts of the world, especially very stringent lockdowns. But anyway, we learned a lot.Eric Topol (14:10):But perhaps one of the greatest lessons is that people's expectations about science is that it's absolute and somehow you have this truth that's not there. I mean, it's getting revised. It's kind of on the job training, it's on this case on the pandemic revision. But very interesting. And that gets us to, I think the next topic, which I think is a fundamental part of the book distributed throughout the book, which is the different types of proof in biomedicine and of course across all these domains. And so, you take us through things like randomized trials, p-values, 95 percent confidence intervals, counterfactuals, causation and correlation, peer review, the works, which is great because a lot of people have misconceptions of these things. So for example, randomized trials, which is the temple of the randomized trials, they're not as great as a lot of people think, yes, they can help us establish cause and effect, but they're skewed because of the people who come into the trial. So they may not at all be a representative sample. What are your thoughts about over deference to randomized trials?Adam Kucharski (15:31):Yeah, I think that the story of how we rank evidence in medicines a fascinating one. I mean even just how long it took for people to think about these elements of randomization. Fundamentally, what we're trying to do when we have evidence here in medicine or science is prevent ourselves from confusing randomness for a signal. I mean, that's fundamentally, we don't want to mistake something, we think it's going on and it's not. And the challenge, particularly with any intervention is you only get to see one version of reality. You can't give someone a drug, follow them, rewind history, not give them the drug and then follow them again. So one of the things that essentially randomization allows us to do is, if you have two groups, one that's been randomized, one that hasn't on average, the difference in outcomes between those groups is going to be down to the treatment effect.Adam Kucharski (16:20):So it doesn't necessarily mean in reality that'd be the case, but on average that's the expectation that you'd have. And it's kind of interesting actually that the first modern randomized control trial (RCT) in medicine in 1947, this is for TB and streptomycin. The randomization element actually, it wasn't so much statistical as behavioral, that if you have people coming to hospital, you could to some extent just say, we'll just alternate. We're not going to randomize. We're just going to first patient we'll say is a control, second patient a treatment. But what they found in a lot of previous studies was doctors have bias. Maybe that patient looks a little bit ill or that one maybe is on borderline for eligibility. And often you got these quite striking imbalances when you allowed it for human judgment. So it was really about shielding against those behavioral elements. But I think there's a few situations, it's a really powerful tool for a lot of these questions, but as you mentioned, one is this issue of you have the population you study on and then perhaps in reality how that translates elsewhere.Adam Kucharski (17:17):And we see, I mean things like flu vaccines are a good example, which are very dependent on immunity and evolution and what goes on in different populations. Sometimes you've had a result on a vaccine in one place and then the effectiveness doesn't translate in the same way to somewhere else. I think the other really important thing to bear in mind is, as I said, it's the averaging that you're getting an average effect between two different groups. And I think we see certainly a lot of development around things like personalized medicine where actually you're much more interested in the outcome for the individual. And so, what a trial can give you evidence is on average across a group, this is the effect that I can expect this intervention to have. But we've now seen more of the emergence things like N=1 studies where you can actually over the same individual, particularly for chronic conditions, look at those kind of interventions.Adam Kucharski (18:05):And also there's just these extreme examples where you're ethically not going to run a trial, there's never been a trial of whether it's a good idea to have intensive care units in hospitals or there's a lot of these kind of historical treatments which are just so overwhelmingly effective that we're not going to run trial. So almost this hierarchy over time, you can see it getting shifted because actually you do have these situations where other forms of evidence can get you either closer to what you need or just more feasibly an answer where it's just not ethical or practical to do an RCT.Eric Topol (18:37):And that brings us to the natural experiments I just wrote about recently, the one with shingles, which there's two big natural experiments to suggest that shingles vaccine might reduce the risk of Alzheimer's, an added benefit beyond the shingles that was not anticipated. Your thoughts about natural experiments, because here you're getting a much different type of population assessment, again, not at the individual level, but not necessarily restricted by some potentially skewed enrollment criteria.Adam Kucharski (19:14):I think this is as emerged as a really valuable tool. It's kind of interesting, in the book you're talking to economists like Josh Angrist, that a lot of these ideas emerge in epidemiology, but I think were really then taken up by economists, particularly as they wanted to add more credibility to a lot of these policy questions. And ultimately, it comes down to this issue that for a lot of problems, we can't necessarily intervene and randomize, but there might be a situation that's done it to some extent for us, so the classic example is the Vietnam draft where it was kind of random birthdays with drawn out of lottery. And so, there's been a lot of studies subsequently about the effect of serving in the military on different subsequent lifetime outcomes because broadly those people have been randomized. It was for a different reason. But you've got that element of randomization driving that.Adam Kucharski (20:02):And so again, with some of the recent shingles data and other studies, you might have a situation for example, where there's been an intervention that's somewhat arbitrary in terms of time. It's a cutoff on a birth date, for example. And under certain assumptions you could think, well, actually there's no real reason for the person on this day and this day to be fundamentally different. I mean, perhaps there might be effects of cohorts if it's school years or this sort of thing. But generally, this isn't the same as having people who are very, very different ages and very different characteristics. It's just nature, or in this case, just a policy intervention for a different reason has given you that randomization, which allows you or pseudo randomization, which allows you to then look at something about the effect of an intervention that you wouldn't as reliably if you were just digging into the data of yes, no who's received a vaccine.Eric Topol (20:52):Yeah, no, I think it's really valuable. And now I think increasingly given priority, if you can find these natural experiments and they're not always so abundant to use to extrapolate from, but when they are, they're phenomenal. The causation correlation is so big. The issue there, I mean Judea Pearl's, the Book of Why, and you give so many great examples throughout the book in Proof. I wonder if you could comment that on that a bit more because this is where associations are confused somehow or other with a direct effect. And we unfortunately make these jumps all too frequently. Perhaps it's the most common problem that's occurring in the way we interpret medical research data.Adam Kucharski (21:52):Yeah, I think it's an issue that I think a lot of people get drilled into in their training just because a correlation between things doesn't mean that that thing causes this thing. But it really struck me as I talked to people, researching the book, in practice in research, there's actually a bit more to it in how it's played out. So first of all, if there's a correlation between things, it doesn't tell you much generally that's useful for intervention. If two things are correlated, it doesn't mean that changing that thing's going to have an effect on that thing. There might be something that's influencing both of them. If you have more ice cream sales, it will lead to more heat stroke cases. It doesn't mean that changing ice cream sales is going to have that effect, but it does allow you to make predictions potentially because if you can identify consistent patterns, you can say, okay, if this thing going up, I'm going to make a prediction that this thing's going up.Adam Kucharski (22:37):So one thing I found quite striking, actually talking to research in different fields is how many fields choose to focus on prediction because it kind of avoids having to deal with this cause and effect problem. And even in fields like psychology, it was kind of interesting that there's a lot of focus on predicting things like relationship outcomes, but actually for people, you don't want a prediction about your relationship. You want to know, well, how can I do something about it? You don't just want someone to sell you your relationship's going to go downhill. So there's almost part of the challenge is people just got stuck on prediction because it's an easier field of work, whereas actually some of those problems will involve intervention. I think the other thing that really stood out for me is in epidemiology and a lot of other fields, rightly, people are very cautious to not get that mixed up.Adam Kucharski (23:24):They don't want to mix up correlations or associations with causation, but you've kind of got this weird situation where a lot of papers go out of their way to not use causal language and say it's an association, it's just an association. It's just an association. You can't say anything about causality. And then the end of the paper, they'll say, well, we should think about introducing more of this thing or restricting this thing. So really the whole paper and its purpose is framed around a causal intervention, but it's extremely careful throughout the paper to not frame it as a causal claim. So I think we almost by skirting that too much, we actually avoid the problems that people sometimes care about. And I think a lot of the nice work that's been going on in causal inference is trying to get people to confront this more head on rather than say, okay, you can just stay in this prediction world and that's fine. And then just later maybe make a policy suggestion off the back of it.Eric Topol (24:20):Yeah, I think this is cause and effect is a very alluring concept to support proof as you so nicely go through in the book. But of course, one of the things that we use to help us is the biological mechanism. So here you have, let's say for example, you're trying to get a new drug approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and the request is, well, we want two trials, randomized trials, independent. We want to have p-values that are significant, and we want to know the biological mechanism ideally with the dose response of the drug. But there are many drugs as you review that have no biological mechanism established. And even when the tobacco problems were mounting, the actual mechanism of how tobacco use caused cancer wasn't known. So how important is the biological mechanism, especially now that we're well into the AI world where explainability is demanded. And so, we don't know the mechanism, but we also don't know the mechanism and lots of things in medicine too, like anesthetics and even things as simple as aspirin, how it works and many others. So how do we deal with this quest for the biological mechanism?Adam Kucharski (25:42):I think that's a really good point. It shows almost a lot of the transition I think we're going through currently. I think particularly for things like smoking cancer where it's very hard to run a trial. You can't make people randomly take up smoking. Having those additional pieces of evidence, whether it's an analogy with a similar carcinogen, whether it's a biological mechanism, can help almost give you more supports for that argument that there's a cause and effect going on. But I think what I found quite striking, and I realized actually that it's something that had kind of bothered me a bit and I'd be interested to hear whether it bothers you, but with the emergence of AI, it's almost a bit of the loss of scientific satisfaction. I think you grow up with learning about how the world works and why this is doing what it's doing.Adam Kucharski (26:26):And I talked for example of some of the people involved with AlphaFold and some of the subsequent work in installing those predictions about structures. And they'd almost made peace with it, which I found interesting because I think they started off being a bit uncomfortable with like, yeah, you've got these remarkable AI models making these predictions, but we don't understand still biologically what's happening here. But I think they're just settled in saying, well, biology is really complex on some of these problems, and if we can have a tool that can give us this extremely valuable information, maybe that's okay. And it was just interesting that they'd really kind of gone through that kind process, which I think a lot of people are still grappling with and that almost that discomfort of using AI and what's going to convince you that that's a useful reliable prediction whether it's something like predicting protein folding or getting in a self-driving car. What's the evidence you need to convince you that's reliable?Eric Topol (27:26):Yeah, no, I'm so glad you brought that up because when Demis Hassabis and John Jumper won the Nobel Prize, the point I made was maybe there should be an asterisk with AI because they don't know how it works. I mean, they had all the rich data from the protein data bank, and they got the transformer model to do it for 200 million protein structure prediction, but they still to this day don't fully understand how the model really was working. So it reinforces what you're just saying. And of course, it cuts across so many types of AI. It's just that we tend to hold different standards in medicine not realizing that there's lots of lack of explainability for routine medical treatments today. Now one of the things that I found fascinating in your book, because there's different levels of proof, different types of proof, but solid logical systems.Eric Topol (28:26):And on page 60 of the book, especially pertinent to the US right now, there is a bit about Kurt Gödel and what he did there was he basically, there was a question about dictatorship in the US could it ever occur? And Gödel says, “oh, yes, I can prove it.” And he's using the constitution itself to prove it, which I found fascinating because of course we're seeing that emerge right now. Can you give us a little bit more about this, because this is fascinating about the Fifth Amendment, and I mean I never thought that the Constitution would allow for a dictatorship to emerge.Adam Kucharski (29:23):And this was a fascinating story, Kurt Gödel who is one of the greatest logical minds of the 20th century and did a lot of work, particularly in the early 20th century around system of rules, particularly things like mathematics and whether they can ever be really fully satisfying. So particularly in mathematics, he showed that there were this problem that is very hard to have a set of rules for something like arithmetic that was both complete and covered every situation, but also had no contradictions. And I think a lot of countries, if you go back, things like Napoleonic code and these attempts to almost write down every possible legal situation that could be imaginable, always just ascended into either they needed amendments or they had contradictions. I think Gödel's work really summed it up, and there's a story, this is in the late forties when he had his citizenship interview and Einstein and Oskar Morgenstern went along as witnesses for him.Adam Kucharski (30:17):And it's always told as kind of a lighthearted story as this logical mind, this academic just saying something silly in front of the judge. And actually, to my own admission, I've in the past given talks and mentioned it in this slightly kind of lighthearted way, but for the book I got talking to a few people who'd taken it more seriously. I realized actually he's this extremely logically focused mind at the time, and maybe there should have been something more to it. And people who have kind of dug more into possibilities was saying, well, what could he have spotted that bothered him? And a lot of his work that he did about consistency in mass was around particularly self-referential statements. So if I say this sentence is false, it's self-referential and if it is false, then it's true, but if it's true, then it's false and you get this kind of weird self-referential contradictions.Adam Kucharski (31:13):And so, one of the theories about Gödel was that in the Constitution, it wasn't that there was a kind of rule for someone can become a dictator, but rather people can use the mechanisms within the Constitution to make it easier to make further amendments. And he kind of downward cycle of amendment that he had seen happening in Europe and the run up to the war, and again, because this is never fully documented exactly what he thought, but it's one of the theories that it wouldn't just be outright that it would just be this cycle process of weakening and weakening and weakening and making it easier to add. And actually, when I wrote that, it was all the earlier bits of the book that I drafted, I did sort of debate whether including it I thought, is this actually just a bit in the weeds of American history? And here we are. Yeah, it's remarkable.Eric Topol (32:00):Yeah, yeah. No, I mean I found, it struck me when I was reading this because here back in 1947, there was somebody predicting that this could happen based on some, if you want to call it loopholes if you will, or the ability to change things, even though you would've thought otherwise that there wasn't any possible capability for that to happen. Now, one of the things I thought was a bit contradictory is two parts here. One is from Angus Deaton, he wrote, “Gold standard thinking is magical thinking.” And then the other is what you basically are concluding in many respects. “To navigate proof, we must reach into a thicket of errors and biases. We must confront monsters and embrace uncertainty, balancing — and rebalancing —our beliefs. We must seek out every useful fragment of data, gather every relevant tool, searching wider and climbing further. Finding the good foundations among the bad. Dodging dogma and falsehoods. Questioning. Measuring. Triangulating. Convincing. Then perhaps, just perhaps, we'll reach the truth in time.” So here you have on the one hand your search for the truth, proof, which I think that little paragraph says it all. In many respects, it sums up somewhat to the work that you review here and on the other you have this Nobel laureate saying, you don't have to go to extremes here. The enemy of good is perfect, perhaps. I mean, how do you reconcile this sense that you shouldn't go so far? Don't search for absolute perfection of proof.Adam Kucharski (33:58):Yeah, I think that encapsulates a lot of what the book is about, is that search for certainty and how far do you have to go. I think one of the things, there's a lot of interesting discussion, some fascinating papers around at what point do you use these studies? What are their flaws? But I think one of the things that does stand out is across fields, across science, medicine, even if you going to cover law, AI, having these kind of cookie cutter, this is the definitive way of doing it. And if you just follow this simple rule, if you do your p-value, you'll get there and you'll be fine. And I think that's where a lot of the danger is. And I think that's what we've seen over time. Certain science people chasing certain targets and all the behaviors that come around that or in certain situations disregarding valuable evidence because you've got this kind of gold standard and nothing else will do.Adam Kucharski (34:56):And I think particularly in a crisis, it's very dangerous to have that because you might have a low level of evidence that demands a certain action and you almost bias yourself towards inaction if you have these kind of very simple thresholds. So I think for me, across all of these stories and across the whole book, I mean William Gosset who did a lot of pioneering work on statistical experiments at Guinness in the early 20th century, he had this nice question he sort of framed is, how much do we lose? And if we're thinking about the problems, there's always more studies we can do, there's always more confidence we can have, but whether it's a patient we want to treat or crisis we need to deal with, we need to work out actually getting that level of proof that's really appropriate for where we are currently.Eric Topol (35:49):I think exceptionally important that there's this kind of spectrum or continuum in following science and search for truth and that distinction, I think really nails it. Now, one of the things that's unique in the book is you don't just go through all the different types of how you would get to proof, but you also talk about how the evidence is acted on. And for example, you quote, “they spent a lot of time misinforming themselves.” This is the whole idea of taking data and torturing it or using it, dredging it however way you want to support either conspiracy theories or alternative facts. Basically, manipulating sometimes even emasculating what evidence and data we have. And one of the sentences, or I guess this is from Sir Francis Bacon, “truth is a daughter of time”, but the added part is not authority. So here we have our president here that repeats things that are wrong, fabricated or wrong, and he keeps repeating to the point that people believe it's true. But on the other hand, you could say truth is a daughter of time because you like to not accept any truth immediately. You like to see it get replicated and further supported, backed up. So in that one sentence, truth is a daughter of time not authority, there's the whole ball of wax here. Can you take us through that? Because I just think that people don't understand that truth being tested over time, but also manipulated by its repetition. This is a part of the big problem that we live in right now.Adam Kucharski (37:51):And I think it's something that writing the book and actually just reflecting on it subsequently has made me think about a lot in just how people approach these kinds of problems. I think that there's an idea that conspiracy theorists are just lazy and have maybe just fallen for a random thing, but talking to people, you really think about these things a lot more in the field. And actually, the more I've ended up engaging with people who believe things that are just outright unevidenced around vaccines, around health issues, they often have this mountain of papers and data to hand and a lot of it, often they will be peer reviewed papers. It won't necessarily be supporting the point that they think it's supports.Adam Kucharski (38:35):But it's not something that you can just say everything you're saying is false, that there's actually often a lot of things that have been put together and it's just that leap to that conclusion. I think you also see a lot of scientific language borrowed. So I gave a talker early this year and it got posted on YouTube. It had conspiracy theories it, and there was a lot of conspiracy theory supporters who piled in the comments and one of the points they made is skepticism is good. It's the kind of law society, take no one's word for it, you need this. We are the ones that are kind of doing science and people who just assume that science is settled are in the wrong. And again, you also mentioned that repetition. There's this phenomenon, it's the illusory truth problem that if you repeatedly tell someone someone's something's false, it'll increase their belief in it even if it's something quite outrageous.Adam Kucharski (39:27):And that mimics that scientific repetition because people kind of say, okay, well if I've heard it again and again, it's almost like if you tweak these as mini experiments, I'm just accumulating evidence that this thing is true. So it made me think a lot about how you've got essentially a lot of mimicry of the scientific method, amount of data and how you present it and this kind of skepticism being good, but I think a lot of it comes down to as well as just looking at theological flaws, but also ability to be wrong in not actually seeking out things that confirm. I think all of us, it's something that I've certainly tried to do a lot working on emergencies, and one of the scientific advisory groups that I worked on almost it became a catchphrase whenever someone presented something, they finished by saying, tell me why I'm wrong.Adam Kucharski (40:14):And if you've got a variant that's more transmissible, I don't want to be right about that really. And it is something that is quite hard to do and I found it is particularly for something that's quite high pressure, trying to get a policymaker or someone to write even just non-publicly by themselves, write down what you think's going to happen or write down what would convince you that you are wrong about something. I think particularly on contentious issues where someone's got perhaps a lot of public persona wrapped up in something that's really hard to do, but I think it's those kind of elements that distinguish between getting sucked into a conspiracy theory and really seeking out evidence that supports it and trying to just get your theory stronger and stronger and actually seeking out things that might overturn your belief about the world. And it's often those things that we don't want overturned. I think those are the views that we all have politically or in other ways, and that's often where the problems lie.Eric Topol (41:11):Yeah, I think this is perhaps one of, if not the most essential part here is that to try to deal with the different views. We have biases as you emphasized throughout, but if you can use these different types of proof to have a sound discussion, conversation, refutation whereby you don't summarily dismiss another view which may be skewed and maybe spurious or just absolutely wrong, maybe fabricated whatever, but did you can engage and say, here's why these are my proof points, or this is why there's some extent of certainty you can have regarding this view of the data. I think this is so fundamental because unfortunately as we saw during the pandemic, the strident minority, which were the anti-science, anti-vaxxers, they were summarily dismissed as being kooks and adopting conspiracy theories without the right engagement and the right debates. And I think this might've helped along the way, no less the fact that a lot of scientists didn't really want to engage in the first place and adopt this methodical proof that you've advocated in the book so many different ways to support a hypothesis or an assertion. Now, we've covered a lot here, Adam. Have I missed some central parts of the book and the effort because it's really quite extraordinary. I know it's your third book, but it's certainly a standout and it certainly it's a standout not just for your books, but books on this topic.Adam Kucharski (43:13):Thanks. And it's much appreciated. It was not an easy book to write. I think at times, I kind of wondered if I should have taken on the topic and I think a core thing, your last point speaks to that. I think a core thing is that gap often between what convinces us and what convinces someone else. I think it's often very tempting as a scientist to say the evidence is clear or the science has proved this. But even on something like the vaccines, you do get the loud minority who perhaps think they're putting microchips in people and outlandish views, but you actually get a lot more people who might just have some skepticism of pharmaceutical companies or they might have, my wife was pregnant actually at the time during Covid and we waited up because there wasn't much data on pregnancy and the vaccine. And I think it's just finding what is convincing. Is it having more studies from other countries? Is it understanding more about the biology? Is it understanding how you evaluate some of those safety signals? And I think that's just really important to not just think what convinces us and it's going to be obvious to other people, but actually think where are they coming from? Because ultimately having proof isn't that good unless it leads to the action that can make lives better.Eric Topol (44:24):Yeah. Well, look, you've inculcated my mind with this book, Adam, called Proof. Anytime I think of the word proof, I'm going to be thinking about you. So thank you. Thanks for taking the time to have a conversation about your book, your work, and I know we're going to count on you for the astute mathematics and analysis of outbreaks in the future, which we will see unfortunately. We are seeing now, in fact already in this country with measles and whatnot. So thank you and we'll continue to follow your great work.**************************************Thanks for listening, watching or reading this Ground Truths podcast/post.If you found this interesting please share it!That makes the work involved in putting these together especially worthwhile.I'm also appreciative for your subscribing to Ground Truths. All content —its newsletters, analyses, and podcasts—is free, open-access. I'm fortunate to get help from my producer Jessica Nguyen and Sinjun Balabanoff for audio/video tech support to pull these podcasts together for Scripps Research.Paid subscriptions are voluntary and all proceeds from them go to support Scripps Research. They do allow for posting comments and questions, which I do my best to respond to. Please don't hesitate to post comments and give me feedback. Many thanks to those who have contributed—they have greatly helped fund our summer internship programs for the past two years.A bit of an update on SUPER AGERSMy book has been selected as a Next Big Idea Club winner for Season 26 by Adam Grant, Malcolm Gladwell, Susan Cain, and Daniel Pink. This club has spotlighted the most groundbreaking nonfiction books for over a decade. As a winning title, my book will be shipped to thousands of thoughtful readers like you, featured alongside a reading guide, a "Book Bite," Next Big Idea Podcast episode as well as a live virtual Q&A with me in the club's vibrant online community. If you're interested in joining the club, here's a promo code SEASON26 for 20% off at the website. SUPER AGERS reached #3 for all books on Amazon this week. This was in part related to the segment on the book on the TODAY SHOW which you can see here. Also at Amazon there is a remarkable sale on the hardcover book for $10.l0 at the moment for up to 4 copies. Not sure how long it will last or what prompted it.The journalist Paul von Zielbauer has a Substack “Aging With Strength” and did an extensive interview with me on the biology of aging and how we can prevent the major age-related diseases. Here's the link. Get full access to Ground Truths at erictopol.substack.com/subscribe

Today's wisdom comes from Originals by Adam Grant.   If you're loving Heroic Wisdom Daily, be sure to subscribe to the emails at heroic.us/wisdom-daily.   And… Imagine unlocking access to the distilled wisdom form 700+ of the greatest books ever written.   That's what Heroic Premium offers: Unlimited access to every Philosopher's Note. Daily inspiration and actionable tools to optimize your energy, work, and love. Personalized coaching features to help you stay consistent and focused   Upgrade to Heroic Premium →   Know someone who'd love this? Share Heroic Wisdom Daily with them, and let's grow together in 2025!   Share Heroic Wisdom Daily →

In the age of virtual communication, here's how to ensure your messages convey what you mean.Texts. Emails. Slacks. Zooms. We're communicating in more ways than ever, but Andrew Brodsky has a word of warning: Your virtual communication might be sending messages you're not aware of.Brodsky is the author of PING: The Secrets of Successful Virtual Communication. And as a professor of management at the University of Texas McCombs School of Business, he researches the impact of technology on workplace communication. “In virtual communication, there's often missing information,” he says. “As recipients of it, we're searching to fill in the gaps. The problem [is] that the recipient who's making these guesses is often guessing incorrectly.” As his research reveals, variables like typos, the time you schedule a meeting, and even your choice of email signature affect how your messages are received — and how you're perceived.In this episode of Think Fast, Talk Smart, host Matt Abrahams and Brodsky explore his PING framework (perspective-taking, initiative, nonverbal awareness, and goals) for mastering digital communication. From understanding when to choose email over a phone call to navigating cameras-on versus cameras-off meetings, he offers practical strategies for ensuring your virtual messages communicate exactly what you intend.To listen to the extended Deep Thinks version of this episode, please visit FasterSmarter.io/premiumEpisode Reference Links:Andrew BrodskyAndrew's Book: PingEp.31 Quick Thinks: How to Shine Online and Excel at Virtual Communication Ep.53 Step Up and Stand Out: How to Create the Right Environment for Communication  Connect:Premium Signup >>>> Think Fast Talk Smart PremiumEmail Questions & Feedback >>> hello@fastersmarter.ioEpisode Transcripts >>> Think Fast Talk Smart WebsiteNewsletter Signup + English Language Learning >>> FasterSmarter.ioThink Fast Talk Smart >>> LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTubeMatt Abrahams >>> LinkedInChapters:(00:00) - Introduction (02:34) - What Is Virtual Communication? (03:20) - Choosing the Right Channel for Your Goal (06:05) - The Ping Framework: Secrets to Virtual Communication (10:01) - Understanding Communication Richness (13:03) - Nonverbals in Virtual Communication (16:47) - The Final Three Question (24:37) - Conclusion   ********This Episode is brought to you by Strawberry.me. Get $50 off coaching today at Strawberry.me/smartBecome a Faster Smarter Supporter by joining TFTS Premium.   

¿Te ha pasado que sabes que eres bueno en lo que haces, pero a la hora de comunicarlo algo falla? ¿Que otros con menos experiencia parecen proyectar más autoridad y consiguen mejores clientes?La diferencia no está en el conocimiento. Está en la proyección de confianza. Y la buena noticia es que la confianza genuina se puede desarrollar, entrenar y perfeccionar.En este episodio descubrirás:✅ Por qué la claridad es la base de toda confianza real (y las 3 preguntas que debes responder) ✅ Los elementos visibles que comunican autoridad sin palabras ✅ Cómo mantener la confianza cuando los proyectos fallan o los clientes dicen no ✅ El error más común al intentar "parecer" confiado (y qué hacer en su lugar) ✅ Ejemplos prácticos aplicables a tu profesión específicaIncluye casos reales de Vilma Núñez, Anxo Pérez, Cal Newport y Adam Grant, además de escenarios prácticos para consultores, coaches, terapeutas y profesionales independientes.Este episodio es especialmente útil si cobras menos de lo que vales, te cuesta cerrar ventas o sientes que no te toman tan en serio como deberían.

Comment certains leaders inspirent, mobilisent et font avancer les choses… sans aucun pouvoir hiérarchique ?Parce que le leadership ne repose plus sur le contrôle, mais sur le respect et la posture.Dans cet épisode, je reçois Alison Fragale, psychologue organisationnelle, professeure à l'Université de Caroline du Nord et autrice du livre Likeable Badass — un ouvrage découvert grâce à Adam Grant, et que je recommande depuis à tous les managers.Ce livre met des mots justes sur ce que j'observe chaque jour en entreprise : le statut, c'est-à-dire le respect que l'on vous accorde, est devenu un levier central du leadership, bien plus que le pouvoir formel.Ensemble, nous avons parlé de :– la vraie différence entre statut et pouvoir,– comment gagner en autorité sans dominer,– pourquoi être aimé et respecté n'est pas un dilemme, mais une stratégie,– comment parler de soi avec force et élégance,– et pourquoi le statut se construit… surtout quand on ne l'exige pas.Alison partage 7 clés concrètes pour affirmer votre posture de leader, renforcer votre influence et inspirer durablement, même sans titre officiel.Une conversation aussi éclairante qu'accessible, en anglais (réponses) et en français (questions et synthèses).Distribué par Audiomeans. Visitez audiomeans.fr/politique-de-confidentialite pour plus d'informations.

Summary In this episode, Andy interviews Dave Garrison, author of The Buy-In Advantage: Why Employees Stop Caring and How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Give Their All. We've all faced moments where our team seems checked out or disengaged. But what if the real issue is that they don't feel invited to care? Dave challenges conventional approaches to engagement and offers practical, actionable strategies for fostering true buy-in. In this conversation, Dave shares the difference between engagement and buy-in, how traditional methods like bribing or badgering can backfire, and how leaders can use curiosity, clarity, and inclusive decision-making to fuel commitment. You'll learn how to better structure meetings, make feedback more meaningful, and identify red flags that indicate declining motivation. If you're leading teams and looking to create cultures where people don't just show up but they fully buy in, this episode is for you! Sound Bites “It's not about satisfaction. It's about whether people are bringing their head, heart, and gut to work.” “Leaders go last all the time. Except when it comes to vulnerability. Then leaders go first.” “You don't know how you land unless you ask. And you can't ask in a way that intimidates.” "People support what they create." “PB&J? It stands for 'patiently badger and jam it down their throat.' And that doesn't work.” “Three is greater than seven when it comes to priorities. Seven is not a priority list.” “Done with, not done to.” Chapters 00:00 Introduction 01:40 Start of Interview 02:00 What's the Difference Between Engagement and Buy-In? 04:20 Why Are We Facing a Perfect Storm of Low Buy-In? 07:00 What Leaders Do That Actually Makes Buy-In Worse 08:25 The Meaning of PB&J (Patiently Badger and Jam It) 10:26 How Leaders Unintentionally Undermine Buy-In 12:00 Warning Signs of Low Buy-In on Your Team 14:37 Debunking the Myth That Money Is the Main Motivator 15:42 The Difference Between Collective Genius and Consensus 18:00 A Structured Approach to Inclusive Problem Solving 19:58 The Role of Curiosity in Performance Reviews 21:40 The Power of Pre-Reading and Slowing Down for Better Thinking 24:20 How to Prioritize What Matters—From Ideation to Internalization 27:10 Simplifying and Clarifying Priorities 29:40 Ideas for Celebrating in Ways That Actually Matter 31:44 Why Specific Recognition Matters More Than General Praise 34:40 What Cornhole and Cookouts Have to Do With Buy-In 35:20 Applying These Ideas at Home: Buy-In in Parenting 36:49 End of Interview 37:15 Andy Comments After the Interview 42:29 Outtakes Learn More You can learn more about Dave and his work at BuyInBook.com. For more learning on this topic, check out: Episode 428 with Rich Diviney, a former Navy SEAL commander, on unlocking optimal team performance. Episode 94 with Heidi Grant and Tory Higgins, sharing deep research on the science of motivation. Episode 31 with Adam Grant—his first-ever podcast interview! Hear insights from Adam before the world knew him. Thank you for joining me for this episode of The People and Projects Podcast! Talent Triangle: Power Skills Topics: Leadership, Team Engagement, Motivation, Organizational Culture, Buy-In, Decision Making, Psychological Safety, Project Management, Recognition, Meetings, Communication, Employee Retention The following music was used for this episode: Music: Summer Morning Full Version by MusicLFiles License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license Music: Synthiemania by Frank Schroeter License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

On this episode of The Jon Gordon Podcast, I sit down with Rafi Kohan, author, cultural observer, and the mind behind Trash Talk: The Only Book About Destroying Your Rivals That Isn't Total Garbage.   What started as a casual Zoom between new friends quickly turned into a lively deep dive into the world of competitive banter, all captured here in real time. Together, Rafi and I explore the fascinating, untold science and history of trash talk. He breaks down why trash talk is more than just gamesmanship on the field, it's a fundamental part of human behavior, threaded through ancient stories from the Bible to the Homeric poems, and alive in everything from politics to playgrounds. We get into how trash talk manipulates attention, anxiety, motivation, and even performance, and why some of the world's greatest athletes and public figures use it to their advantage.   Rafi shares wild stories, including some next-level antics from a soccer goalie who turned mental distraction into an art form, reveals why even the most positive folks can't resist a little friendly ribbing (looking at you, Ken Blanchard), and reflects on how the lessons of trash talking stretch far beyond sports, touching on politics, performance, resilience, and even moral character. We also riff on modern-day masters of the craft (think Muhammad Ali to Donald Trump) and the fine line between competition that lifts us up versus rivalry that tears us down. If you've ever wondered why we talk smack, how to handle it when it happens, or what it really says about us, you'll find insight and plenty of laughs in this episode.   Whether you're a serious competitor, a sports fan, or someone who's just curious about why people do what they do, this conversation brings fresh perspective, energy, and practical takeaways on embracing pressure, building grit, and becoming the kind of rival that makes everyone better. And yes, there's a little trash talk between us too. If you want to rethink the way you handle challenges, on the court, at work, or in life, this episode is for you.   Rafi Kohan is an award-winning sports journalist and dynamic keynote speaker. He is the author, most recently, of Trash Talk: The Only Book About Destroying Your Rivals That Isn't Total Garbage, which explores the phenomenon of verbal gamesmanship in sports, and everywhere, and what it reveals about our ability to perform under pressure.    About Rafi,   Kohan's first book, The Arena, is a wide-ranging examination of the modern American sports stadium and was a finalist for the 2018 PEN/ESPN Award for Literary Sports Writing. Previously, Kohan has served as deputy editor at the New York Observer and as executive editorial director for the Atlantic's creative marketing studio. His writing has appeared in numerous publications, including GQ, the New York Times, Men's Journal, Rolling Stone, and the Wall Street Journal, among many others, and his thought leadership on the surprising benefits of trash talk has been featured on Fast Company, Scientific American, NPR's Science Friday, BBC's Unexpected Elements, and Re:Thinking with Adam Grant.   Here's a few additional resources for you… Follow me on Instagram: @JonGordon11 Order my new book 'The 7 Commitments of a Great Team' today! Every week, I send out a free Positive Tip newsletter via email. It's advice for your life, work and team. You can sign up now here and catch up on past newsletters. Join me for my Day of Development! You'll learn proven strategies to develop confidence, improve your leadership and build a connected and committed team. You'll leave with an action plan to supercharge your growth and results. It's time to Create your Positive Advantage. Get details and sign up here. Do you feel called to do more? Would you like to impact more people as a leader, writer, speaker, coach and trainer? Get Jon Gordon Certified if you want to be mentored by me and my team to teach my proven frameworks principles, and programs for businesses, sports, education, healthcare!

John Corcoran is a recovering attorney, an author, and a former White House writer and speechwriter to the Governor of California. Throughout his career, John has worked in Hollywood, the heart of Silicon Valley, and ran his boutique law firm in the San Francisco Bay Area, catering to small business owners and entrepreneurs. Since 2012, John has been the host of the Smart Business Revolution Podcast, where he has interviewed hundreds of CEOs, founders, authors, and entrepreneurs, including Peter Diamandis, Adam Grant, Gary Vaynerchuk, and Marie Forleo. John is also the Co-founder of Rise25, a company that connects B2B businesses with their ideal clients, referral partners, and strategic partners. They help their clients generate ROI through their done-for-you podcast service.

Works ReferencedWilliam Shakespeare - Taming of the Shrew, Act IV, Scene 1, the character Petruchio says:“This is the way to kill a wife with kindness; And thus I'll curb her mad and headstrong humour.”Spurgeon, Charles Haddon. The Kindness of God Leading to Repentance. Commentary on Romans 2:4. In The New Park Street Pulpit, Vol. 6. London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1860.The kindness of God leads us to repentance. It is not the thunder that softens, but the sun. It is not the law that melts, but the love.Adam Grant on KindnessOne of the most reliable ways to improve our mental health is to help others. After being randomly assigned to do just 3 acts of kindness a week, people felt significantly less depressed, anxious, and lonely. Lifting others up elevates us too. Giving shows us that we matter.https://x.com/adammgrant/status/1871601199910420591?s=61&t=I4ij8eKOHUgedR_RITMhXwScripture ReferencedRomans 12:19-21[19] Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” [20] To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.” [21] Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.Matthew 7:12 “So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets. God is KindRomans 11:22[22] Note then the kindness and the severity of God: severity toward those who have fallen, but God's kindness to you, provided you continue in his kindness. Otherwise you too will be cut off.Love demonstrated! God is Kind to Us in the GospelEphesians 2:7-10[7] so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. [8] For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, [9] not a result of works, so that no one may boast. [10] For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.Titus 3:4-7[4] But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, [5] he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, [6] whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, [7] so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.Romans 2:4[4] Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?Go and Do Likewise Luke 6:35-36[35] But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil. [36] Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.Philippians 4:14[14] Yet it was kind of you to share my trouble.Acts 28:1-2 - Paul on Malta[1] After we were brought safely through, we then learned that the island was called Malta. [2] The native people showed us unusual kindness, for they kindled a fire and welcomed us all, because it had begun to rain and was cold.We Become More Like Jesus Galatians 5:22-23[22] But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, [23] gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.1 Corinthians 13:4-7[4] Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant [5] or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; [6] it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. [7] Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.2 Timothy 2:24-25[24] And the Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, [25] correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth,

On today's REAL Personal Branding podcast, Lauren interviews Jodi Wellman, founder of 4000 Mondays, speaker, author, and assistant instructor in the Master of Applied Positive Psychology program at the University of Pennsylvania. Jodi's TEDx talk, “How Death Can Bring You Back to Life,” has more than 1.3 million views, and her new book, You Only Die Once, was featured on Adam Grant's summer reading list and named a Next Big Idea Club must-read. In this thought-provoking and deeply human episode, Lauren and Jodi explore what it really means to make the most of our time. Jodi shares how losing her mother at 58 shaped her mission, why she believes the Grim Reaper is one of our greatest teachers, and how counting our remaining Mondays can jolt us out of autopilot. They talk about the difference between living and truly being alive, the importance of small moments, and how to create meaning without waiting for a major life event. Whether you're navigating a transition or simply wondering if you're using your time well, this episode will inspire you to live with intention—and fewer regrets. Connect with Lauren V. Davis here: https://linktr.ee/ldaviscreative Connect with Jodi Wellman here: https://www.4000mondays.com https://www.instagram.com/4000mondays

Dr. Aditi Nerurkar discusses the neuroscience behind stress—and offers actionable tips for building your resilience.— YOU'LL LEARN — 1) The major myth that leads to burnout 2) The rule of two for building healthier habits 3) How to feel less stressed in one minuteSubscribe or visit AwesomeAtYourJob.com/ep1065 for clickable versions of the links below. — ABOUT ADITI — Dr. Aditi Nerurkar is a Harvard stress expert, internationally recognized speaker, and national television correspondent with an expertise in stress, burnout, resilience and mental health. Her book The 5 Resets: Rewire Your Brain and Body for Less Stress and More Resilience is a “must read” by Adam Grant and Malcolm Gladwell's Next Big Idea Club and “best new book” by the New York Post. Named “100 Women to Know in America,” her work has been featured in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Good Morning America, The Today Show and NPR. She is also a frequent keynote speaker with talks at the Forbes 30 Under 30 Summit and other events.• Book: The 5 Resets: Rewire Your Brain and Body for Less Stress and More Resilience • Test: Your Stress Score • Website: DrAditi.com— RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THE SHOW — • Tool: Holmes and Rahe stress scale • Study: “Association of wearable device-measured vigorous intermittent lifestyle physical activity with mortality” by Emmanuel Stamatakis, et al. • Study: “Effects of Exercise on Patients with Obstructive Sleep Apnea: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis” by Jiale Peng, Yuling Yuan, Yuanhui Zhao, and Hong Ren • Past episode: 996: Tackling Work Stressors and Transitions with Dr. Tessa West — THANK YOU SPONSORS! — • Strawberry.me. Claim your $50 credit and build momentum in your career with Strawberry.me/Awesome• Quince. Get free shipping and 365-day returns on your order with Quince.com/AwesomeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

About the Guest:Callum Laing is not your average M&A expert. A serial entrepreneur and the author of four books (Agglomerate, Progressive Partnerships, Boardroom Blueprint, and Entrepreneurial Investing), Laing is also the founder of Unity Group, the Veblen Director Program, and Guild. His work focuses on democratizing board access, simplifying capital raising, and helping legacy business owners scale without losing control. His innovation in the agglomeration model challenges the assumptions of private equity and redefines how small businesses can achieve scale and liquidity.Summary:In this episode of How2Exit, guest host Roger Glovsky dives into the nuanced world of M&A and business trust-building with Callum Laing—an entrepreneur, author, and architect of the agglomeration model. With over 100 M&A transactions under his belt, Laing reveals why the most valuable asset in business isn't capital—it's trust. From forming influential board networks to designing incentive-aligned holding companies, Laing explains how deeply human psychology shapes scalable business outcomes, especially when preparing to exit. The conversation spans innovative M&A structures, the underestimated power of personal connections, and why tech-savvy entrepreneurs must still master the art of building real relationships—especially in an AI-driven world.Key Takeaways:Boards as a Competitive Advantage: A functional, diverse, and supportive board not only adds credibility during an exit but also ensures operational continuity—making a business more attractive to acquirers.Access vs. Opportunity: The Veblen Director Program was designed to break barriers for overlooked professionals (e.g., those without elite credentials), helping them land their first board seats and contribute meaningfully.Guild as a Capital-Raising Network: Laing's second venture, Guild, evolved to teach entrepreneurs how to raise capital by first understanding investor needs—flipping the traditional pitch-first model on its head.Trust Multiplies Velocity: Trust accelerates deal flow, reduces friction, and increases the efficiency of capital and collaboration. Building a public profile plays a critical role in earning it.Give First, Gain Later: Inspired by concepts like the Boulder Thesis and Adam Grant's Give and Take, Laing emphasizes building relationships by offering value before asking for anything in return.The Agglomeration Model: Laing's signature innovation—business owners join a public holdco by exchanging private shares, keeping operational control while benefiting from scale, liquidity, and mutual incentives.AI Will Amplify the Human: As AI automates tasks, the human edge will lie in trust-building, empathy, and long-term relationship management—skills no algorithm can yet replicate.Longevity Over Hype: Contrary to Silicon Valley's growth-at-all-costs model, Laing designs business systems with staying power, informed by centuries-old governance principles.--------------------------------------------------Contact Callum onLinkedin:Website:--------------------------------------------------

We think that cynicism protects us from being disappointed by other people. But Stanford psychologist Jamil Zaki says the opposite is true. When we expect the worst in people, we create a self-fulfilling prophecy that brings out exactly what we feared. So in his new book, Hope for Cynics, Jamil sets out to prove that hope isn't naive: it's smart.

Send us a textIn this episode of the Amazing Teams podcast, we sat down with Hannah Manizza, VP of Marketing at Forge Biologics, to explore the concept of a “wrong rock boss” and the critical role of effective leadership in team dynamics. Hannah shares her personal journey from a structured corporate environment to the fast-paced world of startups at Forge Biologics, highlighting both her professional growth and the evolution of the company.We dive into:Why effective management starts with clear guidance and expectationsHow navigating ambiguity is a critical skill in startup environmentsThe power of understanding individual motivations within a teamWhat it takes to build a strong, high-performing team from the ground upTune in for Hannah's practical insights on leadership, adaptability, and what it truly takes to build an amazing team.Resources:Connect with Hannah on LinkedInLearn more about Forge BiologicsLearn about Adam Grant 

A recent post by Adam Grant on one of the most underrated skills being able to receive tough love inspired this episode. A majority of people struggle to receive constructive criticism from others. In this episode I explore why that is and why we take it so personally. On the surface most people say they don't mind the unpleasant truths but I share a way to know whether that is actually true for you or not. If you are committed to growing, improving then you can't be surrounded by people who feed you comforting lies and your actions dictate whether people will tell you the hard truths or not. Want to unpack a topic that is creating mental clutter for you? Send me a DM or check out my website: www.unpackingmyself.com  

In a world filled with requests, many of us are struggling to stay afloat. Even if you're not a people-pleaser, the desire to maintain a positive reputation can make it hard to turn others down. In this episode, Adam explores the art and science of delivering an effective “no.” He highlights strategies for setting boundaries with others to create space for yourself—and healthier relationships with those around you. This episode originally aired April 29, 2025.For the full text transcript, visit ted.com/podcasts/worklife/worklife-with-adam-grant-transcriptsFor the full text transcript, visit ted.com/podcasts/fixable-transcriptsWant to help shape TED's shows going forward? Fill out our survey! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In a world filled with requests, many of us are struggling to stay afloat. Even if you're not a people-pleaser, the desire to maintain a positive reputation can make it hard to turn others down. In this episode, Adam explores the art and science of delivering an effective “no.” He highlights strategies for setting boundaries with others to create space for yourself—and healthier relationships with those around you. Want to help shape TED's shows going forward? Fill out our survey! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this deeply moving and insight-rich episode of Gratitude Through Hard Times, host Chris Schembra welcomes Sara Hardwick, the Community Relationship Strategist at the Gift•ology Group and steward of the late John Ruhlin's enduring legacy. What begins as a conversation about gifting quickly unfolds into a masterclass in human connection, spiritual resilience, and the transformative power of long-game generosity.Sara shares her unexpected journey into this world of relational marketing—how a nudge from her college roommate and a single Google search led her to John's work, and how her bold outreach blossomed into a mentorship, a career, and a calling. Chris and Sara reflect on how the principles of Beyond Gift•ology are not just business strategies—they're spiritual frameworks for living well, loving deeply, and leading with purpose.The episode pays tribute to John Ruhlin, a father, husband, and business visionary who turned gifting into an art form and relationship-building into an enterprise. John passed away in 2024, but his wisdom—"Relationships can take you places marketing can't"—lives on in the systems, stories, and spirit that Sara now helps shepherd to the world.Together, Chris and Sara unpack practical strategies from Beyond Gift•ology: how to build a business based on Return on Relationship (ROR), how to gift without branding or ego, and how to become what Adam Grant calls a “strategic giver”—someone who gives generously and wisely without burning out.They explore the nuances between swag and soul, between a gift that gathers dust and a gift that transforms a relationship, and between a one-off act of kindness and a lifestyle of sustained generosity. Sara also speaks vulnerably about her faith journey, how her relationship with God guides her every decision, and how grief, gratitude, and giving are all connected.Chris draws parallels between his own work at the dinner table and John's commitment to elevating relationships through thoughtful gestures. They explore how tiny, consistent acts—handwritten notes, engraved knives, warm introductions—create ripple effects that build not just revenue, but legacy.Whether you're a founder, a sales leader, a service-based professional, or simply someone who wants to live more intentionally in your relationships, this episode offers a generous mix of soul and strategy. It's a reminder that business doesn't have to be cold, marketing doesn't have to be manipulative, and giving—when done well—can be your greatest competitive edge.What You'll Hear in This Episode➤ A Powerful Opening TributeChris opens with a personal story of how a 20-minute call with John Ruhlin in 2017 changed his life. That call turned into a two-and-a-half-hour conversation, a lasting mentorship, and the permission to go “all-in” on human connection.➤ Sara's Origin Story: From College Gifting Club to Gift•ology LeaderYou'll hear how Sara's best friend Chloe encouraged her to Google “gift giving company”—a search that led to John Ruhlin's work and, eventually, to Sara founding the internet's largest gifting community while still in college.➤ The Long Game of Generosity: ROR > ROISara and Chris dive deep into the difference between Return on Investment (ROI) and Return on Relationships (ROR). Sara explains why short-term thinking in business keeps us stuck—and how giving first, without expecting anything in return, can actually become your greatest long-term growth engine.➤ Gifting as Strategy, Not SwagSara outlines the key rules of strategic gifting:It's not about you—it's about the recipient. No logos, ever. Personalize for their life, not your brand. Love on the inner circle—spouses, kids, even the family dog. Focus on “practical luxuries” that create 5,475+ moments of thoughtfulness over time.➤ The Rise of the Rich Relationship SocietySara introduces the R.I.C.H. framework:Reciprocal Influential Connected HumbleShe shares how this system is designed to help entrepreneurs and service-based professionals build referral-based businesses rooted in trust, warmth, and mutual growth.➤ Jesus, Dinner Parties, and the Divine Power of a KnifeIn one of the most personal moments, Sara credits her faith—and specifically, her renewed relationship with Jesus—as the compass guiding her work. They connect the dots between Jesus' Last Supper, dinner tables as sacred community spaces, and how something as simple as a personalized kitchen knife can become a legacy of love.➤ Beyond the Business Tactic: Legacy as the Ultimate ROIThe episode closes with a powerful reminder: while gifting is a strategy, true generosity is a posture of the heart. Sara shares that she's not just playing for business success—she's playing for eternity. Key TakeawaysGenerosity isn't a transaction—it's a transformation. Strategic gifting isn't about getting something back immediately. It's about creating meaningful moments that compound over time.Your swag isn't a gift—it's a billboard. The most powerful gifts are useful, personal, and logo-free.Business is human-to-human. In a world overrun with AI, algorithms, and advertising, it's the relationships built at your dinner table—not your Instagram grid—that truly move the needle.Legacy is built in the little things. A handwritten note. A kitchen knife. A prayer. A hug. These are the moments people remember. Links & ResourcesBeyond Gift•ology by John Ruhlin – Buy the bookLearn more about the Rich Relationship Society – giftologygroup.comContact Sara Hardwick – sara@giftologygroup.comConnect with Sara on LinkedIn – linkedin.com/in/sarahardwickGiftology (Original Book) – Buy here

This week, organizational psychologist and Glassdoor's Chief Worklife Expert, Adam Grant, joins us to discuss why constant change is exhausting today's workforce. Grant offers practical resilience strategies, including mental time travel techniques and rejecting the "three Ps" of personalization, pervasiveness, and permanence. From millennials facing their "fourth once-in-a-lifetime recession" to the surprising research showing career benefits of tough economic starts, we explore how both managers and employees can navigate workplace uncertainty without burning out. Make sure and join Adam Grant for his upcoming "HotSeat" event on May 27th. Only on the Glassdoor App! Special Guest: Adam Grant Hosts: Matt Sunbulli ⁠⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/sunbulli/⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠https://www.firstdraft.vc⁠⁠⁠ Aaron Calafato ⁠⁠⁠Listen to Aaron's 7 Minute Stories Podcast ⁠⁠⁠ Follow Aaron's Viral Storytelling on YouTube Leah Ova ⁠⁠⁠Follow Leah on TikTok ⁠⁠⁠ Editorial: Matt Sunbulli Brooks Borden Ken Wendt Aaron Calafato Senior Audio Engineer: Ken Wendt Research: Zaid Safe Matt Sunbulli Aaron Calafato

What does it mean to live a good life? Is it about happiness, health, friendship, love, or meaning? What about work, wealth, purpose, service, or something else? Can you live a good life even when things are hard? These are the questions and topics we explore every week in conversation with leading voices from health, science, art, industry, mindset, and culture, like Brené Brown, Matthew McConaughey, Mel Robbins, Alex, Elle, Adam Grant, Elizabeth Gilbert, Yung Pueblo, Maya Shankar, Mitch Albom, Glennon Doyle & hundreds more. The New York Times says, "the show's holistic approach to fulfillment is bound to resonate." Listen now! Hosted on Acast. Visit GoodLifeProject.com to learn more. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Mae Martin is a comedian, improviser, screenwriter, and podcast host. Their work on Netflix includes the stand-up special “Sap” and the aptly-named TV series “Feel Good.” Adam and Mae chat about the value of vulnerability in connection, snapping out of procrastination, shame spirals, and life lessons from the art of improvisation. Transcripts for ReThinking are available at go.ted.com/RWAGscripts Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.