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Resilience - Elizabeth Stanley 043
Released October 16, 2019
Elizabeth Stanley is an associate professor of security studies with joint appointments in the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service and the Department of Government at Georgetown University. Earlier in her career, she served as a U.S. Army intelligence officer as a captain. She is the creator of Mindfulness-based Mind Fitness Training, which has been tested through four neuroscience research studies with the U.S. military. She has a B.A. in Russian & East European Studies from Yale University, an MBA from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a Ph.D. in Political Science from Harvard University. She and I discuss her career-long work on resilience.
SEASON FIVE
Stoicism - Ryan Holiday 044
Released November 3, 2019
Ryan Holiday is an author, marketer, entrepreneur and founder of the creative advisory firm Brass Check. Holiday began his professional career after dropping out of college at the age of 19, instead choosing to work with Robert Greene, author of The 48 Laws of Power. Holiday is the author of several books and has written for Forbes, Fast Company, The Huffington Post, and many other publications. Holiday's third book The Obstacle Is The Way, is based on the Stoic exercise of framing obstacles as opportunities. His latest book, Stillness Is the Key, reads like the prequel to the former. He and I discuss both books.
Leadership - David Petraeus 045
Released November 17, 2019
General David Petraeus has had a long and distinguished career. He served in the Army for 37 years. Highlights include: Commander of the International Security Assistance Force, 10th Commander US Central Command and Commanding General Multinational Force – Iraq (where he successfully directed ‘the surge’ and literally wrote the book on counterinsurgency). His educational credentials are stellar as well… BS from the US Military Academy (top 5% his class), MPA and Ph.D. from Princeton. After leaving military service General Petraeus was the director of the CIA. These days he is the Chairman of the KKR Global Institute. He and I discuss leadership.
Emotional Intelligence - Dr. Jack Mayer 046
Released January 6, 2020
Dr. Jack Mayer is a Professor of Psychology at the University of New Hampshire. He received his Ph.D. in psychology at Case Western Reserve University and was a postdoctoral scholar at Stanford University. His 1990 article, "Emotional Intelligence" with Dr. Peter Salovey, provided a foundation for research in the area, and they have published dozens of works in the area since, including the Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test. Dr. Mayer, one of the earliest and most original thinkers and researchers on the topics of emotional intelligence and personal intelligence. He and I discuss EQ.
Negotiation - Larry Chu 047
Released January 26, 2020
Larry Chu is currently a partner at Goodwin - a law firm with over 1,000 lawyers - where he leads the Technology M&A practice on the West Coast. On the sell assignment side his clients have included Qualtrics, Nest and Oculus. On the buy-side, his clients have included Box, PayPal, Informatica, Sony, Skype, McAfee, and Atlassian. He has also counseled a number of banks and private equity funds, such as Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, Silver Lake, Andreessen Horowitz, and Kleiner Perkins. He has advised on over 200 transactions having a total value of over $125 billion. He gives me his strategies for negotiating difficult things.
Perception - Apollo Robbins 048
Released March 1, 2020
Apollo Robbins is a pioneer in the application of deception to real-world environments, Robbins uses pick-pocketing and sleight-of-hand to demonstrate perception management, diversion techniques, and self-deception. Known as “The Gentleman Thief,” Robbins first made national news as the man who pick-pocketed the Secret Service while entertaining former U.S. president Jimmy Carter. He has picked the pockets of more than 250,000 men and women. Forbes has called him “an artful manipulator of awareness,” and Wired Magazine has written that “he could steal the wallet of a man who knew he was going to have his pocket picked.” He and I talk about his craft and how it applies to entrepreneurs.
Critical Thinking - Dr. Diane Halpern 049
Released March 22, 2020
Dr. Diane Halpern is an American psychologist and former president of the American Psychological Association. She is Dean of Social Science at the Minerva Schools at Keck Graduate Institute and also the McElwee Family Professor of Psychology at Claremont McKenna College. She received her PhD from the University of Cincinnati. She has received at least a dozen awards for teaching and research. She wrote a textbook called Thought and Knowledge: An Introduction to Critical Thinking. She and I talk about heuristics, biases, probabilistic thinking, assessing sources of information and many other topics related to critical thinking.
Judgment - Maria Konnikova 050
Released June 28, 2020
Maria Konnikova is the author of two New York Times best-sellers, The Confidence Game and Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes. She is now, also, a successful professional poker player. Her new book about her poker journey is called 'The Biggest Bluff: How I Learned to Pay Attention, Master Myself, and Win' is just out. Maria is my first 2-time guest. She and I talk about what the pressure and repetition and introspection (that one hones by playing high-stakes poker) do to sharpen personal judgment and how it can improve decision all-around making. Warning: there is an instance of indecent language.
Connecting - Stu Heinecke 051
Released August 9, 2020
Stu Heinecke is a Wall Street Journal cartoonist among other things. During his career, he has become a hall of fame nominated marketer and he has learned a lot about how to communicate with people. Specifically, he has gained an understanding of the best way to break through to people. This is commonly known as ‘contact marketing’. To me, there is a grounding in behavioral psychology. I see Stu’s skill set as how to humanize a message and how to interact on a person-to-person level, even if you may not have met that person before. Stu has written a book that captures his learnings called ‘How To Get A Meeting With Anyone’. He and talk about how to make emotional connections. Warning: this was recorded over Zoom. The quality is mediocre.
Learning - Nick Velasquez 052
Released October 11, 2020
Nick Velasquez is a passionate learner and a devoted student of mastery. He's the creator of the popular blog UnlimitedMastery.com, where he writes about learning science, peak performance, creativity, and mastering skills. His writing has been featured in publications such as TIME and Thought Catalogue. The name of Nick’s book is: Learn, Improve, Master: How to Develop Any Skill and Excel at It. We talk about how to learn. Warning: this was recorded over Zoom. The quality is mediocre.
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