What You Will Learn

Lydia Denworth is the author of three books, including the recently published Friendship: The Evolution, Biology and Extraordinary Power of Life’s Fundamental Bond.In this interview, we chat with Lydia about the psychological impacts, evolutionary context and elements of a high-quality friendship.Lydia launched this book with perfect timing - just before a worldwide pandemic put friendships and connections to their greatest test. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Disclaimer: we are not psychologists or psychiatrists, or in anyway giving medical advice.Johann Hari was depressed as a young man. He was told a story about why he felt so down: that depression is caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain. They say that the brains of depressed people have lower levels of serotonin (the happiness molecule). Then we’re told that Big Pharma has the answer. They’ve made drugs that can restore your serotonin levels back to “normal”. This version of the answer says that depression is a brain disease, and companies have the cure... for a profit of course.When scientists tested the water supply in Western countries, they found find it laced with antidepressants. We're literally and figuratively awash with these drugs. What is startling in other cultures has become normal to the Western world. We've just accepted that a huge number of people are so distressed that they need to take a powerful chemical every day to pull themselves together.Johann Hari has asked a distinctly different question. Could something other than bad brain chemistry be causing depression and anxiety?This question led to 3 years of research and 200+ interviews. The story that it is all in our head has holes in it. What Johann Hari has found is another story: depression is largely due to the world and how we live in it. The factors that cause depression in society are everywhere. Even worse, they are on the rise. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We had the pleasure of speaking to one of the Godfathers of habits and designing behaviours, BJ Fogg. We love the simplicity of his model: "Behaviour = Motivation + Ability + Prompt". Through this lens, we can see exactly why we do (or don't do) the things we want to do! Following on from our own discussion of his book Tiny Habits, this interview dives a little deeper into the intricacies of installing new habits or breaking old ones.  BJ Fogg, PhD, founded the Behavior Design Lab at Stanford University. In addition to his research, Fogg teaches industry innovators how human behavior really works. He created the Tiny Habits Academy to help people around the world. He lives in Northern California and Maui.Find out more at BJFogg.com and visit TinyHabits.com to learn about his New York Times bestselling book, Tiny Habits: The Small Changes that Change Everything Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We all want some kind of change. But for most of us, there is a painful gap between what people want and what they actually do. If you have attempted to do something different in the past and haven't seen the results, you've probably figured out by now that change is hard.If you tried to put together a chest of drawers with faulty instructions and parts missing, you would feel frustrated. But you probably wouldn't blame yourself. You would blame the manufacturer instead. Similarly, any habits you’re not happy with aren’t entirely your fault, you just haven't yet been taught how to effectively change your behaviour.BJ Fogg's behaviour model boils any action down to three simple components: Motivation, Ability, Prompt. B=MAP is the combination lock to install long term habits. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

"The extraordinary benefits of knowing when to quit (and when to stick)"A great short book the explains why there's always a 'dip' in your projects on your journey to becoming the best in the world - be that getting a promotion, building a business, writing a book, falling in love... anything! At the start, as you put in more effort you'll see good results. Then, theres a dip. You'll put in more and more effort but your results won't improve. This is where most people quit. If you can push through the dip after everyone else has quit, all of a sudden you'll appear to be an overnight success because you've become the best in the world. Check out the full blog post here: https://www.whatyouwilllearn.com/book/the-dip/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Your life is a constant stream of decisions: what career to follow, how to manage a business, whom to marry, how to bring up children, whether to run for president, how to communicate with a colleague and how to react when life slaps you in the face. The common element is that you are not in a vacuum. Instead, you are surrounded by the world that interacts with any decision you make. The context of the situation you find yourself in matters.Game theory is the process of modelling the strategic interaction between players in a situation containing set rules and outcomes. The Art Of Strategy breaks down game theory to help you in practical real life situations. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Malcolm Gladwell is one of the biggest selling non-fiction authors of our generation, with smash-hits like Outliers, Blink and The Tipping Point. This book is a collection of his essays and newspaper articles. We picked some of our favourites, taking us on a deep dive into three important distinctions: The Arts of Failure, The Nature of Secrets, and Success in the Young and the Old.In this episode, we look at the difference between: - Choking VS Panicking - Prodigies VS Late Bloomers - Puzzles VS Mysteries Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

When you buy a product, you can see it, touch it, and depending on the product you can taste/smell/hear it as well. Services, on the other hand, are intangible. There’s no exact clear definition of what you’re getting when you buy a service - you’re just purchasing what you hope the end result will be.Obviously services are different from products, so service marketing must be different from product marketing. But while more than 4 out of 5 people work in service companies, only 1 out of 5 business school case studies focus on services. We’re all being taught how to market products, but we’re never taught how to market services, even though that will be what the majority of people do.Check out the full blog post here: https://www.whatyouwilllearn.com/book/selling-the-invisible/  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

So much you want to learn, so little time to learn it.Every new skill has what Josh calls a "FRUSTRATION BARRIER". At first the basics of a new skill can seem fun. But then you hit a wall, a few hours in, where you don't seem to be improving and it is just getting frustrating. You're still horribly unskilled, but now painfully aware of it. Maybe you learned to play Three Blind Mice on the piano, but you still can seem to work out which note on the keyboard matches which dot on the sheet music. Or maybe you’ve been skateboarding in a straight line, but can’t work out the right balance and positioning that allows you to turn properly.This book offers a simple system for learning new skills, a system that allows you to quickly break through that frustration barrier and get to the fun stuff sooner.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

"The Art of Happiness" - by HH Dalai Lama XIV & Howard C Cutler'A Handbook for Living'Happy people have it a lot better than unhappy people. Studies show you're more likely to pick up a better mate, have more satisfying marriages, you're more likely to be a better parent, you'll have a better immune system and live an extra 10 years. It also leads to better mental resilience and ability to deal with adversity or trauma. In the workplace, happy individuals perform much better and earn much more than miserable employees. These happy employees are more productive, loyal and take less sickies.The Art of Happiness looks at happiness through different perspectives from two different authors. Firstly, the Western perspective from Howard Cutler, a psychiatrist out of the US. And Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, leader in Tibetan Buddhism and bringing the perspective from the east. Although perspectives differ, they attempt to drill things down to the basic human level. Here the little distinctions like gender, race, religion, culture and language don't matter. There are similarities that all of us share in being part of the human race. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.