The Armen Show

Here we are on episode 237 with music producer Bob Varo. He originates out of the European nation of Belgium, and makes music of the rock or metal variation, or it may be alternative. We talked about a lot of his musical experiences, what he aims to do in music production in the future, and how his experience has been coming to Los Angeles a few times from Belgium. Show notes: the country of Belgium that Bob originates from, and places he has been in or around therewhat some of the differences are between his experiences in the music production field in Belgium versus Los Angeleswhere Bob has performed or done musical work over the yearshow Bob looks to add value to artists he works with, whether it be songwriting, recording, or mixing/masteringwhy it is important to flow with the current methods of sound and music generation, with more technological possibilitieschallenges that can come up when working with a certain artisthow I met Bob at a house party in the first placesome bands that Bob has known of, or identifies with, or would be glad to work with if given the opportunitywhy taking classes can create a small-world scenario that leads to memories for your select groupingone of Bob’s studio/travel experiences through parts of northern Europethe difference between those who release music as albums versus “big-hit” singles one after another Glad to have Bob on the show.

Does the mind have less depth to it than is readily assumed? Are we able to multitask at all? Professor Nick Chater joins on episode 236 to discuss the qualities of the brain that give it depth or the illusion of mental depth. Professor Chater is Professor of Behavioral Science at Warwick Business School, has over 200 publications, and has been editor for Cognitive Science and Psychological Review journals. His research focuses on the cognitive and behavioral sciences, including reasoning, decision-making, and language. He has done experimental, computational, and mathematical studies of basic mental processes. Show notes: Professor Chater’s research and past content, as well as his educational historyhow the myth of unconscious thought is not applicablewhy multitasking is not the way that the brain is built to handle projects and tasksthe way that the material in Professor Chater’s book connects with the interpreter concept from past episodeshow little we can see with our eyes at any one timerisk-seeking qualities versus risk-averse nature in decision-makinghow feelings are invented in response to physiological base responses and other processes underneaththe way that some are able to have a sense of other’s feelings, like Gary from a past episodeif it is reasonable to look at what we do in a stimulus-response form of maneuvering I was glad to have Professor Chater on the show. You can check out his faculty page to see his breadth of publications.

Episode 235 comes into the forefront with master trainer and fitness coach Kai Boyer. Her coaching style comes with a great sense of the physiology behind movements. She has solutions for how workouts should be adjusted, in order to make up for gaps in muscular fitness building. Kai provides a lot of services through her coaching, including a weight loss program, strength training, high performance sports training, interval training, post-surgical rehabilitation, and mean plan building. The main philosophy of her training is the concept of Kaizen, which is about little improvements over time. I like that concept because we can deconstruct most things in life into little battles to work through, and then the large thing is no longer large. It’s like one of those physics activation energy graphs having a lower required activation energy for the goal you want. Kai uses it for fitness (and her name is in the word Kaizen), but it is able to be applied to various life hurdles. Show notes: how Kai got into the fitness category in the first placethe way that Kai built her current client base, and the types of individuals she has worked with in recent timeswhy nutrition is so important to fitness, even though it doesn’t fit the intuitive thought that the workout is the main componentwhat Kai eats during a normal week, and what a person would want to include in their diet to be able to build fitnesswhat workouts to add in to example workout programs to fill in gaps that may existhow most people don’t like to stretch, and what that can lead towhere certain sports players usually get injuredhow many days of strength and workout training one should have as part of a healthy weekwhether a person should be more focused on calorie reduction or workout increases, based on their current plan Having Kai on the show was neat, and she is a straightforward individual. You can check out her site and what she brings to the table at Kai Boyer Fitness.

Episode 234 gets into the swing of things with guest Dean Hallett, Founder & CEO of Hallett Leadership. During his 17-year tenure at Fox Studios, where he served as CFO, Dean developed a unique and highly effective 9-month leadership training program for early and mid-career managers. The program’s success at breaking down silos across Fox, and fostering a culture of collaboration, led to Dean’s promotion to Senior Executive VP of Operations & Management. Today, the program Dean pioneered at Fox is called the Accelerated Leadership Program (ALP), which “develops tomorrow’s leaders today.” Decades of experience in a space is something that gives refinement we highly desire when we are looking for a person of quality. Dean has some baseline rules for leadership, as well as understanding of how to facilitate levels of leadership underneath him. I spoke with Dean about a variety of topics related to leadership, his experience at Fox and Disney, personality traits that matter in organizational leadership, and more. Show notes: how Dean deviated from his earlier public accounting track to his positions as CFO of large corporationswhy being somewhat introverted can bring value to an organization, and how introverts sometimes have the most to offerwhat some examples of Dean providing leadership consisted ofhow the reward structure of a corporation affects what people target their efforts toward, and how shifting this reward structure is important for improved culturewhat some of the qualities are that Dean looks for in people working around and under him, to have a highly-effective organizationwhy letting people work their own way and be creative leads to positive and potentially surprisingly positive resultshow Dean feels about feeling comfort in life, versus expanding one’s zonewhat books have been read by Dean for understanding, including Collaboration Begins With You by Ken Blanchard, and The Tao to High-Performance Leadership by Jack Zwissigwhy storytelling has a compelling force to ithow being fearful of training and developing your people sends them away, as opposed to the alternative It was a pleasure to speak with Dean during this episode, and hear some other stories about his life experiences. He is a full person, as I would describe it, and is on the way in his new path. I always connect more with individuals building their own name and entities. You can check out his coaching material at Hallett Leadership.

Humans have evolved to become more domesticated, and there are multiple variables at work causing this shift. It wasn’t always this way, and human species have had a two-sided relationship with virtue and violence a long period of time. Dr. Richard Wrangham, author of The Goodness Paradox, joins on episode 233 to discuss this shift and relationship. Professor Wrangham (PhD, Cambridge University, 1975) is Ruth B. Moore Professor of Biological Anthropology at Harvard University and founded the Kibale Chimpanzee Project in 1987. He has conducted extensive research on primate ecology, nutrition, and social behavior. He is best known for his work on the evolution of human warfare, described in the book Demonic Males, and on the role of cooking in human evolution, described in the book Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human. Together with Elizabeth Ross, he co-founded the Kasiisi Project in 1997, and serves as a patron of the Great Apes Survival Partnership (GRASP). It was neat to talk with Professor Wrangham about the ways that evolution has impacted humans as they have progressed. We also included some material on his understanding of cooking and its impacts. Show notes: how proactive and reactive aggression differ, and why that is importantsome of the ways that Professor Wrangham has done research on chimpanzees to understand more about humanswhere humans stand on the threshold of reactive and proactive aggressionthe elements that separated Homo sapiens from the other species of humanshow intra and inter group cooperation without expectation of future returns works in principle but struggles in personthe impact of capital punishment as a way to reduce societal reactive aggression via conformitythe window of socialization that exists early in lifehow the leaders of alpha males of a group impact the rest of the group, and what happens when they die off or are vanquished Glad to have Dr. Wrangham on the show~ You can check out The Goodness Paradox on Amazon, look at his faculty page, or check out his chimpanzee project website.

As a sociologist and physician, Dr. Nicholas A. Christakis has done research on social networks and the socioeconomic, biosocial, and evolutionary determinants of behavior, health, and longevity. His most recent book Blueprint: The Evolutionary Origins of a Good Society shows how evolution has united humanity and put us on a fitting path of progression. Dr. Christakis is the Sterling Professor of Social and Natural Science at Yale University. He received an M.D. from Harvard Medical School, and an M.P.H. from the Harvard School of Public Health. His Ph. D. in sociology is from the University of Pennsylvania. He was voted one of Time’s 100 most influential people in the world in 2009. His book Blueprint was recently mentioned by Bill Gates in a tweet, as well as on his Gates Notes website. He mentions that Robert Sapolsky of my past reading (Behave) gives “…you a framework down to the biological and hormonal level, while Christakis focuses more on person-to-person interactions.” Show notes: what it means for society to have developed into a way of being that is good, and why evolution may have directed that wayhow relationship dynamics like monogamy or social structure would develop in similar environments given enough timewhy a fixed social environment creates one type of winning people, and a fluid social environment creates a different setthe impact that removing a leader of a group has on the groupwhat repeats in society from millions of years ago to nowhow pair-bonding can be impacted by certain neurotransmitters, and what this represents about usthe kind of research that Dr. Christakis has done, and his views on the current social networks that are popular in societythe way that some past recurring events were responses to human needs, though those civilizations may have not known the “why”what unintentional, intentional, and artificial communities can tell us about the way people function as a group It was great to have Dr. Christakis on the show. You can check out Blueprint on Amazon, his Wikipedia, or his Yale faculty page.

When it comes to anti-aging research, Dr. David A. Sinclair of Harvard Medical School is on the forefront of research and innovation. He joins on episode 231 to discuss his new book Lifespan: Why We Age – and Why We Don’t Have To. Dr. Sinclair, Ph.D., A.O. is a Professor in the Department of Genetics and co-Director of the Paul F. Glenn Center for the Biology of Aging at Harvard Medical School. He is best known for his work on understanding why we age and how to slow its effects. He obtained his Ph.D. in Molecular Genetics at the University of New South Wales, Sydney in 1995. He worked as a postdoctoral researcher at M.I.T. with Dr. Leonard Guarente where he co discovered a cause of aging for yeast as well as the role of Sir2 in epigenetic changes driven by genome instability. In 1999 he was recruited to Harvard Medical School where he has been teaching aging biology and translational medicine for aging for the past 16 years. He was also on TIME magazine’s 2014 list of the “100 most influential people in the world”. Show notes: Dr. Sinclair’s background, and what led him into the field of anti-aging researchwhat it is about adversity that leads to a chemical response in the body, across sirtuins and morehow aging is not yet thought of as a disease, and how that can change through communication effortswhy society and people can seem stuck in a slowed form of evolution as compared with where we are headedwhy studying organisms fighting adversity, similar to how Dr. Cockell studied extremophiles, is the way to find most answershow stress at a cellular level is different from psychological stress that releases cortisol in the bloodstreamwhat it means to have senescent cells accumulate in the body as one ages over timehow an optic nerve was regrown in a mouse, and what that means for our potential nerve-based regrowthwhat kinds of demands Dr. Sinclair has on his time with regards to the research he doeshow the Horvath Clock represents true age of a person beyond external appearance and other metrics This was an enjoyable episode, and book, that is right on the forefront of aging research and technology. Dr. Sinclair is very active in this space, and it shows. You can check out his website, the book on Amazon, or some of his research.

Professor Steven C. Hayes of the University of Nevada is prolific in the category of psychological research. He has put out over 600 scientific articles and 44 books. Most of his research has been in the categories of human language and cognition as they relate to reducing human suffering. He has built a form called Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, which is psychotherapy using mindfulness and acceptance. “Dr. Hayes has been President of Division 25 of the APA, of the American Association of Applied and Preventive Psychology, the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapy, and the Association for Contextual Behavioral Science. He was the first Secretary-Treasurer of the Association for Psychological Science, which he helped form and has served a 5 year term on the National Advisory Council for Drug Abuse in the National Institutes of Health.” He joins me on this episode to discuss topics from his book “A Liberated Mind: How to Pivot Toward What Matters”. It was a great nonlinear discussion that brought up a lot of insights. Show notes: why you need to be continually putting effort in some category to have a chance in ithow those who are not ready for the difficult have no chance to acquire the greatwhat it takes to pivot toward the things you are interested inhow so many of your thoughts can run on auto-pilot until you deconstruct the steps leading to themwhere you need to go mentally to clear up a past issue and come to a conclusionand much more You can check out A Liberated Mind on Amazon, or check out Dr. Hayes web page, or his Twitter.

We bring it live on episode 229 of the show with a fellow podcaster – Mark Metry of the Humans 2.0 Podcast. He has had wonderful guests like Robert Greene, Mark Manson, Safi Bahcall(previously on my podcast as well), and more. Mark brings a lot of momentum to the table, across his episodes, speaking engagements, social media postings, and more. He has a company called VU Dream, which is focused on application of virtual reality and augmented reality technologies. Show notes: how Mark started his speaking engagements, and where he sees it goingwho some of Mark’s memorable guests are, and what he took from his discussions with themhow a podcaster can improve their reachwhat one can do to avoid the life of quiet desperationwhy one should keep exploration in their mind when making daily decisions, so as not to stick in an exploitative patternwhat some goals are that Mark has regarding his upcoming career Glad to have Mark on the show. You can check out his podcast on podcast services under the name Humans 2.0. He is also on Twitter at @markymetry.

Professor Bill Sullivan of Indiana University School of Medicine joins on episode 228 of the show, and we discuss his book Pleased To Meet Me: Genes, Germs, And The Curious Forces That Make Us Who We Are, along with related topics. He is a Professor with a Ph.D. in Molecular & Cell Biology from the University of Pennsylvania, who had focused on genes for drug-resistance in a parasite called Toxoplasma gondii. He has experience with epigenetics, parasites, germs, gene expression, and more. Professor Sullivan also has written for numerous outlets like Scientific American and What Is Epigenetics. I enjoyed speaking with Bill here, and we covered a variety of topics from the book, as well as some extended questions I had from the book’s framework. Show notes: how taste can be different in different people based on ability to be a “super taster”why your gut bacteria is so important in assisting regulation of your mood and well-beingwhat makes some people more prone to addiction, and the percentages associated with some levels of addictionwhat type of environments contribute to drug use, versus the ones that make drug use seem less appealinghow mood requires a balance of many different parameterswhy a polygenic trait like height is desired, and what it represents of the person who has itwhat epigenetics has to do with adverse childhood experiences and their lasting impact on an individual Professor Sullivan’s material is available on his website, and his new book is available on Amazon.