“We were young citizen-soldiers, terribly naive and gullible about what we would be confronted with in the air war over Europe and the profound effect it would have upon every fiber of our being for the rest of our lives. We were all afraid, but it was beyond our power to quit. We volunteered for the service and, once trained and overseas, felt we had no choice but to fulfill the mission assigned. My hope is that this book honors the men with whom I served by telling the truth about what it took to climb into the cold blue and fight for our lives over and over again.”So writes the 100-year-old World War II veteran John “Lucky” Luckadoo in the new book he co-authored with Kevin Maurer: Damn Lucky: One Man’s Courage During the Bloodiest Military Campaign in Aviation History. Kevin is my guest today, and will share Lucky’s story, and with it, the story of WWII’s famous B-17 bomber.During the war, airmen in the 100th Bomb Group could finish their combat service and return home after flying 25 missions. Yet with a 1 in 10 chance of becoming a casualty, few were able to reach this milestone. Lucky was one of the, well, lucky few who did, and Kevin traces how he got there, from trying to join the Royal Canadian Air Force as a teenager, to learning to fly the B-17 on the job, to his harrowing daylight bombing missions over Germany, to the life he made for himself after the war. Along the way, Kevin describes the brutal conditions inside a B-17 and the bomber’s role in winning the war.Resources Related to the PodcastThe Bomber Mafia by Malcolm GladwellMemphis BelleNorden bombsightVideo tour of B-17 G modelConnect with Kevin MaurerKevin’s Website

When it comes to making behavior change around diet and exercise, it's no secret that many people fail in their efforts. My guest would say that's because too often we only concentrate on the things that drive us towards that change — whether willpower, or motivation, or the rewards that turn behaviors into habits — and that we need to think more about the obstacles keeping us from making the decisions we desire.Her name is Michelle Segar and she's a behavioral science researcher and health coach, as well as the author of The Joy Choice: How to Finally Achieve Lasting Changes in Eating and Exercise. Today on the show, Michelle explains why exercise and eating aren't conducive to becoming habits — at least of the automatic variety — and why it's more helpful to think of these behaviors in terms of "life space" and "choice points." She makes the case for why we shouldn't just focus on what drives behaviors, but also understand what disrupts them, and unpacks four of these disruptors: temptation, rebellion, accommodation, and perfection. Michelle then offers a three-step decision tool for dealing with these disruptors, and explains how to develop the flexibility to choose the perfect imperfect option that keeps you consistent and even celebrate and enjoy the decision to do something instead of nothing.Resources Related to the PodcastMichelle's previous appearance on the show — Podcast #575: Counterintuitive Advice on Making Exercise a Sustainable HabitAoM Article: How I Finally Made Flossing a HabitAoM Podcast #782: Anxiety Is a Habit — Here’s How to Break It (With Judson Brewer)Kurt LewinFreakonomics episode that includes Daniel Kahneman referencing LewinGrounded cognitionAffective–Reflective Theory of physical inactivity and exerciseConnect With Michelle SegarMichelle's Website

In the quiet moments of our lives, we can all sense that our hearts long for something, though we often don’t know what that something is. We seek an answer in our phones, and while they can provide some sense of extension and fulfillment — a feeling of magic — the use of technology also comes with significant costs in individual development and interpersonal connection that we typically don’t fully understand and consider.My guest today will unpack what it is we really yearn for, how technology, when misused, can direct us away from the path to fulfilling those yearnings, and how we can find true human flourishing in a world in which so much works against it. His name is Andy Crouch and he’s the author of The Life We’re Looking For: Reclaiming Relationship in a Technological World. Today on the show we talk about the tradeoffs you make when you seek magic without mastery, and how we can understand our desires better once we understand ourselves as heart, soul, mind, and strength complexes who want to be loved and known. We discuss the difference between interactions that are personal versus personalized, as well as the difference between devices and instruments, and how to use your phone as the latter instead of the former. We end our conversation with why Andy thinks we need to redesign the architecture of our relational lives and create something he calls “households.”Resources Related to the PodcastFaust by Johann Wolfgang von GoetheWendell BerryAoM article on Plato’s idea of the tripartite nature of the soulAoM Podcast #723: Men Without ChestsAoM Article: The Tool Works on Both EndsAoM Article: Communities vs. Networks — To Which Do You Belong?Connect With Andy CrouchAndy’s WebsitePraxis Labs

If you're someone who's a decade or two out from your high school graduation, do you ever find yourself thinking that you're just not as happy as you were back then? Of course all the positive-thinking self-talk then kicks in and you think, "Well, maybe I actually wasn't that happy before. I do like my life better now. I like the independence I have. Yeah, yeah, I really like being an adult." Yet, no matter the glass-half-full glow you try to put on things, you can't shake the feeling that your happiness has declined over the years, that at 30, you weren't as happy as you were at 20, and that at 40, you weren't as happy as you were when you were 30.Well, that feeling is more than a nostalgic hunch, and it's not unique to you. It's actually been born out by hundreds of research papers and studies and shown to be a near-universal experience. My guest today has authored many of those papers. His name is Dr. David Branchflower and he's a labor economist who not only studies the data around money and jobs, but also around human happiness. Today on the show David explains how happiness follows a U-shaped curve, and starts declining around age 18, and continues to fall into midlife, before picking back up again, and David shares the average age at which happiness hits its very lowest point. While it's not entirely clear why the U-shape of happiness occurs, we talk about some possible reasons behind it. And while the U-shape is consistent across the world, it can be lower or higher, and so we discuss how factors like gender, socio-economic and martial status, and having children affect happiness, and whether it's possible to mitigate the dip.While the fact that it won't be until your mid-60s that you feel as happy as you were at age 18 might seem depressing, David argues that it's comforting to know that the feelings of declining happiness you experience at you approach midlife are normal, and will not only pass one day, but start moving in the other direction.Resources Related to the Podcast"Is Happiness U-Shaped Everywhere?" — one of the main research papers on the happiness curve that David has authoredDavid's book Not Working: Where Have All the Good Jobs Gone?Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism by Anne Case and Angus DeatonStudy on great apes having a midlife crisisAoM Series: The Seasons of a Man's LifeAoM Podcast #776: How to Shift Out of the Midlife MalaiseAoM Article: The Economics of HappinessConnect With David BranchflowerDavid's Faculty Page at Dartmouth (includes links to his research)

Johnny Cash, “The Man in Black,” said he wore all black on behalf of the poor and hungry, the old who were neglected, “the “prisoner who has long paid for his crime,” and those betrayed by drugs. As a man who had grown up dirt poor, struggled his whole life with addiction, was thrown in jail seven times, and found himself in the proverbial wilderness during a long stretch of his career, Cash had a real heart for these kinds of folks; he was a man who had lived numerous ups and downs himself.Marshall Terrill, co-author of Johnny Cash: The Redemption of an American Icon, will take us through these biographical peaks and valleys today. We talk about Cash’s hardscrabble upbringing on a cotton farm, his unfulfilled desire to please his father, and how his rise into stardom was accompanied by the arrival of a set of personal demons. We also discuss how, after becoming the top entertainer in the world, Cash’s career slid into two decades of music industry irrelevance, the big comeback he made near the end of his life, and the faith that sustained him through all his struggles and triumphs.Resources Related to the PodcastMarshall’s previous appearance on the show: Episode #673 — The Complex Coolness of Steve McQueenCash songs mentioned in the show:“Walk the Line”“Boy Named Sue”“One Piece at a Time”“Chicken in Black”“Hurt”“The Wanderer” (song Cash did with U2)Man in White — novel Cash wrote about the Apostle PaulWalk the Line movieConnect With Marshall TerrillMarshall’s Page at ASU

You hear a lot about metabolism. You probably know it has something to do with weight loss. And even if you don't go in for those supposed hacks around speeding up your metabolism, you likely figure you can at least increase it by exercising more.This isn't actually the case, and my guest will sort through this and other misconceptions around metabolism on today's show. His name is Dr. Herman Pontzer and he's a professor of evolutionary anthropology and the author of Burn: New Research Blows the Lid Off How We Really Burn Calories, Lose Weight, and Stay Healthy. We begin our conversation with an overview of how metabolism powers everything your body does from thinking to moving to simply existing, and how it uses the food you eat as the energy needed to fuel these processes. We then get into Herman's field research which shows that increasing your physical activity doesn't actually increase the number of calories you burn, but why it's still hugely important to exercise anyway. He also unpacks whether certain kinds of foods are better for your metabolism, offers his recommendations on how to use diet to lose weight, and answers the common question as to whether it's true that your metabolism goes down as you age.Resources Related to the PodcastAoM Podcast #691: What You Can (Really) Learn About Exercise from Your Human AncestorsAoM Podcast #552: How to Optimize Your MetabolismAoM Podcast #475: How to Lose Weight, and Keep It Off ForeverAoM Podcast #636: Why You Overeat and What to Do About ItNYT article on what happened to the metabolisms of Biggest Loser contestants after the showAoM Article: An Argument for Making Exercise (Not Diet) the Foundation of Weight ManagementConnect With Herman PontzerHerman on TwitterHerman's faculty page and lab at Duke

Why do corrupt people end up in power?By way of an answer, you probably think of that famous quote from Lord Acton, "Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely." But my guest today, Brian Klaas, would say that's only one part of what leads to corrupt individuals and cultures, the other being that people who are already corrupt are more likely to seek power in the first place. Brian argues that if we ever hope to develop better systems, from our national governments to our office hierarchies, we have to work on both prongs of this dynamic, not only preventing people who gain power from going bad, but encouraging good people to seek power as well.Brian is the author of Corruptible: Who Gets Power and How It Changes Us, and today on the show, he and I discuss how people who possess the so-called "dark triad" of traits are more attracted to positions of power, how the framing around those positions can either amplify or alter this self-selection effect, and what a tyrannical homeowners' association president and a psychopathic school janitor show us about these dynamics. We also discuss why power does indeed corrupt people and can in fact change their very brain chemistry. Brian explains the importance of accountability in keeping a system clean, and how you can serve in positions of power without becoming corrupted yourself.Resources Related to the PodcastAoM Podcast #108: The Upside of Your Dark SideAoM Podcast #769: The New Science of NarcissismMichael Nader's study on social status in monkeysM.G. Marmot's Whitehall II study on social status and mortalityAoM series on statusUltrasociety by Peter TurchinConnect With Brian KlassBrian's WebsiteBrian’s podcast, Power Corrupts

When neurologist and sleep specialist Dr. Chris Winter sees adult patients in his sleep clinic, they often come to him because of a struggle with insomnia, which, as he described in a previous appearance on the AoM podcast, is caused by stressing too much about sleep, so that going to bed becomes an anxious and fear-inducing routine that sabotages the natural needs and rhythms of the sleep cycle.Chris would see fewer adult patients like this if, when they were kids, their parents set them up to have a healthy relationship with sleep.How to establish that kind of healthy relationship is something Chris writes about in his latest book, The Rested Child, and is the topic of our conversation today. Chris will take us through what parents should know about their kids' sleep from the womb through young adulthood, with tips on both how to improve your children's sleep, and how to avoid messing it up, including his take on co-sleeping, why he let his kids go to bed whenever they wanted, and why he discourages giving children melatonin to help them sleep.Resources Related to the PodcastChris' last appearance on the show — episode #661: Get Better Sleep By Stressing About It LessNational Sleep Foundation's graph and write-up of sleep duration recommendations across the lifespanConnect With Dr. Chris WinterChris on InstagramChris on Twitter

Do you ever feel like the time we live in feels flat, complacent, timid, conformist, populated by people who are focused on playing it safe and are inwardly empty?A century and a half ago, the Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard felt the same way about the period in which he lived, and posited that there are two kinds of ages: the revolutionary, decisive, and passionate, and the sensible, rational, and reflective.Here to unpack Kierkegaard’s ideas on these two kinds of ages is Jacob Howland, retired professor of philosophy and author of Kierkegaard and Socrates. Today on the show, Jacob and I first discuss some background on Kierkegaard and his existential philosophy. We then get into the differences between an age of passion and an age of reflection. We discuss how in a passionate age, an individual stands as an individual, possesses an energy which focuses on truth and ideals, and has the courage to take bold leaps of faith, while in a reflective age, the individual is subsumed by the crowd, is afraid of public opinion, and gets so lost in analysis and abstraction that he never makes a decisive move. All along the way, we delve into how Kierkegaard’s description of his age parallels our own, and Kierkegaard’s evergreen call to be an individual, embrace risk, and own your opinions and actions.Resources Related to the PodcastWorks by Kierkegaard mentioned in the show:Two Ages: A Literary ReviewEither/OrFear and TremblingThe Sickness Unto DeathPhilosophical FragmentsConcluding Unscientific Postscript on Philosophical FragmentsThomasine Christine Gyllembourg-EhrensvärdGeorg Wilhelm Friedrich HegelOn the Advantage and Disadvantage of History for Life by Friedrich Nietzsche “Yes, Sabermetrics Ruined Baseball”AoM Article: Your Three Selves and How Not to Fall Into DespairAoM Article: An Intro to EnvyAoM Podcast #635: The Existentialist’s Survival GuideConnect With Jacob HowlandJacob’s Website

A lot of people feel like they've seen and done everything there is to see and do in their local area. They're bored of their daily routine, and contemplate going off on some grand adventure in a exotic locale.My guest would say that you don't actually have to wait until your next big trip nor go far afield to mix things up, and that adventure can be found right where you are, in your ordinary routines, the everyday landscape of your life, and even DIY projects, if you decide to approach them in a different way.His name is Beau Miles and he's an Australian filmmaker who documents his own small-scale adventures on YouTube, as well as the author of The Backyard Adventurer. Today on the show, Beau shares his experiments in proving anything can be infused with the challenge, intrigue, and fun which mark adventure, if you add in some intentional risk, difficulty, and simple what-the-heck quirkiness. He tells us about some of the close-to-home adventures he's executed, including walking and kayaking his 90-kilometer commute to work, reconnecting an old, long closed-down rail line by running its often hidden, overgrown path with a shovel in his hand, and making a paddle with scavenged wood. We then talk about how he created a gastronomical adventure for himself by eating his body weight in beans, and even turned tackling his to-do list into an adventure by pairing the crossing off of its entries with running a marathon in 24 hours. Along the way, Beau shares how backyard adventures help you better get to know your local area, how he deals with the police who sometimes check in on what he's up to, and how the next time you get some odd idea, you ought to just go for it, mate.Resources Related to the PodcastBeau's films/adventures mentioned in the show:Walking to WorkPaddling to WorkJunk PaddleHuman BeanRun the LineMile an HourAoM Article: My 8-Week Microadventure ChallengeAoM Podcast #120: Microadventures With Alastair HumphreysAoM Podcast #560: The Magic of WalkingTortilla Flat by John SteinbeckConnect With Beau MilesBeau's WebsiteBeau on YouTubeBeau on Instagram