PsycHacks

It's hard to keep your cool when things don't go your way. As someone who used to get angry a lot, I've had to work hard to overcome my tendency to lose my temper. In this episode, I'll discuss one strategy that has helped me to stay frosty in provocative situations. I call it the price of peace. By quantifying the amount of money you would need to receive in order to abide in anger against your will, you can set an anger threshold for the various losses, frustrations, and disappointments that are subject to happening in life.

There's a Jewish parable that I love. A family goes to temple to make offerings to God by placing objects of value on the altar. However, the youngest child is distraught because he has nothing -- and so has nothing to give. So he decides to recite the alphabet, as it's all that he knows. According to the parable, this was the offering that was prized most highly by God. In this episode, I'll discuss why.

I like this phrase: "wanting is free." And I'm going to explain why in this episode. When others want things from you, it's important to remember that "wanting is free." That is, it cost them absolutely nothing to want those things. So there's no harm or loss that results from turning them down. And when you yourself want something, it's important to remember the same thing. That is, wanting is free...but getting is expensive. If you want to start getting what you want, then you have to be willing to spend resources, broadly defined.

Speech is magic. By uttering the appropriate sequence of sounds you can literally conjure things into existence within others' consciousness. In light of this, you can refine your capacity to speak what you want into being. In this episode, I'll discuss two tricks to doing this effectively. The first is to use your words to trap yourself successfully, and the second is to refrain from speaking what you don't want to occur. These are simple spells, but quite unbreakable.

Over the course of my clinical experience, I've helped many people -- including those who were actively in the process of dying -- with their death anxiety. Among other things, I've discovered that death anxiety tends to be more prevalent among younger people than older people. In this episode, I'll discuss why that might be the case and propose a method for coping with this type of anxiety by drawing on the wisdom of Greek mythology.

The beginning of a new year is a time for people to set goals for the next twelve months. Unfortunately, many good-intentioned resolutions fail, often due to a lack of discipline. In this episode, I will discuss an easy and surefire way to ensure your own compliance with any new habit you're attempting to cultivate. The catch? No one likes doing it. However, it's precisely this aversion that functionally guarantees success. I'm almost certain it will work for you.

The baseball great Pete Rose has been permanently banned from the sport for betting on the outcome of his team's games while he was a manager. However, his defense is -- and has always been -- that he only bet on his team to win. Therefore, his incentives as an individual gambler and team manager were aligned. Controversy aside, I love the idea of betting on yourself. Not only does it exhibit the confidence that -- all things being equal -- you believe that you can win, but it also increases focus and motivation by getting "skin in the game."

The podcast delves into the critical balance between truth and misinformation. It emphasizes the dangers of suppressing dialogue, arguing that censorship may inadvertently bolster falsehoods. The conversation highlights that open exchange of ideas is key to combating lies and nurturing the truth. The hosts discuss how circulating both can prevent misinformation from taking root in society. Ultimately, it champions a culture of free expression as essential for a healthy discourse.

In a scarcity mentality, we lose what we cling to in fear because we believe it to be preferable to the nothingness we assume would take its place. Developing an abundance mentality necessitates that we cultivate greater trust in the universe to provide opportunities to fulfill our needs and desires. In this episode, I discuss an example of scarcity mentality in my own history and how I learned to have faith in abundance.

Exploring the behavior of the Town Liar and tactics for dismantling cognitive distortions to see reality clearly