The Science of Success

In this episode we discuss how to master the universal skills required to succeed at work, the counter-intuitive truth of taking more responsibility for your own mistakes, flaws, and screw-ups can help you succeed more quickly, we look at how to cultivate and create accountability in your life, challenge yourself to rise to a higher level, and become more vulnerable, we talk about the Benjamin Franklin effect, and much more with Pete Mockaitis.     Pete Mockaitis is an award-winning trainer focusing primarily on helping professionals perform optimally at work. He’s delivered 1-on-1 coaching to over 700 clients across 50 countries, and every Ivy League school. He currently hosts the How to be Awesome at your Job podcast which has listeners in over 150 countries and has been ranked as a top 5 career podcast on iTunes.     We discuss:    The importance of reading to improving your knowledgeThe book that has had the biggest impact on Pete’s lifeHow you can transform yourself into “peak state” so that you don’t feel scared or unmotivatedHow to master the universal skills required to succeed at workGrit - what it is, why its so important, and how you can cultivateThe concept that had the biggest impact on Pete’s lifeWhy its so important to take a hard look at yourself and your own shortcomingsWhat to do when your paralyzed by fear in your jobWhy Everything you’ve ever wanted is on the other side of fearHow to be a more effective communicator“Answer first communication” and how it can transform how you speak and presentHow “hypothesis driven testing” can make you a much better communicatorWhy you should ask: “What things need to be true for this to be a good idea”Numbers galvanize attention and focus for people listening to youIf you’re stressed out in your current role, you’re not ready to make the next move up“The time to meet your neighbors is not when your house is on fire”How to cultivate and develop better relationshipsThe power of making the ask and "ask not, have not”The Benjamin Franklin Effect and how it can help you build a powerful network of mentorsYou can achieve whatever you want in life, if you help enough other people achieve what they want in lifeHow to ask for good feedback and how to give feedbackAsk for role models and ideal next steps when asking for feedbackWhy you should never be afraid to ask for feedback and counterintuitively how demonstrating your weakensses can help you advance in your careerThe counter intuitive truth of taking MORE responsibility for your own mistakes, flaws, and screw-ups can help you succeed more quicklyHow to cultivate and create accountability in your life, challenge yourself to rise to a higher level, and become more vulnerableWhat you should do when your unsatisfied with your career Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In this episode we ask can, and should, we set aside our emotions to make decisions in huge, high stakes environments (like trading)? How to channel and listen to your emotions to make even better decisions, learning from negative emotions, how historical echoes in our life create repeated behavior patterns, and much more with Denise Shull.      Denise Shull is a decision coach, performance architect, and founder of the Re-Think Group. She utilizes psychological science to solve the issues of mental mistakes, confidence crises, and slumps in Olympic Athletes and Wall Street Traders. Her Book Market Mind Games has been described as “The Best of It’s Genre” and “The Rosetta Stone of Trading Psychology”. She has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, CNBC, The New York Times, and consulted on the SHOWTIME Drama series Billions as one of the inspirations for Maggie Siff’s character - Wendy Rhodes.     We discuss:    How Denise studied the neuroscience of emotions and unconscious thought but ditched her PHD to become a traderCan (and should) we set aside our emotions in a high stakes environment like trading?Why you should consciously incorporate your emotions into your decisions to make the best decisionsFeelings, thoughts, emotions, and physical body are all part of one integrated system and you have to think about it as an integrated continuumYour psyche is trying to get important information to you by turning up the volume of your emotionsWe should focus on finding the valuable kernel of information that our emotions are sending usHow do we learn from negative emotions (such as fear and anxiety)Being able to differentiate between granularity of anxiety helps you process the feelings betterIf you didn’t have some level of anxiety you would never do the preparation necessaryDefine, as clearly as possible, the things you are afraid of, own it, connect head to stomach, and describe it with the word. (your psyche will feel like you got the message through)Once your anxiety and fear feel acknowledged it naturally dissipatesThe vital importance of journaling and being gentle and kind to yourself, to help you understand your emotionsEveryone has all kinds of feelings, everyone doubts themselves on some level, the top performers, hedge fund managers, and olympic athletes  - its part of the human conditionHow can historical echoes create repeated behavioral patterns?The critical period for who we are and how we relate in the world happen very early - as Freud called them “the compulsion to repeat”, and as Denise calls them “echoes” or “fractals”Negative feelings are a mechanism to look and understand the fractals from our past and exploring child hood experiences can help you uncover more about themThe importance of doing the historical work, digging into your childhood, asking yourself “how would I have felt” (so you can get past the filter of “oh that didn’t bother me”)An amazing question you can ask yourself about past events - how would someone else have felt about that? That question helps you break past the self denial that it did hurt you. Repetitions of past mistakes are opportunities to reorganize things you weren't able to deal with in your past Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Professor Dr. Barry Schwartz discusses the importance of interdisciplinary work, the flaws in Western ideologies, and the true reasons people work. He emphasizes the complexity of life's important questions and the need for a multi-disciplinary viewpoint. Schwartz also talks about the significance of engaged employees, meaningful work, and the process of becoming wise.

In this episode we dig into Negotiation. Why, no matter what you do, its essential to master the skill of negotiation, the barriers that prevent people like you from negotiating effectively, why the common sense rules of the real world are a fragile collection of socially reinforced illusions, the most powerful type of question you can use in a negotiation, the single biggest mistake you can make negotiating, and much more with Kwame Christian.     Kwame Christian is a business lawyer and owner of the Christian Law as well as the founder of the American Negotiation Institute. He also hosts the podcast Negotiation for Entrepreneurs, the top rated negotiation podcast on iTunes, where he interviews successful entrepreneurs and shares powerful persuasion techniques.     We discuss:    Why the majority of the conversations we have are negotiations and its a vital skill to work on and improve Whether or not you’re good at negotiation, you’re still going to be negotiating on a daily basis The “Three Pillars” of Succeeding at Negotiation What is “offensive negotiation” & how to maximize value for yourself What are the “defensive” uses of negotiation? And how you can use negotiation to avoid bad outcomes and resolve conflicts How you can use negotiation to build relationships How to become comfortable with asking for what you want The FIRST barrier everyone faces when they negotiate The SECOND barrier everyone faces when negotiating Rejection therapy and how it can transform and improve your ability to negotiate One question you should always ask to see how much flexibility you have The common sense rules of the real world are a fragile collection of socially reinforced illusions How to use framing to transform a negotiation and conversation (with concrete examples from Kwame’s work) How open ended questions decrease the perceived threat of a conversation How to become a “puppet master” controlling the conversation while the other party feels like they are in control How to cultivate information asymmetry and get the informational advantage in a negotiation How you can lead someone down a logical path where they convince themselves of what you want How do you develop the skill of asking questions How you can practice and improve the skillset of persuasion Why curiosity is a critical component of being an effective negotiator and communicator Why you need to be able to be persuaded to be able to persuade Why preparation is an essential component in a negotiation How, specifically, Kwame preps for a negotiation (specific checklists, questions, etc) The Three Characteristics of Master Negotiators How creativity fits into being an effective negotiator and why you should try to find inexpensive ways to solve other people’s problems The false belief that negotiation is a zero sum game Why great negotiators go out of their way to try and solve other people’s problems The single biggest mistakes you can make in a negotiation One of the biggest barriers to moving forward in a negotiation How to build strong working relationships, with trust, and free flow of communication And much more! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This episode is all about MINDSET. What is a mindset? What is the fixed mindset and how does it shape the way we act in the world, what is the growth mindset and how can it transform the way we live our lives? We look at research data from over 168,000 students, examine the mindset of champions, the dangers of blame and excuses, and much more with Dr. Carol Dweck.     Dr. Carol Dweck is a Professor of Psychology at Stanford University and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She is the author of the best-selling book Mindset: The New Psychology of Success - which is one of the single most important books in shaping my life. Her work has been featured in several publications including The New York Times, Washington Post, The Today Show, 20/20 and many more.    What is a mindset?What is the fixed mindset?We go deep into the “fixed mindset” and how they view challenges and the worldWhat is effort and how does the fixed mindset perceive it?Is effort necessary to be successful or is it a sign that you’re not naturally talented?If you have a fixed mindset, how do you think about criticism?Do you often “need to be right?” - and how could that need be impacting your life?We examine in detail what the “growth mindset” is and what underpins its core perception of realitySetbacks are welcome and setbacks are inevitableThis fundamental conclusion is backed by 35+ years of psychological research, hundreds of studies, and moreA study of over 168,000 students (the entire 10th grade population of Chile) demonstrating all of these findings Research data from everything from dating life to conflict in the middle east bears out the lessons of fixed vs growth mindsetWhat is the most effective way to recover from devastating rejections?Is it possible to change your mindset?How to transform your mindset and specific steps you can take to move towards a growth mindsetHow to find the things that trigger your fixed mindset reactionsDiscover and name your “fixed mindset persona”Success as improvement vs success as superioritySelf handicapping and the concept that effort robs you of your excusesRepairing your self esteem vs repairing your failureIt’s impossible to learn from a mistake if you deny making it in the first placeThe grave danger of placing blame, making excuses, and denying failure in order to protect your self esteemThe mindset of a champion and how champions rise to the occasionViewing people as judges vs viewing people as alliesHow do we reconcile the lessons of mindset with the idea that you should focus on your strengths?What are the most common triggers of the fixed mindset? Taking on a challenge, out of your comfort zone Struggling, not making progress Setback, criticism, failure Strength and weakness are much more dynamic than we understand or give them credit forDon think your strengths will be strengths forever if you don't work on them and grow themThe dangers of the self esteem movement and how it actually cultivates the fixed mindset Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In this episode we go deep on sound – we discuss how sound changes your body and affects your heart rate, breathing, brain waves, and hormone secretions, the secret to cultivating soundscapes that make us happier and more productive, the incredible power of listening and how it can change your reality, how, like sound waves, we are all vibrating, from the smallest physical level, to the macro level, and much more with Julian Treasure.    Julian Treasure is the chair of the Sound Agency, a consultancy firm that advises worldwide businesses on how to effectively use sound. Julian has delivered 5 TED talks with more than 30 million views about listening, communication, and the effect sound has on the human brain. He is the author of the book Sound Business and the upcoming book How To Be Heard. His work has been featured in Time Magazine, The Economist, and many more.   We discuss:   Why musicians have slightly larger brains than non-musiciansWe are all vibrating, from the smallest physical level, to the macro levelWhat is sound itself and how does it affect us?How sound changes your body and affects your heart rate, breathing, brain waves, and hormone secretionsWhat sound to listen to if you have trouble sleepingHow sound entrains all of your bodily rhythmsIt is possible to listen to two people talking at once?How ambient noise (especially human voice) can reduce your productivity by up to 66%How noise can negatively change your behavior, create stress, etcHow noise kills 1 million health-years per year in Europe (via reduced life expectancy)The secret to cultivating soundscapes that make us happier and more productiveThe incredible power of listening and how it can change your realityThe underutilized sensitivity and power in the earsWhy it's a grave mistake to think that everyone listens the same way that you doHow silence is a vital part of improving your ability to listenThe power of 3 minutes of silence per dayWhy open plan offices are terrible for concentration and contemplation“The mixer” exercise you can perform to make yourself a better listenerThe importance of savoring the mundane sounds around us every dayHow you can use "listening positions” to transform how you listenThe difference between critical listening vs empathic listeningWe all want to be heard, to be understood, and to be valuedDo men and women have different default listening positions?Convergent listening vs divergent listeningHow “RASA” can make you a much better listenerHow truly listening to someone can be an amazing giftThe human voice is one of the most complex and amazing instruments in the worldThe 4 communication channels - Reading, writing, speaking, listeningThe way you say something is much more important than how you say itThe vocal toolbox and how you can use these tools to be a more effective communicatorPosture is a critical component in the vocal toolboxThe power of breath, and a simple breathing exercise we can all useYou want your voice to have the timbre of hot chocolate (rich, smooth)How changing pace, pitch, and tone can impact h Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In this episode we dig into a massive framework for answers some of the biggest questions in life, ask if its possible to integrate 50,000 years of human knowledge into a single comprehensive map of reality, we look at the greatest good that a human being can achieve, we go deep on the path of “waking up” offered by thousands of years, hundreds of cultures, and what the clearest and strikingly similar paths to enlightenment are, we discuss how to integrate and understand the connections between art, morality, and science and much more with our guest Ken Wilbur.     Ken Wilbur is the founder of the Integral Institute which serves as a think tank aiming to synthesize all human experience and knowledge. He’s been called the “Einstein of consciousness”, and is the author of over twenty books with a focus on transpersonal psychology including A Brief History Of Everything, The Integral Vision, Sex, Ecology, Spirituality and more.    We dig into a massive framework for answers some of the biggest questions in life (who am I, why am I here, etc)Building bigger pictures that fits all of our knowledge into a cohesive framework for understanding realityIs it possible it to integrate 50,000 years of human knowledge into a single comprehensive map of reality?The different paths of showing up, cleaning up, growing up, waking upMost people, even experts, a completely unaware of the vast intersections of knowledge across human history and the major academic disciplinesThe “integral” approach tries to take everything into account to provide a truly comprehensive approach to human society, life, business, ecology, politics, and moreThe paths of “waking up” and “growing up” and why they are some of the most central and significant paths you can pursue in lifeThe two major states of consciousness that humans experienceIs it a misunderstanding to take ourselves as a single egoic self?How every single thing and event is interwoven with the entire universe as a wholeWhat is the greatest good that a human being can achieve?What is it like to have an enlightenment experience?The seen self vs the seeing self? What is the observing self?The synthesis of zen koans, Jesus’s teachings, and philosophyThe maps of “waking up” offered by thousands of years, hundreds of cultures, and what the clearest and strikingly similar paths to enlightenment areAll the major religious traditions describe a strikingly similar path towards “waking up”Why mindfulness “resting in the witness” is the powerful path towards enlightenmentReligion as a mythic story that you’re supposed to agree withPaths of waking up are not a “mythic story” but psychotechnologies of transformationNobody is smart enough to be wrong all the time - there has to be partial truth in almost everything that can be integrated into a holistic understanding of realityThe levels of human consciousness / understanding from developmental psychology The great stages of human development of society mimic the develop of individuals“Waking up” and “growing up” are two very different things and you can be at different places on either of those pathsThere is some degree of truth in virtually every approach to reality you look at, how can all of these approaches fit together, how can embrace all of them in a coherent fashion?Hierarchies exist, but they don’t equate to moral superiorityThe “big three” - the beautiful, the good, and the true (art, morality, science)Is the current scientific perspective too limited to incorporate and under Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In this episode we examine how mindfulness practices developed independently in cultures across the world, discuss how evolution shaped our brains to focus on survival instead of happiness and fulfillment, we ask what is success? How do we define it? What is the failure of success? We go deep into how to practice self-compassion, and much more with Dr. Ronald Siegel. Dr. Ronald Siegel is an Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychology at Harvard Medical School, where he has taught for over 30 years. Ronald also currently serves on the Board of Directors and Faculty of the Institute for Meditation and Psychotherapy. He is a longtime student of mindfulness meditation having authored and co-authored several books on the topic including The Mindfulness Solution, Mindfulness and Psychotherapy, and more. We discuss: Lessons about mindfulness from the Harvard medical schoolWhy did mindfulness practices spring up independently in cultures across the world?You didn’t evolve to be happy (and why that’s super important)How evolution shaped our brains to focus on survival and not happiness and fulfillmentHow our minds are like Teflon for good things  & Velcro for bad thingsType 1 Errors and Type 2 Errors (and why our minds evolved to make way too many Type 1 Errors)How evolution sculpted our brains to be incredibly concerned about social ranking and hierarchiesWhy we focus incessantly on what other’s think about us and how we compare to other people and how that drives much of what happens in the world around usThe pain of “I, Me, My Mine” and how constant preoccupation with ourselves is a major cause of pain and sufferingWhen we are preoccupied with proving ourselves, it harms our connections with other peopleWhat is success? How do we define it? What is the "failure of success?"The major misconceptions about what will make us happyThe importance of connecting with others and engaging more fully in this momentThe dunning-Kruger effect and how it clouds our understanding of mindfulness“High-resolution consciousness” and how you can create itThe relationship between mindfulness and thoughtA huge amount of psychological suffering has to do with our thinkingThoughts are mental contents rather than realitiesHappiness stems from being FULLY PRESENT and ENGAGEDFantasizing about future/past etc creates sufferingHow does mindfulness relate to meditation? What’s the difference?Train the mind not to push away the unpleasant experiencesWe go through exercises explicitly design for cultivating acceptanceHow mindfulness helps you break out of a cycle of comparison and cultivate loving self-acceptanceIdentify the feeling states in your body and notice each time you get feelings of inflation and deflationFeel your feelings and trust that it's OK to feel themWho was the King of England in 1361? (and why it's ESSENTIAL to understand that)The concepts of narcissistic recalibration and the hedonic treadmillThe scientific reality that everything is a wave functionConsciousness is a stream of experience that fluctuates up and down Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In this episode we discuss learning how to learn, meta learning, how Salvador Dali and Thomas Edison practiced the art of “sleeping without sleeping” to hack their neural systems, the concept of Chunking - what the neuroscience says about it and how you can use it to become a learning machine, why “following your passion” is not the right thing to focus, and much more with our guest Barbara Oakley.     Barbara Oakley is an associate professor of engineering at Oakland University in Michigan. She has been described as the “female Indiana Jones” and her research adventures have taken her from Russian fishing boats to Antarctica. She has authored several books on topics ranging from genetics to neuroscience and has a recent book called Mindshift: Break Through Obstacles to Learning and Discover Your Human Potential.      We discuss:     -How Barbara’s journey has taken her from the Army to Russian Trawlers in the Bering Sea, to an outpost in Antarctica  -How Barbara went from a math-phobe to a professor of engineering (and what she learned along the way)  -Are you afraid of math? Why math can seem to be intimidating (and it doesn’t have to be)  -Why the emphasis on memorization as the sole basis of learning has sabotaged our efforts to learn  -How the concept of deliberate practice and why it's so important to learning  -How you can augment deliberate practice to become an even more effective learner   -Meta learning and how you can "learn how to learn"  -The concept of chunking - what the neuroscience says about it and how you can use it to become a learning machine  -What learning an instrument can teach us about learning physics and math  -How the brain learns - and the difference between “focused mode” and “diffused mode”  -The “task positive network” and the “default mode network” within your brain  -Why you can’t be in both the “focused mode” and the “diffused mode” at the same time  -How Salvador Dali and Thomas Edison practiced the art of “sleeping without sleeping” to hack their neural systems and harness the benefits of both the “focused mode” and the “diffused mode"  -How do we strike a balance between “focused attention” and “diffused attention”?  -How you can harness learning limitations like ADHD or slow memory to your advantage  -How the difference between a race car and a hiker illustrate the difference between divergent thinking styles and strategies  -The curse of genius, why geniuses often jump to conclusi s, and have a hard time changing their minds when they are wrong  -Illusions of competence and how they can short circuit our learning attempts  -Is test anxiety real? Why do we feel anxious before a test?  -Often limiting beliefs and excuses crop up when we haven’t done the work truly trying to learn something  -How to test yourself and improve your knowledge and understanding of any topic  -How you can think about math equations as a form of poetry to more deeply understand them  -Why you should focus on distilling knowledge into the core elements and principles  -Why you procrastinate (and the neuroscience behind what happens when you do)  -The pomodoro technique and how it can help you conquer procrastination  -Why “following your passion” is not the right thing to focus on  -How testosterone impacts how women and men learn differently and why women often mistakenly don’t pursue analytical paths  -Passions can lead you to dead ends in your career, you should focus on broadening your Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In this episode we discuss how school gives you zero of the social and interpersonal skills necessary to be successful in life, the best starting point for build nonverbal communication, how to read facial expression and body language to discover hidden emotions, how to become a human lie detector, the secrets super connectors use to work a room, and much more with Vanessa Van Edwards.     Vanessa Van Edwards is the lead investigator at Science of People, a human behavior research lab. She is a Huffington Post columnist and published author. Her work has been featured on NPR, Business Week and USA Today. She has written for CNN, Fast Company and Forbes. Her latest book, Captivate, was chosen as one of Apple’s Most Anticipated Books of 2017.     We discuss:    School gives you zero of the social and interpersonal skills necessary to be successful in lifeThe skills of nonverbal communication can be learned and trainedBetween 60% and 90% of our communication is non-verbalWhy you shouldn’t put 100% of your eggs in the “verbal communication” basketHow humans give more weight to non-verbal communicationWhat is the best starting point for build nonverbal communication?The importance good eye contact & a strong handshakeWhy eye contact creates oxytocin and builds deeper connectionsThe “sweet spot” for maintaining good eye contactHow twins separated at birth have the same nonverbal affectationsWhat are micro-expressions and why they are so importantThe facial feedback hypothesis and how our faces create a feedback loopThe 7 micro-expressions that will change your lifeResearch from mental patients who lied to their doctorsHow to read facial expression (or body language) to discover hidden emotionsThe “fake science” myths around human lie detectionThe statistical cues to deceit - things that liars most often doDo “truth wizards” exist?Average person is 54% accurate in detecting liesWhat is baselining?Encoding vs DecodingWhat research on thousands of hours on TED Talks tells us about successful body language & the importance of congruencyWe cannot cover up what we feel, focus on opportunities where you can thrive instead of places where you are merely surviving “The secrets of super-connectors,” how to “work a room” and the specific patterns they use How to be someone’s "social savior”"Context conversation starters”You learn ALOT about someone from a handshakeHandshakes produce more oxytocin than 3 hours of face to face timeMake the handshake equal (firmness and direction) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.