Curious Minds at Work

There are many good reasons to look to others. For example, you might need expert advice or feedback to improve your performance. But there’s one reason not to, and, that is, to determine your self-worth. When you look to someone else to define you or tell you how to live your life, you lose a lot. And if you find it hard to believe you’d ever let someone else influence you in those ways, you’d be surprised. Michael Gervais is a high-performance psychologist who’s worked with elite athletes, artists, and leaders. Through his work, he’s learned that one of the biggest obstacles standing in their way is fear of other people’s opinions. And he’s seen just how crippling those fears can be. That’s why he’s written the book, The First Rule of Mastery: Stop Worrying about What People Think of You. In talking to Michael, I learned how our biology sets us up to place a lot of weight on other people’s opinions. I also learned how social media is designed to reinforce that fear. Fortunately, Michael shared insights on what to do. I walked away feeling empowered. Episode Links Stop Basing Your Self-Worth on Other People’s Opinions Free Your People from the Need for Social Approval Build a Great Team on a Relationship-Based Culture, Not the Myth of Family Interview with Jonathan Rhodes on Getting the Life You Want The Team Learn more about host, Gayle Allen, and producer, Rob Mancabelli, here. Support the Podcast If you like the show, please rate and review it on iTunes or wherever you subscribe, and tell a friend or family member about the show. Subscribe Click here and then scroll down to see a sample of sites where you can subscribe.

It’s tempting to believe that the self is a constant. That it’s a core component of who we are from the time we’re born. But social psychologist and Stanford Professor Brian Lowery has a different view. He believes the self we are today is a product of our social relationships – our friends, our families, our communities, our technologies, even our geography. That as our circumstances change, so does the self we believe ourselves to be. In this interview, we talk about this and more from his book, Selfless: The Social Creation of You. Brian’s argument explains so much about how we operate in the world, and he gives us another reason to prioritize social relationships in our lives. Episode Links A Provocative Theory of Identity Finds There is No ‘You’ in Self Brian Lowery on the Myth of Rugged Individualism and What This Means for the America of the 2020s Interview with Gregory Burns The Team Learn more about host, Gayle Allen, and producer, Rob Mancabelli, here. Support the Podcast If you like the show, please rate and review it on iTunes or wherever you subscribe, and tell a friend or family member about the show. Subscribe Click here and then scroll down to see a sample of sites where you can subscribe.

We need pleasure in our lives. We also need meaning. Pleasure gives us joy and delight. Meaning gives us purpose and a set of goals to work toward. But have there ever been times in your life when you’ve experienced meaning and pleasure, yet felt something was missing? Turns out, you’re not alone. What’s missing, according to recent research, is something called psychological richness. Think of it as mental stimulation. A combination of curiosity and wonder. Lorraine Besser writes about this in her book, The Art of the Interesting: What We Miss in Our Pursuit of the Good Life and How to Cultivate It. She also shares what she and her research colleagues have learned about how to get it. This is a book that takes something we know we need – mental challenge and stimulation – and calls it out as a key component for living a good life. Episode Links What If You Pursued What's Interesting Instead of Happiness? How Novelty Positively Impacts Your Brain Interview with Rainesford Stauffer The Team Learn more about host, Gayle Allen, and producer, Rob Mancabelli, here. Support the Podcast If you like the show, please rate and review it on iTunes or wherever you subscribe, and tell a friend or family member about the show. Subscribe Click here and then scroll down to see a sample of sites where you can subscribe.

When we’re looking for insights on how to make friends, manage our anxiety, or just live a happier life, we rarely look to the past. Instead, we tend to focus on what today’s thinkers have to say. But what if the recipe for happiness lies in the past, specifically the 2000-year-old past? What if the ancient writings of Greek philosopher Epicurus hold the answers? That’s what modern-day philosopher, Emily Austin, argues in her book, Living for Pleasure: An Epicurean Guide to Life. She teaches us what Epicurus really thought about pleasure and why he made it a cornerstone of his life. She also points out the advantages of an Epicurean mindset over a Stoic one. Emily’s book is proof that we still have much to learn, for our work and our life, from the ancient Greek philosophers, especially Epicurus! Episode Links The Good Life is the One Where Anxiety Falls by the Wayside The Epicurean Search for Happiness and Serenity Interview with Tali Sharot The Team Learn more about host, Gayle Allen, and producer, Rob Mancabelli, here. Support the Podcast If you like the show, please rate and review it on iTunes or wherever you subscribe, and tell a friend or family member about the show. Subscribe Click here and then scroll down to see a sample of sites where you can subscribe.