Certain personality traits can determine how happy you are, sometimes more than income and IQ. That’s according to author and journalist Olga Khazan. Hoping to shed some of her more neurotic personality traits, Khazan recently set out to change her personality for the better… and succeeded. Today, Khazan tells us how. Plus: we hear about another recent discovery — why Khazan thinks she might be “doomed to be a tradwife.”
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The U.S. Needs a Democracy Movement
Anne Applebaum is an award-winning historian and journalist who studies democracy and dictatorship. Her latest book, Autocracy, Inc.: The Dictators Who Want to Run the World, explores how autocracies are working together to undermine democracy across the globe. Fortunately, Applebaum also considers how democracies can maintain their power against the siege of authoritarianism. Today, why is democracy worth fighting for and how can it be protected in the U.S? Plus: Poland as a guide for how to reverse years of democratic backsliding.
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How Mark Cuban Wants to Fix Healthcare
Billionaire investor Mark Cuban has set out to fix the broken U.S. healthcare system, and he’s starting with drug prices. In 2022, Cuban launched the online pharmacy Cost Plus Drugs, which aims to sell generic drugs at huge discounts. He explains the business, how it’s going, and why expensive hospital visits are next on his list. Plus, we get his takes on sports gambling, Silicon Valley’s turn to the right, and AI.
Note: this episode was recorded before President Trump announced TrumpRx. On X, Cuban gave it a B.
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How to Worry Less & Find Meaning with Happiness Expert Arthur Brooks
Arthur Brooks has spent years studying the exact components of a happy life. And now, the bestselling author and Harvard professor has collected his top findings into a new book: The Happiness Files. This week, we ask him how to worry less about money, find your calling, and what research tells us all happy people have in common.
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How to Actually Be Healthier
Dr. Jessica Knurick is a rare kind of academic: she's also very good at social media, and has recently gone viral for her criticisms of the MAHA movement. A registered dietitian with a PhD in nutrition science, Dr. Knurick says MAHA is right that Americans are notoriously unhealthy, but the movement has the solutions all wrong. This week, we turn to Dr. Knurick for the facts: what do we know about what is good for us, what small things can we do to be healthier every day, and how do we start improving the health of all Americans?
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We hear enough about our problems. Let’s solve them. Every Monday, journalist, analyst and entrepreneur Henry Blodget interviews leading thinkers across business, tech, politics and beyond about their big ideas for how to build a better future. Part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
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