Episode 11 - Monsignor de Grandpré & Grudges
Revenge is a dish best served cold. But in today’s episode, we’ll ask if it should be served at all. How healthy are grudges? What do we risk by harboring them? And why did two Frenchmen decide to settle their grudge over Paris, in air balloons, with blunderbusses?
Episode 10 - Rick Springfield & Self Esteem
Whether you got it from critical parents, a lackluster salary, or a physical defect—Low Self-Esteem is a growing issue in America today, and a booming industry. But could a tiny shift in values hyper-charge your feelings of worth?
Episode 9 - Arthur Bremer & Loneliness
Loneliness; It plays a massive role in our physical and mental health, and it has been called the epidemic of the social media age. But unlike depression and anxiety, we don’t have a way to recognize clinical loneliness...until we see the consequences.
Episode 8: Stephen King & Alcoholism
Geniuses, creatives, and commoners can fall prey to alcoholism. But neuroscience may have found a uniting drive that pushes all mammals to pick up the bottle...a drive that writers have known about for decades.
Episode 7: Prison Letters & Hybristophilia
Has someone ever addressed a letter to you by accident? Todd experienced this when he opened a mysterious letter and found himself reading a heartfelt plea from a prisoner, asking his lady to forgive his long silence, and to take him back when he gets released. This letter spawned our topic today, about prison letters, forbidden love, and the disorder known as Hybristophilia.
Episode 06: Mark Driscoll & Ego
Ego can look like the solution to low self-esteem, but it’s a slippery slope that will leave you vulnerable in the long term. In this episode, science is providing us the climbing shoes to come back from the ego trap, and we’ll look at how the disgraced leader of a mega-church might have escaped his downward slide.
Episode 05: Franklin Roosevelt and stress
Join us in this episode as we explore the fundamental connection between stress management, leadership, and the most chill president who ever opened a day-spa...when he wasn’t winning wars or dodging torpedoes; Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
Episode 04: Abe Lincoln & Vulnerable Leaders
Vulnerability, anxiety, and depression. They can feel like flaws in your character, but they might secretly be your greatest evolutionary gift. And, if you’re Lincoln, they’re the master key for unlocking life’s problems.
Episode 03: Hitler Youth & Approval
We’re born seeking approval from our parents. We go through elementary school trying to get approval from our peers. And as teens we play stupid, dangerous games to win our friend’s approval.
Why do we need it? Where does the drive for approval come from? Are we hard-wired by evolution to impress our friends when we’re teenagers? On today’s episode we’ll answer these questions by exploring the behavioral science of approval, and we’ll talk about how far some people will go to get that all-important ‘upvote’ or ‘like’.
We’ll also look at the indoctrination system of a youth organization that weaponized peer approval; The Hitler Youth. And we’ll ask ourselves; how could anyone join an obviously evil organization?
Episode 02: MLK & Procrastination
In this episode we expose the fundamental truth behind procrastination, and we explain how your brain goes to war with itself whenever you’re faced with a boring task. We also dig into Martin Luther King Jr’s speech to discuss the potential benefits of procrastination. And we offer you scientifically proven techniques to beat procrastination, fool your brain into enjoying tedious tasks, or even turn procrastination into a secret weapon.
Episode 01: Byron & Toxic Relationships
In today’s episode we talk about dysfunctional relationships, and we bust the three myths that surround the subject; Dysfunctional people are easy to avoid. Dysfunctional relationships are easy to spot and get out of. And all dysfunctional relationships are doomed.