Growth Mindset Psychology: The Science of Self-Improvement

AMA: Accountability and Procrastination, Lasting Enthusiasm and Auditory Processing Issues Oct 13, 2026 2295 Why we procrastinate, lose enthusiasm and struggle to process spoken information—and what actually helps. In this listener AMA, I answer three questions: how auditory processing difficulties affect a child’s willingness to learn, why enthusiasm disappears even when nothing is objectively wrong, and how to stop procrastinating on projects that matter. I share my own experience of struggling with s

How to Make Your Ideas Survive a Changing World Oct 9, 2026 2199 A life is brief. An idea can travel further than its inventor ever will. What determines which ones last? We follow life’s story from the first organisms to the systems we build today, using three laws of biology as a lens: competition, selection and reproduction. These aren’t just rules for animals in a nature documentary. They also help us think about innovation, businesses, beliefs and the amb

How to Catch Your Brain Lying to You: A Practical Guide to Self-Awareness Over Ego Oct 6, 2026 1849 It's easy to spend our lives defending a story about who we are, instead of finding out who we could become. This episode is an invitation to stop protecting your ego and start practising self-awareness as a craft. We look at how high intelligence can turn into a sophisticated self-deception machine, and how the stories we tell ourselves—“I’m the rational one”, “I learn from feedback”, “I’m diffe

Faster Than Normal - Living well with ADHD Oct 2, 2026 2330 The peculiar thing about attention deficit is that everybody seems to have it these days, whether they've earned it through proper diagnosis or simply absorbed it from an enthusiastic TikTok video filmed in someone's bathroom. What I've learned, from my own escapades, and partly through reading Peter Shankman's excellent book Faster Than Normal, is that whatever your brain does, you need to learn

The Deep-Thinking Habits That Quietly Change Your Life Sep 29, 2026 2182 Train your brain to resist distraction, form your own opinions, and think like an intellectual. When every answer is one click away, we’ve forgotten how to enjoy the struggle of figuring things out. This episode explores the radical act of thinking more slowly in a fast-paced world. Modern life has made us intellectual snackers: we graze on headlines, notifications, and other people’s opinions u

Can Psychedelics Really Help You Change Your Patterns? Sep 25, 2026 3395 Have you ever wonder if the thing keeping you stuck is yourself? Invisible rules your brain runs on that you have no choice over... In this episode, we go inside guided psilocybin retreats to see how people actually change deep mental patterns. As they say the “trip” is only the start. We talk with Gabriel Charalambides, founder of Odyssey, about what happens in the brain during these experience

34 Unconventional Life Lessons That Changed My Definition of Success Sep 22, 2026 2273 Beyond money, status, and attractive partner where do we find meaning, and happiness? Across 34 unconventional life lessons, we explore the inner machinery behind a meaningful life: why status can behave like a sugary breakfast cereal, why exercise is cheaper than many illnesses, and why some of our finest ideas arrive only after we stop staring aggressively at a blank page. Along the way, we co

Why So Many People Secretly Struggle With Porn Addiction Sep 18, 2026 2987 An honest conversation on addiction, depression, and identity with recovery coach Powerful Eric. This week we talk about the strange modern epidemic of porn addiction, an affliction so quietly widespread that roughly one in nine men wrestle with it, yet almost nobody mentions it at dinner. Eric explains how the brain mistakes novelty for reward, why the "disease model" of addiction may be doing

Psychology of Mistakes: 7 Lazy Thinking Habits You Don't Notice You Have Sep 15, 2026 1933 Human beings, it turns out, are magnificently good at fooling themselves. Sadly the mind has developed an elaborate way of hiding our worst thinking mistakes from us. Our shortcut-taking so instinctive we rarely notice it happening. This episode explores seven of these habits and on the way answers a lot of questions. Why do we blame the referee and ignore our own missed shots? Why does a friend

8 Questions I asked Myself after 30 Sep 11, 2026 1519 The World Record Breaking Jack Cai is back on the show. Asking Sam some of the deep life questions he asks himself a lot. To say this was a discussion on a single topic that stayed focused would be a big old lie. We discuss various random things: from making the most of your time on earth or with your grandparents to youtube thumbnail strategies. Should Sam keep building a podcast in a crowded m

How To Solve Complex Problems Sep 8, 2026 1997 This episode asks a simple question: what if the way forward isn't a bigger vision, but a smaller unit of thought? We trace this idea through history, biology, and the quiet architecture of the mind, showing how growth rarely comes from grand gestures. It comes from identifying the one reliable piece worth repeating. The paradigm shift isn't thinking bigger. It's thinking smaller, on purpose, unti

How to Shift Your Mindset and Take Control of Your Life - w/ Kyle Livingston Sep 4, 2026 2942 Scarcity whispers that there isn't enough. Ego insists you deserve more anyway. Abundance is the quiet third option nobody mentions. Most of us were handed scarcity as a default setting. This episode sits with that tension: what scarcity actually protects us from, why ego is so loyal to it, and what shifts when abundance becomes a practiced choice instead of a lucky feeling. It's less about havi

7 Painful Paradoxes of Self-Improvement (And what they teach us) Sep 1, 2026 1766 You know that feeling when you try so hard to seem normal that you become a weirdo? Self-improvement works the exact same way. The more you chase happiness, the further it runs. The more validation you seek, the emptier you feel. This episode breaks down 7 painful paradoxes when we take on personal growth — psychological traps where trying harder makes things worse. We dig into King George VI's

Seeking Difficulty: The Habit System Behind Three World Records and a Remarkable Life – Jack Cai Aug 28, 2026 2792 What if the thing you're avoiding is exactly what you should pursue? Jack Cai broke three world records solving Rubik's Cubes blindfolded, for teh same reason America suppsoedly went to the moon. "Not because it is easy, but because it is hard" This episode explores the mindset shift that happens when you stop asking "How can I make this easier?" and start asking "What's so hard that almost no

Psychology of Mental Strength: 3 Habits to build resilience, Inner toughness & Growth Mindset Aug 25, 2026 1514 We've been sold a myth: that mental toughness means gritting your teeth and pushing through, disregarding their emotions entirely. The people who actually build lasting resilience do something different. They get honest with what they feel and investigate it. They notice when their mind drifts into yesterday's mistake or tomorrow's fear, understanding why helps them choose the present instead.

A Growth Mindset Alone Won’t Make You a Better Leader: The psychology principles that will /wRyan Gottfredson Aug 21, 2026 3118 Explore the psychology of effective leadership and the hidden mental patterns that influence how you handle fear, failure, and change. A leader can learn new skills, adopt ambitious goals, and proudly claim a growth mindset—yet still remain trapped by the way they interpret the world. Sure, you might believe people can change, but... Are you willing to hear what you do not want to hear, pursue w

Master Finishing Things - Psychology vs Productivity, Perfectionism & Creative Constipation Aug 18, 2026 2068 Productivity gurus insist we must engineer ourselves into completion machines. This is nonsense, rather like insisting everyone should enjoy opera. The truth, as behavioral psychology reveals, is delightfully simple: we finish what we're motivated and able to do. Everything else is self-sabotage mistaken for ambition. Perfectionism, is a whole side mission that gets in the way of anything causing

AMA - How to choose meaningful opportunities, take intelligent risks, and build an audience around your ideas Aug 11, 2026 1607 A meaningful life is not built by choosing perfectly. It is built by learning how to choose, revise, and continue. In this AMA, Sam examines the hidden forces that shape our decisions: fear of failure, the need to appear competent, resistance to unfamiliar ideas, and the pressure to follow paths that already look successful. The episode then asks a larger question: what is worth doing with the li

Start Before You Feel Ready - How to Overcome Rejection and Take Action w/ Jonathan Petrides [AllPlants] Aug 7, 2026 2174 Most people wait to feel ready before they begin. But readiness is often the the feeling we only enjoy after we have already taken the first step. Jonathan Petrides, founder of AllPlants, knows what it means to keep going when the obvious answer is “no.” He was rejected by every university he applied to, experimented with businesses that went nowhere, and eventually built a company around a simpl

How to be remembered in a forgetful world - 3 rules to build lasting impressions [ARCHIVE] Aug 4, 2026 1517 Most people don’t have a skills problem. They have a memory problem.. no one remembers them. So why is it you can say all the right things and still be forgettable? Because people don’t store information, they store feelings. Think about the last person you met. You probably don’t remember what they said. But you remember how they made you feel. In this episode, we break down the psychology of f

How to Build Worldly Wisdom - The Greatest Mental Models of Charlie Munger Jul 28, 2026 2223 What if the goal isn’t to be right, but to be less wrong, over time? Charlie Munger didn’t chase brilliance. He built a philosophy. A quiet system for navigating uncertainty, grounded in psychology, humility, and a refusal to follow the crowd. In this episode, we explore what it means to develop “worldly wisdom”—a latticework of mental models that help you see reality more clearly. This isn’t ab

Are You Creating Your Life, Or Uncovering It? — What Confucius, Radiohead, and lightning rods teach us about success Jul 21, 2026 1533 Explore the psychology of identity, creativity, and timing in this deep dive on mindset, leadership psychology, and finding your path. Today we ask if success is not a thing you manufacture, but a pattern you learn to recognize? This episode explores a different model of growth: one where Confucius, Radiohead, and lightning rods all point to the same truth. The world is full of tension, potentia

9 Ways to Live a More Interesting Life - w/ Alastair Humphreys Jul 17, 2026 2512 Most people don’t need a new life. They need a better Tuesday. In this episode, I speak with Alastair Humphreys about why life starts to feel flat when every week looks the same, and how adventure is often less about geography and more about psychology. We get into the mindset traps that keep smart people stuck: waiting until they have more time, more money, more confidence, more certainty. Whic

How to Think for Yourself Jul 14, 2026 1770 What if the life you’re living isn’t actually yours? We are taught to listen. To adapt. To fit. And somewhere along the way, that skill becomes a default. Not a choice. Social pressure isn’t loud. It doesn’t announce itself. It shows up as “this just makes sense” or “this is what people do.” In this episode, we explore a different lens: what happens when you treat that pressure as something diag

The Psychology of Succeeding When the Odds Are Against You - w/ Olympic Climber Kyra Condie Jul 10, 2026 1486 Kyra Condie built an Olympic climbing career while living with scoliosis. With every reason to quit and accept her limitations she refused them and beat the odds every time. In this conversation, we explore confidence, adaptation, and the quiet power of refusing a script that was never written for you. The episode asks a simple but uncomfortable question: what if the thing you think is holding y

7 Time-Management Tips for Busy Mortals - [Lessons from existential psychology] Jul 7, 2026 1203 You'll never get through your to-do list. And honestly, that's the best news you'll hear all day. Oliver Burkeman's 4,000 Weeks argues that our obsession with time management is making us less happy and less effective. The book flips conventional wisdom — what if procrastination isn't a bug but a feature? What if doing fewer things is the real productivity hack? Sam breaks down seven counterintui

4 Fears that Secretly Sabotage your Life - And what to do about them Jun 30, 2026 2088 Fear doesn't show up wearing a mask. It shows up as a perfectly reasonable excuse — "I'm not ready yet," "the timing isn't right," "I just need to learn a bit more." These aren't logical conclusions. They're fear in disguise. Your brain has been lying to you. Keeping you safe in the short term, but permanently stuck in the long term. In this episode, we break down the four fears that silently s

The Neuroscience of Fear - Understanding anxiety, trauma and the tools to overcome them [Lessons from NPD, BPD and ADHD] Jun 23, 2026 3038 Fear isn't the opposite of growth. It's the gatekeeper of it. Every hesitation before a risk, every excuse before a hard conversation, every night spent worrying about what others think.. These are more than subtle character flaws. They're ancient circuits doing exactly what they were designed to do. The real question is whether you understand your fear well enough to stop letting it make your d

How to Make Hard Things Easier with a Growth Mindset - w/ Graham Hobson (Founder Photobox, Moonpig) Jun 19, 2026 643 Most people wait for change to arrive in a dramatic package. A breakthrough. A sign. A better plan. Graham Hobson’s story reminds us that real growth is quieter than that. It arrives through repetition, through coaching, through the willingness to be bad at something long enough to become good. As PhotoBox scaled, the lesson was not how to find one perfect move, but how to build a way of thinking

Why the Most Successful People Are All Walking Contradictions — And How to Become One Jun 16, 2026 2558 Most people think their biggest weakness is the problem. It's not. It's that they're only using half of themselves. George Washington won a war by being the world's most honest man — and its most convincing liar. Steve Jobs built the future by dreaming like a child and obsessing like an engineer. These aren't contradictions. They're the formula behind the psychology of excellence. The most pow

Overlooked Rules on Being a Useful Human - Essential Behavioural Psychology Jun 9, 2026 1300 You've read the productivity books. You've optimised your mornings. But what if the whole thing is backwards? Self-improvement content is everywhere, yet it almost universally focuses on extracting more value from yourself. This episode flips that. Drawing on behavioural psychology and a surprisingly useful analogy about cells and organs, Sam makes the case that the most effective thing you can d

Lessons on Starting Before You Feel Ready w/ Graham Hobson (Founder Photobox + Moonpig) Jun 5, 2026 2082 Most startups don’t fail from lack of ideas. They fail because people quit too early—or play it too safe. Graham Hobson built a €100M business starting with a simple frustration: printing photos of his kids. What followed wasn’t a smooth growth curve—it was years of uncertainty, near failure, and painfully slow progress. In this conversation, we unpack the real psychology behind building somethin

How to Spend Money to Buy Happiness: The psychology of what actually works Jun 2, 2026 2370 Money is not the goal. It’s a tool. Most people were never taught how to use it. Core:We inherit scripts about money. Save more. Earn more. Want more. But those scripts were built for survival, not fulfilment. The shift is subtle but powerful: from accumulation to allocation. This episode is about choosing where your money goes—and what that choice turns you into. When you spend on time, you crea

The Psychology of Slowing Down Time - How to live a full life May 26, 2026 1266 Ever look up and realise a whole month has vanished? This episode is about why that happens — and how to get more life out of the same amount of time. Most people think time speeds up because they’re busy. Not quite. Time speeds up when your brain stops noticing. When your days are repetitive, distracted, and half-lived, your memory writes almost nothing down. That’s why a week of scrolling disap

How to Create Your Own Opportunities and Stop Waiting for Your One Big Chance May 19, 2026 2431 If you’ve been treating your next decision like THE decision, well... A lot of anxiety comes from believing your future hinges on getting the next move exactly right. However, there’s a particular kind of pressure that shows up when you want your work to mean something, but you also don’t want to blow up your finances, your nervous system, or your sense of self in the process. Today we explor

Three Psychology Experiments That Changed How I Live May 12, 2026 1285 Most self-improvement assumes the problem lives inside you. But what if you've been looking in the wrong place? There's something worth sitting with in the idea that your physical surroundings are already making decisions about how you think — before you've consciously made any. The shape of a room. Whether your body is moving or still. How many open tabs are silently competing for your attention

Dr. Stephen Porges: Where Free Will Lives in Your Body, and Why You Keep Ignoring It May 8, 2026 1440 Free will might be smaller than you hoped, but more useful than you imagined. This conversation with Stephen Porges is about the quiet shift in perspective he learnt from 50 years studying the nervous system. We are taught to believe that emotional strength means overriding fear, suppressing anger, and forcing calm. But a different story is available. One where stress is not weakness, pain is no

How to Finally Commit to One Thing When Everything Feels Important May 5, 2026 2061 The better you get at seeing opportunity, the worse you get at finishing anything. It turns out the same brain wiring that makes curious, growth-oriented people so interesting to talk to also makes them spectacularly bad at committing to one thing. In this episode, we explore the surprisingly rich psychology of focus — from what Taylor Swift's 16 dress changes per concert reveal about sequencing

How to Be Genuinely Interesting - Without performing, pretending, or people-pleasing Apr 28, 2026 1208 There's a story we tell ourselves about interesting people. That they were born that way. That charisma is a trait, not a choice. That fitting in is safe and standing out is risky. None of it is true. Interesting isn't a personality type. It's a decision about how far you're willing to go — into a topic, into yourself, into the slightly terrifying territory of being exactly who you are in a room

Your Nervous System Has Been Running Your Life - How to finally take control with Stephen Porges (Inventor of Polyvagal Theory) Apr 24, 2026 3447 How the science of the vagus nerve explains anxiety, ambition, burnout, and the art of becoming who you actually are. Humans, might be the most sophisticated organism on Earth (capable of writing symphonies, landing on the moon, and inventing artisanal sourdough). Yet at our core, we are running threat-detection software that predates the dinosaurs. Stephen Porges, the scientist who mapped the v

The Illusion of Panic: How to Master Your Nervous System When It Invents Danger Apr 21, 2026 3735 A Deep Dive into the Vagus Nerve, Neuroception, and Overcoming Burnout Ever walked into a room and instantly felt like something was completely off? That is not your intuition being magical; that is your nervous system running the show. We spend all day trying to "think" our way out of stress, but it rarely works. Your body has a built-in threat radar called neuroception that operates entirely b

The Psychology of Risk: How Near Death Experiences Help you Quit a Good Life to Pursue a Great One - w. Talia Lazarus Apr 17, 2026 2784 We are all waiting for permission that is never going to come. We cling to the illusion of a safe life, pretending that incremental improvements are the same thing as actual growth. Talia Lazarus didn’t plan on changing her life; the universe intervened in the form of a devastating bus accident. In the agonizing space of her recovery, she confronted a profound truth: she was living a script writt

The Comfort Zone Trap - How Failure Builds Courage, Confidence, and an Interesting Life Apr 14, 2026 1193 Human beings have an issue. We want adventure, growth, and transformation, provided they arrive gently, avoid inconvenience, and never make us look foolish. This episode is about that charming contradiction. We spend years building small fortresses of competence, then wonder why life begins to feel boring. The trouble is that courage rarely appears before action; it usually turns up afterwards,

Chemistry Isn’t Compatibility: How to Choose Better Partners in Love and Work - w/ Matt Higgins Apr 10, 2026 1410 The psychology of healthy relationships: hidden rules behind better marriages, better teams, and better choices. In this episode, I sit down with legendary investor Matt Higgins to dissect the psychology of lasting relationships. It turns out that a staggering number of startups and marriages implode for the exact same reason: we mistake thrilling friction for long-term compatibility. We are rem

The Psychology of What Matters: How to Stop Wasting Time Apr 7, 2026 1431 A psychological guide to choosing priorities, resisting urgency, and spending time well. Time is the universe’s most brilliant and inescapable invention, relentlessly marching forward whether you are building an empire or merely digesting a rather cheesy burrito. Yet, somehow, we’ve convinced ourselves we can beat it. The universe is terribly indifferent to your productivity. Even Tutankhamun is

The Neuroscience of Growth Mindset: How to rewire your brain Mar 31, 2026 2180 The human brain is a wonderfully absurd little organ. It powers civilization, invents jazz, and still somehow convinces you that being bad at something once, means you should never try again. In this episode, we tour through the neuroscience of growth mindset with the cheerful suspicion that your limitations may be considerably less permanent than advertised. Along the way, there are one-armed su

Are You Thinking Your Thoughts, Or Are They Thinking You? Mar 24, 2026 2057 You like to think of yourself as someone who thinks for themselves. But what if the ideas running through your head aren't really yours — what if they found you, infected you, and quietly rewrote your behaviour to help themselves spread? In this episode, we take an unusual detour into evolutionary biology — because it turns out the science of genes, parasites, and natural selection explains more

The Psychology of Never Feeling Good Enough (Even When You Clearly Are) Mar 20, 2026 1430 Hedonic adaption busily sweeps our wins under the rug like they are a nuisance. We look at how to fight back against your own psychology. I once ran further than 99.9% of humans ever will. Then went to bed and forgot about it and spent half the week a little dissappointed with other failures. That's not modesty. That's my brain working exactly as designed. We're wired to stop feeling satisfied

7 Weird Life-Changing Skills that are Strange to Work On Mar 17, 2026 3599 Nobody tells you that curiosity is a skill. Or that humor can be built. Or that the way you think is quietly deciding everything. Most of us are running on borrowed opinions — System One thinking dressed up as personality. We consume the same content, absorb the same views, and wonder why we feel forgettable. This episode breaks down five traits that genuinely change your trajectory: deep thinkin

Why Having a Backup Plan Is Making You Fail - Burn the boats with Matt Higgins Mar 13, 2026 2693 In 1519, Hernán Cortés landed in Mexico and promptly set fire to his own fleet. By any conventional measure of military logistics, this seems profoundly counterproductive. It wasn't. Matt Higgins — Shark Tank investor, Harvard Business School lecturer, and accidental dropout — has spent his career studying what happens when humans remove their own escape routes. Spoiler: it tends to go rather wel

Why You Have Great Ideas but Never Actually Do Anything With Them Mar 10, 2026 1359 We are spectacularly good at having ideas and remarkably reluctant to do anything with them. It turns out that the distance between "I've got it!" and "here it is" is not a step but a rather long, occasionally bewildering journey. Not unlike flying a plane. It involves a terrifying amount of fuel, significant faith in invisible forces, and a desperate hope that everything holds together on land

You Didn't Choose Your Attachment Style, but Here's How You Can Change It - With Jessica Baum Mar 6, 2026 3206 Most people think their relationship problems are about the other person. They're not — they're about an 18-month-old version of you who learned the only way to survive. In this episode, psychotherapist Jessica Baum breaks down why your nervous system is still running a programme it wrote in infancy. Attachment styles — secure, anxious, avoidant, disorganised — aren't personality quirks. They're

From Reactance to Resilience: How to manage psychological triggers and create freedom Mar 3, 2026 1486 Most anger isn’t about the thing. It’s about what the thing means: “Someone just messed with my control.” When your expectations get violated... plans change,d a process breaks, a person does something “unreasonable”. Your nervous system reads it like a little mugging. And then you get reactance: that hot impulse to push back, prove a point, slam the door, unsubscribe from the whole situation.

How To Train Your Mind: The surprising benefits of play Feb 24, 2026 1404 Turns out you don't learn faster when you're stressed, you learn faster when you're happy! So let's talk about treating your brain like a friend, not a factory worker. Muscles respond to stress with pretty linear upgrades; brains don’t. Brains upgrade through meaning, novelty, and attention—especially when something feels like play. That’s why memory champions don’t “grind” digits: they build abs

The Weird Psychology of Communication, Self-control, and Gossip: What evolution teaches us about communicating your needs clearly Feb 17, 2026 2378 In the noble quest to understand our minds, today we take a new angle. We track how grunts turned into gossip, myths, and the weird human habit of blushing when we screw up. You’ll see why your brain is basically a compression algorithm: squeezing an entire inner universe through a tiny mouth-shaped funnel. We go from jellyfish nerve nets to gossip networks, and beyond. How shared stories make m

Hidden Potential: The Psychology of self-sabotage and changing what's possible - Heather Moyse (2x Olympic Gold) Feb 13, 2026 3194 We all love the idea of “potential” until it quietly turns into pressure, guilt, and a weird fear of actually trying. Heather Moyse didn’t start professional sport until 27 and still became a double Olympic gold medallist. Breaking out of her social safety and truly exploring her potential wasn't easy. We dig into behavioral inertia, self‑sabotage, and the invisible “settings” your environment i

The Feynman Technique: The 4 Steps to Learn and Master Anything Feb 10, 2026 1216 Most people “learn” by hoarding facts, which doesn't mean you understand them. Then you forget them all anyway... In this episode, learning stops being about cramming and starts being about curiousity. Using Richard Feynman’s four-step technique, you’ll find a mindset that will add joy into your learning whilst also making it effective. We unpack the learning pyramid, why lectures and highlights

How to Stop Wasting Time with the Wrong People - Emotional maturity with Jonathan Aslay Feb 3, 2026 2199 Most people treat dating like a lottery; swipe, hope, repeat. Jonathan Aslay lost $2 million, his marriage, and his son. What saved him wasn't positive thinking. It was asking one brutal question: "What happened in your marriage?" Not to judge. To observe. Because how someone talks about their ex reveals everything about their emotional maturity. Self-love isn't bubble baths and affirmations. It

Surrounded by Conformists: How to spot the 5 types of NPC and think your own thoughts - [Psychology of non-player characters] Jan 27, 2026 2551 The algorithm doesn't want you to think; it wants you to react. It wants you to be a character in its story, following a predictable path of outrage and agreement. We are living through a shift where the line between human and bot is blurring. Not because computers are getting more human-like, but because we are becoming more bot-like. We outsource our worldview to gurus, tribes, and mainstream

How To Build Free Will Jan 20, 2026 3228 Free will sounds easy until you look closely. Then it turns out to be smaller, stranger, and far more difficult than advertised. We take a cheerful scalpel to the idea that we’re the conscious captains of our lives. With help from psychology experiments, philosophical detours we find out what's really going on. Examining stories involving casinos, concentration camps, meditation cushions, and mor

5 Surprising Truths About Independence and Being Yourself: What really impacts who you are Jan 16, 2026 1225 The idea that you are a blend of the 5 people you spend time with has a dangerous side. In fact, it's not exactly true. In this episode, I break down why the Growth Mindset is actually about autonomy, not assimilation. I share the story of my best friend Laurie—a guy with zero ambition who taught me how to relax and actually saved my career during burnout. I also look at Sahil Lavingia, who blen

Life's Infinite Games: How to play by your own rules Jan 13, 2026 1390 What if the game you're playing isn't yours? Every moment of your life, something is at stake. Ignore your partner, they feel less loved. Choose status over meaning, you'll need a therapist. We inherit these games—LinkedIn profiles that read like eager cover letters, news consumption that convinces us everything's collapsing, social media that demands we perform. But there's another way. Inste

4 Steps to Become Remarkable: A guide to overhaul your life Jan 6, 2026 2286 Get in control of your life and use your time to build a life of purpose. We have been sold a myth of heroic solutions. Where a single dazzling act will change who we are. But real change is quiet, methodical, and often boring. As a result many people lack agency waiting for some heroic reinvention. This episode explores the architecture of a "Deep Life," a four-month process of reclaiming your

Working with Time Instead of Against It - How to enjoy this year and every year of your life Dec 30, 2025 957 You have roughly 4,000 weeks. Somehow, nobody mentioned this at school. This episode takes a cheerful scalpel to modern time-panic—the kind that convinces smart adults that the next app, habit, or color-coded calendar will finally subdue existence. (It won’t.) Time, inconveniently, keeps doing what it has always done: passing. The good news is that this makes it remarkably reliable, like a train

5 Rules for Mental Health and Clarity - Andrew Huberman's simple formula for success Dec 23, 2025 680 Every advanced master nails the fundamentals first. To perform at your best these are the 5 most basic and essential practices you need to return to time and again. A short episode covering the core requirements for good mental health and clarity in life. Whether you love Andrew Huberman, are a skeptic or don't even know who he is. These 5 lessons are science backed legit good advice worth repea

Leaving a Legacy: What do we actually get remembered for - Lessons on family and life - [Storied Recipe] Dec 19, 2025 2556 How to nurture the best in people with consistency and be remembered for what matters. This is going to be a different episode about a cake my nan used to make. But isn't just a story about cake. It's about the difference between control and nurture. My school thought resilience came from forcing kids to clear their plates (even if they ended up vomitting). They were wrong. My Nan knew that real

The Regret Minimization Framework: How to make life decisions Dec 16, 2025 1570 A boat is safe in the harbor. But that is not what boats are built for. We tend to view our lives as a single, continuous narrative. But in reality, we are a series of temporary selves, each with a distinct beginning and end. The teenager who dreams of adventure is not the same as the retiree who seeks comfort. When we defer our dreams, we aren't saving them for later; we are denying them to the

Cognitive Rigidity: 5 Lessons to build a flexible mind - [Cognitive Biases #6] Dec 12, 2025 2654 How to master cognitive flexibility by understanding the biases that keep you stuck. In WWI, generals sent horses against machine guns. Cognitive Rigidity mean they couldn't reimagine the battlefield. In this episode, I break down the five mental traps keeping you stuck. We look at why you value your own bad ideas more than good ones (The Endowment Effect) and why you can’t stop scrolling TikTok

The Illusion of Control: 7 Ways we lie to ourselves that even defeated Napoleon - [Cognitive Biases #5] Dec 9, 2025 2211 How the mind blinds us to reality by showing us what we want to believe. We don't see with our eyes; we see with our stories. In 1951, psychologists proved that fans from opposing teams physically saw different fouls during the same game. This is the power and danger of perception. It is the tension between what is real and what we believe is possible. When a doctor gives a patient a placebo, t

Why You Make Bad Decisions: Confirmation Bias and the 7 Sins of Lazy Thinking [Cognitive Biases #4] Dec 5, 2025 1537 How to make smarter decisions that improve your life by understanding your mind and it's hidden psychology. We are all storytelling creatures, desperate to fit the world into a narrative that makes sense to us. Thus, we build echo chambers not because we are stupid, but because we are afraid. The Confirmation Bias is a shield against the discomfort of being wrong. The Availability Bias shapes ou

Why We Don't Understand Money: How to fix your thinking flaws - [Cognitive Biases #3] Dec 2, 2025 1792 Think you konw what you're doing with you money on your mind? Think again. You walk into a cinema and buy the $12 large popcorn because the medium is $10. You think you got a deal, but you actually just fell for the "Decoy Effect."Your brain is wired to latch onto the first number it sees. In this episode, I break down the psychological pricing traps that businesses use to hack your wallet.

Ego Blindspots: Common cognitive distortions of the self - [Cognitive Biases #2] Nov 28, 2025 1963 Ever caught yourself defending a dumb idea just to look smart? That's your ego controlling your brain. Cognitive biases and ego team up to screw your decisions daily. Picture this: confirmation bias has you cherry-picking facts that stroke your self-image, while ego whispers you're too smart for mistakes. Spot the traps like Dunning-Kruger (overestimating skill) or sunk cost fallacy (throwing go

Thinking Fast and Slow: How to make better decisions and avoid hidden mind traps Nov 25, 2025 3040 You think you're rational? Think again. We love feeling like thoughtful decision-makers, but the truth is we're riddled with cognitive shortcuts. Daniel Kahneman's Nobel Prize-winning work breaks down the systems of our mind. We constantly substitute hard questions with easy ones; e.g. Buying a stock because you like the company, not because you've done the data. This episode cuts through the 30

Who are you VS. Who do you want to be? - How to align your actions with your desires Nov 21, 2025 1258 We can try all the things: new habits, different mindsets, therapy, medication, or god save us... self-help books. Yet to no ones surprise: we don't wake up a different person, we don't start doing all the things we keep saying we will eventually do, we don't even lose weight... What is the deal? Are we broken? Is there a way to fix ourselves? It all comes down to a single question. Who are y

The Hidden Psychology of Black Friday - How do shops manipulate us (and make calm aunties fist-fight over PlayStations)? Nov 18, 2025 1701 Inner Peace vs Retail Rage - How do shops design our experience to remove our decisions and make us to FOMO into all sorts of weird situations? This episode peels back the slick banners and countdown timers to show the tiny psychological tricks that turn shoppers into hunters. Scarcity, anchoring, and anticipation aren’t marketing buzzwords — they’re brain hacks. Retailers riff off ancient ins

Systems Thinking: How to understand the deeper reality of the world around us Nov 14, 2025 2002 Most problems in the world aren't random accidents, they're built into the systems we live in. When we look closer we find systems all around us drive the currents that change the world. Systems Thinking is a key idea in science, politics and business, but it knows no boundaries as systems show up everywhere. In every era of humanity we created new systems in politics, law, technology and e

Die With Zero Regrets - Stoic ideas to make the most of your life Nov 11, 2025 2109 What if “enough” wasn’t a number — but a moment? This conversation explores the quiet art of leaving nothing essential undone. We talk about the trap of “more” — more savings, more time, more planning — and how it steals the urgency that makes life vivid. To die with zero regrets isn’t to die empty; it’s to die complete. Like an artist who finishes a painting not because it’s perfect, but becaus

The Psychology of Podcasting: Lessons in self actualisation, intrinsic motivation and how to enjoy yourself - w/ Paul Davies Nov 7, 2025 3277 99% of podcasters quit before episode 20. Why do 1% keep going... and what does it teach us about ourselves? Paul Davies interviews Sam on the psychology of motivation, self-determination, signalling theory and more as we break down the psychology of what makes people podcast. Besides analysing what's driving the trend to start a podcast we also learn about why humans do anything and how to make

How to Defeat Your Shadow Life and Face Your Calling: Lessons from Turning Pro by Steven Pressfield, Nov 4, 2025 1815 What if the life you're living is just a metaphor for the life you're meant to live? Pressfield kept his typewriter buried under spare parts in his truck. He knew it was there. Thought about it constantly. But he was too terrified to dig it out and write. So he drove. For years. Shadow callings aren't about laziness—they're about proximity without risk. We fall into fixed mindset thinking this

Tips on Getting Better Today Than Yesterday - w/ Olympic Coach Frank Dick OBE Oct 31, 2025 1494 What if winning isn't a destination? What if it's the quiet act of becoming slightly better than you were when the sun rose this morning? Frank Dick spent five decades asking "How do we help people see their own progress?" As British Athletics' legendary Director of Coaching, he discovered something profound. We're wired to notice missing buttons but blind to the ones that are there. His Four Rs

Growth Mindset Psychology: The Science of Self-Improvement

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