Raoul Pal is the Co-Founder & CEO of Real Vision Group, a disruptive financial media brand. He also runs his own macro research business the Global Macro Investor and was himself previously a highly successful portfolio manager at one of the world’s largest hedge funds GLG.
The global economy is in a state of transition and with the march of technology accelerating and a new financial system and digital economy being created before our eyes, Raoul is the perfect guide to help you make sense of what’s going on. In this episode we discuss:
- How we got to the current crisis point in the global economy and what that means for you
- The emerging digital asset space (including cryptocurrencies, NFTs & community tokens) and its significance as a source of return to combat monetary debasement
- The skill of investing and what Raoul has learned about it after several decades in the markets
If you’re expecting tips on which cryptocurrencies to buy or sell this conversation isn’t for you. But it is what I hope will be an evergreen conversation charting the story of how we got to where we are and where we’re going, through the lens of one of the world’s most successful investors.
Barbara Oakley is an educator and writer who’s empowering people all over the world to learn more effectively.
She’s best known for her role as the lead instructor on Coursera’s Learning How To Learn and her bestselling book A Mind for Numbers but in the last few years she’s created an incredible body of work including multiple books and online courses.
In this episode we discuss:
- How and why Barb is releasing not one but two books in quick succession Learn like a Pro and Uncommon Sense Teaching
- The main insights from the last 5 years of research on the learning process
- The difference between declarative and procedural memory and why that matters for learning
This was a great conversation, full of fascinating insights about the learning process that you can go away and apply straight away.
Dean Nelson is the director of the journalism program at Point Loma Nazarene University in San Diego and author of the book Talk To Me.
He has over 40 years of experience in journalism and has written stories from all over the world, which have been published the likes of the New York Times & Boston Globe.
In this episode, we discuss:
- How to navigate career crisis and the two questions that resolved Dean’s own struggles
- How jazz is a useful analogy for understanding how to having better conversations
- The path to becoming an effective interviewer and talking to your heroes
This was a really insightful conversation that will teach you how to ask better questions and get better answers whether you interview for a living or not.
Eric Jorgenson is the author of the Navalmanack, a distillation of the best insights from Angel List Founder Naval Ravikant and the Founder of Course Correctly, a site that curates the best online courses for knowledge workers.
Eric is in the process of creating a course about leverage and has learned from one of the best thinkers on the subject, Naval Ravikant, founder of Angel List and one of the world’s best-known technologists.
In this episode we discuss:
- The core principles of leverage & the limiting beliefs that prevent people from applying it
- How to curate the best online courses in an ocean of available learning materials
- How the best way to become a unique specialist is to start as a generalist
This was a really insightful conversation that will give you some great ideas on how to apply leverage to your own life and business, as well as some powerful insights into the future of online education.
Dhrupad Karwa is the Founder and CEO of Inspo, an AI Inspiration Partner designed to enrich creative thinking at brands and agencies. He is also the co-founder and CEO of HaikuJAM, a social writing game that helps people write collaboratively online. In this episode we discuss:
- The importance of inspiration and how AI can bring more of it to our lives-
The challenges of building startups and what kept Dhru going along the way
- The current state of the social media landscape and the challenge of navigating it
This was a great conversation that will give you an insight into the mind of an entrepreneur working on a fascinating problem at the intersection of human and machine creativity. Plus, if you’re craving some inspiration at the moment, Dhru’s stories and ideas will definitely give you a top-up.
Billy Broas is an entrepreneur, marketing coach and consultant and instructor of the Keystone online course. In this episode we discuss:
- Limiting beliefs holding you back from marketing yourself and your business
- Billy’s Bridge of Transformation Method
- What Billy learned from some of history’s greatest copywriters
This episode will give you the mindsets and skillsets you need to thrive in marketing, as well as great insights into human psychology, business and online education.
Anton Howes is a historian in residence at the RSA and a visiting lecturer at King's College London. He is also the author of the book Arts and Minds: How The RSA Changed a Nation.
In this episode we discuss:
- The innovator's mindset and why it’s much rarer than you think-
A vision for reviving the great exhibitions of the 19th century as a vehicle for progress
- How to research and write a book, as well as advice for getting your work read
This conversation will give you some great ideas for how you can innovate more in your life, your organisation, and even for society as a whole as well as some valuable insights into the creative process.
Kevin Kelly is the co-founder and editor at Wired magazine, and one of the world’s leading technologists. He’s the author of What Technology Wants and The Inevitable and has recently launched Vanishing Asia, a photo-book documenting 40 years of Kevin’s travels in Asia.
In this episode we discuss:
- Kevin’s lessons about photography, the world and himself from 40 years of travel in Asia
- What the rise of Asia and accelerating global convergence means for you and the world
- How to succeed in the industry of ideas and the current state of intellectual property
This was a wide ranging conversation that will offer you powerful insights about travel, technology and where the world is going. Most importantly, you’ll get a fresh perspective on how to discover your own unique attributes so you can future proof yourself and live a good life.
Neer Sharma is the founder of Patent Drop, a newsletter that gives you a peek into the future by summarising new patents from big tech companies.
He previously co-founded HaikuJAM - a mobile game that helps people feel better through collaborative writing, helping grow the community to over 1 million users.
In this episode we discuss:
- How to navigate a career change without having the next thing lined up
- What the latest patents coming out of big tech tell us about the future of online interaction
- Neer’s experiments with NFTs (non fungible tokens) and what the technology means for creators
This conversation will give you access to the mindset and strategies of someone who’s created a completely new career for himself by running experiments online as well as some great insights into the weird and wonderful virtual world that’s being built online.
Armand D’Angour is a Professor of Classics at Oxford University, a musician and the author of several books, including his latest Socrates in Love.
In this episode we discuss:
- Armand's revisionist biography of Socrates including an account of the woman who helped him shape his ideas on love
- The value of reviving ancient music and the methods for doing so
- What the Greeks’ attitude to the new can teach us about technology in the modern world
This was a wonderful conversation that will give you fresh insight into the foundations of Western philosophy and the connections between music and the classics.
Annie Duke is a bestselling author, speaker, and decision-making consultant. Her latest book, How to Decide is already earning rave reviews and her previous one, Thinking in Bets, became a national bestseller.
As a former professional poker player, Annie won more than $4 million in tournament poker before retiring from the game in 2012.
If you're anything like most people, you probably don't have much of a process for making decisions but what if decision making was a learnable skill? Annie has dedicated herself to teaching it through her books and consulting
In this episode we discuss:
- What games like poker, chess and backgammon can teach us about decision making
- How to learn effectively from your experiences without becoming biased by outcomes
- How to overcome analysis paralysis and eliminate unnecessary decisions
This was a great wide-ranging conversation with a lot of practical applications that will help you combat your own biases, address your weaknesses and become a better and more confident decision-maker.
Joel Christensen is a Professor of Classics at Brandeis University and author of the book The Many Minded Man. He also posts regularly on the popular Classics-oriented website Sententiae Antiquae.
The Many Minded Man explores Homer's Odyssey through a modern psychological lens, focusing on how it reflects the workings of the human mind and provides a model for coping with the challenges of chance and fate.
In this episode we discuss:
- The concept of agency and how The Odyssey helps us to understand what we can control
- How to use the power of storytelling to make sense of your life and the world around you
- What modern psychology can learn from Homer's Odyssey and Iliad
This was a wonderful conversation centred on some of the greatest stories ever told, which will show you how storytelling can shape a sense of agency and provide solutions to help you avoid destructive patterns.
Minter Dial is an international speaker and award-winning author, who focuses on the topics of leadership, branding and transformation. He has written three books including his latest You Lead: How Being Yourself Makes You a Better Leader.
In this episode we discuss:
- How Minter's experience observing 9/11 in New York changed his values
- The 4 paradoxes we all have to navigate in a modern business context
- What Minter learned from making a documentary about his grandfather
This conversation was remarkably insightful and wide ranging and in it, you'll discover the mindsets and skillsets required for transformational leadership and how to facilitate meaningful dialogue.
Christian Busch is a Professor at NYU and LSE and the author of the bestselling book, The Serendipity Mindset. He is also the co-founder of two thriving communities - Sandbox, a global community of young innovators, as well as of Leaders on Purpose, an organisation convening leading CEOs.
In this episode we discuss:
- The mindset needed to integrate serendipity into your career and life
- How to plan and set goals without over optimising and obsessing about efficiency
- How to keep a community fresh whilst maintaining the core values
This was a great conversation that will give you the mindset and skillset to use the unpredictability of life to your advantage and create your own luck.
Michelle Weise is the author of Long-Life Learning: Preparing for Jobs that Don’t Even Exist Yet.
She is an entrepreneur-in-residence and senior advisor at Imaginable Futures and her work over the last decade has concentrated on preparing working-age adults for the jobs of today and tomorrow.
In this episode we discuss:
- The current state of the landscape in workplace training and higher education
- The blend of skills we'll need to develop individually and as a society to thrive in the future
- What Michelle learned from working with legendary Professor Clayton Christensen
If you're interested in the intersection between the future of education and work this conversation is for you as well as giving you with plenty of original insight into how to direct your own career in a rapidly changing environment.
Tom Vanderbilt is a journalist and author of the book Beginners: The Curious Power of Lifelong Learning. In this conversation we discuss:
- The pain and joy of being an amateur and why it's so important
- Tom's criteria for learning new skills and picking teachers
- The unexpected benefits of picking up new skills
The limiting beliefs that stop us from learning new things are often so difficult to overcome because they're invisible and in this conversation, we map the territory so you can break through and feel good about becoming a beginner again.
Oli Barrett is a super connector named "the most connected man in Britain" by Wired magazine, who has received an MBE for services to business. In this episode we discuss:
- The 5 strategies for staying in touch with people
- The components of a good cold email or long-shot as Oli calls them
- How to create space for meaningful conversations online
I've learned a lot from Oli in the last few years and if you apply a fraction of what he discusses here to your network, you'll be in a very different place a year from now.
Anne Laure Le Cunff, founder of Ness Labs, an online school and community on mindful productivity. She's an ex-Googler, and holds a masters in Applied Neuroscience from King's College London, while her work has been featured in WIRED, Forbes, the FT and Rolling Stone.
In this episode we discuss:
- How Anne-Laure's personal values have changed over the course of her career
- Anne-Laure's system for consistently producing content online
- The concept of an anti library and how that relates to metacognition
This was a great conversation –– whether you're looking for some creative inspiration or techniques on publishing more, this episode has you covered.
Thomas Moore is a best selling author, international speaker and esteemed psychotherapist. This is Part 2 of my conversation with Thomas and in it we discuss:
- The movement of archetypal psychology and the art of creative collaboration
- The thinkers who have advanced our understanding of the human psyche
- How the pandemic has affected the soul aspects of our work experience
We also touch on the taboo around money in our society and how it relates to work. I hope you find Thomas' ideas as valuable as I have.
Thomas Moore is a best selling author, international speaker and esteemed psychotherapist. He has written 25 books about the soul, finding meaningful work and doing religion in a fresh way. In this episode we discuss:
- The idea of having a calling, when this is naive and when it isn't
- How Thomas has written 25 books in his career without retiring to a cabin in the woods
- The distinction between soul and spirit and why it matters for everyone
As Thomas himself puts it, so many of the problems we experience are not ones of knowledge but of imagination. I hope this conversation will be as much of a perspective shifter for you as it was for me.
Evan Carmichael runs a successful YouTube channel which distills the mindsets and skillsets from the world's top performers in sports, business and entertainment. In this episode we discuss:
- The relationship between belief and action that every creator has to navigate
- The systems and processes needed to create a thriving YouTube channel
- What Evan has learned from studying some of the world's top performers
Whether you're looking to start a YouTube channel, podcast or newsletter, this episode will give you the mindsets and approaches you need to succeed.
Margaret Heffernan is a former CEO of 5 companies, acclaimed TED speaker and author of six books including her latest, Uncharted. In this episode we discuss:
- How to pursue a career as a series of experiments
- The problems with modern forecasting in an uncertain environment
- The dangers of prioritising efficiency in an uncertain world and the human qualities needed to thrive in it
This episode will give you great practical advice for navigating the world we live in as well as a fresh perspective on the most important questions of our time.
Josh Kaufman is an entrepreneur, researcher, and author of three bestselling books – The Personal MBA, The First 20 Hours, and How to Fight a Hydra.
This is Part 2 of my conversation with Josh, so if you haven't already, I recommend you go back and listen to Part 1 where we discussed:
In this second part, we cover:
Josh Kaufman is an entrepreneur, researcher, and author of three bestselling books – The Personal MBA, the First 20 Hours, and How to Fight a Hydra. I had Josh on the podcast previously where we spoke about the power of storytelling for promoting behaviour change and mastering complex projects.
Josh's book The Personal MBA provides a crash course in business by covering timeless principles and recently hit its 10th Anniversary. The 10th Anniversary of the podcast was an excellent excuse to get him back on the podcast for another chat, which was so good and went on so long, that I've split it into 2 parts.
In this first part, we discuss:
We also cover the five sections of business value creation, marketing, sales, value delivery, and finance that Josh structures in the business section of the book, and in Part 2 we'll touch on some of his ideas around people and systems as well as his research methods.
His most recent book How Learning Happens, explores 28 key works on learning and teaching, chosen from the fields of educational psychology and cognitive psychology, and discusses what they mean in practice. He's also written books on Evidence Informed Learning Design and Urban Myths about Learning and Education.
In this episode we discuss:
We also discuss when students should learn about how learning happens, the importance of teachers in goal setting and the debate on domain-specific vs domain-general skills.