Simplify

In this episode of Simplify, Caitlin talks to Janice Kaplan, bestselling author, TV producer, and magazine editor about how luck happens and how you can create it. Does luck feel like something you either have or you don’t? Does it feel like chance? Or, do you think you have some, not all of it good? Well, Janice Kaplan and Barnaby Marsh turned to research, pioneering studies, and interviews with...

Ever wondered whether humans are meant to be monogamous, or when we started to look at our sexual partners as private property? The authors of the extraordinary book on sexual evolution Sex at Dawn, Cacilda Jethá and Christopher Ryan, study our primate legacy and explain how it shaped human sexual behavior. In this episode, Ryan talks about the purpose of sexual relations in matriarchal and male-d...

While mindfulness can feel like a relatively new phenomenon in western societies — Jon Kabat-Zinn popularized it in the US in the 1970s — it has, in fact, been helping people feel connected to their lives for centuries. Dr. Lori Brotto experimented with the practice as treatment for women with sexual concerns and found that mindfulness can have positive effects on desire, response and connection —...

A lot of the things that we’ve learned about how our minds work are simply not true. Did you know that a small part of your brain can fall asleep while the other parts are awake and working? And we can't trust our memories, either: it turns out that much of what ends up getting stored in memory, especially what people remember about themselves and their past, is a distortion. But it's not all bad...

As a sex educator, Emily Nagoski sees her main purpose as “teaching people to live with confidence and joy inside their bodies.” Step one? Understanding what’s actually going on in there! In this episode, Nagoski employs colorful analogies to illustrate the ways in which our minds and bodies react to stressful situations (spoiler alert: you'll have to use your imagination and become a gazelle) and...

Pultizer-prize-winning, bestselling author and NYT writer Charles Duhigg has cracked the code to what makes the world’s most productive people so effective—and how you can use those techniques for yourself. Listen in to hear why self-belief is the key to real, lasting change and find out which productivity tips Duhigg’s teaching his kids. Plus, hear the smart, slightly dirty productivity trick he...

Simplify Season 3 launches next week with an episode featuring Nobel Prize-winner, NYT columnist, and master of habits: Charles Duhigg! If you want to say hi to Ben and Caitlin in the meantime, you can find them on Twitter: @bsto and @CaitlinSchiller . One more thing! We'd still love to get your voices on Simplify. Specifically, we want to hear how you would answer one of the questions we always a...

What’s better than getting to the heart of a great idea? Getting to the heart of seven great ideas in under 40 minutes—which is exactly what happens in this best-of episode. Hear from Simplify Season 1 and 2’s most beloved guests, including Seth Godin, David Allen, Dan Savage, Jaclyn Friedman, Ryan Holiday, and more. And stick around after the last interview’s rolled to hear hosts Ben Schuman-Stol...

In this bonus episode of Simplify season 2, we talk with Eli Finkel. Finkel is a writer and social psychologist at Northwestern University. He's also the author of the new book The All-or-Nothing Marriage . On this episode, Caitlin Schiller talks to Finkel about where the ideas in the book came from. Finkel explains how he discovered that marriage is tied to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs: throughout...

Rebecca Traister is an author and writer-at-large for New York Magazine. She writes about women, culture, and politics, and her most recent book is All The Single Ladies . On this episode of Simplify, Traister and Caitlin Schiller discuss the larger meaning of singlehood, why marriage doesn’t make any sense anymore, and the one thing that attracts the most single-ladies. It's part Traister's story...

Julian Treasure is a sound designer, a musician, and a public speaker—his TED talks have been viewed more than 40 million times!—and he’s also a master of what he calls the “silent skill:" listening. In this episode, Treasure talks to Caitlin about the 7 deadly sins of speaking, how your listening shapes who you are, and why certain cities sound so delicious to our ears. Plus, Caitlin finds out wh...

Jaclyn Friedman is a writer, sex-educator, and activist whose work helped establish the “yes means yes” standard of sexual consent. Her new book, Unscrewed; Women, Sex, Power, And How To Stop Letting the System Screw Us All , was released in November, 2017. On this episode of Simplify, Caitlin Schiller talks with Friedman about sexual empowerment – or the lack thereof, which Friedman calls “Fauxpo...

Coach of coaches Michael Bungay Stanier is a bestselling author and #3 coach worldwide according to Global Guru. In this episode of Simplify, Bungay Stanier talks to Caitlin Schiller about why leaders who get quiet, get curious, and ask a few simple questions are more successful than advice-giving maniacs. (Warning: you're probably an advice-giving maniac.) Bungay Stanier explains how you can be m...

Are you iOS, Android, or Stoic? In this episode of Simplify, hear bestselling author and master of controversy, Ryan Holiday, talk about finding your personal operating system and using it to focus and fuel the work you love to do. Holiday and Caitlin discuss some of the secrets of media marketing, and then dive into Holiday's other passion: philosophy. He also has great advice on finding your fan...

Welcome to the second season of Simplify! In this season's first episode, Caitlin Schiller talks to the bestselling author and legend of marketing and entrepreneurship, Seth Godin. Building on his own experience, Godin explains how when we find ourselves stuck and unable to move something forward, it’s because we’re afraid. He touches on the ideas in his bestsellers Permission Marketing , Purple C...

Simplify Season 2 launches next week with an episode featuring Seth Godin. If you want to say hi to Ben and Caitlin in the meantime, you can find them on Twitter: @bsto and @CaitlinSchiller . And we have a favor to ask! We want to include your voices in this season of Simplify. Specifically, we’d love to hear how you would answer one of the questions we always ask our guests: “What have you discov...

We’re back on November 16th, 2017, with a new season of Simplify! Tune in for 6 new guests and 6 new ways to look at your world. To keep you busy ‘til then, we have an assignment for you: go into your voice memo app on your phone (called Voice Memo on iOS and on Android, you've got lots of choices) and record us a message with your name, where you’re calling from, and one thing you learned is much...

Ben Schuman-Stoler talks to speed-reading expert Abby Marks Beale about how to become a more mindful reader. Abby is a consultant and the author of 10 Days to Faster Reading . Abby and Ben clarify the meaning of speed-reading (it’s NOT reading War and Peace in five minutes and knowing it’s a book about Russia) and review simple strategies for getting the most out of your reading material. After th...

Caitlin Schiller talks to New York Times bestselling author Jonah Berger. Berger is a marketing professor at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, where he teaches Wharton’s top-ranked online course. He is also the author of Contagious: Why Things Catch On and Invisible Influence: The Hidden Forces that Shape Behavior . Jonah tells Caitlin about his newest book, Invisible Influence...

Ben Schuman-Stoler talks to time management expert Laura Vanderkam, author of I Know How She Does It , What the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast , and 168 Hours . Her writing has appeared in Fast Company , Fortune , USA Today , and the Wall Street Journal . Vanderkam made a surprising discovery after interviewing hundreds of professional women: most of us actually have way more free time...

This week, we talk with Dr. Joel Fuhrman. You might be familiar with his bestselling books, like Eat to Live and Super Immunity . Dr. Fuhrman is the passionate pioneer of nutritarianism, a style of eating which focuses on jamming into your diet as many nutrient-rich, cancer-fighting, health-bolstering foods as possible. Over his many years of medical practice, Dr. Furhman has seen nutritarianism r...

Caitlin Schiller travels to Amsterdam to talk to productivity guru David Allen, the best-selling author of Getting Things Done , Ready for Anything , and Making It All Work . They talk about how to overcome the internal obstacles that stand in our way when we’re trying to get things done in the external world. In the second segment, Ben Schuman-Stoler joins Caitlin to make another must-have readin...

Caitlin Schiller talks to sex and relationship advice columnist Dan Savage. Savage is the author of four books, including American Savage , and a nationally syndicated column called Savage Love. Since 2006, his podcast, Savage Lovecast, has been regularly featured on the Apple Podcasts top charts. In the interview, Savage explains why the best thing you can do for your relationships might be to lo...

Caitlin Schiller talks to Gretchen Rubin, NYT bestselling author of Better Than Before , The Happiness Project , and Happier at Home . Her books have sold more than 2 million copies worldwide, in over thirty languages. Rubin speaks about her approach to happiness, habits, and self-acceptance. The main thing you should listen for is how to apply the ancient idea of “know thyself” to your fast-paced...

Here's a little taste of what you'll hear in the next six weeks. Hit subscribe to have the first episode automatically delivered to your podcast feed in just a few days! Until then! Be good, Ben and Caitlin See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info .