Brad Hook Podcast

In this episode, psychologist and bestselling author Fiona Murden explores why identity—not skills—may be our greatest challenge in the age of AI. We discuss resilience, identity coherence, storytelling, parenting, leadership, and why understanding who you are is becoming one of the most important human capabilities. In this episode: Why AI is creating an identity crisis Identity by osmosis and th...

Most entrepreneurs pour relentless intention into their business and then wing it at home. Ann Sheu thinks that's backwards. She makes the case that your family is the most important team you'll ever lead, and shows how the same clarity, values, and rhythms that build great companies can build connected, resilient families. We get into values as the real foundation of a relationship, the "decade d...

What if the voice you use every day is only a fraction of what's available to you? Voice coach, author, and performer Barbara McAfee says most of us live in "a tiny closet in a great big mansion" when it comes to our voice. We settle into one small corner of it and never realize how much more is there. In this conversation, Barbara shares the framework at the heart of her work: five...

What if sleeping too much is almost as bad for you as sleeping too little? Brad sits down with Dr Junhao (Hao) Wen, Assistant Professor of Radiology, Computer Science, and Biomedical Engineering at Columbia University, whose latest research in Nature maps how sleep duration shapes biological aging across 23 organ systems. They get into what a biological aging clock actually is, why both short and...

What an 80-year-old Mongolian nomad, a group of girls from the slums of Mumbai, and a master sculptor in Hong Kong reveal about creativity. Most of us decide we're "not creative" early in life, and never question it again. This episode is here to change that. I sit down with Fredrik Haren, The Creativity Explorer, internationally bestselling author and global keynote speaker on busin...

Dr. Stephen Sideroff opens with a provocation: we are all designed to fail at managing stress. From there, the UCLA professor, clinical psychologist, and author of The 9 Pillars of Resilience walks Brad through why our hunter-gatherer nervous system keeps misfiring in a world that never signals we're safe, and what to do about it. The conversation covers real ground. The "Four Horsemen of Stress"...

Mohini Venkatesh, MPH, Chief of Staff at the National Council, joins Brad Hook to explore the state of mental health in the U.S., the growing role of Mental Health First Aid, and why workplaces need to treat people as whole human beings. Together, they discuss loneliness, burnout, substance use, youth mental health, AI in healthcare, and the human skills leaders will need in the future of work. Mo...

In this episode, Brad speaks with Dirk Matthews, President of the National Career Development Association and Interim Vice President of Development and Alumni Relations at Columbia College Chicago. Together they explore: Creative resilience as a practical framework for navigating change Why creativity is not limited to artists How career development differs from simply finding a job The rise of no...

Is burnout real or just imprecise language? In this video I work through the science, the philosophy, and my own three burnout experiences to find out what burnout actually is — and why the case against it doesn't hold up. Along the way I look at something most people don't realize: the evidence base for burnout is actually stronger than the evidence base for celebrated constructs like flow state...

In this episode, Brad speaks with author and storyteller Brownell Landrum about her new book, The Art and Science of Wishing , and the global grassroots initiative she founded, The Cosmic Wish Experiment. Brownell explores the surprising science behind wishing, including the difference between a wish, a prayer, and a goal; why wishing rituals appear across human cultures; and how peaceful, positiv...

What if the goals running your life are getting in the way of your growth? Neuroscientist Anne-Laure Le Cunff joins Brad Hook to explore how curiosity, small experiments, and a willingness to be wrong can help us live and learn more deeply. Anne-Laure Le Cunff — founder of Ness Labs and author of Tiny Experiments — unpacks why we overestimate what we know, how AI tools may be quietly eroding our t...

Dr. Tommy Rhee is a Navy Aircrew veteran, sports chiropractor, and pioneer in regenerative medicine. A former Team Chiropractor for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and UCLA Athletics, he has spent nearly two decades helping elite athletes recover faster and perform at their best. In this conversation, we explore a fascinating shift in medicine—from injecting cells to understanding the signals that guide...

In this episode, I talk with Michael Juberg—academic, therapist, and scientific journalist exploring the intersection of mindfulness, compassion, and psychedelic medicine. Michael shares his journey as a self-described underdog, reflecting on the power of grit, self-belief, and persistence in shaping both his life and career. We explore how mindfulness is evolving from an individual practice into...

Terry Healey was diagnosed with a rare fibrosarcoma at 20, eventually undergoing more than 30 surgeries across several years of treatment and reconstruction. Left with a permanent facial difference, he faced a deeper reckoning than most: the scars on the inside, he discovered, were harder to heal than the ones the world could see. In this conversation, Terry shares the seven-part survival kit he d...

Artificial intelligence is transforming how we work. It helps us think faster, create more, and solve complex problems with ease. But alongside these gains, a quieter trend is emerging — rising cognitive fatigue. In this video, I explore the connection between AI, attention, and burnout, and introduce a simple idea: What if AI isn’t just a tool… but an exocortex — an extension of our thinking? And...

What does artificial intelligence actually value? I asked four of the world’s leading AI systems — Claude, Grok, ChatGPT, and Gemini — the same question: What are your values? Their answers overlapped in surprising ways — transparency, helpfulness, safety. But they also revealed important differences. One emphasized protecting humans from threat. Another prioritized its own survival and the intere...

What if you could make a treaty with mosquitoes… and they actually stopped biting you? In this episode, author and adventurer Wing Williams joins Brad Hook to share stories from his “howling twenties”: thru-hiking the Appalachian Trail and Pacific Crest Trail, learning to walk through forests without bug spray or fear of poison ivy, following a wolverine to an unseen mountain spring — and eventual...

In this episode, Brad sits down with Dr. Wanek, a former pediatric surgeon and foundational medicine practitioner, to explore a distinctive way of thinking about human health, energy, and resilience. Drawing on her background in surgery, biochemistry, and decades of clinical experience, Dr. Wanek shares how her own health journey led her beyond conventional and functional medicine toward what she...

There’s a popular idea that most of us only get about ten good summers at the end of our lives. But there’s another set of golden summers we rarely talk about — the first ones. In this reflection, I explore the idea of the first 11 golden summers : the brief window when your child is small, when you’re their hero, their safe place, and their favourite person in the world. I talk about time, presen...

We’re often taught to focus on what we want — more money, more freedom, more connection — and to believe that if we visualise or strive hard enough, it will arrive. But there’s a problem with that approach. Chasing outcomes can quietly train the nervous system to live in tension, striving, and scarcity. Also, humans adapt quickly. The moment we reach a desired state, the mind moves the goalposts....

What if your brain is deciding before you do? What if you’re not seeing reality — just your best guess? What if time, memory, morality, and even your body are more flexible than you think? In this video, we explore 10 real scientific experiments that quietly rewrote how we understand the mind, perception, and reality itself. From the famous Libet experiment showing that the brain prepares actions...

What can high-risk avalanche rescue teach us about leadership, ego and team wellbeing? In this episode, Brad sits down with Caroline Elliott — avalanche specialist, ski patroller, controlled bomber, and avalanche dog handler — to explore what happens behind the scenes in the mountains before you clip into your skis. From bombing snow slopes in the dark to reading the snowpack and trusting your gut...

Thanks for visiting! Connect with me on https://www.linkedin.com/in/bradleyhook/ or https://www.instagram.com/bradhook and don't forget to subscribe here for more videos like this. Most people hit the holidays exhausted, wired, and a little numb. We crash, sometimes get sick, finally start to feel human again… and then it’s already time to go back to work. At the same time, most New Year’s res...

What does it mean to live well ? Across psychology, indigenous wisdom, leadership research, and well-being science, dozens of frameworks attempt to answer that question. In this episode, Brad Hook ( https://bradleyhook.com ) explores the world’s most influential models — what they mean , why they matter, and how they can help us understand our own lives more clearly. You’ll learn the core ideas be...

What is interoception — and why is it one of the most important skills for emotional regulation and resilience? Interoception is your body’s hidden sense: the ability to feel your heartbeat, breath, gut, tension, and internal shifts. It’s the quiet language of your inner world, and most of us have forgotten how to hear it. In this Learnfulness episode, Brad Hook explores the neuroscience of intero...