MetaLearn Podcast

Alex Dunsdon is an Investment Partner at Saatchi Invest, Chief of Staff at e-commerce platform RedBrain and all-round curious person. In this episode, the main theme is the overlap between understanding your self and doing great work. We discuss: - Alex's recent career shift and the personal realisations behind it - My experience in the last year and what I've learned about how I work - The power...

Eric Partaker is the Co-Founder and CEO of Mexican restaurant chain Chilango and a High Performance Coach. In this episode we discuss: The major problem with most approaches to personal development The relationship between identity, emotion and habit formation How to integrate the high performance mindset into all areas of your life So whatever aspect of life you're looking to improve, this episod...

Eric Partaker is the Co-Founder and CEO of Mexican restaurant chain Chilango and a High Performance Coach. In this episode we discuss: - The importance of building career capital and how Eric did this at McKinsey and Skype - The art of branding and how Eric applied this at Chilango - How Chilango became one of the most successfully crowdfunded businesses of all time So whether you're looking to ta...

Josh Kaufman is an entrepreneur and the bestselling author of The Personal MBA, The First 20 Hours and How To Fight a Hydra. In this episode we discuss: The benefits of fiction and non-fiction for promoting behaviour change Dealing with practical concerns when pursuing your dreams The skills that Josh stuck with after writing the First 20 Hours This was a wide-ranging and multi-disciplinary conver...

Niko Bonatsos is the Managing Director at General Catalyst Partners an early stage venture capital fund specialising in Series A and B tech startups. In this episode we discuss: How Niko harnessed the power of serendipity as a student in multiple countries Why Niko wants the founder he invests in to be learning animals and how he identifies this The current state of the conversation in Silicon Val...

Steve O'Hear is a leading technology journalist for Techcrunch where he focuses on European startups, companies and products. Steve has written for some of the world's top publications and has also started a company himself, co-founding the London and Prague-based startup Beepl, In his role as CEO there, Steve helped the company raise its first round and develop and launch its product A man of man...

Venkatesh Rao is an author, consultant and the founder of the hugely popular blogs Ribbon Farm and Breaking Smart. Ribbonfarm is a multidisciplinary blog focused on strategy and decision-making, while Breaking Smart is devoted to in-depth explorations of the emerging digital economy. Venkat is also the author of the highly acclaimed book on decision-making, Tempo, and offers consulting services in...

Azeem Azhar is a strategist, product entrepreneur and analyst, currently working as the Senior Advisor for AI to the CTO of Accenture. He is also the creator of the Exponential View newsletter and podcast, which offer cutting edge insights into technology, business and society. If you've been listening to the show for a while, then you'll have noticed that technology is a topic I've covered extens...

Richard Bowdler is the founder of StoryThis, a company that develops bespoke learning solutions for companies who want to maximise their investment in learning & development and he's also building a technology platform to end unwanted forgetting and make the world a smarter place. Rich is someone I've known for a couple of years now and I was really pleased to finally get him on the show – he's go...

Uri Bram is the bestselling author of Thinking Statistically and the CTO of Umuzi, an educational organisation that supports talented young people to develop the skills needed to access high-value careers. For those of you who are long time listeners, you may remember Uri first appeared on the podcast back on episode 62 where we spoke about key statistical principals, music theory and learning ski...

Fritjof Capra is a scientist, educator and author, best known for his groundbreaking work in the fields of Physics and Systems Thinking. Capra first became widely known for his book, The Tao of Physics, which explored the ways in which modern physics was changing our worldview from a mechanistic one to a holistic one.  Since then Fritjof has embarked on a multidisciplinary adventure, exploring the...

Alex Beard is an author, speaker and the Senior Director of the Global Learning Lab at Teach for All network of independent organizations working to help all children fulfill their potential. After starting out as an English teacher in a London comprehensive, he completed an MA at the Institute of Education before joining Teach For All.  Alex has travelled around the world in search of the practic...

Barbara Oakley is an educator and writer who's empowering people all over the world to learn more effectively. For those of who you who are long time listeners you'll remember Barb from Episode 46 of the show, where we discussed Barb's insights from learning skills in the US military and retraining herself as an engineer at the age of 26. She's best known for her role as the lead instructor on Cou...

Andreas M. Antonopoulos is a best-selling author, speaker, educator and one of the world's top bitcoin and open blockchain experts. You'd have to be living on a planet far, far away to not have heard of Bitcoin and Blockchain technology these days. Whether it's the daily price movements in Bitcoin or how ICOs are turning some people into millionaires and bankrupting others it's getting hard to fin...

I recently turned 26 and this summer will be 5 years since I graduated from university, which means I've been making my way in the world of work for half a decade. I've definitely learned a lot over the last couple of years and while I've certainly developed expertise in the field of accelerated learning, I think some of the most valuable lessons I've learned have been career related. So in this e...

Alex Dunsdon is an entrepreneur and investor who thrives on connecting people and ideas. He's the Co-Founder of the Bakery an innovation agency which transforms big companies by connecting them up to the technology and talent they need to solve their biggest problems. He's also a partner at Saatchi Invest, where he backs mission drive founders that obsess over product and has invested in business...

Charles Fadel is the founder and chairman of the Center for Curriculum Redesign, an institution focused on making education more relevant and answering the question: "What should we learn in the 21st century?"  Charles is also a respected thought leader and author in the global education space who works with several teams at the OECD and he's also co-authored the highly regarded 4 Dimensional Educ...

Aubrey de Grey is a biomedical gerontologist, and the Chief Science Officer of SENS Research Foundation, a California based non-profit charity dedicated to combating the aging process. Through his work at SENS, Aubrey works on the development of medical innovations that promote rejuvenation and can postpone all forms of age-related ill-health including diseases like alzheimers, certain forms of ca...

This episode is another special one on equations that changed the world.  Einstein's Theory of Special Relativity is widely known as the world's most famous equation created by history's most famous scientist.  In simple terms the equation reads - E = MC² which states that Energy = Mass x Speed of Light² This theory predicts the equivalence of mass and energy and a space-time continuum, which fund...

What I've found from experience is that presenting on and off camera is both a science and an art. As an academic tutor and university lecturer I've spent plenty of time standing up and presenting to students, and I've now racked up plenty of hours in front of the camera by creating my own online course, Make Me A MetaLearner, and teaching on my YouTube channel. To improve my skills, I've studied...

James Bidwell is the owner of Springwise, an innovation portal, which crowd sources innovation ideas from all over the world and publishes the top 3 every day. He is also the co-founder of RE_SET, an innovation consultancy for the disruption economy working with boards to help them thrive in an unpredictable world. James was also formerly a marketing manager at Disney, marketing director at Selfri...

The process of authoring and producing my first course,  Make Me A MetaLearner , was a great learning experience for me. It taught me a lot about the skills of research and writing and the importance of structuring educational content in a way that's easy to digest and understand for students.  As a university lecturer I've spent plenty of time preparing lessons and delivering them to students, bu...

Tom Stafford is a Senior Lecturer in Psychology and Cognitive Science at the University of Sheffield. He's also the author of the book Mindhacks, a book featuring 100 DIY mind experiments you can try at home, and he runs the excellent MindHacks blog dedicated to psychology and neuroscience news & views. Tom has done some fascinating research into skill acquisition by studying the process of playin...

Finding great teachers is a big part of learning anything.  But for most people, the top experts are off limits. They're only available to the few who can afford to fork out for their services, or a select who have spent years working their way up in the industry have the privilege of meeting and working with them.  So what if I told you that in 12-24 months you could be speaking to any teacher or...

Tim Urban is the founder of the blog WaitButWhy and is one of the Internet's most popular writers. With brilliant stick-figure illustrations and epic analysis on everything from artificial intelligence to the future of the brain, Wait But Why, has gained a huge audience and number of famous fans such as Tesla, Space-X and Solar City CEO, Elon Musk. Musk asked Tim to write about his companies and t...