Modern Wisdom

Ben Bergeron is a CrossFit Coach and the Owner of CrossFit New England. As far as we know, we only get one shot at life, so we'd better make it count. Fulfilling our potential and making the most of our abilities is the name of the game, but how do you do this? Expect to learn why core values are so important to achieving your goals, how Ben focusses on maximising his minutes, how to embrace adver...

John Vervaeke is an Associate Professor at the University Of Toronto. There is a meaning crisis upon us. People are revisiting Stoicism and Buddhism and mindfulness and psychedelics in an attempt to understand themselves and connect with the world around them. John joins me today to try and give us a route out of this trench. Expect to learn the different types of learning, how John would construc...

Adam Alter is a Professor of Marketing at New York University's Stern School of Business and an author. Most adults report that they are within an arm's reach of their phone for 24 hours a day. Our devices have slotted themselves into our lives seamlessly, but controlling our screentime is becoming increasingly difficult. Expect to learn the psychological tricks tech companies are using to keep yo...

Rob Henderson is a PhD candidate at the University of Cambridge and a US Air Force Veteran. Signalling is something everyone is doing all of the time. We are constantly leaking information about ourselves and our motives, but most of that information is involuntary. Expect to learn why signalling and status are intrinsically linked, how a standing next to a Lexus can increase a man's attractivenes...

John Danaher is an author and a lecturer at the National University of Ireland. Having a job is valorised in modern society. But if our jobs are taken over by robots, will we find a sense of purpose in other things outside of work, or are we just going to lead meaningless lives? Expect to learn why technological unemployment might be desirable, what a cyborg utopia might look like, why John thinks...

Dr Diana Fleischman is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Psychology at the University of Portsmouth and an author. When we get sick with a virus like Covid-19, our bodies respond, but our behaviour and personality also change in a number of important ways and sometimes, it doesn't change back. Expect to learn why avoiding new foods when ill makes evolutionary sense, whether needing the bathro...

We hit 100k Subscribers on YouTube!! To celebrate I asked for questions on Instagram and Twitter. I was going to just make a short YouTube-only video but the questions were so good, I couldn't cut enough out, so here I am, answering your questions for an hour. Expect to learn whether I think Brian Rose is a sham, whether Sam Harris will ever get rid of his Trump Derangement Syndrome, my biggest ti...

Diane Rehm is a former radio presenter, producer and an author. Talking about the end of life is uncomfortable, but watching someone you love be forced to live on through pain is even worse. Diane has interviewed hundreds of people on the topic of assisted dying from Doctors to Priests, terminally ill patients and ethicists. Expect to learn why Right To Die Laws are so complex, problematic and app...

Sven Nyholm is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy and Ethics at Utrecht University. Robots are all around us. They perform actions, make decisions, collaborate with humans, be our friends, perhaps fall in love, and potentially harm us. What does this mean for our relationship to them and with them? Expect to learn why robots might need to have rights, whether it's ethical for robots to be sex sl...

Dr Zach Bush MD is a physician and educator specialising in internal medicine, endocrinology and hospice care. The last 12 months have been a challenge. Everyone has come up against difficulties and can't wait to get back to some sense of normality, but by aiming for normal, are we missing out on an opportunity to become something better? Expect to learn how to deal with a loss of meaning and iden...

Aaron and Jocelyn Freeman are relationship coaches and authors. Success in relationships can be as much to do with dealing with disagreements as finding common ground, so arguing well might actually be an important skill we need to develop. Expect to learn what an argument hangover is, how you can make a disagreement with your partner better before it's even begun, how you can turn conflict into a...

Hamilton Morris is a journalist, documentary producer and a chemist. Hamilton's Pharmacopeia is one of the most interesting documentaries around chemistry, psychoactive drugs, psychedelic culture and traditional uses for plant medicine ever. Sadly Season 3 is the last one, but Hamilton joins me today to talk about his interest in consciousness, why chemistry hasn't captured culture like other scie...

Andrew Doyle is Titania McGrath, a comedian and a writer. Free speech is one of the core tenants of a modern liberal society, and yet we are seeing restrictions being placed on it across the West. In the UK Hate Speech Laws have been introduced and even America is looking at amending the amendment. Expect to learn what Andrew thinks about Donald Trump being removed from Twitter, whether cancel cul...

Dylan Werner is a yoga teacher and an author. Breathing is one of the few ways we can directly interact with how our physiology is operating, and yet no one ever taught us how to do it. Dylan Werner is one of the world's best known yoga teachers and today he gives us a breakdown of not only how the breath can impact our mood and performance but also explains the biology of how our breathing works,...

Jonny & Yusef from Propane Fitness join me for another Life Hacks episode. Sit back & enjoy as we run through our favourite tools, apps, websites, strategies & resources for a productive and efficient life. Expect to learn why I brought a potato to a podcast, my biggest productivity tip for 2021, how Jonny is generating ideas in the shower, Yusef's favourite journalling app, how to ensure you neve...

Carl Benjamin is the YouTuber formerly known as Sargon Of Akkad, a political commentator and host of The Lotus Eaters Podcast. It feels like a decade of history has happened already in 2021, so I invited Carl on to try and make sense of the madness. Expect to learn Carl's opinion on Steven Crowder suing Facebook, what a future with WallStreetBets in will look like, whether there is a common thread...

Jonny joins me (without Yusef) to discuss the wild west of creating money on the internet. Given the living hell that real businesses have been through with Covid, many budding entrepreneurs are trying to get some of that sweet, sweet internet money. Expect to learn, the biggest tips Jonny has learned over 10 years of working on the internet, the fundamentals of creating an online business, why tr...

W Keith Campbell is Professor of Psychology at the University of Georgia's Franklin College and an author. Expect to learn what The Dark Triad is, how narcissists and psychopaths are linked, what social media's influence has been on narcissism, why you might want to increase narcissistic tendencies and much more... Sponsors: Get 10% off all LipoLife & Jigsaw Health products at https://naturesfix.c...

Michael Malice is an author, political commentator & podcaster. The first few weeks of 2021 have been madness. Michael joins me today to connect the dots of chaos and give us an insight into why the world is slowly turning upside down. Expect to learn what a modern anarchist's perspective is on politics, what Michael thinks about the WallStreetBets and Gamespot debacle, what his predictions for a...

Brian Muraresku is a lawyer and an author. The Mysteries of the ancient world are just getting stranger and stranger. Did Plato, Marcus Aurelius and thousands more attend a secret psychedelic ceremony which formed the basis for the Christian Sacrament? Expect to learn why an annual parade finished with a secret ceremony in ancient Greece, why the Christians may have wanted to keep this secret, wha...

Andy Ngo is a journalist and an author. Andy has been on the front lines to observe some of the most radical, intense rioting in America, including the barricading of cities downtown, shootings, calls to defund the police and attacks on federal buildings. Expect to learn what it was like going undercover with Antifa in Seattle's CHAZ, how it feels to live in Portland where Antifa are most prevalen...

Donald Robertson is a Psychotherapist and an author. People are getting tattoos of Marcus Aurelius, copies of his Meditations sold out at the beginning of the pandemic and yet he was just some bloke two thousand years ago. What made him so special and what is there to learn from his life? Expect to learn how stoicism and cognitive behavioural therapy are intrinsically linked, why an existential cr...

John Sweeney is an investigative journalist and a writer. There is a fascinating and incredibly dangerous poker game going on in Russia at the moment. The establishment versus the newcomer. Expect to learn why Navalny is galvanising such support, how he survived poisoning with novichok, how he convinced one of his own assassins to admit to trying to kill him and why he once nearly became a pirate....

Philip Goff is a Professor of Philosophy at Durham University and an author. Consciousness is the most evident of all phenomenons. It's the one thing we can actually be sure of, and yet we have a very limited understanding of what it is and why it's here. Expect to learn the main philosophical positions on consciousness, why Philip thinks the old proposals are insufficient to explain our awareness...

Dr Rangan Chatterjee is a British physician, author, television presenter and podcaster. How can we create the life where we don't just look fulfilled but genuinely are fulfilled? What does it mean to truly be successful? What use is fame if you don't like the person you see in the mirror? Expect to learn Rangan's most important daily routines, his biggest insights about personal development over...