Modern Wisdom

Paul Bloom is an author and a Professor of Psychology at Yale. Why is suffering a cause of pleasure for some people? What do BDSM, being robbed, extreme sports and meditation have in common? How does pleasure work? Why is empathy bad and what is the case for rational compassion? Why do we love people who have died? One of my favourite conversations this year, do not miss this. Extra Stuff: Follow...

Kelly Starrett is a CrossFit trainer, physical therapist, author and speaker. Expect to learn what Kelly thinks about the Game Changers documentary, his new brand The Ready State, what his most important principles are to focus on for fitness & wellbeing and much more. Extra Stuff: Follow Kelly on Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/thereadystate/ Check out The Ready State - https://thereadystat...

Dr Larry Sanger is the ex-founder of Wikipedia. Wikipedia is almost a public utility now, like water or energy. It's one of the most visited sites on the internet and provides millions with information every day. But all might not be as pure as it seems and the utopia of the world's biggest encyclopaedia may have some fundamental flaws. Today we hear from one of the initial members of the project...

Aubrey Marcus is a podcaster, author and CEO. I wanted to find out how Aubrey defines living a good life, and how he structures his world to ensure that he's pointing in the right direction... As you might be able to guess, this episode is jam packed with amazing stuff. Aubrey is someone who contemplates the finer elements of exactly how to make his mind and body a little better every day. Enjoy t...

Sanjay Rawal is an award-winning filmmaker. Today we learn about the longest race on earth which takes place in the middle of New York around a square block in the city - 3100 miles over 52 days. Extra Stuff: 3100: Run & Become Trailer - https://youtu.be/t1e399N_wB0 Follow Sanjay on Twitter - https://twitter.com/MrSanjayR Check out everything I recommend from books to products and help support the...

Jonny & Yusef join me again for another Life Hacks episode as we detail our favourite apps, websites, resources and tools for a productive and efficient life. Expect to learn... How to make your Instagram stories look beautiful, our choice for the best phone case, how to steal coffee from Costa, why flipflops are needed at every back door, the ultimate upgrade for flossing, the best moisturiser on...

Sonny Webster is a weightlifter and online coach. Some days you're feeling it, some days not so much. All of us have good and bad periods to contend with but it's how we respond which ultimately determines the outcome. Sonny is one of the most resilient humans I know and today we get a fantastic insight into how he overcomes setbacks in life, lifting and everything else. Extra Stuff: Follow Sonny...

Alex Hutchinson is a journalist, athlete and author. Eliud Kipchoge recently rocked the world by breaking the previously unthinkable 2 Hour Marathon Record. Today we get to hear a full analysis of his performance from endurance expert and previous Modern Wisdom guest Alex Hutchinson. Expect to learn about the controversy surrounding his new Nike shoes, the course selection, the racing strategy, El...

Brett Jones is the Director of Education at Strong First. For every article suggesting one-per-week heavy lifts there's another advocating daily top end strength work. Today we get to hear the opinion of Brett, a man who has spent most of his life working out how to make people strong. - Extra Stuff: Check out Strong First - https://www.strongfirst.com Check out everything I recommend from books t...

Cristoph is a DJ and producer. Being a world star international DJ playing to thousands of screaming fans, having songs in the #1 spot and touring the world sounds like a dream job for many people. But what does the reality of this lifestyle look like? Today we get an incredibly open, honest and undiluted view of mental health, loneliness and the truth about life behind the decks from one of the f...

Dr Sarah Jones is an immersive storyteller using AR, VR and 360. For the last 50 years or so, storytelling hasn't massively changed its form, but with the advent of increasingly portable devices, the platforms we use are all changing. How will Virtual Reality enable us to tell stories in a new way? Should we be worried about the control that these technologies could have over us? Are sci-fi predic...

Douglas Murray is a journalist, author and an associate editor of The Spectator. What is the price of thinking out loud about the most inflammatory topics of our age? Gay, Women, Race & Trans make up the four chapters of The Madness Of Crowds and today Douglas jumps feet first into all of them. Expect to learn which chapters Douglas could have added to the book but didn’t, how the LGBTQ community...

Peter Frankopan is a Professor of Global History at Oxford University, Director at the Oxford Centre for Byzantine Research and an author. In the west we tend to have a view that our own political, economical and cultural situations are the most important on the planet. We tend to believe that we are principally shaping the direction the world heads in. Today Peter offers an alternative view which...

Graeme Garrard is a Teacher at Cardiff University & Harvard Summer School and an author. Why do we need politics? And who are the individuals that have most shaped the world of political thought? Today we get to find out about some of the most influential thinkers in history from Marx to Plato, Nietzsche to Machiavelli and Plato to Locke. Extra Stuff: Buy How To Think Politically - https://www.ama...

Jonny & Yusef from PropaneFitness.com join me for another Business Principles episode. Today we're talking about one of the questions we're most commonly asked - should you take the plunge into self employment. Being your own boss sounds fantastic, but what's the reality of your income being completely in your own hands? Expect to learn our favourite mental exercise for working out the true salary...

Thomas Johnson is an ethical hacker and social engineer. Hacking is often thought of as a dark art. Dark basements and illegal activities. But there's an entire other world of hackers who are using their skills to subvert security systems both online and offline for good. Expect to learn just how Tom hacks both people and computers to break into secure buildings, how safe your information is onlin...

Nir Eyal is an author, business owner and Teacher at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and Design. What would life be like if we didn't get distracted? What if we always followed through with the things we said we were going to do? That's the purpose of today's discussion. Expect to learn how internal and external triggers can combine to form a breeding ground for poor productivity, and how...

Alex O'Connor aka Cosmic Skeptic is a YouTuber and Student at Oxford University. How many people go vegan due to a philosophical debate? And how many actively try to get the fans of their YouTube Channel to talk them out of it? Alex is one person on that list. Expect to learn the one philosophical question which Alex has trouble justifying, Alex's reasons for going vegan, whether he thinks that a...

Frank Dikotter is a historian and author. The 20th Century was characterised by an attempt on the one hand to build up civil society and have cheques & balances, and on the other hand an attempt to concentrate power into the hand of a single dictator. Expect to learn what the characteristics of a dictator are, why the 20th century created a perfect petri dish for this proliferation, how a dictator...

Sienna Day is a pornstar. Kind of like chicken nuggets, everyone is familiar with porn but few of us understand how it's made. Today we get to find out. Expect to learn how you get started in the porn industry, what it's like on set, how you prep for anal, what is the optimal strategy for elongating your career, how to monetise a feature on Brazzers or FakeTaxi into a decentralised membership site...

Jonny & Yusef join me for a special edition Q&A to celebrate 100 episodes of Modern Wisdom. Expect to learn... everything that the internet wanted to know. Plus enjoy an exclusive clip from the Pilot Episode of Modern Wisdom back in 2017. Thank you to everyone who tunes in, your continued support is hugely appreciated. Big love x Extra Stuff: Check out everything I recommend from books to products...

Chris Sparks is a productivity coach, founder of The Forcing Function and a Former Top 20 Worldwide Online Poker Player. What happens when a world famous productivity coach compiles the most effective tasks he's discovered for developing personal productivity into an E-Book? Well today we're going to go through the best of what he's uncovered. Expect to learn how to set more effective goals and st...

Mike Winnet is an entrepreneur and a professional Get Rich Quick ad clicker. The people who made the real money in the gold rush weren't digging for gold, they sold shovels. Fast forward to 2019 and the new gold rush is on to discover the magic formula for passive income. Enter the contrepreneurs. Mike has spent half a million pounds on putting the claims of internet marketers to the test in a doc...

Andrew Doyle is a writer and comedian. Titania McGrath is now fully established as the Queen of the internet Woke Movement and today we get to meet the man behind one of Twitter's most hilarious and controversial accounts, Andrew Doyle. Expect to learn what it's like running Titania's Twitter account, what Andrew thinks of Little Mix's opinions on Syria, why Donald Trump is potentially the funnies...

Zuby is a rapper, author and podcaster. Zuby exploded onto the internet earlier this year and after a number of months being mentioned on the biggest news outlets and podcasts in the world it's time to get him on Modern Wisdom. Today we talk all things woke from cancel culture to the ethics of encouraging trans children, Zuby's views on religious thinking among atheists and his advice for how to o...