Slo Mo: A Podcast with Mo Gawdat

This is Part 2 of my mind-blowing conversation with the brilliant Dr. Donald Hoffman. Donald is a full professor of cognitive science at the University of California, the author of The Case Against Reality and Visual Intelligence, and the co-author of Observer Mechanics. Within his body of work, Donald studies how our visual perception, guided by millions of years of natural selection, generates e...

Today’s guest is the brilliant Dr. Donald Hoffman. Donald is a full professor of cognitive science at the University of California, the author of The Case Against Reality and Visual Intelligence, and the co-author of Observer Mechanics. Within his body of work, Donald studies how our visual perception, guided by millions of years of natural selection, generates every aspect of our so-called realit...

This is Part 2 of my talk with the embodiment of hard-won calm, Alice Law. Alice is a Stress Management and Holistic Performance Coach; Energy and Intuitive Mindfulness Practitioner; speaker; and host of the Lawali Life Podcast. She teaches individuals, overwhelmed executives, entrepreneurs, and corporations how to strip away stress and guide them back to balance so they can feel calm, focused, an...

Today's guest is perhaps the calmest person I know : my dear friend, Alice Law. That calmness has been hard-won. Alice is a Stress Management and Holistic Performance Coach; Energy and Intuitive Mindfulness Practitioner; speaker; and host of the Lawali Life Podcast. She teaches individuals, overwhelmed executives, entrepreneurs, and corporations how to strip away stress and guide them back to bala...

Today’s guest is the wonderful Ajahn Brahm, a Theravada Buddhist monk and a brilliant teacher. In fact, Ajahn is the first guest my producer insisted on meeting and introducing to his girlfriend, too. Ajahn Brahm grew up in London and earned a degree in Theoretical Physics from Cambridge University. Disillusioned with the world of academia, he became a monk in 1974 training in the jungles of Thail...

Today’s guest is Paula Rizzo. If it wasn't for Paula, you never would have heard of Mo Gawdat or any of my projects. Paula was the producer on one of my first TV interviews, which I totally bombed. Out of kindness, she reached out to me with some incredible tips that entirely shaped my media engagement strategy moving forward. As a result, my subsequent interview with Channel 4 broke records and c...

Today I’m speaking with the wonderful Samantha Clarke, happiness consultant, speaker, podcast host, & author of Love It or Leave It: How to be Happy at Work. As a happiness consultant, Samantha is on a mission to liberate individuals from work they no longer love to find a path to true work happiness. As a faculty lecturer at the School of Life and The Guardian Masterclasses, she facilitates w...

Today I'm honored to speak with my brilliant friend Dr. Fred Luskin, who I met at the World Happiness Summit in Miami in 2019. Fred founded and serves as the Director of the Stanford University Forgiveness Projects, among other academic positions. At Stanford, Fred teaches The Art of Happiness, Meditation, Developing Emotional Intelligence and The Psychology of Storytelling, in addition to giving...

Today’s guest is Dr. James R. Doty, professor of neurosurgery at Stanford University School of Medicine and the founder and director of the Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education of which His Holiness the Dalai Lama is the founding benefactor. James is considered one of the leading experts on the neuroscience of compassion. Having overcome a challenging childhood, he has achieve...

Today’s guest is the brilliant Ruby Wax. For those of you who follow Ruby, you'll know what to expect (and the title of this episode likely won't offend you). For those who haven't been exposed to her work, note that Ruby uses comedy to both communicate, destigmatize, and cope with mental illness. She is hilarious, but also a serious researcher and a renowned force for good. If you're listening to...

Today’s guest is Sofie Sun. Sofie was born in the People's Republic of China in 1986. She came to the Netherlands in 2007 to pursue her degree, and has lived there ever since. After receiving a master’s degree in Dutch Literature, she has gone on and translated more than 100 books from Dutch to Chinese. Sofie founded Build Your Happiness to bring engagement and happiness at work for different orga...

Today's guest is Dr. Robert Biswas-Diener, widely known as the “Indiana Jones of Positive Psychology” because his research has taken him to such far-flung places as Greenland, India, Kenya, and Israel. He is a leading authority on strengths, culture, courage, and happiness and known for his pioneering work in the application of positive psychology to coaching. Robert has authored more than 60 peer...

My guest today is my insane friend, Marcelo Garcia. Marcelo is an entrepreneur, health enthusiast, non-profit founder, and explorer (and tech expert, and a million other things). If you notice any discrepancies in audio quality, please forgive us on this one. Marcelo created a makeshift Zoom setup while solo climbing Mount Blanc after weeks of prolonged fasting in order to take this interview, so...

This is a very special episode with Gelong Thubten, the Buddhist monk, meditation teacher and author. At the age of 21, Thubten gave up the life of an actor and ordained as a Tibetan Buddhist monk at the Kagyu Samye Ling in Scotland - Europe’s oldest and largest Tibetan Buddhist monastery. He has spent over six years in intensive meditation retreats, the longest of which was 4 years, and he has be...

Today's guest is Michaela Boehm. By now, you must know I love talking about relationships almost as much as I love discussing happiness. Michaela has given Slo Mo one of my favorite takes yet on the perpetually interesting and controversial topic of human sexuality and intimacy. (See my interviews with Dr. Robert Glover, Alain de Botton, and Kasia Urbaniak for some other fascinating takes). Michae...

Today's guest is an incredible woman, Dr. Tara Swart. Tara is a neuroscientist, medical doctor, executive advisor, Senior Lecturer at MIT Sloan, and author of best-seller, The Source. Tara is passionate about disseminating simple, pragmatic neuroscience-based messages that change the way people live and work. In her work, Tara reveals the neuroscience that supports The Law of Attraction as an effe...

Happy New Year! What better way to start off 2021 than with a futurist? Ah, but John Sanei is not your typical futurist. His work combines ancient wisdom in its approach to futurism, and I know you'll agree when I say this is one of the most incredible conversations we've had on this podcast so far. I normally prepare a lot before interviews, but I wanted to flow with John because my friend who in...

This is Part 2 of the chat between myself and my own brain, Becky. For those who know me well, you know I call my brain Becky. Becky is a retired control freak, tends to be obsessive, sees the negative in everything and loves to be vocal about it. I decided to free flow a year in review with Becky, focusing on the positive. Thank you to our listeners and guests for an incredible year. There's so m...

Today's guest is Becky. For those who know me well, you know I call my brain Becky. Becky is a retired control freak, tends to be obsessive, sees the negative in everything and loves to be vocal about it. A couple of weeks ago, she asked if she could be my guest on Slo Mo to talk with me about this exceptional year, 2020, in review. I had to oblige, as I've revamped my relationship with her throug...

Dr. Rupy Aujla is a General Practitioner for the UK National Health Service working in Emergency Medicine and completing a masters in Nutritional Medicine. He is the founder of ‘The Doctor’s Kitchen’, which strives to inspire and educate everybody about the beauty of food and medicinal effects of eating well. He is a Sunday Times bestselling author, with two cookbooks published by HarperCollins -...

Helen Russell is a bestselling author, journalist and speaker. Her first book, The Year of Living Danishly, became an international bestseller and has been optioned for television. She is the author of four other critically acclaimed books, translated into 21 languages. Helen also writes for magazines and newspapers globally, including The Times and The Sunday Times, the Telegraph, the Independent...

I'm a huge fan of the work of today's guest, Courtney Carver. Courtney launched her blog Be More with Less in 2010 and is one of the top bloggers in the world on the subject of minimalism. She is the author of Soulful Simplicity and is the creator of the minimalist fashion challenge, Project 333, a new approach to living simply starting with your wardrobe. Project 333 promises that not only can yo...

Today’s guest is the amazing Emma Slade. Emma had a highly-successful international career in finance, becoming a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) and working as a Senior Analyst in London, New York and Hong Kong for HSBC on portfolios of $1bn+.Following a life-changing visit to Jakarta, Indonesia, where she was held hostage at gun point, she discovered in herself a yearning to understand the dee...

Joe De Sena is the founder and CEO of Spartan Race, Inc. De Sena has been an entrepreneur since his pre-teens. From selling fireworks at age 8, to starting a t-shirt business in high school, to building a multimillion-dollar pool business in college, to creating a Wall Street trading firm, De Sena is a living definition of "entrepreneur." De Sena is the New York Times bestselling author of SPARTAN...

Today's guest is my one of my dearest friends, Elizabeth Day. I have been waiting for this conversation for a long time, and it's flattering to know that many others have been as well. I appeared on Elizabeth's podcast earlier this year, and the episode was an absolutely massive hit. All of this is humbling, but the real gem is the bond I forged with this amazing woman. This conversation is an inv...