The Art of Charm

Christian Picciolini (@cpicciolini) is an Emmy Award-winning television producer, reformed extremist, co-founder of peace nonprofit Life After Hate, and author of Romantic Violence: Memoirs of an American Skinhead. "Hatred is born of ignorance. Fear is its father, and isolation is its mother." -Christian Picciolini The Cheat Sheet: How the marketing of extremism has evolved to become more palatabl...

Jack Barsky (@DeepCoverBarsky) joins us to discuss his book Deep Undercover: My Secret Life and Tangled Allegiances as a KGB Spy in America. This is part one of a two-part episode; stay tuned for the second installment next Monday! "The only advice I can give young people is the following: 'It always takes longer, and it always costs more.'" -Jack Barsky The Cheat Sheet: What Jack Barsky's childho...

Welcome to Minisode Monday, where we kick off the week with something quick and actionable -- to make you more magnetic and effective -- that you can implement right away. Are there any benefits to suppressing emotions vs. acknowledging them? Here's an exercise to ensure you're doing the right thing. Many thanks to recent guest and How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain author Lisa Fe...

Time for Fan Mail Friday, where we'll be answering your questions and dropping some knowledge and feedback to help you kick the weekend off right. In this episode: As a "nice guy," how do you let go of an ex -- who attempted suicide when your relationship ended -- without feeling heartless? Listener feedback for Nouveau Tech (from FMF 119) about how to respond next time the opportunistic entrepren...

Chase Hughes (@thechasehughes) teaches interrogation and behavior science on a tactical level for the US military, created The Behavioral Table of the Elements for behavior analysis in interrogations, and is the author of The Ellipsis Manual: Analysis and Engineering of Human Behavior. "Instead of trying to figure out what a person's good at, try to figure out what they want to be seen as being go...

Aaron Walker (@VFTCoach) has almost four decades of successful entrepreneurship under his belt; he rejoins us to talk about his new book, View From the Top: Living a Life of Significance. "I'm always looking for a way to make it happen, not excuses why it won't work." -Aaron Walker The Cheat Sheet: Aaron grew up with nothing; discover what significant mindset shifts along the way changed his own r...

Welcome to Minisode Monday, where we kick off the week with something quick and actionable -- to make you more magnetic and effective -- that you can implement right away. Vanessa Van Edwards (check out our full episode with her here) rejoins us to talk about value languages -- the motivations we have for entering into relationships with each other. Let's get to it! The Cheat Sheet: Ever wondered...

Time for Fan Mail Friday, where we'll be answering your questions and dropping some knowledge and feedback to help you kick the weekend off right. Let's cut to it! In this episode: Is the clock ticking on your window for big adventures? Consider mini-retirements. How do you tell your conservative religious family that maybe you've decided to go a different way -- especially when being disowned is...

Timothy Snyder (@TimothyDSnyder) is the Housum Professor of History at Yale University and author of Black Earth: The Holocaust as History and Warning and On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century. "Americans are no wiser than the Europeans who saw democracy yield to fascism, Nazism, and communism. Our one advantage is that we might learn from their experience." -Timothy Snyder The Che...

Welcome to Minisode Monday, where we kick off the week with something quick and actionable -- to make you more magnetic and effective -- that you can implement right away. This week, we're taking a little friendship audit to determine if we're hanging out with people by default or if we're actually enriching each other by association. Let's get to it! The Cheat Sheet: Personal development giant Ji...

Time for Fan Mail Friday, where we'll be answering your questions and dropping some knowledge and feedback to help you kick the weekend off right. Let's cut to it! In this episode: How much eye contact is just right? How do you spend meaningful time with friends before going away for a long time? Have you tried the StoryCorps app? (From listener feedback -- not an advertisement!) Is selling insura...

Brian Brushwood (@shwood) has spent the last twenty years performing onstage, on TV, and on the Internet, entertaining and teaching people how to harness the deceptive (and self-deceptive) skills of scientists, spies, criminals, and con artists. "The moment a magician says, 'Now we begin,' you're already screwed!" -Brian Brushwood The Cheat Sheet: Why being interesting isn't a gift -- it's a pract...

David Buss (@ProfDavidBuss) is a professor of psychology at the University of Texas at Austin. He is considered the world's leading scientific expert on strategies of human mating, and his most recent book is -- appropriately enough -- The Evolution of Desire: Strategies of Human Mating. The Cheat Sheet: Why does mating matter? The mating crisis among educated women. How to select a good long-term...

Commander Chris Hadfield (check out our full episode with him here) was the first Canadian to walk in space, but the experience went far from smoothly. In this Minisode Monday, he explains how he went temporarily blind but still managed to finish the task before him -- and what we on Earth might learn from his ordeal. The Cheat Sheet: Humans didn't evolve in zero gravity; you can never overtrain f...

Norm Pattiz (@PodcastOne) is a legendary broadcasting entrepreneur who founded radio syndication company Westwood One in the '70s and the PodcastOne network in 2013. He's a member of the National Radio Hall of Fame and one of the most successful and influential businessmen in Los Angeles. "If you don't know the rules, you can't be limited by them." -Norm Pattiz The Cheat Sheet: Success often depen...

Time for Fan Mail Friday, where we'll be answering your questions and dropping some knowledge and feedback to help you kick the weekend off right. In this episode: Does resolving simulations in your head keep you up in the middle of the night? Now that you're doing well for yourself, is it petty to be reluctant about helping an ex who treated you poorly when you weren't? After moving to a new town...

Adam Braun (@AdamBraun) is the founder of school-building Pencils of Promise and bestselling author of The Promise of a Pencil. He joins us to discuss his new project, MissionU, and how it aims to update higher education for the 21st century. "Credential isn't nearly as important as competency." -Adam Braun The Cheat Sheet: How and why is the education system in the US failing students? Why studen...

Chris Hadfield (@Cmdr_Hadfield) is an engineer, former Royal Canadian Air Force fighter pilot, retired astronaut, the first Canadian to walk in space, and author of An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth and The Darkest Dark. "The big decisions are the easy ones." -Commander Chris Hadfield The Cheat Sheet: The difference between "I want to be" and "I want to turn myself into." Enjoying small victor...

Welcome to Minisode Monday, where we kick off the week with something quick and actionable -- to make you more magnetic and effective -- that you can implement right away. This time around, we show how making a small change in how we treat people we meet promotes a mindset shift in the way we're perceived and the way we perceive ourselves. Let's get to it! The Cheat Sheet: Take the extra effort to...

Time for Fan Mail Friday, where we'll be answering your questions and dropping some knowledge and feedback to help you kick the weekend off right. Let's cut to it! In this episode: How do you overcome the need for external validation in a good relationship that's suffering from the fallout of past bad relationships? What's the best way to prepare for the death of a terminally ill loved one when yo...

Nick Bilton (@nickbilton) is a special correspondent for Vanity Fair, a contributor to CNBC, a former columnist and reporter for The New York Times, and author of Hatching Twitter: A True Story of Money, Power, Friendship, and Betrayal and American Kingpin: The Epic Hunt for the Criminal Mastermind Behind the Silk Road. "I don't believe we have crossed the line. I think we've just moved it." -Ross...

Dean Karnazes (@DeanKarnazes) may be most famous for running fifty marathons in fifty states in fifty days, but he's also a bestselling author who most recently published The Road to Sparta: Reliving the Ancient Battle and Epic Run That Inspired the World's Greatest Footrace. "We're so comfortable, we're miserable." -Dean Karnazes The Cheat Sheet: What drives someone to leave their secure corporat...

Welcome to Minisode Monday, where we kick off the week with something quick and actionable -- to make you more magnetic and effective -- that you can implement right away. This week, we talk about success momentum: small wins that increase confidence and resilience. Let's get to it! The Cheat Sheet: Sometimes we jump out of bed, ready to attack the day. But what do we do on days we wake up without...

Time for Fan Mail Friday, where we'll be answering your questions and dropping some knowledge and feedback to help you kick the weekend off right. Even a life you love isn't going to be free of things you don't like. Does the quest for self-awareness have diminishing returns? Some encouraging words from a listener who gets more out of AoC than a library's worth of self-help books. Are microexpress...

David Eagleman (@davideagleman) is a Stanford neuroscientist, host of Emmy-nominated PBS/BBC series The Brain, and author of Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain and The Brain: The Story of You. The Cheat Sheet: Why our conscious brain should be grateful for its separation from the subconscious brain. What is sensory substitution, and how might it allow the blind to "see," the deaf to "hear,"...