The Art of Manliness

Attend the graduation of a college senior, and the commencement speech is likely to include a few themes: Do something big. Make a name for yourself. Change the world. My guest is not a fan of this advice, and says that rather than focusing on solving large-scale problems, we ought to concentrate on making things better in our own backyards. Brandon Warmke is a professor of philosophy and the co-a...

Forty years ago, now retired professor of sociology Daniel Chambliss performed a field study in which he observed an elite swim team to figure out what it was that led to excellence in any endeavor. As Chambliss shared in a paper entitled “The Mundanity of Excellence,” the secret he discovered is that there really is no secret, and that success is more ordinary than mystical. As mundane as the fac...

When Sam Rosenberg was 20 years old and working as a bouncer in a bar, a disgruntled patron pointed a gun directly at his chest and told him: “Now I’m going to kill you.” Sam survived the incident but it caused him to question what he thought he knew about self-defense and sent him on a decades-long quest to figure out how people can best protect themselves and others. Today on the show, I talk to...

Reflect on something for a second: when was the last time you had fun? Are you having trouble remembering, and if you think about it, is it actually kind of hard to even describe what fun is, even? Don’t worry, if you feel like fun’s gone missing from your life, and are feeling a little dead inside as a result, Catherine Price and I are here to offer you a fun-tervention. Catherine is the author o...

You're probably familiar with the American mafia, at least through its portrayal in popular culture. But how did this infamous secret society come to be? Louis Ferrante traces its origins in the first volume of his slated trilogy on the subject, entitled Borgata: Rise of Empire: A History of the American Mafia . While there's been plenty written on the mafia, Ferrante, who was incarcerated for bei...

Brian Grazer is a Hollywood producer whose films and television shows have been nominated for 43 Academy Awards and 217 Emmys and grossed $15 billion worldwide. He's produced everything from my favorite TV show of all time, Friday Night Lights , to critically-acclaimed and Oscar-winning films like Apollo 13 and A Beautiful Mind . Grazer credits much of his success to his commitment to a practice h...

The social theorist Charles Taylor says that part of what characterizes a secular age is that there are multiple competing options for what constitutes the good life. The sociologist Hartmut Rosa argues that modern citizens most often locate that good in optionality, speed, and reach, which creates a phenomenon he calls “social acceleration.” Professor of theology Andrew Root explores the ideas of...

Do you have a goal to lose weight? If so, you're probably thinking about how you need to exercise more. And that can certainly help. But what about the 23 hours a day you're not at the gym? How much you move during those hours — from walking to the mailbox to fidgeting at your desk — can be just as important in winning the battle of the bulge. Here to explain the importance of what's called non-ex...

When we think about getting more done, we tend to think about working harder, exerting more willpower, and buckling down; we tend to think of doing things that are unpleasant, but that we deem worth it, for the productivity boost they offer. But what if the key to greater productivity ran the other way round, and the easier and more enjoyable you made your work, the more of it you’d get done? That...

Note: This is a rebroadcast. When it comes to losing weight, you can find plenty of complicated programs that involve long, intense workouts and strict calorie-counting diet plans. But my guest today takes an approach to fat loss that’s awesomely simple, and even more effective because of that fact. His name is Dan John and he’s a strength coach, a competitive thrower and weightlifter, and the aut...

Note: This is a rebroadcast. You want to declutter. You want to downsize. You want to live more simply. So what’s been holding you back from getting closer to those ideals? My guest today sorts through both the psychological and practical roadblocks that can get in the way of living more minimally, and more in the present. His name is Matt Paxton, and he’s a downsizing and decluttering expert, a f...

The Battle of the Bulge commenced on the morning of December 16, 1944. The Allies were ill-prepared for this last, desperate offensive from the Germans, and the campaign might have succeeded if a few things hadn’t gotten in their way, including a single, green, 18-man platoon who refused to give up their ground to the Nazis. Alex Kershaw shares the story of these men in his book, The Longest Winte...

Watching a holiday movie is a great way to get into the spirit of the season and has become an annual tradition for many families. But what exactly makes a Christmas movie, a Christmas movie, what are some of the best ones ever made, and what makes these gems so classic? Here to answer these questions and take us on a tour of the highlights of the holiday movie canon is Jeremy Arnold, a film histo...

Virtue ethics is an approach to life, a framework for developing character and making moral decisions. To learn about virtue ethics, you could read a philosophical treatise by Aristotle. Or, you could read a fictional novel by J.R.R Tolkien. As my guest, Christopher Snyder, observes, the ideals of virtue ethics are well illustrated in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, being vividly embodied in...

After forty years working as a carpenter, and not just any carpenter, but one who is often considered the best in New York and who executes some of the country's most elaborate, expensive, and challenging projects, Mark Ellison has filled hundreds of notebooks with drawings of his plans. He's also made plenty of observations about the nature of work, craft, and doing a good job at whatever you pur...

Of all the emotions, there's one that people are arguably the most reluctant to talk about and admit to feeling. Envy. Not only is there very little social discussion of envy, but there's also been very little academic scholarship on the topic. As a result, few people really understand this emotion — what it is, why they feel it, and what it means in their life. Today we'll reveal the fascinating...

Why are so many social, business, and classroom interactions so dang dull? This state of affairs isn't only a bummer for those on the receiving end of these underwhelming experiences, but those offering them, too. It means that people are failing to connect with others, teachers are failing to impart knowledge, and salespeople are failing to make sales. Because when you don't engage people, you do...

Anxiety is typically thought of as a disease or a disorder. My guest has a very different way of looking at it, and says that rather than being a burden, anxiety can actually become a benefit, and even a strength. Dr. David Rosmarin is an associate professor at Harvard Medical School, the founder of the Center for Anxiety, and the author of Thriving with Anxiety: 9 Tools to Make Your Anxiety Work...

There are a lot of popular ideas out there around marriage, family, and culture, like, for example, that living together before marriage decreases your chances of divorce, people are having fewer children because children are expensive to raise, and society is becoming more secular because people leave religion in adulthood. Are these ideas actually born out by the data? Today we put that question...

Note: This is a rebroadcast. Charisma can make everything smoother, easier, and more exciting in life. It’s a quality that makes people want to listen to you, to adopt your ideas, to be with you. While what creates charisma can seem like a mystery, my guest today, communications expert Vanessa Van Edwards, says it comes down to possessing an optimal balance of two qualities: warmth and competence....

A focus on gratitude is typical this time of year. But more often than not, the cognitive or behavioral nods we give gratitude around Thanksgiving can feel a little limp, rote, and unedifying. If you feel like this American holiday has been lacking in meaning, maybe what you need is to infuse it with a Japanese practice. The Naikan method of self-reflection grew out of Buddhist spirituality and ha...

For the last 15 years, William Vanderbloemen has run an executive search firm that helps non-profit organizations find leaders. Over the course of conducting tens of thousands of interviews with top-tier candidates, he's tracked and recorded what qualities the best leaders — the people he calls "unicorns" — possess that set them apart from everyone else in the field. William shares what he's learn...

When we think of Western philosophers who pondered questions about the good life, we typically think of the classical era of Greece and the likes of Plato, Socrates, and Aristotle. But my guest would say that the poets and philosophers who came out of the preceding period, Greece's Iron Age, also have something to say about the nature of existence. Adam Nicolson is the author of How to Be: Life Le...

To figure out what will happen in the future, we typically make guesswork predictions and look to particular periods in the past that seem like potential parallels. My guest says that to figure out what will happen next, and how best to navigate that coming landscape, the best things to consider are those that have been true in every time, and will be true until the end of it. Morgan Housel is a v...

Nietzsche's maxim, "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger," isn't just a sound philosophical principle. It's also a certifiable physiological phenomenon; toxins and stressors that could be deadly in large doses, actually improve health and resilience in smaller, intermittent ones. The ironic thing, my guest points out, is that it's the fact that we're not getting enough of this sublethal stress...