The Decision-Making Studio Podcast

Today's episode has a bit of everything. My guest is Benj Gallander . Benj is one of Canada's most successful contrarian investors. Benj started investing in the 1970s and in 1995 with his friend Ben Stadelmann, he co-founded Contra The Herd , an investment newsletter that has achieved an astonishing annualised return of 19.6%. Benj is the author of three best-selling books, including The Contrari...

Today, we look at how and why some ideas take off and others don't – in other words, how and why things scale. I am delighted to bring to you my conversation with John List . John has been described as a 'master economist' and a 'revolutionary experimenter'. He is certainly a pioneer in combining economic theory with field experiments. John is currently the Chief Economist at Walmart and has held...

I've been wanting to have an episode in which we take a 'big picture' look at Russia's invasion of Ukraine. However, there is so much analysis out there about the conflict that I wasn't sure if I could bring on the right guest who could be highly credible and offer a unique perspective, preferably steeped in a wider historical context. This is why I am so delighted to bring to you my conversation...

What happens when your ability to make decisions gets clouded – and driven – by addiction? Why does 'letting go' make sense in these circumstances? What does it feel like when doing the right thing for your health seems somehow risky and frightening? And what in the world does running have to do with all of this? Making his second appearance on the podcast is my good friend Robert Earl Stewart. Ba...

Recent events – at the time of writing, Russia's unlawful invasion of Ukraine – reinforce that uncertainty is an inherent human condition. Our guest on this episode offers an approach to this reality that is useful. Paula Reid is an adventurer, and more precisely, an adventure psychologist. She has completed a number of epic things like skiing to the South Pole, sailing around the world, and paddl...

Today, we look at organisations and the people within them. I want you to meet our guest, Minal Bopaiah . Minal is the founder of Brevity and Wit , a strategy and design firm dedicated to designing a more equitable world. She is also the author of a great book Equity – How to Design Organisations Where Everyone Can Thrive. Minal is based in the USA but her expertise and experience in combining hum...

Today, we talk about the science of fear. Fear is a theme that unsurprisingly comes up a lot on this podcast, as it is so closely associated with risk and uncertainty. We get to discuss fear in a great way with our guest Eva Holland , author of the book Nerve – A Personal Journey Through the Science of Fear . Eva is a freelance writer based in Whitehorse in the Yukon territory of Northern Canada....

One of the ways in which to manage uncertainty is by creating routines and rituals that drive a degree of certainty in our lives. In previous episodes, we've talked about decision-making and decision quality – that we cannot control outcomes but we can control the quality of our decisions. That requires focus. And focus isn't easy in this day and age of seemingly infinite distraction.   With that,...

This is our annual "best of" episode, featuring some memorable clips from our 2021 podcasts. I use the term "best of" loosely because I recognise that all listeners get something a bit different out of each guest and episode. We feature clips from the following (in the order they appear in the "Best of" 2021): Ep. 154: Jeff Harry – Why and How to Rediscover Play Ep. 161: Lauren Yee – How to Cultiv...

This episode is all about how to take something that is important but frankly, considered to be less-than-exciting, and making that thing interesting and relevant. Anything that involves following rules is often like this – and if you do compliance or legal work, you will have come across this. And even if you don't, chances are that you have faced this dilemma at some point. When faced with this...

This is the second of our two consecutive episodes about cryptocurrencies, blockchain, and digital finance. You don't need to have listened to the first of these with Ethan Lou in order to get out a lot of this one – at the same time, we do recommend you listen to it. In it, we covered the 'wild west' of the cryptocurrency world. Today, we continue to talk about the risks and opportunities in this...

The next two episodes will be focused on cryptocurrencies and we will be giving this the full "All Things Risk" treatment. If you look at many of the resources available to try and understand this stuff, you will inevitably be driven to the areas of computer science, finance, economics and in some cases, philosophy. Bitcoin has even been described as a libertarian nirvana and many cryptocurrencies...

What can we learn about living from the prospect (indeed the certainty) of dying? Meet David Richman . David is an author, speaker, trainer, and endurance athlete. For the purposes of this conversation, he is the author of Cycle of Lives , a book that tells 15 different people's stories around the emotional chaos of cancer. David lost his own sister to cancer, which, as will hear, led to his ventu...

Today, we take a dive into some lessons from the political and security risk business. My guest is Richard Fenning . Now and executive coach, Richard was the CEO of Control Risks for 14 years, one of the world's foremost consulting firms in this space. As you might imagine, being the CEO for a firm like this is incredibly interesting. After all, Control Risks helps clients deal with things like ki...

Today we talk about the work in a post-pandemic world. I welcome back to the show Dr. Gleb Tsipursky . Gleb is a best-selling author, the CEO and founder of Disaster Avoidance Experts and an expert on cognitive biases and decision-making. He joins the podcast to discuss his latest book Returning to the Office and Leading Hybrid and Remote Teams . We discuss the mistakes that the likes of Facebook,...

To tee up this conversation, I want you to think about fear, or more specifically "fearlessness". I'm going to posit that this is a concept that makes little to no sense, at least when presented as a positive trait. It isn't wise to be around anyone who purports to be "fearless". Fear is a natural human emotion. Courage and bravery are impossible without it, and great risk management needs to ackn...

This episode comes at a very interesting time as parts of the world start to open up. A feature of many of our "normal" lives is live events – sport, theatre, live entertainment. We put this episode live one week before the Tokyo Olympics and a week after the European and South American football championships. Live events are reflections of our societies. With that, meet our guest, Steve Adelman ....

If you've listened to our show for any length of time, you will know that we look at risk and uncertainty in unconventional ways. We rarely talk about risk methodology nor do we use lots of jargon. We talk to people from all walks of life because uncertainty is everywhere. We can't escape it, so we better understand it. We want to make risk and uncertainty accessible because they are fundamental t...

On previous episodes of the podcast, we've discussed behavioural science when it comes to decision-making, we've talked about psychology and psychological frameworks – or mindset – when it comes to uncertainty and risk. However, we have never covered hypnosis. So, when I got the opportunity to have Jason Linett on the show, I naturally jumped at the chance. Jason is a Certified Professional Hypnot...

Today, we talk about creativity, joy and passion – and how a sense of values can serve as an anchor during uncertain times. My guest is Jen Ables . Jen is someone who has worn many hats in her life. One of her first hats was as an insurance underwriter – so we start there, but it gets much more interesting! We go on a trip in this conversation with Jen that includes the difference between success...

Today we meet Nick Bradley . Nick is a world-renowned business growth and scale-up specialist. He hosts his own podcast, the popular Scale Up Your Business podcast and is the co-founder of The Fielding Group , a growth accelerator that helps companies improve their business performance. Nick has an interesting background in that he worked for what some might call the dark side of business, private...

As human beings, there are many ways in which we tend not to make great decisions, particularly when risk is involved. So, what does great decision-making under uncertainty look like? This episode is jam-packed with plenty of insight, useful techniques and fascinating research. Making her second appearance on the All Things Risk podcast is Annie Duke . Annie is a former World Series of Poker champ...

Today, we welcome Rory Douglas to the show. Rory is a financial educator, a high-performance coach, author and the CEO of Aqua Financial Centre .  As you will hear, Rory spent a lot of time working with clients in the music industry and those with a significant amount of material wealth. So, we get into the world of wealth management and what wealth actually means. Beyond this, this is a conversat...

Today, we welcome fellow podcaster Steve LeClair to the show. Steve is an acclaimed wealth management professional in the USA. Beyond that, Steve is a bit of a kindred spirit in many ways because last year, he started a podcast called " Embracing Uncertainty " in which Steve interviews successful entrepreneurs about how they manage uncertainty. Obviously, given the past year, there are plenty of l...

How often do you play? How often do you allow yourself to be silly, to do something just because it's fun, with no particular objective in mind? As you will hear, most adults don't play enough, something that may be an even bigger problem during this pandemic. "Play" is another way of saying "embrace uncertainty". Remember when "uncertainty" wasn't referred to as negatively as it currently is? We...