The Radical Brilliance Podcast

The book’s title refers to the ultimate ambition Harari sees embedded in these trajectories: the transformation of Homo sapiens into something more than human — godlike beings who have conquered death, engineered bliss, and taken conscious control of their own evolution. This is not presented as inevitable or even desirable, but as the logical endpoint of current trajectories if they continu...

Today’s episode of the Radical Brilliance podcast is with Dr. Vlatko Vedral, professor of quantum technology at Oxford University. I hope that it will blow your mind as much as it did mine. The more that I explore the cutting edge of quantum physics, the more new insight I have about what is happening in our world. We all get locked in the echo chambers of mutually exclusive narratives of me...

So often when we listen to conversations with “experts,” they are people who have written the books, mapped out the landscape, and created a lifetime of credentials. Often, of course, these experts are baby boomers, now in their 50s 60s or beyond. Eric Hoffer once said, “In times of rapid change, it is the learners who will inherit the earth, while the knowers will be well-equipped to deal with a...

The latest episode of the Radical Brilliance podcast is with Joe Mechlinski, the author of “Shift the Work,” and the founder of Shift. His organization has a long track record of supporting organizations, from tens to thousands of employees, to change the work environment. Most of us find ourselves in unprecedented times of uncertainty. Just a few months ago, the economy was booming, u...

Welcome back to the Radical Brilliance Podcast.   This week our guests are Bill Kauth and Zoe Alowan, talking about the power of tribe. Us homo sapiens have always done better when we collaborate. Truth is… we need each other, whether we’re willing to admit it or not. Historically, we all used to live tribally just in order to survive. But, over time, tribal ways were largely abandoned or ac...

“No one really knows why they’re alive until they know what they would die for.” – Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Death plays an essential role in the cycle of creativity. There’s no light without darkness and there’s no life without death. The most beautiful gardens grow from rich and dirty compost. As a society, we regularly try to cheat death and avoid discomfort...

As an expert in personal transformation, I thought I had seen it all. Tried hundreds of modalities, and developed some as well. Read and written countless books, and coached thousands of people on how to be their best. So imagine my surprise when I stepped onto a Fusion dance floor and found myself completely blown away by the deep life lessons being offered to me in such an unassuming form.   Dan...

What conditions enable our highest creative states? What’s the role of skill in creativity? Is the creative impulse emotional or intellectual? Please enjoy this provocative conversation about the what, where, and how of ideas with brilliant mind, Forrest Landry. 4:00 — Conditions that enable creativity 21:06 — Creativity to what end? 35:21 — Creation versus discovery 44:15...

How do the words, “Anything is Possible” make you feel? Maybe you feel relief when you read them. Maybe excitement. Maybe something that previously seemed inaccessible just opened its doors for you. Or maybe you’re a skeptic. “Surely they don’t mean ‘ anything is possible,'” you think. Does it seem ridiculous? Consider this: If you look for proof that an i...

The words “private enterprise” and “social change” haven’t always gone hand in hand. From tobacco companies, to big banks, to the military industrial complex — the examples of harm done in an attempt to make money are numerous. Numerous, but waning. In this week’s episode we will discover how companies with values and a mission actually do better financial...

There are so many good reasons to write a book: Writing can help organize our thoughts or come to new understandings about the material we’re presenting once we go through the process of putting it all on paper; writing can be emotionally gratifying — cathartic and/or joyful; writing can help uplift and preserve diverse perspectives and cultures that deserve representation. If you have...

More or less everyone alive today agrees that this is a very pivotal time, not only in human history, but equally in the history of the earth itself. Never before have we faced so many unresolved problems. Not only is our survival threatened as a species, but so is the survival of many other species we impact, and even the biosphere in which we all live. Equally, this is a time of great promise. T...

Caring about what other people think of us isn’t just societally conditioned, it’s biologically programmed thanks to the way humans have evolved over time. We feel we need to fit in, we need to be accepted, in order to be successful. But arguably the most creative people on our planet have done just the opposite: they come up with original ideas totally independent of what other people...

Are good ideas born among the stars? Do they get transmitted to us through some mysterious satellite of the heavens? Or do good ideas come from within us, from our brain making connections across the billions of data points we actively and passively collect throughout our lives? Is there such thing as an original idea that borrows from previously-shared ideas? Are ideas exclusive to individuals or...

Many entrepreneurs start businesses with a vision on how to improve the quality of life. Pretty soon, the founder of a company discovers that he or she cannot perform every function alone. You need an accountant, customer support, project management, a sales team… and then an executive to manage the whole operation. After a while, the founder of the company discovers that what began as an av...

In chapter two of the book Radical Brilliance, we distinguish between two kinds of thought. “Horizontal thoughts,” with which we are mostly familiar, are simply regurgitations of what we have heard or thought before. Almost everything that passes through the mind during the day is a repetition of something from the past. “Vertical thought,” which is much more unusual, arise...

If you’ve become at all familiar by now with the Brilliance Cycle, you’ll know that true originality and contribution requires the coexistence of four very different phases of activity. 12 to 3 is the spontaneous arising of fresh creative energy out of stillness. 3 to 6 is the realization of intentions into measurable results. 6 to 9 is where we fully integrate and learn from our mista...

Have you ever had an amazing idea that never really went anywhere? Maybe you tried to share your amazing idea with others but they just looked back at you with blank stares. How many brilliant innovations never launch, how many books never get written, how many start-ups fail — just because a strong enough case wasn’t made for them? Just because the creators couldn’t get investor...

Everybody wants more money, more new shiny objects. Everybody needs food and clothing and shelter and relationships. But the one thing most people in Western culture feel they don’t have enough of is time. We often view time as a limited commodity, a little like the money in your bank account. If you have $300, spend $100, you’ve only got $200 left. What if time itself was actually exp...

Particularly among baby boomers, many people have had relationships to a spiritual teacher, joined a community (or Sangha) and subscribed to a particular philosophical orientation. A relationship with a teacher can be many things. It can lead to dependency on things outside yourself. It can lead to a craving for approval, fitting in, and a fear of missing out. A relationship with a teacher can eas...

There are approximately 2.3 million species on this planet. Only one of them accumulates possessions beyond their immediate needs for survival. Only one species uses the earth’s resources in a non-renewable way, and only one species has developed a complex system initially generated by the bartering of goods and services. This is us. Money is such a complex topic because it doesn’t rea...

Welcome to episode 15 of the Radical Brilliance Podcast. Today’s guest is Robbe Richman: who is going to talk about the X Pill. Robbe was instrumental in creating the culture at Zappos, and went on to found “Zappos Insights” which trains other companies to emulate the same kind of customer oriented culture. Robbe wrote a book about corporate culture called “The Culture Blueprint....

Welcome to episode 14 of the Radical Brilliance Podcast. Imagine this: a group of people gathered together in a large warehouse, or another big open space. Loud music is pumping. Everyone is taken over by the music. The atmosphere is thick and high. Greatest time had by all. Fantastic DJs. Okay, fantasy over. Now tell me: at what time of day did your visualization happen? Most people will say 2 AM...

There are many ways to understand the way that things are rapidly changing at this time.   a lot of these views are very discouraging: global warming, terrorism, financial instability, etc. But there are other lenses that we can look through, where we understand that this is also a time of rapid evolution. Almost as an unavoidable response to the nature of our times, we are forced to shift into a...

Episode 12 of The Radical Brilliance Podcast is with Andrew Horn who is the husband of Miki Agrawal who we heard from in episode four. Andrew is a serial entrepreneur who founded the company Tribute , which allows us to create moving videos to celebrate a birthday, wedding anniversary, or some other important life event. In this podcast, Andrew talks about his new book Social Flow. Have you ever n...