What You Will Learn

The Obstacle Is The Way - by Ryan Holiday 'The ancient art of turning adversity into advantage'   All of us have obstacles. They come in many shapes and sizes. But whatever we face, we have a choice: will we be blocked by obstacles, or will we advance through them. Holiday, through the lens of stoicism gives us a framework of perception, action and will, to turning our greatest challenges int...

We spoke with Mia Freedman, founder of the Mamamia media empire. In this episode, we speak about:  - Work/Life Balance: is it achievable or just an impossible fantasy?  - Some career advice for getting ahead  - The importance of having a Side Hustle: 'you want to find a gap in the market, but you need to make sure that there's a market in the gap'  - Some of the specific issues women face in the w...

The Black Swan illustrates the severe limitations of our thinking, and the fragility of our knowledge. All it takes is one single observation to invalidate a millennia of confirmation.  Black Swans are hidden from view, because of our array of biasis and irrationalities, such as the narrative fallacy, the ludic fallacy and confirmation bias. Taleb shows us that the unpredictable, high impact...

Brian Wansink is the author of Slim By Design and Mindless Eating, with all the tricks in the tool bag to make you lose weight without conscious effort. In this episode we discuss more tricks to eat less and be healthier.   Check out Brian Wansink's latest project:  http://www.healthierbydesign.org/   Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Mindless Eating - by Brian Wansink 'Why we eat more than we think' Every single one of us largely eats because of what's around us. We overeat not because of hunger, but because of our family and friends, packages and plates, names and numbers, labels and lights, colours and candles, shapes and smells, distractions and distances, cupboards and containers. All we need is a few daily decisions to be...

Rich Dad, Poor Dad - by Robert Kiyosaki 'What the rich teach their kids about money - that the poor and the middle class do not!'   Robert's dad was very highly educated and had a high paying job. His best friend's dad didn't finish high school and wasn't employed by anyone else. Robert had the opportunity to learn from two different perspectives and life experiences and was able to draw his...

The Laws of Human Nature - by Robert Greene   Part 2! This book was so massive, both in terms of numbers of pages but also impact, we had to split it across two episodes.  In part 2, we cover the following chapters: – Chapter 3: See Through People's Masks (The Law of Role-Playing) – Chapter 14: Resist the Downward Pull of the Group (The Law of Conformity) – Chapter 17: Seize the Historic...

The Laws of Human Nature - by Robert Greene   Our new #1 best book we've ever read! This book is all about recognising people's behaviour and understand why they do what they do. By using this book, we hope to firstly acknowledge what is going on, to secondly better understand ourselves, and thirdly to understand other people. It's such a mega book that we had to split this episode into two p...

Neil Pasricha is the author of 'The Happiness Equation' and 'The Book of Awesome'. In our conversation with him, we discuss: The effects of recognising our own impermanence How to find the right job for you (it must provide "the 4 S's") How pain can lead to more happiness than pleasure The power of the number 1,000 The impact books and reading have had on Neil's life Some of Neil's favourite books...

The Happiness Equation - by Neil Pasricha 'Want Nothing + Do Anything = Have Everything'   It's very easy to get stuck into constantly striving for more, growing our business, taking the next step in our career, beginning that next project... but we very rarely actually stop and let ourselves be happy. This good gives some simple, practical advice and different approaches to injecting a littl...

Deep Work - by Cal Newport 'Rules for focused success in a distracted world'   Deep Work is: "Professional activities performed in a state of distraction free concentration that push your cognitive capacities to the limit. These efforts create new value, improve your skill, and are hard to replicate"   Our culture is constantly pushing toward 'shallow work' and most are getting stuc...

Getting To Yes - by Roger Fisher & William Ury 'Negotiation an agreement without giving in'   Whether it's asking for a raise with from boss, trying to find an agreed upon price for your house or discussing what you should do on date night, like it or not, you are a negotiator. We all negotiate every day. Most people negotiate by 'positional bargaining', but Roger and William show us thei...

Jonah Berger is the author of Contagious and Invisible Influence , and is currently working on a new book called ' The Catalyst '.  In our review of his book Contagious, we highlighted the six principles that helped products and ideas and behaviours 'catch on' by making them contagious (spreading from person to person via word of mouth). In this interview, we dive deeper into a few of those p...

Contagious - by Jonah Berger 'Why things catch on'   You'd think that the best product at the most attractive price with the most advertising would be the product that wins, but that's not always the case. Jonah did some digging and found six factors that drive word of mouth and lead products, services and behaviours to go 'viral' (to be spread from person to person via word of mouth): Social...

The Tao Te Ching - by Lao Tzu 'The Book of The Way'   This booked is packed with wisdom from 500BC China. It's been passed on through the ages and applies to all aspects of life. 'Those who know don't talk, those who talk don't know' 'He who stands on tiptoe doesn't stand firm, he who rushes ahead cannot go far' 'Fill your bowl to the brim and it will spill' 'The ancient masters didn't try to...

One surprising thing that all of the billion dollar tech companies have in common (like Google, Facebook and Apple), is the ability to Blitzscale - that is, prioritising speed over efficiency. Chris Yeh and Reid Hoffman just released their brand new book, Blitzscaling .   We interviewed Chris for the book launch and discussed how billion-dollar-companies are built. In order to achieve extraordinar...

21 Lessons for the 21st Century - by Yuval Noah Harari   We created myths to unite our species. We tamed nature to give us power.  We are now redesigning life to fulfill our wildest dreams. But do we know ourselves any more? Or will our inventions make us irrelevant?   21 Lessons  is an exploration of what it means to be human in an age of bewilderment.   How can we protec...

Moonwalking with Einstein - by Josh Foer 'The art and science of remembering everything'   We're using our memories less and less. We've outsourced our memory to technology and devices such as GPS systems, google and online notebooks. When a memory goes missing, such as someones name, it can be frustrating and futile and can come at some social cost. Moonwalking With Einstein  tells Josh...

The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing - by Al Ries & Jack Trout 'Violate them at your own risk!'   Billions of dollars are wasted every year on 'clever' or 'brilliant' marketing campaigns that were doomed to fail from the start, because they violate one of the 'immutable' laws. Ries & Trout argue that there are certain laws of marketing that are 'immutable' - they never change:  - '...

Alex Banayan was lying on the bed in his college dorm room staring at the ceiling wondering what he actually wanted to do with his life. He knew he wanted to do something big, so he tried researching his heroes to see how they got started. But after reading through business books and biographies, he couldn't find the very FIRST thing people did - before they had a name or a reputation or money or...

Poke The Box - by Seth Godin 'When was the last time you did something for the first time?'   Imagine that the world had no middlemen, no publishers, no bosses, no HR folks, no one telling you what you couldn't do. If you lived in that world, what would you do? Go. Do That. Check out Seth's free Poke The Box Workbook here:  http://whatyouwilllearn.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/PoketheBo...

Dr Robert Cialdini is a New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and USA Today Best-Selling author. His first book  Influence was published in 1984 and has sold over 3 MILLION copies, and his latest book  Pre-Suasion , published in 2016, was a New York Times Best Seller.    Dr. Robert Cialdini has spent his entire career researching the science of influence earning him an inte...

 Pre-Suasion - by Robert Cialdini 'A revolutionary way to influence and persuade'   After his 1984 masterpiece 'Influence', Robert Cialdini brings us his second book: Pre-Suasion. Influence was all about the CONTENT of your message, whereas Pre-Suasion shows us that it's also important to manage the CONTEXT. The secret doesn't just lie in the message itself, but in the interactions befor...

“Do not leave your reputation to chance or gossip; it is your life's artwork, and you must craft it, hone it, and display it with the care of an artist.”     This is an absolute bible for socially and politically navigating the world of relationships. In every single interaction, one individual will have more power and more status, and the other will have less. Be that in your work,...

We spoke to Rachel Botsman when she was in town recently. Rachel has written a bunch of awesome books and presented some amazing TED Talks. Her TED Talks have had over 4 MILLIONS views and have subtitles in 29 languages.    Rachel Botsman writes and researches about how technology is transforming trust and what this means for life, work and how we do business.   Rachel is a lecturer at Oxford Univ...