David McRaney's Blog, page 10
June 13, 2022
YANSS 235 – How Terry Crews confronted his insecurities, updated his limiting beliefs, and changed his concept of masculinity (and himself)
Terry Crews, the actor, the athlete, the artist, President Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Camacho, star of Brooklyn Nine-Nine, host of Americaâs Got Talent – that Terry Crews joins us to discuss his new book: Tough.
Today, Crews embodies the opposite of toxic masculinity, which one my peers in publishing said we should start calling probiotic masculinity, but in the interview you will hear how that wasn’t always the case. His new book is a detailed, transparent, confessional about who he used to be and what he did to change his mind, change his self, and change his life.
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OFFICIAL DESCRIPTION OF THE BOOK
From Brooklyn Nine-Nine star Terry Crews, the deeply personal story of his lifelong obsession with strengthâand how, after looking for it in all the wrong places, he finally found it
Terry Crews spent decades cultivating his bodybuilder physique and bravado. On the outside, he seemed invincible: he escaped his abusive father, went pro in the NFL, and broke into the glamorous world of Hollywood. But his fixation with appearing outwardly tough eventually turned into an exhausting performance in which repressing his emotions let them get the better of himâleading him into addiction and threatening the most important relationships in his life.
Now Crews is sharing the raw, never-before-told story of his quest to find the true meaning of toughness. In Tough, he examines arenas of life where he desperately sought controlâmasculinity, shame, sex, experiences with racism, and relationshipsâand recounts the setbacks and victories he faced while uprooting deeply ingrained toxic masculinity and finally confronting his insecurities, painful memories, and limiting beliefs. The result is not only the gripping story of a manâs struggle against himself and how he finally got his mind right, but a bold indictment of the cultural norms and taboos that ask men to be outwardly tough while leaving them inwardly weak.
With Tough, Crewsâs journey of transformation offers a model for anyone who considers themselves a âtough guyâ but feels unfulfilled; anyone struggling with procrastination or self-sabotage; and anyone ready to achieve true, lasting self-mastery

Terry Crews is an actor best known for his action and comedy roles, including Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Everybody Hates Chris, Idiocracy, The Expendables, and Americaâs Got Talent. He is also a former Old Spice model and NFL player.Â
Crews is also known as a vocal public advocate for women’s rights – and he is an activist against sexism, sexual harassment, violence, and abuse. He has shared stories of his own abuse both as a child and as an adult. He even spoke before Congress about it and was named, along with other silence breakers, as a group, a collective Time Person of the Year in 2017 for helping catalyze the Me Too movement.
A self-described âsuper-driven superstar alpha male,â Terry Crews embodies the manly ideal for millions worldwide. But over the last decade he has been a vocal advocate for re-imagining the concept of manhood and masculine norms.
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May 29, 2022
YANSS 234 – How to create better online environments in which arguing and deliberation is more likely to change people’s minds
Deliberation. Debate. Conversation. Though it can feel like thatâs what we are doing online as we trade arguments back and forth, most of the places where we currently gather make it much easier to produce arguments in isolation rather than evaluate them together in groups. The latest research suggests we will need much more of the latter if we hope to create a new, modern, functioning marketplace of ideas. In this episode, psychologist Tom Stafford takes us through his research into how to do just that.
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Our guest in this episode is psychologist Tom Stafford whose latest research takes lessons learned from the Wason Selection Task, a problem 90 percent of people get wrong in isolation but that most people get right when allowed to discuss their reasoning in groups, and applies them to virtual conversation spaces with fascinating results.

Tom Stafford studies learning and decision making at the University of Sheffield. “Much of my research looks at risk and bias, and their management, in decision making. I am also interested in skill learning, using measures of behaviour informed by work done in computational theory, robotics and neuroscience. More recently a strand of my research looks at complex decisions, and the psychology of reason, argument and persuasion.”
He is the author of Mind Hacks and For Argument’s Sake, and he helps run the blog Mind Hacks. He’s written for BBC Future, The Guardian, Lifehacker, and many other publications.
He also created The Tea Taste Test â explaining why statistics are important to psychology, using a controversy of how to make a cup of tea.
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Research Discussed in the Episode

May 16, 2022
YANSS 233 – A.J. Jacobs explains why the most important rule for solving puzzles also applies to every other problem we face in life: never fall in love with your hypotheses
Did you know there’s a puzzle so difficult the CIA hasn’t been able to solve it, even after decades at hard work? Did you know there’s a puzzle that has a solution, but since it would take longer than the projected lifetime of the universe to solve it, it technically can’t be solved? Did you know medieval monks wrote lascivious riddles whose solutions make the puzzle solver seem like it’s them, not the monks, with the dirty minds?
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Our guest in this episode is A.J. Jacobs, the the four-time New York Times bestselling author of The Year of Living Biblically, Thanks A Thousand, Itâs All Relative, and The Know It All His new book, The Puzzler, is a fun, weird, refreshingly scientific book all about the human brain’s fascination with puzzles. Seriously, thereâs all sorts of explorations in the book about neural pathways, behavioral routines, how we learn, what gets us into loops, and – this is true – a few attempts to solve the puzzle of our very existence.
— OFFICIAL DESCRIPTION OF THE BOOK–
The New York Times bestselling author of The Year of Living Biblically goes on a rollicking journey to understand the enduring power of puzzles: why we love them, what they do to our brains, and how they can improve our world.
What makes puzzlesâjigsaws, mazes, riddles, sudokusâso satisfying? Be it the formation of new cerebral pathways, their close link to insight and humor, or their community-building properties, theyâre among the fundamental elements that make us human. Convinced that puzzles have made him a better person, A. J. Jacobsâfour-time New York Times bestselling author, master of immersion journalism, and nightly crossworderâset out to determine their myriad benefits. And maybe, in the process, solve the puzzle of our very existence. Well, almost.

A.J. Jacobs is an author, journalist, lecturer and human guinea pig. He has written four New York Times bestsellers that combine memoir, science, humor and a dash of self-help.
He is also editor at large at Esquire magazine, a commentator on NPR and a columnist for Mental Floss magazine.
His first book is called The Know-It-All: One Manâs Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World (Simon & Schuster, 2004). The memoir â which spent two months on the New York Times bestseller list â chronicles the 18 months Jacobs spent reading the entire Encyclopedia Britannica in a quest to learn everything in the world. It was praised by Time magazine, Newsweek, Vanity Fair, USAToday, Janet Maslin in the New York Times and AJâs uncle Henry on Amazon.com.
After trying to improve his mind, he turned to his spirit. The Year of Living Biblically: One Manâs Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible (2007) tells of his attempt to follow the hundreds of rules in the Good Book. It spent three months on the NYT bestseller list, and was praised by Publishers Weekly, Kirkus Reviews, The New York Times Book Review, the Los Angeles Times, USA Today and others. It appeared on the cover of the evangelical magazine Relevant, but was also featured in Penthouse. (Jacobs is proud to be a uniter, not a divider).
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May 1, 2022
YANSS 232 – Adam Grant’s advice for becoming better at thinking about your own thinking so you can harness the power of knowing what you don’t know
How to manage procrastination according to Margaret Atwood, how to work around your first-instinct fallacy, the upsides of imposter syndrome, the best way to avoid falling prey to the Dunning-Kruger effect, how to avoid thinking like a preacher, prosecutor, or politician so you can think like a scientist instead â and thatâs just the beginning of the conversation in this episode with psychologist, podcast host, and author Adam Grant.
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In the show, we discuss both his new book â Think Again: The Power of Knowing What you Donât Know â and his TED Original Podcast, WorkLife, in which he interviewed Margaret Atwood, the author of The Handmaidâs Tale, to learn how she deals with the constant allure of social media and streaming videos in a future where giving in to procrastination is easier than it has ever been.
In the show, youâll hear portions of that interview followed by a lengthy interview with Grant about his new book in this all-over-the-place, extensive exploration of how to rethink your own thinking.
— OFFICIAL DESCRIPTION OF THE BOOK–
“Intelligence is usually seen as the ability to think and learn, but in a rapidly changing world, thereâs another set of cognitive skills that might matter more: the ability to rethink and unlearn.
In our daily lives, too many of us favor the comfort of conviction over the discomfort of doubt. We listen to opinions that make us feel good, instead of ideas that make us think hard. We see disagreement as a threat to our egos, rather than an opportunity to learn. We surround ourselves with people who agree with our conclusions, when we should be gravitating toward those who challenge our thought process. The result is that our beliefs get brittle long before our bones. Intelligence is no cure, and it can even be a curse: thereâs evidence that being good at thinking can make us worse at rethinking. The brighter we are, the blinder to our own limitations we can become.
Bringing together research-backed solutions that range from shadow work to reparenting, embodied healing, and other clinical practices, along with empowering personal stories, this book is a hands-on road map for moving forward with purpose, confidence, and the freedom to become who youâre truly meant to be.”

Adam Grant is an organizational psychologist who has been recognized as one of the worldâs 10 most influential management thinkers and was named one of Fortuneâs 40 under 40.
âHe is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of 5 books that have sold millions of copies and been translated into 45 languages: Think Again, Give and Take, Originals, Option B, and Power Moves. His books have been named among the yearâs best by Amazon, Apple, the Financial Times, and the Wall Street Journal. His viral piece on languishing was the most-read New York Times article of 2021 and the most-saved article across all platforms.
Adam hosts WorkLife, a chart-topping TED original podcast. His TED talks on languishing, original thinkers, and givers and takers have been viewed more than 30 million times. He has received a standing ovation at TED and was voted the audienceâs favorite speaker at The Nantucket Project. His speaking and consulting clients include Google, the NBA, Bridgewater, and the Gates Foundation. He writes on work and psychology for the New York Times, has served on the Defense Innovation Board at the Pentagon, has been honored as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum, and has appeared on Billions. He has more than 6 million followers on social media and features new insights in his free monthly newsletter, GRANTED.
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Adam Grant on Twitter
Think Again
LINK TO THE FREE ONLINE EVENT WE CALL THE CONVERSATION LAB

YANSS 231 – Why we often can’t choose what we believe thanks to the fact that certainty is a feeling and not a conclusion
In this episode, we sit down with neurologist Robert Burton, author of On Being Certain, a book that fundamentally changed the way I think about what a belief actually is. Thatâs because the book posits that conclusions are not conscious choices and certainty is not even a thought process. Certainty and similar states of âknowing,â as he puts it, are “sensations that feel like thoughts, but arise out of involuntary brain mechanisms that function independently of reason.”
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On Being Certain: Believing you are right, even when you are wron
g
Amazon â Barnes & Noble â Indiebound â Books-A-Million
FROM THE PUBLISHER:
You recognize when you know something for certain, right? You “know” the sky is blue, or that the traffic light had turned green, or where you were on the morning of September 11, 2001–you know these things, well, because you just do.
In On Being Certain, neurologist Robert Burton shows that feeling certainâfeeling that we know something— is a mental sensation, rather than evidence of fact. An increasing body of evidence suggests that feelings such as certainty stem from primitive areas of the brain and are independent of active, conscious reflection and reasoning. In other words, the feeling of knowing happens to us; we cannot make it happen.
Bringing together cutting-edge neuroscience, experimental data, and fascinating anecdotes, Robert Burton explores the inconsistent and sometimes paradoxical relationship between our thoughts and what we actually know. Provocative and groundbreaking, On Being Certain challenges what we know (or think we know) about the mind, knowledge, and reason.
GO HERE TO LEARN MORE AND BUY THE BOOK AND ENJOY LIFE ITSELF


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April 5, 2022
YANSS 230 – Britt Frank’s advice for escaping life loops, dealing with trauma, and building the psychological momentum required to get yourself unstuck
Feeling stuck? Can’t build momentum to escape all the loops keeping you from moving forward? Our guest in this episode is professor, author, therapist, and speaker Britt Frank, a trauma specialist who treats people with a unique and powerful set of techniques and approaches which, taken together, helps clients to get out of the feeling of being stuck.
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In the show, we nerd out with Britt about how hard it is to be a person, and though this interview is supposed to be about her new book – “The Science of Stuck: Breaking Through Inertia to Find your Path Forward” â at least of half of this interview turned out to be was wide-ranging conversation chasing down many nested tangents about everything from procrastination to somatic markers to trauma to the multitudes of the self and more.
— OFFICIAL DESCRIPTION OF THE BOOK–
A research-based tool kit for moving past whatâs holding you backâin life, in love, and in work.
We all experience stuckness in our lives. We feel stuck in our relationships, career paths, body struggles, addiction issues, and more. Many of us know what we need to do to move forwardâbut find ourselves unable to take the leap to make it happen. And then we blame and shame ourselves, and stay in a loop of self-doubt that goes nowhere.
The good news is youâre not lazy, crazy, or unmotivated. In this empowering and action-oriented guide, youâll discover why we canât think our way forwardâand how to break through whatâs holding us back. Using an eclectic approach and a customizable plan thatâs as direct or as deep as you want, this life-changing guide empowers you to:
⢠break old habits and patterns
⢠gain perspective on pain and trauma from the past
⢠free yourself from the torturous âwhyâ questions
⢠take control of your choices to create the life you want
Bringing together research-backed solutions that range from shadow work to reparenting, embodied healing, and other clinical practices, along with empowering personal stories, this book is a hands-on road map for moving forward with purpose, confidence, and the freedom to become who youâre truly meant to be.

Britt Frank is a therapist, teacher, speaker, and trauma specialist who is committed to dismantling the mental health myths that keep us feeling stuck and sick.
Her work focuses on empowering people to understand the inner mechanisms of their brains and bodies. When we know how things work, the capacity for choice is restored and life can and does change.
Whether sheâs leading a workshop, teaching a class, or working individually with private clients, Brittâs goal is to educate, empower, and equip people to transform even their most persistent and long-standing patterns of thinking and doing.
This is a link to her Instagram.
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YANSS 229 – Jacob Goldstein explores how solving a nested recursion of increasingly specific problems creates the cross-pollination of progress
In this episode, Jacob Goldstein, the longtime host of NPRâs Planet Money, talks about his new podcast, a show all about technology and business called Whatâs Your Problem?
Goldstein spent more than a decade reporting stories that make economic journalism approachable. He’s also the author of the book Money: The True Story of a Made-Up Thing, which the New York Times called âa history of currency full of astonishing tales you might tell a friend in the pub.â
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In his new weekly show, Whatâs Your Problem?, Goldsteinâs curiosity leads him into conversations with top global entrepreneurs and engineers about the cutting-edge problems theyâre trying to solve. Each episode focuses on a new company and innovator and their challenges, from teaching computers to understand humans better to running a niche business where access to consumers hinges on tech company algorithms.
Every week on Whatâs Your Problem, entrepreneurs and engineers talk about the future theyâre trying to build â and the problems they have to solve to get there. For instance, how do you take a drone delivery service youâve built in Rwanda and make it work in North Carolina? How do you convince people to buy a house on the Internet? How do you sell thousands of dog ramps to weiner dogs all across America when a pandemic breaks the global supply chain?

Jacob’s interest in technology and the changing nature of work has led him to stories on UPS, the Luddites, and the history of light. His aversion to paying retail has led him to stories on Costco, Spirit Airlines, and index funds.
Before discovering podcasts, Jacob worked as a staff writer at the Wall Street Journal, the Miami Herald, and the Bozeman Daily Chronicle. He has done stories for the New York Times Magazine, This American Life, Morning Edition and All Things Considered. He has a bachelor’s degree in English from Stanford and a master’s in journalism from Columbia.
He lives, perhaps inevitably, in Brooklyn with his wife and two daughters.
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March 19, 2022
YANSS 228 – Dan Pink on how to harness the power of regret and why the motto of “no regrets” is unsupported by psychology, neuroscience, and when you get down to it, history
Our guest in this episode is Daniel Pink, the five-time NYT Bestselling author of When and To Sell is Human and Drive and A Whole New Mind â and the host of a podcast called The Pinkcast â and he joins us to discuss his latest book, The Power of Regret: How Looking Backward Moves Us Forward, an exploration of the benefits of regret and how to harness them.
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OFFICIAL DESCRIPTION OF THE BOOK
From the #1 New York Timesâbestselling author of When and A Whole New Mind, a paradigm-altering book about the transformative power of our most misunderstood emotion: regret.
âNo regrets.â Youâve heard people proclaim it as a philosophy of life. Thatâs nonsense, even dangerous, says Daniel H. Pink in his latest bold and inspiring work. Everybody has regrets. Theyâre a fundamental part of our lives. And if we reckon with them in fresh and imaginative ways, we can enlist our regrets to make smarter decisions, perform better at work and school, and deepen our sense of meaning and purpose.
In The Power of Regret, Pink draws on research in psychology, neuroscience, economics, and biology to challenge widely-held assumptions about emotions and behavior. Using the largest sampling of American attitudes about regret ever conducted as well as his own World Regret Surveyâwhich has collected regrets from more than 16,000 people in 105 countriesâhe identifies the four core regrets that most people have. These four regrets, Pink argues, operate as a âphotographic negativeâ of the good life. By understanding what people regret the most, we can understand what they value the most. And by following the simple, science-based, three-step process that he sets out, we can transform our regrets in a positive force for working smarter and living better.
With Pinkâs signature blend of big ideas and practical takeaways, captivating stories and crisp humor, The Power of Regret offers an urgent and indispensable guide for a life well lived.

Aside from writing five NYT bestsellers, pink was also host and co-executive producer of âCrowd Control,â a television series about human behavior on the National Geographic Channel that aired in more than 100 countries. And he hosts a popular MasterClass on sales and persuasion. He has appeared frequently on NPR, PBS, ABC, CNN, and other TV and radio networks in the US and abroad.
Before venturing out on his own 20 years ago, Dan worked in several positions in politics and government, including serving from 1995 to 1997 as chief speechwriter to Vice President Al Gore.
He received a BA from Northwestern University, where he was a Truman Scholar and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, and a JD from Yale Law School. He has also received honorary doctorates from Georgetown University, the Pratt Institute, the Ringling College of Art and Design, the University of Indianapolis, and Westfield State University.
Pink and his wife live in Washington, DC. They are the parents of two recent college graduates and a college freshman.
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March 6, 2022
YANSS 227 – How games can teach us how to see the future coming so we can feel ready for anything
Jane McGonigal’s new book, Imaginable, details how she creates alternate reality games in which people take part in virtual worlds, and, in so doing, gain a sensitively to the cues (and a familiarity with the conditions) that could lead to certain outcomes, making it possible to both prevent those outcomes and create the futures they’d rather live in instead.
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From Publishers Weekly: âFuturist and game designer McGonigal delivers an illuminating look at how imagining the future can help to change oneâs own life while making a difference in the world. ⦠Expertly blending practical advice and big-picture thinking, this is a stimulating guide to preparing for the future. Readers will be inspired to put their imaginations to use.â Get your copy of Imaginable and upgrade your imagination now. And another rave, from Kirkus Review: âA fascinating book about how the future does not have to be an undiscovered countryâ¦. Some of the games she describes are for individuals, and some are for groups; the latter can be useful for team bonding, generating ideas, and, of course, having fun. The author includes a number of scenarios as the basis of gaming and discussion, but many readers will find that making up their own is even more enjoyable and productive. A wealth of interesting ideas combined with practical guidance for new thinking.â

Jane McGonigal, PhD, is a world-renowned designer of alternate reality games â or, games that are designed to improve real lives and solve real problems.Â
She believes game designers are on a humanitarian mission â and her #1 goal in life is to see a game developer win a Nobel Peace Prize.
She is a two-time New York Times bestselling author: Reality is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World and SuperBetter: The Power of Living Gamefully.
Her TED talks on how games can make a better world and the game that can give you 10 extra years of life, are among the all-time most popular TED talks, and have more than 15 million views.
She is best known as the inventor and co-founder of SuperBetter, a game that has helped more than a million players tackle real-life health challenges such as depression, anxiety, chronic pain, and traumatic brain injury. SuperBetterâs effectiveness in treating depression and concussion recovery has been validated in clinical trial and randomized controlled studies, and is used by professional athletes, childrenâs hospitals, substance recovery clinics and campus health centers worldwide. Since 2018, the SuperBetter app has been evaluated independently in multiple peer-reviewed scientific articles as the most effective app currently in the app store for treating depression and anxiety, and chronic pain, and for having the best evidence-based design for health behavior change.
LINK TO THE FREE CONVERSATION LAB WORKSHOP
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February 21, 2022
YANSS 226 – The psychology behind the world’s greatest cons, from hacking Press Your Luck to stage hypnosis to Operation Mincemeat
In this episode, we sit down with famed stage magician, infamous instructor of the school of scams, Brian Brushwood, whose new podcast explores the world’s greatest con artists and con jobs from World War II to modern game shows.
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“Cons don’t fool us because we’re stupid, they fool us because we’re human.”
In this episode, we sit down with Brushwood, a famed stage magician and infamous instructor of the school of scams whose new podcast explores the world’s greatest con artists and con jobs from World War II to modern game shows.
THE WORLD’S GREATEST CON WEBSITE
We cover everything in this episode from why you can’t con an honest person to the power of shame and fame to folk psychology to how the British conned Hitler using one of the oldest tricks in the book to how one man broke the code for Press Your Luck earning him the most money ever awarded in a single day on any program in the history of game shows.
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