Unlock the secrets to a fulfilling life with Bob Waldinger and Marc Shulz, the heads of Harvard's 80-Year Study of Adult Development, the longest, most in-depth, longitudinal study of human life and thriving ever done. Discover what a good life is, and how we can all have a better one. Even small choices, it turns out, can shape our lives and help us thrive. Learn the simple ingredients that make a good life, the U-shaped curve of happiness and how it's never too late to start. Get ready to be i...
Jan 10, 2023•23 min•Season 1Ep. 127
Deep personal change that enables you to achieve your goals is absolutely possible. The key: Identify what’s standing in your way, then employ strategies to overcome it. Here, Katy Milkman, Wharton professor and author of the bestseller How to Change, shares many of these powerful strategies. Here’s one: Make hard things fun.
Jan 03, 2023•37 min•Season 1Ep. 126
3 Takeaways features revealing conversations with the world’s foremost thinkers, business leaders, writers, politicians, scientists and other newsmakers, who each share three takeaways they consider vital. In this special year-end episode, we present the 10 most powerful and compelling takeaways of 2022. Can you guess which takeaway is from each guest? The guests include: - former Prime Minster of Australia - former Chief of MI6 - the founder of the world's largest hedge fund - 7 amazing other g...
Dec 27, 2022•14 min•Season 1Ep. 125
According to former Senator Phil Gramm, inequality in the U.S. is grossly overstated largely because it fails to take into account massive government aid to low income earners. The implications of this are huge, especially given the current debate about remaking capitalism. Don’t miss this important conversation.
Dec 20, 2022•35 min•Season 1Ep. 124
What was America’s response to the Holocaust? What did we know and not know, do and not do, as the catastrophe unfolded? These questions resonate today, when the refugee crisis, immigration and antisemitism are making headlines. Don’t miss this powerful conversation with the co-directors of the new Ken Burns documentary film The U.S. and the Holocaust, Lynn Novick and Sarah Botstein.
Dec 13, 2022•21 min•Season 1Ep. 123
Contrary to conventional wisdom, we are not living in an age of dwindling resources. Generations of people have been taught that the world's rapidly growing population is consuming the planet's natural resources at an alarming rate. But after analyzing the prices of hundreds of commodities and products over the last 100 years, Marian Tupy and Gale Pooley found that resources became more abundant as the population grew. To their surprise, they found that we create ever more value out of natural r...
Dec 06, 2022•19 min•Season 1Ep. 122
The world as we know it relies on computer chips, and the most important ones are made largely in Taiwan. This renders the U.S. shockingly vulnerable as China continues saber rattling in the region. Don’t miss this enlightening talk with economic historian and author Chris Miller.
Nov 29, 2022•17 min•Season 1Ep. 121
Congressional gridlock has created a vacuum that undermines key principles of the Constitution, raising concerns about the country’s future. Yet constitutional expert extraordinaire Kannon Shanmugam believes our future is bright. Learn why.
Nov 22, 2022•26 min•Season 1Ep. 120
Hiding what we really think can have devastating social consequences, and helps explain the rise of Donald Trump, why Harvey Weinstein got away with it for so long, the unreliability of election polls, and much more. Don’t miss this eye-opening conversation with Duke’s Timur Kuran.
Nov 15, 2022•25 min•Season 1Ep. 119
Countless people knew what Harvey Weinstein, Elizabeth Holmes, and the Catholic Church were doing – but remained silent. Why do good people allow the horrific behavior of others? Harvard professor Max Bazerman explores this complicity and offers solutions.
Nov 08, 2022•28 min•Season 1Ep. 118
Our brains run the show and determine how we relate to the world. Discoveries from the front lines of neuroscience show our brains are creators (as opposed to spectators) of reality and also creator of our emotions. Don’t miss this enlightening talk with Lisa Feldman Barrett, one of the world’s most cited scientists for her groundbreaking research in psychology and neuroscience.
Nov 01, 2022•18 min•Season 1Ep. 117
Why will tech and automation never lead to the demise of human work? What qualifies as “good” work? What role will robots and AI play in the fast-approaching future? David Autor, MIT professor and co-chair of the MIT Task Force on The Work of The Future, provides answers in this riveting and enlightening conversation.
Oct 25, 2022•22 min•Season 1Ep. 116
It’s counter-intuitive but true: letting go of being a good person is key to becoming a better one, and often times it starts with acknowledging our unconscious bias. Social scientist and best-selling author Dolly Chugh offers phenomenal insight that can benefit us both at home and in the workplace.
Oct 18, 2022•26 min•Season 1Ep. 115
Harvard economics professor and former IMF Chief Economist Ken Rogoff is one of the world’s preeminent economic thinkers. Here he brilliantly dissects today’s U.S. economy and bluntly explains what must happen to tame inflation and sustain growth – and the major role China may play. He is the co-author of This Time Is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly.
Oct 11, 2022•23 min•Season 1Ep. 114
Learn how scarcity of anything - money, food or social connections - affects our daily lives and leads us astray. Scarcity reduces both intelligence and control. Having too little preoccupies and taxes the mind, making life much harder. "Even smiling and being pleasant is hard when your mind is taxed. The employee snaps at rude customers ... The parent snaps at the child ... The server rings up the wrong item.” Find out about the latest cutting edge behavioral science and how we can all manage s...
Oct 04, 2022•30 min•Season 1Ep. 113
Lawrence Bacow, President of Harvard University, shares how he sees the future of education and the values he leads by at Harvard. Learn the role of universities in a democracy, the importance of teaching students to think critically and why he believes the value of a liberal education is higher than ever.
Sep 27, 2022•24 min•Season 1Ep. 112
Of the 10,000 business plans Bill Sahlman has read, only 3 companies met their plan. Find out what it takes to succeed. Entrepreneurs have to be really good at running tests and execution trumps idea. Jeff Bezos is the most effective experimentalist in history. Bill Gates did not invent word processing, the spreadsheet, or presentation graphics; rather he took ideas and out executed everyone else.
Sep 20, 2022•29 min•Season 1Ep. 111
The deck is still stacked against women in the workplace. Learn how some women dramatically defy the odds, and what both men and women can learn from them to succeed. Don’t miss this eye-opening conversation with CNBC Senior Correspondent Julia Boorstin.
Sep 13, 2022•24 min•Season 1Ep. 110
Technology is advancing at exponential speed, and humanity is having serious trouble keeping up. Azeem Azhar, a tech seer who has founded and sold four companies, shares his unique insights into what he calls the “exponential gap” and its impact on business and society.
Sep 06, 2022•20 min•Season 1Ep. 109
He’s been called “a successor to Einstein.” Here you’ll see why, as physicist Brian Greene offers profound insights into our place in the universe, how the world ends, the possibility of a parallel universe, and the cosmic pursuits of Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk. Don’t miss this brilliant and deeply stimulating conversation.
Aug 30, 2022•28 min•Season 1Ep. 108
Current debates over climate change are focused almost entirely on reducing emissions - which is something we should do - but we also need to answer the question, how should we be adapting? MIT’s Robert Pindyck shares what we know and don’t know and how we can adapt given the enormous climate uncertainty.
Aug 23, 2022•30 min•Season 1Ep. 107
Did you know that by asking better questions, you get better answers and better results from negotiations, as well as conversations? Learn what the 2 best questions are, and why these 2 questions work almost magically in negotiations as well as in conversations - including those with spouses, children, and colleagues. Negotiation is not a zero-sum game. It’s an essential skill for your career that can also improve your closest relationships and your everyday life. Alex Carter is Director of Colu...
Aug 16, 2022•36 min•Season 1Ep. 106
Your entire life is an open book of information collected by tech companies. According to Tom Wheeler, former head of the Federal Communications Commission, the privacy problem is shockingly large, getting bigger, and has frightening consequences. What, if anything, can be done? Listen and find out.
Aug 09, 2022•22 min•Season 1Ep. 105
Being a leader of any organization today may be more difficult than ever. What enables some leaders to thrive while others fail? What are some of the qualities and actions vital for success? Vik Malhotra, McKinsey and Company’s Chairman of the Americas, shares his insights from interviewing and advising today’s elite business leaders. He is a co-author of the New York Times bestseller, CEO Excellence: The Six Mindsets That Distinguish the Best Leaders from the Rest.
Aug 02, 2022•27 min•Season 1Ep. 104
How can we reduce or neutralize unconscious bias? It’s a critical question these days – especially with DEI in mind – answered by an expert: Iris Bohnet, the former Academic Dean of the Kennedy School and co-Director of the Women and Public Policy Program. She calls it “unfreezing” our minds, and offers some surprisingly simple solutions.
Jul 26, 2022•32 min•Season 1Ep. 103
“Education runs on lies. That’s probably not what you’d expect from a former Secretary of Education, but it’s the truth.” Arne Duncan exposes the lies and the broken system that have caused American kids to fall behind. He also shares what really works.
Jul 19, 2022•29 min•Season 1Ep. 102
The research is in, and it shows that a large part of being successful is understanding how to form the right habits. In fact, forming habits can be more important than willpower and self-control. Wendy Wood, noted USC Psychology Professor, shares some of her research findings and simple strategies that enable many people to live successful, satisfying lives. She is the author of Good Habits, Bad Habits: The Science of Making Positive Changes That Stick.
Jul 12, 2022•23 min•Season 1Ep. 101
Steve Jobs once said that the biggest innovations in the 21st century would be at the intersection of biology and technology. Nature offers tantalizing examples of the magical properties of biology—self-assembly, self-repair, self-replication and more. Jason Kelly, co-founder and CEO of Ginkgo Bioworks, shares his dream of harnessing nature by reading and writing DNA to program cells like we program computers. Ginkgo is a synthetic biology company that programs cells for customers in the pharmac...
Jul 05, 2022•20 min•Season 1Ep. 100
Laughter, it turns out, is not primarily a response to humor. Neuroscientist Sophie Scott CBE shares why we laugh, how it works and the many sins it covers. We explore how laughter bonds us, where it breaks us, and the ways we use it. We should all bring a greater sense of understanding and intention to our laughter. Sophie Scott is a neuroscientist and professor at UCL whose research focuses on the science of laughter.
Jun 28, 2022•20 min•Season 1Ep. 99
The president of Princeton University Investment Company (PRINCO), which manages Princeton’s endowment, talks about investing in today’s world. Andy Golden shares how he selects partners, evaluates investments, and creates a winning environment. PRINCO recently earned nearly a 50% return in a single year. Andy also explores the differences in long term and short term investing and how a ten year time horizon is short term for endowments. PRINCO is one of the highest performing endowments in the ...
Jun 21, 2022•30 min•Season 1Ep. 98
