Zack Telander is a weightlifter, coach & YouTuber. ZT joins me to talk about the world's most pressing issues like why Elon Musk's silence is violence, why The Satanic Temple is stepping into Texas' abortion debate, why I got involved in TikTok drama, the implications of men leaving college at record rates, whether Joe Rogan will sue CNN, why the new Matrix trailer is so good, my new obsession with AirSoft YouTube and much more... Sponsors: Get 5 days unlimited access to Shortform for free at ht...
Sep 16, 2021•1 hr 10 min•Ep. 372
Ollie Marchon is a coach, Nike Master Trainer and business owner. The last year has caused everyone to ask some big questions about life direction. Change is often good but always scary and learning to find your place in a new world takes a lot of work, so how has Ollie managed to balance his family, work, business, coaching and training with finding a new identity. Expect to learn what happens when you've outgrown an old version of you but don't know who you are next, how to ruthlessly chase do...
Sep 13, 2021•1 hr 6 min•Ep. 371
James Bloodworth is a journalist, podcaster and an author. The modern dating market is a mess. From polyamory to OnlyFans, Tinder to Trad Wives. No one really knows the best approach for navigating these waters, and the lessons from our parents no longer apply. James has dedicated an entire podcast series to the most interesting parts of the dating economy and today we're going through them. Expect to learn whether porn addiction is really a thing, why sexual inequality is the only inequality no...
Sep 11, 2021•1 hr 15 min•Ep. 370
Mark Williams-Thomas is an investigative journalist, an author and former police detective. True crime documentaries are everywhere, and you've probably seen Mark in many of them. He was the man responsible for investigating and exposing Jimmy Savile which then lead to an avalanche of other abusers being arrested. Today we get an insight into what it's like to be a real life Sherlock Holmes. Expect to learn who are the most disturbing criminals that Mark Williams-Thomas has ever met, what the bi...
Sep 09, 2021•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 369
Jade Bowler is a YouTuber and an author. It's weird that we spend the first 18 years of our lives desperately trying to study and revise for exams, but no one ever actually teaches us how to study or revise. Thankfully Jade is kind of a professional nerd and StudyTuber, and today she breaks down exactly what science says are the best ways to own an exam. Expect to learn the fundamental principles for remembering anything, Jade's most effective strategies for revision, how to prepare for the fina...
Sep 06, 2021•59 min•Ep. 368
Dr. Dan Engle is an MD, the Founder and Medical Director of Kuya Institute for Transformational Medicine and an author. For the last 50 years, MDMA has been illegal whilst psychological trauma and depression has mostly been treated by trying to negate their symptoms through medication. After decades of research and lobbying, we are finally on the verge of being able to treat the root causes of psychological pain, by using the very same drug which has been around since 1912. Expect to learn what ...
Sep 04, 2021•1 hr 32 min•Ep. 367
Dr Clay Routledge is a Professor of Management at North Dakota State University and an author. How to find meaning in life is a question that's been grappled with for thousands of years. As an Existential Psychologist, Clay uses modern methods to answer these ancient questions and provides an awesome overview of our current understanding of what meaning is, why it's important and how to attain it. Expect to learn why nature would design a creature that requires meaning to feel fulfilled, the mos...
Sep 02, 2021•1 hr 14 min•Ep. 366
Oliver Burkeman is a journalist and an author. Time is something we all wish we had more of and tons of productivity gurus have proposed strategies to stop it from slipping through our fingers. After years of investigating and reporting on cutting-edge productivity for The Guardian, Oliver has arrived at a slightly different worldview of time and how we should manage it. Expect to learn why becoming more efficient often just leads to you getting more useless work done, the fundamental problems w...
Aug 30, 2021•1 hr 5 min•Ep. 365
Stuart Russell is a Professor of Computer Science at the University of California and an author. Programming machines to do what we want them to is a challenge. The consequences of getting this wrong become very grave if that machine is superintelligent with essentially limitless resources and no regard for humanity's wellbeing. Stuart literally wrote the textbook on Artificial Intelligence which is now used in hundreds of countries, so hopefully he's got an answer to perhaps the most important ...
Aug 28, 2021•1 hr 49 min•Ep. 364
Naama Kates is a writer, producer and creator of the Incel Podcast. The world of involuntary celibates continues to be thrust into the public limelight with incidents in the United States and most recently in the UK with Jake Davison's shooting in Plymouth. Naama has spent years investigating incels so I figured she would be a good place to go to understand what's happening. Expect to learn whether the incel community is a terrorist organisation, why the incel culture can trap members inside of ...
Aug 26, 2021•1 hr 13 min•Ep. 363
James Smith is a PT and not a life coach. It's a weird time to be alive. The rules are completely out of the window for dating, finding a balance between socialising and work is basically impossible, there are a million different ways to organise your personal finances and that's before you even start to throw Tinder into the mix. Expect to learn why James is actually glad to be back from Australia, the optimal approach for getting a kangaroo to tap out in BJJ, what's interesting about being a g...
Aug 23, 2021•1 hr 24 min•Ep. 362
Darren Grimes is a political commentator and a YouTuber. Conservatism might be the least sexy political viewpoint there is. The righthand side of the aisle is hardly setting anyone's pants ablaze and almost of feels like a movement that should come wrapped in a flat cap and a smoking jacket. Is this just the way things are? Expect to learn whether olympic athletes should be figureheads for politics, why Darren still receives so much Brexit hate 4 years later, whether UK Political Commentator Cel...
Aug 21, 2021•1 hr 22 min•Ep. 361
Jonny & Yusef join me today as we discuss recent news stories including why breastfeeding now needs recategorising to be more inclusive, how being injected with the flu might improve your lifting numbers, whether the incel movement caused the Plymouth shooting, why Apple's new privacy updates are problematic for privacy and much more... Sponsors: Get 20% discount on the highest quality CBD Products from Pure Sport at https://puresportcbd.com/modernwisdom (use code: MW20) Get perfect teeth 70% ch...
Aug 19, 2021•1 hr 17 min•Ep. 360
Stephen Davis is an investigative reporter and an author. On August 1st 1990, a British Airways flight departed London for Kuwait, on board were nearly 400 passengers including 9 secret service operatives. They landed in a war zone as Sadam Hussein's army rolled into Kuwait and took them hostage. For the next 5 months they were used as human shields, and for the last 30 years BA and the UK Government has covered up why they were really there and what happened. Stephen has been investigating this...
Aug 16, 2021•1 hr 8 min•Ep. 359
Dr Samantha Boardman is a psychiatrist and an author. Divorces, bankruptcies and moving house are major stresses. But what about the micro-stressors we deal with every day, how much do they contribute to diminishing our wellbeing and what can we do to stop that from happening? Expect to learn which activities studies say are most effective for making you resilient to stress, how to break a downward spiral in your growth, why discomfort is a feature not a bug, how creating a persona can give you ...
Aug 14, 2021•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 358
Christopher Mason is a Professor at Weill Cornell Medicine, founding Directors of the WorldQuant Initiative for Quantitative Prediction and an author. Eventually, the sun is going to engulf the earth. This means that if we want human and animal life to not be snuffed out within a billion years, we need to reach other worlds and Christopher has put together a 500-years roadmap for how we could do it. Expect to learn why space flight is so harsh on the human body, how genetic manipulation could as...
Aug 12, 2021•59 min•Ep. 357
Yeonmi Park is a North Korean defector, an author and a YouTuber. North Korea is the most shrouded, dictatorial and walled-off nation on earth. The only press who are permitted access are get shown a performance masquerading as real life and leaving the country is essentially impossible. At 13 years old, Yeonmi escaped along with her sister & mother. Expect to learn how North Korea's citizens are conned into spying on each other, why it's better to die than go to prison, how the state has manage...
Aug 09, 2021•1 hr 7 min•Ep. 356
Andrew Gold is a documentary maker and podcaster. In the depths of the Buenos Aires suburbs is a priest who is warding off vampires, levitating followers and battling demons. Or maybe he's kidnapping schizophrenic patients from a local psychiatric ward. Andrew traipsed through Argentina to find out. Expect to learn what it's like to fear 5000 people are going to kill you in South America, how Andrew infiltrated an underground network in Germany, why the BBC's diversity quota might be protecting ...
Aug 07, 2021•1 hr 30 min•Ep. 355
Rich Diviney is a retired Navy SEAL Commander and an author. The Navy Seals are one of the most hardened military groups in the world. During 13 tours and over a decade of service, Rich researched and tested his favourite ways to improve and enhance the mental and physical performance of himself and his unit. Expect to learn how to immediately move your system from a sympathetic to parasympathetic state, why optimal performance is preferable to peak performance, why understanding the relationshi...
Aug 05, 2021•1 hr 17 min•Ep. 354
Robert Plomin, is a psychologist, geneticist and an author. Separating the influence of nature and nurture is something everyone considers. Robert is the 71st most cited psychologist of the 20th century and has run the largest and most clinically detailed twin and adoption studies in history to finally provide definitive answers to these fundamental questions. Expect to learn how much of who we are can be attributed to our environment and how much was predisposed by our genetics, why parenting d...
Aug 02, 2021•1 hr 42 min•Ep. 353
Ben Aldridge is an author, musician and teacher. After finding himself increasingly anxious and suffering regular panic attacks, Ben purposefully spent an entire year doing things which really pushed the limits of his comfort in an effort to regain control of his mindset. Expect to learn what Ben's Mrs thought of him sleeping on the floor next to the bed, what he discovered when he climbed Everest up and down his house's stairs, why acupuncture in the face can be useful, how exposure therapy spi...
Jul 31, 2021•52 min•Ep. 352
Stephen McGinty is an author, journalist and documentary producer. In 1973, two British men, Roger Chapman & Roger Mallinson were 1500ft below the surface laying trans-Atlantic telephone cables in the Pisces III submarine. What happened next is one of the longest, most dangerous, complex and daring rescues ever attempted as America, Canada, Ireland and Britain marshalled their forces in the air and beneath the sea to save the two men, all while their oxygen, food and power was rapidly running ou...
Jul 29, 2021•57 min•Ep. 351
James Nestor is a journalist and an author. We get more energy from our breath than we do from food or hydration or sleep. And yet most people have never considered assessing how properly they breathe. Thankfully James has spent years speaking to the world's leading researchers, breathwork teachers, monks and free divers to find out exactly what we need to know. Expect to learn why computer use is affecting your breath, how poor breathing can cause diabetes, why snoring is a dangerous habit, Jam...
Jul 26, 2021•1 hr 15 min•Ep. 350
Rupert Spira a teacher of the Non-Dualism Direct Path, an author and a potter. Non-dualism is a state of consciousness that many contemplative practitioners aim to achieve. A dissolving of a barrier between the observer and the experience, it's incredibly complex but thankfully Rupert is one of the clearest and most direct teachers of non-duality. Today we tackle some of the biggest questions in enlightenment practice, like what are we at our essence? What is consciousness? What does it mean to ...
Jul 24, 2021•59 min•Ep. 349
Daniel Schmachtenberger is a founding member of The Consilience Project and works in preventing global catastrophic risk. Having accurate sensemaking is a superpower in the 21st century. As the volume of information we need to sort through increases, the ability to distinguish signal from noise becomes ever more important. Given this, I wanted to ask Daniel exactly how he would advise someone to become an adept sensemaker. Expect to learn the characteristics that a good sensemaking agent should ...
Jul 22, 2021•2 hr 4 min•Ep. 348
Danny Trejo is an actor and restaurateur. Danny is one of the most recognisable faces in Hollywood history. He's just written a new memoir about his life and today we get to hear his craziest stories. Expect to learn what it was like to meet Charles Manson in jail, who was the hardest guy on-set at Con Air, how Danny nearly ended up with the death penalty, whether he actually robbed Antonio Banderas, how he saved Keifer Sutherland from a psychopath and much more... Sponsors: Get 10% discount on ...
Jul 19, 2021•59 min•Ep. 347
Rob Reid is an entrepreneur, podcaster and an author. The last 15 months have been a terrifying taster of just what a global crisis is like, except it wasn't lethal enough to be a threat to our long term survival - but just because this one wasn't, doesn't mean that more deadly existential risks aren't out there. Expect to learn how synthetic biology might be the biggest risk to our survival, what we should have learned from 2020, whether Artificial General Intelligence is an immediate threat, R...
Jul 15, 2021•2 hr 11 min
Ryan Long is a comedian, director and podcaster. What do Whiteclaw, Elon Musk, Andrew Cuomo's daughter's sexuality, Juule, OnlyFans, Dan Bilzarian, John McAfee, Winston from Mumford & Sons, Oli London and a kinky Thanksgiving Parade have in common? Absolutely nothing but we talk about them all today. Enjoy. Sponsors: Get 40% discount on everything from boohooMAN at https://bit.ly/manwisdom (use code MW40) Get 20% discount on the highest quality CBD Products from Pure Sport at https://puresportcb...
Jul 12, 2021•1 hr 12 min•Ep. 345
Luke Burgis is an entrepreneur and author. We feel like we are in charge of our wants. Like we're the creator of our desires. But Rene Girard's theory of Mimetic Desire suggests an alternative - all we are doing is copying and modelling other people's wants, and then spitting them back out as our own. Expect to learn why you're going to die of a Brazilian butt lift, why mimesis is a kind of alchemy, how mimetic desires cause people to become scapegoats, why Lamborghini's creation story is explai...
Jul 08, 2021•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 344
Dr David Sinclair is a Professor in the Department of Genetics at Harvard Medical School and co-Director of the Paul Glenn Centre for the Biological Mechanisms of Ageing. The longevity movement is huge, people all around the globe are trying to discover how to live longer and slow down ageing. It's been 2 years since Dr Sinclair was last on the show, so I figured it was time to invite him back on and find out what he's been up to. Expect to learn why having a dog can make you live longer, how fa...
Jul 05, 2021•1 hr 5 min•Ep. 343
