This is Part 3 of our 3-part series on 'Mastery' by Robert Greene. Now that we've discovered our calling in part 1, then went through an apprenticeship in part 2, it's time to bring in creativity to make something new and original and masterful. Using historical examples, Greene gives us some strategies for developing something unique. If you're just discovering this episode, you might want to check out the previous two episodes first to lay the foundations: Part 1 = Discover Your Calling ...
Jan 10, 2020•26 min•Ep 248•Transcript available on Metacast All of us are born with an essentially similar brain, with more or less the same configuration and potential for mastery. Why is it then that in history only a limited number of people seem to truly excel and realize this potential power? In today's episode we cover part 2 of our 3-part series, The Apprenticeship phase. We will learn about the 3 Modes of the Apprenticeship Phase, strategies for completing the ideal apprenticeship, and the Mentor dynamic. Part 1 = Discover Your Calling (pr...
Jan 08, 2020•28 min•Ep 247•Transcript available on Metacast Robert Greene has done it again with Mastery. All of us are born with an essentially similar brain, with more or less the same configuration and potential for mastery. Why is it then that in history only a limited number of people seem to truly excel and realise this potential power? We are a one time phenomenon in the universe - our exact genetic makeup has never occurred before nor will it ever be repeated. At your birth a seed is planted, that is your uniqueness. This is Part 1 of...
Jan 04, 2020•27 min•Ep 246•Transcript available on Metacast As we come to the end of another year of the podcast, we look back on our favourite books we've read this season (so far). As we do at the end of every year then again at the end of every season, we each look back and rank all of the books we read, compile our respective 'Top 10' lists, then share the biggest lessons we took from each book. This is a great way to get a taste of all of the books and decide which ones you want to dive into further and listen to the full episode. Adam ...
Dec 30, 2019•2 hr 33 min•Ep 245•Transcript available on Metacast The body is often likened to a machine. But it is much more than that, it works 24 hours a day for decades without for most part, needing regular servicing or the installation of spare parts. It runs on water and a few other organic compounds, is soft and rather lovely, reproduces itself with enthusiasm, feels affection and appreciates the sunset How many machines behave like that? In this episode we'll take you through the best bits of Bill Bryson -The Body, we'll look at the microbial o...
Dec 20, 2019•46 min•Ep 244•Transcript available on Metacast The book breaks down effective management through the tale of the 'One Minute Manager' through 3 simple secrets. The First Secret - One Minute Goals Most organisations when you ask people what they do and then ask their boss, normally you get two different lists. Once the manager has told you what needs to be done, or you have agreed what needs to be done, each goal is recorded on no more than a single page. The OMM then feels that a goal and its performance standard should ...
Dec 14, 2019•20 min•Ep 243•Transcript available on Metacast Ego Is The Enemy - by Ryan Holiday 'The fight to master our greatest opponent' All of us, at every stage of life, are the victims of our own ego. Our ego leads us to strive too far, expect too much, assume that we're deserving - all before we've even done the work. If we achieve success our ego makes us do things that lead us to failure, if we fail our ego crushes our attempts to get up and try again. "It's always nice to be made to feel special or empowered or inspired. But that's not the aim o...
Dec 07, 2019•34 min•Ep 242•Transcript available on Metacast Our third annual pilgrimage to Sydney took us right back to Dr Karl's office. His brand new book, Dr Karl's Random Road Trip Through Science, features an Augmented Reality app with Dr Karl popping out of the book to share his wealth of wisdom. (If you've been listening to the show for a few years, this is certainly 'breaking the script' and is a definite 'purple cow'). We talk about a bunch of random scientific things Karl learnt this year, as well an injecting a nice amount of conspiracy ...
Dec 04, 2019•35 min•Ep 241•Transcript available on Metacast Eat That Frog! - by Brian Tracy '21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done in Less Time' There is never enough time to do everything you have to do. You are literally swamped with work and personal responsibilities, endless emails, social media, projects, side projects, stacks of newspapers to read, a pile of books you want to get to 'some day' as soon as you get caught up on everything else. But the fact is that you are NEVER going to get caught up. You will never get 'on top' of ...
Nov 30, 2019•20 min•Ep 240•Transcript available on Metacast Revealed how painfully burdened they feel by a sense of not being good enough. We don't have to wait until we are on our deathbed to realize what a waste of our precious lives it is to carry the belief that something is wrong with us. Yet because our habits of feeling so insufficient are so strong, awakening from the trance involves not only inner resolve, but also an active training of the heart and mind. Through Buddhist awareness and practices, we free ourselves from the suffering of t...
Nov 23, 2019•26 min•Ep 239•Transcript available on Metacast After first speaking with Neil Pasricha 12 months ago about his book The Happiness Equation, he's back to chat about his brand new book You Are Awesome. It's all about building resilience, shifting from fragile to antifragile, and thickening up your skin a little. Check out everything Neil is doing at his site: https://www.neil.blog/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Nov 19, 2019•37 min•Ep 238•Transcript available on Metacast Grit - by Angela Duckworth 'Why passion and resilience are the keys to success' Angela Duckworth studied successful people and found that the mega-successful weren't the smartest, the fittest or the most talented, but the ones who had the most grit. Grit, this combination of passion and perseverance, turned out to be the strongest indicator and predicator of eventual success. The good news? Even if you score pretty poorly on the Grit Assessment (like we both did), you can grow your Grit. ...
Nov 16, 2019•29 min•Ep 237•Transcript available on Metacast Lurking behind the mystery of ancient ruins is the mystery with the nagging thought: might such a fate eventually befall our own wealthy society? Will tourists someday stare mystified at the New York skyscrapers, much as we stare at the jungle overgrown ruins of Maya cities? Perhaps we can still learn from the past, but only if we think carefully about its lessons. The book has a 5 point framework of possible contributing collapse to societies: 1 - Environmental damage Could be exc...
Nov 09, 2019•43 min•Ep 236•Transcript available on Metacast MJ DeMarco writes some of the most eye-opening books we've read - The Millionaire Fastlane and Unscripted. If you haven't realised it yet, the world is ran by numerous scripts that aren't designed for you to live your best life. In this episode, we run the analogy of the red pill deep: breaking down the BS and biases we all hold, the importance of your F-This Event, and how you could use a job to propel you onto the Fastlane. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Nov 06, 2019•37 min•Ep 235•Transcript available on Metacast Unscripted - by MJ DeMarco 'Life Liberty, and the Pursuit of Entrepreneurship' Has life regressed into paying bills and living for a weekend? You weren't born to slave 9 - 5, Monday through Friday, paying the bills and then die. When life's final moment arrives, what will your spirit sing? Regret and remorse? Or peace and happiness? UNSCRIPTED: is your pen to rewrite a future that's already been written, don't wait for life's twilight to dream about time machines, it exists in the moment....
Nov 01, 2019•34 min•Ep 234•Transcript available on Metacast Daily life is full of negotiations that can drive you crazy. Over breakfast you get into an argument with your spouse about buying a new car, your spouse thinks it's time but you say "we can't afford that right now" You arrive at work for a meeting with your boss, you present her with a carefully prepared proposal for a new project, but she interrupts within the first minute and says "we already tried that and it didn't work. During lunch you try to return a defective toaster you bought last wee...
Oct 26, 2019•30 min•Ep 233•Transcript available on Metacast How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big - by Scott Adams Scott Adams is the creator of the 'Dilbert' cartoon series. Before this world-wide phenomenon though, Adams is happy to admit the looong list of things he tried (and failed at) before eventually achieving success. Each failed attempt gave him a lesson, something he could take with him and apply to the next thing he tried. Even as Dilbert was growing in success, he still worked full time for 10 years, drawing Dilbert ...
Oct 19, 2019•36 min•Ep 232•Transcript available on Metacast Everything is F*cked - by Mark Manson 'A book about hope' In the infinite expanse of space/time, the universe does not care whether your mother's hip replacement goes well, or your kids attend college, or your boss thinks you make a great spreadsheet You care, and you desperately convince yourself that because you care, it all must have some great cosmic meaning behind it. You care because deep down, you need to feel that sense of importance in order to avoid the uncomfortable trut...
Oct 11, 2019•25 min•Ep 231•Transcript available on Metacast Meditations - by Marcus Aurelius Originally written as a diary almost 2000 years ago, the struggles people faced then are almost identical to the ones we are facing today. This is one of the core books on stoic philosophy. We recap some of the vital passages of the book and pull out the key themes: differentiating between the things you can control and the things you can't, responsibility and taking ownership, being indifferent toward things like death and change, and living in the presen...
Oct 04, 2019•40 min•Ep 230•Transcript available on Metacast Talking to Strangers - by Malcolm Gladwell 'What we should know about the people we don't know' We think we can understand people. We think that by meeting someone, shaking their hand, looking into their eyes, we can get a grasp on who they are, how they feel, and what their motives or intentions are. We think that a little bit of personal knowledge gives us a big insight into their character - a job interviews shows us if they'll be a good employee, a first date can indicate the likeliho...
Sep 28, 2019•27 min•Ep 229•Transcript available on Metacast Five years ago, Nir Eyal wrote the best-selling book 'Hooked'. It was all about the four-step process businesses can use to make habit-forming products and services. By getting people 'hooked', by getting people to almost the point of addiction and compulsion, businesses can thrive (think Facebook, Candy Crush and Spotify as some examples). Now, Nir writes gives us individuals a four-step methods to get UNHOOKED in his brand new book Indistractable. This book is all about reclaiming our time and...
Sep 26, 2019•28 min•Ep 228•Transcript available on Metacast Hooked - by Nir Eyal 'How to build habit-forming products' If a business can turn their product or service into a 'habit', then they've got you 'hooked'. It makes it much harder for the user to change to a competitor, usage becomes more frequent and more irresistible, and it becomes far more profitable for the business. Nir Eyal takes us through the 'Hook Model' which teaches business what they need to build into their offering to get consumers hooked: Triggers (external & internal) A...
Sep 21, 2019•27 min•Ep 227•Transcript available on Metacast We've all heard of 'climate change' and we hear dystopian ideas about the horrors we may face if we don't take appropriate action, but what will life on the planet ACTUALLY look like if our planet heats up too much? Check out our website with all of our book ratings: www.whatyouwilllearn.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Sep 14, 2019•42 min•Ep 226•Transcript available on Metacast This book is the bible of behavioural economics. After introducing 'System 1' and 'System 2', the 'fast' and 'slow' thinking from the title, this episode dives into more of the applications of this discovery. THIS episode: Over confidence: - Narrative fallacy - Hindsight/outcome bias Choices: - Intuitions vs formulas - Planning fallacy - Loss aversion - Sunk cost fallacy Two selves: - Experiencing vs the remembering self ...
Sep 07, 2019•46 min•Ep 225•Transcript available on Metacast Thinking, Fast and Slow - by Daniel Kahneman This book is the bible of human behavioural psychology. Author Daniel Kahneman won the 2002 Nobel Prize due to his work on Prospect Theory, a big part of this book. The book is so dense we'll need to cover it over two episodes. This week we will learn about: System 1 - which operates automatically and efficiently, System 2 - which allocates attention to effortful activities. And - that our brain has limited resources making us irrational, and p...
Aug 31, 2019•1 hr 4 min•Ep 224•Transcript available on Metacast Turning Pro - by Steven Pressfield 'Tap your inner power and create your life's work' Pressfield book 'The War of Art' told us all about the REAL challenge of creating important work: confront (and beating) the Resistance. In that book, he showed us that the beat way to beat it was by Turning Pro. This follow-up book dives deeper into the difference between and amateur and a professional, and shows us exactly what is required of us if we are to become the best version of ourselves. ...
Aug 25, 2019•29 min•Ep 223•Transcript available on Metacast Kevin Rudd came from humble beginnings in country Queensland to become the 26th Prime Minister of Australia in 2007. He is author of the books 'Kevin Rudd - The PM Years' and 'Not for the Faint Hearted'. Mr Rudd is currently the President of the Asia Society Policy Institute and is living in New York. On his most recent return visit to Australia, we were able to sit down and have a chat. In this episode we talk about: - why young people (including us) are disengaged with politics - the rising su...
Aug 21, 2019•1 hr•Ep 222•Transcript available on Metacast Dare to Lead - by Brene Brown 'Brave Work. Tough Conversations. Whole Hearts' Brene Brown boldly calls for braver bolder leaders to pass on a better world for our children. But typically cultures are held back by an inability to lean into vulnerability - we avoid tough conversations, lack connection and empathy and avoid risks. Daring Leadership is the antidote to these issues. In this episode we discuss: - the call to courage - avoidance of the armoury, and - shame and empathy Hos...
Aug 17, 2019•24 min•Ep 221•Transcript available on Metacast Austin Kleon is the author of three books that we've review on the podcast: Steal Like An Artist, Show Your Work and Keep Going. We spoke with him about about who is a 'creative', the false dichotomies we've set up between 'work' and 'art', and how everyone can harness the power of creativity to make things better by making better things. Check out Austin's site and sign up to his free weekly newsletter: https://austinkleon.com/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/pr...
Aug 14, 2019•38 min•Ep 220•Transcript available on Metacast Show Your Work - by Austin Kleon '10 ways to share your creativity and get discovered' After the runaway success of 'Steal Like an Artist' , Kleon was always asked the same questions: how do I actually get my stuff out there? how do i get found? how do i get an audience for my work? This book begins to answer some of those questions. It stresses the importance of maintain the mindset of an 'amateur', thinking about the process (not just the products), telling good stories, and building a ...
Aug 11, 2019•26 min•Ep 219•Transcript available on Metacast 
