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Financial expert Paula Pant explains how you can afford anything, but not everything.

It's oh-so-easy to look at shiny, quickly rewarding options for your money as a ticket to financial independence. A big hit on the stock market; a hockey sticking cryptocurrency; an app that can put you on the path to easy street. But truly building financial independence is a life-long process, says Paula Pant, the host of the Afford Anything podcast. Think of your finances like a tree. While the leaves and fruit are grabby and exciting, they aren't where the tree's strength lies: that's in the roots. So too do healthy finances begin from a core base: figuring out what you value most, what you truly want to afford. From there, you can make the long term plans to see that come to fruition. With a stable, value-driven approach and some discipline, a world of freedom can open before you. You may not be able to buy everything, but you can buy anything.

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Chapters for easier navigation:-

0:00 Afford anything (not everything)

1:03 First principles thinking

2:30 Financial independence

3:35 Simple steps to independence

4:31 The 20% rule

5:18 Survive a scary economy

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About Paula Pant: Paula Pant is the host of the Afford Anything podcast, an award-winning show with more than 24 million downloads. It was named by the New York Times as one of “7 Podcasts Your Wallet Will Love.” She is also the founder of Afford Anything, a personal finance brand with more than 75,000 newsletter subscribers. She is a Knight-Bagehot Business and Economics Journalism Fellow at Columbia University. Pant is frequently featured in financial media including Money Magazine, the Washington Post, Oprah.com, CNBC, Fortune, Marie Claire, Marketplace Money, Men’s Health, Real Simple, Outside Magazine, Cosmopolitan, the New York Times, and more. She’s spoken at the “Talks at Google” series and guest lectured at Georgetown University. She lives in New York City

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Branding isn’t buzz — we’ve been doing it for thousands of years.

Up Next ► How Apple and Nike have branded your brain   • How Apple and Nike have branded your ...  

Design and branding are inherently a part of human nature. They serve as a way of signaling to others, non-verbally, who we are, what we believe in, and what is important to us.

There was a time when consumers were exclusively interested in a company's products — upgrades, different flavors, different colors.

But today, consumers want to know if the companies that they are buying from are worthy of their money. Do the companies practice good ethics? Do they have certain values? That's something that we have really never seen before.

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About Debbie Millman:

Named “one of the most creative people in business” by Fast Company, and “one of the most influential designers working today” by Graphic Design USA, Debbie Millman is also an author, educator, curator and host of the podcast Design Matters. Debbie’s podcast, Design Matters is one of the first and longest running podcasts, and as host and founder, Millman has interviewed nearly 500 of the most creative people in the world over the past 17 years. Design Matters won a 2011 Cooper Hewitt National Design Award, in 2015 Apple designated it one of the best overall podcasts on iTunes, and in 2021 designated it one of their “All Time Favorite Podcasts.” In addition, the show has been nominated for six Webby Awards, and has been listed on over 100 “Best Podcasts” lists, including one of the best podcasts in the world by Business Insider and Vanity Fair.

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Is it better to be rational or optimistic? Steven Pinker explains.

There is no force in the Universe called progress. But there are plenty of natural forces that seem to only make it harder for us to make progress as a species, such as disease, the laws of entropy, and the dark sides of human nature.

So, what pushes humanity forward in the face of all these obstacles? To the psychologist Steven Pinker, the answer is rationality: When people use their reasoning skills and other cognitive abilities to help improve the lives of others, the result is progress.

From pseudoscience to religious extremism, irrational beliefs can cause real harm. That’s why Pinker argues that society would be better off if more people learned to be more rational.

Chapters for Easier Navigation:-

0:00 The bad news: reality

0:39 The good news: rationality

1:26 How rational are we?

3:04 Even Americans, though? (Rationality inequality)

4:45 The pinnacle of human rationality

5:45 How can you teach critical thinking? How?

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About Steven Pinker:

Steven Pinker is an experimental psychologist who conducts research in visual cognition, psycholinguistics, and social relations. He grew up in Montreal and earned his BA from McGill and his PhD from Harvard. Currently Johnstone Professor of Psychology at Harvard, he has also taught at Stanford and MIT. He has won numerous prizes for his research, his teaching, and his nine books, including The Language Instinct, How the Mind Works, The Blank Slate, The Better Angels of Our Nature, The Sense of Style, and Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress.

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There are three kinds of failure. Only one can help you have a better shot of succeeding in the future. Amy Edmondson, a Harvard professor recently named the #1 thinker in business and management at the Thinkers50 Awards, and author of RIGHT KIND OF WRONG explains.

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CHAPTERS:

0:00 intro

0:45 basic failure

1:55 intelligent failure

2:46 learning from failure

4:55 overcome the fear of failure

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Amy Edmondson, a professor at Harvard Business School, explores the concept of failure and its connection to success. She challenges our prevailing cultural belief that success requires avoiding failure altogether and instead suggests that failing is a natural part of the path forward. Amy also shares her three types of failure and outlines four criteria for failing smarter.

About Amy Edmondson: Amy C. Edmondson is the Novartis Professor of Leadership and Management at the Harvard Business School. Edmondson has been recognized by the biannual Thinkers50 global ranking of management thinkers since 2011 and was ranked #1 in 2021; she also received that organization’s Breakthrough Idea Award in 2019 and Talent Award in 2017. She studies teaming, psychological safety, and organizational learning, and her articles have been published in numerous academic and management outlets. Edmondson received her PhD in organizational behavior, AM in psychology, and AB in engineering and design from Harvard University.

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As the material that makes all living things what/who we are, DNA is the key to understanding and changing the world. British geneticist Bryan Sykes and Francis Collins, director of the Human Genome Project, explain how, through gene editing, scientists can better treat illnesses, eradicate diseases, and revolutionize personalized medicine.

But existing and developing gene editing technologies are not without controversies. A major point of debate deals with the idea that gene editing is overstepping natural and ethical boundaries. Just because they can, does that mean that scientists should edit DNA?

Harvard professor Glenn Cohen introduces another subcategory of gene experiments: mixing human and animal DNA. "The question is which are okay, which are not okay, why can we generate some principles," Cohen says of human-animal chimeras and arguments concerning improving human life versus morality.

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TRANSCRIPT:

0:00 Intro

0:41 Bryan Sykes, What We Need to Know About Genes

3:24 Francis Collins, Linking Genes to Disease

8:39 Glenn Cohen, Crossing Human Genes With Animals

BRYAN SYKES: Genetics and DNA does get to the central issue of what makes us tick. It's perhaps too determinist to say that your genes determine everything you do. They don't, but, if you like, it's like the deck of cards that you're dealt at birth. What you do with that deck, like any card game, depends a lot on your choices, but it is influenced by those cards, those genes that you got when you were born.

What I've enjoyed about genetics is looking to see what it tells us about where we've come from because those pieces of DNA, they came from somewhere. They weren't just sort of plucked out of the air. They came from ancestors. And it's a very good way of finding out about your ancestors, not only who they are, but just imagining their lives. You're made up of DNA from thousands and millions of ancestors who've lived in the past, most of them now dead, but they've survived, they've got through, they've passed their DNA onto their children, and it's come down to you. It doesn't matter who you are. You could be the President. You could be the Prime Minister. You could be the head of a big corporation. You could be a taxi driver. You could be someone who lives on the street. But the same is true of everybody. I can see a time, long after I've gone but when, in fact, everyone will know their relationship to everybody else. It is possible, if anybody wants to do it or can afford it, you could actually, I think, draw the family tree of the entire world by linking up the segments of DNA. So you could find out in what way everyone was related to everybody else.

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Expert Matthew Ball explains how the Metaverse is a golden opportunity to fix the internet.

The Metaverse does not yet exist. At the moment, it is a vision of the future of the internet.

One problem facing its development is that current problems with the internet — like misinformation, privacy issues, and security breaches — have not been solved. Inside the Metaverse, these problems could be amplified.

Thankfully, developers, consumers, voters, and regulators have the power to implement change.

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About Matthew Ball:

Matthew Ball is the CEO of Epyllion, a diversified holding company which makes angel investments, provides advisory services, and produces television, films, and video games. Ball is also a Venture Partner at Makers Fund, Senior Advisor to KKR, Senior Advisor to McKinsey & Company, and sits on the board of numerous start-ups. His first book, “The Metaverse and How it Will Revolutionize Everything”, was published in July 2022 and became an instant national and international bestseller. Ball is also an “Occasional Contributor” to The Economist, holds bylines at Bloomberg, The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and wrote the August 8, 2022 cover story for Time Magazine.

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Expanding your worldview starts with understanding your brain. Stanford neuroscientist David Eagleman explains.

David Eagleman, a neuroscientist at Stanford and host of the Inner Cosmos podcast, explores how our brains shape the reality we experience and why we often accept our perceptions as the only truth. From a young age, we develop our understanding of the world based on limited experiences and biases, which can lead us to form narrow views about what's true.

Eagleman explains that our genetics and life experiences wire our brains in unique ways, meaning that each of us sees the world a little differently. He introduces the idea of "perceptual genomics," which looks at how slight genetic differences influence our perception of reality. He also discusses how our brains naturally create in-groups and out-groups, a tendency rooted in evolution that affects how much empathy we feel for others.

To overcome these biases, Eagleman suggests that we start by recognizing our own prejudices, understanding the tactics of dehumanization, and connecting with others through shared interests. This approach helps us appreciate the diverse realities others experience, ultimately contributing to a more empathetic and understanding society.

We created this video in partnership with Unlikely Collaborators.

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About David Eagleman:

David Eagleman is a neuroscientist at Stanford University and an internationally bestselling author. He is co-founder of two venture-backed companies, Neosensory and BrainCheck, and he also directs the Center for Science and Law, a national non-profit institute. He is best known for his work on sensory substitution, time perception, brain plasticity, synesthesia, and neurolaw.

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Expert Louise Perry discusses the idea of sexual disenchantment, the commodification of sex, and the impact of the online porn industry on society. Should we treat “big porn” in the same way we treat industries like “big tobacco”? Journalist Louise Perry thinks so. In her book, The Case Against the Sexual Revolution, Perry discusses the idea of sexual disenchantment, the commodification of sex, and the impact of the online porn industry on society. She argues that the multibillion-dollar global industry is qualitatively different from past exposure to porn, as it normalizes extreme content and affects the sexual culture of an entire generation. Perry likens porn to "super stimuli" that tap into the natural drive for reproduction but exaggerate it in a maladaptive way, similar to fast food. She also critiques platforms like Only Fans, noting that while it may appear to cut out the middleman, the platform itself still profits from sexual exploitation. Perry expresses concern that despite many people having a robust critique of capitalism in other industries like gambling or junk food, they hesitate to apply the same scrutiny to the porn industry. But that may be changing.

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Chapters:

0:00 Sexual disenchantment

0:29 Sex: It’s not private, it’s networked

1:06 A different beast: Digital porn

2:03 The rise of strangulation

3:07 Limbic capitalism & “super stimuli”

4:21 OnlyFans

4:52 The porn industry

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About Louise Perry: Louise Perry is a writer and campaigner based in London, UK. She is a columnist at the New Statesman and a features writer for the Daily Mail. Her debut book, The Case Against the Sexual Revolution: A New Guide to Sex in the 21st Century, is published by Polity. About Big Think | Smarter Faster™ ► Big Think Our mission is to make you smarter, faster. Watch interviews with the world’s biggest thinkers on science, philosophy, business, and more. ► Big Think+ Looking to ignite a learning culture at your company? Prepare your workforce for the future with educational courses from the world’s biggest thinkers. Trusted by Ford, Marriot, Bank of America., and many more. Learn how Big Think+ can empower your people today: https://bigthink.com/plus/?utm_source... Get Smarter Faster, With Daily Episodes From The Worlds Biggest Thinkers

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Who decides what’s “normal” and why? In an age with increasingly deteriorating social norms, here’s how to find true guidance.

Why do cultures develop social norms? They provide a general guidebook of how to behave in society, sometimes in an effort to help members of that culture live an easier life.

How do we evaluate if social norms are still valuable in this day and age? Investigation is the key to determining use. What was it originally for? Was it used as a method of protection? Is that use case still valuable right now?

With the dissolving of social norms, some are seeking guidance to inform how they live their lives. In the age of the self-described “expert,” there are coaches or guides for nearly every subject. But this can make for an overwhelming amount of options. Here’s how to know who to trust, according to author Christine Emba.

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About Christine Emba:

Christine Emba is an opinion columnist and editor at The Washington Post, where she focuses on ideas, society, and culture. She is also a contributing editor at Comment Magazine and an editor at large at Wisdom of Crowds, which includes a podcast and newsletter. Before this, Emba was the Hilton Kramer Fellow in Criticism at The New Criterion and a deputy editor at the Economist Intelligence Unit, focusing on technology and innovation. Her book, Rethinking Sex: A Provocation, is about the failures and potential of the sexual revolution in a post-#MeToo world. Emba was named one of the World’s Top 50 Thinkers by Prospect Magazine in 2022.

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Former Yale professor Morgan Levine shares 3 ways to change your diet to extend your life. Dr. Morgan Levine, author of "True Age," explains how the impact of diet on aging and longevity is determined by three factors: quantity, quality, and timing of food intake. First, caloric restriction, typically a 20% reduction in overall calorie intake, has been linked to increased lifespan in several animal models. However, the positive effects may stem from avoiding overeating rather than restriction per se. Second, a plant-based diet, with less animal products and refined sugars and more fruits, veggies, and whole foods, seems beneficial for aging and longevity. Third, fasting, or limiting eating to specific time windows, might mimic the benefits of caloric restriction by causing 'hormesis', mild stressors that boost resilience to aging-related changes. The optimal diet is likely individual, influenced by factors like genetics and age, and should be monitored through measures of biological age and personal well-being. Future research into aging biomarkers could further our understanding of diet's role in the aging process.

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Chapters:--

0:00 Does diet affect aging?

0:35 #1 Caloric restriction

1:40 #2 What you eat

2:07 #3 When you eat: fasting

2:38 Hormesis: Building biological resilience

3:16 What is the optimal diet for you?

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The science of super longevity

Beat anxiety with the most addictive experience on Earth

------------------

About Morgan Levine: Morgan Levine was previously a tenure-track Assistant Professor in the department of Pathology at Yale University where she ran the Laboratory for Aging in Living Systems. In 2022, she was recruited to join Altos Labs as a Founding Principal Investigator at the San Diego Institute of Science. She currently leads a research group at Altos Labs working at the intersection of bioinformatics, cellular biology, complex systems, and biostatistics with the overall goal of understanding the molecular trajectories aging cells, tissues, and organisms take through time.

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