Infinite Loops

Dr. Julie Gurner is a doctor of psychology and executive performance coach to top percentile executives, primarily in finance and technology. She is also the proprietor of the Ultra Successful newsletter, which delivers a weekly challenge pulled from global business leaders and designed to "help you unleash your power."

Dr. Gurner joins the show to discuss the merits of being unreasonable, why your business should not be your identity, why niceness is overrated, and more!

Important Links:

- Substack - https://drgurner.substack.com - Twitter - https://twitter.com/drgurner?s=21&t=kpNZMw5M-jHHMC0vAkndPg - Website - https://www.drgurner.com/consulting/

Show Notes:

0:00:00 Intro 0:01:24 Main podcast 0:02:20 Dr. Gurner's origin story 0:05:07 How forensic psychology experience can help executive coaching 0:07:11 Leaning into the 1% 0:15:23 Why psychological tests are flawed 0:19:26 The common traits of successful founders 0:29:12 High performance & bottlenecks 0:30:38 Why your business should not be your identity 0:41:01 How Dr. Gurner applies her strategies in her own life 0:44:17 Don't be nice 0:46:48 Be unreasonable 0:51:18 Social validation is not important 0:56:22 How can you improve someone's communication skills 1:01:43 How Dr. Gurner would teach executive coaching 1:03:36 The "no Plan B" mentality 1:06:48 Can high energy be detrimental? 1:10:21 How to unpack charisma 1:15:57 How to turn down work 1:20:01 Dr. Gurner's greatest satisfaction 1:22:31 How has leadership changed in the last 20 years? 1:25:40 Dr. Gurner as Empress of the World 1:31:18 End screen

Books Mentioned:

- The Art of War; by Sun Tzu

Hi everyone, Jim here. We're taking a short pause on new episodes through the end of August. In the meantime, we're digging out some of our favorite conversations from the archive. This one is from November 2022, so a few of our references (and jobs!) are out of date, but the ideas have only gotten better. Enjoy this conversation with Lulu Cheng Meservey.

Lulu Cheng Meservey is the Chief Communications Officer and Executive Vice President of Corporate Affairs at Activision Blizzard. She joins Infinite Loops to provide us with a masterclass in communications for startups. A must-listen for current and aspiring founders. Important Links:

• Lulu's Twitter • Lulu's Substack • Episode summary from Podcasts Recapped Show Notes: • Why people write hit pieces • The insurgency framework • How to access your audience's neural real estate • How to develop a spontaneous elevator pitch • Tips for becoming better at reading the room • Speak directly and take the hits • Defining business objectives • Learning from other industries • Personalising your message • Overcoming resistance to the unknown, what Christianity can teach us about comms • Escaping corporate jargon • How comms resembles rugby • Taking ownership of comms • Moving to a new model of comms • "Don't let things happen to you. Go and happen to things." Books Mentioned: • The Network State: How To Start a New Country; by Balaji S. Srinivasan • The Hero with a Thousand Faces; by Joseph Campbell

Jesse Michels is an investor at Thiel Capital and the creator and host of 'American Alchemy', a Youtube channel dedicated to highlighting the most heretical thinkers and ideas of our time.

He joins the show to discuss the transmission theory of consciousness, whether mushrooms are aliens, the reawakening of the Boomers and MUCH more!

Important Links:

- American Alchemy - https://www.youtube.com/@JesseMichels/about - Jesse's Twitter - https://twitter.com/alchemyamerican

Books Mentioned:

- The Half-Life of Facts: Why Everything We Know Has an Expiration Date; by Samuel Arbesman - The User Illusion: Cutting Consciousness Down to Size; by Tor Norretranders - Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid; by Douglas Hofstadter - The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations That Transform the World; by David Deutsch - The Immortality Key : The Secret History of the Religion with No Name; by Brian C. Muraresku - The New Inquisition: Irrational Rationalism and the Citadel of Science; by Robert Anton Wilson - How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression and Transcendence; by Michael Pollan - Chaos: Charles Manson, the CIA, and the Secret History of the Sixties; by Tom O'Neill - Weird Scenes Inside the Canyon: Laurel Canyon, Covert Ops & the Dark Heart of the Hippie Dream; by David McGowan - Prometheus Rising; by Robert Anton Wilson - Quantum Psychology: How Brain Software Programs You & Your World; by Robert Anton Wilson - The Cosmic Trigger trilogy; by Robert Anton Wilson - Communion: A True Story; by Whitley Strieber

Philip Howard joins Infinite Loops to explain how America's legal and regulatory system became too complicated to function effectively—and how we can rebuild it around judgment, accountability, and human agency.

We discuss why government has become unmanageable, how thousand-page rulebooks discourage individual judgment, why infrastructure projects can take decades to approve, and how public institutions end up costing more while delivering less.

What if the great stories were more than just stories?

Jameson Olsen, host of Becoming the Main Character, joins guest host Liberty to explore fiction as a kind of operating system for life — a way to study agency, ambition, empathy, failure, courage, and change without having to live every consequence yourself. Through Hamlet, Frankenstein, Sherlock Holmes, Lord of the Rings, training montages, NPCs, and the Hero's Journey, they discuss what it means to stop drifting through life and start holding the pen of your own story. Important Links: Listen to Jameson's podcast here: https://www.becomingmain.com/

David Gelles joins guest host Jimmy Soni to discuss his career covering business for The New York Times. They talk about his books - Mindful Work, The Man Who Broke Capitalism, and Dirtbag Billionaire - and the reporting behind major stories on Bernie Madoff, Jack Welch, Boeing's 737 Max crashes, and Patagonia's Yvon Chouinard.

David explains how he broke a front-page story five weeks into journalism school, how he convinced Bernie Madoff to grant him a prison interview, and his process for writing books while working full-time. They also discuss raising kids who read for hours every day and why meditation helps him stay sane.

Important Links:

Learn more about Gretchen: https://gretchenrubin.com/

Read more of Gretchen's work: https://gretchenrubin.com/books

Listen to Gretchen's podcast: https://gretchenrubin.com/happier/

Wall Street Journal columnist Ben Cohen joins guest host Jimmy Soni, CEO of Infinite Books, to explore the hidden art of making things better. They explore the hot hand phenomenon in basketball, why Moneyball shaped a generation of journalists, the peanut butter and jelly crisis in the Warriors locker room, why ASML is the most important company you've never heard of, the strange story of Driscoll's tastiest berries, and the troubled development of The Princess Bride. Important Links: Learn more about Ben here: https://www.wsj.com/news/author/ben-cohen Read The Science of Success: https://www.wsj.com/news/types/science-of-success Read The Hot Hand: https://www.harpercollins.com/pages/hothand