Recorded on location in Cardiff, California, July 7, 2025

IoNTELLIGENCE helps high performers thrive in a fast-changing world by building smarter brain habits and strategic AI skills.

Upgrade Your Brain. Master AI. Be Future-Ready.

I had the great pleasure of taping this podcast episode on July 7 with my good friend - and IoNTELLIGENCE Community Member - Robert Richman.

Robert is a sought-after keynote speaker and one of the world’s leading authorities on employee culture. He is also the author of The Culture Blueprint, a comprehensive guide to creating a high-performance workplace. He hosts the Culture Hackers podcast, a show about culture hacking at companies, in business, and around the world.

This episode explores the transformative power of AI, which will fundamentally reshape work, industries, and even humanity's status as the "apex predator." We also discuss whether AI’s seductive convenience could drive us toward isolation rather than genuine human connection. We grapple with how AI challenges our very understanding of attention, memory, and consensus reality. Finally, we dive into my thesis that "taste" and "agency" have become paramount in an AI-driven world, where the ability to make discerning choices and act on ideas becomes more valuable than mere intelligence.

Some of the hot takes you’ll get from this episode:

* "We're now learning, like I like to say, to use our biology like a technology."

* "In an era where you can produce a business plan with a button, and you can come up with a hundred different product ideas, where does taste come in? Well, taste decides what you decide to pursue."

* "If we are what we remember... that intentionality, that intentional application of memory and attention, that's what becomes... the pillars of what we call our life."

* "I think that the most dangerous competitors that any business leader who's listening to this podcast has are not the companies that you know. It's an AI native version of whatever your product is."

Click here to listen to this podcast on Apple Podcasts or here to tune in from your browser.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit iontelligence.substack.com/subscribe

Note: This is an audio version of IoNTELLIGENCE Issue 58. While podcasts are usually only available to paid Community Members, this one is available to everyone today.

IoNTELLIGENCE delivers neuroscience-backed insights to help high-performers optimize their minds, harness AI, and thrive in a fast-changing world—in five minutes a week.

Upgrade Your Brain. Master AI. Be Future-Ready.

Photo by KATRIN BOLOVTSOVA

How many phone numbers can you remember?

I can recall around five—at least two of which are my own and the one that rang at the home I grew up in. This is what happens when we outsource our memories to our mobile phones. No one planned to forget those numbers; it just happened because we relied on the machine to dial them for us.

It’s an instructive analogy for the risks we run when using other mind-extending technologies. It’s especially relevant with the arrival of ubiquitous, omniscient AI.

It’s no longer a question of whether AI will impact our work and lives but how deeply and quickly. We need to learn how to use these tools strategically now, which is why I like to say that AI requires IA (Intelligent Augmentation). Those initials could also stand for “Intentional Application.”

I tracked my use of these cognitive instruments for a week and then reflected on how to collaborate with them intelligently and intentionally. When employed correctly, AI can give you new abilities, sharpen your thinking, and free you from drudge work. However, you must guard against de-skilling, dumbing yourself down, and developing AI dependency.

How can we strike the right balance between being force-multiplied by AI and not becoming reliant on it?

Taking inspiration from that canonical self-help manual from Stephen Covey, “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” (“Begin with the end in mind”), here are my “6 Rules for Mastering AI.”

🏆 The 60-Second Shift: The 6 Rules for Mastering AI in 2025

Thank you very much for being a Member of the IoNTELLIGENCE Community and supporting my writing and podcasting.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit iontelligence.substack.com/subscribe

Note: This is an audio version of IoNTELLIGENCE Issue 57. While podcasts are usually only available to paid Community Members, this one is available to everyone today.

IoNTELLIGENCE draws on science and strategy to help busy people achieve professional success, personal transformation, and lasting happiness in a few minutes a week.

Photo by Tara Winstead

Last week, I outlined the effects of the AI Revolution on work and life. In this issue, I explore the philosophical and societal implications of the onset of what Sam Altman calls the “Intelligence Age.”

🏆 The 60-Second Shift: 10 Reflections on AI in 2025

Thank you very much for being a Member of the IoNTELLIGENCE Community and supporting my writing and podcasting.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit iontelligence.substack.com/subscribe

Note: This is an audio version of the latest IoNTELLIGENCE Professional Development Brief. While podcasts are usually only available to paid Community Members, this one is available to everyone today.

IoNTELLIGENCE draws on science and strategy to help busy people achieve professional success, personal transformation, and lasting happiness in ten minutes a week.

Photo by Piseth Mao

Can I let you in on a secret? I like planning projects more than working on them.

Sure, I get a thrill when I finish one. But that delight is nothing compared to the regular dopamine squirts I receive from thinking about how to tackle it, building To-Do lists, and basking in the glorious state of getting ready to work. It’s not that I get more rewards from designing than from doing; rather, I get some while putting in nowhere near the effort required to complete the task.

Dreaming is a sneaky form of cheap satisfaction.

This is not the dopamine bogeyman that I usually rail against. Longtime readers know I call the current 21st-century economy “Dopamine Capitalism” because the biggest industries hijack our limbic system to get clicks, downloads, and dollars from us. However, this isn’t another screed against TikTok, Taco Bell and Temu.

While those companies are definitely not your friends, here’s a different cold truth: we’re often our worst enemies. Those products and services are engaging because they tap into our natural preference for immediate, effortless rewards. But we often deceive ourselves in the same neurological manner without their prompting.

Like in cliched horror flicks, the call is coming from inside the house.

Here’s how to overcome our mind’s lazy shortcuts.

🚨 If You Only Do One Thing From This List

Don’t fall for dopamine’s tricks. Seek harder but ultimately more meaningful transformations.

Note: I will launch a dopamine-themed challenge next month for phone-free February. Stay tuned!

🏆 The 60-Second Shift

The IoNTELLIGENCE Top 5®️ Dopamine Traps: Planning vs Doing. Starting vs Finishing. Ideas vs Execution. Learning vs Applying. New vs Great.

Thank you very much for being a Member of the IoNTELLIGENCE Community and supporting my writing and podcasting.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit iontelligence.substack.com/subscribe

Note: This is an audio version of the latest IoNTELLIGENCE Professional Development Brief. While podcasts are usually only available to paid Community Members, this one is available to everyone.

IoNTELLIGENCE draws on science and strategy to help busy people achieve professional success, personal transformation, and lasting happiness in ten minutes a week.

Time Investment: 10 Minutes.

Goal: Provide a 5-step framework to help you avoid the pitfalls of plans but succeed in high-performance planning.

Photo by Ann H

As the famous business thinker Mike Tyson once noted, "Everyone has a plan until you get punched in the face.”

That sentence says as much about the value of a plan as it does about the disruptive power of a punch. But does your strategy really go out the window as soon as reality intercedes? The truth is more complicated.

A plan is a sequence of actions describing how to accomplish a goal. While the actual step-by-step list might end up having limited value, the act of planning is always valuable. In an era of volatility and uncertainty, thinking through contingencies is particularly critical before disruption—or disaster—strikes. After all, the best time to figure out what you’d save in a fire is not while the house is burning down around you.

Here’s why plans are useless, planning is priceless, and why we formulate strategies in the first place.

🚨 If You Only Do One Thing From This List

Have a Plan A, a Plan B, and a Plan Z.

🏆 The 60-Second Shift

The IoNTELLIGENCE Top 5®️ Rules of High-Performance Planning: Beware of Planning as “Productivity Theater.” Have a Plan A, a Plan B, and a Plan Z. Sticking to the program is the hard part. Prioritize preparation over prediction. Plan across multiple time horizons.

Thank you very much for being a Member of the IoNTELLIGENCE Community and supporting my writing and podcasting.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit iontelligence.substack.com/subscribe

Note: This is an audio version of the latest IoNTELLIGENCE Professional Development Brief. While podcasts are usually only available to paid Community Members, this one is available to everyone.

IoNTELLIGENCE draws on science and strategy to help busy people achieve professional success, personal transformation, and lasting happiness in ten minutes a week.

Time Investment: 10 Minutes.

Goal: Provide a quick but effective 5-step framework to help you make better decisions.

I don’t read much fiction, but when I do, it’s almost always spy novels.

I love the propulsive plots and globe-spanning set pieces. But the best reads also feature super-smart analysts and operatives playing three-dimensional chess against the bad guys.

Intelligence agencies like the CIA must be world-class information processors and problem solvers. Their “product” is insight, and their client is the most powerful person on Earth. Interestingly, the CIA defines “Intelligence” as providing principals like the President a “decision advantage,” and that’s what I strive to do for my IoNTELLIGENCE readers (and podcast listeners).

We may not face choices with the same stakes as POTUS, but they still matter greatly to us. That’s why we must become more strategic in our approach to problems.

If you’re still considering alternatives with “pros” and “cons” columns, it’s time to raise your game. These days, when information is plentiful but understanding is elusive, I recommend that my executive coaching clients develop a methodology to use each time they examine options.

Here’s how one of the agency’s best analysts approaches complex decisions.

Note: Hat tip to IoNTELLIGENCE Community Member Dr. Talat Chughtai for suggesting this addition to my Professional Development Brief format - for particularly busy professionals:

🚨 If You Only Do One Thing From This List

Always ask and answer this crucial question:

What is the ultimate goal that I’m trying to accomplish?

🏆 Key Takeaways

The IoNTELLIGENCE Top 5®️ Ways to Analyze Problems Like the CIA: Find the real question. Identify the drivers. Decide on your metrics. Collect the information and assess your confidence level. Ask yourself: what are you missing?

Thank you very much for being a Member of the IoNTELLIGENCE Community and supporting my writing and podcasting.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit iontelligence.substack.com/subscribe

Note: This is an audio version of the IoNTELLIGENCE Professional Development Brief. While podcasts are usually only available to paid Community Members, this one is available to everyone.

IoNTELLIGENCE draws on science and strategy to help busy people achieve professional success, personal transformation, and lasting happiness in ten minutes a week.

Time Investment: 10 Minutes.

Goal: Provide science-backed tips on strategically using exercise to upgrade your brain.

Do you realize that just 20 minutes of moderate exercise can improve your information processing and memory by up to 20%?

Even a single intense training session can improve cognitive performance, particularly in attention and executive function—as much as 30% post-workout.

I’ve written extensively about how fantastic exercise is for your mental and physical health. But did you know it’s also nature’s “smart pill,” too? 

Here’s how to strategically use exercise to improve your brain power.

Photo by Nadezhda Moryak

🏆 Key Takeaways

The IoNTELLIGENCE Top 5®️ Ways to Upgrade Your Brain with Exercise: Combine cardio and weights. Go hard, not long. Exercise early for the biggest brain boost. Walk for creative thinking. Being fitter is better - for your body and brain.

Thank you very much for being a Member of the IoNTELLIGENCE Community and supporting my writing and podcasting.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit iontelligence.substack.com/subscribe

Note: This is an audio version of the inaugural Professional Development Brief. Usually, this podcast is only available to paid Community Members, but today, everyone is receiving it. Enjoy!

IoNTELLIGENCE draws on science and philosophy to help busy people achieve professional success, personal transformation, and lasting happiness in five minutes a week.

I’m introducing a new format for IoNTELLIGENCE readers today. In addition to the regular Issues and the Friday Brush Pass, the Professional Development Brief will deliver one vital idea to help you perform, transform, and flourish that you can metabolize in one minute.

It’s inspired by The President’s Daily Brief, a summary of high-level intelligence and analysis on national security issues produced by the Central Intelligence Agency for the president every day since 1946.

💡The Idea:

Reading Atul Gawande’s masterful “The Checklist Manifesto” changed my life. Not only did I discover how airline pilots and surgeons use them to save lives, but I also realized the power of solving a problem once. Since then, I’ve advised my executive clients to develop this discipline (as I have).

The checklist is probably the most powerful tool you’re not using.

Photo by Pixabay

🏆 The 60-Second Shift:

Turn anything you do more than once into a checklist. 

Thank you very much for being a Member of the IoNTELLIGENCE Community and supporting my writing and podcasting.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit iontelligence.substack.com/subscribe

Note: This is an audio version of IoNTELLIGENCE Issue 51. Usually, this podcast is only available to paid Community Members, but today, everyone is receiving it. Enjoy!

IoNTELLIGENCE draws on science and philosophy to help busy people achieve professional success, personal transformation, and lasting happiness in five minutes a week.

* 🧠 The Big Idea: By understanding what it takes for quarterbacks to succeed on Sundays, we can learn a lot about the elements of modern leadership.

* 📈 Topics: Leadership | Performance | Professional Success.

* 🔧 What To Do Next: Consider the 5 Rules®️ for Leading like a QB.

* 🔬 Go Deeper: Read “The QB” by Bruce Feldman.

2.78 seconds.

That’s the average amount of time a professional quarterback has before he throws the football today.

Picture the scene: you’re facing 80,000 screaming, hostile fans, as well as howling winds and snow (if you’re playing in Green Bay in November), and you have less than three seconds after the ball is snapped to drop back, avoid getting crushed by the other team’s 300 lb. mastodons, and throw a football 25 yards downfield to a point where you believe the receiver will be — all the while threading the needle between multiple layers of defensive coverage.

Then imagine doing this for three hours while trying to avoid everything from interceptions to injury.

That’s what NFL QBs do every Sunday. Now, they get paid enormous sums of money to do it, but only 32 people in the world have this job - and, if we’re honest - only about ten are considered elite. Let’s put it this way: there are fewer top-tier quarterbacks than business people worth 100 billion (15).

There is no position in all sports that is quite like the QB. It’s not only the most demanding role but also the most important, not to mention the most glamorous. As football commentator Bruce Feldman writes, “Quarterback is an identity. Guys play first base [in baseball] and power forward [in basketball]. You don’t play Quarterback. You are a quarterback.”

Why are they so singular? Because to succeed on the football field today, QBs must be one part Achilles and one part algorithm. You need the bravado of an alpha male, as well as the brains of Albert Einstein.

This extraordinary combination is why I believe quarterbacks, more than CEOs, embody what it takes to be a great executive today.

🏆 Key Takeaways

The IoNTELLIGENCE 5 Rules®️ for Leading Like a Quarterback. QBs and Leaders sacrifice, show courage, and lead by example. They process data like a computer. Finally, they reflect on the lessons but forget the mistakes.

🔬 Go Deeper

* If you have a few hours, 📖 “The QB: The Making of Modern Quarterbacks” by Bruce Feldman.

* If you have under 1 hour, 🎧 to this podcast episode on the leadership lessons from the Netflix series “Quarterback.”

* If you have 10 minutes, 👓 this article on Peyton Manning’s legendary preparation and mental prowess.

Thank you very much for being a Member of the IoNTELLIGENCE Community and supporting my writing and podcasting.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit iontelligence.substack.com/subscribe

Note: This is an audio version of IoNTELLIGENCE Issue 50. Usually, this podcast is only available to paid Community Members, but today, everyone is receiving it. Enjoy!

IoNTELLIGENCE draws on science and philosophy to help busy people achieve professional success, personal transformation, and lasting happiness in five minutes a week.

* 🧠 The Big Idea: Exercise is more important than diet or sleep in keeping you happy and healthy. It’s also a performance enhancer for your career prospects.

* 🔧 What To Do Next: Learn the 4 Reasons to Make Exercise a Top Priority in Your Life and Work.

* 🔬 Go Deeper: Read this article on how exercise improves work performance and check out “Exercised” by Daniel E. Lieberman.

One minute of exercise buys you five minutes of extra life.

Read that line again.

This is the mic-drop conclusion of a recent Stanford study on the remarkable benefits of regular exercise. And this isn’t dependent on you killing yourself at CrossFit, either: this result was from something as simple as a brisk walk. Working out more intensely could buy you seven or eight extra minutes of life.

Remember these stats the next time you struggle to hit the gym. Catching that spin class will give you a 5x return on investment in your lifespan, not to mention help you feel better, look more attractive, and perform more effectively at work.

Here are more numbers to persuade you to jump on the Pickleball craze. People who exercise frequently are:

* 25% less likely to get breast cancer

* 50% less likely to have colon cancer

* 60% less likely to have heart disease

* 70% less likely to fracture your hip

Stanford Professor Euan Ashley goes further: “Exercise may be the most potent medical intervention ever known.”

I will now channel those late-night infomercials by saying: “But wait! There’s more.”

Those are the benefits for your health and body; there are just as many for your mind, mood, and brain. As you’ll see, exercise even gives us an edge in a knowledge economy where we are increasingly rewarded for the quality of our judgment and the creativity of our work.

That’s why you - and your boss - should make exercise a part of your job.

🏆 Key Takeaways

The IoNTELLIGENCE 5 Rules®️ of Becoming Bold: Become aware of your brain bugs. Reframe your view of risk. Replace Status Quo with Venture Go! Start small. Turn the lights on.

🔬 Go Deeper

* If you have a few hours, 📖 Cass Sunstein’s new book Look Again: The Power of Noticing What Was Always There, co-written with neuroscientist and professor Tali Sharot. 

* If you have one hour, 🎧 to the podcast episode that changed it all for me - a lively discussion between Ezra Klein and maverick thinker Tyler Cowen.

* If you have 10 minutes 👓 this article on the power of inertia in our lives.

Thank you very much for being a Member of the IoNTELLIGENCE Community and supporting my writing and podcasting.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit iontelligence.substack.com/subscribe