Moonwalk

"We all have stories that we tell ourselves about what our lives are - and those stories are always wrong" - Shawn Coyle

Going to high school is kind of like cutting an onion: you have to do it, but you're probably going to cry.

In this audio essay, I talk about why that's true.

Before we get to that though, here's the deal: We're off this week and we'll return to regular programming in 2 weeks. The bright side: this is a bonus episode. It's rough and it's a bit of an experiment...but I think you'll dig the change of pace.

(If you're new to the podcast, don't start here, but if you're a fan, stick around.)

The piece that I read in this episode, I wrote 2 years ago (so, basically 10,000 years ago). Here's what's covered:

- What was high school really like for most people?

- What is the emotional reality of high school?

- Defining the bullshit: the status, fake work, fake friends, and the stories we believed about ourselves when we were 16 and incredibly stupid

- A story about me, a car, and concrete, and why it mattered

For more, go to realtalkstudio.com.

"We all have stories that we tell ourselves about what our lives are - and those stories are always wrong" - Shawn Coyle

Going to high school is kind of like cutting an onion: you have to do it, but you're probably going to cry.

In this audio essay, I talk about why that's true.

Before we get to that though, here's the deal: We're off this week and we'll return to regular programming in 2 weeks. The bright side: this is a bonus episode. It's rough and it's a bit of an experiment...but I think you'll dig the change of pace.

(If you're new to the podcast, don't start here, but if you're a fan, stick around.)

The piece that I read in this episode, I wrote 2 years ago (so, basically 10,000 years ago). Here's what's covered:

- What was high school really like for most people?

- What is the emotional reality of high school?

- Defining the bullshit: the status, fake work, fake friends, and the stories we believed about ourselves when we were 16 and incredibly stupid

- A story about me, a car, and concrete, and why it mattered

For more, go to realtalkstudio.com.

"We all have stories that we tell ourselves about what our lives are - and those stories are always wrong" - Shawn Coyle

Going to high school is kind of like cutting an onion: you have to do it, but you're probably going to cry.

In this audio essay, I talk about why that's true.

Before we get to that though, here's the deal: We're off this week and we'll return to regular programming in 2 weeks. The bright side: this is a bonus episode. It's rough and it's a bit of an experiment...but I think you'll dig the change of pace.

(If you're new to the podcast, don't start here, but if you're a fan, stick around.)

The piece that I read in this episode, I wrote 2 years ago (so, basically 10,000 years ago). Here's what's covered:

- What was high school really like for most people?

- What is the emotional reality of high school?

- Defining the bullshit: the status, fake work, fake friends, and the stories we believed about ourselves when we were 16 and incredibly stupid

- A story about me, a car, and concrete, and why it mattered

For more, go to realtalkstudio.com.

"Once you pull that handle....there's no turning back" - Dave "Bio" Baranek

In 1969, the United States established an elite school for the top one percent of it's pilots. The Navy calls it Fighter Weapons school. The flyers?

They call it Top Gun. And if you don't know what Top Gun is, know that Tom Cruise just called, and he wants me to tell you he's extremely disappointed.

But, here's the point: by extrapolating strategies from Top Gun, you can become amazing at what you do. And - it's backed up by research. On this episode, the guys and special guest Dave "Bio" Baranek (Top Gun Instructor, RIO, and author) cover:

- Whether you're an engineer, a doctor, a computer scientist, a lawyer, a marketer, or an entrepreneur - how do you break the sound barrier in your own career and blow past your peers?

- What's it like to meet Tom Cruise?

- Is it fun to crash in an F-14 and get waterboarded? (Hint: No.)

- Technically speaking, can you get on the highway to the danger zone?

For more on this episode, go to realtalkstudio.com.

P.S. Sign up for our email list and get your mind blown every other Tuesday.

Production and Special Credits

Dave "Bio" Baranek - Special Guest, Photo Credit (Check out his book!)

Mohnish Soundararajan - Host, Producer, Editor, Sound Design, Research

Jarrod Sport - Producer, Editor, Research, Feedback

Kevin Sanji - Co-Host

Electric Mantis - Intro Music

Justine Brumm - Feedback

Movie Clips are from the film "Top Gun (1986)"

Important Influences - Anders Ericsson, Cal Newport

"Some people go to sleep and have God appear in their dreams. I just looked her up" - Sudev Namboodiri

Remarkable.

If you didn't pass 5th grade, you have no idea what that word means.

But, when something's remarkable - you know it when you see it. On this episode, we talk to the founders of a fake religion and then, one of TIME's People of the Year to uncover how to transform your working life by being remarkable. Plus:

- How do you become the most interesting woman in the world?

- What happens when you meet strangers on the internet?

- What are the inner-mechanics of being remarkable and how can you use them to your advantage?

- How do you build the foundation for a deep, focused career?

- What happened to Pardis Sabeti in 2015 that really, really sucked?

For more material on this episode, go to realtalkstudio.com.

P.S. Sign up for the email list here.

Production and Special Credits

Special Guests: Pardis Sabeti, Sudev, Amanda, and Paca

Host, Producer, Sound Design, Research: Mohnish Soundararajan

Co-Host: Kevin Sanji

Feedback: Kevin Sanji and Justine Brumm

Special Music: "Turkana Boy" by Thousand Days

Intro Music: Electric Mantis

"We can curse all we want, but this is the most explicit thing that's ever been said on our podcast" - Mohnish Soundararajan, to Ted Gonder

While your friend Jen is working at the White House, you're on the couch eating Ramen at 4 o' clock in the morning and you can barely feel your face. Jen - you figure - must be lucky.

But what if you could reverse engineer the moments that would come to define you? And what if you could break into the White House while doing it? The guys cover:

- The weirdest thing about 5 Silicon Valley billionaires.

- Is it possible to go from unlucky to lucky?

- How do you engineer random chance in your life? Is it even possible?

- What is "bulk, positive, randomness"?

For more on this episode, go to www.realtalkstudio.com.

P.S. Become an Insider, get on the email list, and get your questions answered. Seriously - any question.

Production and Special Credits

Host, Research, Production, Sound Design, Editing: Mohnish Soundararajan

Co-Host and Editing: Kevin Sanji

Feedback: Jarrod Sport, Kevin Sanji, Justine Brumm, Vysali Soundararajan

Intro Music: Electric Mantis

"You see this cute little vial here? It's crack - rock cocaine - the most addictive form. You think it's the glamor drug of the 80's? Well, that's the point of this friendly little reminder. It can kill you."

- Clint Eastwood

Humans are bad. We're ridiculous. And we act in complex ways that I honestly have no idea how to describe. From Nancy Reagan's "Just Say No" anti-drug campaign to the reality of teaching low-income students, we figure out: Why is changing and understanding human behavior so hard? To boot: What's the best way to change human behavior in a hopeless situation? We cover:

- Did the "Just Say No" anti-drug campaign work?

- What are the hidden sources of bad behavior?

- How does complex, emergent behavior work?

- What is the Gloomy Prospect?

- Why is the learning-to-see model so effective at causing good behaviors?

And more, all on this episode. For more, go to realtalkstudio.com

P.S. Sign up for the email list and get your mind blown every other Tuesday.

Production and Credits

Host, Research, Sound Design, Editing: Mohnish Soundararajan

Co-Host: Kevin Sanji

Feedback: Jarrod Sport, Kevin Sanji, and Justine Brumm

Intro Music: Electric Mantis

Special Thanks: Eric Turkheimer, for the idea of "The Gloomy Prospect"

"Do you know what it's like to be a Top Gun pilot? What about a violin player?" - Mohnish Soundararajan, Host

Season 3 is coming soon - the wait ends October 11th.

We'll be releasing twice a month (so that's every other Tuesday) in exchange for more people, better stories, better research, better production, and stupider jokes.

It's about to get nutty. See you in 2 weeks.

"That's a whole 'nother chips n' guac" - Kevin Sanji, co-host

Hard work and experience can make you worse at what you do. This sounds absolutely bat-nut insane and it sounds wrong - but it's not. I'll take you back to the 70's, the early 1900's, and back to the present to a modern-day Japanese pushup champion to uncover why we get worse with hard work and experience (and, of course, what to do instead). In this episode, we cover:

- Why Steve Faloon's short-term memory mattered

- The nature of hard work and experience over a long period of time

- How to become an expert at what you do

- The key to expert performance - at anything

Huge thanks to Anders Ericsson's book Peak - which inspired this. For more info, go to www.realtalkstudio.com.

P.S. We got an email list. Join the Insider list here - get bonus content, get your mind blown every Tuesday, and get your questions answered.

Production and Credits

Host, Producer, Sound Design, and Editing: Mohnish Soundararajan

Huge thanks to Ander Ericsson and Robert Pool for all the research covered in Peak

Co-Host: Kevin Sanji

Feedback: Jarrod Sport, Kevin Sanji, Justine Brumm

Intro Music: Electric Mantis

Attribution: Victor 78rpm Album M-399. (013663 - 013670). Recorded July 6-7, 1933. Alfred Cortot's Chopin, Ballad No. 1 in G Minor, Op 23

"Keep the doors locked. Don't go outside. Keep the windows shut. Just be a little bit cautious - we'll have a squad car patrolling the area all night. We'll try to make contact with Pizzaland and see if we can get some information on this guy"

- Woman, to Kevin Sanji

You don't want to tell bad stories because telling bad stories makes you feel bad ("Brad, I'm finally encountering the idea that loneliness is my only end-goal"). So here's what's going to happen next: We're going to get Kevin to tell a story about a pizza delivery gone wrong. And then we're going to break the story down step-by-step, uncover the mechanics of storytelling, and get you telling better stories. We cover:

- What happened after Kevin ordered pizza?

- Who is the "Pizza Man"?

- Why does the order of events matter?

- A simple process (using observation and deliberate practice) to improve your storytelling performance

If you want to go deeper than the podcast, go to realtalkstudio.com.

P.S. Get your mind blown every Tuesday and sign up for the email list (plus, get bonus content and your questions answered by us)

Production and Credits

Special Guest: Kevin Sanji

Host, Producer, Research, Sound Design, Editing: Mohnish Soundararjan

Co-Host: Kevin Sanji

Feedback: Jarrod Sport, Vysali Soundararajan, Justine Brumm, Kevin Sanji

Intro Music: Electric Mantis