More To Learn

After first interviewing Dan Ariely in November 2017, he's back for Round 2! This time, we speak about his brand new book, Misbelief.

Buy Misbelief: https://misbeliefbook.com/

Dan's website: https://danariely.com/

Dan Ariely's 2008 book 'Predictably Irrational' highlighted "the hidden forces that shape our decisions".

Rather than the standard economic theory that looks at how we think people SHOULD behave, behavioural economics looks at how people ACTUALLY behave. Ariely found that rather being in the driver's seat (as we like to think), we're really just pawns in a game whose forces we don't understand and can't control.

This episode goes deep on one of those forces: the power of RELATIVITY.

In preparation for my interview with Dan Ariely about his new book, Misbelief, I revisited a bunch of his previous books as well.

The Upside of Irrationality takes some of Ariely's research and findings into human behaviour and applies them to the world of work and motivation. This was originally Episode #338 of the What You Will Learn podcast (published in September 2021) but a bit of background into some of Dan's work will give some great context for the upcoming interview episode.

Today I'm chatting with Owen Fitzpatrick. Owen is the author of 8 or 9 great books (with more on the way), he's the host of the Changing Minds podcast, and he delivered my favourite TED Talk of all time.

On this episode, we chat about Owen's compulsion for inputting new information, how he went deep into some personal development sub-cultures, and how he picks what to read next.

Owen's website: https://owenfitzpatrick.com/

Changing Minds podcast: https://changingmindspodcast.com/start-here/

Owen's legendary TED Talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBwQZv3_OXE

A quick wrap up of the month of September:

• Podcast updates (including stats)
• Emails and Voice Memos
• What I've been reading
• What's coming up next

I met up with my old buddy Adam Jones (former co-host of the What You Will Learn podcast) to discuss our favourite short books. Some of these books are quick and easy reads, some are small in stature but hefty in nature, really packing a punch.

I guess the old adage holds true: it's not the size that counts, but how you use it.

This was quite an unstructured chat, rattling off books we liked (or didn't like) that were 150 pages or less. If any of these books tickle your fancy, check out the full episode we did on the WYWL podcast to go a little bit deeper on a specific book: https://whatyouwilllearn.com/

Perhaps my new favourite framework for marketing and advertising - understanding where you customer currently is (in terms of their awareness of your product or service) and using that to inform your headlines and copywriting. You know the end point you want to get them to (buying from you), you'll now know where they currently are, so the job of your ad is to move them along the path from where they are to where you want them to be.

In this episode, I run through the 5 States of Awareness, as outlined in Eugene Schwartz's famous book, Breakthrough Advertising:

• Completely Aware
• Product Aware
• Solution Aware
• Problem Aware
• Unaware

Breakthrough Adveritising was written by Eugene Schwartz in the 1960s. Recently, over the last decade or so, it's had a real resurgence and developed a bit of an underground cult following. And for good reason!

While this book was originally written specifically about copywriting for newspaper ads, I see some of the underlying philosophies as one of the best lenses through which to view modern adveritsing and marketing in general.

I had to break this book into two episodes - this first part is about the ideas of "harnessing mass desire", then the next episoide goes deep on the five "states of awareness".

You can buy a second hand copy of this book for hundreds (and in some cases I've seen thousands) of dollars, or grab a new edition which is still not cheap but at least somewhat reasonable: https://breakthroughadvertisingbook.com/

Tyler Cowen: Academic economist, author, podcaster, blogger, professor, online educator, reader, listener, foodie, and much much more.

Marginal Revolution: https://marginalrevolution.com/

Conversations With Tyler podcast: https://conversationswithtyler.com/

Have you ever been sitting in a stock-standard, stale, boring, question-and-answer job interview? Whether you were doing the interviewing or being interviewed, it's not the best way to identify talent.

Tyler Cowen & Daniel Gross have some suggestions as to how to conduct better job interviews. In their book Talent, chapter 2 is titled 'How To Interview And Ask Questions'. Today's episode is the best bits of that chapter.

The first part of the episode is around the types of questions you ask (hint: if you google "top 15 most common job interview questions", you're doing it wrong). The second part of the episode is about the style of the interview: breaking out of pre-prepared canned responses and getting into conversation mode, changing the setting of the intetrview, and 'going meta'.

The next time your conducting a job interview (or the next time you want to showcase your talents in a job interview), these ideas will make things a hell of a lot better for everyone involved.