This week, producer and host of The Overexamined Life podcast Jonah Primo, joins host Lloyd Vogelman on the couch for an unfiltered conversation that digs into the personal side of the Principle of Charity.

Listen to Jonah's Podcast, "The Overexamined Life" here: https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/the-overexamined-life/id1771620846, or search it wherever you get your podcasts.

BIOS

Jonah is a Sydney-based creative and entrepreneur. His addiction to storytelling has taken him to strange and wonderful places - Jonah has interviewed hermetic gurus and podcast with A-list celebrities, he has scored music for leading brands and sold art NFTs to the likes of John Legend.

Jonah was the host of Work In Progress, a show for Sam Harris’ meditation app, Waking Up, gaining over a million downloads in its first year. Additionally, through his company STUDIOPRIMO, he produces Principle of Charity.

Jonah has spent the last 8 years studying mindfulness, meditation and philosophy in order to build frameworks for practical secular application of spiritual and psychological techniques. He shares these secrets on his personal podcast, The Overexamined Life.

Jonah studied at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, where he learned contemporary arranging under some of Australia’s best composers and topped the music theory courses. In addition to his BA in Music & Philosophy, Jonah holds a BCom in Finance & Statistics from the University of Sydney, which has instilled an uncompromising diligence and attention to detail. An advanced mathematical foundation has proved invaluable in sound engineering and complex scoring.

CREDITS

Your hosts are Lloyd Vogelman and Emile Sherman

This podcast is proud to partner with The Ethics Centre

Find Lloyd @LloydVogelman on Linked in

Find Emile @EmileSherman on Linked In and X

This podcast is produced by Jonah Primo and Sabrina Organo

Find Jonah at jonahprimo.com or @JonahPrimo on Instagram

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode we’re keeping it in the family, as we’re joined by our very own, very talented producer, Jonah Primo. Jonah has spent many years studying mindfulness, meditation and philosophy which he channels into his own podcast, The Overexamined Life - so who better to help us reflect on self-reflection.

We all know Socrates’ famous saying – the unexamined life is not worth living. But is it actually true? Does self-examination actually help us? And if so, in what way does it help? Do we end up happier, or just more aware of our limitations? And is there a point where it can do more harm than good? Maybe there’s value in a richer, more self-aware life, even if we’re not necessarily happier?

Listen to Jonah's Podcast, "The Overexamined Life" here: https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/the-overexamined-life/id1771620846, or search it wherever you get your podcasts.

BIOS

Jonah is a Sydney-based creative and entrepreneur. His addiction to storytelling has taken him to strange and wonderful places - Jonah has interviewed hermetic gurus and podcast with A-list celebrities, he has scored music for leading brands and sold art NFTs to the likes of John Legend.

Jonah was the host of Work In Progress, a show for Sam Harris’ meditation app, Waking Up, gaining over a million downloads in its first year. Additionally, through his company STUDIOPRIMO, he produces Principle of Charity.

Jonah has spent the last 8 years studying mindfulness, meditation and philosophy in order to build frameworks for practical secular application of spiritual and psychological techniques. He shares these secrets on his personal podcast, The Overexamined Life.

Jonah studied at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, where he learned contemporary arranging under some of Australia’s best composers and topped the music theory courses. In addition to his BA in Music & Philosophy, Jonah holds a BCom in Finance & Statistics from the University of Sydney, which has instilled an uncompromising diligence and attention to detail. An advanced mathematical foundation has proved invaluable in sound engineering and complex scoring.

CREDITS

Your hosts are Lloyd Vogelman and Emile Sherman

This podcast is proud to partner with The Ethics Centre

Find Lloyd @LloydVogelman on Linked in

Find Emile @EmileSherman on Linked In and X

This podcast is produced by Jonah Primo and Sabrina Organo

Find Jonah at jonahprimo.com or @JonahPrimo on Instagram

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week, sleep expert Dr Rubin Naiman, and positive leadership expert Sue Langley, join host Lloyd Vogelman on the couch for an unfiltered conversation that digs into the personal side of the Principle of Charity.

BIOS

Rubin Naiman

Rubin Naiman, PhD, FAASM, is a psychologist, Fellow in the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, clinical assistant professor of medicine and the sleep and dream specialist at the Andrew Weil Center for Integrative Medicine at the University of Arizona in the U.S. He is the leader in the development of integrative medicine approaches to sleep and dream disorders, integrating sleep science with depth psychological perspectives. Dr. Naiman is the author of groundbreaking works on sleep, including Healing Night, The Yoga of Sleep, Hush, and pivotal medical book chapters as well as scientific and consumer articles on sleep and dreams.

Sue Langley 

Sue is the founder and CEO of the Langley Group and Academic Director of the Langley Group Institute which offers the world's first government accredited Diploma in Positive Psychology. 

Sue's passion for positive psychology, emotional intelligence and neuroscience and her unwavering belief in the ability of individuals to thrive and flourish have made her a prominent figure in the field. 

The Langley Group is a consultancy specialising in transforming organisations and their people through the science of human flourishing. Sue's experience shows that the theoretical understanding and practical application of neuroscience, emotional intelligence and positive psychology research will inspire leaders and teams to build positive cultures and optimal performance. 

Sue’s expertise and thought leadership have taken her across the globe, where she has delivered keynote speeches, workshops, and consulting services to organisations in diverse industries. Sue is a Master Trainer for the Mayer-Salovey-Caruso EI Test (MSCEIT), the Strengths Profile and the Work on Wellbeing tool. She holds (among many qualifications) a Master's in the Neuroscience of Leadership. Sue's unwavering commitment to improving lives reminds us that when we focus on human potential, we unlock a world of possibilities. 

CREDITS

Your hosts are Lloyd Vogelman and Emile Sherman

This podcast is proud to partner with The Ethics Centre

Find Lloyd @LloydVogelman on Linked in

Find Emile @EmileSherman on Linked In and X

This podcast is produced by Jonah Primo and Sabrina Organo

Find Jonah at jonahprimo.com or @JonahPrimo on Instagram

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We hope to live a life filled with joy, excitement, contentment, purpose, love, meaning and transcendence. Whereas sadness, pain, grief, loneliness, anger, jealousy and anxiety, aren’t so much fun. And when things take a turn for the worst, we can fall into a number of clinical disorders, including depression, which are sadly all too prevalent.

But we’re lucky to live in a society where there’s real expertise to help us through these difficult emotions; clinical psycho therapies, medicine, even evidence-based life hacks like exercise, sleep and the right diet. 

And if we want to move from just surviving to thriving, we have a whole movement in positive psychology to help define the tools needed to really live our best lives.

For who doesn’t want to be happy? It’s not just that happy people tend to be more successful (and yes, recent studies show that causation in fact moves in that direction rather than the other way). It’s that it feels better to be happy, than sad. And we’re hard wired to choose pleasure over pain.  

But do we need to challenge the assumptions that sit behind our cultural obsession with happiness? If we put all our energy into improving our wellbeing and happiness, are we missing out on hugely valuable and potentially transformative experiences that lie in those less pleasant shadow emotions? Should we lean into, rather than avoid feelings of sadness, anxiety, fear and loneliness? 

Rubin Naiman

Rubin Naiman, PhD, FAASM, is a psychologist, Fellow in the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, clinical assistant professor of medicine and the sleep and dream specialist at the Andrew Weil Center for Integrative Medicine at the University of Arizona in the U.S. He is the leader in the development of integrative medicine approaches to sleep and dream disorders, integrating sleep science with depth psychological perspectives. Dr. Naiman is the author of groundbreaking works on sleep, including Healing Night, The Yoga of Sleep, Hush, and pivotal medical book chapters as well as scientific and consumer articles on sleep and dreams.

Sue Langley 

Sue is the founder and CEO of the Langley Group and Academic Director of the Langley Group Institute which offers the world's first government accredited Diploma in Positive Psychology. 

Sue's passion for positive psychology, emotional intelligence and neuroscience and her unwavering belief in the ability of individuals to thrive and flourish have made her a prominent figure in the field. 

The Langley Group is a consultancy specialising in transforming organisations and their people through the science of human flourishing. Sue's experience shows that the theoretical understanding and practical application of neuroscience, emotional intelligence and positive psychology research will inspire leaders and teams to build positive cultures and optimal performance. 

CREDITS

Your hosts are Lloyd Vogelman and Emile Sherman

This podcast is proud to partner with The Ethics Centre

Find Lloyd @LloydVogelman on Linked in

Find Emile @EmileSherman on Linked In and X

This podcast is produced by Jonah Primo and Sabrina Organo

Find Jonah at jonahprimo.com or @JonahPrimo on Instagram

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week the Honorable Dr Andrew Leigh MP, and philosopher Peter Singer, join host Lloyd Vogelman on the couch for an unfiltered conversation that digs into the personal side of the Principle of Charity.

Peter Singer - Bio

Peter Singer is emeritus professor of bioethics at Princeton University. He has a background in philosophy and works mostly in practical ethics. He is best known for Animal Liberation and for his writings about global poverty.

In 2021, Peter received the Berggruen Prize for Philosophy and Culture. The prize comes with $1 million, which Peter donated to the most effective organizations working to assist people in extreme poverty and to reduce the suffering of animals in factory farms.

Peter is the founder of The Life You Can Save, an organization based on his book of the same name.

His writings in this area include the 1972 essay “Famine, Affluence, and Morality”, in which Peter argues for donating to help the global poor, and two books that make the case for effective giving, The Life You Can Save (2009, 2nd edition 2019) and The Most Good You Can Do (2015).

Andrew Leigh

Andrew Leigh is the Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities, Treasury and Employment, and Federal Member for Fenner in the ACT. Prior to being elected in 2010, Andrew was a professor of economics at the Australian National University. He holds a PhD in Public Policy from Harvard, having graduated from the University of Sydney with first class honours in Arts and Law. Andrew is a past recipient of the Economic Society of Australia's Young Economist Award and a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Social Sciences.

His books include Innovation + Equality: How to Create a Future That Is More Star Trek Than Terminator (with Joshua Gans) (2019), Reconnected: A Community Builder's Handbook (with Nick Terrell) (2020), What's the Worst That Could Happen? Existential Risk and Extreme Politics (2021), Fair Game: Lessons From Sport for a Fairer Society and a Stronger Economy (2022) and The Shortest History of Economics (2024).

Andrew is a keen Ironman triathlete and marathon runner, and hosts a podcast called The Good Life: Andrew Leigh in Conversation, about living a happier, healthier and more ethical life.

CREDITS

Your hosts are Lloyd Vogelman and Emile Sherman

This podcast is proud to partner with The Ethics Centre

Find Lloyd @LloydVogelman on Linked in

Find Emile @EmileSherman on Linked In and X

This podcast is produced by Jonah Primo and Sabrina Organo

Find Jonah at jonahprimo.com or @JonahPrimo on Instagram

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode we’re joined by Federal Member for Fenner, the Honorable Dr Andrew Leigh MP, and philosopher and emeritus professor of bioethics at Princeton University, Peter Singer, to consider if we should value the lives of unborn future generations, more than we value those of us alive today. 

The consideration of lives unborn sits at the heart of ‘existential risk’. It asks us to take seriously all the future generations who, if humanity gets it right, could end up far far more numerous than every life lived to date. We could in fact, be just at the beginning of our beautiful journey as a species. But we do face a number of very real risks that could literally destroy us all - biowarfare, climate change and AI to name but a few.

So, should we spend our limited resources helping the poorest and most in need today, wherever they live? Or should we divert resources to reduce the sorts of risks which, if left unchecked, could prevent countless generations from coming into existence at all?

Peter Singer - Bio

Peter Singer is emeritus professor of bioethics at Princeton University. He has a background in philosophy and works mostly in practical ethics. He is best known for Animal Liberation and for his writings about global poverty.

In 2021, Peter received the Berggruen Prize for Philosophy and Culture. The prize comes with $1 million, which Peter donated to the most effective organizations working to assist people in extreme poverty and to reduce the suffering of animals in factory farms.

Peter is the founder of The Life You Can Save, an organization based on his book of the same name.

His writings in this area include the 1972 essay “Famine, Affluence, and Morality”, in which Peter argues for donating to help the global poor, and two books that make the case for effective giving, The Life You Can Save (2009, 2nd edition 2019) and The Most Good You Can Do (2015).

Andrew Leigh

Andrew Leigh is the Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities, Treasury and Employment, and Federal Member for Fenner in the ACT. Prior to being elected in 2010, Andrew was a professor of economics at the Australian National University. He holds a PhD in Public Policy from Harvard, having graduated from the University of Sydney with first class honours in Arts and Law. Andrew is a past recipient of the Economic Society of Australia's Young Economist Award and a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Social Sciences.

His books include Innovation + Equality: How to Create a Future That Is More Star Trek Than Terminator (with Joshua Gans) (2019), Reconnected: A Community Builder's Handbook (with Nick Terrell) (2020), What's the Worst That Could Happen? Existential Risk and Extreme Politics (2021), Fair Game: Lessons From Sport for a Fairer Society and a Stronger Economy (2022) and The Shortest History of Economics (2024).

Andrew is a keen Ironman triathlete and marathon runner, and hosts a podcast called The Good Life: Andrew Leigh in Conversation, about living a happier, healthier and more ethical life.

CREDITS

Your hosts are Lloyd Vogelman and Emile Sherman

This podcast is proud to partner with The Ethics Centre

Find Lloyd @LloydVogelman on Linked in

Find Emile @EmileSherman on Linked In and X

This podcast is produced by Jonah Primo and Sabrina Organo

Find Jonah at jonahprimo.com or @JonahPrimo on Instagram

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Do you have to have a dream? Or is incrementalism the answer to leading a flourishing life? This week, creative polymath Tim Minchin, joins host Lloyd Vogelman on the couch for an unfiltered conversation that digs into the personal side of the Principle of Charity.

Tim Minchin

In addition to two decades of award-winning live performance and multiple recorded specials, Tim is the composer and lyricist of smash-hit stage musicals, Matilda and Groundhog Day.

He is also a screenwriter (of the award-winning Upright, in which he stars alongside House of The Dragon’s Milly Alcock), and a screen actor, (Atticus Fetch in Californication, Friar Tuck in Robin Hood 2014, Darius Cracksworth in Disney's The Artful Dodger).

He is a public speaker, and a book of his commencement speeches, You Don’t Have to Have a Dream, was recently published by Penguin Random House. 

Stage roles include his acclaimed Judas in the 2014 UK / Australian Arena Tour of Jesus Christ Superstar, and Rosencrantz in the Sydney Theatre Company’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. 

He is a voice actor, has published two children's books and a graphic novel, and sometimes get into trouble for criticising fundamentalists of all stripes. 

His 2020 studio album, Apart Together, peaked at #2 on the ARIA charts.

Among many accolades, he has won two Olivier Awards for Best Musical, a British Composers Award for Best Score, a Logie for Best Supporting Actor, an ACTAA for best TV comedy performance, an Edinburgh Comedy Award for best Newcomer, a Whats On Stage Award for Best Actor in a Musical, The Richard Dawkins Award for Science Communication, and an Order of Australia for Services to the Arts and the Community. 

He has been nominated for some Tonys and a Grammy. 

CREDITS

Your hosts are Lloyd Vogelman and Emile Sherman

This podcast is proud to partner with The Ethics Centre

Find Lloyd @LloydVogelman on Linked in

Find Emile @EmileSherman on Linked In and X

This podcast is produced by Jonah Primo and Sabrina Organo

Find Jonah at jonahprimo.com or @JonahPrimo on Instagram

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Three years after his first appearance on Principle of Charity, the effervescent Tim Minchin returns for this first, and very special spotlight episode for 2025. Emile, Lloyd and Tim reflect on the principle of charity itself, and how themes explored in Tim’s latest book You Don’t Have To Have a Dream (Penguin Random House)  relate to its application in our lives. What role can the scientific method, kindness and authenticity play in helping us consider the viewpoints of those with whom we most disagree, and lead flourishing lives? 

Tim Minchin

In addition to two decades of award-winning live performance and multiple recorded specials, Tim is the composer and lyricist of smash-hit stage musicals, Matilda and Groundhog Day.

He is also a screenwriter (of the award-winning Upright, in which he stars alongside House of The Dragon’s Milly Alcock), and a screen actor, (Atticus Fetch in Californication, Friar Tuck in Robin Hood 2014, Darius Cracksworth in Disney's The Artful Dodger).

He is a public speaker, and a book of his commencement speeches, You Don’t Have to Have a Dream, was recently published by Penguin Random House. 

Stage roles include his acclaimed Judas in the 2014 UK / Australian Arena Tour of Jesus Christ Superstar, and Rosencrantz in the Sydney Theatre Company’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. 

He is a voice actor, has published two children's books and a graphic novel, and sometimes get into trouble for criticising fundamentalists of all stripes. 

His 2020 studio album, Apart Together, peaked at #2 on the ARIA charts.

Among many accolades, he has won two Olivier Awards for Best Musical, a British Composers Award for Best Score, a Logie for Best Supporting Actor, an ACTAA for best TV comedy performance, an Edinburgh Comedy Award for best Newcomer, a Whats On Stage Award for Best Actor in a Musical, The Richard Dawkins Award for Science Communication, and an Order of Australia for Services to the Arts and the Community. 

He has been nominated for some Tonys and a Grammy. 

CREDITS

Your hosts are Lloyd Vogelman and Emile Sherman

This podcast is proud to partner with The Ethics Centre

Find Lloyd @LloydVogelman on Linked in

Find Emile @EmileSherman on Linked In and X

This podcast is produced by Jonah Primo and Sabrina Organo

Find Jonah at jonahprimo.com or @JonahPrimo on Instagram

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week leading neuroscientist Anil Seth, and spiritual leader and scholar Swami Sarvapriyananda, join host Lloyd Vogelman on the couch for an unfiltered conversation that digs into the personal side of the Principle of Charity. Can the inevitability of human suffering help us understand the existence of the ‘self’?

BIOS

Anil Seth is Professor of Cognitive and Computational Neuroscience at the University of Sussex, where he is also Director of the Sussex Centre for Consciousness Science. He is also Co-Director of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR) Program on Brain, Mind, and Consciousness. 2021 saw the publication of his best selling book, Being You - A New Science of Consciousness.

Anil was the founding Editor-in-Chief of Neuroscience of Consciousness (Oxford University Press),

Swami Sarvapriyananda is a Hindu monk belonging to the Ramakrishna Order and the Minister and spiritual leader of the Vedanta Society of New York. He was in the first group of Hindu swamis to participate as a Nagral Fellow for the year 2019-20 at Harvard Divinity School. He is a well-known speaker on Vedanta teachings and his talks are extremely popular worldwide. 

CREDITS

Your hosts are Lloyd Vogelman and Emile Sherman

This podcast is proud to partner with The Ethics Centre

Find Lloyd @LloydVogelman on Linked in

Find Emile @EmileSherman on Linked In and X

This podcast is produced by Jonah Primo and Sabrina Organo

Find Jonah at jonahprimo.com or @JonahPrimo on Instagram

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode, we’re joined by one of the world’s leading neuroscientists, Anil Seth, and Advaita Vedanta spiritual leader and scholar, Swami Sarvapriyananda, to explore ideas around consciousness. When we die, does our consciousness die with us, or is our body just a vehicle, at best, for a consciousness that continues?

Most mainstream forms of western knowledge are based on an understanding that nothing exists outside of the physical world which follows the fundamental laws of physics. It posits that whatever we seek to understand, we need to do so using the tools of material reality. 

It seems however, that this largely shared assumption around the nature of reality falls apart for many of us when we think about what happens after death. By far the majority of people living on this planet believe in a consciousness, or a related term like ‘soul’, that exists separate to our material body and can therefore continue after death. 

This belief is of course the basic building block of pretty much all religions - and all these beliefs share an assumption that there’s a realm of disembodied mind, or spirit, which can continue after our body dies. In philosophy of mind, this belief is called ‘dualism’.

But for most hard-nosed scientists and philosophers, there’s something deeply problematic about dualism, of this separating out of conscious experience from the material world. Everything else can be explained using the tools of material reality. Why not consciousness?

BIOS

Anil Seth is Professor of Cognitive and Computational Neuroscience at the University of Sussex, where he is also Director of the Sussex Centre for Consciousness Science. He is also Co-Director of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR) Program on Brain, Mind, and Consciousness. 2021 saw the publication of his best selling book, Being You - A New Science of Consciousness.

Anil was the founding Editor-in-Chief of Neuroscience of Consciousness (Oxford University Press), a role he served from 2014-2024.

Swami Sarvapriyananda is a Hindu monk belonging to the Ramakrishna Order and the Minister and spiritual leader of the Vedanta Society of New York. He was in the first group of Hindu swamis to participate as a Nagral Fellow for the year 2019-20 at Harvard Divinity School. He is a well-known speaker on Vedanta teachings and his talks are extremely popular worldwide. 

Your hosts are Lloyd Vogelman and Emile Sherman

This podcast is proud to partner with The Ethics Centre

Find Lloyd @LloydVogelman on Linked in

Find Emile @EmileSherman on Linked In and X

This podcast is produced by Jonah Primo and Sabrina Organo

Find Jonah at jonahprimo.com or @JonahPrimo on Instagram

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.