The Living A Liver's Life Podcast

What reaction do you have when you see a famous actor or athlete promoting a product or service during a commercial break? What exactly is happening when we are amused and entertained by an insurance commercial? SM definitely has strong feelings about this tactic!

This week, our topic is the Premium! You know it as the bill you pay regularly for auto, renter's, and homeowner's insurance. But do you know what you're really paying for? State insurance regulators are supposed to protect us from undue increases...that means elected officials...which means politics!

Say hello to the Soft Power Operative -- one of the rare Oligarchs from our Enemy Spotting Guide!

SM digs into research on insurers and the competition for your business. The numbers will surprise and shock you! For example, Consumer Reports finds that the biggest insurance companies in the US typically provide the worst service (excluding USAA, which advertises voluminously, yet provides good service) .

Yes, the more a company spends on advertising, the worse it is an providing coverage and claims service! These companies have billion-dollar advertising budgets. Where does that money come from? Hint: it comes from you! Keep that in mind the next time your premium goes up!

Then, SM answers a letter asking about celebrity endorsements. P.B. is wondering if the Buryer Ostrich from the Mind Menagerie is at work. Turns out, it's actually the Gleamer!

Our Golden Retriever of the Halo Effect! It's our internal ability to forgive people we like. Instead of seeing a halo around the head of a celebrity selling out to advertise a product, we should have two strong reactions: Disappointment -- that they would sink so low, so quickly, and Pity -- that they would so willingly throw away all our respect and esteem.

And don't let the company who hired them off the hook! Rather than keeping your bill affordable, they are taking your money and naming stadiums, paying millions for endorsements, and spending billions to draw in more customers!

Subscribe at the "Certified Liver" tier of membership on Patreon to access the Mind Menagerie and Enemy Spotting Guide as downloadable pdfs!

Links to all the platforms that host the podcast, as well as the Living a Liver's Life merchandise store, are on our website and our Linktree. Plus, Cheers! to all our listeners in Alaska!

Until the next episode...Get out there Liver! Get out there and Live a Liver's Life!

Yes, friends, the holidays are approaching. Maybe you're not ready for them, but the big box stores have been ready since early August! This week's topic is Gifting, and the Strings that are attached to some gifts and event sponsorships.

First, SM relates a story about workplace gift exchanges. These are never comfortable. We always end up exchanging equally-valued gift cards that just limit where we can spend our money.

Then, SM relates a story about a wedding and how the bride's parents get involved...way TOO involved. The story reveals the tactics and emotional manipulation of a classic Enemy from the Enemy Spotting Guide -- The Guilt Vampire!

SM uses current research into gift-giving to support the bride and groom. Then he explores the growth of the word "gifting." It's not an old word. In the 1990s, it was barely used at all. Since then, people have started using it ten times as much!

Does that mean we have blended the old tradition of giving a gift with the mental and emotional toil involved in gift selection we feel today? Transforming the noun "gift" into the verb "gifting" -- to describe how hard we work? Let's find out!

Finally, Letters to SM explores how we deal with unwanted gifts. How do we start the conversation to propose an exchange? And is that different from the act of re-gifting unwanted presents? Of course, the Mind Menagerie is involved in our decision!

Subscribe at the "Certified Liver" tier of membership on Patreon to access the Mind Menagerie and Enemy Spotting Guide as downloadable pdfs!

Links to all the platforms that host the podcast, as well as the Living a Liver's Life merchandise store, are on our website and our Linktree. Plus, Cheers! to the Sofa King Podcast -- and True Livers B, B, and D -- and Salinte! to all the Livers in Ireland!

Until the next episode...Get out there Liver! Get out there and Live a Liver's Life!

We're all familiar with the term "Sacrifice." It's socially admirable, parentally expected, and theologically venerated. This week, we ask a very human question: What are we being asked to give up, for whose benefit, and under what terms?

But in hard economic times, times of war, and times of scarcity, are we all sacrificing proportionally? Or are some people actually profiting immensely?

SM dedicates this episode to all the truckers out there, especially the independent operators. The story this week concerns D.R. -- an independent driver struggling to make ends meet with the high cost of diesel fuel. The story leads into the reveal of a previously-unexamined Enemy from the Enemy Spotting Guide -- the PetroBaron!

Then, SM shares a letter from L.N. -- who finds it increasingly difficult to enjoy Friday nights at her favorite restaurant. This leads to an examination of the Buryer Ostrich of Cognitive Dissonance.

Remember, the war with Iran started at the end of February 2026. "Short-term pain for long-term gain" was a clever slogan. We now deserve an answer to two questions: "How long is 'short-term'?" And "Who receives the long term gain?"

Subscribe at the "Certified Liver" tier of membership on Patreon to access the NEW Mind Menagerie and Enemy Spotting Guide as downloadable pdfs!

Links to all the platforms that host the podcast, as well as the Living a Liver's Life merchandise store, are on our website and our Linktree.

Until the next episode...Get out there Liver! Get out there and Live a Liver's Life!

The Living a Liver's Life Podcast never spews rhetoric or takes political stands -- but we do speak truth to power. Every piece of data used in this episode is backed up by research. The data tables are presented below, as an attachment in CSV format, with all websites referenced listed therein. The main source was the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and these data are from filings by companies with that agency. We believe the facts speak for themselves...

Why can we leave a place and still feel trapped by it? This week, SM explores our need to escape from our daily toil -- and the inordinate pressure we put on a few days off to magically recharge us after a full year of work.

First up, it's the Menagerie on vacation! The creatures we carry around in our heads also accompany us on trips and holidays. You'll be amazed at what they can do! Join SM on a five-day excursion to La Manzanilla -- where the Split-Horn Ram and Justifier Raccoon are hard at work.

Then, a Letter to S.M. asks: How do you take a vacation from being the person who gives everyone else their vacation? It's a familiar feeling -- you take off two weeks for the holidays, and by the end, you're somehow happy to be going back to work...for a break!

S.M. has discovered the root of the problem. You can change your location -- fly halfway around the world if you want -- but if you don't change what people expect from you, don't expect the freedom to do what you want.

Perhaps understanding that will allow us to create the kind of lives we don't need to escape from -- the lives of True Livers!

Subscribe at the "Certified Liver" tier of membership on Patreon to access the NEW Mind Menagerie and Enemy Spotting Guide as downloadable pdfs!

Links to all the platforms that host the podcast, as well as the Living a Liver's Life merchandise store, are on our website and our Linktree.

Until the next episode...Get out there Liver! Get out there and Live a Liver's Life!

Have you ever been enormously relieved that nothing happened? This week, SM attends a dinner party -- that includes an unwanted visitor -- causing SM to wonder: What does our Relief tell us about what we’ve just been through?

Join SM on a trip across the pond to attend a football match. He encounters an Enemy from the Enemy Spotting Guide -- our old friend, the Limelighter! This provides an introduction to two new words coined right here by SM for the show!

The first? It's "vergehush." Vergehush describes the quiet state of tense, protective apprehension when another person’s escalating, unpredictable behavior may cause harm -- accompanied by uncertainty about whether intervening would prevent that harm or provoke it.

Then, Letters to SM answers a question from C.M., who is in a similar situation with his friend, A.R. His antics at the bar, as well as his weak excuses after the fact, reveal him to be a Wilter, the Mind Menagerie's Lamb of Appeal to Pity.

Going out with his buddy A.R. on Saturday night puts C.M. into "brinkvigil." Brinkvigil is the sustained watch kept over another person’s potentially harmful loss of control, while remaining prepared to respond -- and simultaneously judging whether to intervene, wait, seek help, or withdraw.

Vergehush names the feeling. Brinkvigil names the watch you keep. We've all been there. Now we have terminology to describe it! Let's all adopt this into our everyday vocabulary! We're talking to you, psychology researchers...

Subscribe at the "Certified Liver" tier of membership on Patreon to access the NEW Mind Menagerie and Enemy Spotting Guide as downloadable pdfs!

Links to all the platforms that host the podcast, as well as the Living a Liver's Life merchandise store, are on our website and our Linktree.

Until the next episode...Get out there Liver! Get out there and Live a Liver's Life!

SM passes by a refrigerator on the curb and asks: "Why has preserving the usefulness of something become harder than purchasing its replacement?" That's right--our topic this week is Disposability!

Join SM on an epic quest to repair his warrantied water heater...you won't believe how difficult it is, or the complex network of competing forces involved. It sounds like the work of two Enemies. First, the Optimizer Robot!

This particular model specializes in maximizing profit above all else. SM discovers the origin of planned obsolescence--and it goes back much further than you might think!

All set to buy a new mobile phone? Because you want one that folds three ways...or because your old phone has developed...some problems? Yes friends, Disposability has also infected our electronic devices, and you can guess who's pulling the strings on that arrangement. Yes, its another visit from our digital Oligarch, the TechnoSoverign!

Letters to SM focuses on the fine line between maintaining a supply of spare parts and becoming the Damkeeper Beaver of the Sunk Cost Fallacy. In the end, Disposability may be inevitable, but a Liver always has the freedom to choose!

Subscribe at the "Certified Liver" tier of membership on Patreon to access the NEW Mind Menagerie and Enemy Spotting Guide as downloadable pdfs!

Links to all the platforms that host the podcast, as well as the Living a Liver's Life merchandise store, are on our website and our Linktree.

Until the next episode...Get out there Liver! Get out there and Live a Liver's Life!

Why do we keep obeying beliefs we insist we don't really believe? Join SM for an explanation of the little habits and rituals that represent our Superstitions -- and learn how they can have a dark effect on our lives.

First, SM recounts a story about performing live, onstage radio dramas in England -- and how a single penny can have more value than its component metals. This leads to an encounter with a NEW creature from the revised Living a Liver's Life Mind Menagerie: the Linker Parrot of False Causality!

Next, it's Letters to SM, where T.L. writes in with a question about advanced soccer training -- and asks whether she might be a cheapskate parent. This leads to an exposé of the second new Menagerie creature: the Joiner!

Our Sardine of Social Proof and the Bandwagon Effect! Magical thinking and imagined alternate realities affect our happiness when we look back at our choices -- SM discusses how to avoid that!

In the end, Superstition is one of those things we inherited from our ancestors that we probably don't want. Handle those instincts like a Liver!

Subscribe at the "Certified Liver" tier of membership on Patreon to access the NEW Mind Menagerie and Enemy Spotting Guide as downloadable pdfs!

Links to all the platforms that host the podcast, as well as the Living a Liver's Life merchandise store, are on our website and our Linktree.

Until the next episode...Get out there Liver! Get out there and Live a Liver's Life!

Human beings have come to Agreements for as long as we have been humans. The way we document these agreements has changed, but have we taken it too far?

SM relates two personal stories about Agreement and explores the four different levels of this deeply human act -- Agreement, Assent, Acquiescence, and Submission. The binary choices our modern technology employs to gain our consent tie directly to a bold Mind Menagerie creature -- the Split-Horn!

Our Ram of False Dichotomy. Only now it represents the way Choice Architecture presents us with two distinct buttons -- that aren't really choices at all!

In this week's Letters to S.M., a listener describes a store clerk who manifests three different Robot models in one encounter. If you guessed Policy Drone, Script Reader, and Compliance Bot -- you're three for three!

Subscribe at the "Certified Liver" tier of membership on Patreon to access the entire Mind Menagerie and Enemy Spotting Guide as downloadable pdfs!

Links to all the platforms that host the podcast, as well as the Living a Liver's Life merchandise store, are on our website and our Linktree.

Until the next episode...Get out there Liver! Get out there and Live a Liver's Life!

Is there a difference between Certainty and Certitude? Have you ever projected certainty? Answer these questions and more in this week's episode!

SM uses an old film projector as an analogy for projected certainty. When the world has slowed down, we can closely examine each frame of the film on the reel. But when the world turns...at 1000 miles an hour...or 30 frames per second? That's a different story.

Join SM in the shower -- figuratively -- as he discusses "shower ideas."

In this week's Letters to S.M., two listeners share individual stories about two very different bosses.

Plus three levels of management, from a small program...to a Cabinet Secretary...to the Oval Office itself? Three Mind Menagerie creatures in one segment -- the Boaster, the Towerback, and the Buryer? What more could you ask for!?!

In the beginning, you'll ask que sais-je -- "What do I know?"

By the end, you'll have your answer!

Subscribe at the "Certified Liver" tier of membership on Patreon to access the entire Mind Menagerie and Enemy Spotting Guide as downloadable pdfs!

Links to all the platforms that host the podcast, as well as the Living a Liver's Life merchandise store, are on our website and our Linktree.

Until the next episode...Get out there Liver! Get out there and Live a Liver's Life!

SM posits a bold hypothesis -- that a Liver can't be bored. Diving deeply into the world of psychology and personal experience, SM arrives at an interesting conclusion that may just change the way you look at your experience of Boredom!

First, SM takes a trip to the South Pacific and spends a week on a naval base. What he learns there is revealing -- and helps define what it means to live a Liver's life!

Then, we explore a forgotten Mind Menagerie creature -- the Magpie!

The Collector representing our Availability Heuristic! He disregards everything except for what is bright, shiny, or new. Like the constant alerts on our phones!

Then SM discusses groups chats and the social pressure to conform to collective opinions -- called belonging surveillance -- in this week's Letters to SM! This strange, artificial interaction between friends relies on both the Trend Follower Robot and the Bundler:

The Peacock representing the Package Deal Fallacy. The entire show reveals that these two creatures represent parallel failures of internal initiation.

Subscribe at the "Certified Liver" tier of membership on Patreon to access the entire Mind Menagerie and Enemy Spotting Guide as downloadable pdfs!

Links to all the platforms that host the podcast, as well as the Living a Liver's Life merchandise store, are on our website and our Linktree.

Until the next episode...Get out there Liver! Get out there and Live a Liver's Life!