Where There's Smoke

Just what IS Christmas Spirit? Is it real? If so, how do we get it? What the heck does CWB stand for? And what's the role of nostalgia in this whole holiday season?This week, it's A Where There's Smoke Christmas. Brett finds himself a little down in the dumps around Christmas, but Nick may have just the cure - a mysterious VHS tape he found that contains the impossible.

Join Brett & Nick as they go on a journey through history, psychology, and holiday classics to understand Christmas Spirit. Along the way, we'll meet a cast of characters that all sound a lot like Brett & Nick, find out what the best Christmas Present Brett ever got was, and ultimately hear Nick share what the Christmas Spirit is all about. (Hint: Everyone can enjoy it!)

So grab a cup of eggnog, cozy up to the fire, press play, and enjoy!

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'Tis the season of giving. If want to support the show and help keep it going, please go to Support WTS.com and become a Patron.

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You can also go to www.wheretheressmoke.co for links to Stitcher, SoundCloud, and/or to stream online.

"Creativity is not a talent. It is a way of operating." Those are the words of John Cleese in a talk he gave back in 1991 on Creativity. In this episode we explore the concept of Creativity. What is it? Are YOU creative? Can you be MORE creative? And how DOES creativity impact other areas of our lives? We go on this exploration with author, artist, entrepreneur, and activist David Usher, who earlier this year released the book, Let The Elephants Run: Unlock Your Creativity and Change Everything.

Plus, a special Holiday edition of WTS Digs. GUEST: David Usher

Website: www.DavidUsher.com

Twitter: @DavidUsher

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If you love the show and want to support what we do, please visit www.supportwts.com and consider a donation to our Patreon campaign.

Also, help others find the show by LEAVING AN ITUNES REVIEW! Thx.

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Links from our newest segment: WTS DIGS!

Brett recommends A Very Murray Christmas on Netflix

Nick recommends John Denver & The Muppets, A Christmas Together

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JOIN our MAILING LIST by texting the word SMOKE to 66866, or go to our website (www.wheretheressmoke.co).

DOWNLOAD & LISTEN directly from iTunes here: http://tinyurl.com/wts-itunes

Find us on Pocket Casts here: http://pca.st/smoke

You can also go to www.wheretheressmoke.co for links to Stitcher, SoundCloud, and/or to stream online.

Why is it so hard to ask for things? Why do we resist? Why don't we do it when we need support?

This week, Brett and Nick launch their Patreon campaign - but they process was a difficult one. First, they had to wrestle with asking their listeners for support! This led them to ask some questions about asking. What about asking makes us so uncomfortable? Through the journey, they had conversations with Patreon's Creation Relations Manager, Cole Palmer, and personal development facilitator Kathy Quinlan-Perez.

Brett & Nick ask you to visit www.supportwts.com and consider supporting Where There's Smoke. They just want to keep saying "YES!" to making this show every week. Thank you for your support!

* * *GUESTS Cole Palmer, Patreon

Twitter: @cepvi0Kathy Quinlan-Perez, PSI Seminars

Website: www.psiseminars.com

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Links from our newest segment: WTS DIGS!

Brett recommends Walking Through Airports/Malls/Busy Streets listening to Christmas music on headphones (Experience)

Nick recommends Psychonauts 2 & Mystery Science Theater 3000 (Crowdfunding Campaigns)* * *

JOIN our MAILING LIST by texting the word SMOKE to 66866, or go to our website (www.wheretheressmoke.co).

DOWNLOAD & LISTEN directly from iTunes here: http://tinyurl.com/wts-itunes

Find us on Pocket Casts here: http://pca.st/smoke

You can also go to www.wheretheressmoke.co for links to Stitcher, SoundCloud, and/or to stream online.

Want to help support Where There's Smoke? Visit www.supportwts.com. Thank you for being the best and reading to the end of these podcast notes. Gold star for you!

What is it about music that just takes you back to specific people, places, and moments? Well, this week, we explore how music intersects with our lives. Whether it's playing, listening, or escaping it, music is finds a way to bury deep within us and remind us of our own stories.

Nick is running this show this week and opens with a story about love, loss, and the Bb concert scale. Next, Elizabeth Sweetly tells us about how music seemingly haunted her until she came to grips with the realities of her own life. Finally, Jessi Broughton tells us about how music brought her best friend into her life - twice.

We also speak with neuropsychologist Dr. Amee Baird about her research into music and memory.

So, put on a stupid grin and let's get to listening.

GUESTS Dr. Amee BairdSpecial Thanks to Listeners Elizabeth Sweetly (@ej_sweetly) and Jessi Broughton (@searchtofindyou) for sharing their stories.

Special thanks to Breathing Rhythm Studios in Norman, Oklahoma for audio recording assistance.

For more about the legacy that Ben has left behind, visit

https://www.facebook.com/beninspired/.

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Links from our newest segment: WTS DIGS!

Brett recommends Mr. Nice.

Nick recommends the Snarky Puppy song, Lingus.

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JOIN our MAILING LIST by texting the word SMOKE to 66866, or go to our website (www.wheretheressmoke.co).

DOWNLOAD & LISTEN directly from iTunes here: http://tinyurl.com/wts-itunes

Find us on Pocket Casts here: http://pca.st/smoke

You can also go to www.wheretheressmoke.co for links to Stitcher, SoundCloud, and/or to stream online.

"Be so good they can't ignore you." That's Steve Martin's advice for anybody looking to be successful. We hear some form of this idea from countless actors, musicians, athletes, scientists: Do good work. This week, we attempt to unpack what "good work" truly means. We're talking about "quality" - specifically as it pertains to situations where we are looking to break into a particular profession, get a promotion, or create a successful product. In those situations, doing "good work" requires us to understand what is expected in a given space and then be able to create it ourselves.

Joining us in this conversation is Franklin Leonard, the founder of The Black List. We also hear from author and speaker Jon Gordon, and receive some emails from the author of The Martian, Andy Weir.

Oh, and we talk about getting struck by lightning. Don't ask, just listen. GUESTS Franklin Leonard

Website: www.blcklst.com

Twitter: @franklinleonard / @theblcklst Jon Gordon

Website: www.jongordon.comTwitter: @JonGordon11

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Links from our newest segment: WTS DIGS!

Brett recommends Rhye - Woman (Album)

Nick recommends My Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (TV Show on CW and Hulu)

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JOIN our MAILING LIST by texting the word SMOKE to 66866, or go to our website (www.wheretheressmoke.co).

DOWNLOAD & LISTEN directly from iTunes here: http://tinyurl.com/wts-itunes

Find us on Pocket Casts here: http://pca.st/smoke

You can also go to www.wheretheressmoke.co for links to Stitcher, SoundCloud, and/or to stream online.

Each day, roughly 205 billions emails are sent, 3.5 billion Facebook messages are posted, and 40 million tweets are shared. In short, we are talking, texting, tweeting, and chatting at a very high rate. But in this process of sharing so many words - both in speed and quantity - we ask: Do we treat words with the same care we once did? And, do we ever stop to truly consider their power? We also ask: What if the phrase "Actions speak louder than words" wasn't always true? What if, in our modern times, it's the opposite?

Our conversation starts with the first of Don Miguel's Four Agreements; then we take a ride through some of the stories that have elicited reactions online and offline over the past 4 months; and, lastly, we go back a decade to hear a story about Nick and his Mom, including an interview with Nick's mom herself, Barbara Jaworski.

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Links from our newest segment: WTS DIGS!

Brett recommends Brooklyn Nine Nine (TV Show).

Nick recommends Ghost and their song, Cirice (Performance of The Late Show).

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JOIN our MAILING LIST by texting the word SMOKE to 66866, or go to our website (www.wheretheressmoke.co).

DOWNLOAD & LISTEN directly from iTunes here: http://tinyurl.com/wts-itunes Find us on Pocket Casts here: http://pca.st/smoke

You can also go to www.wheretheressmoke.co for links to Stitcher, SoundCloud, and/or to stream online.

Lulu Miller of NPR's Invisibilia joins us this week to talk about curiosity. Well, she really wanted to talk about adventure, exploration, and discovery; but for reasons we discuss in the show, Brett just couldn't let curiosity go. Simply by asking, "What is curiosity?", we find ourselves confronted with another whole set of questions: How curious are you? How do you measure it? Could one believe they are curious, and then discover they're not? Could curiosity be something different than you think?

Plus, we tip our hat to the great comic strip Calvin & Hobbes, which debuted 30 years ago this November and rode off on a toboggan 20 years ago this December. Well, if we want to get any answers to these questions, there's only one thing left to do: Let's go exploring!

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Guest: Lulu Miller

Website: http://lutimestwo.com / http://www.npr.org/people/348775905/lulu-miller

Twitter: @lmillernpr

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Links from our newest segment: WTS DIGS!

Brett recommends: Pocket

Nick recommends: Nathan For You

JOIN our MAILING LIST by texting the word SMOKE to 66866, or go to our website (www.wheretheressmoke.co).

DOWNLOAD & LISTEN directly from iTunes here: http://tinyurl.com/wts-itunes.

You can also go to www.wheretheressmoke.co for links to Stitcher, SoundCloud, and/or to stream online.

This year marks the 100th anniversary of Robert Frost's classic poem, The Road Not Taken. Also, October 21, 2015 has become known as Back to the Future Day because it is the exact date that Doc Brown, Marty McFly, and Jennifer travel to in the movie, Back to the Future 2.

Now, if you look at both of these works - The Road Not Taken and Back to the Future 2 - they might seem vastly different! But, beneath the surface, both works examine the idea of choice. This week we dig deeper into Frost's poem and discover that many people - including ourselves - have misunderstood its meaning. We lean on some insights from columnist David Orr and his new book, The Road Not Taken: Finding America in the Poem Everyone Loves and Almost Everyone Gets Wrong. And we also talk about hard choices through some powerful ideas from Ruth Chang's TED Talk on the same subject. And all of this exists within a big hat tip to the Back to the Future trilogy. As Brett & Nick take on the pseudo roles of Marty McFly and Doc Brown to take listeners on a ride through time, as only they can.

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Links from our newest segment: WTS DIGS!

Brett recommends You're The Worst on FXX (Season 1 is available on Hulu).

Nick recommends Bojack Horseman on Netflix.

JOIN our MAILING LIST by texting the word SMOKE to 66866, or go to our website (www.wheretheressmoke.co).

DOWNLOAD & LISTEN directly from iTunes here: http://tinyurl.com/wts-itunes Find us on Pocket Casts here: http://pca.st/smoke

You can also go to www.wheretheressmoke.co for links to Stitcher, SoundCloud, and/or to stream online.

Listeners asked and so our second season premiere covers a topic that everyone struggles with: Procrastination. Unfortunately for Brett and Nick, life quickly began to imitate art when they found themselves caught in their own web of procrastination to get the episode finished.

Brett and Nick ask: Why do we put things off? Why do we avoid them? And, if procrastination is just a symptom of something larger, then what are its sources?

For answers, Brett turns to writer and blogger, Mark Manson. Mark shares some thoughts from his insightful article, "Everything You Wanted To Know About Procrastination But Were Too Lazy To Figure Out".

Was Mark able to set Brett right? Will they cure their own procrastination and make it to the end of the episode? Will Nick stop playing Mario Kart? Stay tuned.

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Guest: Mark Manson

Website: www.markmanson.net

Twitter: @IAmMarkManson

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Links from our newest segment: WTS DIGS!

Brett recommends Ryan Adams' cover of Taylor Swift's album, 1989, as well as the mash-up album, Yeezer.

Nick recommends Double Fine Adventure.

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JOIN our MAILING LIST by texting the word SMOKE to 66866, or go to our website (www.wheretheressmoke.co).

DOWNLOAD & LISTEN directly from iTunes here: http://tinyurl.com/wts-itunes.

You can also go to www.wheretheressmoke.co for links to Stitcher, SoundCloud, and/or to stream online.

For the past couple of years it seems like one of the biggest buzzwords in business and entrepreneurship is "Hustle". And most of the messaging around hustle is about "go, go, go!" - harder, faster, stronger, more. But what if that's not the whole story? What if hustle is also about slowing down, pausing, and being still? And what if it is in that stillness that the best hustlers are made? In this episode, we discuss this concept with Kyra Maya Philips, co-author of the book The Misfit Economy -- which was named by The Telegraph, Tech Republic, and The Huffington Post as one of the Top New Books to read in 2015. We also bring in lessons from the life of convict-turned-entrepreneur, Duane Jackson. We also hear some wise words from writer and traveler, Pico Iyer. Lastly, we receive some widsom from author and activist, Lynne Twist. When it is all said and done, you may be left with a new idea of how to "Do The Hustle". (Just in time for the 40th anniversary of it reaching #1 on the Billboard 100.)

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Guest: Kyra Maya Phillips

Website: www.misfiteconomy.com

Twitter: @ThisIsKyraMaya

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