In this episode we sit down with author Kelly Williams Brown, an old friend who (I recently learned) had attempted suicide, which is the subject of this episode – suicide prevention and awareness. In the show we learn about Kelly's latest book, Easy Crafts for the Insane, in which she recounts how, after she gained fame and success as a NYT bestselling author, her life came apart and how an anti-anxiety-drug-induced manic state nearly ended her life.

988

Suicide Prevention Month

Kelly Williams Brown's Website

Easy Crafts for the Insane

Kelly's Twitter

Kelly's Instagram

Kelly in Vanity Fair

Gratitude Journaling Study

Seneca on Being Wretched

How Minds Change

David McRaney’s Twitter

YANSS Twitter

Show Notes

Newsletter

Patreon

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In this episode we sit down with A.J. Jacobs, a journalist who noticed some striking similarities between Biblical fundamentalism and constitutional originalism, and since he once wrote a NYT bestselling book about titled The Year of Living Biblically in which he tried to live for a year as a fundamentalist, he tried to do something similar by living for a year following the Constitution's original meaning as if he were an originalist and then writing a book about it. He soon learned that donning a tricorne hat and marching around Manhattan with a 1700s musket, though fully within one's constitutional rights, will quickly lead to some difficult encounters and altogether strange circumstances.

The Year of Living Constitutionally

AJ Jacobs' Website

AJ Jacobs' Twitter

How Minds Change

David McRaney’s Twitter

YANSS Twitter

Kitted Shop

The Story of Kitted

Show Notes

Newsletter

Patreon

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Sedona Chinn, who studies how people make sense of competing claims – scientific, environmental, health-related – joins us to discuss her latest research into doing your own research. Her research has found that the more a person values the concept of doing your own research, the less likely that person is to actually do their own research. In the episode we explore the origin of the concept, what that phrase really means, and the implications of her study on everything from politics to vaccines to conspiratorial thinking.

Sedona Chinn's Website

Sedona Chinn's Twitter

Sedona Chinn's Paper

The Other Paper Mentioned

How Minds Change

David McRaney’s Twitter

YANSS Twitter

Kitted Shop

The Story of Kitted

Show Notes

Newsletter

Patreon

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Our guest in this episode is Jamie Joyce who is the president and executive director of The Society Library, an organization that extracts arguments, claims, and evidence from various forms of media to compile databases that map all the bickering and debating taking place across our species. They take all our conversations about all the major issues facing society and restructure them into something a single person, or a committee, or someone whose job affects millions can understand and then use to make better decisions.

The Society Library

Jamie Joyce

Jamie Joyce's Twitter

The Society Library's Twitter

The NYT's Coverage of Plandemic

The Society Library's Analysis of Plandemic

The Society Library's Analysis of AI Debates

The Society Library's Town Hall Experiment

Kitted Shop

The Story of Kitted

How Minds Change

David McRaney’s Twitter

YANSS Twitter

Show Notes

Newsletter

Patreon

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Terry Crews, actor, athlete, artist, President Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Camacho, star of Brooklyn Nine-Nine, host of America’s Got Talent - that Terry Crews joins us to discuss his new book, Tough. In the book, Terry shares the raw story of his quest to find the true meaning of toughness and in so doing fundamentally change his concept of himself by uprooting a deeply ingrained toxic masculinity and finally confronting his insecurities, painful memories, and limiting beliefs.

Terry Crews Website

Terry Crews Twitter

Tough

Alfie Kohn’s Punished by Rewards

Kitted Shop

The Story of Kitted

How Minds Change

David McRaney’s Twitter

YANSS Twitter

Newsletter

Patreon

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In this episode, we sit down with therapist Britt Frank to discuss the intention action gap, the psychological term for the chasm between what you very much intend to do and what you tend to do instead. It turns out, there's a well-researched psychological framework that includes a term for when you have a stated, known goal – a change you'd like to make in your life – something you wake up intending to finally do or get started doing, but then don't do while knowing full well you are actively not doing what you ought and wish you had done by now. After we discuss this phenomenon and how to deal with it, we get into procrastination and how to escape all manner of dead-end behavioral loops. 

The Getting Unstuck Workbook

The Science of Stuck

Kitted Shop

The Story of Kitted

How Minds Change

David McRaney’s Twitter

YANSS Twitter

Show Notes

Newsletter

Patreon

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Marina Nitze is a professional fixer of broken systems – a hacker, not of computers and technology, but of the social phenomena that tend to emerge when people get together and form organizations, institutions, services, businesses, and governments. In short, she hacks bureaucracies and wants to teach you how to do the same.

- Hack Your Bureaucracy

- Marina Nitze

- How Minds Change

- David McRaney’s Twitter

- YANSS Twitter

- Show Notes

- Newsletter

 - Patreon

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In this episode we sit down with Brian Klaas, author of Fluke,  to get into the existential lessons and grander meaning for a life well-lived once one finally accepts the power and influence of randomness, chaos, and chance. In addition, we learn not to fall prey to proportionality bias - the tendency for human brains to assume big, historical, or massively impactful events must have had big causes and/or complex machinations underlying their grand outcomes. It’s one of the cognitive biases that most contributes to conspiratorial thinking and grand conspiracy theories, one that leads to an assumption that there must be something more going on when big, often unlikely, events make the evening news. Yet, as Brian explains, events big and small are often the result of random inputs in complex systems interacting in ways that are difficult to predict.

Previous Episodes

Brian Klaas

Fluke

How Minds Change

David McRaney’s Twitter

YANSS Twitter

Newsletter

Patreon

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In this episode, we  are exploring the complexity of the concept of "genius" with two experts on the topic. First you’ll hear from David Krakauer, the president of The Santa Fe Institute, a research institution in New Mexico dedicated to the study of complexity science, and then you'll hear from professor Dean Keith Simonton, one of the world’s leading researchers into the psychological mechanisms and influences that generate the phenomenon we so often refer to as "genius." 

Previous Episodes

The Santa Fe Institute

Dean K Simonton

How Minds Change

David McRaney’s Twitter

YANSS Twitter

Newsletter

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In this episode we sit down with professor Neil Theise, the author of Notes on Complexity,  to get an introduction to complexity theory, the science of how complex systems behave – from cells to human beings, ecosystems, the known universe, and beyond – and we explore if Ian Malcolm was right when he told us in Jurassic Park that "Life, um, finds a way."

Previous Episodes

Neil Theise's Website

Notes on Complexity

Conway's Game of Life

The Santa Fe Institute

Technosphere

How Minds Change

David McRaney’s Twitter

YANSS Twitter

Newsletter

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