Smart People Podcast

"Money is a tool to create the things that we want. It is a proxy for security, health, and welfare for our families and loved ones. When we lose that holistic thinking about what wealth is, then our money winds up working at a very singular purpose to create more pieces of paper as opposed to create greater human and environmental welfare." - Morgan Simon When we put our money in a bank (or a mutual fund, pension plan, endowment, etc.) it doesn't just sit there, it is put to use. It is invested in the economy, and it has power. But have you ever stopped to wonder what your money is being invested in? Is it supporting the causes and communities you care about? Or is it being used to further the cause of individuals, organizations, or governments that you disagree with. It is time to recognize that we are all investors, and that it is up to us to make sure we are adding more value than we extract and that the risk and returns are balanced between our investments and the communities. This is the basis for impact investing. Impact investing is the support of social and environmental projects with a financial return, and it has become a hot topic in the world's philanthropy and development circles. In the next decade, it is poised to eclipse traditional aid by ten times. Yet for all the excitement, there is work to do to ensure it actually realizes it’s potential. This week on the show we are interviewing an expert in this field, Morgan Simon. Morgan is the author of the brand new book, Real Impact: The New Economics of Social Change. Over the past seventeen years, she has influenced over $150 billion in capital. Morgan currently co-leads Candide Group, which supports two clients, including members of the Pritzker family on behalf of the Libra Foundation. She is also co-founder and chair of the non-profit Transform Finance. Previously, Morgan served as the founding CEO of Toniic, a global network of impact investors, and as the founding executive director of the Responsible Endowments Coalition. — This episode is brought to you by: Health IQ, an insurance company that helps health conscious people get special life insurance rates. Go to healthiq.com/SPP to support the show and see if you qualify.

Mindfulness is all the rage these days. And yet, even as the New York Times churns out articles like How to Be Mindful While Grocery Shopping and How to Be Mindful When You have Seasonal Allergies a quick look at NIMH or NIH data shows that Americans are sicker than ever, poorer than ever, more psychologically disturbed than ever. Though the literature has certainly been convincing, we have to ask ourselves whether the West's new cultural obsession with mindfulness is actually helping us. In contrast, our guest this week believes that mindfulness, which is a "top-down" approach to wellness, is only half of the picture, and it is yet another way we are persuaded to separate from the body and live in the head. If we could also learn to be in our bodies (approaching wellness from the bottom-up), we would have a chance at experiencing true balance and connection. We would be less anxious and more compassionate. We would cease to be okay with things that we've collectively learned how to be numb to. Our guest this week is Philip Shepherd. Philip is recognized as an international authority on embodiment. His unique techniques have been developed to transform our experience of self and world, and are based on the vision articulated in his celebrated books, New Self, New World and Radical Wholeness. The approach he takes heals the frantic, restless pace of the intelligence in the head, which tends to run on overdrive, by uniting it with the deep, present and calm intelligence of the body.

In today's work environment, our success is heavily dependent on our ability to consistently deliver strong results. And although there are multiple inputs that lead to our results, there is one secret weapon that outweighs everything else. The key to success ultimately lies in the strength of our relationships. You may be thinking to yourself, "But wait, we are talking about business! With all of the demands on my time, I don't have the luxury to think about something soft and fuzzy like relationships." But the truth of the matter is, given the complex and global nature of business, almost everything we accomplish happens with and through other people. So how do you improve these relationships and leverage them to create a true competitive advantage for your organization? This week on the podcast we answer this question and more as we talk with Todd Davis, author of the brand new book, Get Better: 15 Proven Practices to Build Effective Relationships at Work. Davis has over 30 years of experience in human resources, talent development, executive recruiting, sales, and marketing. He currently serves as chief people officer and executive vice president at Franklin Covey where he is responsible for their global talent development in over 40 offices in 160 countries.

Narcissism—an inflated view of the self—is everywhere. Public figures say it’s what makes them stray from their wives. Parents teach it by dressing children in T-shirts that say "Princess." Teenagers and young adults hone it on Facebook, and celebrity newsmakers have elevated it to an art form. In a world that measures success by page views and number of followers, those with narcissistic tendencies often do what is necessary to reach "the top", at the expense of everyone else. So how does the average person contend with the narcissist? And what does this epidemic of "self love" mean for our society? This week on the podcast we speak with W. Keith Campbell, Ph.D. Keith is Department Head and Professor of Psychology at the University of Georgia, as well as a nationally recognized expert on narcissism, society and generational change. His work and lectures expose the rise of narcissism – and individualism more generally – and its influence on every level of society. Keith is the co-author of the book, The Narcissism Epidemic: Living in the Age of Entitlement.

There is no debate that a good education is a critical component of raising smart, well rounded, successful children. But cutting-edge research has proven that early childhood education is crucial for all children as young as 3 years old to gain the academic and emotional skills they need to succeed later in life. In essence, pre-K may actually be the most important year.   Children who attend quality pre-K programs have a host of positive outcomes including better language, literacy, problem-solving and math skills down the line, and they have a leg up on what appears to be the most essential skill to develop at age four: strong self-control.   In this episode, Harvard education researcher Suzanne Bouffard explains the sometimes surprising ingredients that make for a great pre-k program. What should you look for in a classroom? How should a teacher interact with young children? What can you do at home to help support a young child's learning? All this and more in this episode of Smart People Podcast.   Suzanne Bouffard is a writer with a background in child development and education. She received her Ph.D. in developmental psychology from Duke University and has spent the past ten years conducting and writing about education research at Harvard University. She is the author of the brand new book, The Most Important Year: Pre-Kindergarten and the Future of Our Children.   Sponsor: This week, we are brought to you by Audible! Get a free audiobook with a 30-day trial at www.audible.com/SMART.

"Calling Trump crazy allows us to avoid confronting the craziness in our society—if we want to get sane, we must first gain insight about ourselves. Simply put: Trump isn’t crazy, but our society is." - Dr. Allen Frances This week on the show we interview one of the men who literally wrote the book on mental illness as we answer the question - Is Trump crazy? And what does it say about America that he was elected to the highest office in the land? Psychiatrist Dr. Allen Frances analyzes the national psyche, viewing the rise of Donald J. Trump as darkly symptomatic of a deeper societal distress. Drawing on his vast experience, Dr. Frances explains American society’s collective slide away from sanity and offers an urgently needed prescription for reclaiming our bearings. Dr. Allen Frances chaired the task force that produced the fourth revision of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental disorders, which is is published by the American Psychiatric Association (APA) and offers a common language and standard criteria for the classification of mental disorders. He then became critical of later versions, and he warned that we are currently "over-treating" mental disorders and finding problems where there are none. Dr. Frances is professor emeritus and former chair of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science at Duke University School of Medicine. He is author of the new book, Twilight of American Sanity: A Psychiatrist Analyzes the Age of Trump.

"Death is not waiting for us at the end of a long road. Death is always with us, in the marrow of every passing moment. She is the secret teacher hiding in plain sight, helping us to discover what matters most." Life and death are a package deal. They cannot be pulled apart and we cannot truly live unless we are aware of death. Awareness of death can be a valuable companion on the road to living well, forging a rich and meaningful life, and letting go of regret. But how can we sit with something that is so uncomfortable? And how can utilize the unavoidable nature of death to live a more rewarding life? This week we talk with Frank Ostaseski as he helps us understand how the experience of dying can reveal the secrets of living. As a renowned teacher of compassionate caregiving and the cofounder of the Zen Hospice Project, Frank Ostaseski has sat on the precipice of death with more than a thousand people. In 2001, he was honored by the Dalai Lama for his compassionate service to the dying and their families. Frank is also the founder of the Metta Institute, which is an organizations dedicated to training professionals in compassionate, mindfulness-based care.  Frank is the author of the highly acclaimed book, The Five Invitations: Discovering What Death Can Teach Us About Living Fully. The Five Invitations is an exhilarating meditation on the meaning of life and how maintaining an ever-present consciousness of death can bring us closer to our truest selves. https://fiveinvitations.com/

Did you know our world has ended five times? It has been broiled, frozen, poison-gassed, smothered, and pelted by asteroids. And in each of these catastrophic occurrences, climate change has been the culprit. You may be wondering, how do asteroids have anything to do with climate change? We will leave the details to our guest this week, but essentially there is a triggering event (asteroid, volcano, humans) that causes the oceans to become more acidic and very soon after the entire world dies. This is what happens every time...and it may be happening again. This week on the show we interview award-winning science journalist Peter Brannen about his new book, The Ends of the World: Volcanic Apocalypses, Lethal Oceans, and Our Quest to Understand Earth's Past Mass Extinctions. In his book and in this interview, Peter takes us on a tour of the 5 ways that the Earth has died, as well as what may be to come. Part road trip, part history, and part cautionary tale, The Ends of the World takes us on a tour of the ways that our planet has clawed itself back from the grave and casts our future in a completely new light. Peter Brannen is an award-winning science journalist whose work has appeared in the New York Times, The Atlantic, Wired, the Washington Post, Slate, the Boston Globe, Aeon, among other publications. A graduate of Boston College, he was a 2015 journalist-in-residence at the Duke University National Evolutionary Synthesis Center and a 2011 Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Ocean Science Journalism Fellow.

We all know that technology is evolving at a rapid rate, and it's changing the way we live. Do you call a cab, or do you use Uber? Do you stay in a hotel, or do you check Airbnb? Do you read a book or a Kindle? These products and services quickly enter our world and become the norm. But just knowing that technology is evolving is not enough, you need to understand how it is impacting you and how you can evaluate what industry will be disrupted next. This week on the show we interview an expert who can help you understand, evaluate, and respond to disruptive technologies that are sure to have a big impact on your business and your life. (Bitcoin anyone?)   Our guest this week is Paul Armstrong. Paul is a leading strategist, author and speaker on the future of technology, disruption, retail innovation, media industry, social technologies, and more. Paul runs the technology advisory HERE/FORTH where he helps clients understand trends and how to sensibly apply emerging technologies strategically. Paul is regularly seen on the BBC and News at Ten, when industry comment is called for, and currently writes for a number of publications, including Forbes, Cool Hunting and Short List.   Paul's first book, Disruptive Technologies: Understand, Evaluate, Respond, offers organizations a distinct response to emerging technologies including Blockchain (Bitcoin), artificial intelligence, and other external factors - such as the sharing economy, mobile penetration, millennial workforce, aging populations - that impact on their business, client service and product model.

For nearly a decade Brett Velicovich was at the center of America’s new warfare: using unmanned aerial vehicles—drones—to take down the world’s deadliest terrorists across the globe. One of an elite handful in the entire military with the authority to select targets and issue death orders, and his team successfully killed/captured 14 of America’s 20 most wanted terrorists across Iraq within only three months. In this episode, Brett tells us his never before told story of how drone warfare has completely changed the battlefield and what it's like to be part of one of the most elite military units to ever exist. With stories ranging from ISIS capture missions to tracking Boko Haram, this episode will be sure to entertain and enlighten! Brett is the co-author of the brand new book, Drone Warrior: An Elite Soldier's Inside Account of the Hunt For America's Most Dangerous Enemies. This book was co-written with Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, Christopher S. Stewart.

Millions of lives are lost to catastrophes that could have been saved by the advance warnings of experts. But how do we know who can truly predict the future, and who is just screaming that the sky is falling? This week on the podcast our expert guest tells us how we can get better at predicting disasters, how to weed out the real warnings from the exaggerations, and what threats we need to be paying attention to right now. Our guest this week is R.P. Eddy, author of the brand new book, Warnings: Finding Cassandras to Stop Catastrophes. R.P. is a globally recognized national security and intelligence expert. He is CEO of Ergo, a leading intelligence and analysis firm. Previously, he served as Director at the White House National Security Council, as well as numerous other high level government positions. Eddy was a member of the State Department Senior Executive Service and achieved the diplomatic rank of Minister-Counselor. The World Economic Forum at Davos honored him as a “Global Leader for Tomorrow.” He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a member of the Board of the Middle East Institute. He has been a Senior Fellow or associate at Harvard University, the Madison Policy Forum, and the Manhattan Institute.

In our episode this week we talk with former Google data scientist and author, Seth Stephens-Davidowitz. Seth explains exactly how the internet provides a window to the soul and how we can use this data to answer some of the most difficult, and most interesting questions of our time. With conclusions ranging from strange-but-true to thought-provoking to disturbing, he explores the power of this digital truth serum and its deeper potential—revealing biases deeply embedded within us, information we can use to change our culture, and the questions we’re afraid to ask that might be essential to our health—both emotional and physical. All of us are touched by big data everyday, and its influence is multiplying. Seth is the author of the new book, Everybody Lies: Big Data, New Data, and What the Internet Can Tell Us About Who We Really Are. He is a former Google data scientist and is currently a contributing op-ed writer for the New York Times. He received his undergrad degree from Stanford and his PhD in economics from Harvard.   More about Seth Stephens-Davidowitz at http://sethsd.com/

We all sustain emotional wounds. Failure, guilt, rejection, and loss are as much a part of life as the occasional scraped elbow. But while we typically bandage a cut or ice a sprained ankle, our first aid kit for emotional injuries is not just understocked—it’s nonexistent. Think about it... we learn about germs, scrapes, and sprains starting at 2 years old, but we often don't learn about emotional injuries and proper treatment until they have become debilitating. And even worse, many times we don't even know we are sustaining these emotional injuries and they are just lurking beneath the surface, continually holding us hostage. Fortunately, there is such a thing as mental first aid for battered emotions. Drawing on the latest scientific research and using real-life examples, our guest Guy Winch, Ph.D. offers specific step-by-step treatments that are fast, simple, and effective. In this episode, we talk with Guy about his amazing book, Emotional First Aid: Healing Rejection, Guilt, Failure, and Other Everyday Hurts. His message is essential for anyone looking to become more resilient, build self-esteem, and let go of the hurts and hang-ups that are holding them back. Guy Winch, Ph.D., is a licensed psychologist, author, and keynote speaker whose books have been translated into twenty-one languages. His TED Talk, Why We All Need to Practice Emotional First Aid, has been viewed over 4 million times and is rated among the top 5 most inspiring talks on TED.com. Dr. Winch also writes the popular Squeaky Wheel Blog on PsychologyToday.com Dr. Winch received his doctorate in clinical psychology from New York University and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at NYU Medical Center. He has been working with individuals, couples and families in his private practice in Manhattan for over twenty years. He is a member of the American Psychological Association.

The smart phone is our most treasured tech device. If you don't believe me, try leaving it turned off for a full day and see how many times you yearn for it! This obsession with our phones is creating a massive amount of data that is being harnessed by companies to drive their business decisions in the ever expanding $3.3 trillion dollar mobile economy. In our episode this week, mobile economy expert Anindya Ghose welcomes us to the mobile economy of smartphones, smarter companies, and value-seeking consumers. Drawing on his extensive research in the US, Europe, and Asia, and many relevant case studies, Anindya explains how businesses can harness the power of a data-driven mobile economy.

For anyone who wants to create or innovate - this is the interview for you. When we think about creativity, we most often think of things: impressionism, the iPhone, democracy, Uber. We also narrow in on the few, those rare creators who seem to have something we lack. These tendencies quickly take us off track, perpetuating a myth and unknowingly pushing us further away from the possible. Here’s the truth: Creativity is about the possible. It’s the seed of any human advancement ever made or yet to be imagined. Most important and powerful of all, creativity is a uniquely human capacity that each of us possesses – including you. The story of creativity is the story of who we are, a story still unfolding. It’s time we come to understand it and learn how each of us can contribute our verse. It’s time we understand this language of man and learn to speak creativity. In this episode, award-winning author Larry Robertson discusses precisely what that means, and how we do it. We also learn how a deliberate pause can help spark true growth and progress.