The Armen Show

Episode 234 gets into the swing of things with guest Dean Hallett, Founder & CEO of Hallett Leadership. During his 17-year tenure at Fox Studios, where he served as CFO, Dean developed a unique and highly effective 9-month leadership training program for early and mid-career managers. The program’s success at breaking down silos across Fox, and fostering a culture of collaboration, led to Dean’s promotion to Senior Executive VP of Operations & Management. Today, the program Dean pioneered at Fox is called the Accelerated Leadership Program (ALP), which “develops tomorrow’s leaders today.” Decades of experience in a space is something that gives refinement we highly desire when we are looking for a person of quality. Dean has some baseline rules for leadership, as well as understanding of how to facilitate levels of leadership underneath him. I spoke with Dean about a variety of topics related to leadership, his experience at Fox and Disney, personality traits that matter in organizational leadership, and more. Show notes: how Dean deviated from his earlier public accounting track to his positions as CFO of large corporationswhy being somewhat introverted can bring value to an organization, and how introverts sometimes have the most to offerwhat some examples of Dean providing leadership consisted ofhow the reward structure of a corporation affects what people target their efforts toward, and how shifting this reward structure is important for improved culturewhat some of the qualities are that Dean looks for in people working around and under him, to have a highly-effective organizationwhy letting people work their own way and be creative leads to positive and potentially surprisingly positive resultshow Dean feels about feeling comfort in life, versus expanding one’s zonewhat books have been read by Dean for understanding, including Collaboration Begins With You by Ken Blanchard, and The Tao to High-Performance Leadership by Jack Zwissigwhy storytelling has a compelling force to ithow being fearful of training and developing your people sends them away, as opposed to the alternative It was a pleasure to speak with Dean during this episode, and hear some other stories about his life experiences. He is a full person, as I would describe it, and is on the way in his new path. I always connect more with individuals building their own name and entities. You can check out his coaching material at Hallett Leadership.

Humans have evolved to become more domesticated, and there are multiple variables at work causing this shift. It wasn’t always this way, and human species have had a two-sided relationship with virtue and violence a long period of time. Dr. Richard Wrangham, author of The Goodness Paradox, joins on episode 233 to discuss this shift and relationship. Professor Wrangham (PhD, Cambridge University, 1975) is Ruth B. Moore Professor of Biological Anthropology at Harvard University and founded the Kibale Chimpanzee Project in 1987. He has conducted extensive research on primate ecology, nutrition, and social behavior. He is best known for his work on the evolution of human warfare, described in the book Demonic Males, and on the role of cooking in human evolution, described in the book Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human. Together with Elizabeth Ross, he co-founded the Kasiisi Project in 1997, and serves as a patron of the Great Apes Survival Partnership (GRASP). It was neat to talk with Professor Wrangham about the ways that evolution has impacted humans as they have progressed. We also included some material on his understanding of cooking and its impacts. Show notes: how proactive and reactive aggression differ, and why that is importantsome of the ways that Professor Wrangham has done research on chimpanzees to understand more about humanswhere humans stand on the threshold of reactive and proactive aggressionthe elements that separated Homo sapiens from the other species of humanshow intra and inter group cooperation without expectation of future returns works in principle but struggles in personthe impact of capital punishment as a way to reduce societal reactive aggression via conformitythe window of socialization that exists early in lifehow the leaders of alpha males of a group impact the rest of the group, and what happens when they die off or are vanquished Glad to have Dr. Wrangham on the show~ You can check out The Goodness Paradox on Amazon, look at his faculty page, or check out his chimpanzee project website.

As a sociologist and physician, Dr. Nicholas A. Christakis has done research on social networks and the socioeconomic, biosocial, and evolutionary determinants of behavior, health, and longevity. His most recent book Blueprint: The Evolutionary Origins of a Good Society shows how evolution has united humanity and put us on a fitting path of progression. Dr. Christakis is the Sterling Professor of Social and Natural Science at Yale University. He received an M.D. from Harvard Medical School, and an M.P.H. from the Harvard School of Public Health. His Ph. D. in sociology is from the University of Pennsylvania. He was voted one of Time’s 100 most influential people in the world in 2009. His book Blueprint was recently mentioned by Bill Gates in a tweet, as well as on his Gates Notes website. He mentions that Robert Sapolsky of my past reading (Behave) gives “…you a framework down to the biological and hormonal level, while Christakis focuses more on person-to-person interactions.” Show notes: what it means for society to have developed into a way of being that is good, and why evolution may have directed that wayhow relationship dynamics like monogamy or social structure would develop in similar environments given enough timewhy a fixed social environment creates one type of winning people, and a fluid social environment creates a different setthe impact that removing a leader of a group has on the groupwhat repeats in society from millions of years ago to nowhow pair-bonding can be impacted by certain neurotransmitters, and what this represents about usthe kind of research that Dr. Christakis has done, and his views on the current social networks that are popular in societythe way that some past recurring events were responses to human needs, though those civilizations may have not known the “why”what unintentional, intentional, and artificial communities can tell us about the way people function as a group It was great to have Dr. Christakis on the show. You can check out Blueprint on Amazon, his Wikipedia, or his Yale faculty page.

When it comes to anti-aging research, Dr. David A. Sinclair of Harvard Medical School is on the forefront of research and innovation. He joins on episode 231 to discuss his new book Lifespan: Why We Age – and Why We Don’t Have To. Dr. Sinclair, Ph.D., A.O. is a Professor in the Department of Genetics and co-Director of the Paul F. Glenn Center for the Biology of Aging at Harvard Medical School. He is best known for his work on understanding why we age and how to slow its effects. He obtained his Ph.D. in Molecular Genetics at the University of New South Wales, Sydney in 1995. He worked as a postdoctoral researcher at M.I.T. with Dr. Leonard Guarente where he co discovered a cause of aging for yeast as well as the role of Sir2 in epigenetic changes driven by genome instability. In 1999 he was recruited to Harvard Medical School where he has been teaching aging biology and translational medicine for aging for the past 16 years. He was also on TIME magazine’s 2014 list of the “100 most influential people in the world”. Show notes: Dr. Sinclair’s background, and what led him into the field of anti-aging researchwhat it is about adversity that leads to a chemical response in the body, across sirtuins and morehow aging is not yet thought of as a disease, and how that can change through communication effortswhy society and people can seem stuck in a slowed form of evolution as compared with where we are headedwhy studying organisms fighting adversity, similar to how Dr. Cockell studied extremophiles, is the way to find most answershow stress at a cellular level is different from psychological stress that releases cortisol in the bloodstreamwhat it means to have senescent cells accumulate in the body as one ages over timehow an optic nerve was regrown in a mouse, and what that means for our potential nerve-based regrowthwhat kinds of demands Dr. Sinclair has on his time with regards to the research he doeshow the Horvath Clock represents true age of a person beyond external appearance and other metrics This was an enjoyable episode, and book, that is right on the forefront of aging research and technology. Dr. Sinclair is very active in this space, and it shows. You can check out his website, the book on Amazon, or some of his research.

Professor Steven C. Hayes of the University of Nevada is prolific in the category of psychological research. He has put out over 600 scientific articles and 44 books. Most of his research has been in the categories of human language and cognition as they relate to reducing human suffering. He has built a form called Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, which is psychotherapy using mindfulness and acceptance. “Dr. Hayes has been President of Division 25 of the APA, of the American Association of Applied and Preventive Psychology, the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapy, and the Association for Contextual Behavioral Science. He was the first Secretary-Treasurer of the Association for Psychological Science, which he helped form and has served a 5 year term on the National Advisory Council for Drug Abuse in the National Institutes of Health.” He joins me on this episode to discuss topics from his book “A Liberated Mind: How to Pivot Toward What Matters”. It was a great nonlinear discussion that brought up a lot of insights. Show notes: why you need to be continually putting effort in some category to have a chance in ithow those who are not ready for the difficult have no chance to acquire the greatwhat it takes to pivot toward the things you are interested inhow so many of your thoughts can run on auto-pilot until you deconstruct the steps leading to themwhere you need to go mentally to clear up a past issue and come to a conclusionand much more You can check out A Liberated Mind on Amazon, or check out Dr. Hayes web page, or his Twitter.

We bring it live on episode 229 of the show with a fellow podcaster – Mark Metry of the Humans 2.0 Podcast. He has had wonderful guests like Robert Greene, Mark Manson, Safi Bahcall(previously on my podcast as well), and more. Mark brings a lot of momentum to the table, across his episodes, speaking engagements, social media postings, and more. He has a company called VU Dream, which is focused on application of virtual reality and augmented reality technologies. Show notes: how Mark started his speaking engagements, and where he sees it goingwho some of Mark’s memorable guests are, and what he took from his discussions with themhow a podcaster can improve their reachwhat one can do to avoid the life of quiet desperationwhy one should keep exploration in their mind when making daily decisions, so as not to stick in an exploitative patternwhat some goals are that Mark has regarding his upcoming career Glad to have Mark on the show. You can check out his podcast on podcast services under the name Humans 2.0. He is also on Twitter at @markymetry.

Professor Bill Sullivan of Indiana University School of Medicine joins on episode 228 of the show, and we discuss his book Pleased To Meet Me: Genes, Germs, And The Curious Forces That Make Us Who We Are, along with related topics. He is a Professor with a Ph.D. in Molecular & Cell Biology from the University of Pennsylvania, who had focused on genes for drug-resistance in a parasite called Toxoplasma gondii. He has experience with epigenetics, parasites, germs, gene expression, and more. Professor Sullivan also has written for numerous outlets like Scientific American and What Is Epigenetics. I enjoyed speaking with Bill here, and we covered a variety of topics from the book, as well as some extended questions I had from the book’s framework. Show notes: how taste can be different in different people based on ability to be a “super taster”why your gut bacteria is so important in assisting regulation of your mood and well-beingwhat makes some people more prone to addiction, and the percentages associated with some levels of addictionwhat type of environments contribute to drug use, versus the ones that make drug use seem less appealinghow mood requires a balance of many different parameterswhy a polygenic trait like height is desired, and what it represents of the person who has itwhat epigenetics has to do with adverse childhood experiences and their lasting impact on an individual Professor Sullivan’s material is available on his website, and his new book is available on Amazon.

Do you heal someone by handling their frantic responses to life, or do you look to respond to their inner child who isn’t fulfilled? Therapist and healer Jordan Satya joins on episode 227 to discuss healing and the inner person that we can respond to. Satya brings both a healing practice and a matching style to the framework. I first noticed her having what might be called a chic jungle type of look, and it matches her larger scale message of connecting. She comes from Israel, and was recently in Peru and Brazil in relation to setting up her practice. Show notes: how healing is like getting to some of the inner layers of an onion or one of those Russian dollswhere Satya came from, and how that influences her personality or connection with people of that area and elsewherewhy you are only able to see as far as you have traveled mentally or physically thus farhow adults can either be like their inner child or be trapped in a crippling comfort zonewho you should try to change, and whether that should only be youhow rationalization might be a method to keep away from feeling one’s own internal emotions Glad to have Satya on the show~. You can check out her site at Open To Love.

We bring the stream of consciousness on episode 226. This one covered a variety of topics I had not planned for before the episode started. I handled a few things during the episode, which was nice to add variety, and I mentioned them during. Part of this episode was about how I’m prepping differently for when I interview Dr. Christakis, in connection with understanding people more holistically. People are not one-faceted individuals, but have layers of experiences and connections. We don’t do things in a vacuum, and the collective of humanity traveling through time has no unknowns that have been added during the process of entropy reduction. Enjoy the episode~ Show notes: why looking through all the interviews of one of my upcoming guests is a great way for my interview to go betterhow each person is not just a single element, but a combination of their experiences and connections and happeningswhat planning the next week or month can do for personal productivity, management of highs and lows, and fulfillmenthow things can be light now and heavy later depending on when you handle themwhy you can’t think away a feeling that you are in, and how you roll in a feeling until you get out of that headspacehow figuring something out clears an issue, while leaving it untouched lets it show up as soon as possible

The show continues forward with Scott H. Young on episode 225, coming out on the launch day of his book Ultralearning: Master Hard Skills, Outsmart the Competition, and Accelerate Your Career. The book is a guide to master hard skills quickly in any category, including languages, science, programming, and more. Knowing of Scott for many years, this was a great opportunity to connect with him around the same time that his current book was coming out for people to read and take note of. I first found Scott’s blog when I was writing on my blog Timeless Information, and his content always made sense to me as valuable material, and this was only the case with a few blogs at the time. We had a great chat here, and Scott is thoughtful about all the content he has put out in text, audio, video, and illustrated form. Show notes: how ultralearning methods can lead you more quickly through the process of understanding than conventional learning methodswhat the MIT Challenge that Scott created was about, and how he documented his process through the experiencewhy the likely improvement or adjustment to the general school system is likely to come from outside the built-in system that existswhat it is that leads to the title of the book being Ultralearning, instead of just the title Learninghow you distill and refine the essence of learning well, by looking at individuals who have learned a lot quicklywhat it can take to see problems from a broader perspective that sees the macro features and gives less weight to micro detailswhat languages Scott has learned, and how he would quickly learn a language in a new countryhow the feel you have during learning can be more important than a specific method you should use to learnand more You can check out Scott’s content across the internet. His book Ultralearning is available on Amazon. Separate from that, his blog that I read from back in 2009 continues to have great content that he writes, his Twitter @ScottHYoung includes his quick insights or thoughts (along with series’ of tweets), and his YouTube channel showcases some of his learning adventures and interviews or discussions about books. I see Scott continuing to put out content in the learning and growth categories for years to come, growing his audience and reach. To more great things~.