Bounce! Conversations with Larry Weeks

"Pain shared, my brother, is pain not doubled but halved."― Neil Gaiman My guest on this episode is Professor Robin Dunbar, the well-known anthropologist and evolutionary psychologist famous for his "Dunbar Number." Robin is an Emeritus Professor of Evolutionary Psychology and head of the Social and Evolutionary Neuroscience Research Group in the Department of Experimental Psychology at the University of Oxford. He is also the author of 22 books including his most recent Friends — Understanding the Power of Our Most Important Relationships. For the few of you who have never heard of Dunbar's number, it is the discovery that there exists a cognitive limit on human groups of about 150. Generally, we can only maintain stable social relationships within a limited number in which each individual knows who the other is and how that person relates to each other. On the show, Robin breaks down that upper number into concentric circles of much smaller groups that make up our close friends and best friends, explaining how they got there - and how we can maintain and grow them. We discuss these topics… The importance of friends and the huge effect they have on our health A summary of his famous number - and its implications for friendships How friendships change across a lifespan How best friends are created How and why friendships end The pandemics impact on friendships, a bit about proximity The effect of the internet, Zoom, and Social Media Differences in friendship between the online and real-world The impact of individual differences in introversion and extraversion Friendships between men and women, the "When Harry Met Sally" question For show notes and more, visit www.larryweeks.com

"I would say what would be responsible when asking yourself should I stay or should I go is, am I actively growing a core skillset that I want to harness and carry with me throughout my career?" - Ashley Stahl The great resignation is all over the media of late; it's an economic trend born of the COVID pandemic in which employees (In the U.S. for our purposes) are voluntarily leaving jobs in huge numbers—starting around the end of 2020, ramping in 2021 and increasing now in 2022. Although many service sectors are hardest hit, it does bleed beyond those impacting many different industries. My guest is Ashley Stahl. Ashley is a former counter-terrorism professional turned career coach and bestselling author of "You Turn: Get Unstuck, Discover Your Direction, and Design Your Dream Career." Ashley's helped clients in over 30 countries discover their career path and land more job offers. Her writings appear in a monthly career column in Forbes magazine, and her articles have been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Self, The Washington Post, The Chicago Tribune, and more. When you listen, I think you can tell that Ashley is on a mission to help people step into a career they're aligned with and even excited about. I wanted Ashley on because she is an expert in career transitions and disruptive workplace phenomena. I wanted her opinion on what is happening and, more importantly, what opportunities this opens up for people. She did not disappoint. Topics we covered on the show insights into what is happening at the moment across industries. Work and the burden of meaning, purpose and passion. Values first, roles second. Better questions to ask yourself. When to stay, when to leave. The importance of mindset. Assessments and determining work that is right for you. Hard skills and how networking works today. How to find unadvertised roles. For show notes and more, visit www.larryweeks.com

"Acceptance is the full embrace of our personal experience…it's choosing to feel with openness and curiosity, so that you can live the kind of life you want to live while inviting your feelings to come along for the ride" - Stephen Hayes This podcast is about the power of dealing with negative thoughts and emotions more obliquely. It's about a central shift from focusing on what you think and feel to how you relate to what you think and feel. Its effectiveness is somewhat paradoxical because struggling to stop or change a thought or emotion can have the opposite effect - and compound the problem. My guest is Dr. Steven Hayes. Dr. Hayes is a Nevada foundation professor of psychology in the behavior analysis program at the University of Nevada. He's an author of 46 books in nearly 675 scientific articles. His TEDx talks and blogs have been viewed or read by over 3 million people he has ranked among the most cited psychologists in the world. He's especially known for his work on acceptance and commitment therapy or ACT, which is one of the most widely used and researched new methods of psychological intervention over the last 20 years. Steven has received the lifetime achievement award from the association for behavioral and cognitive therapy and his popular book, Get Out of Your Mind and Into Your Life: was #1 bestseller, and his new book, which is also discussed on the podcast. A Liberated Mind: How to Pivot Toward What Matters has been recently released to white acclaim. Some of the topics we cover. Current depression rates and the impact of the pandemic What he thinks is exasperating depression and anxiety in the U.S. The differences between sadness and depression How our brains and emotions can often work against us How automatic and complicated our thinking processes are ACT and process-based therapy, and the challenge of a purely cognitive model What is relational thinking The problem with treating negative thoughts as problems How we can relate to our thoughts to create space from being caught up in them What is diffusion and techniques to apply it For show notes and more, visit www.larryweeks.com

On this episode we cover a bit of the biography of vaccines, dovetailing into the current state of vaccination around the globe. My guest on this podcast is Dr. Paul Offit, a world renowned expert and medical pioneer in the field of immunology and virology. He is a professor in the division of Infectious Diseases at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and a professor of Vaccinology at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. He is the co-inventor of the rotavirus vaccine recommended for universal use in infants by the CDC, credited with saving hundreds of children's lives every day. Dr. Offit is also currently a member of the FDA's Vaccine Advisory Committee and is a founding advisory board member of the Autism Science Foundation and the Foundation for Vaccine Research. His awards and citations are too numerous to list here (See more of his bio at www.chop.edu/doctors/offit-paul-a) Paul is not only an expert of great renown, he is also very generous and extremely passionate about public health - and it comes through. Vaccination is widely considered one of the greatest medical achievements of modern civilization. Please listen as Paul explains why that is so. We covered a range of topics including: The Ming dynasty, 'variolation' and smallpox Powdered pustules and other Chinese precursors 18th Century and the founding of vaccinology in the West Jonas Salk and the first successful polio vaccines Rotavirus and the RotaTeq vaccine Recombinant DNA flu vaccines The new mRNA era of vaccines Vaccine risks then and now; we do the math Vaccine controversy and hesitancy throughout history Overview of the current COVID-19 vaccines, Delta and what's next Who should, and should not, get the vaccine FDA timelines, approvals, and licensure For show notes and more, visit www.larryweeks.com

"A person can make himself happy or miserable regardless of what is actually happening outside just by changing the contents of consciousness" -Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi How you feel about life and living, and your happiness in general - ultimately depends on interpreting everyday experience. Your mind shapes every experience you have and there is a minimal return on happiness effort, trying to exert more control over external forces. Time should be spent on ordering your inner world. This podcast is about doing just that. My guest is Loch Kelly. Loch is an author, meditation teacher, psychotherapist, and founder of the Open-Hearted Awareness Institute. Loch has collaborated with neuroscientists at Yale, UPenn, and NYU to study how awareness training can enhance compassion and well-being. As a licensed psychotherapist, Loch has been teaching seminars, supervising clinicians and practicing awareness psychotherapy in NYC for 30 years. He has authored two books on meditation, Shift into Freedom The Science and Practice of Open-Hearted Awareness and The Way of Effortless Mindfulness A Revolutionary Guide for Living an Awakened Life, which is the touchstone for our discussion Drawing from neuroscience, psychology, and ancient wisdom traditions, the book is a practical guide to what he calls the next stage in the ongoing mindfulness movement: effortless mindfulness. On the show we discuss these topics and more Defining meditation Defining awareness Suffering and managing emotions Why meditation can be hard Who meditation is for Terminology Explaining Flow states and how it can be elicited in meditation Differences between mindfulness meditation and effortless mindfulness On effort and effortlessness Types / Methods Multiple "selves" and the mini-me Glimpse practices How to start - "here now" meditation There is a lot more here, so give it a listen. For show notes, resources, and more, visit www.larryweeks.com Larry

Nicholas Christakis on the impact of Coronavirus, what went wrong, what's going right, and our possible future. More below. Nicholas is a physician and social scientist at Yale University who conducts research in network science, biosocial science, and behavior genetics. Named by Time magazine to their annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world, Nicholas's current work focuses on how human biology and health affect social interactions and social networks. He directs the Human Nature Lab and is the Co-Director of the Yale Institute for Network Science. He is also the author of several books, including Connected: The Amazing Power of Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives, Blueprint: The Evolutionary Origins of a Good Society, and his latest, Apollo's Arrow, The Profound and Enduring impact of Coronavirus On the Way We Live - which is the topic of our conversation. Nicholas was a font of information; it was a challenge to fit everything into an hour. He was a conversational tour de force crisscrossing history, medicine, social behavior, and disease math. On the show we covered... How earlier pandemics were similar in how they played out The frequency of pandemics How COVID-19 compares to other pathogens Disease math and mortality curves Updates on lethality Effective contagion rates What went wrong Trust in government and scientific institutions What's going right Development of vaccines Vaccination rates (percentage of the populace) we need to open the economy The swiss cheese model of personal risk mitigation Post pandemic behavior and the future boom There is a lot more here, so give it a listen. For show notes, resources, and more, visit www.larryweeks.com Larry

Chatter refers to this negative cycle of thinking and feeling that leads us to get stuck in ways that can be really toxic for our health, for our relationships, and for our ability to think and perform - Ethan Kross "Hecaton asks, "Do you ask what progress I have made? I have begun to be a friend to myself." Valuable progress indeed: he will never be alone." —Seneca On this podcast, I delve into what cognitive science is learning about the conversations we have with ourselves - and even better, how to manage them. My guest is Ethan Kross, Ph.D. An award-winning professor in the University of Michigan's top ranked Psychology Department and its Ross School of Business, he studies how the conversations people have with themselves impact their health, performance, decisions and relationships. And his research has been published in academic journals and featured in the New York Times, the Economist and the New Yorker, to name just a few. He is also the author of the just-published book Chatter: The Voice in Our Head, Why It Matters, and How to Harness It, the topic of this episode. Why do you say what you say, when you talk to yourself? Ethan explained to me that our brains have an affinity for disconnecting from what's happening around us. This then offers an opportunity for the conversations in our minds. Ethan says that our inner voice is crucial and helps us evaluate what we do, calibrating our gap-to-goal actions. We have a monitoring default state. But it can turn on us. Anxious or negative chatter can tank athletic performance and sabotage your career. Chatter is often triggered when we interpret a situation as a threat—something we can't manage. Hello, pandemic. Ethan tells me uncertain times and uncertainty and a lack of control are agents that fuel (internal) chatter. if you had asked me when I started this project, for a formula for a mass chatter event, we are living through that right now. And all the ingredients are there; a once in a century uncontrollable and uncertain pandemic - Ethan Kross These internal conversations also determine our experiences. Your mood is most often defined not by what you did but by what you thought about what you did at the time you were doing it. On the show, we cover a lot of his research on "chatter" laid out in his new book Why do we do it? Origins of the voices How chatter can backfire on us Tips (and tools) on improving or quelling negative chatter How to properly coach yourself and the use of pronouns Affirmations and how to talk to yourself And much more It's arguable that some of the most important conversations you will have in your life will are the ones you have with yourself. So tell yourself to give it a listen. For show notes, resources, and more, visit www.larryweeks.com Larry

Tommy Chong is a grammy award-winning comedian and is legendary for his invaluable contribution to American counter-culture as part of the iconic comedy duo Cheech & Chong. During their reign, the twosome recorded six gold comedy albums, including the 1973 Grammy winner "Los Cochinos," and starred in eight films, most of which Chong co-wrote and directed. The first, "Up In Smoke," was the highest-grossing comedy of 1978, topping $100 million at the box office. Others were "Cheech and Chong's Next Movie" (1980), "Nice Dreams" (1981), "Things Are Tough All Over" (1982), "Cheech and Chong: Still Smoking" (1983), and "The Corsican Brothers" (1984). Tommy has acted in several other films, including 1990's "Far Out, Man!" and "National Lampoon's Senior Trip" (1995). He also starred as "Leo" on Fox's "That 70's Show," and guest starred on ABC's "Dharma & Greg" and "The George Lopez Show." Tommy is also the author of the New York Times Best-Seller The I Chong: Meditations from the Joint and the book, Cheech and Chong: The Unauthorized Autobiography. In 2003 a fully armed SWAT team raided the comedian's home, culminating with Tommy being sentenced to 9 months in federal prison for conspiracy to manufacture and distribute "Chong Glass," a family business specializing in handmade glass water pipes (bongs). On this episode, Tommy talks about that experience and pretty much his whole life; growing up in Canada, getting his start in rock and roll, finding improv comedy, his time with Cheech and Chong, and getting into the business of CBD and Cannabis. I interview people, for the most part - to get their perspective as to relates to challenge whether personal or professional sometimes it's corporate and more often than not, the episodes refer to some documented touchstones like a book or research - a catalog of lessons This one is a bit of an exception. This episode is not so didactic; the lessons are in the pure experience - the story - and an entertaining one at that. Enjoy! To see show notes, resources, and more, visit larryweeks.com

What can we learn from survival science about recovering from trauma? What can survivors of extreme events teach us about creating a new normal? My guest on this episode is Laurence Gonzales. Laurence Gonzales is the author of numerous books and has won many awards, including two National Magazine Awards and the Distinguished Service Award from the Society of Professional Journalists. Laurence also received a Journalism Fellowship from the Santa Fe Institute and where he was also appointed a Miller Scholar. Laurence wrote the best-selling books Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why, its sequel Surviving Survival: The Art and Science of Resilience, and Everyday Survival: Why Smart People Do Stupid Things. In these books, Laurence chronicles not only how some endured life-threatening situations and somehow survive them, but also their second acts; the difficulty of moving on from their trauma to the equally challenging return to or re-creation of a "normal" life. The extreme events that Laurence writes about are helpful to study as it lends perspective; we realize we are one among many who may have it far worse than we. Also helpful are the lessons learned on how the brain and body work during and after traumatic events. Some of our talking points…. How evolutionary wiring works for us and against us PTSD or PTS Why some survive, and others do not Problems with narrow domain expertise and ego Active coping skills and suggested activities Awareness, behavioral scripts, and accidents Cognitive dissonance The brain's rage pathway Goal seeking behavior and the power of hobbies I've been trying to get Laurence on for over a year - schedules just didn't align, but we finally made it happen happy to say and it was well worth it. Enjoy!

In this episode, my focus is on how to find peace of mind amidst turmoil and persistent uncertainty. So many things that are directly affecting our lives are also out of our direct control - and it can be maddening. Serenity now. The Ancient Greeks used the term ataraxia, which means a state of serene calmness. Steven Gambardella writes in the Sophist, "Ataraxia is not a positively-defined state such as "happy" or "excited" It was believed by the Hellenistic philosophies to be a "resting" state of serenity." To achieve this state, the Stoics taught the need to discern between "things not up to us" vs. "things up to us." "Some things are within our power, while others are not. Within our power are opinion, motivation, desire, aversion, and, in a word, whatever is of our own doing; not within our power are our body, our property, reputation, office, and, in a word, whatever is not of our own doing." - Epictetus in the Enchiridion Herein lies the key to much of our neurosis, not understanding what's in your control and what's not. Crazy is treating outcomes as objects; to paraphrase psychoanalyst Leslie Farber, where you can directly move an object, you cannot directly will an outcome - and your goals can distort your psyche when confusing the two. My guest is philosophy professor Massimo Pigliucci. Massimo has a Ph.D. in Evolutionary Biology and a Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Tennessee. He is currently the K.D. Irani Professor of Philosophy at the City College of New York. His research interests include the philosophy of science, the nature of pseudoscience, and the practical philosophy of Stoicism. He is also the author or editor of 14 books, including the bestselling How to Be A Stoic: Using Ancient Philosophy to Live a Modern Life. Other titles include Nonsense on Stilts: How to Tell Science from Bunk and his just published A Field Guide to a Happy Life. Some of or talking points on this episode How his life changed in 2014 Re-discovering Stoic philosophy Thoughts and suffering Stoicism 2.0 How stress is created The dichotomy of control Holding things lightly; loans from the bank of the universe Unhooking happiness from results Ambition, goals and the challenge of process orientation Pandemics, mask-wearing and citizenship Historical perspectives on crazy political seasons and unorthodox leaders On pacifism and civic engagement Massimo was great as usual so - take a break from the insanity out there, put your earphones on, go for a walk and listen. Enjoy! For show notes, resources and more of my content visit larryweeks.com