Self-Improvement, Psychology and Mindset

What comes to mind when you think about optimism?

Yeah right, how can anyone be optimistic at a time like this?

*eye roll* What fluff.

Uh…does being optimistic about my chances of eating cake count?

Given our current circumstances, optimism might feel worthless, useless, or both. But optimism doesn’t have to be this mythical, unobtainable pie-in-the-sky concept, especially when considered from this lens:

the expectation of good things to happen and the belief that our behavior matters.

Why? Because we have control of our expectations and our beliefs. We can choose to alter our expectations, and we can choose to believe that our behavior matters.

That’s what Michelle Gielan, Positive Psychologist and bestselling author of Broadcasting Happiness, is here to explain. In this episode, she offers research-based tactics that you can use today to gradually strengthen your resolve, transform your relationship with stress, and shift towards optimism.

Are you ready to say goodbye to bad habits from 2020 and say hello to habits that will actually guide you toward the person you want to become?

If so, a simple framework for building better habits is only a few minutes away.

After listening to this episode, you’ll have a step-by-step approach for creating habits that will serve you for years to come. This approach brings clarity around the one thing you need to focus on to live the life you’re dreaming of. 

Our guest is Geoff Woods, Vice President of The ONE Thing and host of The ONE Thing podcast. (You might be familiar with the book by the same name.) He is an expert at ruthlessly prioritizing tasks, developing values-based habits, and getting clear on the one thing that needs to be done to achieve a vision.

The simple framework that he presents in today’s interview gives you the tools you need to focus deeply and commit to actions that will take your productivity and personal development to the next level this year.

Are you confident in your ability to lead a virtual conversation, or do you get so nervous that you forget everything you planned to say as soon as you open your mouth?

Do you know how to keep people engaged during meetings, or do you notice people looking elsewhere for a distraction?

Are you able to listen to your gut and speak your truth when things go awry, or do you silence your inner voice and doubt your feelings?

Tracy Tutor, author of Fear is Just a Four Letter Word and the first female real estate broker on Million Dollar Listing LA, joins us to tackle all of these questions. In this interview, Tracy shares how she learned to listen to her gut after experiencing trauma at the hands of larger-than-life egos, tips for engaging clients and managing group dynamics both virtually and in-person, and why humor can connect us all.

Do you wrestle with the idea of leaving your savings in an account earning next to nothing versus investing it in the stock market?

Do you use investment strategies that allow you to work with your nature, rather than against it?

Are you careful to seek investment advice from those who share your investment goals, or do you get caught up in the trends of day traders?

Morgan Housel, author of The Psychology of Money, joins us to discuss why investing is not the study of finance, but the study of how people behave with money. Morgan is an award-winning financial journalist, former columnist for the Wall Street Journal and The Motley Fool, and one of the foremost thinkers in the world of investing.

As a long-term investor who shares our buy-and-hold philosophy, Morgan has behavioral finance insights that can help us invest for financial independence with more clarity and a better understanding of ourselves.

We discuss how to develop self-awareness around biases, the importance of flexibility for long-term strategies, saving like a pessimist and investing like an optimist, becoming durable in the face of market adversity, the key difference between patience and stubbornness (and how it affects your mindset), expectation management, the importance of bonds and emergency funds, and a difficult lesson about tail risks that Morgan learned at age 17.

How many times have you made a decision – big or small – only to regret it later?

            “I wanted to fund my IRA this year, but that vacation was calling my name…I should have known better. Now I feel behind.”

            “I really wanted to take that out-of-state job, but I talked myself out of leaving my family and friends behind. Now I’m unhappy thinking about what could have been. How stupid of me.”

            “Ugh, I knew I shouldn’t have eaten all this ice cream, but it was too good to put away. What was I thinking?”

But…how could you have known?

We can’t make decisions with 100 percent certainty. Therefore, we can’t know how something will turn out.

Yet most of us get stuck in analysis paralysis, desperate to gather as much information as we possibly can before making a decision.

And when that decision doesn’t turn out as we hoped, our response is, “I should have known!”

How can we break this cycle? How can we accept that we don’t have total control over the outcomes of our decisions? How can we forgive ourselves, and others, for not getting it right?

Most of all: how can we improve our decision making skills to avoid this scenario in the first place?

That’s what today’s guest, Annie Duke, best-selling author of Thinking In Bets, is here to tell us.

What process do you use to make decisions?

“Uhh … I put together a pros and cons list!”

“I harness my awesome spreadsheet skills and work out the variables in cells.”

“I ask others for their opinions and seek information from people who have been in my shoes.”

All of these tactics are common decision-making techniques…but they’re not processes.

What happens when you get stuck on a critical decision that you need to make quickly?

Does the intensity of the situation get the best of you? Do you make the decision based on your gut reaction? Or do you work calmly through a list of techniques that will help you arrive at a well-informed decision?

If you rely on your instincts in the heat of the moment, that’s natural. But it won’t lead to the best outcome, and it lacks process.

Today’s guest is here to share two decision making processes that can help you cut through the noise and arrive at a well-thought out decision. If you love practical guests with information that you can apply right away, you’ll love this episode.

It’s September! If you’ve listened to any episode in the last month, then you know that I’m on round two of what I’ve dubbed my September Sabbatical, otherwise known as my yearly time to take a break from podcast production.

We’re not leaving you hanging, though. Instead, we’re digging through the archives and airing some of my favorite interviews on the show. Enjoy!

What does it take to create a sustainable sense of hope?

That’s the question that I invited Mark Manson, megabestselling author of Everything is F*cked and The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck, to answer on this episode.

While we published this episode one year ago, the question of how to create hope remains as pressing as ever.

Mark says that three basic factors contribute to a sense of hope:

1. Autonomy
2. Purpose
3. Community

Mark and I keep these three factors in mind as we discuss how to define success, find new challenges, and choose what’s meaningful in life. We touch on the importance of emotional regulation and avoiding crises of hope. And we talk about how they relate back to the financial independence retire early (FIRE) movement.