This is the 10th episode back for SYDLIS, so if you want us to continue creating new episodes for the podcast, let us know by leaving a review at ratethispodcast.com/learn. 

In this episode, Steph and Cal bring a medley of half-baked business ideas to the table. They introduce the origin story of each idea, rate it on a scale of A-F, discuss modifications that would make it better, and most importantly, roast each other when the idea is a little too half-baked.

This episode is a part of the broader nudge Steph and Cal push for everyone to see that there are endless ideas to pursue when you learn to see them in the world.

Business ideas covered:

1. Marketplace for premium goods
2. Hot sauce tasting kits 
3. Long-duration gifting platform
4. AI-powered collectible evaluators
5. The upgraded ZYN tin!
6. Unrecordable digital spaces
7. Making friends as an adult workshop
8. Bidirectional poll-based newsletters
9. Hyper-localized surf guides
10. Immersive, animal sensory museums

There is something out there that can make one person more productive and kind, while another inharmonious -- even resentful. That thing is identity.

And while we passively adopt parts of identity, we often forget that much of our identity is left up to us. In this episode, Cal and Steph explore the depths of identity and how being intentional around what parts of your identity you adopt, shed, or embrace can lead to a more fulfilled life.

ChatGPT broke records in adoption, hitting 100m monthly active users in a matter of months... faster than any other web platform prior. Even faster than TikTok!

But with fast adoption comes equally swift resistance, surfacing  questions around how this technology is changing the wider world. Should AI models be allowed in schools? How about the courtroom? Do stock image photographers have a fighting chance?

In this episode, Cal and Steph step into the shoes of many people tackling these difficult questions right now. From the middle school teacher to the college admissions officer, to the owners of a stock image sites, or even the head of the Bar Association... how would you respond? What questions would you be asking? 

Listen in to hear Cal and Steph's takes.

This episode is not affiliated with Steph's work at a16z and is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures.

Have you ever looked around your home and thought, "Where did all this stuff come from?!"

Cal and Steph are currently going through this exercise, as they go through their first move in years.

It turns out they're not alone in this feeling of overwhelm and is shared by many others who used to be nomads. The need for *things* is universal, but so is the slippery slope to acquiring too many.

In this episode, Cal and Steph explore why weight of stuff – both physically and mentally – and how our decisions are often unconsciously driven by phenomena like the Diderot and Endowment effects. They also explore how our digital lives, although seemingly benign, can also turn into weights on your life and what simple frameworks they're using to change behavior.

Each January, Steph and Cal sit down to reflect on the prior year and this one is no different. You'll find out their...

1. Best New Idea
2. Best New Life Hack
3. Best New Experience
4. Best/Worst Purchase
5. Best/Worst Trend
6. Best Personal Win/Accomplishment
7. #1 Goal for Next Year
8. Prediction for the New Year

Jumpstart 2023 by doubling down on the best activities and avoiding the worst. It's going to be an awesome year.

PS: If you liked the sound effects in this episode, we found them here.

PPS: Since Steph now works at a16z, please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures.

A few weeks ago, Steph and Cal had a locksmith come in. It cost $185 and was shockingly quick... just 10 minutes! Little did they know it would also be the fodder for one of Steph's most popular tweets of all time.

Perhaps it shouldn't be surprising – people love learning about new opportunities. That's why they decided to record this (hopefully) recurring segment where they share various opportunities they've found in everyday things and how they're crafted a curious lens with time.

In this episode, they discuss 6 business ideas:

• niche sports like freediving
• second-hand LEGO markets
• the AI education opportunity
• lupini beans: the next healthy snack?
• the story behind the music
• using the full agave plant

Let us know if you liked this episode on Twitter. If there's enough demand, we'll continue to run it monthly.

There has been a wave of recent cheating scandals, from chess to poker to fishing. But cheating is not new, nor is it a rare occurrence. In fact, some articles sport stats like "75 to 98% of college students have cheated" or "over 46% of respondents in a monogamous relationship said they had affairs."

In this episode, Cal and Steph discuss when – if ever – cheating is okay. They even share their own experiences of being caught in the act and how it's shaped their perspectives since.

For years, people thought that artificial intelligence would wipe out repetitive tasks, but leave the creatives untouched. But recent developments have left many people surprised and taken the creative world by storm. 

Tools like DALL-E, Midjourney, and Stable Diffusion gave anyone with a keyboard and a wifi connection the ability to spin up images from text prompts, far earlier and higher quality than many imagined. 

So what comes next for the artists... the writers... the musicians...? No one knows for sure, but in this episode Cal and Steph discuss the exciting new world of generative AI. They discuss what it is (and isn't), the tools they've played with, how culture and trust are shifting, who "wins" in this new world, and what they think might be on the horizon. 

• Check out Steph's new AI-generated avatar
• Check out Calvin's new AI-generated avatar
• Lexica prompt database
• Nat Eliason's article
• Marie Dolle article
• Profile Pic AI
• AvatarAI

It's human nature to worry about the things that can go wrong.

But often overlooked is the mentality of attraction instead of detraction, or in other words focusing on what you can bring to the table instead of what you can prevent from happening.

While so many companies signal they want entrepreneurial candidates yet don't allow side projects, want out of the box thinkers yet expect them to work in a box (office), and vow they only hire top talent yet pay below market rate... there's power in thinking through whether you're truly focusing on attracting the right people or just trying to prevent wrong behavior.

In this episode, Steph and Cal discuss the mentality of being a magnet instead of a jail, originally inspired by this tweet of Steph's.

Money is a leading cause of problems in relationships. It’s not just not having money, it’s conflict around money, lack of alignment, and the downstream effects of that.

Money is complicated because it’s influenced by your direct circumstances, but also by your childhood, psychology, and trajectory. It's also complicated because so few people talk openly and honestly about money.

In this episode, Steph and Cal open up the kimono and explore how they deal with and think about money in their relationship. They share their current working philosophy on money and stories about the things they struggle with and are still working on.

In part 3 of our 3-part series, Steph and Cal discuss how they planned a wedding in 10 days, what they did (including traditions kept and scrapped), and the pros and cons of taking a less conventional approach to marriage.

The internet has a treasure trove of information that you can use to generate business ideas, spot trends, and understand what the future will look like before everyone else. But to benefit from the internet's wealth of knowledge, you need to learn how to use it in the right ways.

In this episode, Cal and Steph discuss four unconventional ways that you can use the internet to find good ideas for businesses and products that people actually want.

You’ll learn how to:

• Use Twitter searches to discover products that people want
• Tap into a rich reservoir of unsolved problems with Wikipedia
• Leverage a sci-fi technology database to dream up the future
• Leverage patents to see what companies are investing in

Resources Mentioned

• Wikipedia’s list of unsolved problems
• Patent Drop newsletter
• Not Boring Sci-Fi Idea Bank and further reading on the database
• Twitter Searches
  • "request for product" min_faves:200
  • "someone please build" min_faves:200
  • "I’d pay for" min_faves:200
  • “why doesn’t this exist” min_faves:100
  • "business idea” min_faves:1000

This episode is not affiliated with Steph's work at a16z and is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures.

In part 2 of this 3-part series, we decided to re-air part of our most popular episode, #35: Does Marriage, Retirement, or the 40-Hour Work Week Still Make Sense?

In this segment, we share:

• How humans are actually not wired for monogamy
• What animals within the animal kingdom are monogamous
• The history of marriage and when marriage started to be associated with love
• Explore the concept of love and whether the 37% rule could be applied to it
• Understand the key difference between animals and humans
• The importance of travel and exposure to different ways of living
• How narratives drive the adoption of technology

In part 1 of our 3-part series, we're joined be Amanda Natividad and Marissa Goldberg – two friends of the podcast – to discuss the traditions that surround love.

After getting engaged last year, Steph found herself in a place she didn't expect and with emotions that she didn't feel entitled to have. That led her down a deep rabbit hole of questions, ultimately ending up in a bunch of societal narratives.

She discusses them here with Amanda and Marissa, as they share how they navigated the narratives that underpin love, from engagement to name changes to family involvement and more. Without giving too much away, all three women have found their own unique way forward.

Resources:

• The Gottman Institute (for fantastic research-based marriage advice) 
• Harvard grad speech on committing 
• A name change service that Marissa recommends
• A before marriage list of questions 
• Post-engagement anxiety article 1
• Post-engagement anxiety article 2
• Getting engaged made me feel miserable
• Amanda's "declaration of interdependence"
• Marissa's elopement video 

Thank you Amanda and Marissa for joining us! You can find them at...

• Amanda's personal site
• Amanda's Twitter
• Marissa's personal site
• Marissa's Twitter

In this special episode, Cal and Steph answer audience questions across a wide range of topics including writing, relationships, finances, and even death. Listen in to find out.

Next Steps

• Essay about the nuance of privilege
• If you liked this episode, make sure to subscribe and leave a review. 
• To receive the latest updates, follow The Sh*t You Don't Learn in School on Twitter.

Steph has some exciting news to share in today's episode! Listen in to find out.

In this episode, Cal and Steph also cover the rise of the creator economy -- both its promise and pitfalls.

They breakdown why the heightened attention toward creators, whether we can expect a creator "middle class" anytime soon, the importance of IP, and even explore what it truly means to be a "creator"...

Is it the things they build?
Is it the audience they have?
Is it the money the make?

They also cover upcoming trends that they expect to hit this growing "creator economy" including the rise of digital influencers, content automation, crypto, and gaming.

If you'd like to ask Cal or Steph a question for an upcoming AMA episode, we encourage you to submit your questions here!

We all know that where you live is one of the most important decisions you can make, but it may be more important than you think. And with more people working remotely, there is no more freedom than ever in deciding where you call "home."

In this episode, Steph and Cal discuss how to think about where you should live, why it matters more than you think, and how you can make a decision when it involves two people who have different desires from a location.

In one of our next episodes, we'll be answering listener questions! You can ask your questions here:

Next Steps

• Paul Graham's essay: http://www.paulgraham.com/cities.html
• If you liked this episode, make sure to subscribe and leave a review. 
• To receive the latest updates, follow The Sh*t You Don't Learn in School on Twitter.

Life feels like a bunch of micro-decisions, yet a few macro-decisions often end up determining how you spend most of your time.

Perhaps one of the most significant are the degree you choose and the first job you take. The decisions that follow those are inevitably pulled by their inertia.

In this episode, Cal and Steph discuss the importance of exploring the diversity of jobs out there and how many people become fixed in a singular path.

If you liked this episode, make sure to subscribe and leave a review. 

We believe that the desire to give is universal, but is just as much a skill as anything else in life. In this episode, Cal and Steph discuss the how you can make a difference during your limited time on this earth, with the limited resources you have -- especially during times like these.

They dive into...

• Creative ways that people have supported Ukraine
• Striking a balance between hedonism and altruism
• Making difficult problems tractable
• A breakdown of the gender pay gap
• Impact starting with small actions
• WTF is effective altruism?
• Whether charities should be structured differently

If you'd like to join us in giving back, we're giving to givewell.org. 

Language is one of the most powerful tools that humans have accessible to them.

Don't believe us? Consider the fact that someone could walk up to you and say something that could immediately change your mental state.

Nothing around you has changed, other than the words echoed through the air.

In this episode, Cal and Steph discuss the power of words and how language can shape the way we think. They use untranslatable words to convey these concepts and share how language has been shown to impact anything from our impression of time, space, or even emotional regularity.

If you're interested in digging into this more, Steph has built a directory of untranslatable words (Eunoia, which itself is an untranslatable word) and has written an article about the topic here. Send us a message with your favorite "untranslatables"!

Liked this episode? Make sure to subscribe and leave a review. 

The allure of getting rich quick is intoxicating.

It's even more intoxicating when you're trapped inside and it seems like all your friends have cashed in big.

In this episode, Cal and Steph discuss Cal's experience with active investing over the last 20 months and ultimately, why it's time to walk away from the casino.

If you liked this episode, make sure to subscribe and leave a review. You can also read Calvin's article on the topic here.

And if you're also stuck in the casino, don't be afraid to reach out to Cal or Steph on Twitter. We'd love to hear your story.

"The only constant is change", they say.

In this episode, Cal and Steph discuss just how drastically the world has changed and will continue to change.

From the iPhone... to the Internet... to antibiotics... to human flight... to to the sequencing of DNA... to perhaps the most important fact that humans now live more than double as long... these developments all happened within the last 100 years.

Given that things within a single lifetime can go from being inconceivable to ubiquitous, it's mind-blowing to imagine what might be come.

They use the remainder of the episode to explore what might be to come, whether it be proactive medicine, computer-brain interfaces, printed food, digital warfare, and much more.

If you liked this episode, make sure to subscribe and leave a review. 

Resources: 

• The Great (TV show)
• Life expectancy data
• Neal's fun tools

Writing is one of the most powerful tools on Earth. But few have mastered the craft.

Perhaps because success in writing often actually veers you off course, leading you to a life of talking instead of living -- the very thing that drove the quality of your writing in the first place.

One man  -- (who has written several novels, thousands of poems, and hundreds of short stories) has some merciless takes on the art of writing. And although merciless, many ring true.

In this episode, Cal and Steph dive into the mind of Bukowski and the key lessons we can learn about creating art that truly shakes you alive. 

This episode is not affiliated with Steph's work at a16z and is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures.

There's an endless sea of advice online.

Whether it's from a vague Twitter thread or a clickbait blog post, the advice sounds catchy, but if we're honest... often holds little water.

However, we all know from experience that the right lessons, sometimes even sitting in plain sight, can genuinely change the trajectory of one's life.

In this episode, Cal and Steph discuss the few pieces of advice that they think matter most and shouldn't be ignored.

Love this episode? Give it a review at https://ratethispodcast.com/learn

Resources:

• Calvin's article: https://calvinrosser.com/40-pieces-of-advice/
• Josh Pigford's project page: https://joshpigford.com/projects
• Doing Time Right: https://doingtimeright.com/

In this episode, Cal and Steph discuss the hidden side of risk: the infrequent, often unpredictable events that make the biggest differences in our lives.

If you look around, rare, high-impact events are everywhere. 

• A small number of days in the stock market drive the bulk of the returns.
• Large businesses like Google, Amazon, and Best Buy have tested thousands of products, yet have a single profit puppy. 
• Insurance companies make money on most customers, but have to pay out very large claims to a few people.
• A handful of people have had more of an effect on the future than the other 7 billion people combined.

This episode is all about navigating tail risk and tail opportunity. You'll learn how to better avoid the catastrophic events in life, and on the flip side, to take advantage of the life-enhancing opportunities with asymmetric upside.

Love this episode? Give it a review at https://ratethispodcast.com/learn

In this episode, Steph and Cal break down the best of 2021. You'll find out the...

1. Best New Idea
2. Best New Skill
3. Best New Life Hack
4. Best New Experience
5. Best/Worst Purchase
6. Best/Worst Investment
7. Best/Worst Trend
8. Best Podcast
9. Creator of the Year
10. Best Personal Win/Accomplishment
11. #1 Goal for Next Year
12. Prediction for the New Year

Jumpstart 2022 by doubling down on the best activities and avoiding the worst. It's going to be an awesome year.

PS: If you liked the sound effects in this episode, we found them here.

What do airplanes, railroads, and jazz music have in common? They were all innovations that people feared.

In fact, if you look into any key technology shift from the past, you'll find a wealth of fear, uncertainty, and doubt surrounding it. And while this shouldn't be surprising, we can still learn from the skeptics of the past.

We can learn just how difficult it is to predict what's to come and look toward our future with a humble perspective, an acceptance that we probably will get it wrong again.

In this episode, Calvin and Steph talk through how people viewed inventions seemingly as innocuous as the bicycle or teddy bear, what we can learn from these stories, and how to stay open minded and capitalize on opportunities as technology takes us into the future.

Death is universal part of the human experience. During our lives, we often must confront the painful reality of death around us, and eventually, we face that reality ourselves.

What's odd is that despite death being at the core of the human experience, many people avoid talking or thinking about it. So when people pass away or we face a health scare that brings us into contact with the fragility of life, we often don't know what to do. 

In this episode, Calvin shares his experience with the death of two close loved ones: his mentor and his mom. He dives into the depths of those experiences, whether it's choosing to take his mother off life support or the psychedelic experience that helped him process his guilt. And most importantly, he shares what he's learned from years of grieving.

We hope this episode serves as a jumping off point for people to speak more openly about death and to connect with the many people that have lost a close loved one.

As a disclaimer:  If you are unable to listen to difficult topics like suicide, mental health, or sexual abuse, please do not listen to this episode.

Resources:

• My Mom’s Path to Suicide: Battling the Darkness in a Broken System
• I Will Make You Proud: A Eulogy for My Mom
• The Power of Mentorship and Paying it Forward
• Unpacking Unit 73: Insights from Revisiting My Youth
  
  

In the second part of this series on the future of work, Steph and Cal dive into new products and services, alongside macro trends that they predict are in full flux.

These include mass migration, global tax infrastructure, opportunities for services to specialize, increased isolation, UBI, and of course... the metaverse. :)

People say that COVID was an accelerator, forcing trends that may have taken decades to develop, to instead take hold in much less time. Remote work was one of those trends. But we're not done yet!

The future of work is constantly evolving and it doesn't just impact whether you can Zoom without pants. :)

In this episode, Cal and Steph discuss the second and third order effects of the remote revolution and what's to come. And in part one of this series, they discuss how this equation impacts the individual and companies. In part 2, they'll talk about new products and services, and macro trends to come.

Resources:

• Printable user manual prompts: bit.ly/user-manual-questions
• Steph’s user manual: bit.ly/steph-smith-user-manual
• Calvin’s user manual: bit.ly/calvin-rosser-user-manual

The information age gives us access to so much advice that it can be hard to see through the noise.

4AM morning routines that don't make sense for you. Productivity hacks that hardly move the needle. Hindsight bias cloaked as success stories.

Most advice is well-intentioned, but rarely translates to improvements in another person's life. So this week, Cal and Steph took a step back to ask the simple question: what are the 80/20 habits, beliefs, and products that had an outsized impact in changing their lives.

While many of their answers aren't revolutionary, they're universal and can be adopted by anyone.

If you find yourself looking for an 80/20 episode that cuts through the noise, this one is for you.

With the exception of a few companies like Buffer and GitLab, 99.99%+ of companies opt to keep their salaries closed. This closed nature creates information asymmetry and at times, inequity in the workplace.

Lack of transparency gives companies a hall pass to not develop a robust compensation system, but at the same time, sharing salaries openly isn't without its pitfalls, including privacy and the tendency for people to over-compare themselves to others.

In this episode, Steph and Cal debate whether companies should share their pay methodology or even fully open up their book. They share a range of studies, including results from Norway, a country that has shared their tax returns publicly since 1863.

If you've felt the information asymmetry in the workforce or are considering how you can get more out of your career, this episode is for you.

Love this episode? Give it a review at https://ratethispodcast.com/learn

Wealth inequality has been increasing for decades, and recently, there has been a heightened focus on billionaires as we debate what to do about the concentration of large swaths of wealth in a few hands.

In this episode, Steph and Cal discuss whether or not billionaires should exist, common proposals for dealing with billionaires, and a few policy proposals for how we can start thinking about tackling wealth inequality.

Whether you find yourself saying, "billionaires are evil and don't deserve all that money", "billionaires deserve what they have earned", or "I don't care about billionaires, but I care about a world with more equality of opportunity," this episode is for you.

Love this episode? Give it a review at https://ratethispodcast.com/learn

Few waves have hit the world quite like remote work; a wave impacting billions of people overnight due to a worldwide pandemic.

But in reality, this wave was brewing for decades and thousands of nomads had long been proving there was a different and viable way to work. Calvin and Steph were two of those people, starting in 2016.

Now that the world has caught up, they decided to reflect back on what was so special about that period and what, in retrospect, they might've seen then that much of the world had still not (and in some ways still hasn't) understood.

Listen in for a look inside the early days of digital nomadism.

This episode is not affiliated with Steph's work at a16z and is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures.

In this episode, Cal and Steph discuss the subjective nature of pricing. They explore how a value extends beyond utility or the physical nature of an asset (think luxury items, NFTs, etc) and use these ideas to explore new pricing models, including tiered, retention-based, and completion-based pricing.

They also explore how our own psychology can inhibit use as consumers to spend on what's most meaningful and the importance of unlearning certain spending habits.

If you find the psychology of money as fascinating as we do, give this episode a listen.

Love this episode? Give it a review at https://ratethispodcast.com/learn

In this episode, Steph and Cal dive deep into traditions, the societal defaults that shape how we think and act in the world. They start by exploring the origins of the 40-hour work week, modern alternatives, and how we can rethink the idea of retirement. In the second half of the episode, they explore how the ways in which commonly held beliefs about monogamy, love, and marriage may not set people up for the life they want to live. If you're interested in questioning the norms and designing a life that works for you, this episode is worth a listen.

Love this episode? Give it a review at https://ratethispodcast.com/learn

The big failure of most productivity advice is the focus on efficiency – getting things done more quickly. We should be focused on effectiveness – making sure we're doing the right things. In this episode, Steph and Cal explore how we can rethink productivity to get more out of how we spend our most valuable resource: time. They cover a variety of topics, including many practical ideas about getting more out of every day, including the Eliminate, Automate, Delegate, and Iterate framework from their new course: Doing Time Right.

You can dive deeper into the concepts discussed and learn more about the course here: http://doingtimeright.com/.

Love this episode? Give it a review at https://ratethispodcast.com/learn

We're all familiar with how to increase physical security – locking our doors, paying attention to our surroundings, putting valuables in a safe, etc. – but what about our digital security?

With an increasingly digital world comes a less perceptible risk – the risk of having your information hacked and exploited by someone with whom you will never see or interact.

In this episode, Steph and Cal explore the basics of digital security, the risks involved, where many people go wrong, and what you should consider doing at a minimum to move from "at-risk" to "safer" with your digital information.

See if you've been hacked: https://haveibeenpwned.com/.

At a time where several asset classes are at all-time highs, there's a lot of talk about whether we're in a bubble. That, coupled with crypto assets falling to ~half of their highs, prompted Cal and Steph to dive in to try to answer this question.

In this episode, they discuss the markings of past bubbles, the innovation hype cycle, the difficulty in profiting from nascent innovations, the importance of educating yourself and building your own conviction behind your decisions, managing your psychology (offense vs defense),  the cyclical nature of market cycles, and of course... the burning question of whether they think we're in a bubble today.

They also share how they've fared in crypto and how they're thinking about investing moving forward (including Cal's foray into de-fi)

Recommended resources include the books "The Simple Path to Wealth" and "A Random Walk Down Wallstreet", as well as economic indicators like the Shiller PE ratio: https://www.multpl.com/shiller-pe

*** NOT FINANCIAL ADVICE *** :)

Travel is fun, but it becomes even more enjoyable once you know how to do it well. Collectively, Steph and Cal have visited over 70 countries while working remotely, learning a bunch of useful tips for better travel along the way. In this episode, they share some of the most useful learnings, including:

- How to avoid getting scammed
- How to choose a location and plan a trip
- How to choose an accomodation that's suitable for work
- How to interact with a place
- How to get the most out of visiting different countries
- How to optimize your personal finances
- And more...

Episode Resources

• Nomad List - Find a cool location to visit.
• Message to Airbnb host to ensure good wifi - Make sure you have good wifi.
• Schwab Bank High Yield Investor Checking - No foreign ATM fees.
• Chase Sapphire Reserve Credit Card - All around great travel card.
• Priority Pass - Access airport lounges worldwide.

30 days ago, Calvin and Steph set out to record 30 pods in 30 days. Today was the final episode of their challenge, where they reflect on what went well, what didn't go so well, and if they plan to continue recording. 

The world is run by incentives, but what happens when those incentives go wrong? In this episode, Calvin and Steph talk through the Cobra Effect, a phenomena incentives designed to improve society actually end in negative consequences, often resulting in actions counter to the original goal. They discuss several examples of the effect and how people can not only be more aware of it, but also how they can design better incentive structures moving forward.

Drinking alcohol is embedded within the social fabric of society, but how do we take control of our relationship with alcohol? For all of the fun it supports, alcohol is a poison that causes unnecessary physical, mental, and emotional harm for many people. In this episode, Steph and Cal interview Taylor Platt, a Princeton graduate and NBA strategist who went sober 3 years ago. Taylor shares why he made the decisions, how he did it, the challenges he faced, and what he learned that might be helpful for you. If you're at all interested in reducing your alcohol or reconsidering your relationship with it, this episode is worth a listen.

Whether we'd like to believe it or not, age is a signal that people judge others by. In a professional setting, it can signal your level of experience and for that reason, it can be difficult to earn the trust of a team, if they happen to be older than you. In this episode, Calvin and Steph talk through their experiences managing at a young age and what tips they have for effective leadership.

Few people inspire us more than Yayoi Kusama.

Cal recently discovered this 94-year old's work while at the Guggenheim in Bilbao. Like many others, he was immediately gripped by her art – enough to be the only artist he looked up after his visit. Little did he know she was one of the world's most successful living artists, had been creating thousands of pieces across nearly a century, and has quite the storied past.

In this episode, you'll learn about this incredible artist, from her long-time struggle with mental health (she has been living out of a mental facility for 50 years!) to her alienation from the art community and Japan, and how she ultimately succeeded beyond all of that noise by continuing to create a gobsmacking amount of art. A true hero's journey. 

It's truly a wonder that we hadn't heard of Yayoi earlier. We hope this episode leaves you just as astounded by her as we are.

In recent episodes, Calvin and Steph have discussed lifestyle creep and how when you make more, you have the tendency to spend more. In this episode, they brought on a friend and colleague Ethan Brooks, to discuss in what circumstances it does make sense to splurge. In particular, they discuss their experiences in hostels and when it was time to upgrade. 

We all accumulate possessions throughout our lives, but how often do we evaluate whether or not all that stuff is helping or hurting us? In this episode, Steph and Calvin talk about what they learned from living out of backpacks for 4 years, how expensive items carry a psychological burden, and how to think about what you buy over time.

No matter how talented you are, you'll inevitably be a victim of imposter syndrome. But, there's a flipside to every coin and for imposter syndrome, it's the compulsion to always be better. Is is possible to get the upside and limit the downside?

In this episode, Calvin and Steph discuss how they've managed imposter syndrome and balance their ambition to improve, with the tendency to compare yourself to others.

Most of us walk around thinking that the world is getting worse. But is this actually true? In this episode, Steph and I walk through a quiz that shows us just how wrong our instincts are about the state of the world and why we consistently believe that things are far worse than they actually are.