Wiser than Yesterday hosts open-ended discussions, breakdowns, and summaries of the world's most thought-provoking and inspiring books.
Our hosts, Nicolas Vereecke and Sam Harris digest non-fiction books from all centuries and genres. They discuss the biggest philosophical insights and practical lessons for health, wealth, wisdom, and happiness.
This podcast is here to help listeners become smarter. To learn about new ideas and to gain more perspectives on the books and ideas they are familiar with.
Each season we tackle a new field and read the best books on a given topic such as racism, startups, stoicism, or personal finance. We cast a wide net to summarise all sides of opinions in an area to come to a wider understanding of the topic at large as well as help listeners navigate the different opinions and ideas they haven't heard of.
We dive into topics such as philosophy, business, equality, psychology, politics, economics, and who knows what else. Our goal is to simply explore the best ideas and learn new things. You're most welcome to join us for the ride.
The Language Puzzle: How we talked our way out of the Stone Age - Steven Mithen
Season 10 · Episode 8
Tuesday, March 3, 2026 • Duration 36:51
The relationship between language, thought and culture is of concern to anyone with an interest in what it means to be human.
The Language Puzzle by Steven Mithen explains how the invention of words at 1.6 million years ago began the evolution of human language from the ape-like calls of our earliest ancestors to our capabilities of today, with over 6000 languages in the world and each of us knowing over 50,000 words.
Out of interest in correctness, Sam investigates cultural ideas across other books from Richard Wrangham, Christopher Boem and Yuval Noah Harari to create this tour de force episode on what the hell was going on.
Drawing on the latest discoveries in archaeology, linguistics, psychology, and genetics, this episode reconstructs the steps by which language evolved; how it transformed the nature of thought and culture, and how we talked our way out of the Stone Age into the world of farming and swiftly into today's Digital Age.
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About Wiser Pod
Nico and Sam set out to read the world's best books, from philosophy to sci-fi, economics to who knows what.
Bruce Lee: Artist of life - The 6 habits of power and wisdom from a legend
Season 10 · Episode 7
Tuesday, February 17, 2026 • Duration 15:51
Bruce Lee was an intense man with such sheer concentration of energy that no one who encountered him, on screen or in person, could help but be drawn to him and his enthusiasm for life and knowledge.
Bruce Lee: Artist of Life explores the development and fruition of Bruce Lee's thoughts about gung fu (kung fu), philosophy, psychology, poetry, jeet kune do, acting, and self-knowledge.
Imagine being so annoyingly good at punching people that your dad has to ship you to another continent. That, more or less, is where our story with Bruce Lee begins.
Bruce Lee wasn’t born a legend. He built one, habit by habit.
This episode breaks down six simple, brutal habits that turned a skinny Hong Kong troublemaker into the most recognisable martial artist on earth. It’s surprisingly copy‑and‑pasteable into a normal life:
Turn failure into a feedback loop instead of an identity crisis.
Build a simple notebook ritual that actually shapes your decisions.
Design one “Bruce Lee hour” a day to practice your craft like it matters.
Hit play, and steal Bruce’s operating system, not just his quotes.
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About Wiser Pod
Nico and Sam set out to read the world's best books, from philosophy to sci-fi, economics to who knows what.
Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human - Richard Wrangham
Season 10 · Episode 6
Monday, September 8, 2025 • Duration 36:30
In this stunningly original book, Richard Wrangham argues that it was cooking that caused the extraordinary transformation of our ancestors from apelike beings to Homo erectus. At the heart of Catching Fire lies an explosive new idea: the habit of eating cooked rather than raw food permitted the digestive tract to shrink and the human brain to grow, helped structure human society, and created the male-female division of labour. As our ancestors adapted to using fire, humans emerged as "the cooking apes".
Covering everything from food-labelling and overweight pets to raw-food faddists, Catching Fire offers a startlingly original argument about how we came to be the social, intelligent, and sexual species we are today.
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About Wiser Pod
Nico and Sam set out to read the world's best books, from philosophy to sci-fi, economics to who knows what.
Why is there more chance we'll believe something if it's in a bold type face? Why are judges more likely to deny parole before lunch? Why do we assume a good-looking person will be more competent?
The answer lies in the two ways we make choices: fast, intuitive thinking, and slow, rational thinking. This book reveals how our minds are tripped up by error and prejudice (even when we think we are being logical), and gives you practical techniques for slower, smarter thinking. It will enable to you make better decisions at work, at home, and in everything you do.
Sam gives a full break down of the main lessons in the book Thinking Fast and Slow. From our system 1 and system 2 thinking to how different biases form and why.
To hear about the psychology of biases you can listen to a full season on the Growth Mindset Pod
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About Wiser Pod
Nico and Sam set out to read the world's best books, from philosophy to sci-fi, economics to who knows what.
Is Brexit more important than Bitcoin? How do we rank Buddhism vs TikTok?
The world changes, technology advances, but what really matters and how much? Sam explains the Innovation Richter Scale, a framework for understanding impact at every level of technology and what it means to society.
In Nate Silver's book "On The Edge", he introduces a Technology Richter scale to determine the impact of AI. Sam takes the idea much, much further because it's cool.
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About Wiser Pod
Nico and Sam set out to read the world's best books, from philosophy to sci-fi, economics to who knows what.
The favourite mental models and timeless lessons from Charlie Munger on how to build worldly wisdom.
Charlie Munger was the business partner of Warren Buffet and the cofounder of Berkshire Hathaway. The most successful investing company in history. He was obsessed with how ot make better decisions.
His book is full of ways to help you be less wrong and how to find an edge where you can perform at your best and minimise risk of losing. From the inversion principle to understanding opportunity cost and your own circle of competence. He has a no nonsense strategy and likeable charm that just oozes credibility and makes you wish you'd spent time working and learning from him.
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About Wiser Pod 📚
Nico and Sam set out to read the world's best books, from philosophy to sci-fi, economics to who knows what.
The World Until Yesterday - Jared Diamond - Stone Age Lessons on Innovation
Season 10 · Episode 2
Tuesday, July 15, 2025 • Duration 31:13
Heard enough lame insights about caveman psychology? Jared Diamond goes hard into what life was really like, how we thought and how it compares to today.
A masterclass of a book when it comes to truly understanding our history and humanity and packed full of insights.
Sam digests the book from a lens of innovation and what the reality of our life meant for taking risks and trying new ideas and making them happen.
We cover various tribe studies across the world and the episode is brimming with stories and statistics that will make you think and a little bit Wiser than Yesterday.
The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon - Brad Stone
Season 10 · Episode 1
Tuesday, July 1, 2025 • Duration 36:59
We share the 10 best mental models about innovation from tech titan Jeff Bezos.
This episode covers the story of Amazon and some of the incredible shifts it has created on the planet. From the obvious online shopping wave to things like the e-reading industry and audiobooks, web-servers giving us Uber and Netflix, devices like Alexa. We also learn about their failures like the Fire Phone and other things you probably haven't even heard of, Amazon Destinations, anyone?
Lessons to think like an innovator and be more decisive:
Primitive Thinking - Creating the building blocks that make new things
Reversible and Irreversible Decisions - Can you just try something already instead of overthinking?
Day 1 Thinking - The philosophy of never being finished
Note - Nico is taking a reading break, and Sam has a season to cover some of his favourite books in depth.
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About Wiser Pod
Nico and Sam set out to read the world's best books, from philosophy to sci-fi, economics to who knows what.
Morgan Housel - Same As Ever: Timeless lessons on risk, opportunity and living a good life.
Season 9 · Episode 11
Friday, March 28, 2025 • Duration 44:08
Every investment plan under the sun is, at best, an informed speculation of what may happen in the future, based on a systematic extrapolation from the known past.
Same as Ever reverses the process, inviting us to identify the many things that never, ever change.
Morgan Housel wrote this to be a master class on optimizing risk, seizing opportunity, and living your best life. But does he achieve it?
We break down the best ideas and mental models he shares and how they could be applied in your life.
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About Wiser Pod
Nico and Sam set out to read the world's best books, from philosophy to sci-fi, economics to who knows what.
The Dark Forest - Liu Cixin [Three Body Problem pt.2]
Season 9 · Episode 10
Friday, March 14, 2025 • Duration 37:07
A philosophical discussion on part 2 of the Three-Body Problem series, The Dark Forest by Liu Cixin.
We ponder different answers to Fermi's paradox and how we'd deal with different levels of intelligence in the Universe. This of course requires pondering how different levels of intelligent beings might deal with us.
We also ponder at large adaptions of books into screenplays, why writers change the races of original characters and a lot of interesting stuff about aliens, the Universe and the space-time continuum.
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Wiser Than Yesterday
Nico and Sam set out to read the world's best books, from philosophy to sci-fi, economics to who knows what.
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