Some seasons will bring misfortune and some times will be hard. In the quiet times of my own life’s largest heartbreaks, I retreated from the world [like a wounded animal retreats to the woods for healing]. And I remained in the wilderness—befriending the pain and allowing it to purify me as much as possible.

How to Use Life's Hard Seasons as Fuel for Your Growth

Ready to learn about “WRAM Syndrome”? [one of the primary reasons good people fail].

Set to learn how to maintain the “white-belt mentality” requires to dominate your domain and live the life of your highest ambitions?

Fascinated in learning what “the bald man in the big Mercedes” can teach us about winning, mastery and reaching legendary?

If yes, go ahead and listen to this episode of The Mastery Sessions.

The Bald Man In The Big Mercedes

In a passionate effort to help you avoid falling into any form of apathy, mediocrity and unoriginality in your creative life, I took the notes I made from the book and shared them in a powerful new episode of The Mastery Sessions.

You’ll find this super-valuable as you handcraft a life you adore...

the firefighter who burned books  | The Mastery Sessions

It’s been 30 years since the landmark self-management book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People was published. It’s been called the most influential business book of the 20th century and the principles it espouses have become embedded in our culture. The 7 Habits has had a big impact on my own life since the first time I read it over 20 years ago as a high schooler. A 30th anniversary edition of the book is out with new insights from the late Stephen Covey’s children. Today, it’s my pleasure to speak to one of them, Stephen M.R. Covey. Stephen is the oldest of the Covey children, played an instrumental role in the launch of the first edition of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, as well as in his father’s company, Franklin Covey, and is himself the author of the book The Speed of Trust. Today on the show, Stephen and I discuss why The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People has had such staying power and why it’s just as relevant today as it was 30 years ago. We then walk through the seven habits, exploring how each is lived individually, as well as work together to create a flourishing life. If you’ve never read The 7 Habits, this episode is a great introduction. And if you’ve read it before, this is a succinct refresher on a set of principles worth building your life around.

Get the show notes at aom.is/sevenhabits.

#607: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

Life isn't an easy road to navigate. We're moody creatures, susceptible to an array of psychological setbacks, emotional ups and downs, fruitless searches for meaning, and trials posed by anxiety, depression, and despair. It's the kind of journey one needs a survival guide for, and my guest today says one of the best can be found in the writings of existential philosophers. 

His name is Gordon Marino and he's a football and boxing coach, a professor of philosophy, and the author of The Existentialist's Survival Guide: How to Live Authentically in an Inauthentic Age. Gordon and I begin our conversation with how he personally found existentialism, and how his coaching intersects with his teaching. We then get into what existential philosophy is all about, and the thinkers and authors who are considered to be existentialists. Gordon shares what he thinks is the greatest existential novel, and which of Soren Kierkegaard’s books he most recommends reading. From there we delve into what Kierkegaard has to say about anxiety, how he thought existential angst was the ultimate teacher, the distinction he drew between depression and despair, and why he argues that procrastination is one of our greatest moral dangers. We then unpack the different models of living an authentic life that the existentialists espoused, and what Nietzsche meant with his injunction to "live dangerously." We then get into the existentialists’ take on love, why love is actually hard to accept, and why you should presuppose love in others. We end our conversation with what boxing can teach about existential philosophy. 

Get the show notes at aom.is/existential.

#635: The Existentialist's Survival Guide

In an age where endless streams of data, options, and information are available, it can feel like every choice -- from what TV show to watch to how to invest our money -- ought to be optimized, and yet making any choice, much less an ideal one, can seem completely overwhelming. How do we figure out what to do? Much of the time, we don't. Instead, we outsource our thinking to technology, experts, and set protocols. This, my guest today says, is where some real problems start.

His name is Dr. Vikram Mansharamani and he's a Harvard lecturer who studies future trends and risks, as well as the author of Think for Yourself: Restoring Common Sense in an Age of Experts and Artificial Intelligence. Today on the show, Vikram explains how our increasingly complex lives have led us to increasingly rely on algorithms, specialists, and checklists to make decisions, even though experts are best suited to untangling complications rather than complexities. We then discuss the issues that can therefore arise in relying on expert advice, including the siloing of information and the application of misdirected focus. Once we diagnose the problem (and how the problem can, for one thing, muddy medical diagnoses), we turn to the solution, and how we can harness the good that technology and experts can provide, without undermining our ability to still think for ourselves, by doing things like asking experts about their incentives, knowing our own goals, triangulating opinions, and crossing silos. We end our conversation with how the serendipitous discovery of perspectives that can come from flipping through a magazine and browsing a bookstore can be part of restoring self-reliant thinking in the 21st century.

Get the show notes at aom.is/thinkforyourself.

#649: Thinking for Yourself in an Age of Outsourced Expertise

If there's one thing that this year has shown us, it's that the future is uncertain and unpredictable.  Along with that unpredictable nature comes a lot of ups and downs.  Good situations and bad situations.  But how we view to those bad situations plays a big part in how we handle them.  In this episode of the most infamous podcast on planet earth, Blueprint and Illogic breakdown how certain bad situations can actually be good for your art.  Let's go!

232: Bad Situations That Are Good For Your Art

While we often speak about the need to be as ambitious as possible when it comes to achieving your goals, we've rarely spoken about what happens after you do. One unfortunate thing that can happen is feeling burnt out and that is where we find ourselves this week as we push into the final few weeks of our 90-Days of Discipline Challenge. In this episode, we break down how easy it is to feel artistically burned out after you achieve a goal and what to do when you feel that way.

233: Dealing With Artistic Burn Out

If you've been paying attention to the show, then you know we started another 90 Days of Discipline Challenge to ourselves in October.  We also invited our listeners to join in on this challenge, where we choose a goal and focus on it for 90 days to see how far along we can get.  In this episode, Blueprint and Illogic play the calls from our listeners who participated as well as go over our results.  Happy New Year!

234: The 90 Days of Discipline Results Show

This is a re-broadcast. The episode originally ran in November 2018.

Humans are storytelling and story-listening creatures. We use stories to teach, persuade, and to make sense of the complexities of existence. Being able to craft and deliver a good story is thus a real advantage in all areas of life, giving you a foot up when doing job interviews, going on dates, interacting with friends, or making a sales pitch.

Fortunately, good storytelling is a skill that can learned by anyone. Here to teach us the art of storytelling is Matthew Dicks, a writer, five-time Moth GrandSlam storytelling winner, and the author of the book Storyworthy: Engage, Teach, Persuade, and Change Your Life through the Power of Storytelling. 

Today on the show, Matthew walks us through the nuts and bolts of how to craft a compelling story. We begin our conversation discussing ways to generate story ideas, why good stories don’t have to be about big moments, and why he recommends a practice called "Homework for Life." Matthew then tells us what we can learn from movies about making a story so engaging that people are waiting to hear what you say next. We also discuss the don'ts of storytelling, including how to never begin a story. And we end our conversation with a five-minute story from Matthew that showcases all the principles we discussed during the show.

Get the show notes at aom.is/storyworthy.

#462: How to Tell Better Stories

This is a rebroadcast. This episode originally aired January 2019.

If you’re like a lot of men listening to this podcast, you’ve likely made it a goal to lose some weight this year. But if you’re also like a lot of men listening to this podcast, you’ve made that goal before, maybe even succeeded with it, but have had to make it again because you gained all the weight back. My guest today argues that losing weight is actually pretty easy. The real trick is keeping it off.

His name is Layne Norton. He’s a professional bodybuilder, powerlifter, and doctor of nutritional science, and today on the show we discuss all things fat loss. We begin our conversation discussing why losing weight is easier than keeping it off, the mechanisms that kick into gear once we shed body fat that cause us to gain all of it, and even more back, and why yo-yo dieting is so terrible for you.

We then dig into whether there’s one diet that’s the most effective in helping you lose fat, the tactics you need to use to keep the weight off in the long run, and the real reason exercise plays a role in helping you do so, which isn’t what you think.

#475: How to Lose Weight, and Keep It Off Forever

The Art of Manliness