Listen Now

For millennia, dominant groups have had the habit of framing themselves to be the best, deep down: the more powerful they become, the more power begins to be framed as natural. When you see how power has shaped the idea of race, then you can start to understand its meaning. In Superior, celebrated author Angela Saini explores the concepts of race and caste, from their origins to the present day. Engaging with geneticists, anthropologists, historians and social scientists from across the globe, Superior is a rigorous, much needed examination of the insidious and destructive belief that race is biologically real. More about Angela here: https://www.angelasaini.co.uk

Ozan Varol reveals simple strategies from rocket science that you can use to make your own giant leaps in work and life - whether it's landing your dream job, accelerating your business, learning a new skill, or creating the next breakthrough product. Today, thinking like a rocket scientist is a necessity. We all encounter complex and unfamiliar problems in our lives. Those who can tackle these problems -- without clear guidelines and with the clock ticking -- enjoy an extraordinary advantage. Think Like a Rocket Scientist will inspire you to take your own moonshot and enable you to achieve lift-off. More about Ozan here: https://ozanvarol.com

Four out of five adults report feeling that they have too much to do and not enough time to do it. These time-poor people experience less joy each day. They laugh less. They are less healthy, less productive, and more likely to divorce. In one study, time stress produced a stronger negative effect on happiness than unemployment. Our guest offers us a playbook for taking back the time you lose to mindless tasks and unfulfilling chores. We welcome Author of Time Smart: How to Reclaim Your Time and Live a Happier Life Ashley Whillans. More about Ashley here: https://www.awhillans.com

There is a painful gap between what people want and what they actually do. The disconnect between want and do has been blamed on a lot of things — but we blame it on ourselves for the most part. We internalize the cultural message of “It’s your fault! Our guest is here to say: It isn’t your fault. creating positive change isn’t as hard as you think and when it comes to change tiny is mighty. We welcome, founder of the Behavior Design Lab at Stanford University and author Tiny Habits, BJ Fogg. Sign up for BJ's free course here: https://www.tinyhabits.com/join

In business, government, and every area of contemporary life, leaders today are struggling to find workable solutions to greater and more complex challenges. As a former senior Pentagon official and CEO of a billion-dollar company, our guest has seen firsthand that the current model for solving diverse problem sets no longer works. Organizations and individuals need to adopt an entirely different approach to the biggest challenges they face and embrace a new model to ensure they emerge triumphant. That model is The Renaissance Campaign. We welcome John Rogers, the author of "The Renaissance Campaign: A Problem-Solving Formula for Your Biggest Challenges". More about John here: https://www.johnrogers360.com

Our guest today brings us a powerful blend of cross-disciplinary research and battle-tested tools to help you diagnose, design, and implement a reinvention system that allows your company to stop combatting or resisting change – and instead helps you turn every disruption into your greatest opportunity. We welcome author of "The Chief Reinvention Officer Handbook: How to Thrive in Chaos" Nadya Zhexembayeva More about https://www.learn2reinvent.com

The future will get even more perplexing over the next decade, and we are not ready. The dilemma is that we're restricted by rigid categorical thinking that freezes people and organizations in neatly defined boxes that often are inaccurate or obsolete. Categories lead us toward certainty but away from clarity, and categorical thinking moves us away from understanding the bigger picture. Sticking with this old way of thinking and seeing isn't just foolish, it's dangerous. Our guest is a Leading futurist and shows how a new way of thinking, enhanced by new technologies, will help leaders break free of limiting labels and see new gradients of possibility in a chaotic world. We welcome the author of Full-Spectrum Thinking: How to Escape Boxes in a Post-Categorical Future, Bob Johansen More about Bob here: https://www.iftf.org/bobjohansen/

“The relationship between the organism and the environment is transactional—the environment grows the organism, and the organism creates the environment.” ― Alan Watts Creativity isn't all in your head. Sometimes it's in what's around you--especially when you're at home.   For over twenty years, scientists have been discovering connections between our physical surroundings and the creative mind. Today’s book is the first to turn this rich trove of psychological research into practical techniques for shaping a home that will boost your creativity. We welcome Donald Rattner, the author of My Creative Space: How to Design Your Home to Stimulate Ideas and Spark Innovation. More about Donald https://donaldrattner.com

“If you could learn to squeeze the vibrancy and beauty out of each moment of your life, would you say yes to a practice that could get you there?”, that is the question our guest asks of us. She then takes us through her technique to do just that. A technique she teaches to first responders, veterans and those who have suffered trauma. It is a please to welcome, author of Neurosculpting: A Whole-Brain Approach to Heal Trauma, Rewrite Limiting Beliefs, and Find Wholeness”, Lisa Wimberger More about Lisa here: https://neurosculptinginstitute.com

Friends matter to us, and they matter more than we think. The single most surprising fact to emerge out of the medical literature over the last decade or so has been that the number and quality of the friendships we have has a bigger influence on our happiness, health and even mortality risk than anything else except giving up smoking. Our guest is the world-renowned psychologist and author who famously discovered Dunbar's number: how our capacity for friendship is limited to around 150 people. In today’s book, he explores the way different types of friendship and family relationships intersect, and the complex of psychological and behavioural mechanisms that underpin friendships and make them possible - and just how complicated the business of making and keeping friends actually is. Working at the coalface of the subject at both research and personal levels, he has written the definitive book on how and why we are friends. We welcome evolutionary psychologist and former director of the Institute of Cognitive and Evolutionary Anthropology and the Department of Experimental Psychology at Oxford University. His acclaimed books include How Many Friends Does One Person Need? Grooming, Gossip and the Evolution of Language and so many others.

This episode is an intimate and inspirational exploration of Stephen Hawking— the man and the physicist. It is also a story of friendship, written by his friend also a physicist and renowned author of multiple titles including: Subliminal, Elastic, Euclid’s Window, Feynman’s Rainbow, The Upright Thinkers, War of the Worldviews with Deepak Chopra and 2 books coauthored with Stephen Hawking. It is a pleasure to welcome author of Stephen Hawking: A Memoir of Friendship and Physics, Leonard Mlodinow. We discuss Stephen, the human behind the legend, his challenges and his strength. We discuss elements of Elastic thinking and the benefits of Neurodiversity. More on Leonard on twitter: @lmlodinow

Our guests are Silicon Valley design veterans: One created the first Apple mouse The other designed the award-winning Apple PowerBook and the original Hasbro Star Wars action figures! 13 years ago they founded the STANFORD LIFE DESIGN LAB The course - the most popular at Stanford - has led to a global franchise and a New York Times and worldwide bestselling book: Designing Your Life, published in 2016. Today they are here to discuss their follow-up book : Designing Your Work Life: How to Thrive and Change and Find Happiness at Work We welcome Bill Burnett and Dave Evans More about the guys here: https://designingyour.life/

GRAMMY-recognized #1 hit songwriter, Cliff Goldmacher shares how to explore, shape and sell our ideas by teaching us how to write songs. Doing so helps develop the essential skills of: Lateral thinking Creativity Communication Empathy, Collaboration, Risk-taking and The diffusion of ideas for better innovators. It is a pleasure to welcome the author of: "The Reason For The Rhymes: Mastering the Seven Essential Skills of Innovation by Learning to Write Songs", Cliff Goldmacher. More about Cliff and his workshops: https://www.thereasonfortherhymes.com

One of my favourite episodes of all time. This genre-shattering attempt to answer the question of human behaviour by looking at it from every angle. Our guest starts by looking at the factors that bear on a person's reaction in the precise moment a behavior occurs, and then hops back in time from there, in stages, ultimately ending up at the deep history of our species and its genetic inheritance. And so the first category of explanation is the neurobiological one. What goes on in a person's brain a second before the behavior happens? Then he pulls out to a slightly larger field of vision, a little earlier in time: What sight, sound, or smell triggers the nervous system to produce that behavior? And then, what hormones act hours to days earlier to change how responsive that individual is to the stimuli which trigger the nervous system? By now, our guest has increased our field of vision so that we are thinking about neurobiology and the sensory world of our environment and endocrinology in trying to explain what happened. But he keeps going—next to what features of the environment affected that person's brain, and then back to the childhood of the individual, and then to their genetic makeup. Finally, he expands the view to encompass factors larger than that one individual. How culture has shaped that individual's group, what ecological factors helped shape that culture, and on and on, back to evolutionary factors thousands and even millions of years old. The result is one of the most dazzling tours de horizon of the science of human behavior ever attempted, a majestic synthesis that harvests cutting-edge research across a range of disciplines to provide a subtle and nuanced perspective on why we ultimately do the things we do...for good and for ill. Wise, humane, often hilarious, Behave is a towering achievement, powerfully humanising, and downright heroic in its own right. What a pleasure to welcome author of “Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst” Robert M. Sapolsky

Your business’s success depends on how you prepare for the future. While business leaders of the past looked in the rear-view mirror to predict the road ahead, we must look at the greater forces affecting the social, business and economic world today—megatrends. Our guest today is here to share a fresh, holistic way to think about tomorrow by preparing for it today: He calls it DRIVE. The DRIVE framework examines five interrelated megatrends: • Demographic and social changes • Resource scarcity • Inequalities • Volatility, complexity, and scale • Enterprising dynamics It is a great pleasure to welcome Mark Esposito, the author of “Understanding How the Future Unfolds: Using Drive to Harness the Power of Today's Megatrends”. Some great news as ever, Mark has kindly offered a copy of the book for the innovation show community, just sign up to our newsletter on www.theinnovationshow.io

When facing a rhino that’s about to charge, doing nothing is seldom the best option. Yet all too often that’s exactly what happens. Danger rarely comes as a complete surprise; instead, it follows many missed opportunities for taking precautions, reading and responding to warning signals. The impulse to freeze is hard to overcome. Sometimes the grip of denial is so strong that we do nothing at all; or, even worse, as in many market booms leading to bust, we do more of what was dangerous in the first place. We welcome the author of "The Gray Rhino: How to Recognize and Act on the Obvious Dangers We Ignore", Michele Wucker. More about Michele: https://thegrayrhino.com Watch it on YouTube: https://youtu.be/pcGS4rsmRTk

The Nocturnal Brain: Tales of Nightmares and Neuroscience with Guy Leschziner You can survive longer without food than without sleep. The fact that sleep is fundamental to life is unarguable, but in modern society, at least until recently, we have taken for granted that sleep simply happens, and is a necessary evil to allow us to live our waking lives. Recently, however, there has been a shift in how we view sleep. Rather than being a hindrance to our working and social lives, a biological process that keeps us from being productive, the concept of the importance of sleep is percolating through. Its role in the maintenance of our physical and mental health, our sporting prowess, our cognitive abilities, even in our happiness, is slowly being appreciated. And rightly so. People are taking sleep seriously. The normal expectation of waking up feeling ready for the day ahead is rarely found among our guests patients. Their nights are tormented by a range of conditions, such as terrifying nocturnal hallucinations, sleep paralysis, acting out their dreams or debilitating insomnia. The array of activities in sleep reflects the spectrum of human behaviour in our waking lives. Sometimes these medical problems have a biological explanation, at other times a psychological one, and the focus of the clinical work that he and his colleagues do is to unravel the causes for their sleep disorders and attempt to find a treatment or cure. More about Guy here: https://guyleschziner.com/

The Digital Age will raise the question of how humans will stay relevant in the workplace. To stay relevant, we have to be able to excel cognitively, behaviourally, and emotionally in ways that technology can’t. Our guest believes, this requires us to become Hyper-Learners: continuously learning, unlearning, and relearning at the speed of change. To do that, we have to overcome our reflexive ways of being: seeking confirmation of what we believe, emotionally defending our beliefs and our ego, and seeking cohesiveness of our mental models. Hyper-Learning requires a new way of being… and a radical new way of working. We welcome a great friend of the innovation show, hyper learner and author of "Hyper-Learning: How to Adapt to the Speed of Change", Ed Hess. More about Ed: https://www.edhess.org/

Startups have changed the world. In the United States, many startups, such as Tesla, Apple, and Amazon, have become household names. The economic value of startups has doubled since 1992 and is projected to double again in the next fifteen years. For decades, the hot centre of this phenomenon has been Silicon Valley. This is changing fast. Thanks to technology, startups are now taking root everywhere, from Delhi to Detroit to Nairobi to Sao Paulo. Yet despite this globalisation of startup activity, our knowledge of how to build successful startups is still drawn primarily from Silicon Valley. As venture capitalist Alex Lazarow shows in this insightful and instructive book, this Silicon Valley "gospel" is due for a refresh--and it comes from what he calls the "frontier," the growing constellation of startup ecosystems, outside of the Valley and other major economic centres, that now stretches across the globe. The frontier is a truly different world where startups often must cope with political or economic instability and lack of infrastructure, and where there might be little or no access to angel investors, venture capitalists, or experienced employee pools. Under such conditions, entrepreneurs must be creators who build industries rather than disruptors who change them because there are few existing businesses to disrupt. The companies they create must be global from birth because local markets are too small. They focus on resiliency and sustainability rather than unicorn-style growth at any cost. With rich and wide-ranging stories of frontier innovators from around the world, Out-Innovate is the new playbook for innovation--wherever it has the potential to happen. More about Alex: https://www.alexlazarow.com

There are two stories you hear about making a living as an artist in the digital age, and they are diametrically opposed. One comes from Silicon Valley and its boosters in the media. There’s never been a better time to be an artist, it goes. If you’ve got a laptop, you’ve got a recording studio. If you’ve got an iPhone, you’ve got a movie camera. GarageBand, Final Cut Pro: all the tools are at your fingertips. And if production is cheap, distribution is free. It’s called the Internet: YouTube, Spotify, Instagram, Kindle Direct Publishing. Everyone’s an artist; just tap your creativity and put your stuff out there. Soon, you too can make a living doing what you love, just like all those viral stars you read about. The other story comes from artists themselves, especially musicians but also writers, filmmakers, people who do comedy. Sure, it goes, you can put your stuff out there, but who is going to pay you for it? Digital content has been demonetized: music is free, writing is free, video is free, even images you put up on Facebook or Instagram are free, because people can (and do) just take them. Everyone is not an artist. Making art takes years of dedication, and that requires a means of support. If things don’t change, a lot of art will cease to be sustainable. We welcome friend of the Innovation Show and author of “The Death of the Artist: How Creators Are Struggling to Survive in the Age of Billionaires and Big Tech” Bill Deresiewicz, welcome back to the show. Previous episode: Excellent Sheep: https://bit.ly/2ZlQ6OI Bill is here: https://billderesiewicz.com/