50. Clark Strand: Waking Up to the Dark

Today my guest is Clark Strand, author of Waking Up To The Dark: Ancient Wisdom For A Sleepless Age. Clark is someone who has written six books and he’s also written for the Washington Post, the Huffington Post, New York Times, Newsweek’s blog on Faith, Tricycle (which is a Buddhist magazine you might know), Body and Soul, Spirituality and Health.

In this interview we talk about a number of things that you might find interesting and useful. Clark talks about something called bimodal sleep and he shares both in the book and in this interview, research done by a doctor named Thomas Wehr. Dr. Wehr was looking for human beings’ primordial pattern of sleep, wanting to know how did human beings sleep before the electrical age. We also touch on light pollution – what it’s doing to our environment and what it’s doing to our bodies. Clark shares the view that electrification was the worst thing that’s ever happened to our planet (which is a pretty bold claim), but he goes on to explain what he means by that.

We also talk about his new book out November 5, 2019. It’s titled The Way of the Rose: The Radical Path of the Divine Feminine Hidden in the Rosary. He’s the founder of an eco feminist rosary group and if you want to investigate online before you invest your time in listening to the interview, you can go to wayoftherose.org and check it out. But at any rate, I suspect that Clark will share some views that you don’t typically hear in the circles you run in or the conversations you have. If you do, I want to be a part of your conversations. All right with that, please enjoy this conversation with Clark Strand.

SUMMARY
00:05:10 – What’s life about?
00:17:02 – The worst thing that’s ever happened for the planet.
00:25:13 – Dr. Thomas Wehr.
00:34:17 – Shintoism.
00:38:50 – Anthropocene.
00:53:11 – The Sleep industry.
01:10:17 – The Way of the Rose.
01:29:10  – Lightning round.

LINKS – (In order of appearance)
**The School for Good Living receives commissions for purchases made through Amazon links in this post. **

Waking Up to the Dark: Ancient Wisdom for a Sleepless Age by Clark Strand
Tricycle.org
The Way of the Rose – on Facebook
Wayoftherose.org
The Way of the Rose: The Radical Path of the Divine Feminine Hidden in the Rosary


49. Dean Burnett: The Idiot Brain

My conversation today is with Dean Burnett. Dean is a neuroscientist, a lecturer, an author, a blogger or podcaster, a pundit science communicator, comedian, and numerous other things – depending on who’s asking and what they need.

Dean discusses with us his book, “Idiot Brain, What Your Head Is Really Up To”. It’s one of five books that he’s written in the last few years. He’s very prolific. And I really enjoyed this book. This book goes through and takes a look at why we do the things we do and offers some of the latest scientific rationale, but in a very humorous way, very insightful way. Dean’s writing has been published all over the world and he’s very popular – especially in the United Kingdom.

I asked him about how he married his interest and passion in standup comedy with neuroscience. We talk about depression and mental illness, something he’s written about extensively. We talk about the blog posts he wrote that had more than 3 million readers (as a surprise to him) and how that was the passage from being an amateur to a pro.

We also talk about some of the egocentric biases that the brain has. Things that we are largely unaware of, whether or not we have free will. We talk about personality, what it is, if we can change it, and then we get into a discussion about writing and the creative process. We talk a little bit about promotion as we often do. I think you’ll enjoy this conversation with Dean. He’s a very humble guy with some interesting perspectives. So with that, please enjoy this conversation with my new Welsh friend, Dean Burnett.

SUMMARY
00:04:00 – What’s life about?
00:12:52 – Embalming cadavers.
00:20:20 – Knitting a sweater out of cotton candy.
00:26:57 – Have a go…at stand-up comedy.
00:35:10 – I didn’t think I was allowed to write a book.
00:37:15 – Our second brain.
00:52:20  – Mental health.
01:20:53  – The Lightning Round.

LINKS – (In order of appearance)
**The School for Good Living receives commissions for purchases made through Amazon links in this post. **

Idiot Brain: What Your Head Is Really Up To
Why Your Parents Are Driving You Up The Wall And What To Do About It
Psycho-logical on Audible
Dean Burnett website
@DeanBurnettAuthor – on Facebook
@garwboy – on Twitter
Brain Yapping blog
Brain Yapping – The Podcast


48. Nathalie Molina Niño: Leapfrog

Hello my friends, today my guest is Nathalie Molina Nino. Never having met before, I was interested to interview Nathalie because she has some very different perspectives and experience in life from me. She’s Latina, originally from Ecuador in South America, who came to the United States. She was raised here, learned english perfectly, spent time as the family’s interpreter in some ways, and describes in this interview the experience of feeling like she didn’t belong here, but reframes an experience that is so common and so disempowering one where she feels she belongs…everywhere.

Today Nathalie is an impact investor, focused on making a catalytic impact on women in the world. Nathalie’s book, “Leapfrog: The New Revolution for Women Entrepreneurs” is a book that she wrote following her own advice. I think especially if you are interested in entrepreneurship, that you’ll find something valuable in this interview and my invitation is to listen to see what’s probably a different perspective from one that you’ve had before, or at least from many, many of my guests so far.

SUMMARY
00:04:27 – What’s life about?
00:13:46 – Why did you write this book?
00:21:21 – What does Leapfrog mean to you?
00:30:25 – Co-authors and Ghostwriters
01:20:40  – Lightning round.
01:43:04 – How to connect with Nathalie.
01:44:00 – Writing advice.

LINKS
**The School for Good Living receives commissions for purchases made through Amazon links in this post. **

Leapfrog: The New Revolution for Women Entrepreneurs
Leapfroghacks.com
Eat A Little Better: Great Flavor, Good Health, Better World – by Sam Kass
The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life – by Twyla Tharp
The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work and What to Do About It – by Michael E. Gerber
Kiva.org
Nathalie Molina Niño on LinkedIn


47. Pascal Finette: The Heretic

Pascal is Singularity University’s Chair for Entrepreneurship and Open Innovation. He is the cofounder and enfant terrible of Radical Ventures, which he explains what that means. His work focuses on the intersection of technology, entrepreneurship, culture, and global impact. Pascal has founded a series of startups and he has a deep background in technology including being on the Internet before web browsers. He led Ebay’s platform solutions group in Europe. He held leadership positions at Mozilla and he’s helped build startups. Pascal has written a book called The Heretic, Daily Therapeutics for Entrepreneurs and has blogged and written a newsletter for a long time, more than 1,200 posts. In this interview, he shares a lot of what he’s seen in the world of technology, what’s on the horizon, how our world will be different from these disruptive exponential technologies that are coming down the pike, things that are already transforming our world, artificial intelligence, blockchain, cryptocurrencies, 3D printing, autonomous driving, gene editing and so on. He talks about the importance of a purpose for your organization and the difference between a purpose and a mission. He also walks through a simple framework to help you articulate yours in a very clear, compelling, powerful way. We go deep into his methods to prepare and deliver really powerful messages from the stage. Things that I’m not sure how many lifetimes I would live before they occurred to me, but fortunately I learned them in this interview with Pascal.

SUMMARY
00:02:44 – What’s life about?
00:07:41 – Growing up.
00:13:33 – Processing information for the Heretic.
00:31:23 – Sure bets in the future.
00:38:09 – First principals thinking.
00:52:36 – Mulago Foundation.
01:07:42  – Lightning round.
01:26:10  – Thoughts on writing.

LINKS – (In order of appearance)
**The School for Good Living receives commissions for purchases made through Amazon links in this post. **

Pascal’s Website
Radical Ventures
The Heretic
Mulago Foundation