How to Avoid Death by Comfort

Sports gambling has exploded in America. You can't watch a game today without being bombarded by ads from betting companies, often co-branded with the major sports leagues themselves. It's a dramatic shift from just seven years ago, when these same leagues were unified in their opposition to legalized sports betting. Michael Lewis, the bestselling author of Moneyball, The Big Short, and The Blind Side, has been exploring this transformation in the latest season of his podcast Against the Rules. Today on the show, Michael explains how we went from prohibition to proliferation, unpacking how a 2018 Supreme Court decision opened the floodgates for an industry that's now seeing over $100 billion in annual bets. We discuss how betting companies use data and psychology to nudge people into making increasingly complex and unfavorable wagers, why young men are particularly susceptible to gambling addiction, and what the rise of "prop bets" means for the integrity of sports. We also get into the concerning public health implications of widespread sports betting and what past addictive epidemics might tell us about where this is all heading.

The Industrial Revolution changed the nature of work, so that many people labored in factories, continuously performing the same task, at the same pace, for the duration of their shift. Two centuries on, even though most folks have moved from working with their hands to working with their heads and from manufacturing set outputs to solving complex problems, generating creative ideas, and processing information, we still tend to work as if we're manning an assembly line. My guest says that being stuck in this factory framework is to our detriment, and that there's a much better way to do knowledge work, one that's less like manning an assembly line and more like driving a car. Mithu Storoni is a Cambridge-trained physician, a neuroscience researcher, and the author of Hyperefficient: Optimize Your Brain to Transform the Way You Work. Today on the show, Mithu offers a modern approach to achieving peak performance and explains why it's better to impose the natural rhythms of our brains on our work than to impose the rhythms of our work on our brains. She shares why you should treat your brain like an engine with three different gears, how people have different "gear personalities," and how to use environmental cues, specially structured 90-minutes cycles of work, and even caffeine to shift your brain into the optimal gear for different mental challenges.

In an age where a lot of formalized decorum has vanished, the holidays are still a time with rules, traditions, and unspoken expectations. It's also a time of heightened social interactions and increased opportunities to demonstrate warmth, hospitality, and all-around gentlemanly politeness.  Here to help us navigate the many scenarios for practicing good etiquette that the holidays present is Thomas Farley, aka Mr. Manners. Today on the show, Thomas shares the neglected aspects of flying etiquette, how to be a non-annoying houseguest, the paradoxes of party arrival punctuality, whether a dinner party host should accommodate the special dietary restrictions of guests, how to get lingering guests out of your home after a party, how to best navigate an office holiday party, the rules of regifting, guidelines for holiday tipping, and much more.

Many people think becoming wealthy is all about having the right job, inheritance, or just lucky breaks. And those things can certainly give you a leg up. But according to my guest, the biggest key to building wealth is your mindset, as research shows that even high earners can stay broke forever if they’re trapped in poor thinking patterns, while others can build lasting wealth on modest incomes by developing the right mental approach. Dr. Brad Klontz is a financial psychologist, wealth manager, and professor, and the co-author of Start Thinking Rich: 21 Harsh Truths to Take You from Broke to Financial Freedom. Today on the show, Brad explains the critical difference between being broke and being poor, how learned helplessness keeps people financially stuck, and practical ways to develop an agentic, wealth-building mindset. We also tackle thorny issues like the role of homeownership in building wealth and how to handle relationships that might be holding back your financial future.

Endurance activities, like distance running, have existed since ancient times. But humans' relationship to those pursuits has changed, according to time and place. In the West, we've currently turned endurance sports into a science — tracking every metric and chasing personal records through sophisticated technology and personalized training plans. But as my guest, who's spent years studying the running cultures in different societies, knows well, this modern, individualized, data-driven approach isn't the only way to pursue the art of endurance. Michael Crawley is a competitive runner, social anthropologist, and the author of To the Limit. On the show today, we first examine how Western athletes have "workified" running through technology and social media. We then look at how other cultures approach running differently, including why East African runners emphasize group training over individual goals and how the Rarámuri people of Mexico incorporate spiritual dimensions into their running. We end our conversation with how we might rediscover more meaningful, holistic ways to approach our own physical pastimes.