When Brent Ridge and Josh Kilmer-Purcell left their high-powered New York City careers for a 19th-century farm in upstate New York, they didn’t set out to build a skincare empire. But after losing their jobs during the 2008 recession—and taking in a neighbor’s herd of goats—they discovered that frugality, creativity, and a deep commitment to kindness could grow into something remarkable.

In this conversation, the founders of Beekman 1802 share the values and scrappy problem-solving that helped them turn goat milk soap into a nine-figure brand. We talk about the surprising business advantages of kindness, why constraints fuel creativity, how to stay grounded as you grow, and why success is best defined on your own terms.

Get their new book, G. O. A. T. Wisdom: How to Build a Truly Great Business--From the Founders of Beekman 1802

Resources & Links

• The Bucolic Plague — Josh Kilmer-Purcell’s memoir about moving from NYC to the Beekman farm

• Beekman 1802 Almanac — a seasonal lifestyle guide from the brand

• Beekman 1802 Official Website: beekman1802.com

Follow Josh Kilmer-Purcell

• Instagram

• Amazon Author Page

Follow Brent Ridge

• Instagram

Follow Beekman 1802

• Website

• Instagram

• Facebook

• YouTube

In this episode, we sit down with philosopher Valerie Tiberius to explore the surprisingly complex topic of values—how we develop them, how they change over time, and how to align them with our actions in a chaotic world.

Valerie, a professor of philosophy at the University of Minnesota, shares insights from her decades of research and writing, offering practical tools for reflecting on what matters most. We discuss the difference between values and morals, the influence of culture and technology, and why your emotional reactions might be the key to understanding your core values. She also introduces her “Lab Rat Strategy,” a refreshingly grounded approach to self-reflection.

Whether you’re rethinking your goals, raising kids, or just trying to stay sane while doomscrolling the news, this conversation will give you fresh language—and a bit of clarity—for navigating modern life.

📚 Resources from this episode

Valerie’s Books:

• What Do You Want Out of Life? A Philosophical Guide to Figuring Out What Matters → Amazon

• Well-Being as Value Fulfillment: How We Can Help Each Other to Live Well → Oxford University Press

Valerie’s Website & Social:

• Website: valerietiberius.com

• Twitter/X: @VTiberius

Topics Discussed:

• The difference between values and goals

• What makes a value “moral” vs. “personal”

• The Lab Rat Strategy for understanding yourself

• How values shift across the lifespan

• The dangers of technology shaping our value systems (hello, doomscrolling)

• “Super activities” that fulfill multiple values at once

• How analytic philosophers are trained—and what Valerie’s unlearning

• Using AI and chatbots for self-reflection (a surprising endorsement)

What if the next frontier of human rights isn’t out in the streets but inside your own head? We talk with Dr. Simon McCarthy-Jones, Associate Professor of Psychology at Trinity College Dublin, about the modern fight for freedom of thought.

Simon unpacks how everything from social media algorithms to brain-reading technologies are reshaping not just what we think, but how we think. We explore the psychological and legal implications of a world where our inner lives are no longer entirely private—and where even a simple Google search might be treated as a window into your mind.

We also discuss:

• Why freedom of thought is an absolute right under international law—and why it’s so underdeveloped

• The blurred line between thought and speech in the age of ChatGPT, Google, and digital diaries

• Whether persuasive tech and personalized AI are eroding mental autonomy

• What you can do to protect and reclaim your inner cognitive space

Simon also offers practical strategies for thinking more freely, from managing your attention to cultivating reflective habits—and why real thinking might be more social than solitary.

📚 Resources & Books Mentioned

• Freethinking: Protecting Freedom of Thought Amidst the New Battle for the Mind by Dr. Simon McCarthy-Jones

• Spite: The Upside of Your Dark Side by Dr. Simon McCarthy-Jones

• The Geography of Thought by Richard E. Nisbett

• Research by Michal Kosinski on predicting personality from Facebook likes

🌐 Connect with Simon McCarthy-Jones

• Website: simonmccarthyjones.com

• LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/simonmccarthyjones

• Twitter/X: @simonmcdj

🔖 Episode Themes

• Freedom of Thought vs. Freedom of Speech

• Brain-reading tech and neuroethics

• AI, search history, and digital selfhood

• Mental autonomy and cognitive hygiene

• Thinking as a collaborative act

What happens when the work that makes us most human—caring, listening, connecting—is increasingly outsourced, automated, or pushed to the margins? As AI enters every aspect of our lives, it’s ever more imperative to answer the question, “what does it mean to be human?”

Sociologist Allison Pugh has been thinking deeply about that question. In her new book The Last Human Job: The Work of Connecting in a Disconnected World, she explores the overlooked emotional labor of roles like teachers, nurses, and social workers—and why these forms of connection are essential not just to our economy, but to our collective humanity.

In this conversation, we unpack the invisible scaffolding that keeps our care systems running, why “connection” work is under threat, and what we lose when efficiency becomes more valuable than empathy. Whether you’re managing a team, raising kids, or just trying to be more present in your relationships, Allison’s insights will challenge how you think about the work of being human.

Resources

• The Last Human Job (Princeton, June 2024) – hardcover, ebook, audiobook

• Website: allisonpugh.com

• X (Twitter): @allison_pugh

• Instagram: @allisonpughtoo

• Bluesky: @allisonpugh.bsky.social

About Allison Pugh

Professor of Sociology at Johns Hopkins University and the 2024–25 Vice President of the American Sociological Association, Allison Pugh studies the emotional and relational foundations of work and society .

Her widely praised new book, The Last Human Job: The Work of Connecting in a Disconnected World (Princeton University Press, June 2024), introduces the concept of “connective labor”—the essential, often undervalued emotional work performed by teachers, nurses, therapists, social workers, and many others. Drawing on in-depth interviews and field observations, she warns of the growing threats posed by automation and efficiency-driven systems, offering a compelling case for preserving our capacity to connect as a core societal value .

Allison is also the author of:

• Longing and Belonging: Parents, Children, and Consumer Culture (2009)

• The Tumbleweed Society: Working and Caring in an Age of Insecurity (2015)

• Editor of Beyond the Cubicle: Job Insecurity, Intimacy and the Flexible Self (2016)

Her research on the sociology of care and connection has appeared in Signs, American Behavioral Scientist, Theory, Culture & Society, and other peer-reviewed journals .

A seasoned public intellectual, Allison previously worked as a journalist and has contributed feature essays to major outlets including The New Yorker, The New York Times, The New Republic, and Time .

She holds an A.B. in Government from Harvard University and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Sociology from UC Berkeley. Before joining Johns Hopkins, she spent seventeen years on the faculty at the University of Virginia

We don’t talk enough about caregiving. Especially the kind that unfolds quietly while juggling jobs, parenting, and the slow, disorienting decline of aging parents. But Liz O’Donnell is changing that.

In this deeply moving episode, Liz—founder of Working Daughter and author of the book by the same name—shares her story of navigating career ambition, caregiving chaos, and emotional survival after receiving a double diagnosis for both of her parents. What followed was a crash course in elder care, systemic gaps, and radical acceptance.

In this episode we discuss:

• How to show up at work when your personal life is falling apart

• Why letting go of guilt is one of the most challenging acts a caregiver can embrace

• What caregiving reveals about family roles, unspoken expectations, and sibling dynamics

• Why our culture still stigmatizes elder care—and how we can start the right conversations now

Liz’s story isn’t just about hardship. It’s also about grace, humor, and the unexpected gift of showing up fully for those we love.

📚 Resources & Links

• Book: Working Daughter by Liz O’Donnell

  A survival guide for women balancing eldercare and careers.

• Book: Mogul, Mom & Maid by Liz O’Donnell

  Her first book on the modern woman’s work-life collision.

• Working Daughter Community & Blog: workingdaughter.com

  A supportive space for women caregiving while working.

• Liz on Twitter: @lizodonnell

• Referenced Articles:

  • “Why Women Still Can’t Have It All” – The Atlantic by Anne-Marie Slaughter

  • Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg

Noticing the details in life is eminently satisfying, yet surprisingly hard to do. Bird migration patterns, the moon phase, the details of a rearranged room all go unnoticed by most of us because our attention is fragmented.

When the pandemic hit the pause button on life, many of us realized just how much we were missing everyday. Our attention is fragmented by a phone, a to-do list, our choices. Rob Walker, author of the book The Art of Noticing: 131 Ways to Spark Creativity, Find Inspiration, and Discover Joy in the Everyday, has a different plan for us. His book and his course on Sam Harris’ Waking Up app prompt us to pay attention in new ways that open our eyes to the world around us.

In our conversation, Rob shares how noticing is different from mindfulness, what happens to our creativity when we learn to tune in, and how the way we direct our attention shapes who we are.

Links and resources mentioned

• The Art of Noticing: 131 Ways to Spark Creativity, Find Inspiration, and Discover Joy in the Everyday

• Buying In: The Secret Dialogue Between What We Buy and Who We Are

• The Art of Noticing Newsletter (Substack) robwalker.substack.com

• Rob Walker’s Website robwalker.net

• Waking Up App (Sam Harris’s platform)

• Sam Harris’ Making Sense Podcast

• Products of Design Program – School of Visual Arts

• Merlin bird identification app (Cornell Lab of Ornithology)

About Rob Walker

Rob Walker is a New Orleans–based writer whose work explores the intersection of everyday experience, creativity, and consumer culture. He is the author of The Art of Noticing—a compendium of exercises that teach us to reclaim control of our attention and find wonder in the ordinary—and the earlier book Buying In, which examined marketing’s role in our daily lives. Rob teaches “Point of View,” a graduate course in the Products of Design program at the School of Visual Arts in New York, and offers a popular noticing course on Sam Harris’s Waking Up app. His Art of Noticing newsletter has cultivated a global community of readers practicing curiosity and intentional awareness in their own lives.

Few health risks conjure deeply held fears as effectively as cancer. Most of us have someone close to us who has been taken by the disease, but risk communications expert David Ropeik wants us to reconsider the scope of our fears.

Drawing on decades of research and his new book, Curing Cancerphobia, David unpacks why cancer—now a treatable or chronic condition in many cases—still looms larger in our psyches than heart disease, which actually claims more lives each year.

He explains how fear drives unnecessary screenings, unproven preventions, and even aggressive treatments for cancers that might never have done harm, and reveals the psychological roots of that fear—from the sense of lost control to the visceral dread of pain and suffering.

Throughout the conversation, David draws on key insights from the psychology of risk perception:

• Control vs. Imposed Risk: We fear risks we can’t control (cancer) more than those we feel responsible for (heart disease).

• Fear First, Think Second: Our brain’s instinctive “uh-oh” response precedes rational thought, making early judgments emotionally charged and often distorted.

• Right-Sizing Fear: By pausing to let rational thinking catch up—acknowledging the “risk perception gap”—we can make healthier, more balanced choices.

They also discuss the role of politically influenced screening guidelines (e.g., the USPSTF recommendations), the impact of environmental advocacy on public perception, and practical steps we can take—like reconsidering the latest Surgeon General’s warning on alcohol—to regain a sense of agency over our health.

Resources Mentioned

• Curing Cancerphobia: How Risk, Fear, and Worry Mislead Us by David Ropeik (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2023)

• United States Preventive Services Task Force (screening guidelines)

• Ropeik & Associates (consulting practice)

• On Risk (David Ropeik’s blog)

• Psychology Today Profile (bio and articles)

About David Ropeik

David P. Ropeik is a retired Harvard instructor, international consultant, author, and speaker specializing in risk perception and risk communication. He created and directs the “Improving Media Coverage of Risk” training program for journalists and regularly contributes to Big Think, Psychology Today, Cognoscenti, Medium, and HuffPost . His books include:

• Curing Cancerphobia: How Risk, Fear, and Worry Mislead Us (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2023)

• How Risky Is It, Really? Why Our Fears Don’t Always Match the Facts (McGraw Hill, 2012)

• RISK: A Practical Guide for Deciding What’s Really Safe and What’s Dangerous in the World Around You (Houghton Mifflin, 2002)

Before academia, he spent 22 years as an award‐winning TV reporter at WCVB‐TV in Boston, earning two Alfred I. duPont‐Columbia Awards and seven regional Emmys. David has taught risk communication at Harvard’s School of Public Health, Harvard Kennedy School, MIT’s Knight Science Journalism Fellowship, Boston University, and elsewhere.

Family estrangement is a silent epidemic affecting millions, yet it's rarely discussed openly. In this episode of Reconsidering, we sit down with Dr. Karl Pillemer, a leading sociologist and gerontologist, to explore the complexities of fractured family relationships. Drawing from his extensive research, including the Cornell Family Reconciliation Project, Dr. Pillemer offers evidence-based insights and practical advice on how to navigate and mend these deep-seated rifts.​

In this episode we cover:

• The prevalence and impact of family estrangement in modern society

• Common causes and misconceptions surrounding familial rifts

• Strategies for initiating reconciliation and fostering healing

• The role of empathy, communication, and forgiveness in rebuilding relationships​

About Dr. Karl Pillemer
Dr. Karl Pillemer is the Hazel E. Reed Professor of Human Development at Cornell University and Professor of Gerontology in Medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College. He is renowned for his work on aging, family dynamics, and intergenerational relationships. Dr. Pillemer is the founder of the Cornell Legacy Project and the Cornell Family Reconciliation Project, initiatives aimed at capturing the wisdom of older adults and addressing the challenges of family estrangement.

Notable Works:

• Fault Lines: Fractured Families and How to Mend Them

• 30 Lessons for Living: Tried and True Advice from the Wisest Americans

• 30 Lessons for Loving: Advice from the Wisest Americans on Love, Relationships, and Marriage​

Resources and Links:

• Karl Pillemer's Official Website

• Cornell Family Reconciliation Project

• The Legacy Project

• Fault Lines on Amazon

• 30 Lessons for Living on Amazon

• 30 Lessons for Loving on Amazon​Spotify+11familyreconciliation.org+11familyreconciliation.org+11Wikipedia+2The Legacy Project+2Cornell College of Human Ecology+2PenguinRandomhouse.com+10Goodreads+10Karl Pillemer, Ph.D.+10Karl Pillemer, Ph.D.+2Karl Pillemer, Ph.D.+2Goodreads+2

Connect with Dr. Pillemer:

• Twitter

In this episode of Reconsidering, we sit down with Matt Abrahams, a leading expert in communication and a lecturer at Stanford Graduate School of Business. Matt shares insights from his latest book, Think Faster, Talk Smarter: How to Speak Successfully When You’re Put on the Spot, offering practical strategies to enhance spontaneous speaking skills. We delve into techniques for managing speaking anxiety, the importance of reframing communication as a conversation, and methods to craft concise and compelling messages. Whether you’re navigating impromptu questions or aiming to improve your everyday interactions, this conversation provides valuable tools to communicate with confidence and clarity.

Topics covered in this episode

• Techniques for managing speaking anxiety

• Reframing communication as a conversation

• Crafting concise and compelling messages

• Navigating impromptu speaking situations

• The role of improvisation in enhancing communication skills

About Matt Abrahams

• Website: mattabrahams.com

• Matt’s podcast: Think Fast Talk Smart Podcast

• Instagram: @mattabrahams

• LinkedIn: Matt Abrahams

• Books by Matt Abrahams:

  • Think Faster, Talk Smarter: How to Speak Successfully When You’re Put on the Spot, Amazon Link

  • Speaking Up without Freaking Out: 50 Techniques for Confident and Compelling Presenting, More Information

Resources Mentioned

• Improv Wisdom by Patricia Ryan Madson

• STFU by Dan Lyons

• Jesse James Garrett’s website

• What Wikipedia has to say about Jesse James Garrett

• Jesse on Twitter (I mean X)

• The Elements of User Experience: User-Centered Design for the Web and Beyond

About Jesse James Garrett

From Jesse’s website

I started out in user experience before it even had that name — in fact, some would say I’m one of the people who helped give it that name. I co-founded a design agency, Adaptive Path, which was the first company to use that term to describe its work, and went on to international renown for helping to pioneer the field of UX. My book The Elements of User Experience (also the first book to use that term in its title) has been considered a foundational text for UX designers for nearly 20 years, and is used in college courses around the world.

My book and my company had influence far beyond anything I ever dreamed of, helping to establish the practices and philosophy that would become what we now call user experience design. I’ve traveled all over, teaching and public speaking, from huge conference keynotes to engaging with local communities around the world (Hello, Grand Rapids!) as our field grew and matured.

I’ve seen a lot over the years: I’ve been a designer, I’ve managed designers; I’ve worked in agencies, I’ve worked in house; I’ve led project teams, corporate initiatives, departments, and an entire company. I’ve worked with tiny startups all the way up to global giants, across industries ranging from media and entertainment to health care and financial services to non-profit and community organizations.

Read on …

Being nice is a virtue—until it's not. Compulsively helping and staying positive to the detriment to your sanity and needs can lead to resentment and broken relationships. Dr Aziz Gazipura, author of Not Nice: Stop People Pleasing, Staying Silent, and Feeling Guilty... And Start Speaking Up, Saying No, Asking Boldly, And Unapologetically Being Yourself, wants to help us rethink what it means to be "nice".

In this episode, we talk with Dr Aziz about his personal journey from habitual people pleasing to setting boundaries and learning to communicate honestly. He shares practical guidance about how you can be kind, which is different than being nice, while still being true to yourself and your needs.

Resources from this episode

• Not Nice: Stop People Pleasing, Staying Silent, and Feeling Guilty... And Start Speaking Up, Saying No, Asking Boldly, And Unapologetically Being Yourself

• Less nice, more you

• On My Own Side

• Dr Aziz Gazipura’s website: The Social Confidence Center

About Dr Aziz Gazipura

Dr. Aziz is the world’s leading confidence expert. He teaches people how to learn confidence so they can eliminate self-doubt, master conversations, accelerate in their careers, and create deeply fulfilling relationships. He completed his doctoral training at Stanford and Palo Alto Universities and is the founder of the Center For Social Confidence. He has a large online following with his podcast and YouTube videos and is the author of six best-selling books, including his most popular book: Not Nice.

Bryan Robinson, author of Chained to the Desk in a Hybrid World, knows a thing or two about work addiction. He spent years hiding and repressing destructive addition to his work, which took a toll on his relationships. Today, he’s helping other break the chain including Allanis Morriset who has “greatly benefited from his guidance, experience, knowledge and wisdom on the topic of healing from what I consider to be the quietest and most insidious (and often praised) addiction in today’s times.”

Resources from this episode

• Chained to the Desk in a Hybrid World

• Bryan Robinson’s website

• Workaholic quiz

Living in isolation for two years without the support of community clarified for many of us just how nourishing and essential relationships are to us. Now that we’re starting to re-enter the world, how might we be more intentional about cultivating community?

Tina Roth-Eisenberg—Swissmiss to her hundreds of thousands of followers on the web—has thought about this deeply. She’s the founder of Creative Mornings, a global creative community in 224 cities and 67 countries that welcomes thousands of people each month to inspiring events. She’s also a master at bringing small groups together for support, and as you’ll hear in this episode, pretty clever at building new friendships.

With that moment now thankfully behind us, Katherine has returned with a new book, Enchantment: Awakening Wonder in an Anxious Age. This time around, she turns our attention to fundamental questions about how else we might live and in particular how might we find a way to reconnect in a quiet and intimate way with the natural and immediate world that surrounds us all.

It’s an important question, a wonderful book, and a rich starting point for our conversation.

Resources from this episode

• Katherine May’s website

• Enchantment: Awakening Wonder in an Anxious Age

• Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times

• Katherine’s podcast: How We Live Now

About Katherine May

Katherine May is an internationally bestselling author and podcaster living in Whitstable, UK. Her most recent book, Enchantment became an instant New York Times and Sunday Times bestseller. Her internationally bestselling hybrid memoir Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times was adapted as BBC Radio 4’s Book of the Week, and was shortlisted for the Porchlight and Barnes and Noble Book of the Year. The Electricity of Every Living Thing, her memoir of a midlife autism diagnosis, was adapted as an audio drama by Audible. Other titles include novels such as The Whitstable High Tide Swimming Club, and The Best, Most Awful Job, an anthology of essays about motherhood which she edited. Her journalism and essays have appeared in a range of publications including The New York Times, The Observer and Aeon.

Katherine’s podcast, How We Live Now, ranks in the top 1% worldwide, and she has been a guest presenter for On Being’s The Future of Hope series.

Katherine lives with her husband, son, two cats and a dog. She loves walking, sea-swimming and pickling slightly unappealing things.

Our guest, Shoshana Berger, serves as the Global Editorial Director at Ideo and brings a unique expertise to the table. She's worked on transformative projects with Zen Hospice to improve end-of-life experiences and is also the co-author of the pivotal book 'A Beginner's Guide to the End: Practical Advice for Living Life and Facing Death with Dr. BJ Miller.

Together, we'll explore why people are so hesitant to talk about facing death, arm caregivers with essential knowledge for this stage, and discuss how to articulate your own wishes for this profound chapter of life.

Resources from this episode

• A Beginner's Guide to the End: Practical Advice for Living Life and Facing Death

• Shoshana Berger and Dr BJ Miller on Sam Harris’ Making Sense podcast

• Shoshana Berger on LinkedIn

• Shoshana Berger on X

About Shoshana Berger

Shoshana Berger is the editorial director at IDEO, where she has worked on projects ranging from the end of life to modern Judaism to school lunch. She was a senior editor at WIRED, and has written for the New York Times, Fast Company, Time, WIRED, Popular Science, Marie Claire, and Quartz. She cofounded the DIY design magazine, ReadyMade, later turning it into a book, Ready Made: How to Make (Almost) Everything.

We had the pleasure of talking with Kim about just work, as well as hearing about the personal journey and experiences that motivated her to write it.

Resources from this episode

• Just Work: How to Root Out Bias, Prejudice, and Bullying to Build a Kick-Ass Culture of Inclusivity

• Radical Candor: Be a kick ass boss without losing your humanity

• Kim Scott’s website

About Kim Scott

Kim Scott is the author of Just Work: How to Root Out Bias, Prejudice, and Bullying to Build a Kick-ass Culture of Inclusivity and Radical Candor: Be a Kick-Ass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity and co-founder of the company Radical Candor. Kim was a CEO coach at Dropbox, Qualtrics, Twitter, and other tech companies. She was a member of the faculty at Apple University and before that led AdSense, YouTube, and DoubleClick teams at Google. Prior to that Kim managed a pediatric clinic in Kosovo and started a diamond-cutting factory in Moscow. She lives with her family in Silicon Valley.

In his book, You're the Leader. Now What?, Richard distills his knowledge into simple frameworks and practical tactics that can help us lead colleagues and communities with confidence and make decisions with clarity.

Resources from this episode

• You’re the leader, now what? by Richard Winters

• Dr Richard Winters’ website

• Dr Richard Winters on Twitter

• Dr Richard Winters on LinkedIn

About Dr Richard Winters

Richard is a practicing emergency physician and executive coach at Mayo Clinic. As director of Leadership Development for the Mayo Clinic Care Network, he facilitate retreats and delivers programs that train leaders at healthcare organizations worldwide.

In 1994, he graduated from the Mayo Clinic Alix School of Medicine. He is board certified and residency trained in Emergency Medicine from the University of California, San Francisco at Fresno. He graduated from the University of Texas at Dallas Executive and Professional Coaching Program and is a professional certified coach through the International Coaching Federation. He completed a Healthcare Management Executive MBA from the University of Texas at Dallas and UT Southwestern Medical Center. He obtained a Bachelor of Science in Biological Sciences from the University of Illinois at Chicago.

In this episode, we're going to the apology experts for guidance, Marjorie Ingall and Susan McCarthy, authors of the book “Sorry Sorry Sorry: The Case for a good apology” and founders of SorryWatch.com. Marjorie and Susan teach us how to make a good apology and give examples of bad ones. Learning this essential skill will help you preserve and strengthen the most consequential relationships in your life. What could be more important?

Resources from this episode

• SorryWatch.com

• Sorry Sorry Sorry: The Case for a good apology

• Becoming a Tiger: How Baby Animals Learn to Live in the Wild

About Marjorie Ingall

Marjorie Ingall has written for many magazines and newspapers, including Tablet (where she was a columnist for a decade), The New York Times, Ms., Food & Wine, Wired, Self (where she was a contributing writer), Glamour (where she was a contributing editor), and Sassy (yes, that one), where she was at one time or other the senior writer, health editor, and books editor, and won several awards for health and social issues coverage. She’s the author of Mamaleh Knows Best; the co-author of Hungry, written with the model Crystal Renn; the author of The Field Guide to North American Males; a contributor to Here Lies My Heart: Essays on Why We Marry, Why We Don’t, and What We Find There (Beacon); and the co-author of Smart Sex (Simon & Schuster), a now-retro guide for teenagers. She’s also a former writer/producer at the Oxygen TV network, where, in a meeting with Oprah, she saw Oprah’s giant diamond earring fall out of her ear, get entangled in her sweater and dangle temptingly above the conference room floor. Ingall considered leaping for it, plucking it from the angora and fleeing to pay off her mortgage, an impulse for which she does not apologize. At the end of her rousing and mesmerizing pep talk, Oprah (who had not given any indication that she had noticed the fallen earring) coolly picked up the earring and placed it back in her ear. This is why she is Oprah.

About Susan McCarthy

Susan McCarthy is the author of Becoming a Tiger: How Baby Animals Learn to Live in the Wild (HarperCollins) and co-author with Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson of When Elephants Weep: The Emotional Lives of Animals (Delacorte). A modest person, she seldom mentions that the latter book was an international bestseller.

Publications she’s written for include Discover, Guardian.co.uk, Outside, Parade, Salon, Smithsonian, and Wired.

McCarthy wrote a piece for Salon on apologies (“How to Say You’re Sorry: A Refresher Course”) which has been lastingly popular, and which has encouraged her to think more about the matter.

McCarthy writes about animals on the blog The Nature of the Beast (According to Susan McCarthy). This combines observations about animals, humor, and sometimes drawings. Take a look. If you don’t like it, too bad. She’s not sorry. Except for herself.

Our pal Brad Stulberg is back on the show to help us look at change differently. His new book Master of Change: How To Excel When Everything Is Changing - Including You is full of deeply researched wisdom from science and philosophy that will help you become more resilient and adaptable.

Resources from this episode

• Master of Change: How To Excel When Everything Is Changing - Including You

• Brad Stulberg’s website

About Brad Stulberg

Brad Stulberg researches, writes, and coaches on health, well-being, and sustainable excellence. He is the bestselling author of The Practice of Groundedness and co-author of Peak Performance. Stulberg regularly contributes to the New York Times, and his work has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, The New Yorker, Sports Illustrated, Outside Magazine, Forbes, and other outlets. He also serves as the co-host of The Growth Equation podcast and is on faculty at the University of Michigan’s Graduate School of Public Health. In his coaching practice, he works with executives, entrepreneurs, physicians, and athletes on their mental skills and overall well-being. He lives in Asheville, North Carolina.

Why are games so embedded in the human experience and how should we think about them as part of our own lives? That’s the topic of our discussion today with author Oliver Roeder.

Oliver is a senior data journalist at the Financial Times who has also written for the Wall Street Journal, FiveThirtyEight, and the Economist. He is also the author of “Seven Games” – a book about the history and culture of seven of the most popular games in the world today: checkers, chess, go, backgammon, poker, scrabble, and bridge.

Resources from this episode

• Seven Games by Oliver Roeder

• Oliver Roeder’s personal website

• Oliver Roeder on Twitter