The Winter Mindset: How Norwegians Love the Winter (And You Can Too)

What if there was one piece of fitness equipment that was affordable, didn’t take up much space, could get you both strong and flexible, and was fun to use? While that might sound too good to be true, my guest, Pat Flynn, would say you can find all those benefits in the old-school kettlebell. Pat, who’s the author of Strong ON!: 101 Minimalist Kettlebell Workouts to Blast Fat, Build Muscle, and Boost Flexibility―in 20 Minutes or Less, calls kettlebells the Swiss Army knife  of workout tools and the minimalist’s ultimate secret fitness weapon. Today on the show, we unpack why Pat’s such an advocate for bells, but before we get there, we first take a dive into his background in philosophy and why beginning a workout program takes faith. We then talk about how to use kettlebells to get an all-around fit physique, including the three kettlebell weights that make for an ideal starter set, the two best exercises for building muscle, the pyramid-shaped program that can facilitate body recomposition, how to incorporate progressive overload into kettlebell training, which kettlebell exercise Coach Dan John considers “the fat-burning athlete builder,” the “300 Swings Challenge” that will help you take a Bruce Lee approach to fitness, and much more.

The Roman caesars were the rulers of the Roman Empire, beginning in 27 BC with Julius Caesar’s heir Augustus, from whom subsequent caesars took their name, and lasting until around the fall of the Western Empire in 476 AD. The caesars transitioned the Roman Republic to autocratic rule, consolidating vast territories under centralized authority and shaping Western governance, law, and culture. Their reign marked one of history's most influential periods, laying the groundwork for modern empires and enduring legacies in political and architectural innovation. They also left behind some instructive leadership lessons, in both what and what not to do. Here to unpack some of the Roman Empire's most significant caesars as both histories and leadership case studies is Barry Strauss, who is a classicist, professor, military historian, fellow at Stanford's Hoover Institution, and the author of numerous books, including Ten Caesars. Today on the show, Barry shares how Augustus consolidated power by initially cleaning house, a redeeming quality of the otherwise infamous Nero, the strategies Vespasian and Severus used to gain legitimacy as outsiders, why Marcus Aurelius was an insightful philosopher but struggled as an emperor, the emperor under whose rule the empire began its decline, what Constantine understood about the idea that if you want things to stay the same, everything must change, and much more.

Feeling overwhelmed by an endless to-do list? Like you're constantly putting out fires but never getting ahead? You're not alone. Many people today feel like they're drowning in urgency — filling every minute with tasks that feel critical in the moment but may not truly matter in the long run. Here to help us understand how to escape this cycle is Matt Reynolds, a strength coach, business owner, and the author of Undoing Urgency: How to Focus on What Matters Most. Today on the show, Matt explains what creates that feeling of being overwhelmed by urgency, how to distinguish between status and true value, and why you can only effectively pursue 2-3 major goals at once. We discuss using the Eisenhower Decision Matrix to identify what tasks truly matter, how to apply the concept of "minimum effective dose" beyond just fitness, and why sometimes the pursuit of a goal matters more than achieving it. We end our conversation with concrete steps you can take today to start undoing urgency in your life.

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.