041 - How Algorithms are Changing Our Identity & Culture (with Kyle Chayka)

In recent years, there has been a growing obsession with longevity and life extension: people interested in improving the quality of their health at the end of their lives (or extending their life altogether). Steve, Brad, and Clay use a recent story from The New Yorker—"No Time to Die" by Dhruv Khullar (link below)—to break down the quest to live longer. How worried should we be about longevity? How is it benefiting our societal health? How is it harming it? And, most importantly, how much should the quality of our end-of-life health concern us as we make choice about our health today?"No Time to Die" by Dhruv Khullar (The New Yorker)https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/04/22/how-to-die-in-good-healthIf you are enjoying FAREWELL, do us a huge favor: text your favorite episode to three people so they can enjoy it, too. Thanks!iTunes and Apple PodcastsSpotifyAndroidStitcherGot a question, feedback, or ideas for the show? Email [email protected] or leave a voicemail at (646) 893-9503  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Every week, Brad Stulberg spends either Saturday or Sunday practicing a Digital Sabbath: he goes the day offline and without any of his devices (phone, computer, tablet). It's not because he's anti-technology, but because he wanted to make sure he still had access to many of the aspects of life that tech use can hamper: presence, creativity, silence, and emotional regulation, to name a few. On today's episode, he discusses the benefits he's experienced, how it works (hint: flip phone), and how anyone interested in spending more time away from their devices (even if it's just for an hour or two) can develop a digital sabbath that works for them.If you are enjoying FAREWELL, do us a huge favor: text your favorite episode to three people so they can enjoy it, too. Thanks!iTunes and Apple PodcastsSpotifyAndroidStitcherGot a question, feedback, or ideas for the show? Email [email protected] or leave a voicemail at (646) 893-9503 Find Brad, Steve, and Clay on Instagram: @bradstulberg, @stevemagness, and @clayskipper Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

There’s a promise built into all the productivity and time management advice out there: that it’s possible, with the most efficient technique, to finally conquer that feeling that you have too much to do and not enough time to do it. But that’s a false hope, says today’s guest Oliver Burkeman, author of Four Thousand Weeks, which is about why time management strategies so often fail. “You cannot optimize your way to peace of mind in a world where supply of things that are incoming is effectively infinite,” he says. Today, Burkeman presents an approach that willingly accepts our limits and finite capacity. Doing so won’t just improve our productivity, he says—it will make our life more meaningful, fix our adversarial relationship to time, and help us, in his words, start *from* sanity, instead of trying to strive towards it through productivity hacks. If you are enjoying FAREWELL, do us a huge favor: text your favorite episode to three people so they can enjoy it, too. Thanks!iTunes and Apple PodcastsSpotifyAndroidStitcherGot a question, feedback, or ideas for the show? Email [email protected] or leave a voicemail at (646) 893-9503 Find Brad, Steve, and Clay on Instagram: @bradstulberg, @stevemagness, and @clayskipper Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Rebecca Rusch is an athlete whose feats of endurance have included two self-supported, 350-mile bike rides on the Iditarod Trail and led a magazine to once dub her the "Queen of Pain." On today's episode of The Coach Up, Clay pulls from a conversation he had with her a few years ago where she shares her surprising approach to mastering her craft. You'll learn about the Zen concept of "Beginner's Mind," the power of pessimism, and the perils of over preparing.Full interview here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-queen-of-pain-and-ultra-endurance-athlete/id1462693827?i=1000465927851If you are enjoying FAREWELL, do us a huge favor: text your favorite episode to three people so they can enjoy it, too. Thanks!iTunes and Apple PodcastsSpotifyAndroidStitcherGot a question, feedback, or ideas for the show? Email [email protected] or leave a voicemail at (646) 893-9503 Find Brad, Steve, and Clay on Instagram: @bradstulberg, @stevemagness, and @clayskipper Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Clay discusses his recent experience at a 10-day silent retreat, and the guys use it as a chance to go deep on the relationship between meditation and performance—including how Brad and Steve have changed their thoughts since first writing about the connection in their 2017 book, Peak Performance. If you are enjoying FAREWELL, do us a huge favor: text your favorite episode to three people so they can enjoy it, too. Thanks!iTunes and Apple PodcastsSpotifyAndroidStitcherGot a question, feedback, or ideas for the show? Email [email protected] or leave a voicemail at (646) 893-9503 Find Brad, Steve, and Clay on Instagram: @bradstulberg, @stevemagness, and @clayskipper Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

To be a coach, you have to have a level of expertise in your field. To be a truly *great* coach, though, you have to have so much more than technical knowledge. You need a deep repertoire of soft skills that allow you to get the best out of your athletes. On today's episode of The Coach Up, Steve Magness, who has spent his entire life coaching or being coached, explains the attributes shared by great leaders and culture-builders. Of course, these are skills useful to anyone who works with people, whether a "coach" or not, which means they're abilities we'd all be wise to cultivate. Plus: what matters most when it comes to youth coaching.If you are enjoying FAREWELL, do us a huge favor: text your favorite episode to three people so they can enjoy it, too. Thanks!iTunes and Apple PodcastsSpotifyAndroidStitcherGot a question, feedback, or ideas for the show? Email [email protected] or leave a voicemail at (646) 893-9503 Find Brad, Steve, and Clay on Instagram: @bradstulberg, @stevemagness, and @clayskipper Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Increasingly, algorithms are affecting the culture we consume (the news we read, the music we hear, the restaurants where we dine) and the culture that gets made (physical spaces are designed to be Instagrammable; art that can’t be marketed online may not be created). But, as you’ll hear Kyle Chayka, author of Filterworld: How Algorithms Flattened Culture, explain today, the algorithms are also deeply influencing our identity. Instead of “exploring the weirdness of our own taste,” we just consume whatever is served to keep us most engaged and stimulated. In the same way that you need stress to experience growth, we need the friction of exploration to discern our preferences and develop a sense of self. Without that friction, how do we know who we are, or what we like? These are the important questions at the heart of the conversation today.If you are enjoying FAREWELL, do us a huge favor: text your favorite episode to three people so they can enjoy it, too. Thanks!iTunes and Apple PodcastsSpotifyAndroidStitcherGot a question, feedback, or ideas for the show? Email [email protected] or leave a voicemail at (646) 893-9503 Find Brad, Steve, and Clay on Instagram: @bradstulberg, @stevemagness, and @clayskipper Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Whether we like it or not, change is inevitable. In his book Master of Change, Brad cites research that the average human will undergo 36 major life changes in their time alive. Which means it's vital that we have the right tools to navigate disruption. Today, Brad explains how our understanding of and reliance on the concept of "homeostasis" has contributed to our inflexibility, and how a newer concept—allostasis—allows for a more adaptable version of stability.Want to learn more tools for handling life's many changes? Grab a copy of Brad's book, Master of Change: How to Excel When Everything is Changing—Including You.If you are enjoying FAREWELL, do us a huge favor: text your favorite episode to three people so they can enjoy it, too. Thanks!iTunes and Apple PodcastsSpotifyAndroidStitcherGot a question, feedback, or ideas for the show? Email [email protected] or leave a voicemail at (646) 893-9503 Find Brad, Steve, and Clay on Instagram: @bradstulberg, @stevemagness, and @clayskipper Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week's roundtable is a hodgepodge of good stuff. Brad and Steve share their thoughts on (and criticisms of) last week's interview with Evelyn Tribole on intuitive eating. The crew reacts to a clip of the actor Jesse Eisenberg talking about how he learned to use his fear and anxiety as motivation. And there's a discussion of the recent Apple iPad ad, and how to best protect our humanity from the ever advancing grasp of technology. (All of the referenced material is linked below.)Intuitive Eating episode: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/037-a-saner-way-to-eat-with-evelyn-tribole/id1505257676?i=1000655032745Jesse Eisenberg interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CO-6iqCum1wApple iPad ad: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntjkwIXWtrcIf you are enjoying FAREWELL, do us a huge favor: text your favorite episode to three people so they can enjoy it, too. Thanks!iTunes and Apple PodcastsSpotifyAndroidStitcherGot a question, feedback, or ideas for the show? Email [email protected] or leave a voicemail at (646) 893-9503 Find Brad, Steve, and Clay on Instagram: @bradstulberg, @stevemagness, and @clayskipper Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We live in an age where attentional well-being is more important than ever. In our increasingly noisy world, there are an infinite number of things vying for our attention—which means it's more important than ever to have some control over how we direct it. In order to be able to do that, we have to have a deeper understanding of how attention works. Today, Clay, with the help of Oliver Burkeman's book, Four Thousand Weeks, breaks it down, explaining why we're so easily distracted and how we can train to deepen our concentration.If you are enjoying FAREWELL, do us a huge favor: text your favorite episode to three people so they can enjoy it, too. Thanks!iTunes and Apple PodcastsSpotifyAndroidStitcherGot a question, feedback, or ideas for the show? Email [email protected] or leave a voicemail at (646) 893-9503 Find Brad, Steve, and Clay on Instagram: @bradstulberg, @stevemagness, and @clayskipper Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.