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 Your…

Americans love a hard worker. The employee who toils eighteen-hour days and eats meals on the run between appointments is usually viewed with a combination of respect and awe. But for many, this lifestyle leads to family problems, a decline in work productivity, and, ultimately, physical and mental burnout. Bryan Robinson, author of Chained to the …

It's the Thanksgiving holiday break in the US, so we're re-broadcasting one of our favorite episodes about friendship and community, which is very timely as we approach the holiday season. 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 w…

Katherine May first joined us on Reconsidering in 2020, during the height of the pandemic, to talk about her book Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times. It was a timely topic and a memorable conversation as most of us were confronting one of the most challenging and isolating holidays seasons of our lifetimes. With that moment…

It's time to confront one of life's most certain yet most avoided topics: the end of life. While death eventually greets us all, most of us skirt around the topic and what it means for us and our loved ones. In this illuminating conversation, we aim to demystify this phase of life and empower you to approach it with a sense of preparedness and dign…

In the bestselling book Radical Candor, author Kim Scott laid out a simple framework for how to create, foster, and thrive in a culture that effectively gives and receives feedback—direct, clear, concise, and actionable. However, when you write a book about feedback, well, you get a lot of feedback, and indeed she did. Rather than ignoring or hidin…

Think your job is stressful? Try being an emergency response physician at the Mayo Clinic, one of the top hospitals in the US that sees some of the most extreme emergencies. Dr Richard Winters has been responding under pressure in chaotic situations for a long time, and it’s taught him valuable lessons about decision making and leadership. In his b…

An apology can mend old wounds, reunite people, and heal communities. Despite the potential power it can have, a good apology is hard to find. There's a simple structure to a good apology we should all have memorized along with the traits of a bad apology that will only lead us into pain and misery. In this episode, we're going to the apology exper…

Like it or not, change is inevitable. Your career, relationships, body, health, mood are all in constant motion. We can fight it but it’s unproductive and leads to suffering. 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 ful…

There’s a point in our lives when we’re told it’s time to grow up and stop playing games. To move away from the trivial pursuits of childhood and get serious about how we spend our time. But what if that advice is wrong? What if games are actually one of the best ways to spend our time and one of our best opportunities to learn about our world and …

Friendship is something that’s easy to take for granted. Meeting friends in our early years might have come easy but as we age friends move away, people couple off, careers and families start and suddenly making friends isn’t as easy as it used to be. As many studies have shown, if you want to live a longer, more fulfilling life you’ll need to inve…

Are you one of those people who thrives off a check-list? It feels satisfying to complete things, but the satisfaction only lasts for a fleeting moment as a cleared check-list invites more tasks. It's an exhausting treadmill that inevitably gives rise to guilt and shame when we can't keep up. Madeleine Dore, author of “I Didn’t Do the Thing Today; …

A few years ago, most of us were still heading into the office five days a week. But the pandemic changed the workplace dramatically. Most of us now work from home or are working in a hybrid environment, which has introduced challanges in our both our personal and professional lives. How do we navigate these changes? Annie Jarvis, Vice President of…

Mentorship can be a powerful force that improves life but it's often hard to come by. Most of us struggle to ask, “will you be my mentor” and may not even know what kind of support or commitment we're asking for. Felix Lee, founder of a thriving community of mentors and mentees called ADP List, saw a lot of people losing their jobs and looking for …

High school sucks. It’s socially awkward, culturally confusing, and academically irrelevant. And though the first two might largely be an inescapable part of the teenage experience, the third is of critical concern to both the stability of society and the health of the economy. Which is why we wanted to spend some time learning more about what’s ha…

As recently as a decade ago, most of Western culture dismissed meditation as a sort of “touchy-feely” pursuit with no real value. Thanks in large part to the rise of meditation apps like Headspace however, that attitude has dramatically shifted from one of skepticism to one of curiosity heading towards broad acceptance. And just in time too as the …

John Maeda would rather be curious than afraid, despite the tectonic shifts in our world. AI—artificial intelligence—is reaching new milestones that foreshadow big changes in many careers. Some ignore what’s on the horizon, others acknowledge what’s to come but are paralyzed by fear. John Maeda takes a different approach: he just keeps reinventing …

Life is hard. We want to think that isn’t the case but again and again, the universe shows us we’re wrong. We face loss, periods of illness and infirmity, and failure. Such is the human condition and there is no escaping these essential truths. Where better to turn for comfort, insight, and wisdom than the great minds of philosophy that came before…

“No regrets.” You’ve heard people proclaim it as a philosophy of life. That’s nonsense, even dangerous, says Dan Pink in his latest book The Power of Regret. Everybody has regrets. They’re a fundamental part of our lives. And if we reckon with them in fresh and imaginative ways, we can enlist our regrets to make smarter decisions, perform better at…

Now that season 2 has wrapped, the Reconsidering team is taking a break. Season 3 is already coming together with exciting new interviews that will further illuminate the elements of a satisfying life. Kieran Setiya will be back to talk about his new book, Life is hard, which explores philosophical insights that can set us on the right path. Dan Pi…

In sports, the coach plays the important role of guiding players and delivering the feedback they need to operate at their best. But in our professional lives we almost never have the guidance and support of a coach, which makes it challenging to reach our full potential and at times leaves us trapped in negative behavior cycles. Ed Batista has spe…

Starting early in childhood, creativity is slowly extracted from our lives. It becomes the domain of the select few of exceptional talent. But creativity can and should be an important part of everyone's life. In this episode of Reconsidering we’re going to explore an entirely different way of approaching creative expression—one that sees it not as…

If the past few years have taught us anything it is this: don’t get too attached to your plans. Or as Patricia Ryan Madson might put it, “Life is something we all make up as we go along.” For many of us, the improvisational life can feel awkward, uncomfortable, and even frightening. But with some practice, reflection, and a slight shift in attitude…

In this special rewind episode, we re-air one of our most popular interviews that guests on the show have often cited as a favorite. In it Brad Stulberg shares practical guidance to get out of the grind and build a more grounded life. Hustle culture keeps us grinding, busy, overcommitted, rushed, and subsequently ungrounded. It’s a phenomenon Brad …

At some point we all struggle with stress, anxiety, and incessant overthinking. Meredith Arthur, author of Get Out of My Head, is on a mission to help us find strategies for defusing these emotional bombs. Meredith founded Beautiful Voyager, an online community where people discuss mental health challenges and support one another on their journey. …

In his New York Times bestselling book Four Thousand Weeks, Oliver Burkeman writes, “The average human lifespan is absurdly, terrifyingly, insultingly short. But that isn’t a reason for unremitting despair, or for living in an anxiety-fueled panic about making the most of your limited time. It’s a cause for relief. You get to give up on something t…

Though most people pass through a midlife malaise or crisis, few have studied the phenomenon as closely as M.I.T Philosophy Professor Kieran Setiya. As Kieran shares in his book Midlife: A Philosophical Guide, people as far back as ancient Greece have written about midlife crises and searched for answers to life's big questions. In this episode, Ki…

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 tho…

Too often we’ve been told that the workplace is an arena of competition, a zero-sum game where the strong thrive and the rest barely survive. If we’re going to reconsider anything, it’s hard to imagine a better place to start than this outdated, outmoded, and destructive model of the workplace. In this episode, Scott Shute, the former Head of Mindf…

It’s no secret that many of us feel pushed to the limit, rushed, overwhelmed, and perennially behind. We keep our heads down, focused on an endless to-do list without a moment to breathe. How can we break out of this vicious cycle of short-term thinking and create the kind of interesting, meaningful lives we all seek? Dori Clark, Duke University pr…

Now that season 1 is wrapped, we're bringing you a special mini-episode to tide you over while we work on season 2. The tables are turned as Bob Baxley and Meredith Black interview their co-host Aarron Walter to uncover his origin story and why the themes of Reconsidering are important to his personal journey. Show notes and transcript: https://rec…

Now that season 1 is wrapped, we're bringing you a special mini-episode to tide you over while we work on season 2. The tables are turned as Bob Baxley and Aarron Walter interview their co-host Meredith Black to uncover her origin story and why the themes of Reconsidering are important to her personal journey. Show notes and transcript: https://rec…

Now that season 1 is wrapped, we're bringing you a special mini-episode to tide you over while we work on season 2. The tables are turned as Meredith Black and Aarron Walter interview their co-host Bob Baxley to uncover his origin story and why the themes of Reconsidering are important to his personal journey. Show notes and transcript: https://rec…

Shanti Brien received a phone call from her husband that changed everything. Authorities started a criminal investigation into her own husband’s company and he needed a lawyer to defend him. As a criminal defense attorney, Shanti knew how to navigate these situations but not when it was her own husband facing jail time that could tear her family ap…

Katherine May is a mother, nature lover, writing teacher, and a New York Times best selling author. She’s also been knocked down many times in her life and found a way forward by embracing the coldest passages of life. Katherine’s personal struggle is the subject of her most recent book Wintering, which has influenced many with wisdom about the pow…

Hustle culture keeps us grinding, busy, overcommitted, rushed, and subsequently ungrounded. It’s a phenomenon Brad Stulberg calls “heroic individualism” and it’s something he knows all too well from his own life and his performance coaching work with people doing their best to reach their peak. Brad wants to shake us out of the hustle mindset and h…

We all have those moments of uncertainty where we don’t know if we should stay put at our careers or jump ship. And sometimes we don’t have a choice and are forced to jump. It can lead to an existential crisis. Who am I now? Do I have anything left to offer? What’s next? These are all questions pop up in our conversation with our guest, Maria Giudi…

Listening. It’s a skill that is hard to perfect in a world filled with distractions. But cultivating a satisfying life filled with rich relationships, growth, and connection requires this foundational skill. Getting good at listening to others can also help you tune into your own inner dialogue and emotional state. In this episode, Ximena Vengeoche…

For many of us, time slips by mysteriously. It’s gobbled up by email, social media infinity pools, and the flotsum and jetsum of life. At the end of the day we’re left wondering, “uh, what did I do today?” John Zertasky, co-author of Make Time, wants us to be more aware of and intentional about how we spend our most precious resource—our time. John…

Careers, careers, is there anything else so central to our lives that is so ill-defined and largely misunderstood? Academic career, sports careers, college careers. It seems we're awash in careers, and yet when it comes to our professional career, the one that really matters, many of us feel somewhere between uncertain and confused. Unable to see o…

Nearly 50% of the US workforce is reconsidering their career and thinking about leaving their current job. Was the pandemic the driving force behind this? What does this mean for employees right now? We dive into this with Vipula Gandhi, Head of US Enterprise and Managing Partner at Gallup Inc and the author of a very popular article that some of y…

For most people the ingredients that go into a satisfying life are mysterious. Certainly career and relationships play a big role but they don’t always go as planned which makes satisfaction and happiness mercurial. Bill Burnett, Executive Director of the Design Program at Stanford, founder of Stanford’s Life Design Lab, and co-author of two best s…

The pandemic has forced many of us to step back and reflect on what's important. Reconsidering, a new podcast launching Sept 14 from Meredith Black, Aarron Walter, and Bob Baxley, explores how to navigate big transitions in your career, relationships, and values to help you learn how to make a life while making a living.…