Smart People Podcast

What actually makes you who you are?

In this episode, we get into one of the biggest questions a person can ask, not in a vague or philosophical way, but through the lens of neuroscience.
Our guest is Dr. Masud Husain, Professor of Neurology and Cognitive Neuroscience at Oxford, Editor-in-Chief of Brain, and the award-winning author of Our Brains, Our Selves, which won the Royal Society Trivedi Best Science Book Prize.

Dr. Husain explains how your sense of self is built through memory, attention, motivation, perception, concepts, and relationships. In other words, who you are is not just something you have, it is something your brain is constantly creating.

That is what makes this conversation so gripping.

Because if the brain creates the self, then what happens when part of that system changes?

We talk about real patients whose identities seemed to shift after changes in the brain, including one man who lost nearly all motivation after tiny strokes, and another who began losing not just words, but the concepts behind them. Their stories are fascinating, but they also raise a deeply personal question: how much of who you are depends on brain processes you rarely notice?

We also get into why we become more risk-averse over time, why discomfort starts to feel less worth it, and whether changing how we think can actually change who we are.

This episode will make you think differently about personality, memory, identity, and the story you tell yourself about yourself.

Listen now, then subscribe and follow Smart People Podcast so you don’t miss what’s next.
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Most of us think we understand the plastic problem.

We’ve heard about ocean pollution. We’ve heard about recycling. We’ve heard the word microplastics enough times that it barely registers anymore.

But what if the most important part of this story isn’t the trash, the packaging, or even the environment?

What if the real issue is happening inside our own bodies?

In this conversation, Judith Enck, former EPA Regional Administrator and president of Beyond Plastics, explains the part of the plastic crisis that rarely makes headlines. Microplastics are not just floating in the ocean. Researchers are now finding them in human blood, lungs, arteries, and even the brain. And the concern is not just the particles themselves, but the thousands of chemicals that travel with them.

We also explore why plastic production continues to accelerate despite public concern, why recycling has largely failed, and how the economics of fossil fuels quietly shape the future of plastic.

This is not just an environmental story.

It is a health story, a policy story, and a story about systems most people never see.

Judith's book, The Problem with Plastic: How We Can Save Ourselves and Our Planet Before It’s Too Late, is available now wherever books are sold!

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What if the way we think, communicate, react under pressure, and connect with others isn’t random at all?

And much of your experience could actually be decoded using a very specific behavioral model.

And this model could explain why certain conversations energize you while others shut you down, why stress brings out patterns you don’t recognize, and why people who care about each other still miss each other completely.

In this episode, we introduce the Process Communication Model, a powerful framework originally developed in a therapeutic setting to improve human connection and outcomes.

It has been used quietly for decades, helping millions of people better understand themselves and others, yet many people have never heard of it.

This is part one in a three part series. To go hear the other episodes follow In the Arena With DoorTwo or visit doortwo.com.
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What if you’re not burned out, not clinically depressed, and nothing in your life is falling apart—but you still feel numb, empty, or like you’re just going through the motions? In this episode, sociologist and mental health researcher Dr. Corey Keyes explains the science behind that feeling, and why he calls it “languishing.” We dig into how our culture massively underestimates mental health by defining it as “not sick,” and why that quiet definition keeps so many of us stuck. Corey shares how watching his own father’s life slowly unravel pushed him to rethink success, work, and what it really means to flourish. You’ll learn the key differences between languishing and flourishing, the hidden ways modern life pulls us toward numbness, and why feeling “dead inside” might actually be an existential alarm clock trying to wake you up. We don’t just stay in theory—we talk about what real flourishing looks like for regular people with jobs, kids, stress, and messy lives.

Corey's book, Languishing: How to Feel Alive Again in a World That Wears Us Down, is available now wherever books are sold!

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What if there really was an owner’s manual for being human? In this episode, Chris sits down with one of the top executive coaches in the country Shaun Dyke, to reveal the models that billion-dollar leaders use to understand people, motivate change, and create results. They unpack the hidden psychology behind your reactions, relationships, and results—and why most of us are still flying blind without our “human operating manual.” You’ll never look at behavior the same way again. Shaun is the Managing Partner of the leadership development and executive coaching firm called, DoorTwo.

Learn more at doortwo.com and subscribe to their brand new podcast, In The Arena with DoorTwo. Stay up to date by signing up!

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Help us grow and become a Patron today: https://www.patreon.com/smartpeoplepodcast
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