My BrainWise Coach

My BrainWise Coach
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  • Self-Improvement
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Welcome to My BrainWise Coach — a podcast exploring the intersection of neuroscience, behavioral science, and psychology to help you live and lead better lives. Hosted by Cole Bastian and Phil Dixon, each episode connects brain science to everyday life, leadership, and relationships. You’ll gain practical insights into emotional intelligence, habits, trust, change, growth, and many other topics — all grounded in research and real human experience. 🧠 Stay curious. Stay compassionate. Stay BrainWise.

  1. 1d ago

    Big Five Personality Test: Why Knowing Your Results Won't Change You (S3E15)

    You take a personality assessment, read the results, and think yes, that's me. Six months later you land in the exact situation it warned you about and respond exactly the way it predicted, having changed nothing. Phil and Cole unpack the neuroscience behind that gap, and why a description of what you're like is a fundamentally different measurement from a map of what your brain is most alert to. Visit https://brainwiseenterprises.com to learn more, get certified, take your Personal Threat Profile, and book personalized 1:1 coaching. What you get in this conversation: The lexical hypothesis and the 1936 dictionary study that produced the Big FiveCosta and McCrae's NEO Personality Inventory and the 60-item NEO-FFIWhat a personality trait actually measures, and why traits hold steady across situationsBig Five predictive validity, from conscientiousness and job performance to neuroticism and stressWhy a neurological sensitivity is a different kind of measurement from a traitThe Personal Threat and Reward Profile's five drivers: protection, participation, prediction, purpose, and pleasureFour coaching cases where the Big Five alone misreads the client, including the introvert with a high participation driver and the low-agreeableness client with a hidden belonging needWhy two people with identical neuroticism scores need completely different coaching conversationsThe double edge principle and the developmental calibration of threat sensitivity Rate and review the show wherever you listen, then follow @mybrainwisecoach on every platform. CHAPTERS 00:00 Why Personality Assessments Don't Change Behavior 01:21 Welcome To My BrainWise Coach 02:28 Lexical Hypothesis And Big Five Origins 04:33 What Personality Traits Actually Measure 06:15 Traits Versus Neurological Threat Sensitivity 07:45 The Personal Threat And Reward Profile 09:48 Four Cases Where Frameworks Diverge 15:16 What Each Framework Uniquely Gives You 17:48 Field Guide Summary And Close REFERENCES Allport, G. W., and Odbert, H. S. (1936). Trait-Names: A Psycho-Lexical Study. Psychological Monographs, 47(1). https://doi.org/10.1037/h0093360 Costa, P. T., Jr., and McCrae, R. R. (1992). Revised NEO Personality Inventory and NEO Five-Factor Inventory Professional Manual. Psychological Assessment Resources. Barrick, M. R., and Mount, M. K. (1991). The Big Five Personality Dimensions and Job Performance: A Meta-Analysis. Personnel Psychology, 44(1), 1-26. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1744-6570.1991.tb00688.x McCrae, R. R., Terracciano, A., and 78 Members of the Personality Profiles of Cultures Project (2005). Personality Profiles of Cultures: Aggregate Personality Traits. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 89(3), 407-425. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.89.3.407 CONNECT Website and Personal Threat Profile: https://brainwiseenterprises.com Podcast: https://brainwiseenterprises.com/podcast Everywhere else: @mybrainwisecoach #Neuroscience #BigFive #PersonalityTest #Leadership #ExecutiveCoaching #MyBrainWiseCoach

  2. Sep 27

    Working With a Visionary Founder: The Curse of Knowledge Explained (S3E14)

    A visionary founder shares a brilliant idea, someone asks a reasonable clarifying question, and the meeting falls apart. You have probably watched this happen, or lived it from one side or the other. Cole Bastian and Phil Dixon explain why the pattern is neurologically predictable rather than anyone's fault, and hand you seven tools that work with the founder's brain instead of against it. Learn more, get certified, take your Personal Threat Profile (PTP), and book personalized 1:1 coaching at brainwiseenterprises.com. What you get: Why high openness to experience and reduced latent inhibition let visionary founders see connections other people missThe schema problem, and why a founder's idea feels complete to them and incomplete to everyone elseThe curse of knowledge, first documented by Camerer, Loewenstein, and Weber in 1989How the protection driver turns a clarifying question into a perceived attack on competenceWhy the team's prediction and participation drivers make speaking up feel socially riskySeven tools: confirmation questions, extension questions, the prototype sketch, the yes and opening, the designated translator, structured idea capture, and the PTP-informed pre-meeting frameWhy the team member who does not understand the idea is your map, not your obstacle If this episode helps you think differently about how your brain works, rate and review us wherever you listen, and follow @mybrainwisecoach everywhere. CHAPTERS 00:00 The Joy And The Terror01:42 Welcome To My BrainWise Coach02:51 High Openness And Latent Inhibition04:13 The Schema Problem Explained05:10 The Curse Of Knowledge06:02 The Clarification Trap Explained07:11 Why The Team Nods Along08:51 How The Failure Mode Accumulates09:29 Tool One Confirmation Not Clarification11:05 Tool Two Extension Not Evaluation12:00 Tool Three The Prototype Sketch13:00 Tool Four The Yes And Opening13:50 Tool Five The Designated Translator15:07 Tool Six Structured Idea Capture16:01 Tool Seven PTP Pre-Meeting Frame17:27 Phil's Single Most Important Point18:51 White Paper And Closing Thoughts REFERENCES AND MATERIALS DISCUSSED Camerer, C., Loewenstein, G., and Weber, M. (1989). The Curse of Knowledge in Economic Settings: An Experimental Analysis. Journal of Political Economy, 97(5), 1232 to 1254. https://doi.org/10.1086/261651 Carson, S. H., Peterson, J. B., and Higgins, D. M. (2003). Decreased Latent Inhibition Is Associated With Increased Creative Achievement in High-Functioning Individuals. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 85(3), 499 to 506. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.85.3.499 Peterson, J. B., and Carson, S. (2000). Latent Inhibition and Openness to Experience in a High-Achieving Student Population. Personality and Individual Differences, 28(2), 323 to 332. Bartlett, F. C. (1932). Remembering: A Study in Experimental and Social Psychology. Cambridge University Press. Felsman, P., Gunawardena, S., and Seifert, C. M. (2020). Improv Experience Promotes Divergent Thinking, Uncertainty Tolerance, and Affective Well-Being. Thinking Skills and Creativity, 35. Lewis, C., and Lovatt, P. J. (2013). Breaking Away From Set Patterns of Thinking: Improvisation and Divergent Thinking. Thinking Skills and Creativity, 9, 46 to 58.

  3. Sep 20

    Neuroscience of Creativity: Why Your Prefrontal Cortex Blocks Ideas (S3E13)

    Your best ideas rarely show up at your desk. They arrive in the shower, on a run, in the car, at the exact moment you stop trying to solve the problem. A brand-new Emory study explains why, and the answer is that the most sophisticated part of your brain is often the thing standing in your way. Learn more, get certified, take the Personal Threat Profile (PTP), and book personalized 1:1 coaching at brainwiseenterprises.com. Cole and Phil walk you through: The 2026 Emory study in Science Advances by Kai Lu and Robert Liu, showing that silencing the medial prefrontal cortex lets mice learn a better strategy three times fasterWhy the prefrontal cortex runs a "win-stay" system that conserves old patterns instead of breaking themCharles Limb and Allen Braun's 2008 jazz improvisation fMRI study and the dorsolateral prefrontal deactivation it foundSiyuan Liu's 2012 freestyle rap study reproducing the same neural fingerprintArne Dietrich's transient hypofrontality hypothesis and what hard exercise does to your evaluating brainThe 2026 Frontiers review on flow states and default mode to executive network connectivityRight temporal alpha and the neuroscience of the aha momentWhy creative generation and creative evaluation need separate calendar blocksThe prediction driver in the Personal Threat and Reward Profile, and why high-certainty brains feel this mostThe cognitive mechanism that makes psychological safety a creativity intervention, not just a culture oneRate, review, and follow the show at @mybrainwisecoach. It moves the episode in front of the leaders who need it. 00:00 When Your Best Thinking Happens01:52 Welcome To Neuroscience Digest02:54 The Emory Mouse Maze Study04:17 Silencing The Prefrontal Cortex05:19 The Poker Player Analogy06:10 The Mouse Model Caveat07:20 Jazz Improvisation In The Scanner08:34 Freestyle Rap Shows The Same Pattern09:18 Transient Hypofrontality And Hard Exercise10:23 Exercise Intensity And Divergent Thinking11:16 What Flow States Reveal12:31 The Aha Moment Mechanism13:21 Why Four Studies Converge14:55 Generating Versus Evaluating Ideas16:03 The Prediction Driver Connection17:11 Stop Brainstorming At Peak Focus18:09 Exercise As A Cognitive Strategy19:07 Psychological Safety And Creative Output20:23 The Single Most Important Point21:50 Closing Thoughts And Sign-Off Lu, K., Wong, K. T., Yang, C. J., Zhou, L. N., Shi, Y. T., Costello, M. L., & Liu, R. C. (2026). Neural competition between prefrontal and auditory cortex constrains novel sound strategy learning. Science Advances. https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aeb3005 Limb, C. J., & Braun, A. R. (2008). Neural substrates of spontaneous musical performance: An fMRI study of jazz improvisation. PLoS ONE, 3(2), e1679. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0001679 Liu, S., Chow, H. M., Xu, Y., Erkkinen, M. G., Swett, K. E., Eagle, M. W., Rizik-Baer, D. A., & Braun, A. R. (2012). Neural correlates of lyrical improvisation: An fMRI study of freestyle rap. Scientific Reports, 2, 834. https://doi.org/10.1038/srep00834 Dietrich, A. (2003). Functional neuroanatomy of altered states of consciousness: The transient hypofrontality hypothesis. Consciousness and Cognition, 12(2), 231-256. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1053-8100(02)00046-6 Maleki, M., Ahmadpour, A., Moraru, A., & Memmert, D. (2024). Acute aerobic exercise and creative thinking: Comparison of transient hypofrontality state and strength model of self-control's theoretical predictions. Retos, 58. https://doi.org/10.47197/retos.v58.103685 Barnett, K., & Vasiu, F. (2026). Enhanced functional connectivity between the default mode network and executive control network during flow states may facilitate creativity and emotional regulation. Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience, 19, 1690499. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnbeh.2025.1690499

  4. Sep 13

    Can Dogs Smell Stress? What Brain Scans Reveal About Your Dog (S3E12)

    You walk in after a brutal day, and before you say a word your dog is already there, doing the specific thing they do when something is wrong. You assume you are projecting. Four peer-reviewed studies say you are not. Learn more, get certified, take the Personal Threat Profile (PTP), and book 1:1 coaching at brainwiseenterprises.com. Hernández-Pérez and Cuaya's 2026 iScience study at the University of Vienna, scanning awake pet dogs in an fMRI as they viewed human facesWhy a human smile lights up the caudate nucleus, the dog's reward center, and the caveat the authors raise themselvesWilson, Campbell, Petzel and Reeve at Queen's University Belfast, where four dogs identified human stress by scent alone at 93.75% accuracyHow your stress chemistry changes your breath and sweat within four minutes, and what that means for service dogs and panic attacksKoskela and colleagues on heart rate variability synchrony between dogs and owners, and why the dog appears to be leadingSundman's finding that long-term cortisol mirroring survives when you control for shared exerciseNagasawa's oxytocin gaze loop and Larry Young's feedback model of social bondingWhere the participation, pleasure, and protection drivers show up inside the dog-human bond Rate, review, and follow @mybrainwisecoach wherever you listen. Your review is what helps other people find the show. 00:00 Your Dog Already Knows Something 01:03 Four Studies On Dog Cognition 01:46 Awake Dogs Inside An fMRI 03:01 Happy Faces Light Reward Centers 03:55 Separating Anger Fear And Sadness 05:26 What Brain Scans Cannot Prove 06:16 Can A Dog Smell Stress 07:54 Ninety Three Percent Scent Accuracy 09:25 Service Dogs And Panic Attacks 09:58 Heart Rate Variability Synchrony Explained 11:36 Long Term Cortisol Mirroring Owners 12:24 The Oxytocin Loop Both Ways 13:19 Three BrainWise Drivers Explained 15:35 The Practical Takeaway For Owners 16:21 Closing Thoughts And Sign Off Hernández-Pérez, R., Concha, L., Andics, A., Bernal-Gamboa, R., & Cuaya, L. V. (2026). Dog brain representations of human facial expressions: Encoding happiness and differentiating specific negative expressions. iScience. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.isci.2026.116900 — Published August 7, 2026. First author Raúl Hernández-Pérez, senior author Laura V. Cuaya, University of Vienna.Wilson, C., Campbell, K., Petzel, Z., & Reeve, C. (2022). Dogs can discriminate between human baseline and psychological stress condition odours. PLOS ONE, 17(9), e0274143. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0274143 Koskela, A., Törnqvist, H., Somppi, S., Tiira, K., Kykyri, V.-L., Hänninen, L., Kujala, J., Nagasawa, M., Kikusui, T., & Kujala, M. V. (2024). Behavioral and emotional co-modulation during dog–owner interaction measured by heart rate variability and activity. Scientific Reports, 14, 25201. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-76831-x Sundman, A.-S., et al. (2019). Long-term stress levels are synchronized in dogs and their owners. Scientific Reports, 9, 7391. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-43851-xNagasawa, M., et al. (2015). Oxytocin-gaze positive loop and the coevolution of human–dog bonds. Science, 348(6232), 333–336. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1261022Stoeckel, L. E., Palley, L. S., Gollub, R. L., Niemi, S. M., & Evins, A. E. (2014). Patterns of brain activation when mothers view their own child and dog: An fMRI study. PLOS ONE, 9(10), e107205. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0107205Young, L. J. (1967–2024), Emory University. Founder of the Center for Translational Social Neuroscience and the Silvio O. Conte Center for Oxytocin and Social Cognition. See obituary: Larry J. Young (1967–2024), Neuron. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2024.05.014

  5. Sep 6

    Power Posing Debunked: What New Research Says About Posture and Mood (S3E11)

    In 2012 Amy Cuddy tells a TED audience that two minutes of open posture rewires your hormones. Three years later a bigger study finds nothing, and the original lead author publicly abandons her own finding. The question buried under that wreckage finally gets asked properly. Learn more, get certified, take the Personal Threat Profile (PTP), and book 1:1 coaching at brainwiseenterprises.com. Carney, Cuddy and Yap's 2010 power posing study and what it actually claimedEva Ranehill's 2015 replication in Psychological Science and why the hormone effects vanishedDana Carney's 2016 statement abandoning power pose effectsThe replication crisis in psychology and what it repairedDemand characteristics, and why telling someone to pose invalidates the testVeenstra, Schneider and Koole on stooped posture, mood recovery and negative thoughtsInteroception, and how your brain reads your body as live evidenceThe 2026 McGill study by Wainio-Theberge and Armony in the British Journal of PsychologyManipulating posture through desk height instead of instructionNeck angle measured objectively from video tracking softwareUpright posture, smarter risk-taking on the balloon task, and higher prideThe protection driver inside the BrainWise frameworkWorkplace ergonomics as a quiet input to your mood and your decisions Rate, review and follow @mybrainwisecoach so more people find the show. 00:00 The Power Pose Origin Story 02:14 Welcome To My BrainWise Coach 02:57 What Carney Cuddy And Yap Claimed 04:34 Why The Power Pose Spread 05:35 The 2015 Replication That Failed 06:38 Dana Carney Retracts Her Finding 07:48 The Question That Survived The Collapse 08:38 The Demand Characteristics Problem Explained 09:35 Veenstra Posture And Mood Recovery 11:22 Interoception And Body Brain Signals 12:19 The McGill Study Design Explained 13:59 Measuring Neck Angle From Video 15:31 Upright Posture And Better Risk 16:57 Protection Driver And BrainWise Framework 17:54 Workplace Ergonomics Field Guide 18:48 Why Science Correcting Itself Matters 19:44 Close And Final Takeaway Carney, D. R., Cuddy, A. J. C., & Yap, A. J. (2010). Power posing: Brief nonverbal displays affect neuroendocrine levels and risk tolerance. Psychological Science, 21(10), 1363–1368. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797610383437Cuddy, A. (2012). Your body language may shape who you are. TEDGlobal 2012. https://www.ted.com/talks/amy_cuddy_your_body_language_may_shape_who_you_areRanehill, E., Dreber, A., Johannesson, M., Leiberg, S., Sul, S., & Weber, R. A. (2015). Assessing the robustness of power posing: No effect on hormones and risk tolerance in a large sample of men and women. Psychological Science, 26(5), 653–656. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797614553946Carney, D. R. (2016). My position on "Power Poses." Haas School of Business, UC Berkeley. https://faculty.haas.berkeley.edu/dana_carney/pdf_my%20position%20on%20power%20poses.pdfVeenstra, L., Schneider, I. K., & Koole, S. L. (2017). Embodied mood regulation: The impact of body posture on mood recovery, negative thoughts, and mood-congruent recall. Cognition and Emotion, 31(7), 1361–1376. https://doi.org/10.1080/02699931.2016.1225003Wainio-Theberge, S., & Armony, J. (2026). Manipulating posture implicitly through environmental constraints influences mood and risk-taking behaviour. British Journal of Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjop.70083

  6. Aug 30

    AI Sleep Data, Posture, and How Motivation Actually Works (S3E10)

    Three peer-reviewed studies land in Phil's inbox on the same morning, and for once he reads all three on the spot. They share no theme, but they share something underneath. Each one found the brain already doing something it has always done, and we simply had no way to see it until the tools caught up. Learn more, get certified, take the Personal Threat and Reward Profile (PTP), and book personalized 1:1 coaching at brainwiseenterprises.com. Here is what you get: How a Cleveland Clinic foundation model trained on 10,000 overnight sleep studies found five patient risk groups hiding in discarded polysomnography dataWhy the apnea-hypopnea index compresses eight hours of physiology into one number, and why that number works better for men than for womenThe glymphatic system, sleep, and Alzheimer's protein clearanceThe McGill posture study from Wainio-Theberge and Armony that changed the furniture instead of telling anyone how to sit, then measured neck angle on videoWhy upright posture produced more effective risk-taking on the Balloon Analogue Risk Task and stronger feelings of prideEmbodied cognition, interoception, and what your desk height is doing to your decisionsThe Nagoya University orexin study in PNAS, and why motivation behaves like a gate rather than an acceleratorWhat a ceiling on effort means for the purpose driver in your Personal Threat and Reward Profile If this helps you think differently about how your brain works, rate and review us wherever you listen, and follow @mybrainwisecoach. 00:00 Fourteen Studies Before Coffee 00:56 Introducing The Morning Inbox Format 01:40 AI Reads Discarded Sleep Data 02:51 How AHI Throws Data Away 03:28 Five Hidden Risk Groups 04:36 Glymphatic Clearance And Alzheimer's Risk 05:21 Why AHI Underserves Women 06:12 McGill Posture Study Explained 07:19 Letting The Furniture Do It 08:22 Upright Posture And Smarter Risk 09:39 Embodied Cognition And Interoception 10:30 Nagoya Orexin Motivation Study 12:12 Turning Motivation Up Does Nothing 13:58 The Purpose Driver Has A Ceiling 14:59 What Ties All Three Together 16:35 Show Notes And Sign-Off References Cleveland Clinic / IBM / Yale / University of Washington. (2026). A foundation model for sleep-based risk stratification and clinical outcomes. Nature Communications. Senior author Reena Mehra. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-026-75326-9Wainio-Theberge, S., & Armony, J. (2026). Manipulating posture implicitly through environmental constraints influences mood and risk-taking behaviour. British Journal of Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjop.70083Dong, Y., Rahaman, S. M., Zhu, W., et al. (2026). Reward prediction is encoded by orexin neuron activity during motivated behavior. PNAS, 123(27), e2520677123. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2520677123

  7. Aug 27 ·  Bonus

    Who's Got the Monkey? The Neuroscience of Why You Can't Delegate (ND3E9)

    You arrive Monday with a clear plan for the week. By Friday evening your team is at the pub and you are still at your desk, buried under problems that were never yours. In 1974 William Oncken Jr. and Donald L. Wass named that mechanism in a Harvard Business Review article that became one of the magazine's two best-selling reprints ever, and this episode adds the part they could not: why your brain keeps doing it even when you know better. Learn more, get certified, take your Personal Threat and Reward Profile (PTP), and book personalized 1:1 coaching at brainwiseenterprises.com. You will hear: What a monkey actually is in Oncken's terms: the next move on a problem, not the problem itselfSubordinate-imposed time, and how it eats the discretionary time you need for strategic workThe five rules for the care and feeding of monkeysWhy the mesocorticolimbic dopamine pathway rewards you the instant you take someone else's problemThe immediate-reward, delayed-cost asymmetry that makes the trap so hard to escapeWhat happens to your team member's prefrontal cortex every time a monkey migrates to youThe childhood roots of chronic monkey collectingThe PTP signature of the committed collector: trust need, team orientation, approval and recognition need, benevolence driveThe two driver combinations that tip a manager into a full monkey zoo Rate, review, and follow @mybrainwisecoach wherever you listen. Then go count your monkeys. 00:00 The Manager Who Collects Everyone's Problems 02:07 Welcome To Neuroscience Digest 03:21 Who's Got The Monkey Explained 03:59 What A Monkey Actually Is 05:15 Subordinate-Imposed Time And The Menagerie 05:54 Five Rules For Feeding Monkeys 07:19 Why Helping Stops Your Team Growing 08:04 The Dopamine Reward Of Being Needed 09:12 Immediate Reward Versus Delayed Cost 10:13 What Happens In The Subordinate's Brain 11:37 Developmental Roots Of Monkey Collecting 13:11 The PTP Signature Of Collectors 14:55 Two Combinations That Tip Managers 15:49 The Natural Resister's Different Wiring 17:33 What Oncken Got Right In 1974 18:29 Three Things He Would Add 20:05 The Single Most Important Takeaway 21:34 Where To Read The Article Oncken, W., Jr., & Wass, D. L. (1974). Management Time: Who's Got the Monkey? Harvard Business Review, November–December 1974. Reissued as an HBR Classic, November–December 1999, Reprint 99609, with a commentary by Stephen R. Covey. https://hbr.org/1999/11/management-time-whos-got-the-monkey Covey, S. R. (1999). Making Time for Gorillas (commentary accompanying the HBR Classic reissue). Harvard Business Review, November–December 1999.

  8. Aug 23

    Why Your Wandering Mind Makes You Unhappy: The Harvard Study (S3E9)

    A Roman emperor writing private notes on the Danube frontier claimed your happiness depends on the quality of your thoughts, not your circumstances. Eighteen centuries later, two Harvard psychologists test that claim with an iPhone app and 250,000 real-time data points. He was right, and the default mode network explains why. Learn more, get certified, take your Personal Threat Profile (PTP), and book personalized 1:1 coaching at brainwiseenterprises.com. Inside this conversation: Marcus Aurelius, the Meditations, and the empirical claim hiding inside Stoic philosophyMatthew Killingsworth and Daniel Gilbert's 2010 Science paper, "A Wandering Mind Is an Unhappy Mind"Why experience sampling beats retrospective self-report for measuring happinessThe 46.9% finding, and how much of your waking life your mind spends elsewhereWhy mind wandering predicts your happiness better than the activity you are doingThe time-lag analysis that establishes which way causation runsThe default mode network, rumination, and why unanchored thought drifts negativeElevated default mode network activity in depression and anxietyJoshua Tasoff and colleagues at Claremont Graduate University and Wuhan UniversityThe four thinker types: worriers, domestics, bodily thinkers, and work-hard play-hardsHow your protection and prediction drivers decide where your mind goes when it is free Rate and review us wherever you listen, and follow @mybrainwisecoach on every platform. Your reviews are how new listeners find the show. 00:00 Marcus Aurelius And The Quality Of Thought 01:43 Welcome To My BrainWise Coach 02:54 The Killingsworth And Gilbert Harvard Study 04:57 Mind Wandering Occupies Half Your Life 05:39 Thoughts Predict Happiness Better Than Activity 07:18 The Time Lag Causation Analysis 08:26 The Default Mode Network Explained 10:25 Rumination Depression And Anxiety 11:30 The Claremont Preprint And Its Limits 13:11 What People Actually Think About 14:10 The Four Thinker Types 15:40 Personal Threat And Reward Profile Drivers 17:54 The Work Hard Play Hard Cluster 18:53 Field Guide Marcus Aurelius Was Right 20:20 Closing Notes And Next Steps References / Materials Discussed Killingsworth, M. A., & Gilbert, D. T. (2010). "A Wandering Mind Is an Unhappy Mind." Science, 330(6006), 932. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1192439 Zhang, S., Fang, Z., & Tasoff, J. (2026). "What Do People Think About?" SSRN working paper (preprint, not peer reviewed). https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=6935018 Sample, I. (2026, July 25). "Four types of thinker have been identified. Which one are you?" The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/science/2026/jul/25/four-types-of-thinker-which-one-are-you Marcus Aurelius (c. 170–180 AD). Meditations. Raichle, M. E., MacLeod, A. M., Snyder, A. Z., Powers, W. J., Gusnard, D. A., & Shulman, G. L. (2001). "A default mode of brain function." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 98(2), 676–682. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.98.2.676

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About

Welcome to My BrainWise Coach — a podcast exploring the intersection of neuroscience, behavioral science, and psychology to help you live and lead better lives. Hosted by Cole Bastian and Phil Dixon, each episode connects brain science to everyday life, leadership, and relationships. You’ll gain practical insights into emotional intelligence, habits, trust, change, growth, and many other topics — all grounded in research and real human experience. 🧠 Stay curious. Stay compassionate. Stay BrainWise.

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  • Creator
    My BrainWise Coach
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    112
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © My BrainWise Coach
  • Show Website
    My BrainWise Coach

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