Meikles & Dimes

Nate Meikle
  • 4.9 (163)
  • Education
  • Updated Weekly

Meikles & Dimes is a podcast dedicated to the simple, practical, and underappreciated. Monologue episodes cover science-based topics in decision-making, health, communication, negotiation, and performance psychology. Interview episodes, called Layer 2 episodes, include guests from business, academia, health care, journalism, engineering, and athletics.

  1. 1d ago

    277: How to Build Confidence When You Doubt Yourself | Professor Cindra Kamphoff, Certified Mental Performance Consultant

    Dr. Cindra Kamphoff is a professor at Minnesota State University, Mankato and a sport and performance psychologist who has spent her career helping elite performers strengthen their mindset and perform at their best. She has worked one-on-one with Minnesota Vikings players, USA Track & Field athletes at the Tokyo Olympics, and executives at companies including Target and Verizon. Cindra earned her Ph.D. in sport and performance psychology and led a national research study examining confidence in America. She is also the author of The Confidence Habit: 7 Core Practices to Transform Self-Doubt to Self-Belief, which offers practical strategies for overcoming self-doubt, strengthening confidence, and performing at your best. In this episode we discuss the following: Cindra’s technique for dealing with doubt and poor performance: learn, burn, return. Learn from it, move past it, and get back to work. Keep track of your wins so your brain has evidence of what you’re capable of. Set a range of goals so your confidence isn’t tied to one outcome. Remember that sometimes action has to come before the feeling. You don’t have to feel confident before you raise your hand, take the shot, or have the conversation. When self-doubt creeps in, ask yourself three questions: Is this thought true? Is it serving me? And what would be a more empowering thought? Confidence isn’t something we either have or don’t have. It’s a habit we can build.

  2. Sep 7

    276: Why Shouting Makes People Perform Worse | Caroline Webb, Former McKinsey Partner & World-Renowned Executive Coach

    Caroline Webb is an economist, executive coach, and bestselling author of How to Have a Good Day, which has been published in more than 60 countries. Her new book is Leadership Intelligence: Science-Based Strategies for Mastering Twenty-One Everyday Management Challenges. Caroline has been named one of the top 50 executive coaches in the world by Thinkers50 and one of the top 50 leadership and management thinkers by Inc. magazine. She is a Senior Advisor on leadership to McKinsey & Company, where she previously served as a Partner. For more than two decades, Caroline has worked with leaders across business, government, startups, and the social sector, drawing on behavioral science, economics, and neuroscience to help people perform at their best. Her work has been featured in Harvard Business Review, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Economist, Financial Times, Fortune, Fast Company, TIME, and WIRED. In this episode we discuss the following: One of my favorite ideas from Caroline is simple: if you want to get the best out of people, it helps to understand how their brains work. When Caroline was working with the military general, it was only when she explained what was happening in the brain that she finally got through to him. Shouting might make someone more vigilant, but it’s not going to improve their problem-solving ability. When people feel threatened, their ability to reason, solve problems, and be creative can actually decline. Leadership isn’t so much about our personality traits as it is about our behaviors. And when people know we have their best interests at heart, they’re more likely to reach their potential. When someone responds to us in an unpleasant way, our instinct is to focus on what they need to change. But sometimes the best way to change how someone behaves toward us is to change how we behave toward them first.

  3. Aug 31

    275: David Booth, Billionaire Investor and Philanthropist | A $1,000,000 Lesson in Compounding

    David Booth is the founder and chairman of Dimensional Fund Advisors, one of the most influential investment firms in the world, managing more than $1 trillion in assets. Earlier in his career, David helped develop one of the world’s first index funds and spent decades applying academic financial research—including ideas developed by his mentor, Nobel laureate Eugene Fama—to real-world investing. David is also a proud University of Kansas alum, earning degrees in economics and business from KU before earning his MBA from the University of Chicago. And his philanthropy has been extraordinary: the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business bears his name, as does David Booth Kansas Memorial Stadium. In 2010, David and his wife Suzanne purchased James Naismith’s original rules of basketball for $4.3 million and brought them home to KU—the story featured in my favorite documentary of all time ESPN’s 30 for 30: There’s No Place Like Home. In 2025, David made an additional $300 million gift to Kansas Athletics, continuing his remarkable support of KU. And most recently David wrote a book titled, Stay Calm: Learn to Embrace Uncertainty in Investing and Life. In this episode we discuss the following: When David found $15,000 in cash in his late parents’ safe-deposit box, he wondered what it might have become had they invested it in the public markets instead. He calculated that if his father had invested the money after returning from World War II and simply earned the market return, it would have grown to more than $1 million over the next 40 years. That’s the magic of compounding, and I love David’s bigger point that our lives compound as well, from the things we learn, to the decisions we make, and the relationships we build. I love David’s explanation for why he’s optimistic about markets: people want to make their lives better. When something goes wrong, people adapt. They solve problems. They invent things. Companies find new ways to serve customers. And over time, that human ingenuity gets reflected in the market. As a stressed-out PhD student at the University of Chicago, David visited his grandparents, who lived in a tiny home that didn’t even have indoor plumbing. Yet he looked around at his family laughing and enjoying themselves and thought: Maybe they’ve figured out something about life that I haven’t. That realization helped him choose the career path that fit what he actually valued. Invest early, stay invested, and make sure you’re invested in the right things.

  4. Aug 24

    274: When Confidence Gets in the Way of Feedback | University of North Carolina Professor Elad Sherf

    Elad Sherf is a Professor of Organizational Behavior at the University of North Carolina. His research examines workplace fairness and feedback seeking. He also studies why managers resist feedback, including why they avoid asking for input or ignore input when it is offered. His research has been published in leading management and psychology journals, and he also serves as an associate editor of Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes. Before earning his PhD, Elad served for four years in the Israeli Air Force and practiced law in Israel for three years. He received his PhD in organizational behavior from the University of Maryland, his MBA from the AGSM MBA Program at the University of South Wales in Australia, and his LLB, BA, and LLM from Reichman University in Israel. In this episode we discuss the following: Elad’s research highlights an interesting dilemma: When we feel uncertain, we often ask for feedback. But when we feel confident, we assume we do not need it, when the feedback could have helped us. Confidence should not always be a signal to move forward without input. Sometimes confidence should be the trigger to pause and ask, “What am I missing? What can’t I see? How might someone else view this differently?” We often underestimate the value of other people’s perspectives. And sometimes one small comment can help us adapt and treat someone more fairly, especially on the margin. Managers often assume they understand what employees need or how employees are experiencing a situation. But feedback helps us move from default assumptions to better, more context-specific decisions. The next time we feel certain is the exact moment we may want to ask one more question.

  5. Aug 20

    273: How to Get Lucky by Saying Thank You | Tina Seelig, Stanford Educator and Author

    Tina Seelig is the Executive Director of Knight-Hennessy Scholars at Stanford University, the world’s largest fully endowed graduate fellowship program. She is also Director Emerita of the Stanford Technology Ventures Program and has spent decades teaching creativity, innovation, entrepreneurship, and leadership at Stanford, including in the Department of Management Science and Engineering and the d.school. Tina earned her Ph.D. in neuroscience from Stanford Medical School, where she studied neuroplasticity, and has worked as a management consultant, multimedia producer, and entrepreneur. She is the author of numerous books on creativity, innovation, and entrepreneurship, including What I Wish I Knew When I Was 20, inGenius, Creativity Rules, and her newest book, What I Wish I Knew About Luck. Her work has earned numerous honors, including the National Academy of Engineering’s Gordon Prize for her contributions to engineering and entrepreneurship education. In this episode we discuss the following: For Tina, improving her luck by saying thank you means looking at her calendar at the end of each day and writing thank you notes to everyone who helped her that day. What a powerful story about her college professor. She thanked him 20 years after the class, and 20 years after that, her thank you letter was read at his funeral. As Tina said, there is no statute of limitations on saying thanks. Luck is also a long game. For years, Tina invited John Hennessy to speak to her class. And every year she wrote him a thank you note after he spoke. When she recently asked him if he would have kept speaking without the notes, he said, probably not. And she would have never known it was because she hadn’t expressed gratitude. Now Tina runs the Knight Hennessy Scholars program with John. I also love how Tina applies this in the workplace and creates a culture of people saying thank you by simply modeling the behavior.

  6. Aug 17

    272: Tell the Truth With Love | Daniel Zimet Certified Mental Performance Consultant

    Daniel Zimet is a licensed psychologist and Certified Mental Performance Consultant who specializes in sport and performance psychology, working with athletes, executives, and other high performers on mental performance, relationships, and major life and career transitions. Daniel is a member of the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee Sport Psychology Registry and has published research on athlete retirement transitions as well as marriage and divorce. Daniel is also an accomplished athlete himself, having won 43 National Masters titles in handball, appearing multiple times on ESPN+.  In this episode we discuss the following: Bad communication isn’t  the most damaging thing to relationships, but rather It’s no communication that is most damaging. As Daniel learned from his breakup, when we don’t communicate, we deny people the opportunity to understand us, respond, or change. Daniel’s advice for difficult conversations: start with warmth, assume good intentions, be curious, and keep it brief. One paragraph. One idea. Then give the other person a chance to respond. Behavior that seems irrational often starts to make sense once we understand where it comes from. Understanding each other doesn’t always mean we agree with each other, but it can create compassion.

  7. Aug 10

    271: BYU Defensive Coordinator Kelly Poppinga | Make Yourself Uncomfortable

    Kelly Poppinga is the defensive coordinator at BYU. As a player at BYU, Kelly earned both All-Conference and Academic All-Conference honors. As a senior, he led the Cougars with 113 tackles and helped BYU win consecutive conference championships in 2006 and 2007. He later spent time with three NFL teams and was part of the Arizona Cardinals organization during its run to Super Bowl XLIII (43). Kelly has coached college football since 2009, with stops at BYU, Virginia, and Boise State. And as a coach, he has helped develop several top NFL linebackers, including Kyle Van Noy, Sione Takitaki, and Fred Warner. In this episode we discuss the following: Kelly was crushing it at USU when he got the prompting: follow your dreams. That meant transferring to BYU at a time when players didn’t transfer. He lost friends, lost playing time, and even risked losing his girlfriend. And then when he got to BYU, he doubted himself every day as a scout team player. But because he persisted, he ended up as team captain on an all-time great BYU team. Even though Kelly and his wife wanted to stay in Provo, they each individually got the prompting, while sitting in the temple, to head to Virginia. Again it was tough. His wife was 9 months pregnant. They had to move across the country. But it paved the way for an amazing run at Virginia, a 13-year mentorship from Bronco Mendenhall, and now the opportunity for Kelly to return to BYU. We have to put ourselves in uncomfortable positions for us to grow. As Kelly said, we’re prone to take the easy path, where it’s hard to grow. But by making ourselves uncomfortable, we’re forced to grow.

  8. Aug 3

    270: What Astronauts Don’t Miss in Space | Professor Daniel Newton, University of Iowa

    Daniel Newton is a professor of management and entrepreneurship at the University of Iowa. His research, which is regularly published in premier management journals, focuses on speaking up and staying engaged at work. A recipient of an eight-year NASA grant, he has conducted research with astronauts aboard the International Space Station, isolated crews in Houston, and cosmonauts in the Mars training facility in Moscow. In this episode we discuss the following: In a world full of noise, we’re losing our ability to be present. Whether its astronauts coming back from space relieved to be free from their phones, or students checking their screens 10 hours a day, the draw to the digital world is constant. And the more connected we are digitally, the more disconnected we risk becoming as humans. And the solution isn’t complicated—it’s to be intentional. Leave your phone behind us more often. Stop trying to rapidly switch between tasks all day. Actually listen to the person in front of us. Because creativity, connection, and even joy don’t come from constant stimulation or attention switching—they come from focusing on the people in front of us.

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4.9
out of 5
163 Ratings

About

Meikles & Dimes is a podcast dedicated to the simple, practical, and underappreciated. Monologue episodes cover science-based topics in decision-making, health, communication, negotiation, and performance psychology. Interview episodes, called Layer 2 episodes, include guests from business, academia, health care, journalism, engineering, and athletics.

Information

  • Creator
    Nate Meikle
  • Years Active
    2021 - 2026
  • Episodes
    277
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Copyright 2021 All rights reserved.
  • Show Website
    Meikles & Dimes

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