What To Believe

Neil Bierbaum
  • 0.0 (0)
  • Self-Improvement
  • Weekly

Most of what we believe was never actually chosen — we just find ourselves with it, then defend it to the death. In other words, we don't defend ideas because they're true; we defend them because they're ours. What to Believe is where former journalist turned master coach Neil Bierbaum exposes the bug in the human operating system — a bug that makes it hard for us to face the truth about ourselves, and keeps us believing and chasing things that are not real and don’t matter. He offers a method for looking at oneself and life more objectively, to find signal within the noise, and deal with what’s real and what matters.  Fans of Stoicism will find their next level here in the form of ontological coaching, the field in which Neil spent a four-year apprenticeship, and which he has spent two decades — more than 10,000 hours — practicing and teaching. It’s a method for looking at oneself and life more objectively, to find signal within the noise, and deal with what’s real and what matters.  Neil offers a solid foundation drawn from more than 20 years of coaching, 10 years before that as a journalist, and decades of contemplative practice running through both. (Neil also has an academic master’s degree, out of which he won a research award and  published a peer-reviewed paper on executive coaching methods.) His methodology integrates ontological coaching, neuroscience-backed mindfulness, and evidence-based psychology.  Three formats: solo deep dives, listener Q&A, and live coaching conversations.  New episodes Sunday mornings. Come skeptical. Stay curious.

  1. 21h ago

    Empathy vs Self-Interest: Who Is the Pie Really For?

    Elon Musk says empathy is the fundamental weakness of Western civilisation, and he’s been telling everyone to read Gad Saad’s Suicidal Empathy to find out why. In this episode of the What to Believe About… series, I turn the lens on that argument, and on empathy’s old rival, self-interest. If you’ve been with me for a while, you’ll know the flaw in the human operating system: we argue things not because they’re true, but because they’re ours. The empathy debate is a near-perfect specimen. So I give Saad’s case a fair hearing, look at where the left has already conceded some of it, and then go down to the level of the individual: a car guard, a pie, a neuroscience experiment, and Schumacher’s Four Fields of Knowledge. Then it’s self-interest’s turn. Adam Smith, James Madison and the founders of the American Constitution all had something to say about self-interest taming self-interest, and I declare my own bias about whether it still does. Come sceptical. Stay curious. Show Notes In this episode The car guard, the pie, and whose need it really meetsGad Saad’s case against empathy, fairly statedWhy arguing about the apple keeps us from the gravityEmpathy vs compassion: what the neuroscience showsSchumacher’s Four Fields, projection and going into storyCompassion as care plus responsibilitySelf-interest, Adam Smith and Madison’s design for the ConstitutionIs self-interest still checking self-interest?What Benjamin Franklin asked of the foundersMentioned in this episode Elon Musk on The Joe Rogan Experience #2281 (February 2025)Gad Saad, Suicidal Empathy: Dying to Be Kind (2026)Thomas Sowell, The Vision of the AnointedTania Singer and colleagues: empathy and compassion trainingE.F. Schumacher, A Guide for the PerplexedAdam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments and The Wealth of NationsJames Madison, Federalist No. 51South Africa’s Competition Commission: Media and Digital Platforms Market InquiryDiana Baumrind’s parenting stylesTake it further Written companion on SubstackWays to work with Neil: https://neilbierbaum.com– If something landed, share it with someone who could benefit — and please subscribe, rate & review wherever you listen. That’s how this work spreads.

  2. Oct 18

    What to Believe About Media Bias & Conspiracy Theories

    Last time, with AI, I started turning the What to Believe lens outwards. This episode takes it somewhere the flaw in the human operating system lives almost in plain sight: the news we trust, the news we don’t, and the theories that grow in the gap between the two. It starts with Buzz Aldrin, a Bible and a punch, and two men who weren’t going to move. From there I test three beliefs — that the media is biased against your side, that conspiracy theorists are just gullible, and that doing your own research gets you to the truth — drawing on my years in newsrooms, my time editing FHM South Africa, and a couple of years I spent investigating a conspiracy theory that ended up taking in the whole world. You’ll hear why our sense of which side is biased can’t be trusted, what the research says conspiracy beliefs are really trying to do, and how the difference between an assertion and an assessment changes the argument. Then I go back to that hotel in Beverly Hills, with three questions you can put to any belief — and one to put to someone else’s. Come sceptical. Stay curious. ----------------------------------------- Show Notes In this episode – Buzz Aldrin, Bart Sibrel and why neither man changed his mind – Two camps, one problem: media bias and conspiracy theories seen from either end – Belief #1: the media is biased against my side — owners, the Information Scandal, and why some stories don’t run – FHM, Cosmopolitan and the bias nobody planned – The hostile media effect: why the people who know most see the most bias – Belief #2: conspiracy theorists are just gullible — and the investigation that had me investigating the whole world – Why real conspiracies surface while conspiracy theories reach for a layer nobody can pin down – Belief #3: do your own research — the seed oil test, and research that only ever widens – What’s really at stake: the family lunch, and the question that gets lost – Assertions, assessments and Newton’s apple – Three questions for any belief, and one for someone else’s Mentioned in this episode – Buzz Aldrin and Bart Sibrel, Beverly Hills, 2002 – The Information Scandal (Muldergate), South Africa – Rupert Murdoch; Jeff Bezos and the Washington Post – FHM South Africa and Cosmopolitan – Vallone, Ross and Lepper (1985): the hostile media effect – Karen Douglas and colleagues, University of Kent: the psychology of conspiracy beliefs – Isaac Newton’s apple – Assertions and assessments (linguistic ontology) Take it further – Written companion on Substack: [post link] – Ways to work with Neil: https://neilbierbaum.com – If something landed, share it with someone who could benefit — and please subscribe, rate & review wherever you listen. That’s how this work spreads.

  3. Oct 4

    If Machines Can Do This, What About Us?

    Global existential angst about AI is reaching fever pitch. So I put four common beliefs about AI through an inquiry to see which ones hold up. If you've been with me since the start, you'll know I've spent a good while on the flaw in the human operating system — the way we take the voice in our heads for the truth, and defend ideas not because they're true but because they're ours. In this episode, the first in a new series, I turn that lens outward, onto what we believe about the world out there. And I start with the subject that's unsettling just about everyone right now: artificial intelligence (AI). It begins with a physics professor I sat with a few days after a swarm of AI agents claimed a proof of one of the great unsolved maths problems. His question — if a machine can do that, what are we here for? — is the thread I follow through the whole episode. I put four beliefs through a bit of inquiry: that this has never happened before, that AI will take all our jobs, that it's conscious and can think, and that it will make us less human. Some hold up better than others. Along the way I come back to Csikszentmihalyi's flow research and my Making Monday Great Again theory, and to an idea from my leadership coaching practice — elevating the level of work — because that's where I think the real stakes are hiding. And I close with the three moves the professor and I landed on, the last of which I owe to something my son said to me when he was four. Come sceptical. Stay curious. Show Notes In this episode – A physics professor's question after a swarm of AI agents claims a Millennium Prize proof – Why anyone claiming all the answers on AI is guessing — and living with the uncertainty – Belief 1: This has never happened before — calculators, 3D printing, Y2K, desktop publishing and the Gutenberg press – Belief 2: AI will take all our jobs — coal miners, the Internet and the yellow Post-Its, what we do with saved time, and the Industrial Revolution precedent – What happens to internships and how young people learn – What's really at stake: flow, engagement, and thinking as a muscle – Elevating the level of work — and who's using whom – Belief 3: AI is conscious and can think — the giant word calculator, and a simple test you can run – Belief 4: AI will make us less human — Freud, Floridi and the blows to humanity's self-image – Three moves: acceptance, keeping the judgement for yourself, and a practice — is it real, and does it matter? Mentioned in this episode – The Clay Mathematics Institute's Millennium Prize problems, and the Navier-Stokes problem – Saul Bellow: "You've got to be a crank to insist on being right." – The Gutenberg printing press and the Reformation – The 1980s British coal miners' strikes – The Industrial Revolution and the rise of trade unions – Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and the flow state (optimal experience) – Making Monday Great Again — my talk and videos on flow at work – My videos on language as a technology – Sigmund Freud (1917) on the three blows to humanity's self-image – Luciano Floridi and the fourth blow: Alan Turing – The Imitation Game (film) and the Turing test – Deep Blue vs Garry Kasparov (1997) – Atman, in the yogic tradition Take it further – Written companion on Substack. – Ways to work with Neil: https://neilbierbaum.com – If something landed, share it with someone who could benefit — and please subscribe, rate & review wherever you listen. That's how this work spreads.

  4. Sep 20

    Most Evil Wears the Cloak of Good

    The villains worth worrying about aren’t the ones in a high-tech bunker, stroking a hairless cat. They’re the people most certain they’re good — the most principled ones in the room. Most of the harm we do to each other isn’t done in the name of evil. It’s done in the name of good, by people entirely convinced of their own morality. In this episode I take that apart: how a private should hardens into a public must, how a moral standard enforced without wisdom, understanding or compassion reliably turns into the very thing it set out to prevent — and why the person doing it is almost always the last to see it. We follow the mechanism from a single character — Inspector Javert — through history: Salem and McCarthy, Prohibition, the Inquisition, Robespierre’s “republic of virtue.” Then into the present, from Afghanistan to South Africa to the fight over who gets to regulate AI. And, as always, what to do instead — starting with the tree that survives the storm because it bends. This is the second of two episodes on the word should. Come sceptical. Stay curious.  In this episode Why “most evil is done in the name of good” — and why good people can’t see themselves doing itThe shift from a private should to an enforced must, and the trap of being “one of the good ones”The same mechanism in fiction and across history: Javert, The Crucible / McCarthyism, Prohibition, the Inquisition, RobespierreExamples from today’s world: Afghanistan, Gaza, South Africa, AmericaThe pattern close to home: a family and its rulesThe tree in the storm: why flexibility, not rigidity, is real strengthThe personal roots: a strict father, and Dead Poets SocietyHow to spot this brewing in the world — the key indicators The way out: working at the interface between your rule and realityMentioned in this episode Les Misérables — Victor Hugo (Inspector Javert)The Crucible — Arthur Miller (and McCarthyism)Prohibition · the Spanish Inquisition · Robespierre and the French RevolutionDead Poets Society (1989)The Taliban’s “Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice” lawIsrael in GazaThe ANC in South AfricaTake it further Written companion on Substack: https://substack.com/@neilbierbaumWays to work with me: https://neilbierbaum.comIf something landed, share it with someone who could benefit — and please subscribe, rate & review wherever you listen.

  5. Sep 6

    Abandon Your Shoulds (They Keep You Stuck)

    There’s a word you use maybe ten times a day — often without noticing you’ve even thought it — that quietly drains your personal power and puts distance between you and the people you’re closest to. It sounds reasonable. Fair. Considered. And it keeps you stuck in the very situations you keep complaining about. The word is should. In this episode I take that one small word apart: where a should comes from, the second layer of should that stops us ever saying what we actually want, and how it drops us onto what I call the low road — the road of complaint, gossip and quiet punishment. Then I show you the way off it, and the question that puts you back in touch with what’s real. This is the first of two episodes on should. Next time, its louder, more dangerous twin: what happens when we stop keeping it to ourselves and start enforcing it on others. Come sceptical. Stay curious. Show Notes In this episode What a should actually is: an expectation — an uncommunicated wish, will or desireThe “second layer” of should that gives us permission not to speak (“they should already know”)The low road: how an unspoken want leaks out as complaining and gossipMoving from a disempowered state to an empowered one — putting it on the table, and making a clean requestWhy a “yes” that never changes is really a “no” — and what to do with itThe brick-wall analogy: why we accept physical limits but keep running at behavioural onesThe most useful question in a stuck relationshipBeing hooked on “hopium” — loving a fantasy of the person instead of the person in front of youHow the same mechanism scales up to politics and public lifeThe one-line summary: abandon all shoulds — ask for what you want, or accept what isMentioned in this episode The Remains of the Day — Kazuo Ishiguro (novel) and the Anthony Hopkins filmMarriage Story — Noah Baumbach (film)The framework: linguistic ontology → ontological coaching → Neil’s own synthesis, Effective InquiryTake it further Written companion on Substack: https://substack.com/@neilbierbaum  Ways to work with Neil: https://neilbierbaum.com  If something landed, share it with someone who could benefit — and please subscribe, rate & review wherever you listen. That’s how this work spreads. Next episode The louder twin of should: moralising — how good, enforced without yielding, turns into the very harm it set out to prevent.

  6. Aug 16

    Why Does Language Matter? | Q&A #2

    For the last four episodes I’ve talked about language as a technology. How language is not just something you use, it's very essence of being human — it’s what sets us apart from other life forms and what we use to construct our reality.  And I’ve stressed that you need to see it directly, not just understand it intellectually. Seeing it is like riding the bicycle; understanding is just knowing about the bicycle. We want to ride. Naturally, this medium lends itself to the understanding part more than it does to the seeing and getting part. And the questions I’ve received confirm that.  In this episode, I turn over the subject again so you can see it from different angles. I do that through six questions — some from listeners, two from a master's class I lectured, and two are check questions from my own personal journey, ones I’ve asked before and keep asking.  We turn over word versus feeling, story versus reality, and the objection I get every single time: isn't this "listening" thing just a perceptual lens in cleverer clothes? No, it’s not, and I show you why.  Show notes: The six questions: "Language as a technology is interesting — but what's the point? Isn't the explaining and making of things the whole thing?" (from Episode 8)"Aren't feelings important as guides? How does this sit with Martha Beck, who says to follow your intuition the way you'd track a rhino?" (from Episode 9)"I keep my word to other people. But the promises I make to myself, I break constantly — and nobody knows. Why is my word to myself worth so little?" (from Episode 9)"In my case the story is the reality — my boss genuinely is undermining me, and I've got the emails. How does this apply when I'm actually right?" (from Episode 10)"How is your 'listening' any different from perception being a lens you see the world through? Isn't it the same thing, sounding clever?" (from Episode 11)"Isn't shifting my listening just letting people off the hook — excusing bad behaviour by choosing to hear it more generously?" (from Episode 11)Once again, this isn't another thing to believe. It's a technology you can use and test, and by using it you get better at dealing with what's real and what matters. 📩 Written companion on Substack, under my name.  If this is landing for you, please rate, review, subscribe and share — that's how the work spreads.

  7. Aug 2

    You’ve Never Actually Heard What Anyone Said

    Three times I badly misheard someone — a heart attack, a missing T-shirt, an honest question I took as a trap. The problem wasn't what I was listening to. It was what I was listening for.  This episode turns the language theme around: instead of what you put out, we look at what you take in — and how that affects what you put out. In other words, how the machinery of listening shapes the reality you live in, and how your listening gets revealed by the things you say.  This is not about active listening, or being aware of biases, but something deeper. It’s a look into the phenomenon of listening itself. Not hearing, but listening — the meaning you make from what you hear — and how that can block people from getting through to you, or you from getting through to them.  We often here that “it’s all about perception” and “it’s all about communication”. Well, both are all about listening. So listen up.    Show notes This is the fourth and final episode in a series on language — we had language as a technology, followed by working with your given word, then the stories we tell when we are not in line with our word. Here we turn it around to look at listening. We look at the difference between hearing and listening — not active listening, something deeper — and why you've almost never heard what someone said to you. How that impacts your reality, and what you can do to change your whole listening framework.  Topics covered include: Hearing versus listeningListening as a constructThe context that listening createsPolitical polarisation as a listening problemHow to consciously create an empowered listening contextA practical exercise to take awayChapters below. If this landed — not just made sense, but landed — subscribe, rate and review wherever you're listening, and share it with someone who'd benefit. Written companion on Substack (under my name). Ways to work with me are in the links. A written companion is on Substack under my name. If you want to take it further, there are ways to work with me in the links. If something here landed, please share it with others who might also benefit.  Subscribe, rate and review wherever you’re listening.

  8. Jul 19

    Why Your Story Doesn’t Matter

    You didn't do what you said you'd do — and you offer a reason. The Wi-Fi bombed. The traffic was mad. Your team lost; you complain about the ref’s blunder, and explain what the coach should have done at halftime. A law you dislike gets passed; you opine that the country's going to the dogs.  It all feels like it matters, like what you say will make a difference. It doesn’t. None of it. Your life continues in circles. You spend your life trapped in the same cycle, wondering why. Here’s here. None of those things — your reasons, your complaints, explanations, opinions — have any bearing on what’s real. They simply don’t matter. Yet you invest so much time and energy in them.  The promise of this show is to help you deal with what’s real and what matters. In this episode I show you exactly what that means, how your verbal actions like the ones mentioned above take you in the opposite direction, and what you can do to stop that spiral. It’s the most weight-bearing episode of them all.   Show notes The mind seeks to make meaning out of things that happen, or don’t happen. When we mistake that meaning-making for reality, we lose our ability to impact that reality. We live with a lot of noise and no forward movement. We can’t go in circles forever, so eventually we spiral downwards. We react with more explaining. With more story. This episode is about exiting the bad neighbourhood of story. Topics covered include: Why story is the opposite of presence, and why people tune out the moment you start oneThe three universal tells that you've left reality behind and entered the realm of storyWhat it costs you: the hours poured into narration, and the low hum of grievance that drags a day downWhy reality doesn't care about your opinion — and where expressing a view actually does matterThe unglamorous alternative: deal with the fact, change your language, and do this relevance checkHow to guide someone else out of story without becoming insufferable about itWhy we love story and how we defend our right to tell our storyHow this augments, rather than replaces, CBT, Stoicism and mindfulnessThis follows on from Episode 9, on drawing a line when you give your word: your story arises whenever you deviate from the line. In the next episode, we’ll flip it around: not what you say, but what you hear. A written companion is on Substack under my name. If you want to take it further, there are ways to work with me in the links. If something here landed, please share it with others who might also benefit.  Subscribe, rate and review wherever you’re listening.

See All (18)

Trailer

About

Most of what we believe was never actually chosen — we just find ourselves with it, then defend it to the death. In other words, we don't defend ideas because they're true; we defend them because they're ours. What to Believe is where former journalist turned master coach Neil Bierbaum exposes the bug in the human operating system — a bug that makes it hard for us to face the truth about ourselves, and keeps us believing and chasing things that are not real and don’t matter. He offers a method for looking at oneself and life more objectively, to find signal within the noise, and deal with what’s real and what matters.  Fans of Stoicism will find their next level here in the form of ontological coaching, the field in which Neil spent a four-year apprenticeship, and which he has spent two decades — more than 10,000 hours — practicing and teaching. It’s a method for looking at oneself and life more objectively, to find signal within the noise, and deal with what’s real and what matters.  Neil offers a solid foundation drawn from more than 20 years of coaching, 10 years before that as a journalist, and decades of contemplative practice running through both. (Neil also has an academic master’s degree, out of which he won a research award and  published a peer-reviewed paper on executive coaching methods.) His methodology integrates ontological coaching, neuroscience-backed mindfulness, and evidence-based psychology.  Three formats: solo deep dives, listener Q&A, and live coaching conversations.  New episodes Sunday mornings. Come skeptical. Stay curious.

Information

  • Creator
    Neil Bierbaum
  • Years Active
    2026
  • Episodes
    18
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Neil Bierbaum
  • Show Website
    What To Believe