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Every episode
Know Thyself
30 episodes
E207 - Jim George: Stillness Expert: “How To Not Miss Your Life”
Ep 207 · Aug 11, 2026 · 2 hr 11 min
Jim George is a stillness coach, former animator, and one of the first guests ever to appear on this podcast. He has spent nearly 50 years developing what he calls practical spirituality, a way of working with the mind that requires no doctrine, no dogma, and no special belief system. What it does require is the willingness to get quiet enough to see what is actually there. In this conversation, we return to the most essential territory: the cost of mental noise, the nature of the ego, and what…
E206 - Jahnavi Harrison: Living a Life of Devotion & Embracing Your Voice
Ep 206 · Aug 4, 2026 · 1 hr 54 min
Jahnavi Harrison is a Grammy-nominated artist, musician, and practitioner of Bhakti Yoga who has spent her life exploring sound as a path to the divine. Raised at Bhaktivedanta Manor in England, she grew up inside one of the world's most dedicated devotional communities, and in this conversation we trace how that formation shaped her relationship with voice, identity, approval, and what it means to offer your life as a prayer. What We Dive Into: 1. Most of us were told at some point to be quiet,…
E205 - Anil Seth: Your Perception of Reality & Self Is a Hallucination
Ep 205 · Jul 28, 2026 · 2 hr 12 min
Anil Seth is a professor of cognitive and computational neuroscience at the University of Sussex and one of the world's leading researchers on consciousness. His central claim is both unsettling and liberating: we do not passively receive reality, we actively generate it. The world that appears when you open your eyes is not a transparent window onto what is actually out there. It is the brain's best guess, a controlled hallucination, built from the inside out. What We Dive Into: 1. Your brain i…
E204 – Dr. William Li: The Body's 5 Health Defense Systems, Cancer, Microplastics & Healing From the Inside Out
Ep 204 · Jul 21, 2026 · 2 hr 3 min
Dr. William Li is a Harvard-trained physician, co-founder of the Angiogenesis Foundation, and New York Times bestselling author whose work centers on one quietly radical premise: the power to stay healthy lives inside you. In this conversation, we explore the five hardwired defense systems the body runs continuously, angiogenesis, stem cells, the gut microbiome, immunity, and DNA protection, and what it looks like to actually support them through food, sleep, and daily choices. What We Dive Into…
E203 - Dr. Justin Sledge: The Occult, Witch Trials & the Forbidden Teachings of Gnosticism
Ep 203 · Jul 14, 2026 · 3 hr 23 min
Dr. Justin Sledge is a scholar of philosophy and Western esotericism, and the voice behind the YouTube channel Esoterica, which has grown to over a million subscribers. He has spent his career studying the traditions that history tried to erase: Gnosticism, Kabbalah, Hermeticism, witchcraft, and alchemy. What We Dive Into: 1. Classical skepticism is not about debunking or disbelief. It is about bracketing your personal investment long enough to let the material speak for itself. 2. Newton wrote…
E202 - Donald Robertson: 2,400-Year-Old Stoic Wisdom To Conquer Your Ego & Live a Virtuous Life
Ep 202 · Jul 7, 2026 · 4 hr 22 min
Donald Robertson is a cognitive behavioral psychotherapist, author of over nine books, and one of the founding voices in the modern Stoicism movement. He has spent over 30 years studying how ancient Greek and Roman philosophy intersects with contemporary psychology, and in this conversation we start where it all begins: the maxim carved into the temple of Apollo at Delphi. Know thyself. We explore what it actually meant, who said it, and why it still matters more than most self-help advice writt…
E201 - Dandapani: A Monk's Warning "Distraction Is Costing You Your Life"
Ep 201 · Jun 30, 2026 · 2 hr 24 min
Dandapani is a Hindu priest who spent over ten years as a celibate monk before devoting his life to teaching the world how to master focus. His central claim is simple but unsettling: most of us are not distracted by accident, we have spent years actively practicing distraction, often more hours a day than most people practice anything else they care about. In this conversation, we unpack what it actually costs to live a physically present, mentally absent life, and why that cost compounds with…
E200 - Ido Portal: The Body Knows What the Mind Can't
Ep 200 · Jun 23, 2026 · 3 hr 6 min
Ido Portal is one of the most original movement thinkers alive. He has spent decades studying the body across martial arts, acrobatics, yoga, dance, and ancient movement traditions, not to master any one of them, but to ask a deeper question: what does it actually mean to move well, and what does the body reveal when you finally start listening to it? In this conversation, we go long, covering ground that most movement conversations never reach. What We Dive Into: 1.Most of us treat the body lik…
E199 - Dr. Caroline Leaf: How to Stop Your Brain From Holding You Back
Ep 199 · Jun 16, 2026 · 1 hr 30 min
Dr. Caroline Leaf is a cognitive neuroscientist and bestselling author who has spent over 40 years studying the relationship between the mind and the brain. At a time when neuroplasticity was still emerging as a field, she was already building clinical tools to help patients recover from brain injuries, trauma, and conditions that conventional medicine had written off as permanent. In this conversation, we go deep into a distinction that changes everything: the mind is not the brain, and once yo…
E198 - Dr. Todd Rose: Why Your Desires Aren't Actually Yours (Here's Who Planted Them)
Ep 198 · Jun 9, 2026 · 1 hr 57 min
Join our online community ↓ https://www.knowthyselfcollective.com Todd Rose is a Harvard-trained social scientist, former high school dropout with a 0.9 GPA, and co-founder of the think tank Populace. His research centers on the gap between what people privately believe and what they publicly say, and the profound consequences of that gap for individuals and for society. This is one of those conversations that reframes something you thought you understood and doesn't let you go back. What We Div…
E197 - 9 Great Thinkers on the Inner Work That Frees You
Ep 197 · Jun 2, 2026 · 1 hr 22 min
Join our online community ↓ https://www.knowthyselfcollective.com This is a compilation episode, and it draws from some of the most honest and clarifying moments across recent conversations on the show. Nine different voices, each approaching the same territory from a different angle: what it means to stop being ruled by the outside world, to understand the patterns we inherited, and to come back to something more real inside ourselves. What We Dive Into: Thoughts arise whether you choose them…
E196 - Dr. Vasant Lad: The Doctor From India: The Forgotten 5,000-Year-Old Science of the Human Body (Ayurveda
Ep 196 · May 26, 2026 · 1 hr 31 min
Dr. Vasant Lad is the founder of the Ayurvedic Institute and the man most responsible for bringing Ayurveda to the West. He has spent over 40 years teaching this 5,000-year-old science of life to practitioners across the world, and in this conversation, we sat down together at SoHum Mountain Healing Center in Asheville, North Carolina, where I had just completed a week-long Panchakarma. What unfolded was one of the most quietly profound conversations I have had on this show. What We Dive Into: …
E195 - Dr. Mei Rui: The Science of Sound & Music as Medicine
Ep 195 · May 19, 2026 · 1 hr 35 min
Dr. Mei Rui is a Yale-trained molecular biophysicist, concert pianist, and clinical researcher at MD Anderson Cancer Center, where she runs trials on the measurable effects of music on the human body. In this conversation, we explore what actually happens in the brain the moment music enters it, why the auditory system is the first sense to develop in the womb and the last to go when we die, and how something as accessible as a curated playlist can outperform FDA-approved pharmaceuticals in redu…
E194 - Arthur Brooks: How To Find The Meaning of Your Life
Ep 194 · May 12, 2026 · 1 hr 59 min
Arthur Brooks is a Harvard professor, social scientist, and three-time New York Times bestselling author whose life's work centers on a single, urgent question: what actually makes a human life feel meaningful? In this conversation, we explore why depression and anxiety have surged since 2008, how technology has hijacked the part of the brain responsible for wonder and meaning, and what it looks like to live, as Arthur puts it, like his great-grandfather Leroy, present, bored at times, and genui…
E193 - Dr. Paul Conti: A Psychiatrist's Guide to Understanding Your Mind
Ep 193 · May 5, 2026 · 1 hr 45 min
Dr. Paul Conti is a psychiatrist, trauma specialist, and author whose work centers on one deceptively simple idea: that understanding yourself is the most powerful thing you can do for your mental health. In this conversation, we explore how the unconscious mind quietly sets the boundaries for how we think, feel, and move through life, and how much of what we assume is just "who we are" was actually formed long before we had the words for it. What struck me most in this conversation is Paul's in…
E192 - Emily McDonald: The Neuroscience of Transforming Yourself
Ep 192 · Apr 28, 2026 · 1 hr 48 min
Emily McDonald holds two degrees in neuroscience and has become one of the fastest-growing science communicators on social media. In this conversation, we explore how the brain constructs reality from the inside out — not as a passive receiver of the world, but as a constant prediction machine shaped by memory, belief, emotion, and past experience. From color vision to the kitten experiment, Emily brings the science to life in a way that makes you ask: where am I the kitten in my own life? What…
E191 - Roman Yampolskiy: The Man Who Proved We Can't Control AI (And What That Means for Humanity)
Ep 191 · Apr 21, 2026 · 1 hr 49 min
Dr. Roman Yampolskiy joins me to explore one of the most urgent and uncomfortable questions of our time: what happens when we create intelligence that surpasses our own? We unpack the difference between the AI tools we use today and the emergence of artificial general intelligence, and why the transition from narrow systems to self-improving intelligence may mark a point where human control is no longer possible. Roman shares why even the people building these systems do not fully understand how…
E190 - Joe Hudson: Why The Emotions You Avoid Are Running Your Life (How To Break Free)
Ep 190 · Apr 14, 2026 · 2 hr 4 min
Joe Hudson returns to explore a deeper layer of the inner work, and why peace alone is not the full picture of being human. We unpack the distinction between awakening in the mind and awakening in the heart, and how many people use meditation and awareness as a way to find calm, while still avoiding the emotional depth that brings real connection, intimacy, and joy. Joe shares how positive emotions can actually feel more threatening than negative ones, and why the capacity to feel love is direct…
E189 - Wim Hof: Why Your Body Was Built to Heal Itself (And What Stopped It)
Ep 189 · Apr 7, 2026 · 1 hr 39 min
Wim Hof joins me to explore the deeper story behind his work, from profound personal loss to discovering a direct path back into the body through breath and cold exposure. We unpack how modern life pulls us out of feeling and into constant mental noise, and how reconnecting with the breath can bring us back into a state of presence, strength, and clarity. Wim shares how a single moment stepping into freezing water at 17 opened something fundamental within him, quieting the mind and reconnecting…
E188 - Emad Mostaque: AI Expert: “We Have 800 Days Left”
Ep 188 · Mar 31, 2026 · 2 hr 27 min
Emad Mostaque joins me to explore one of the most confronting questions of our time: what happens when human intelligence is no longer economically valuable? We unpack how rapidly advancing AI is moving toward a world where cognitive labor becomes obsolete, and why this shift may happen much sooner than most people expect. Emad shares how we’ve already built systems that can replicate human thinking, decision-making, and creativity, and how the next phase is not about new breakthroughs but simpl…
E187 - Shi Heng Yi: Shaolin Master’s Guide to Self-Mastery & Inner Stability
Ep 187 · Mar 24, 2026 · 2 hr 18 min
Shi Heng Yi joins me to explore the path of self-mastery through the lens of the Shaolin tradition, and why, despite having more comfort and convenience than ever before, so many people still feel a deep sense of inner lack. We unpack the idea that external success, wealth, and achievement cannot replace a missing sense of inner stability, and how the constant search outside of ourselves often leads us further away from what we are truly looking for. In this conversation, we explore the relation…
E186 - Nicole LePera: What Your Childhood Home Did to Your Nervous System
Ep 186 · Mar 17, 2026 · 1 hr 55 min
Dr. Nicole LePera joins me to explore how our childhood experiences shape the nervous system, emotional patterns, and identities we carry into adulthood. We unpack how many of the reactions, habits, and relationship dynamics that feel automatic today were once adaptations we developed to maintain connection and safety early in life. Nicole explains how emotional attunement in childhood forms the internal “home base” we return to, often recreating familiar patterns even when they no longer serve…
E185 - Henry Shukman: A Zen Master With 40 Years of Practice on Who You Really Are
Ep 185 · Mar 10, 2026 · 2 hr 6 min
Zen teacher and author Henry Shukman offers a clear and grounded introduction to the heart of Zen practice. We explore how awakening is not an escape from life, but a deeper participation in it — a realization that dissolves the illusion of separation and reveals a boundless field of awareness and love. Henry shares his own spontaneous awakening experience at 19, the profound insight that life is not divided between self and world, and the difficult healing journey that followed. From mindfulnes…
E184 - Dr. Sue Morter: What Actually Causes Energetic Blocks (And How to Release Them)
Ep 184 · Mar 3, 2026 · 2 hr 31 min
Dr. Sue Morter returns to explore what it truly means to awaken — not as a concept, but as a lived, embodied experience. Beneath our protective personality and performance-driven identity lies a deeper intelligence — an electromagnetic master system that governs healing, perception, and consciousness itself. In this conversation, we explore how nervous system regulation opens the doorway to higher awareness, why triggers are invitations to reclaim lost parts of ourselves, and how building energe…
E183 - Nir Eyal: How Your Beliefs Shape What You See (And Hold You Back)
Ep 183 · Feb 24, 2026 · 1 hr 40 min
Nir Eyal joins the podcast to explore one of the most foundational forces shaping our lives: belief. What if the way you see reality isn’t reality itself, but a simulation filtered through prior assumptions, expectations, and unconscious scripts? In this conversation, we unpack the difference between fact, faith, and belief—and why most of our suffering stems from confusing the three. Nir shares powerful research on predictive processing, placebo and nocebo effects, learned helplessness, and how…
E182 - Swami Sarvapriyananda: The Advaita Vedanta Explanation of Reality, the Self & Suffering
Ep 182 · Feb 17, 2026 · 2 hr 53 min
Swami Sarvapriyananda unpacks the philosophy of Advaita Vedanta and its central claim: you are not the body, not the mind, not even your thoughts — you are pure consciousness itself. Through rigorous reasoning rather than blind belief, he guides us step by step into a direct inquiry of who we truly are. We explore the limits of faith-based religion, the pitfalls of mystical experience, the distinction between intelligence and consciousness in the age of AI, and the profound implications of non-d…
E181 - Joscha Bach: A Cognitive Scientist’s Guide to Consciousness & The Illusion of Reality
Ep 181 · Feb 3, 2026 · 1 hr 27 min
Joscha Bach explores the nature of consciousness, free will, and reality through the lens of computation, cognitive science, and philosophy. Rather than treating the mind as a mystical entity, Joscha frames consciousness as a constructed dream—a model generated by the brain to make sense of the world and coordinate behavior. We examine why beliefs should remain provisional, how the self functions as a useful fiction, and why suffering emerges when internal learning signals misfire. Joscha explai…
E180 - David Ghiyam: The Universal Laws of Creating Prosperity & Wholeness in Life
Ep 180 · Jan 27, 2026 · 1 hr 35 min
In this conversation, David Ghiyam shares the spiritual framework that has guided his life for over 25 years—one rooted in the idea that reality operates according to universal spiritual laws, just as it does physical ones. Drawing from Kabbalistic wisdom and lived experience, David explains how the soul’s purpose is not comfort, but transformation, and how life’s challenges are designed to reconnect us with a deeper source of fulfillment. We explore the concept of the “light of the Creator,” th…
E179 - Reggie Watts: The Absurdity of Being a Human Being
Ep 179 · Jan 20, 2026 · 1 hr 33 min
In this conversation, Reggie Watts explores creativity not as a skill reserved for a few, but as the fundamental way human beings relate to reality itself. From comedy and music to improvisation, paradox, and play, Reggie reflects on how we’re constantly creating our experience of life—often without realizing it. We talk about absurdity as a doorway to truth, humor as a form of instantaneous awakening, and why laughter momentarily dissolves identity, ideology, and certainty. Reggie shares how im…
E178 - Jesse Michels: What UFO Sightings Reveal About Power, Technology, and the Unknown
Ep 178 · Jan 13, 2026 · 2 hr 59 min
In this conversation, Jesse Michels joins me to explore a question that’s becoming harder to dismiss: what if the phenomenon we call UFOs points to something real—and we don’t yet know what it is? Rather than arguing for belief or disbelief, this episode is an invitation to curiosity, careful inquiry, and intellectual honesty about the limits of our current understanding. We examine historical UFO encounters near nuclear sites, government secrecy, and the growing body of anomalies that don’t sit…
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