Why the Most Productive People Work Less (Not More) with Joe O'Connor | 133

Your People Deserve a Business Plan with Gratitude Expert Chester Elton | 140

Send us Fan Mail [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2302168/fan_mail/new] Chester Elton has spent 40 years teaching gratitude to executives. He's sold 1.6 million books. He's coached leaders at American Express, AT&T, the World Bank. But when his designer friend Ayse Birsel asked him "how have you designed time with your family?", his answer was three words: I don't do that. The world's leading gratitude expert wasn't doing the thing he teaches. In this conversation, Chester shares the question that rebuilt his family, the Harvard 85-year happiness study advice that changed how he schedules his life, and the story of his father, who sang at his own funeral through a cassette tape he pre-recorded before he died. We go deep on why the richest man in the world could never say "enough," why deflecting compliments is actually insulting the person giving them, why he carries gratitude stones in his pocket on every flight, and the single practice that separates a life worth living from a life that ends with an empty grave. If you've been that person who is so obsessed with what they're building that they maybe, just maybe, leave behind the people you are closest to... this one is for you. ⏱️ Chapters: 0:00 — Cold open: my father sang at his own funeral 1:22 — Where warmth actually comes from (it's not what you think) 6:41 — "I want to look successful on the outside while sacrificing everything inside" 10:23 — The three words that ruined the richest man in the world 14:00 — What Harvard's 85-year happiness study actually recommends 16:57 — The Christmas Carol test: what's on your gravestone? 19:45 — The cassette tape my father left behind 21:26 — "I think the killer's in the room" 23:51 — Marshall Goldsmith: why deflecting compliments insults people 27:45 — The question that rebuilt his family 29:32 — Why he wears orange (the Aesop fable behind the brand) 31:49 — The gratitude stone he invented (and gives to strangers) 33:05 — Barbara the flight attendant 39:23 — The platinum rule beats the golden rule 53:55 — The one thing you can do today 54:37 — Sonder: everybody's got a story 🔗 Connect with Chester: Website: https://chesterelton.com The Culture Works: https://thecultureworks.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chesterelton/ Anxiety at Work Podcast: available on Spotify and Apple Support the show [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2302168/support] ☕ Magic Mind — My daily performance shot: → https://magicmind.com/wagoner20 Use code WAGONER20 for 20% off a package or 48% off a subscription. 🧠 More from Jack: ► Website: https://jackwagoner.co ► Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jack_wagoner_/ ► 1:1 Coaching: jackcwagoner@gmail.com 📺 Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Jack_Wagoner ⸻ 🎙️ About Jack: I moved to France alone at 16, started my first business at 17, and launched this podcast because I kept meeting people who had the answers to questions I didn't even know I was asking.  My philosophy: you can set massive goals while being deeply fulfilled right now. That's the duality of gratitude and ambition. Subscribe and turn on notifications so you never miss an episode. Stay grateful, stay hungry.

TV Mentalist: The Best Hypnotist You Know Is Yourself | The Grateful Podcast Ep. 139

Send us Fan Mail [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2302168/fan_mail/new] Savio Joseph, Canada's Got Talent finalist, has built his entire career around one idea. The best hypnotist you know is already in your head. The words you say to yourself, the limits you accept before you ever try, the patterns you run without noticing. In this conversation, he walks me through how he sees that loop in other people, the auditions the world never saw before Canada's Got Talent, and what he had to unlearn to stop hypnotizing himself out of the life he wanted. At the end of the episode, he does something on camera that I still cannot explain. He explains: ◼️ Why the best hypnotist you know is already inside your head ◼️ How your memory invents details that were never there ◼️ The expectation rule that keeps his happiness off the achievement treadmill ◼️ Why every limit you have was set before you ever walked through the door ◼️ The Canada's Got Talent rejections that came before the yes ⏰ TIMESTAMPS 00:00 — What He Actually Does (Hint: It Is Not Reading Minds) 01:33 — Why Wonder Is The Real Skill, Not The Trick 08:03 — How Mentalists Actually "Read People" (Hint: It Is Prep) 13:00 — Why Your Brain Fills In Details That Never Happened 17:58 — How Magic Saved A Kid Who Did Not Fit Anywhere 30:03 — Why The Safety Net Is The Trap 34:03 — The Got Talent Rejections Nobody Knew About 36:53 — The Expectation Pattern That Destroys Your Happiness 40:47 — Live: Reading Jack's Mind With A Deck Of Cards 51:29 — Why He Started Saying No To Big Opportunities 1:06:33 — The Best Hypnotist You Know Is Already In Your Head 1:08:33 — The Words You Say To Yourself Are Rewiring You 1:16:33 — The Final Reveal Trick (Watch What Happens) 1:21:03 — Stay Grateful, Stay Hungry 🔗 GUEST LINKS Savio Joseph Website: https://www.saviojoseph.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/saviojosephtv LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/saviojoseph/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/saviojosephtv Support the show [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2302168/support] ☕ Magic Mind — My daily performance shot: → https://magicmind.com/wagoner20 Use code WAGONER20 for 20% off a package or 48% off a subscription. 🧠 More from Jack: ► Website: https://jackwagoner.co ► Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jack_wagoner_/ ► 1:1 Coaching: jackcwagoner@gmail.com 📺 Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Jack_Wagoner ⸻ 🎙️ About Jack: I moved to France alone at 16, started my first business at 17, and launched this podcast because I kept meeting people who had the answers to questions I didn't even know I was asking.  My philosophy: you can set massive goals while being deeply fulfilled right now. That's the duality of gratitude and ambition. Subscribe and turn on notifications so you never miss an episode. Stay grateful, stay hungry.

Hollywood Legend: The Real Reason Men Don't Feel with Barnet Bain | The Grateful Podcast Ep. 138

Send us Fan Mail [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2302168/fan_mail/new] Barnet Bain produced What Dreams May Come with Robin Williams.  He wrote Jesus. He directed the Eckhart Tolle film Milton's Secret.  He co-wrote The Celestine Prophecy. I asked him what was really driving forty years of making the most spiritually charged films in Hollywood. He said: "You busted me." This conversation goes places Barnet has not gone in any other interview. The fable that explains why men quietly give up on their lives. The street performer in the park who showed him the bubble he had been living inside. The question he asked his wife that stopped him cold. The "you busted me" moment where an Oscar-winning producer admits, on the record, what every one of his films was really for. If you have ever felt like you are doing everything right but something inside has gone quiet, this one is for you. ⏰ TIMESTAMPS 0:00 — Intro 0:47 — "I was the world": the awareness Barnet has carried since he was a little boy 6:40 — The shift in his forties that changed how he relates to every human alive 11:57 — "What if this is heaven?" The reframe that rewrites grief, blame, and self-pity 16:00 — How to live artfully (the three raw materials of a life) 20:36 — The street performer in the park who exposed the bubble we are all living in 24:30 — "Have I ever had an original thought?" The question he asked his wife 30:14 — Why men go numb (and why most never come back) 33:55 — Aesop's fox: the sour grapes mechanism that runs men's lives 41:30 — "You busted me": what every film he ever made was really about 47:55 — There are no shortcuts (the rose, the bulb, the thorns) 51:08 — The two masks: how to navigate the moment everything you thought you knew stops working 55:25 — Free friendship guide and the new book 🔗 GUEST LINKS Barnet Bain: Website: https://www.barnetbain.com Book: How to Be a Friend in an Unfriendly World (anywhere books are sold) Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/barnetbain/ LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/barnetbain 🎙️ Listen on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. ☕ Magic Mind, my daily performance shot: https://magicmind.com/wagoner20 Use code WAGONER20 for 20% off a package or 48% off a subscription. 💬 What is the bubble you are living inside? Drop it below. 👇 Support the show: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2302168/support 📺 Listen on your favorite platform: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-grateful-podcast-with-jack-wagoner/id1725776061 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5EsTEpQAjU4BxUrDoFyZ6b ☕ Magic Mind — My daily performance shot: → https://magicmind.com/wagoner20 Use code WAGONER20 for 20% off a package or 48% off a subscription. 🧠 More from Jack: ► Website: https://jackwagoner.co ► Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jack_wagoner_/ ► 1:1 Coaching: jackcwagoner@gmail.com 📺 Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Jack_Wagoner ⸻ 🎙️ About Jack: I moved to France alone at 16, started my first business at 17, and launched this podcast because I kept meeting people who had the answers to questions I didn't even know I was asking.  My philosophy: you can set massive goals while being deeply fulfilled right now. That's the duality of gratitude and ambition. Subscribe and turn on notifications so you never miss an episode. Stay grateful, stay hungry. Support the show [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2302168/support] ☕ Magic Mind — My daily performance shot: → https://magicmind.com/wagoner20 Use code WAGONER20 for 20% off a package or 48% off a subscription. 🧠 More from Jack: ► Website: https://jackwagoner.co ► Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jack_wagoner_/ ► 1:1 Coaching: jackcwagoner@gmail.com 📺 Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Jack_Wagoner ⸻ 🎙️ About Jack: I moved to France alone at 16, started my first business at 17, and launched this podcast because I kept meeting people who had the answers to questions I didn't even know I was asking.  My philosophy: you can set massive goals while being deeply fulfilled right now. That's the duality of gratitude and ambition. Subscribe and turn on notifications so you never miss an episode. Stay grateful, stay hungry.

Navy SEAL Commander: What's Making You Better Probably Isn't

Send us Fan Mail [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2302168/fan_mail/new] The Grateful Podcast with Jack Wagoner episode 137 What if most of what you're doing to grow yourself isn't actually growing you? Rich Diviney spent 20 years as a Navy SEAL commander. 13 deployments, 11 of them to Iraq and Afghanistan. He ran selection for one of the most elite SEAL commands in the world, deciding who was good enough to operate at the apex of human performance and who wasn't. He has written three books on optimal performance, trained leaders at Google, McKinsey, the 49ers, and McLaren, and built the SEALs' "Mind Gym" to teach operators how to train their attention as deliberately as their bodies. In this conversation, he laid out almost everything most people are doing to grow themselves that isn't actually working. The gym isn't growing you if you don't dread it. Optimism alone is inert without action paired to it. Faith and confidence are not the same thing. The narcissism that gets you to elite places gets ripped away the moment you arrive. And when you stop pushing into real discomfort, you don't plateau. You start dying. We go deep on what actually develops elite performers, why most leadership advice misses the layer beneath behavior, the neuroscience of the anterior mid-cingulate cortex, the trap of optimizing inside one domain, and why faith is belief without evidence and confidence is belief with evidence (and why both matter). If you've ever felt like you're working hard at the wrong things, this one's for you. ⏰ TIMESTAMPS 0:00 — Cold open 1:45 — 21 years a SEAL. Where did this start? 2:15 — Twin brothers, Chuck Yeager, and the dream of flying jets 4:25 — Why he chose SEAL (the narcissism nobody admits) 7:30 — What replaces the narcissism once you arrive 8:21 — "Any narcissism that gets you to BUDS gets ripped away minute one" 11:24 — Victor Frankl, the choice point, and the duality of gratitude and ambition 15:30 — The neuroscience of feeling, thought, and action 17:07 — How founders and executives use this in everyday life 19:18 — Bob Proctor, paradigms, and the 97% of thoughts you repeat 22:00 — Driving, road rage, and the expectations we put on strangers 25:00 — "Don't be that guy" (the SEAL principle that travels) 27:30 — Sonder and radical empathy 30:33 — Why Simon Sinek's optimism alone doesn't work 32:37 — Realistic optimism, faith, and confidence 35:41 — Carl Sagan: faith is belief without evidence 38:06 — Trust is generative. What does that actually mean? 40:30 — The day I betrayed my own trust on a run 42:22 — The anterior mid-cingulate cortex (and the Andrew Huberman story) 43:54 — "When you stop growing, you start dying" 45:38 — Are you actually tickling the part of your brain that grows you? 47:38 — When your morning routine is making you weaker 50:14 — Looksmaxing, gym culture, and the trap of one domain 53:36 — A Maslow's hierarchy of hard things 55:30 — One question I should have asked 🔗 GUEST LINKS Book: The Attributes - https://www.amazon.com/Attributes-Hidden-Drivers-Optimal-Performance/dp/0593133943 Website: https://theattributes.com Instagram: @rich_diviney LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/richdiviney Support the show [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2302168/support] ☕ Magic Mind — My daily performance shot: → https://magicmind.com/wagoner20 Use code WAGONER20 for 20% off a package or 48% off a subscription. 🧠 More from Jack: ► Website: https://jackwagoner.co ► Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jack_wagoner_/ ► 1:1 Coaching: jackcwagoner@gmail.com 📺 Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Jack_Wagoner ⸻ 🎙️ About Jack: I moved to France alone at 16, started my first business at 17, and launched this podcast because I kept meeting people who had the answers to questions I didn't even know I was asking.  My philosophy: you can set massive goals while being deeply fulfilled right now. That's the duality of gratitude and ambition. Subscribe and turn on notifications so you never miss an episode. Stay grateful, stay hungry.

The Art of Asking Great Questions...(solo episode) | The Grateful Podcast Ep. 136

Send us Fan Mail [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2302168/fan_mail/new] The Grateful Podcast with Jack Wagoner Most people think the person asking questions is the dumbest in the room. In this solo episode, Jack breaks down why the opposite is true, how he developed the skill of asking great questions through 130+ podcast episodes, and why curiosity might be the most underrated skill in business, relationships, and life. We go deep on why curiosity peaks at age 4 and declines from there, the moment Jack stopped reading questions off a script and started asking from instinct, what happened when he hired people based on their ability to ask rather than their ability to perform, and why human connection is dying in a world that has every answer at its fingertips. If you've ever sat in a room full of people and been afraid to raise your hand, this one's for you. Chapters: 0:00 — "Fools and Fanatics Are Always So Certain of Themselves" 1:41 — Someone Asked Me How I Ask Good Questions 3:28 — The Kid Whose Hand Shot Up Every Time 6:03 — Three Meetings in NYC Changed How I See This 6:45 — How I Went From Reading Questions to Asking From Instinct 9:59 — How You Can Get Better at This (Without a Podcast) 12:22 — Why Every Great Founder Starts With a Question 13:33 — Your Thoughts Are Questions (Tony Robbins, Bob Proctor) 16:49 — Why This Matters More Than Ever Right Now 17:11 — What I Looked For When I Hired Two People This Week 18:37 — Human Connection, AI, and Why Nobody's Coming to Save Us 21:15 — Go Ask Someone a Question Today Support the show [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2302168/support] ☕ Magic Mind — My daily performance shot: → https://magicmind.com/wagoner20 Use code WAGONER20 for 20% off a package or 48% off a subscription. 🧠 More from Jack: ► Website: https://jackwagoner.co ► Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jack_wagoner_/ ► 1:1 Coaching: jackcwagoner@gmail.com 📺 Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Jack_Wagoner ⸻ 🎙️ About Jack: I moved to France alone at 16, started my first business at 17, and launched this podcast because I kept meeting people who had the answers to questions I didn't even know I was asking.  My philosophy: you can set massive goals while being deeply fulfilled right now. That's the duality of gratitude and ambition. Subscribe and turn on notifications so you never miss an episode. Stay grateful, stay hungry.