Success means nothing if you can not define it for yourself. Claudia Fox, a career coach who runs job-search workshops, joins Armand DiMele to discuss how personal insight, honest feedback from others, and genuine passion all matter more than money when building a fulfilling life and career.
Why do smart people fall for scams, bubbles, and collective delusions? Armand DiMele and Dr. Bernard Starr, PhD, Psychologist, trace the psychology of gullibility from the Dutch tulip mania and the South Sea Company to the dot-com crash and Bernie Madoff, examining how situation, cognition, emotion, and social pressure leave us all vulnerable.
Every change demands a loss, and Armand DiMele makes that the central argument of this New Year’s Day reflection. Wanting more organization means surrendering some creative chaos; dropping anger means facing the sadness underneath it. He walks through anger, depression, isolation, and petty dishonesty as sites where real change begins, and closes with a set of simple, non-preachy invitations: weep freely, listen without challenging, apologize, be kinder.
Why do people willingly give up control of their own minds? Armand DiMele argues that boredom, peer pressure, and the pleasure principle all prime us to surrender our mental autonomy, whether to love, obsession, cults, or hormones. A caller shares her near-recruitment by the Moonies as a vivid case study.
A departure from the usual format: Armand DiMele steps back and simply plays music he loves, including jazz from Ray Bryant and Dizzy Gillespie. The episode opens with a spoken-word meditation on music as a universal language that soothes, uplifts, and connects all people.
Is greed a moral failing or simply the human condition? Armand DiMele and Dr. Bernard Starr, PhD, Psychologist, examine greed as a near-narcotic drive rooted in survival, comparing Wall Street excess and the Madoff scandal to universal human hunger for more health, love, and meaning.
Why do we want to be lied to? Armand DiMele uses the Bernie Madoff scandal as a jumping-off point to argue that humans are wired for deception, both giving and receiving it. Drawing on primate research and brain science, he explores the fine line between healthy trust and paranoid suspicion.
The morning after Barack Obama’s 2008 election, Armand DiMele and Dr. Bernard Starr, PhD, Psychologist, unpack the jubilation in the streets and what it means when politically disengaged people suddenly wake up. Callers share tears, renewed patriotism, and one listener’s struggle as a single-issue voter who lost.
A rigid mind is the root of most psychological suffering, from addiction to depression to PTSD. Armand DiMele argues that mental flexibility, the willingness to take in new information and break habitual patterns, is the single quality that separates a stuck life from an open one. Callers test the idea live.
Why does a more expensive pill relieve more pain? Dr. Dan Ariely, behavioral economist and author of ‘Predictably Irrational,’ joins Armand DiMele to explain how expectations shape everything from placebo responses to romantic choices, including why insecurity becomes an aphrodisiac for those driven by fear of abandonment.
