Not Overthinking

In this episode, we catch up (and firmly put all the book highlight reading behind us). Merry Christmas! Enjoy xx

In this episode, we carry on our discussion of the book 'Why Love Hurts' once more. Enjoy xx

In this episode, we continue our discussion of the book “Why Love Hurts” by Eva Illouz. Enjoy xx

In this episode, we discuss a few highlights from “Why Love Hurts” - a book which argues that our relationships go wrong due to 'institutional forces', rather than our dysfunctional childhoods or our insufficiently self-aware psyches (which is the more commonly accepted modern belief).

In this episode, we discuss pysops: are things like 'eight hours of sleep a night' really necessary, or are we just unfoundedly made to believe them? Enjoy xx

In this episode, we catch up on the past 6 weeks of our lives, discuss some calendar hacks and then break down our thoughts on the FTX crypto drama that’s been rampant on Twitter these past few days. Enjoy xx

In this episode, we discuss what we've been up to since the last episode, and we also continue discussing the book we've been reading. Enjoy xx

In this episode, after a bit of rambling about our lives, we discuss Carl Trueman's book "The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self". Enjoy xx

In this episode, we discuss the spiritual journey that we're both dabbling with. Enjoy xx.

In this episode, we ramble a bit about what’s going on in our lives, Ali’s recent discovery of Alan Watts, and the idea around whether or not we should give a ‘platform’ to potentially-controversial guests on our podcast. Enjoy xx

In this episode, we discuss Taimur’s biggest life update in a long time. We explore the feelings behind being engaged vs being married, try to work out whether an expensive wedding is worth it, and a few other bits. Enjoy!

In this episode, we discuss the idea of ‘enough’ and where our drive for ‘numbers go up’ comes from. Enjoy xx

In this shorter episode, we discuss some general life updates, the issue of faffery and how it relates to procrastination, and some stuff around hiring people for our respective businesses. Enjoy xx

In this episode, we discuss a book Taimur’s recently read called The Case Against the Sexual Revolution by Louise Perry. Please note that the content in this episode may be upsetting to some viewers or listeners, so please heed the trigger warning at the start of the episode.

In this episode, we take a look back over the past 3 years of doing this podcast, and how our lives have changed since that fateful day in March 2019 when we decided to start recording “Not Overthinking”. Enjoy!

In this episode, we discuss Ali's theoretically life-changing conversation with Will MacAskill, a professor of moral philosophy, about how to orient his career for impact rather than personal gain. Taimur is skeptical.

In this first episode of the new season of the podcast, we discuss the extent to which we should / want to be open about our personal lives on the podcast. Taimur takes an unusual stance towards privacy, which Ali attempts to break down. Enjoy xx

In this episode, Taimur presents his new theory of Mind Viruses. We discuss the aetiology, pathophysiology and implications thereof. Enjoy xx

In this episode, we discuss our friend Paul Millerd’s new book The Pathless Path, which is all about reimagining our relationship with Work and Careers. Enjoy xx

In this episode, we discuss the discourse around pills - Blue Pills, Red Pills, Black and White Pills - and share some of the ‘pills’ that we’ve taken in our own life that have led to paradigm shifts in our perspectives. Enjoy xx

In this episode, we discuss Taimur's new relationship! If you've got any questions about it, please do leave a comment down below and we'll maybe discuss them on a future episode. Enjoy xx

In this episode, we do our usual life update (Taim’s just been to Turkey, Ali’s had Laser Eye Surgery), followed by a discussion of ego, which somehow segues into a conversation about mind chatter, and aspects of spirituality. Enjoy xx

In this episode, we discuss the various ways in which both our lives seem to be going swimmingly at this point, and then meander around various business-type things around hiring, organisational design, culture and a few other bits. Enjoy xx

In this episode we go over our histories with crypto, how we understand it, plans for the future and a short overview of NFTs.

In this episode we discuss angel investing and going back to school. Taimur analyzes my life choices and offers some insight on my future plans. Enjoy!

In this episode, Taimur shares his continuing woes about his calendar. We discuss the zen, peaceful nature of Benjamin Franklin’s calendar, and Ali attempts to coach Taimur through finding more peace in his life. Enjoy!

In this episode, we discuss the philosophy of “cringe”, and opine about the shrinking of the “cringe” overton window, especially amongst the youth of today. Enjoy!

We get back from a low optionality trip to Croatia and talk about how it went. This leads us to talk about why we’re doing what we’re doing with our lives.

In this episode, we discuss Ali’s new move to the big city of London, and Taimur shares some thoughts on how to setup the optimum social life. We also end up talking about the power of calendars and Ali’s recent journey of self-acceptance and self-discovery. Enjoy!

For the first time in the history of the podcast we have a six people on this episode - a new record for Not Overthinking. Given that we're on a group holiday in the Cotswolds, we discuss the purpose of group holidays, why they're different to socialising in everyday life as well as whether we should be doing work in these settings and how this might affect the experience of others in the group. Enjoy :)

After discussing why we've become consistently inconsistent in publishing episodes (sorry, not sorry), we spend the rest of this episode discussing the Enneagram - a model of the human psyche made up of nine interconnected personality types. Ali is fairly certain of his own type and so we move onto to trying to figure out which type best describes Taimur and ask how much can we really trust these types of test. Enjoy

We're back into our weekly schedule and in this episode, after diving into why Taimur has signed up to do a triathlon and why Ali suddenly wants a dog, we discuss thoughts on autonomy sparked by an interesting article by Simon Sarris which describes why agency is the most precious resource. Enjoy :)

In this episode of the podcast, after Ali explains the revelations he’s had about his business, we take a trip down memory lane. Following a family trip to the area where we grew up, we reflect on our emotional experience of revisiting the sites of our early childhood as well as the memories we have of that time. From lying on the floor to kiss chase to running away from home, we each seem to have certain moments that stand out from those early years. We talk about why certain experiences seem to lodge themselves firmly in our memory and the different factors that could affect which memories we keep and those we forget. We’ll try to get back into the groove of publishing every week moving forward. Enjoy.

After a short sabbatical from recording, we’re back once again. In this episode, we catch up with what’s been going on in our lives over the past few weeks before discussing why certain tweets end up becoming more contentious than intended and how identities can be revealed through how people respond to certain tweets. We also debate some of Taimur's recent book suggestions which Ali has found to be surprisingly good.

After a few weeks away, we’re back with another episode that dives into Ali’s dating life and explores more theories and ideas around children and parenting. We first discuss the etiquettes and expectations of texting on dating apps and what’s considered a ‘normal’ amount of interaction before asking someone out for a coffee or a meal. We then shift gears and move onto exploring Taimur’s theories around intrinsic and extrinsic motivation as well as the ideas from Unconditional Parenting – a book by Alfie Kohn that Taimur has been reading over the past couple of weeks. It’s another wide-ranging episode but we hope you enjoy listening. Don’t forget to leave us a review if you like the podcast :)

This week we’re joined by returning guest to the podcast, Lucia, to talk about her charity work. We discuss her reasons for starting her charity, LEEP, her experiences since it was formed and the impact that it’s had. We talk about what motivates us to pursue different causes and where we can have the most impact and then finally, at the end of the podcast, Taimur takes a very important pledge. Enjoy :)

After a couple of weeks away, we’re back with updates on what we’ve been up to since our last recorded episode. From Taimur’s live rendition of Brown Eyed Girl to Ali’s discovery of WeWork to a conversation on the value of business coaches, we cover a lot of ground in this typically wide-ranging episode. Enjoy :)

This week we’ve got another in-betweenisode because our diaries didn’t match up for us to record a podcast so we’re releasing an interview that Ali recently did with journalist, author and podcaster Anna Codrea-Rado. Anna worked for VICE and the Guardian before going freelance 4 years ago and her articles now appear in the New York Times, the Guardian, BBC, Wired, the Atlantic, Vice, and loads of others. She’s just released her first book entitled “You’re the Business: How to build a successful career when you strike out alone” which focusses on working for yourself and offers insights she’s learnt since she went freelance in 2017. Ali spoke with her about the world of work, careers, the challenges she faced going alone and how she hopes the book can help those who want to follow a similar path. It’s a really interesting discussion because Ali and Anna both made similar decisions in terms of starting their own businesses but obviously in very different sectors so I hope you find this interesting. We’ll be back with a full episode next week.

In this short episode, we continue our recent discussions around how kids are treated in society. We talk about a recent post by Duncan Sabien which raises four main points about how we treat, or should treat, children and talk about how it relates to our own experience as kids. After a brief update about Ali’s latest gaming troubles, we bring the episode to an early end. We’ll be back with a longer episode next week.

After a week away, we’re back with a typically wide-ranging episode. Our discussion ranges from toxic productivity to mindsets around competition and competitiveness to how we should frame the abstract nature of work that we ‘have’ to do. Ali’s also looking for a name for his new stationary brand so if you have any suggestions then please send them in. Thank you for listening and please leave us a review if you can. Enjoy.

Hey everyone - another bit of an 'in-between'-isode this week. In this episode, Ali talks to Brandon Sanderson - his favourite author of all time. Brandon is a best-selling author who has written books that have sold millions of copies including the incredible fantasy books, Mistborn and The Stormlight Archive. He also wrote the final 3 books of The Wheel of Time series. Brandon's output is legendary - he writes books almost faster than we can read them, and he teaches creative writing at Brigham Young University. In this wide-ranging discussion, they not only discuss writing but also talk about finding your passion, creating enjoyment, business decisions and why Brandon wanted to work night shifts at a hotel when he was first starting out on his writing journey. Enjoy.

In this episode, we look back over the past two years of recording this podcast. We discuss why we think it’s lasted so long, reflect on how the podcast has changed over the two years since we began recording in March 2019 and finally consider whether we should think more about our target audience and we try to break down why people listen to podcasts.

In this episode, we're joined by Joey Savoie, co-founder of Charity Entrepreneurship. Joey's an expert at 'spreadsheetising' all aspects of his life, including health, relationships and careers to have the biggest impact on the world. Our wide-ranging conversation discusses the extent to which we can (or should) quantify our lives, and Ali gets a lot of dating advice as well. Enjoy

In this episode, we begin by talking about Ali’s theory for what makes for a good blog post or YouTube video before a tweet from none other than Agnes Callard about introverts sends us down a path debating introversion, extroversion and signalling.

In this episode, we talk about earnestness and sincerity when posting on social media. We discuss Ali’s decision to start writing online, why it feels different posting a blog post as opposed to publishing a YouTube video and how we each want to come across on Twitter. We also delve a little into Ali’s dating life and how we each deal with people reaching out to us.

Hey everyone - a bit of an 'in-between'-isode this week. In this episode, Ali talks to Justin Kan a renowned internet entrepreneur, investor and founder and the co-founder of Twitch, the video game streaming platform. He's also helped found a number of other platforms including Socialcam, a mobile app for sharing video and is an active angel investor and mentor for many startups. They chat through a whole variety of things in this wide ranging discussion, we hope you enjoy it. We'll both be back next week :)

In this episode, we break down our feelings over the outpouring of nice comments that viewers kindly left on YouTube on our last episode. We touch on the difference between pity, sympathy and ‘feeling sorry’ for someone. Taimur feels strongly about this, Ali less so. We explore these feelings.

In this episode, we explore some emotional rollercoasters we've both been on - Ali with regards to his book and reading mean comments online, and Taimur with regards to his startup and their narrative journey.

In this episode, we discuss The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt, which explores questions of morality. We take a look at the three principles about morality that form the basis of the book and why people have different understandings of right and wrong. We also briefly talk about Ali’s concerns and struggles with his YouTube channel.

This week we talk about the phenomenon of 'social media grifting' - trying to build an audience online through deliberate tactics. Most people think it's cringe, but we try to figure out whether it's objectionable. We also workshop Ali's book proposal.

In this episode, we talk about epistemic humility - acknowledging the limitations of our beliefs. Taimur has recently made an effort to be *less* "epistemically humble" when he talks about things, and we into why.

In this episode, we discuss Michael J Samuel's book the Tyranny of Merit, which talks about the problems with the ideals of Meritocracy. We take a look at the history of the Rhetoric of Rising, and end with a discussion about why praising people for their achievements feels problematic. Do we really respect people more because of their credentials?

In this episode, we're joined by Neel Nanda to discuss life optimisations, career choices, how to live in alignment with your own values and how to treat your relationships more intentionally. We discuss some of the principles behind how we can do the most good with our lives, while also being fulfilled and enjoying the journey.

In this episode, we’re joined by our friend Sheen to discuss some complaints that a few listeners have raised over the years about this podcast having misogynistic undertones. We discuss some complaints about last week’s episode, and discuss the extent to which generalisation about groups (eg: women) is accurate and / or useful.

In this episode, we discuss the highlights of the podcast from 2020, Ali shares some of the advice he's received about how to be better with women, and we try and figure out how to create a members community for listeners of the podcast.

In this episode, we answer some reflective end-of-year review questions. We introspect about new ways we've had fun in 2020, new ways we've suffered in 2020, and what lessons we'd teach to others. Enjoy!

In this episode, we discuss some thought-provoking questions designed to help us (and you) figure out what we want from life. This turns into a commitment we make to one another to consciously work towards our ‘rock star’ goals.

In this episode, Ali shares a disappointing moment from his week when System 1 thinking took hold of him. We then discuss Alan Watts' famous framing of life as a game with two modes of operation - serious vs sincere. Taimur shares some lessons from his therapy sessions, and we end with an elaborate description of a problematic meme. Enjoy!

In this episode, Taimur talks about the existential crisis that he's going through. We try and figure out what our real goals and motivations are for the things that we're doing.

In this episode, Ali moans about how he always comes across poorly in podcasts while Taimur always comes across well, and how this doesn't accurately represent how we are in real life.

John O'Nolan is the developer, founder and CEO at Ghost which he has grown to a $2.7m/year business. He has become a digital nomad in recent years and has been working remotely whilst travelling the world for well over a decade. John shares the lessons he’s learnt over the past decade, from setting up Ghost to successfully living the nomad life to why we should optimise for happiness rather than revenue.

This is an 'inbetweenasode' and features an interview Ali did with Austin Kleon as part of his Deep Dive series last month.

In this episode, we discuss Taimur and Mack's setup of coliving in the Caribbean while Ali's stuck in rainy England. We then wonder aloud at length about whether Ali is a bad person for posting his revenue numbers on social media.

This is the second part of our discussion of Morgan Housel’s book The Psychology of Money. We continue to explore some of the key points, like the role that luck plays in success, why poor people buy lottery tickets, and the differences between getting wealthy and staying wealthy.

In this episode, we discuss Morgan Housel’s book The Psychology of Money. We explore some of the key points, like the role that luck plays in success, why poor people buy lottery tickets, and the differences between getting wealthy and staying wealthy.

This week we read and discuss Brian Timar’s excellent blog post entitled “Mimetic Traps”. We try and figure out when competitiveness is unproblematic and how we can avoid inheriting desires from other people.

In this episode, we start by discussing an insight Ali had about the nature of dissatisfaction and setting overly high standards for ourselves. We then turn to the start of a book discussion, where Taimur explains some of the theories he’s been reading around our values, how they change and how ‘rational’ our decision-making really is.

In this episode, we discuss some of the concepts behind effective altruism with our friend Lucia. We touch on her motivations for setting up a public health charity, the Giving What We Can Pledge, and a few other curiosities.

In this episode, we discuss some of Ali’s Kindle highlights from Tim Ferriss’ magnum opus, ‘The 4-Hour Work Week’, the single book that’s most changed Ali’s life. We break down some of the main points from the book, which turns into a lengthy discussion about excitement, challenge and adventure.

As we were away this week, this episode is an interview that Ali recorded with Noah Kagan as part of his Deep Dive series on YouTube.

In this episode, we sit down and have a chat about random topics on our mind. We touch on kids (as usual), and then we talk about our experiences of imposter syndrome and a few other bits.

In this episode, we talk some more about how we can treat children better. Specifically — what it means to "take children seriously", why we should take children more seriously, and how we can take children more seriously. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In this episode, we review Ali's unemployment, talk about how to talk about workism, and Taimur finally elucidates some concrete ideas about how society treats children immorally, and how we treat children better. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

We're joined this week by Paul Millerd, who's spent a lot of time thinking, reading, and writing about 'work'. We talk about the current culture of 'work-ism', the history of work and how we ended up here, the assumptions that our culture makes about work, and how to reimagine our relationship with 'work' to live happier lives. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In this episode we chat to Valentin Perez and Cliff Weitzman about friendships, relationships, and the our ideas of the good life. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In this episode, we discuss one of Taimur's new fledgling theories about the nefarious parasocial relationships that exist between 'productivity' content creators and their audience. We try and figure out other areas in which this applies, and explore why Ali felt the need to unfollow the various instagram models he'd been previously enamoured with. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This is the third and final part of our "68 Bits of Unsolicited Advice" series, where we go through an excellent blog post by Kevin Kelly, offering his life advice after turning 68. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In this episode, we discuss Nabeel Qureshi's recent blog post "How to Understand Things". We go through the post's main points, and talk about our own experiences of learning and understanding things, from school to university to today. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This episode is mostly a discussion of Robin Hanson's "The Elephant in the Brain", a book about the 'hidden motives in everyday lives'. We also go on a long tangent about envy, and our personal experience of it over the years. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In this episode, we explore we often fail to convince our friends to start having an online presence, and what a better approach might be. Possibly applicable to general "convincing" tasks as well. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In this episode, we continue our exploration of Kevin Kelly’s 68 Bits of Unsolicited Advice. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In this episode we discuss some of the responses we received to last week's episode ("Racism, Black Lives Matter, and Figuring Stuff Out"), from hate mail to not-hate mail. Ali also unveils his life plan for the next few years, and Taimur goes on a bit of a rant about "legibility". See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week we talk about the Black Lives Matter movement, social justice, and how our towards these issues have changed over the past few years. Please interpret charitably. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.