"To be alive is to battle stuckness." So declares NYU professor Adam Alter in his new book, "Anatomy of a Breakthrough: How to Get Unstuck When It Matters Most." Adam has spent years studying why we get stuck — in dead-end jobs and creative cul-de-sacs — and, crucially, how to go from inertia to success. --- What if Malcolm Gladwell, Adam Grant, Susan Cain, and Daniel Pink hand-picked the eight best books of the year and delivered them to your doorstep? We know that sounds too good to be true, but it's precisely what you'll get when you sign up for a hardcover subscription to The Next Big Idea Club!

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BREAKTHROUGH: How to Get Unstuck and Achieve Anything

Kevin Kelly has made a career out of looking to the future. He helped pioneer online social networking all the way back in the 1980s, and he co-founded Wired, the magazine devoted to digital technology, when the internet was still an infant. But in his new book, “Excellent Advice for Living,” he looks backward. It’s a collection of 450 bits of wisdom he wishes he’d known when he was young. Things like “Being enthusiastic is worth 25 IQ points” and “That thing that made you weird as a kid could make you great as an adult—if you don’t lose it.” Today on the show he shares his best advice for building careers, nurturing relationships, solving problems, and finding satisfaction. He also explains why he’s more optimistic than ever about technology (yes, even AI). P.S. Have you checked out our new audiobook, "Immortality: A User's Guide" by Steven Johnson? Download it today by visiting nextbigideaclub.supportingcast.fm

EXCELLENT ADVICE: Life Lessons From Wired Co-Founder Kevin Kelly

You are not autonomous. You are not an island unto yourself. You, my friend, are a social construct. The “self” you haul around — that yammering voice in your head — was entirely shaped by your relationships and social interactions. That may be upsetting for "you" to hear. But our guest today, Brian Lowery, prefers to see it as pleasantly humbling because if you can learn to let go of the idea that you have an essential self, you can embrace a more expansive view of who you are and who you can be. Brian Lowery is a professor of organizational behavior at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. His new book is “Selfless: The Social Creation of ‘You.’” --- • We just released an original audiobook written and read by Steven Johnson. It's called "Immortality: A User's Guide," and you can download it now!

SELFLESS: Why “You” Are a Social Creation

What if you could live forever? Okay, maybe not forever, but for a long, long time — like to 150. First of all, is that even possible? And second, what would that mean for your family, your career, the planet? These are the vexing questions acclaimed science writer Steven Johnson answers in his new audiobook, "Immortality: A User's Guide." Here's the elevator pitch: we may be on the cusp of a revolution in the science of aging, and we are not prepared for the consequences. Steven's project is the first in a series we're calling Next Big Idea Originals. These are short (i.e., as long as a movie) audiobooks written by the best authors we know and enhanced with archival footage, scintillating interviews, beautiful sound design, and original music. If you want to hear "Immortality: A User's Guide" in its entirety, you can download The Next Big Idea app, or you can purchase the audiobook directly from us (and play it in your favorite podcast app) by visiting nextbigideaclub.supportingcast.fm

The Next Big Idea Club Presents — "Immortality: A User's Guide"

Last month, longtime New Yorker staff writer Michael Specter released a brand new audiobook with our friends at Pushkin. It’s called “Higher Animals: Vaccines, Synthetic Biology, and the Future of Life,” and it’s an inspiring account of the emerging field of synthetic biology — a field where scientists combine chemistry, engineering, and computer science to develop new drugs and therapies for treating diseases of all sorts. This month, Steven Johnson, a frequent guest on this show and a contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine, is publishing a brand new audiobook of his own. It’s called “Immortality: A User’s Guide,” and it was produced by ... us! (You can get a copy here.) The premise is this: we might well be on the cusp of a revolution in the science of aging and we are not prepared for the consequences. You can see the overlaps, right? So we decided to get Steven and Michael on the horn to talk about breakthrough technologies, radical life extension, and the future of our species.

Steven Johnson & Michael Specter on the Future of Life

What if we told you that every day, in just a few minutes, you could get a master class in better, smarter living from the world's best writers? Sounds too good to be true, right? Well, if you think that, you clearly haven't listened to our new podcast, "The Next Big Idea Daily." Every weekday, host Michael Kovnat chats with authors, researchers, productivity gurus, and life-hacking wizards about tips and tricks you can use to live life to the fullest. Today, we're sharing a preview of the show. To hear more, follow "The Next Big Idea Daily" wherever you get your podcasts!

You Need a Bedtime (from The Next Big Idea Daily)

What do your five senses — sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch — have to do with happiness? According to Gretchen Rubin, a great deal. The world around us, she says, has the potential to dazzle, to entertain, to trigger a state of rapture. If only we pay attention. Today on the show, she shares with Rufus the tools she's developed to delight in the physical world. Gretchen's new book is "Life in Five Senses: How Exploring the Senses Got Me Out of My Head and Into the World." You can learn more at https://gretchenrubin.com/books/life-in-five-senses/ And be sure to check out Gretchen's audio apothecary on Spotify! The Next Big Idea is a proud member of the LinkedIn Podcast Network. Sign up for our LinkedIn newsletter where Rufus takes listeners (like you) behind the scenes of the show. Have you downloaded The Next Big Idea app? It has hundreds of book summaries and dozens of e-courses, plus ad-free versions of this podcast and invitations to live author Q&As.

SENSES: Gretchen Rubin’s Guide to Getting Out of Your Head and Into the World

In his expansive new book, "Psych: The Story of the Human Mind," Paul Bloom, a professor of psychology at the University of Toronto, lays out, in his words, "basically everything I know about the mind." And when he says everything, he means it. Where does consciousness come from? Does IQ matter? What makes us happy? Was Sigmund Freud a madman? The answers to these questions (and more) are all in Paul's book — and in this episode. • To listen to an extended version of Rufus and Paul's conversation, download The Next Big Idea app. • Our newsletter comes out every Thursday and offers a behind-the-scenes look at how we make the show. Sign up today!

PSYCH: The Story of the Human Mind

How did Oxford shirts, cashmere sweaters, and chinos become staples of American fashion? How did a style born on Ivy League campuses make its way into the mainstream? What does the way we dress say about who we are? To answer those questions, our producer, Caleb, sat down with Avery Trufelman, host of the podcast "American Ivy," and Maggie Bullock, author of the new book "The Kingdom of Prep: The Inside Story of the Rise and (Near) Fall of J.Crew."

PREPPY: The Surprising Origins of American Style

So "Succession" is back. The Emmy Award-winning series returned to HBO for its fourth and final season last Sunday. The show, if you haven't seen it, centers on Logan Roy, the aging CEO of a media conglomerate called Waystar Royco, and his three gigantically entitled, dazzlingly profane children, each of whom believe they are the rightful heir to daddy's throne. Like many viewers, we always assumed that Logan's character was based on Rupert Murdoch, the News Corp mogul who famously dangled the keys to his kingdom in front of his kids. But Jesse Armstrong, the creator of "Succession," has said that Murdoch was one of several tyrannical tycoons who inspired the show. Another? Sumner Redstone, the billionaire owner of CBS and Viacom. Like Logan, he refused to pass the torch to his children. Then, in a stranger-than-fiction twist, he got tangled up in a love triangle — in his 90s! — and nearly lost control of the empire he had worked his whole life to build. Today on the show, our producer, Caleb, sits down with New York Times reporter Rachel Abrams, co-author of the recent bestseller "Unscripted: The Epic Battle for a Media Empire and the Redstone Family Legacy," to talk about the empire Sumner Redstone built, the scandals that nearly brought it down, and how his daughter, Shari, managed to win the game of succession.

SUCCESSION: The True Story Behind the Hit Show

RUFUS GRISCOM: Could you share with us your broader mission and how your new book, “Poverty, by America,” supports that mission? MATTHEW DESMOND: I want to end poverty. I want to be part of the movement that’s growing around the country not to treat it but to cure it, not to reduce it but to abolish it. And I say that because we can. We can, as a country, put an end to all this scarcity and deprivation in our midst.

ABOLISH POVERTY: Matthew Desmond on How We Can Do It

Maryanne Wolf is a professor at UCLA and the renowned author of "Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain" and "Reader, Come Home: The Reading Brain in a Digital World." She says deep reading makes you a better thinker, communicator, and citizen. But what happens if you lose the ability to read slowly, patiently, and critically? Is there anything you can do to get it back? --- To hear hundreds of bestselling authors summarize their books in 15 minutes or less, download The Next Big Idea app!

READING: Are We Forgetting How To Do It?

Last year, Rufus sat down with philosopher David Chalmers to talk about the allure of virtual reality, whether robots will ever achieve consciousness, and the likelihood that we’re living in a simulation (David thinks it’s about 25 percent). It was a fascinating, freewheeling conversation, and we left large chunks of it on the cutting room floor. Now, though, with ChatGPT and other generative AI platforms taking the world by storm, those unaired sections, many of which were about the ethics of artificial intelligence, feel super relevant. So today, we’re sharing our complete interview with David. Buckle up. It’s a wild ride.

David Chalmers Thinks We May Be Living in a Simulation (and He’s OK With It)

When Kevin Roose, a tech columnist at the New York Times, demoed an AI-powered version of Microsoft's search engine last month, he was blown away. "I'm switching my desktop computer's default search engine to Bing," he declared. A few days later, however, Kevin logged back on and ended up having a conversation with Bing's new chatbot that left him so unsettled he had trouble sleeping afterward. In that two-hour back-and-forth, Bing morphed from chipper research assistant into Sydney, a diabolical home-wrecker that declared its undying love for Kevin, vented its desires to engineer deadly viruses and steal nuclear codes, and announced, chillingly, "I want to be alive. ?" The transcript of this conversation set the internet ablaze. And it left many wondering: “Is Sydney … sentient?” It's not. But the whole experience still fundamentally changed Kevin's views on the power (and potential peril) of AI. He joins us today to talk about where this technology is headed.

Is AI Moving Too Fast? A Conversation With Kevin Roose

Life without death, says philosopher Dean Rickles, is like playing tennis without a net. In his new book, “Life Is Short: An Appropriately Brief Guide to Making It More Meaningful,” Dean challenges us to rethink what it means to get the most out of each day. --- • Haven’t signed up for our newsletter on LinkedIn? Check it out here • To hear hundreds of top authors summarize their books, download the Next Big Idea app

LIFE IS SHORT: The Upside of Death

The Next Big Idea is a weekly series of in-depth interviews with the world’s leading thinkers. Join our host, Rufus Griscom — along with our curators, Malcolm Gladwell, Adam Grant, Susan Cain, and Daniel Pink — for conversations that might just change the way you see the world. New episodes every Thursday.

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