Charlie Gilkey is an author, consultant, and executive coach focused on helping people build great teams. Why is belonging so important to an organization’s success, and why is it so hard to build? Charlie draws on his experience as an Army officer, his training in philosophy, and his 15 years of experience working with organizations to help answer questions like this and offer people the practical tools they need to acheive what he calls “productive flourishing.” Atomic habits are great, but team habits are better. LISTEN and SUBSCRIBE: Apple Podcasts Google Podcasts Spotify Stitcher LYCEUM ..read more

According to the recently released World Happiness Report, all four Nordic nations are in the top 10, with Finland and Denmark leading the way. What is the secret to their success? In 2020, David Brooks asked the same question: Progressives say it’s because they have generous welfare states. Some libertarians point out that these countries score high on nearly every measure of free market openness. Immigration restrictionists note that until recently they were ethnically homogeneous societies. None of these explanations, it turns out, is sufficient. The answer is education, specifically, ed ..read more

Jason Merchey embodies the Socratic ethos and the philosophical way of life: the humble search for wisdom. He has served in many roles—from clinical psychologist, to real estate investor, to therapy dog trainer—but his guiding passion is the love of wisdom. In his recent book, Wisdom: A Very Valuable Virtue that Cannot Be Taught, he explores this virtue that is so elusive yet so essential to a life well lived. Jason has developed practical tools to help people develop wisdom in their own life, including the Top Values Tool and the Ethical Decision Making Guide. Self-knowledge is a key compone ..read more

Skye C. Cleary PhD MBA is a philosopher and author of How to Be Authentic: Simone de Beauvoir and the Quest for Fulfillment (St Martin’s Press / Ebury 2022), Existentialism and Romantic Love (Palgrave Macmillan 2015) and co-editor of How to Live a Good Life (Vintage 2020). Her work has been published with The Paris Review, Aeon, The Times Literary Supplement, TED-Ed, Los Angeles Review of Books, The Independent, The Conversation, Business Insider, New Republic, and others. In 2021, she was a Ma ..read more

Lou Marinoff was doing practical philosophy before it was cool. In the 1990s, he helped pioneer and popularize philosophical counseling and authored the international bestseller Plato not Prozac. His work has been featured in The Economist and the The New York Times, and beyond his work as a professor and counselor, he has consulted with many organizations all over the world, including the World Economic Forum. LISTEN and SUBSCRIBE: Apple Podcasts Google Podcasts Spotify Stitcher LYCEUM SUPPORT: SPONSORED BY: SHOW NOTES: Lou’s Website 1999 Interview on Plato Not Prozac: “Socrates, For P ..read more

Tom Morris was doing public philosophy before it was a thing. At the peak of academic success–a full professor at Notre Dame for 15 years, an accomplished scholar and acclaimed teacher–Morris found another calling: bringing philosophy into the business world. After discovering he had a knack for making philosophy practical for audiences outside the academy, he started appearing on TV and eventually found himself on the Today Show and Live! With Regis and Kathy Lee. From his website: Imagine the wisdom of Yoda, Gandalf, and Dumbledore, rolled together and linked to the spirit and energy of th ..read more

Grace is a philosophy teacher, trainer, facilitator, scholar and advocate. Over the last fifteen years – through her many projects in the places people live, learn, work and play – she has enjoyed philosophical conversations with thousands of thinkers of all ages, backgrounds and levels of experience. Through her workshops, training, talks and writing, she has shared her thinking and practice nationally and internationally. Working in the community, she founded Thinking Space in 2008. She is also an accredited trainer with SAPERE and Dialogue Works, a specialist with ..read more

Steve McIntosh is the founder of the Institute for Cultural Evolution, a think tank devoted to solving the problem of political polarization. His recent book, Developmental Politics, draws on integral philosophy to drill down into the causes of the culture wars, and proposes a bold new vision for how America can become a better version of itself. More recently, Steve has collaborated with thought leaders such as John Mackey, the founder of Whole Foods, and Carter Phipps on the book Conscious Leadership, and started an organization called the Post-Progressive Post. Steve’s diagnosis of the hyp ..read more

Steve McIntosh is the founder of the Institute for Cultural Evolution, a think tank devoted to solving the problem of political polarization. His recent book, Developmental Politics, draws on integral philosophy to drill down into the causes of the culture wars, and proposes a bold new vision for how America can become a better version of itself. More recently, Steve has collaborated with thought leaders such as John Mackey, the founder of Whole Foods, and Carter Phipps on the book Conscious Leadership, and started an organization called the Post-Progressive Post. Steve’s diagnosis of the hyp ..read more

Marci Baranski destroys greenhouse gases for a living. After getting her PhD in biology and society, Marci became a Presidential Management Fellow and pursued a career as public servant, working for the US Department of Agriculture as a climate change specialist. Due in part to the Trump administration’s systematic rollback of climate policies, Marci transitioned into the private sector. Today, she works as a Research Asssociate at Tradewater, a new company that tracks down CFCs around the globe, destroys them, and sells the carbon credits on carbon markets. At a time when understanding the i ..read more