This episode starts off a little differently than others — with a short quiz, something called the Brief Sensation-Seeking Scale, which will tell you whether you're what psychologists call a high sensation-seeker or a low sensation-seeker. Read the following eight statements, and then pick a number from 1 to 5 that corresponds to your level of agreement, where 1 is "Not at all like me," 2 is "Not like me," 3 is "Unsure or both like and not like me," 4 is "Like me," and 5 is "Very much like me."

1. I would like to explore strange places.
2. I would like to take off on a trip with no pre-planned routes or timetables.
3. I get restless when I spend too much time alone.
4. I prefer friends who are excitingly unpredictable.
5. I like wild parties.
6. I would love to have new and exciting experiences, even if they are illegal.
7. I would like to try bungee jumping.
8. I would like to do frightening things.

Now add up all the numbers together. If you scored between 8 and 16, you are a low sensation-seeker. If you scored between 16 and 28, you're about average for sensation-seeking. If you scored over 28, you're a high sensation-seeker.

Today on the show, I unpack what these categories of personality mean with Dr. Kenneth Carter, a clinical psychologist, a professor, and the author of Buzz!: Inside the Minds of Thrill-Seekers, Daredevils, and Adrenaline Junkies. Ken explains how sensation-seeking exists on a spectrum between chill seekers, who like safety and calm routine, and thrill seekers, who enjoy chaos, risk, and novelty. He shares how there are actually four components to high sensation-seeking, and which two tend to get people in trouble. And we talk about whether being high or low sensation-seeking is a matter of nature or nurture, how high sensation-seekers fare in romantic relationships and what they should consider in choosing a career, and what the world's chill seekers can learn from its thrill seekers.

• 40-Question Sensation-Seeking Scale Test

• Ken's website
• Ken on IG
• Ken on X
• Ken's faculty page

“Nothing takes the taste out of peanut butter quite like unrequited love,” Charlie Brown once said. Indeed, being spurned by one's crush, or, for that matter, by a friend or potential employer, not only ruins the taste of one's favorite sandwich spread, but causes great psychological distress and even physical pain.

Here to walk us through one of life's worst feelings is Mark Leary, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Duke University, and the editor of Interpersonal Rejection. Today on the show, Mark unpacks the experience of social rejection, including why we're so sensitive to it and the emotions and behaviors it causes, which can be positive and prosocial or maladaptive and even violent. We discuss the role that is played by the sociometer, a concept Mark originated, in monitoring our social acceptance and rejection and what influences its sensitivity to fluctuations in your relational value. And Mark offers advice on how to remove some of the sting of rejection and civilly reject others.

• Mark's previous appearance on the AoM podcast: Episode #725 — The Curse of the Self
• Simpsons' episode where Lisa breaks Ralph's heart
• AoM Article: Honor in the American South

• Mark's faculty page

In creating the Jack Reacher character, Lee Child launched a series of books that now boast 100 million copies in print and have been turned into movies and a popular Amazon streaming series.

Today on the show, I talk to Lee about what makes Reacher so compelling and much more. We first discuss how Lee didn't get started with writing until he was almost forty, and what prompted him to change careers. We then unpack the Reacher character, discussing the ancient, archetypal roots of this vigilante, drifter detective, what he has in common with the knight errant, and the enduring appeal of the lone wolf. We also talk about Lee's writing process, why midlife is the best time to write, and why, after writing more than two dozen Reacher novels, he's chosen to hand off the series to his brother and fellow writer, Andrew.

• The latest Reacher novel: In Too Deep
• The Reacher streaming series
• Jack Reacher website

Money can't buy happiness. It sounds good as a bumper sticker platitude.

But the truth is, money can buy happiness. At least sometimes. In certain circumstances. If we view it and use it in the right ways.

Here to unpack the conditions under which money can buy happiness and facilitate our flourishing is Dr. Daniel Crosby, a psychologist and behavioral finance expert and the author of The Soul of Wealth: 50 Reflections on Money and Meaning. Today on the show, Daniel shares the minimum income level at which money buys happiness, at least in the sense of avoiding pain. We talk about how to purchase material things in a way that increases happiness, while avoiding materialism, and the value of using your money to buy health and freedom. And we discuss the importance of finding an overarching why that guides the way you allocate your money and doing a values audit to see if your purpose and spending habits are aligned.

• Daniel's previous appearances on the AoM podcast:
  • Episode #222: The Laws of Wealth
  • Episode #511: Mastering the Psychology of Investing
• AoM Podcast #659: Do You Want to Be Rich or Wealthy? (And Why the Difference Matters)
• AoM Podcast #321: How to Think About Money
• "Experiences Won’t Make You Happier Than Possessions"
• Die with Zero by Bill Perkins

• Daniel on X
• Daniel's podcast, Standard Deviations
• Daniel on LinkedIn

Are leaders born or made? Judging by the 50 billion dollar leadership development industry, the answer is definitely the latter. From schools to workplaces, everyone is seen as a potential leader and expected to become one by undergoing leadership training.

My guest questions the assumptions underlying this phenomenon, which he calls "the leadership industrial complex," and says that the cult of leadership, and its idea that everyone can and should become a leader, can create burnout and unhappiness.

Elias Aboujaoude is a Stanford professor of psychiatry and the author of A Leader's Destiny: Why Psychology, Personality, and Character Make All the Difference. Today on the show, Elias describes the state of the leadership industrial complex, the mathematical impossibility it forwards that everyone can be a leader and no one is a follower, and the primary presumption it makes that leadership can be taught. Elias argues that, in fact, a lot of what makes for good leadership is innate and potentially unchangeable. We discuss the implications of this fact, and why it's actually okay not to want to be a leader.

• AoM Podcast #838: Can Virtue Be Taught?
• AoM Article: Don’t Just Lead Well, Follow Well
• AoM Article: Are You a Strategist or an Operator?

• Elias' website
• Elias' Stanford profile page

When people think about living more fully and making better use of their time, they typically think of finding some new organizational system they can structure their lives with.

Oliver Burkeman says that what you really need instead are perspective shifts — small, sustainable changes in how you view and approach your day-to-day life. He provides those mindset shifts in his new book, Meditations for Mortals: Four Weeks to Embrace Your Limitations and Make Time for What Counts. And we talk about some of them today on the show, including why you should view life's tasks and problems like a river instead of a bucket, stop feeling guilt over your "productivity debt," make peace with your decisions by embracing an unconventional reading of the poem "The Road Not Taken," aim to do your habits "dailyish," be more welcoming of interruptions, and practice "scruffy hospitality."

• Oliver's previous appearance on the AoM podcast: Episode #748 — Time Management for Mortals
• AoM Article: Autofocus — The Productivity System That Treats Your To-Do List Like a River
• AoM Podcast #956: Feeling Depressed and Discombobulated? Social Acceleration May Be to Blame
• Sunday Firesides: To-Dos, the Rent We Pay For Living
• AoM Podcast #962: The Case for Minding Your Own Business
• AoM Podcast #821: Routines Are Overrated
• AoM Article: Routines Not Working For You? Try a Daily Checklist
• Sunday Firesides: Life Is for Living
• Resonance: A Sociology of Our Relationship to the World by Hartmut Rosa
• "The Road Not Taken" by Robert Frost
• The Road Not Taken: Finding America in the Poem Everyone Loves and Almost Everyone Gets Wrong by David Orr
• "The Road Less Traveled" — great, short podcast on the alternate interpretation of Frost's poem

• Oliver's website

We often think of the difference between a boy and a man as a matter of age. But Brian Tome says that there can be 15-year-old men and 45-year-old boys, and that the real difference maker in being grown up isn't a matter of the number of years you accumulate but the qualities, behaviors, and mindset you possess.

Brian is a pastor and the author of The Five Marks of a Man. Today on the show, Brian unpacks what he thinks are the marks of mature manhood. We talk about the need to have a vision and how life-giving hobbies can create that vision. Brian argues that manhood requires staking out a minority position, being part of a pack, and creating more than you consume. And we discuss the ways men can still be protectors in the 21st century.

• AoM Podcast #78: The Myth of Following Your Passion
• AoM Article: The Ultimate List of Hobbies for Men — 75+ Ideas For Your Free Time
• AoM series on the 3 P's of Manhood: Protect, Procreate, Provide
• AoM Podcast #926: The 5 Shifts of Manhood
• AoM Podcast #810: How to Turn a Boy Into a Man
• AoM Article: Why Are Female Friendships the Ideal? (‘Cause Dude Friendships Also Rock)
• AoM Article: Modern Maturity — Create More, Consume Less
• Brian's Man Camp

• Brian's website