Meikles & Dimes

257: The 5-Minute Habit That Boosts Energy, Focus, and Health | Manoush Zomorodi, Host of NPR's TED Radio Hour

Manoush Zomorodi is an award-winning journalist, bestselling author, and host of NPR's TED Radio Hour. Her Body Electric project, a groundbreaking collaboration between NPR and Columbia University Medical Center involving over 20,000 participants, represents one of the largest public health studies of its kind. She’s also the author of the book, Bored and Brilliant, and her TED talk about the attention economy has more than 6 million views. 

In this episode we discuss the following:

• Sitting for extended periods is like kinking a garden hose, which reduces blood flow, oxygen, and glucose regulation. But taking regular five minute breaks helps us think more clearly and feel more energized.
• We can make small structural changes to encourage movement breaks by scheduling a meeting for 55 minutes rather than an hour.
• The best part about regular movement breaks is that it isn’t a tradeoff—it’s a win-win where small changes improve our health, mood, and productivity. 

256: From #50 to #1 in the World | Will Guidara, Author of Unreasonable Hospitality

Will Guidara is the author of the New York Times Bestseller, “Unreasonable Hospitality.” He is the former co-owner of Eleven Madison Park, which under his leadership was named the Best Restaurant in the World. He is the host of The Welcome Conference, a Co-Producer on the Emmy Award-winning series “The Bear,” and is a recipient of the Wall Street Journal Innovator Award. He is also the author of the book, “Unreasonable Hospitality: The Field Guide.”

In this episode we discuss the following:

• When Will’s restaurant ranked 50th out of the World’s 50 Best Restaurants, he leaned on something his dad taught him: adversity is a terrible thing to waste. That night, he wrote two words on a napkin—Unreasonable Hospitality. And just a few years later Will achieved his goal of  becoming number one in the world.
• What stands out most isn’t just the turnaround—it’s the insight behind it: excellence isn’t just about what we deliver; it’s about how we make people feel.
• Will realized that the real differentiator was the experience. It was “one size fits one.” It was DreamWeaving. It was an obsession with the human side of every interaction.
• DreamWeaving was buying sleds for a family whose kids were seeing snow for the first time so that their after meal activity could be sledding for the first time in Central Park or creating beach scenes in the private dining room for a couple who was only there because their beach vacation got canceled.
• So often the people who achieve at a high level do so by being a little unreasonable.
• Never let a gracious impulse pass. We all have small instincts to do something thoughtful and too often, we ignore them. But that’s where the magic is.
• Hospitality, at its best, is being creative and intentional in pursuit of relationships. And even something as simple as asking our guests to really listen isn’t an imposition. It’s a gift.
• No detail is too small to be poured into. Especially when it comes to valuing people.

255: Stop Turning Dials and Start Flipping Switches | Publisher Eric Nelson, Executive Editor at Harper

Eric Nelson is Executive Editor at Harper and Vice President and Publisher of Broadside, HarperCollins conservative imprint. Since joining Harper in 2017, he has published thirteen New York Times #1 bestsellers. In addition to his time at HarperCollins, Penguin, and Wiley, he has worked as an academic editor, literary agent, and author, including his successful parody Oh, The Meetings You’ll Go To, written under the pen name Dr. Suits. As a publisher, his client list includes Joe Scarborough, Jesse Watters, Pete Hegseth, Dan Carlin, and Chris Rufo, among others.

In this episode we discuss the following:

• Eric gave us a powerful lens for capturing attention: most advice lives on a dial (e.g., work harder, care more), but what actually sticks is a switch, something you either do or you don’t. We all know that eating less and exercising more is what matters when trying to lose weight. But it’s that third thing—the concrete, measurable action like drinking celery juice—that gets people to buy the dieting book.
• As Eric reminded us, it’s not about being provocative for its own sake—it’s about being provocative and defensible. The best ideas make people think, “I always believed this… now I can prove it.”
• I’m excited to use the lens Eric provided that helped him start making money in his career. He switched from being a dumb smart person, to a smart dumb person. Rather than advance the conversation for 1000 people, Eric entered the conversation of a million people.

254: Why the First 5 Minutes Matter More Than You Think | Notre Dame Professor James Lang

Jim Lang is a professor at Notre Dame and the author of several popular books on teaching, including Distracted: Why Students Can’t Focus and What You Can Do About It.  

Jim has delivered keynotes or workshops at more than 300 colleges and universities in the United States and abroad. He also consulted with the United Nations on a multiyear project to develop teaching materials in ethics and integrity for high school and college faculty.

Jim is a graduate of Notre Dame with a B.A. in English and philosophy. He holds an M.A. in English from St. Louis University and a Ph.D. in English from Northwestern University.

In this episode we discuss the following:

• One of Jim’s central ideas comes from Aristotle: the beginning is more than half of the whole. Jim experienced this firsthand when he started his class with a provocative question, but low energy, and the students mirrored his energy.
• The first five minutes of a class, meeting, or even our day carry disproportionate weight because they set the tone and create the lens through which everything else gets interpreted.
• Energy is contagious, and students tend to mirror whatever the teacher brings into the room. So if we want better discussions, deeper learning, or more engagement, don’t leave the opening moments to chance; design them carefully.

 

253: Why Being a Good Person Isn’t Always Enough | Lowell Crabb

Lowell Crabb is the Founder and Principal of Drive Wealth Advisors, an independent wealth advisory firm specializing in serving business owners, corporate executives, and high net worth individuals. Lowell is based out of Utah, and is a graduate of BYU. I hope you enjoy learning from Lowell Crabb today.

In this episode we discuss the following:

• While private wealth management operates in the financial world, it’s also deeply psychological, which worked out well for Lowell given his undergraduate degree.
• I especially appreciated Lowell’s insight about the two ingredients required for trust: ethics and competence. When he lost an early client, it wasn’t because the client questioned Lowell’s integrity or intentions. The hesitation came from uncertainty about Lowell’s experience and ability. Just being a good person wasn’t enough—we also have to demonstrate that we can deliver results.
• I also enjoyed Lowell’s emphasis on playing the long game, not only in business but in life.

252: The Power of Rituals | Harvard Professor Michael Norton

Michael Norton is a professor at Harvard Business School and author of the book, The Ritual Effect. He researches the effects of social norms on people’s behaviors as well as the psychology of investment. His research has been the answer to Final Jeopardy, and his TEDx talk, How to Buy Happiness, has been viewed more than 4.5 million times. He holds a B.A. in Psychology and English from Williams College and a Ph.D. in Psychology from Princeton University. Prior to joining Harvard Business School, Michael was a Fellow at the MIT Media Lab and MIT’s Sloan School of Management.

In this episode we discuss the following:

• When we face uncertainty, stress, or grief, we spontaneously create structured, repeatable, often elaborate behaviors that provide order and give us a feeling of control.
• The rituals we create, whether clinking silverware together before meals, singing Happy Meatloaf, or going through a 12-step process before a tennis serve, probably don’t change the outcomes. But they do change our experience.
• Violating rituals also reveals how much they matter to us. The anger people feel imagining an ex-partner reusing “their” couple ritual shows how much meaning and emotion is embedded in these small, repeated acts.
• The goal isn’t to create more rituals. But rather, notice the significance of the ones we have. And if you can, be sure to ask your parents what their bedtime ritual was for you.

 

251: Reshuffling Your Career in an AI World | Sangeet Choudary

Sangeet Choudary is a Senior Fellow at the University of California, Berkeley, and has presented at leading global forums, including the G20 Summit and the World Economic Forum. He’s the best-selling author of the new book Reshuffle that was awarded the 2025 Thinkers50 Strategy Award for The most impactful idea in the field of strategy. He has advised CEOs at more than 40 Fortune 500 companies as well as pre-IPO tech firms.

In this episode we discuss the following:

As Sangeet said, “Yesterday’s advantages become tomorrow’s commodity.”

We should ask ourselves, “What are my enduring, unfair advantages that align with my skills, energy, and purpose?”

Don’t focus on what AI can do today—focus on what only you are uniquely capable of doing as AI continues to improve.

For magicians, it isn’t about creating tricks that can’t be figured out; it’s about recombining ideas in ways that inspire wonder.

250: How “Protect Your Time” Reduces Opportunities | Northwestern Professor Adam Waytz

Adam Waytz is an award winning professor of ethics and decision making at Northwestern University, where he researches how people think about minds and the psychological consequences of technology. Adam received his BA in Psychology from Columbia University, his PhD in social psychology from the University of Chicago, and received a National Service Research Award from the National Institute of Health to complete a post-doc at Harvard.

In this episode we discuss the following:

• I’m intrigued by Adam’s perspective on saying yes, which goes against much of the research and conventional wisdom about protecting our time. By saying yes to things, countless unexpected doors have opened for Adam.
• But of course, we must be willing to cut ties with projects that lack purpose or a reasonable ROI.
• Being "easy to work with" is not just the right thing to do. It also reduces friction for others and creates a psychological preference for us in our colleagues' minds, making us the first person they think of for future collaborations.

249: Sundays With Tozer Episode 28 | Tozer & Ethan Clayton

In this episode we bring in Ethan Clayton to talk about his friendship with Tozer.

248: Sundays With Tozer Episode 27 | Tozer & Shaun Parkinson

In this episode we bring in Professor Shaun Parkinson to talk about his friendship with Tozer.