In an age where a lot of formalized decorum has vanished, the holidays are still a time with rules, traditions, and unspoken expectations. It's also a time of heightened social interactions and increased opportunities to demonstrate warmth, hospitality, and all-around gentlemanly politeness.

Here to help us navigate the many scenarios for practicing good etiquette that the holidays present is Thomas Farley, aka Mr. Manners. Today on the show, Thomas shares the neglected aspects of flying etiquette, how to be a non-annoying houseguest, the paradoxes of party arrival punctuality, whether a dinner party host should accommodate the special dietary restrictions of guests, how to get lingering guests out of your home after a party, how to best navigate an office holiday party, the rules of regifting, guidelines for holiday tipping, and much more.

• Thomas' previous appearance on the AoM podcast: Episode #897 — Answers to the FAQ of Modern Etiquette
• AoM Article: How to be the Perfect Houseguest
• AoM Article: How to Be a Gracious Host
• AoM Article: How to Be the Ultimate Party Host
• AoM Article: A Gentleman Never Arrives Empty-Handed
• Esquire's Handbook for Hosts: A Time-Honored Guide to the Perfect Party
• Thomas' TEDx talk on tipping culture
• Sinbad's bit about people ordering at McDonald's

• Thomas' website
• Thomas on IG
• Thomas on X

Many people think becoming wealthy is all about having the right job, inheritance, or just lucky breaks. And those things can certainly give you a leg up. But according to my guest, the biggest key to building wealth is your mindset, as research shows that even high earners can stay broke forever if they’re trapped in poor thinking patterns, while others can build lasting wealth on modest incomes by developing the right mental approach.

Dr. Brad Klontz is a financial psychologist, wealth manager, and professor, and the co-author of Start Thinking Rich: 21 Harsh Truths to Take You from Broke to Financial Freedom. Today on the show, Brad explains the critical difference between being broke and being poor, how learned helplessness keeps people financially stuck, and practical ways to develop an agentic, wealth-building mindset. We also tackle thorny issues like the role of homeownership in building wealth and how to handle relationships that might be holding back your financial future.

• Brad‘s previous appearance on the AoM podcast: Episode #529 — The Money Scripts That Are Holding Back Your Financial Future
• AoM Podcast #321: How to Think About Money
• AoM Podcast #536: How to Achieve a “Rich Life” With Your Finances
• AoM Article: Taking Control of Your Life
• AoM Article: Avoiding Learned Helplessness
• AoM Article: A Young Man’s Guide to Understanding Retirement Accounts — IRAs
• Compound Interest Calculator

• Start Thinking Rich website
• Brad‘s website

Endurance activities, like distance running, have existed since ancient times. But humans' relationship to those pursuits has changed, according to time and place. In the West, we've currently turned endurance sports into a science — tracking every metric and chasing personal records through sophisticated technology and personalized training plans. But as my guest, who's spent years studying the running cultures in different societies, knows well, this modern, individualized, data-driven approach isn't the only way to pursue the art of endurance.

Michael Crawley is a competitive runner, social anthropologist, and the author of To the Limit. On the show today, we first examine how Western athletes have "workified" running through technology and social media. We then look at how other cultures approach running differently, including why East African runners emphasize group training over individual goals and how the Rarámuri people of Mexico incorporate spiritual dimensions into their running. We end our conversation with how we might rediscover more meaningful, holistic ways to approach our own physical pastimes.

• AoM Podcast #1,021: You Were Born to Run
• Born to Run by Christopher McDougall

• Michael on X
• Michael on IG
• Michael's faculty page

These days, you hear more and more about parents and adult children being estranged from each other. Some individuals have even decided to go "no contact" with their parents; they don't want anything to do with their mom and/or dad at all.

To understand what's behind this phenomenon, today I talk to Joshua Coleman, a psychologist who's spent 40 years counseling families and the author of Rules of Estrangement: Why Adult Children Cut Ties and How to Heal the Conflict. Joshua
goes beyond the typical one-sided narratives around parent-child estrangement that tell the story of parents who got what they deserved or overly entitled adult children who wrongly blame their parents, to unpack the larger cultural context for why these tensions have arisen. We discuss how society has moved from upholding a honor-thy-father-and-mother sense of obligation to prioritizing individuality and optionality, and why despite the fact that we're more child-focused and psychologically aware than ever, familial estrangements are on the rise. We get into the common reasons for estrangement, the role that expanding ideas of what constitutes abuse and trauma and an adult child's therapist can play in it, and how much parents can really be blamed for how their kids turn out. And we get into what parents who are estranged from their children can do to reconcile with them. Even if you're not personally estranged from a family member, the discussion of the underlying dynamics influencing all our modern relationships is a fascinating one.

• AoM Podcast #788: The Dangers of “Concept Creep”
• AoM Podcast #873: The Myths of Trauma

• Joshua's website

Think about a hot loaf of bread fresh out of the oven.

There's a lot going on with that loaf.

On one level, it's a literal food that's been created through chemical processes. A delicious — your mouth might be watering right now — form of sustenance.

But there's also more to it than that. There's something about bread, the so-called staff of life, that's different from other foods and resonates on a deeper level. There's a reason bread has been a rich symbol throughout times and cultures and figures prominently in religious scriptures.

Today on the show, Peter Reinhart will take us on an exploration of the many facets of bread, from the spiritual to the scientific. Peter is a baker, educator, and the author of numerous books, including The Bread Baker's Apprentice: Mastering the Art of Extraordinary Bread. In the first half of our conversation, Peter unpacks the deeper, mystical meanings of bread by walking us through the twelve steps of how it's made. We then get into why sourdough is the future and final frontier of bread, and the technical secrets to mixing, fermenting, and baking a killer loaf.

• Peter's books
• Peter's recipes for overnight fermented lean dough and more
• Peter's TED talk
• AoM Article: Bread Baking 101 for Beginners

• Peter's Pizza Quest website

It’s not uncommon for former law enforcement officers and intelligence agents to write self-help books where they share how the lessons they learned in their professional careers can apply to people in any walk of life.

What is rare is for one of these officers-turned-authors to publicly prove they know what they’re talking about and that their tips work, as Derrick Levasseur did by winning the reality show Big Brother.

Derrick is a former undercover detective, current private investigator, and the author of The Undercover Edge: Find Your Hidden Strengths, Learn to Adapt, and Build the Confidence to Win Life’s Game. Today on the show, Derrick shares how he became an undercover police officer, what he learned from that job, how he applied those lessons on Big Brother, and how you can use similar techniques to influence others, know when someone is lying, and bounce back from adversity.

• Derrick’s season of Big Brother
• Derrick’s podcasts
  • Crime Weekly
  • Detective Perspective
• The Johari Window
• AoM Podcast #830: How to Read Minds and Detect Deception

• Derrick’s website
• Derrick on IG
• Derrick on YouTube

When it comes to weight management and all-around good metabolic health, we most often think about what to eat. But my guest would say that it's also crucial to think about when to eat,

Emily Manoogian is a chronobiologist and clinical researcher at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies. Today on the show, Emily shares how to create an optimal schedule for a healthy metabolism by aligning your eating schedule with your circadian rhythm. She explains when to start eating after waking, when to stop eating before bed, the importance of sticking to a set schedule, and what happens to your metabolism when you don't follow these timing guidelines. We also talk about how to best distribute your calorie intake throughout the day and how to eat to mitigate the metabolic problems that come with being a shift worker.

• The Salk Institute
• My Circadian Clock app
• AoM Podcast #1,016: Unlock Better Sleep and Health by Harnessing Your Circadian Rhythm

• Emily on LinkedIn
• Emily on X

In 18th century America, this book was second in popularity only to the Bible.

It was a favorite of many thinkers and leaders throughout history, including Emerson, Napoleon, Machiavelli, Nietzsche, and even President Truman.

Yet, you probably haven't read it.

It's Plutarch's Parallel Lives.

If you're not familiar with Plutarch's Lives, you're in for a treat, as today's episode offers a great intro. My guest, Alex Petkas, found that even though he's a former classicist and professor, Plutarch's Lives is still a tough read, which is why he started a podcast, The Cost of Glory, to make it more accessible to people. He does the same thing on today's episode, sharing the background on Plutarch's set of biographies and its major themes. Alex explains why Plutarch thought that biography was a powerful way to transmit morals and how the Homeric virtue he had in mind differed from that of just having good, upstanding character. Alex then gives us a taste of Plutarch as we discuss the lives of two obscure Greek and Roman figures. We end our conversation with how to get started studying Plutarch yourself.

• Cost of Glory website
• Alex's resource on how to read Plutarch's Lives, with links to the mentioned Penguin editions
• Alex's recommended episodes of the Cost of Glory podcast:
  • Pompey I: Kid Butcher
  • Crassus I: Richest Man in Rome
• AoM Article: An Intro to Envy
• AoM Article: Envy, Ressentiment, and the Inversion of Values
• AoM Podcast #949: Unpacking The Emotion No One Likes to Talk About
• Sulla
• Eumenes
• Sertorius
• Blood and Thunder: The Epic Story of Kit Carson and the Conquest of the American West by Hampton Sides + AoM podcast episode about the book

• Alex on LinkedIn
• Alex on X
• Alex on IG