How to Avoid Catastrophe: The Normalization of Deviance

More from Curiosity Chronicle

1. 

   E461 · 5 Aug 2026 · 9 min

   I Think I'm Having a Reverse Midlife Crisis

   I think I'm having a midlife crisis." That's what my friend, who I'll call Joe, said to me at dinner a few weeks ago. Joe is in his early-40s. He's had a good career on a steady rising track in the world of finance. He's married with two kids, ages 7 and 4. He lives in the suburbs outside New York and commutes into the city for work. In many respects, I think of Joe as something of an archetype of the dream. Good job. Good family. Good life. So, naturally, his words caught me off guard... ••• This episode brought to you by: DeleteMe - DeleteMe makes it quick, easy, and safe to remove your…

2. 

   E460 · 31 Jul 2026 · 8 min

   The IKEA Effect: Why Effort Still Counts

   Why do you value the things you build yourself so much more than anything you can buy? In this episode, I share a personal story from my first apartment and break down the fascinating science behind why effort is the secret ingredient to a meaningful life. ••• This episode brought to you by: DeleteMe - DeleteMe makes it quick, easy, and safe to remove your personal data online. Origin Financial - Your personal AI Financial Advisor. Track your spending, investments, and net worth—all in one place. Innerbody Labs - A Higher Standard. After reviewing thousands of health products, we built…

3. 

   E459 · 29 Jul 2026 · 10 min

   Stop Making a 5-Year Plan (Do This Instead)

   "So, what's your 5-year plan?" That was the question posed to me by a mentor in January 2021. At the time, I was about seven years into my career, on the "track" in finance. Climbing slowly up the mountain, I had started to wonder if it was the wrong one. I just didn't seem to have the same energy for the work as most of my colleagues. All of the future mountains I envisioned were (at most) one degree of separation from the mountain I'd been climbing. As I reflect back on that moment now, in July 2026, at the endpoint of that five year plan my mentor asked about, I have an interesting…

4. 

   E457 · 22 Jul 2026 · 11 min

   A Few Things I've Changed My Mind On

   I’m increasingly convinced that the willingness to change your mind is the ultimate sign of intelligence. The most impressive people I know change their minds often in response to new information or evidence. It's not that they lack conviction in their beliefs, but more so that they've developed enough self-awareness to understand what it would take to change them. The world will pressure you to stubbornly resist such change. To cling to every belief as though it might be your last. But there's immense power in resisting that pressure. I like to think of it as a software update. The update…

5. 

   E456 · 17 Jul 2026 · 6 min

   How Old Will You Be If You Don’t?

   Last week, I ​wrote a piece​ about reinvention. Specifically, the myth of too late and how to reinvent your life at any age or life stage. It clearly struck a chord. I received thousands of replies in the days following the piece. One reader reply referenced a two-decade-old newspaper advice column segment that had resonated on the subject. Me being me, I decided to try to find the column. After all, if something was still etched into my reader's memory 20+ years later, it must have been good. ​I did​ , and it was even better than advertised... ••• This episode brought to you by: DeleteMe -…

6. 

   E455 · 15 Jul 2026 · 9 min

   The Cobra Effects of Life

   In colonial India, a bounty on cobras was supposed to reduce the snake population. Instead, people started breeding cobras for profit — and when the policy ended, they released thousands into the streets. The result? More cobras than ever. This is Goodhart's Law: when a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure. And it's not just a business problem — it's happening in your life right now. From sleep scores to morning routines to money, the things we measure can quietly start to own us. Here's how to spot it and fix it... ••• This episode brought to you by: DeleteMe - DeleteMe…

7. 

   E480 · 9 Oct 2026 · 7 minNew

   The Loud Liker Theory

   Confession: I’ve never been someone who was a natural in social settings. As something of an introvert, I struggled to build new adult relationships. I often felt others weren’t responding to my social signals. In most cases, I just assumed they didn’t like me and moved on. But it turns out I was actually falling victim to a damning collision of two psychological phenomena: Signal Amplification Bias: Our fear of rejection in social situations tempers our ability to convey social signals, and blinds our ability to recognize that tempering effect. The Liking Gap: We assume others like us less…

8. 

   E479 · 7 Oct 2026 · 8 minNew

   The Stories You Tell Yourself

   When I was 13 years old, a single story changed the course of my life. But to understand it, I need to take you back in time to a strange experiment from decades ago. Neuroscientist Michael Gazzaniga was studying patients who had their corpus callosum surgically severed. His experiments led him to hypothesize that the left hemisphere has a specialized system he called The Interpreter, whose responsibility is to find clear cause and effect. Its job is simple: To take scattered, seemingly random data and facts about the world in front of you and stitch them into a coherent story that feels…

9. 

   E478 · 2 Oct 2026 · 8 min

   My 90 -10 Rule for Routines

   Confession: I'm a routine guy. I thrive on structure. I think of routines as a way to ensure execution against the daily action that contributes to long-term, compounding progress. But there's a dark side to routines that nobody talks about. When your routines become too rigid and complicated, they become a source of stress rather than strength. The routines meant to serve you can start to own you. This is where my 90-10 Rule comes in: 90% disciplined compliance. 10% open flexibility. 90% of the time, I'm locked in with my structure, but 10% of the time, I give myself the space to let life…

10. 

    E477 · 30 Sep 2026 · 8 min

    The Middle Path to Happiness

    In the 3rd century BCE, King Pyrrhus was preparing for an aggressive military campaign in Italy when a trusted advisor named Cineas asked him a simple question: After conquering Italy, what would they do next? Then Sicily. Then Libya and Carthage. And then? King Pyrrhus replied, "Then we will live a life of ease. Drink all day and have pleasant conversation with our friends." Cineas paused and spoke: "But what's stopping us from doing that today?" The story is one of the oldest documented cases of the Arrival Fallacy: the false assumption that reaching some achievement or goal will create…

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