Episode notes
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…
Podcast
Curiosity Chronicle
Sahil Bloom · Business · English
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More from Curiosity Chronicle All episodes →
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E479 · 7 Oct 2026 · 8 min
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…
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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…
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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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E476 · 25 Sep 2026 · 8 min
The Protégé Effect: A Powerful Model for the AI Era
AI is quite clearly the biggest buzzword of the year. But one thing I don't see anyone talking about is just how much AI is shifting how rewards are earned. Things are changing so rapidly that the frontier of accurate prediction has been pulled closer and closer to the present. In this new world, the rewards will be earned by those who are willing to be beginners over and over again. The value seems likely to accrue to those who can combine curiosity and a beginner's mindset with bias for action. This means that learning has become a core meta-skill. Perhaps even THE core meta-skill. On…
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E475 · 23 Sep 2026 · 12 min
7 Lessons From My 2:49 Marathon (That Have Nothing To Do With Running)
Last week I wrote about failing a marathon. Six days later, at 5am, I drove back to the course alone and ran 26.25 miles in 2:48:47. Not because I needed the official result. Because when I say I'm going to do something, I do it. In this piece, I talk about seven lessons from that solo marathon that have nothing to do with running — how to stack slow progress, how to stay in the long game, and why showing up through the valley is the whole game... ••• This episode brought to you by: DeleteMe - DeleteMe makes it quick, easy, and safe to remove your personal data online. Origin Financial -…
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