The Aaron Olson Podcast

Billy Cooper is the father of the late Kevin Cooper, aka Cole Summers. At 7 years old, Kevin started his own business, at 10 he remodeled his own house, and at 14, he wrote the inspiring book Don't Tell Me I Can't: An Ambitious Homeschoolers Journey with Billy Cooper. I asked Billy about Kevin's upbringing, his education, and fond memories. We get to celebrate the life and memory of Kevin.

Joel Bein, CEO of CareerHackers.com, is on a mission to help more people find a career that makes them come alive. He encourages us to follow our curiosity by learning-out-loud. Joel talks about his journey from music teacher to CEO of CareerHackers. He talks about the opportunities that can be found when you really go after something.  Links:  https://events.careerhackers.com/supercharger  https://careerhackers.com/   Chapters:  00:00:00 Joel Bein https://joelbein.com/  00:02:37 Follow your curiosity   00:05:30 Do work that makes you come alive   00:07:48 Supercharge your career https://events.careerhackers.com/supercharger  00:13:06 Learning UX/UI with no experience https://www.linkedin.com/posts/careercrash_uxdesign-userexperience-changingcareers-activity-6980451308713463808-VANL?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop

Health food entrepreneur Lizanne Falsetto and I discuss how she built a health food empire that sold for 217 million and how she is now disrupting the dairy industry with betterland milk. We talk about how she pioneered the protein bar industry. We also talk about her latest venture - making milk without cows from fermented whey proteins. She shares what it takes to be an entrepreneur, how she became so damn smart (my words), and things you can do to improve your odds of success. Links: https://www.lizannefalsetto.com/ https://www.woobars.com/ https://www.betterlandmilk.com/

Bryan Caplan and I discuss the ideas of the iconoclast social critic and psychiatrist Thomas Szasz. Dr. Caplan won the Thomas Szasz award in 2005 for his paper, The Economics of Szasz: Preferences, Constraints, and Mental Illness. We have a wide-ranging conversation about Szasz, his ideas, and how to help ourselves and others when struggling with life. Dr. Caplan shares some of his personal experiences with depression during Covid and how he got out of it. Related Episodes Bryan Caplan on Parenting: https://youtu.be/JM0dGLRgko0 Anthony Stadlen on Szasz: https://youtu.be/wzVVLgpgLBA Jeffrey Schaler on Szasz: https://youtu.be/7wySu4S1w14 Christopher Lane on Shyness: https://youtu.be/GrV46aVkNvM Irvin Kirsch on Antidepressants: https://youtu.be/PtubmyA3BgU Related Videos John Nash on Schizophrenia: https://youtu.be/SizS1nOOeJg Take These Broken Wings (Documentary about Schizophrenia): https://youtu.be/EPfKc-TknWU Titicut Follies (Mistreatment of Involuntary Patients): https://youtu.be/e-wVwtN5f-U Crazywise Film: https://youtu.be/IXnmBIYaIZE Jim Van Os on Schizophrenia: https://youtu.be/sE3gxX5CiW0 Chapters: 00:00 Intro to Bryan Caplan https://twitter.com/bryan_caplan 00:35 Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids https://amzn.to/3NZcxQg 00:56 How did you discover Thomas Szasz? 01:33 The Untamed Tongue https://amzn.to/3NYtTwI 02:07 Insanity: The Idea and Its Consequences https://amzn.to/3aAp3bn 02:34 Myth of Mental Illness https://amzn.to/3ANgIvp 02:57 Ceremonial Chemistry https://amzn.to/3P4IBU5 03:25 How long did it take you to understand Szasz? 06:13 What do you think most people misunderstood about Szasz? 08:14 Heavy drinkers respond to incentives https://wp.me/p8ReVr-1i5 10:55 How homosexuality got declassified as a disease 11:41 Transvestism 12:34 The Useful Lie https://wp.me/p8ReVr-1eT 12:56 Responsibility 14:34 Criticisms of Szasz 15:42 Szasz as a philosopher of mind https://wp.me/p8ReVr-rs 16:34 Scott Alexander https://slatestarcodex.com/2015/10/07/contra-caplan-on-mental-illness/ 17:53 Drapetomania https://g.co/kgs/5qVtCe 18:06 What was it like to meet Szasz? https://www.econlib.org/archives/2012/09/thomas_szasz_a.html 19:29 Suicide https://amzn.to/3RuQS5w 20:05 Why do you think Szasz wrote so much? 21:00 Did you get pushback when writing your paper on Szasz? 22:19 Shakespeare and Szasz 23:24 Has Szasz helped you in your personal life? 27:12 Brittany Spears 28:27 Addiction is a Choice https://wp.me/p8ReVr-9U 29:05 Karl Kraus https://wp.me/p8ReVr-1hz 29:51 Szasz's political beliefs 31:13 Suicide 32:29 Epicurus https://epicurus.net/en/menoeceus.html 32:54 Julian Simon https://amzn.to/3P4Kct3 35:17 Surround yourself with friends 36:11 How do you stay productive? 37:51 Lucretius http://classics.mit.edu/Carus/nature_things.html 39:01 How do you deal with depression during Covid? 41:16 Faith in Freedom https://amzn.to/3caLvIq 41:38 Free will https://econfaculty.gmu.edu/bcaplan/freewill 43:38 Writing advice 44:45 The Baader Meinhof Complex https://youtu.be/2UPrDdb0r70 46:43 Economics of Szasz http://econfaculty.gmu.edu/bcaplan/pdfs/szasz.pdf 49:50 Rational vs. Irrational 52:53 Schizophrenia https://amzn.to/3AK5yb3 56:10 Biographies of schizophrenics https://amzn.to/3IBtJu0 59:15 Hearing voices https://youtu.be/sE3gxX5CiW0

Mark Eglinton talks with me about his adventures in writing, and his latest book on John McAfee's life called, No Domain: The John McAfee Tapes (https://amzn.to/35cIHr8). Chapters: 00:00:00 Mark Eglinton https://twitter.com/MarkEglinton 00:00:33 How did Mark become a writer?  00:01:30 From caddy to writer  00:05:30 Do the work, just do it  00:06:00 Where do you start?  00:08:20 How do you start?  00:09:20 Get some distance from your work  00:10:27 Writing is the sexiest job ever  00:12:00 How is the money in writing?  00:12:15 Make shit happen  00:13:10 How Mark started working with John McAfee  00:14:28 John McAfee is The Great White Whale  00:15:45 Was John telling the truth?  00:19:00 Working with John was like being in a James Bond movie  00:20:45 John's relationship with his kids  00:24:10 John's early life as a programmer  00:25:40 John's work for NASA  00:27:44 John applied math to relationships  00:29:00 Did John ever work hard?  00:29:34 John and methamphetamine  00:30:28 John didn't want a corporate life  00:31:40 John's outlandish spending  00:32:23 John McAfee and yoga  00:33:15 John's yoga books https://amzn.to/3wBV4Z1 00:34:50 Amanda Milius https://mobile.twitter.com/amandamilius 00:35:55 John McAfee weeps  00:37:27 John understood the human spirit  00:38:25 John leaves Belize  00:40:00 John marries Janice  00:41:00 John on the run in the US  00:41:40 Was John just paranoid?  00:42:18 Janice ties to poison John  00:43:10 John cancels the book project  00:46:30 Was John broke?  00:48:00 Canonic books on bitcoin  00:49:40 Books as NFTs  00:51:00 Will tech control us, or will we control tech?  00:52:00 Extras associated w/ the NFT  00:55:40 Canonic is seeing into the future  00:57:25 Steve Bannon  00:59:40 Mark on Twitter https://twitter.com/MarkEglinton 01:00:00 Mark on Twetch https://twetch.com/u/68864