This is a wonderful conversation about music, mental health and creativity with Harrison Storm, indie-folk singer and songwriter, in which we touched on many topics including; Harrison’s background and trajectory to a musical career; songwriting and singing as self-discovery and emotional catharsis; the centrality of intuition for both wellbeing and creativity and being in tune and true to self; Harrison’s maturing as an artist and taking a broader, less attached outlook; mindfulness and somatic therapy as methods to sustain creative output; using the PEM acting method to cultivate his performance skills and elevate his experience of performance; the wonderful feeling of calm connectedness and authentic communication in performance and how performing in this way feels like ‘a better version of myself’; the distinction between entertainers and artists; the dilemma of a contemplative artistic life and feeling guilty about not achieving enough each day. It was a delightful and insightful conversation, and I hope you really take a lot from it.

This roundtable on the third personality podast, Building Character, traversed quite complex and nuanced terrain: the scientific basis for morality beyond the effects of culture and politics; the difficulties of navigating moral disagreement; the problem of in-groups and out-groups; the imperative to grow one's moral thinking; how good character bestows high status and respect, but that status can also be accrued via pseudo-esteem for bad moral characters; the problem of lies and lying becomeing normalised, even respected; the important insight that evolution is not about flourishing or moral good, but about passing on genes; and that moral wisdom is an emegent possibility of our success as a species.

The podcast Building Personality begins with a distinction between personality and character: the former you are born with, and the latter you build. Character is a a moral stance to the world and good character seeks flourishing for self and others. Character is examined through the lenses of moral realism and evolutionary adaptation. I then provide examples of character development starting with recalibrating our extreme personality traits. There is also a discussion of the Dark Triad personality disorders and how they are so shocking given our moral wiring. I end on the observation that cultivating relationships is the key not only to a viable morality, but a life of satisfaction and wellbeing.