This roundtable explores my podcast interview with Will Young, a financial adviser who blends Stoic philosophy, behavioural psychology and surfing insights into his approach to wealth management (and to his life in general). Topics discussed include: Will's technique of loosening his clients’ epistemic rigidity and emotion-based investing beliefs by exploring their reasoning process rather than attacking their conclusions; cognitive biases like the availability heuristic, the illusory truth effect and reactance; Philip Tetlock's super forecasting techniques based on probabilistic thinking; How Will (who is on the autistic-spectrum) translates abstract concepts like Stoicism, epistemic humility and Bayesian updating into concrete financial advice; and Will's habit of listening to a book first and only reading it if it resonates enough to warrant deeper internalization. The discussion reiterated themes of intellectual humility, resisting tribal/emotional reasoning and the idea that probabilistic, unemotional thinking, whether applied to markets, surfing, or everyday life, produces resilience and better long-term outcomes. The conversation closes with Young's book (The Enough Equation: Wealth Wisdom, Virtue and the Pursuit of Less) as a Stoic parable about discovering one already has abundance.

My guest on the podcast is Will R. Young, a certified financial adviser, who, somewhat unusually, combines behavioral psychology, Stoicism, and financial analysis with insights from surfing. So, he’s a financial adviser with a difference. In addition, Will has achieved exceptional results in the Good Judgment Project from the University of Pennsylvania - outperforming leading economists and Wall Street firms, in forecasting financial markets. This free-ranging conversation explored how Stoic philosophy has formed the basis for his approach to financial management in which “The best investors don’t let emotions dominate; they follow a plan and wait for the right moments.” We also discussed behavioral psychology , judgment and decision-making and the science of forecasting. Key themes included reducing the impact of the ego, epistemic humility, apathy or equanimity, and the relevance of all this to the contemporary moment. There’s also laughter along the way!

In this episode I talk with indie folk singer-songwriter and producer Garrett Kato about his path into music - from a nudge by a high school drama teacher to using guitar as a coping mechanism after a breakup, and eventually to build a career with over 200 million streams. We discussed the mental health toll of the modern music industry, including how artists now feel trapped by opaque social media algorithms. We explored the psychological benefits of creative "flow" states (meditative, ego-dissolving experiences), and we agreed that consistent daily practice—not waiting for inspiration—is what actually drives creative output. We also considered how AI-generated music may devalue creative authenticity and bring about identity loss as AI encroaches on domains like creativity and intelligence. But we both felt some cautious optimism that this disruption will eventually drive people back toward genuine human connection, live performance, and emotionally authentic art, ultimately affirming music's power as a uniquely embodied form of communication and shared human experience.