Philosophical Counseling – David E. Storey

February 10, 2023February 10, 2023

Episode #32: The Middle Way with Lou Marinoff

Lou Marinoff helped pioneer and popularize philosophical counseling and authored the international bestseller Plato not Prozac. His work has been featured in The Economist and the The New York Times, and beyond his work as a professor and counselor, he has consulted with many organizations all over the world, including the World Economic Forum.

In our latest dialogue, Lou spells out his diagnosis of the pathological extremes in American culture, and offers the Middle Way of the “ABCs”–Aristotle, Buddha, and Confucius–to help us make sense of and work through our troubled times.

February 3, 2023February 3, 2023

Episode #30: Values of the Wise with Jason Merchey

Jason Merchey embodies the Socratic ethos and the philosophical way of life: the humble search for wisdom. He has served in many roles—from clinical psychologist, to real estate investor, to therapy dog trainer—but his guiding passion is the love of wisdom. In his recent book, Wisdom: A Very Valuable Virtue that Cannot Be Taught, he explores this virtue that is so elusive yet so essential to a life well lived.

Jason has developed practical tools to help people develop wisdom in their own life, including the Top Values Tool and the Ethical Decision Making Guide. Self-knowledge is a key component of wisdom, and we don’t often have occasion to step back and reflect on why, exactly, we do what we do. Check them out!

In this conversation, we explore the nature of wisdom and many things more, from wisdom in investing to one of my favorite topics: the wisdom of dogs.

June 16, 2022June 17, 2022

Episode #25: Philosophical Consulting: Lou Marinoff (Part 2)

Lou Marinoff was doing practical philosophy before it was cool. In the 1990s, he helped pioneer and popularize philosophical counseling and authored the international bestseller Plato not Prozac. His work has been featured in The Economist and the The New York Times, and beyond his work as a professor and counselor, he has consulted with many organizations all over the world, including the World Economic Forum.

In Part 2, Lou dives deeper into the skills exercised in philosophical counseling, tells us how he expanded his practice into consulting with businesses and organizations all over the world, and explains how his recent book on the roots of human conflict can help us make sense of increasingly chaotic culture.

June 13, 2022June 17, 2022

Episode #24: Plato Not Prozac: Lou Marinoff (Part 1)

June 18, 2020June 18, 2020

Episode #10: Greg Sadler (Part 2)

Over the last decade, Greg Sadler has emerged as the “YouTube philosopher.” Someone was inevitably going to fill that role, but the title is well deserved: Greg has produced around 1400 videos, has 84,000 subscribers and, at this writing, has received almost 8,000,000 views.

After leaving a conventional academic career as a philosophy professor, Greg struck out on his own and built a consulting business geared toward putting philosophy into practice. Through his company, ReasonIO, he offers a suite of services–consulting for organizations, counseling and coaching for individuals, curricular design for educational institutions, and more. Greg also edits the popular blog, Stoicism Today, is a prominent voice in the modern Stoic revival, a frequent public speaker, and is involved in oodles of cool philosophy projects.

In Part 2 (Part 1 here), we dive into how Greg developed a presence on YouTube, the simple power of making distinctions in business , and his advice for young philosophers considering leaving academia.

June 15, 2020June 15, 2020

Episode #9: Greg Sadler (Part 1)

Join us as Greg walks us through his reasons for leaving academia, the struggles he faced in the wild building a new professional identity, and how he became the YouTube Philosopher.

June 11, 2020June 11, 2020

Episode #8: Dan Fincke (Part 2)

Dan Fincke is a “Rogue” par excellence. An expert in ethics and the work of Friedrich Nietzsche, he runs an online teaching business and offers philosophical counseling from his home in France.

In the second part of our conversation (Part 1 here), Dan walks us through his period of experimentation in starting an online teaching business, and how he learned to think like an entrepreneur and business person. We end by diving into his brilliant interpretation of the Star Wars saga, and how Nietzsche can help us make sense of The Last Jedi.

June 8, 2020June 11, 2020

Episode #7: Dan Fincke (Part 1)

Dan Fincke is a “Rogue” par excellence. An expert in ethics and the work of Friedrich Nietzsche, he runs an online teaching business and offers philosophical counseling from his home in France.

Of all the people I met in graduate school–including myself–Dan Fincke is the one who most deserves the title “real philosopher.” His personal story is good proof of concept for the power of philosophy to alter the course of a life: after growing up a devout Christian, his encounter with Nietzsche led him to leave the faith.

At Fordham, Dan had a reputation for being a captivating teacher, and knowing him well, it was easy to see why: his default setting is what David Foster Wallace described as “that special kind of intensity that happens after about the fourth beer.” I remember having an intuition early on that like his favorite philosopher, Nietzsche, Dan’s raw energy would not be contained by the academy, and that he would eventually leave. And he did. After completing his PhD, Dan adjuncted aggressively in the New York City area–at one time teaching a mind-bending 9 courses in a semester at 5 schools across 3 states–all while becoming a luminary in the atheist blogger community.

Join us as Dan shares how upon leaving academia he not only built a sustainable online teaching business, but unexpectedly met the love of his life.

May 25, 2020June 11, 2020

Episode #5: David Brendel

David Brendel wears many hats–philosophical counselor, executive coach, and psychiatrist. After catching the philosophy bug reading the Great Books at Yale, David pursued a medical career at Harvard Medical School. Refusing to choose between medicine and philosophy, he enrolled in a PhD program at the University of Chicago, where he did pioneering work in the philosophy of mental health. Armed with his medical and philosophical knowledge, today David is a counselor to individuals and a consultant to businesses.

Join us as we chart David’s unusual intellectual trajectory, probe the fine line between a medical and an existential approach to mental health and wellness, and explore the challenges and opportunities of equipping executives with philosophical tools to help their businesses thrive.

May 15, 2020June 19, 2020

Episode #2: Sal Giambanco (Part 2)

After studying philosophy and training to become a Jesuit at Fordham in the early ’90s, Sal moved to San Francisco. Here, he served as a hospital chaplain for the dying, at the veritable ground zero of the AIDS plague. Years later, he left the Jesuits and academia, and went on to a successful career in human resources, working for companies such as PayPal, eBay, and the Omidyar Network, a philanthropic investment firm. Sal is an expert in human capital and an executive coach.

In the second part of our conversation (Part 1 here), Sal and I dig into what he learned from the dying during his time serving as a hospital chaplain in the trenches of the AIDS epidemic in San Francisco; why he had to leave the Jesuits to truly love (and truly experience poverty!); how he transitioned into the business world; why the liberal arts have everything to do with today’s global economy; and much more.

May 14, 2020October 21, 2021

Episode #1: Sal Giambanco (Part 1)

If I had to pick the most interesting person I’ve ever met, it would probably be my friend and mentor Sal Giambanco. When we first met over ten years ago at our common alma mater, Fordham University, he described what he did for a living as “philosophical counseling for CEOs.” Needless to say, he had me at “transferrable skills.” It was Sal that first planted the idea for this podcast in my head–that philosophers can succeed beyond the ivory tower–so he is the ideal guest for its inaugural episode.

Join us as we explore his fascinating life, his extraordinary career, and his personal encounters with Elon Musk, Pope Francis, and the Dalai Lama…

January 27, 2013January 27, 2013

The Law of Subtraction

Not to be confused with the “Law of Attraction,” the concept peddled by the best-selling self-help New Age book and film, The Secret: the idea that, if you just want something hard enough—“I think I can, I think I can”–it will eventually come into your life. Taken at a literal level, of course, this is plainly stupid and easy to mock. But the book wouldn’t be so successful if it didn’t contain a kernel of truth. The message resonates with people because it taps into a brute and basic psychological truth: that people who are generally open and optimistic will generally attract other people and opportunities that will generally get them what they want and where they want to go. It’s not a law of gravity, but a pragmatic strategy to help us navigate life.

One other such strategy is what we might call the Law of Subtraction. We can come at this concept by defining it in terms of what it’s not: the Law of Addition, which rules our lives more often than not. What is the Law of Addition?

Continue reading “The Law of Subtraction”

December 12, 2012December 12, 2012

Socrates Café Meeting #1: Minutes

Thanks to all those who attended our first Socrates Café Brooklyn, “What is Success?” It was a real pleasure meeting all of you, hearing your stories and struggles, and peeling back the veneer of our conventional views on success to try and approach the heart of the matter. I think we often fail to realize the power and importance of throwing ourselves into dialogue with people from different walks of life and suspending, if only for a few minutes or a couple of hours, our basic assumptions about ourselves, our trajectory in life, and our view of the world. It is not easy–indeed, in our discussion, we hit a few bumps in the road and the engine stalled a few times; but confusion is the crucible of a higher, deeper, rounder form of consciousness. And we had some unpleasant exchanges; it became clear pretty quickly that the philosophical is the personal. But overall, I think we had a good first showing and I look forward to our next meeting in January.

Some highlights from our discussion:

Continue reading “Socrates Café Meeting #1: Minutes”