Chris Bailey is an author and lecturer who explores the science behind living a deeper, more intentional life. He is the international bestselling author of How to Calm Your Mind, Hyperfocus, and The Productivity Project—which have been published in 35 languages around the world. He is also the author of the Audible Original, How to Train Your Mind. Alongside his wife, Chris is the host of the podcast Time and Attention, and writes a weekly column at ChrisBailey.com, which is read by tens of...

In this episode we speak with Henry Ajder, a globally recognised advisor, speaker, and broadcaster working at the frontier of the generative AI and synthetic media revolution. Henry’s work has transformed society’s understanding of deepfakes and generative AI. He has led pioneering research at organisations including MIT, WITNESS, and Sensity AI, influencing international legislation and corporate AI strategy. A "deep fake cartographer", henry's work has mapped the emergence and evolution...

Over the past decade, companies have invested more and more in employee wellbeing. And yet, in recent years, employees perceptions that their companies care about their wellbeing has fallen rapidly. Why is the increase in spend not translating to improved employee wellbeing, and what can be done about it? This week, I'm in conversation with the Tyler Rice, who is the Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer of the Digital Wellness Institute. As a leading digital wellness innovator, Tyler’s...

It is impossible to ignore the rapid rise and adoption of Generative AI programs, like chat GPT and Midjourney. At Freedom, we are fascinated with the conversation about whether these tools will support or undermine digital wellbeing and productivity, and the impact that they will have for the future of work. The likelihood is that it will depend a lot on how thoughtfully we use them. In this episode we welcome consumer psychologist, Dr Paul Marsden, to discuss this very issue. As a positive...

Silence isn’t just the absence of noise. It’s a presence that brings us energy, clarity, and deeper connection. In this episode, we meet with Justin Zorn & Leigh Marz, to discuss just this. Their book, Golden: The Power of Silence in a World of Noise, explores the meaning of silence and the art of finding it in any situation. The book reveals how to go beyond the ordinary rules and tools of mindfulness. It’s a field guide for navigating the noise of the modern world—not just the noise in...

In this episode we speak with Gloria Mark. Gloria is Chancellor's professor of Informatics at the University of California, Irvine. She received her PhD from Columbia University in Psychology and studies the impact of digital media on people's lives. Her new book, Attention Span is the culmination of years of research, understanding attention, distraction, and how to live with digital devices. In this episode, we discussed the important arguments of her book: that there are different...

Amit Gupta is an optimist, a science fiction writer, and co-founder of Sudowrite, the AI-powered creative writing app. He is also an uncle and a son, and a friend to all dogs. He previously founded and sold Photojojo. In this episode we discuss: - Some of the challenges of creative writing - How writing has lagged other creative pursuits in terms of the availability of technology to support creativity (there is no photoshop for writing) - How AI can be a support for creative writing - Some...

Dan Clark is CEO of Brain.FM, which creates music for the brain, to help you unlock your best self, by focusing, relaxing and sleeping better. Phil Amalong is the VP Marketing of Freedom, and audio producer and music composer for Freedom Matters. They both love music, and have lived and breathed how music can change the way we function and work. In this two part episode, we speak firstly with Phil. We talk about how he builds the soundtracks for our podcast, about his career history as a...

John Mack is an American artist, photographer, author and founder of Life Calling. A frequent speaker at conferences and universities on the subjects of technology, awareness and consciousness, Mack’s examination of these topics recently culminated in A Species Between Worlds: Our Nature, Our Screens, an interactive visual art experience and month-long Forum exploring humanity’s current migration from the natural world to the virtual world. It was live in New York through September 2022. In...

Tanya Goodin is an author, broadcaster, pioneering thinker and campaigner on digital wellbeing and tech ethics - founder of the digital detox movement Time to Log Off and host of the ‘It’s Complicated’ podcast. Her game-changing books on our relationship with technology, ‘My Brain Has Too Many Tabs Open’, ‘Off’ and ‘Stop Staring at Screens’, are published in ten languages worldwide. In this episode we discuss many of the lessons that she has learnt about the costs of using technology. We...

Henry Shapiro is co-founder at Reclaim.ai, an intelligent calendar assistant and time management platform used by over 13,000 companies worldwide. In this conversation we talk about some of the practical ways in which time constrains us, and how to manage those constraints. We discuss:  the importance of shifting from a task to a priorities-based approach to managing time  how good time-management requires facing up to our constraints  how to manage the balance our own demands with...

This week, we welcome Randima Fernando. Randy works at the intersection of technology, mindfulness and social impact, helping to find ethical solutions to hard problems. Here's a co-founder of Center for Humane Technology (CHT), a nonprofit whose mission is to align technology with humanity's best interests. The Center for Humane Technology was featured in the Emmy winning film, The Social Dilemma, which has been seen by over a hundred million people globally. This episode is the first in...

This week on Freedom Matters we are taking a break from recording, and sharing with you instead an episode from one of our favourite podcasts, Digital Habit Lab from Mind Over Tech. Hosted by Menka Sanghvi, this podcast welcomes guests from different walks of life to observe how we use tech; reflect on how it sometimes uses us; and experiment on ways to make sure it is actually helping us to do what we most value in life. In this episode, Menka interviews Tiu de Haan, a ritual designer,...

This week, we speak with Ingrid, a designer and author whose groundbreaking work reveals the hidden influence of our surroundings on our emotions and wellbeing. As a former design director at IDEO, author of Joyful: The Surprising Power of Ordinary Things to Create Extraordinary Happiness, and the founder of the website The Aesthetics of Joy, she empowers people to find more joy in life and work through design. Her immensely popular TED talk “Where Joy Hides and How to Find It” has been...

James Hamilton Hibbard is a Northern California-based writer and former professional cyclist who studied philosophy at the PhD-level. His philosophical memoir, THE ART OF CYCLING: Philosophy, Meaning, and a Life on Two Wheels (Quercus/ Hachette Australia), explores questions of embodiment and meaning in our increasingly detached and virtual society, and was shortlisted for The Sunday Times 2022 British Sports Book of the Year, Cycling. In this conversation we discuss: - His journey as a...

The Freedom Matters Team is taking a short break between seasons, and we thought it was the perfect opportunity to share an episode from the Solo Collective Podcast, hosted by friend of Freedom and former podcast guest, Rebecca Seal. In this episode she interviews Caroline Williams, author of ‘Move! The New Science of Body over Mind’ - an amazing book about how movement impacts the way our brains work from creativity to mental health. We wanted to share this episode, because as the summer...

In this episode, we welcome Sharath Jeevan OBE, one of the world’s leading experts on intrinsic motivation, direction and potential. He is the Executive Chairman of Intrinsic Labs and author of groundbreaking smart thinking book Intrinsic. In this episode we discuss why we are experiencing a crisis of motivation, where external motivators like money and status fall down, the value of intrinsic motivators, autonomy, mastery and purpose, and how we all have the opportunity to reset the...

Casey Schwartz is a writer in New York City, where she lives with her husband and son. She is the author of Attention, a Love Story (Pantheon, 2020) and In the Mind Fields (Pantheon, 2015). She also contributes regularly to the New York Times. Her most recent book came from an article she wrote for the New York Times Magazine about spending a decade addicted to Adderall. In this episode, we discuss her journey with the drug Adderall and when after years of trying to quit it, she re-entered...

This week, we are in conversation with Jillian Horton. Jillian is an award-winning medical educator, writer, musician and podcaster. She completed a residency and a fellowship in internal medicine at the University of Toronto and has held the post of Associate Dean and Associate Chair of that department. For sixteen years, she cared for thousands of patients in an inner-city hospital. During that time, she had three sons and mentored hundreds of students. She now leads the development of new...

This week we welcome Michael Sacasas, author of The Convivial Society, a newsletter about technology and society. Michael is the associate director of the Christian Study Center of Gainesville and has written for The New Atlantis, The New Inquiry, Comment Magazine, and Real Life Magazine. He is also the author of a forthcoming book 41 Questions: Technology and the Moral Life (Avid Reader Press). In this thought provoking episode we invite all our listeners to reconsider the place of...

This week, we welcome Susie Alegre, a leading human rights barrister in the internationally renowned Doughty Street Chambers. She has been a legal pioneer in digital human rights, in particular the impact of artificial intelligence on the human rights of freedom of thought and opinion. Her book, Freedom to Think, charts the history and importance of our most basic human right: freedom of thought. From Galileo to Nudge Theory to Alexa, Susie explores how the powerful have always sought to get...

This week we welcome Krista Tippett. Krista is a Peabody Award-winning broadcaster, a National Humanities Medalist, a New York Times bestselling author and the creator and host of On Being, a world renown podcast which sets out to explore the immensity of our human lives. In this extended episode, we discuss the importance of questions - how asking the right questions and accepting that there may never be an answer, can help us to know ourselves better, whilst enabling society to grow. We...

This week, we wrap up our series on the the future of work with Founder and CEO of Freedom, Fred Stutzman. Freedom is developing the essential toolset for the future of focused work. In a distraction-first world, we believe that the ability to reliably and consistently do focused, deep work is a differentiating skillset. In this episode we reflect on Fred's own thoughts on the future of work, how the Freedom team is organized to embrace asynchronous, remote working, and some of his favourite...

Jeremy Redleaf is an Emmy Award winning artist, entrepreneur, and co-founder of Caveday, the world's most focused community. Their research-backed method is used by workers and companies in over 40 countries to do better work in less time with fewer distractions. In this episode we dive into philosophical and practical advice on how setting the right conditions for flow is essential - and how working 'in a cave' with other people can achieve many of the things we need. We discuss: The...