Spencer Greenberg - 106 Self-Help Books Distilled Into 12 Strategies (Ep. 333)

Spencer Greenberg, mathematician, founder of Clearer Thinking, and co-author of The 12 Levers, joins Jim O'Shaughnessy on Infinite Loops to talk about which self-help techniques hold up to evidence, why memory works like autocomplete, how exposure therapy cured his lifelong social anxiety, why the law of attraction can backfire, how to design hiring interviews that predict performance, and what his team found replicating new studies from top psychology journals.

Show Notes

Spencer Greenberg & Jim O'Shaughnessy

• Spencer Greenberg: Mathematician and entrepreneur, founder of ClearerThinking.org and Spark Wave, and host of the Clearer Thinking podcast. Clearer Thinking

• The 12 Levers: Spencer and Jeremy Stevenson's evidence-based toolkit for improving your life. The 12 Levers

• Clearer Thinking podcast: Spencer's interview show, where Jim has been a guest. Listen

• Transparent Replications: Spencer's project that randomly picks and re-runs new studies from top psychology journals. Transparent Replications

• Importance hacking: Spencer's essay on the problem his replications uncovered. Read the essay

• Jim O'Shaughnessy: Host of Infinite Loops, founder and CEO of O'Shaughnessy Ventures, and author of the New York Times bestseller What Works on Wall Street. Follow Jim on X

• Full transcripts: Transcripts and highlights from every Infinite Loops conversation. OSV newsletter

Books & Ideas Mentioned

• Reality tunnels: Robert Anton Wilson's idea that everyone perceives a different version of reality. Reality tunnel

• The Challenger memory study: Research showing how far people's memories of a major event drift over time. Flashbulb memory

• Spaced repetition: Spencer's recommended method for remembering what matters. Spaced repetition

• My Dinner with Andre: The film that shaped how Jim designed Infinite Loops. My Dinner with Andre

• Behavioral activation: The evidence-based depression technique Spencer describes. Behavioral activation

• Daniel Kahneman: Whose work for the Israeli military showed which interview methods actually predict performance. Daniel Kahneman

• Pre-mortem: The technique of imagining a plan has failed and working out why. Pre-mortem

• Replication crisis: The finding that many published psychology results don't hold up when re-run. Replication crisis

• John Sarno: The NYU physician whose work on the mind's role in chronic pain Jim credits with curing his frozen neck. John E. Sarno

• Molecules of Emotion by Candace Pert: Jim's reference on how emotions show up physically in the body. Candace Pert

• Mirror box therapy: The phantom limb treatment Spencer uses to show the brain can reinterpret a pain signal. Mirror box