Kayt Sukel: Sex, Risk, and the Brain

Michael Gervais (0:09)

All right, welcome back or welcome to the Finding Mastery podcast. I'm Michael Gervais, and these conversations are designed to sit down with people who have a point of view about mastery. I wanna take a minute here to announce a really exciting event that we have coming up. As you continue to navigate the challenges and opportunities of 2024, I wanna pose a question. What are you doing right now to be great with stress? How are you working with stress on your pursuit towards your most important ambitions and goals? And I just wanna get right to the heart of the key elements, one in particular, for what it takes to excel in today's high heat, high stakes world. Because stress is not the problem that we think it is. Stress is a synonym for change.

And our ability to be agile with change, that is the real opportunity at hand. So if you're wanting to unlock extraordinary results and sustainable performance in your life, it's not about avoiding or reducing stress. And as simple as that sounds, it's very tricky to do, but it is about fundamentally changing your relationship with it.

And that's why I'm so thrilled to invite you to a special event. It's a free virtual event that we're offering, and it's called The Power of Embracing Stress. It's on Wednesday, March 6th at 2 p.m. Pacific. So to sign up, just head over to findingmastery.com/training. Whether it's advancing in your career or improving your health or cultivating stronger relationships, I think a new approach to stress can be one of the most powerful unlocks for you in your life.

So join us for this free virtual training, The Power of Embracing Stress, on Wednesday, March 6th at 2 p.m. Pacific.

Go to findingmastery.com/training to sign up once again, that's findingmastery.com/training. And I'm really excited to see you there.

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And she's got a rich point of view about risk taking. And if you've been part of some of the previous conversations we've had on this podcast, the fascination and interest in the risk event, whether that be small in a living room or be large in the amphitheater or the back country, or somewhere in an entrepreneur gumption to go for it and to lay the appropriate bet in the right time, whatever it might be, that the risk taking process is really an important component towards being able to invest in mastery and invest in progression. So, and then her first book was called Dirty Minds.

And it was really how brains work around sex. And it was when the softback came out, yes, I think that's how you call it.

It was relabeled, this is your brain on sex. So she's got a good understanding about sex. She proclaims that she understands it more than other people. Interesting conversation. And how risk works. You're gonna love her story about how she got into Carnegie Mellon, one of the premier university systems. You're gonna really enjoy that. And she described herself as a cultural scientist, which I love that phrase. It's new to me.

And it's the intersection between science and the lab and how that is met in everyday living. And it feels like that's a really thoughtful approach towards taking great research and understanding at a rich level and figuring out what the application of that looks like. So we can be better. And I love it. And so I hope you enjoy this conversation. I enjoyed it. I think there's some really strong takeaways about it. And so find us on social, find us on wherever. I want to thank everyone for continuing to be interested and push the momentum as we work to understand how to build some sort of base around this podcast. So thank you everybody. And let's get right into this with Kayt. Kayt, this is the third or maybe fourth attempt that we've had over digital to get our conversation started. So welcome for the fourth time.