The Anxious Achiever

E320 - Cultivating Resilience With Dan Ariely

Published: May 14, 2026

Duration: 43:17

What happens when stress, uncertainty, and lack of control start to take over your brain? In this episode, I sit down with renowned behavioral economist Dan Ariely to talk about resilience, learned helplessness, anxiety, and why so many people feel overwhelmed right now. Dan shares how surviving severe burns, years in the hospital, and later facing conspiracy theories and death threats shaped his understanding of stress, resilience, and human behavior. We also dive into why uncertainty at work feels so psychologically destabilizing, how scarcity and anxiety reduce our mental capacity, why humans look for villains during stressful times, and...