The Examined Life
by Kenneth Primrose
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Est. Listeners
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- Per-Episode Audience
Est. listeners per new episode within ~30 days
10,001 - 25,000 - Monthly Reach
Unique listeners across all episodes (30 days)
25,001 - 75,000 - Active Followers
Loyal subscribers who consistently listen
5,001 - 15,000
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On the show
Recent episodes
Kathryn Mannix - Is mortality a threat or a catalyst?
Apr 27, 2026
1h 00m 39s
Dr BJ Miller - How are you grieving?
Apr 14, 2026
1h 05m 36s
Dr Lucy Hone - What has loss taught you?
Mar 30, 2026
51m 02s
Season Trailer - Mortality & Meaning
Mar 23, 2026
1m 47s
Flourishing in a Digital Age
Feb 10, 2026
42m 46s
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| Date | Episode | Description | Length | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4/27/26 |  Kathryn Mannix - Is mortality a threat or a catalyst? | Send us Fan Mail Mortality: Threat or Catalyst? A Conversation with Dr. Kathryn Mannix In this episode of The Examined Life, Kenny Primrose is in conversation with writer, speaker, and retired palliative care physician Dr. Kathryn Mannix about whether mortality is experienced as a threat or a catalyst for living. Mannix describes how early fear and resentment of death drew her to caring for dying patients, what she observed as medical abandonment, and how nurses taught her that the most impor... | 1h 00m 39s | ||||||
| 4/14/26 |  Dr BJ Miller - How are you grieving? | Send us Fan Mail BJ Miller on Loss, Meaning, and Learning to Feel In this conversation, Kenny Primrose speaks with palliative care physician BJ Miller, co-founder of Mettle Health, about grief—not as an interruption to life, but as one of its central experiences. Rather than treating grief as something that happens only after death, Miller suggests it is a constant human condition: the emotional response to loving things that inevitably change, fade, or disappear. The problem, he argues, is... | 1h 05m 36s | ||||||
| 3/30/26 |  Dr Lucy Hone - What has loss taught you? | Send us Fan Mail Learning from Loss with Dr. Lucy Hone How do you survive the unthinkable? When resilience researcher Dr. Lucy Hone lost her 12-year-old daughter in a tragic accident, she didn't just study the science of grief—she had to live it. In this episode, Lucy joins Kenny Primrose to share the practical, evidence-based tools that help us oscillate between mourning and living, and what we can learn about life in the wake of loss. In This Episode: In this new series on grief and mortali... | 51m 02s | ||||||
| 3/23/26 |  Season Trailer - Mortality & Meaning | Send us Fan Mail A short trailer for the forthcoming season where we explore mortality, immortality, loss, grief and finding meaning in the wake of them. In the above clip you'll hear snippets from Lucy Hone, BJ Miller, Kathryn Mannix and Victor Strecher - with other episodes to follow. Subscribe and stay tuned for the forthcoming episodes, and sign up to This Examined Life on Substack to receiving updates and related essays to your inbox - This Examined Life | kenneth primrose | Substa... | 1m 47s | ||||||
| 2/10/26 | Flourishing in a Digital Age | Send us Fan Mail We explore what human flourishing means beyond quick hits of happiness and how attention, character, and community shape a life with depth. We offer practical ways to set tech boundaries, recover presence, and build habits that support meaning and stronger relationships. • defining flourishing as purpose, virtue, health, relationships, and stability • attention as a moral act that shapes identity • flow states, boredom, and the role of friction in mastery • how persuasive te... | 42m 46s | ||||||
| 1/26/26 | Surviving Hard Times: The Stockdale Paradox And Everyday Resilience - ft. Terry Waite and Lucy Hone | Send us Fan Mail We trace how realistic hope sustains people through captivity and crisis, from the Stockdale Paradox to Sir Terry Waite’s agency in confinement, and preview Dr. Lucy Hone's reframe of resilience as steering through rather than bouncing back. A brief, grounded message closes for anyone in a hard season, with a request to share and stay connected. • what the Stockdale paradox really means • why deadline‑based optimism breaks people • agency as daily practice under pressure • s... | 8m 12s | ||||||
| 1/2/26 |  Victor Strecher - Who am I? | Send us Fan Mail Living With Purpose: Insights from Victor Strecher In this episode of The Examined Life Podcast, host Kenny Primrose explores the profound questions of life's purpose and values with Professor Victor Strecher, a leading expert in the field from the University of Michigan. Strecher shares his deeply personal journey following the tragic death of his daughter, which led him to a renewed focus on what matters most in life. The conversation delves into how reflecting on death and... | 49m 09s | ||||||
| 12/15/25 |  Sir Anthony Seldon - What is the purpose of education? | Send us Fan Mail Sir Anthony Seldon is one of the most influential voices in the UK on education. He has led three prominent independent school, and written or edited more than 40 books. In this episode we explore how education can honour what truly matters in a time when AI can outscore us on the tests we designed. Sir Anthony Seldon lays out a shift from human capital to human flourishing, urging schools to cultivate agency, character, and love of learning. • redefining the purpose of educ... | 44m 14s | ||||||
| 12/8/25 | LM Sacasas on why life should not be delegated | Send us Fan Mail In this brief episode we explore a short soundbite from a previous episode with philosopher of technology LM Sacasas. In it we explore the way that efficiency and ease might give with one hand, while taking with the other. - check out the previous episode in full here - https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/michael-sacasas-what-should-we-be-doing-for-ourselves/id1680728280?i=1000705506079 - LM Sacasas substack here - https://substack.com/@theconvivialsociety - Thi... | 6m 23s | ||||||
| 12/1/25 | Leaning into Pain with Anna Lembke | Send us Fan Mail Comfort is easy; appetite is sacred. We trace a surprising path to steadier happiness by leaning, gently but deliberately, into friction. Drawing on psychiatrist Anna Lembke’s insight that our modern environment is addictogenic, we look at how endless convenience and constant dopamine nudges can flatten mood, fog attention, and leave us restless. Then we put the theory to the test with a cold North Sea dip—short, sharp, and strangely joyful on the other side. Across the conv... | 7m 30s | ||||||
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| 11/24/25 |  Dr Alex Curmi - how should we prepare for a technological future? | Send us Fan Mail Dr Alex Curmi is a psychiatrist and psychotherapist who also hosts The Thinking Mind podcast, and is a gifted communicator on mental health and self-development. Alex's clinical work and training has given him acute insights into troubling aspects of modern life, and how we might prepare for an uncertain future. The question which formed the spine of our conversation was ‘ In a world where technology has been quite disruptive psychologically for a lot of people, how do ... | 1h 08m 47s | ||||||
| 7/2/25 |  Tom Chatfield - What myths are we telling ourselves about technology? | Send us Fan Mail Technology is taking on a mythic mantle as we look to our creations to supply us with a sense of belonging and purpose, but this is a category error because tech cannot honestly deliver on these promises. In this podcast Tom Chatfield explores some of the issues bound up with the ways we are thinking about technology. • Technology is not a bolt-on or optional extra, but has been integral to human existence since before our species evolved • The delusion of neutrality allows ... | 56m 01s | ||||||
| 6/17/25 |  Rosie Spinks - What Do We Do Now That We're Here? | Send us Fan Mail Rosie Spinks Substack - https://rojospinks.substack.com/about Kenny Primrose Substack - https://positivelymaladjusted.substack.com/ Moby Gratis Music - https://mobygratis.com/ Writer and journalist Rosie Spinks joins us to explore her powerful question: "What do we do now that we're here?" Drawing from her journey from ambitious journalist to burnout victim to advocate for a different way of living, Rosie offers a surprisingly hopeful perspective on navigating a world where t... | 52m 32s | ||||||
| 6/4/25 |  Ruth Taylor - How do we develop better cultural values? | Send us Fan Mail Ruth Taylor explores how our cultural conditions shape our values and beliefs, revealing how we can build futures where humans and other life forms flourish together on our planet. She illuminates the often invisible narratives that guide our thinking and behavior, showing how these shape everything from our personal happiness to our collective response to global challenges. • The "values perception gap" - most people prioritize intrinsic values like community and equality, ... | 59m 57s | ||||||
| 5/21/25 |  William Damon - Am I serving a bigger purpose than myself? | Send us Fan Mail What does it mean to live a purposeful life? Is the way you're spending your time truly reflective of your deepest values and aspirations? These questions stand at the heart of my enlightening conversation with William Damon, Professor of Psychology at Stanford University and a world-renowned expert on purpose and moral development. Damon brings decades of research to bear on understanding how purpose shapes our lives, offering a compelling definition that transcends simple ... | 54m 36s | ||||||
| 5/15/25 |  Katharine Birbalsingh - Why are we ignoring our future? | Send us Fan Mail What shapes our children's future? Who are they becoming? And why aren't we talking about it more? Katharine Birbalsingh, known as "Britain's strictest headteacher," has a clear vision for the role of school's in shaping the future of Britain. "Children are the future and families and schools influence who they will become, and we seem to care about neither," she observes with passion that's impossible to ignore. While politicians debate net-zero targets and immigration poli... | 53m 14s | ||||||
| 5/7/25 |  Peter Gray - What do children need to develop psychologically? | Send us Fan Mail If you’re a parent or a teacher, you’ve probably wondered about what the best conditions are for psychological development in children, and where we might have gone so wrong as a society. This week, we talk with psychologist Peter Gray about the developmental needs of children, and why long school days, risk free environments, and too much supervision are wreaking havoc with their psychological development. Other episodes on parenting/teaching: Michaeleen Doucleff on the univ... | 55m 33s | ||||||
| 4/30/25 |  Michael Sacasas - what should we be doing for ourselves, even if a machine can do it for us? | Send us Fan Mail Michael Sacasas writes about technology and human flourishing through his wildly popular newsletter The Convivial Society. I have been reading his work for a number of years and find it both winsome and wise. It was delight to have the opportunity to speak to him about a question he thinks we should be asking ourselves. In this conversation we explore the question of what humans should still do for themselves even when technology can do it better or more efficiently. This con... | 1h 00m 17s | ||||||
| 4/23/25 |  Michaeleen Doucleff - what are the universals of childhood? | Send us Fan Mail What if the Western approach to parenting is based on spurious cultural assumptions, not human nature? In this episode, science writer Michaeleen Doucleff takes us inside indigenous communities around the world to reveal what Western parenting gets backwards, as we explore her question - what are the universals of childhood? From the origins of modern parenting in orphanage manuals to the power of kids contributing to real family life, we explore what children actually need t... | 1h 05m 24s | ||||||
| 11/29/24 |  Season II summary: it's all about attention | Send us Fan Mail In this summary episode, we take the theme of attention which runs through most of conversations in the second season. In the episode you'll hear fragments of conversation from Iain McGilchrist, Dacher Keltner, Dougald Hine, Phoebe Tickell, Alex Evans, Elizabeth Oldfield, Jill Bolte-Taylor, Eve Poole and Todd Kashdan. Over this short episode, you'll hear discussion of a wide range of topics, from religion, AI and smartphones, to the role of awe and imagination. Click h... | 27m 50s | ||||||
| 10/2/24 |  Oliver Burkeman - How can I more fully embrace my finitude? | Send us Fan Mail This is a distilled version of last year's conversation with the writer Oliver Burkeman. In it, you'll hear Oliver talk about our troubled relationship with time and how to more fully inhabit it. Oliver believes our obsession with productivity and efficiency is no route to happiness, quite the opposite. In order to inhabit time more fully, we need to embrace our limitations. This will mean admitting that however many worthwhile ways there are to spend our time, we can't do t... | 20m 45s | ||||||
| 9/10/24 |  Phoebe Tickell - Is the root of our problems found in the way we see the world? | Send us Fan Mail Phoebe Tickell is a biologist, systems thinker, and 'imagination activist'. Phoebe works across multiple contexts applying a complexity and systems thinking lens and engaging people in how to think differently about the planet and its problems. In 2020 Phoebe created 'Moral Imaginations', which researches and implements collective imagination exercises and training to inspire change and find new solutions in an era of unprecedented disruption and potential for transformation.... | 55m 37s | ||||||
| 8/8/24 |  Alex Evans - What do we do about the religion shaped hole? | Send us Fan Mail What do we lack when we lack religion? In this episode Alex Evans explores the role that religion has historically played in both collective and individual life, and the shape it leaves behind when it disappears. The stories that we locate ourselves within and the rituals they enshrine, are formative in the way we attend to the world. Religion has historically provided the structure for this work, and its absence leaves a vacuum. The conversation explores the various pretende... | 53m 14s | ||||||
| 7/25/24 |  Dr. Jill Bolte-Taylor - Who are we, and what are we doing here? | Send us Fan Mail Dr Jill Bolte-Taylor was a neuroanatomist at Harvard when she suffered a severe stroke on the left hemisphere of her brain. It was an experience which profoundly changed her life, and opened her up to the agency we all have in choosing our attention. She explores this in her TED talk back in 2008, which became one of the most popular TED talks ever. In this conversation we explore Jill's question 'who are we, and what are we doing here?', doing so through the lens of neuroana... | 53m 09s | ||||||
| 7/9/24 |  Todd Kashdan - What are the best ways to be influential when lacking power and status? | Send us Fan Mail Show links: Todd's website - https://toddkashdan.com/ Todd's Substack - https://toddkashdan.substack.com/ Kenny's Substack - https://positivelymaladjusted.substack.com/ Examined Life youtube channel - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpKC6L_IJ2zvL6E6M8Ly1AA What if the most influential voices in our society are those often left unheard? In this episode, I sit down with Todd Kashdan, a psychology professor at George Mason University and the mind behind "The Art of Insubordina... | 55m 01s | ||||||
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Chart Positions
4 placements across 4 markets.
Chart Positions
4 placements across 4 markets.