In this special year-end episode of Behind the Brilliance, Lisa presents six evidence-based strategies for designing a year that feels good while you're living it. Moving beyond traditional goal-setting advice, this episode explores the psychological architecture behind sustainable achievement: why updating your self-concept matters more than willpower, how to engineer habits that survive bad days, and why strategic incompetence is a sophisticated choice rather than a failure. Lisa shares a liberating perspective on deciding what deserves optimization versus maintenance and makes the case for building celebration into your system. If you're tired of aspirational new year hype, this episode offers a more strategic, psychologically grounded approach to having a great year.

TOPICS COVERED

• Identity architecture: Why self-concept determines behavior success
• Designing habits for bad days, not ideal conditions
• Addition by subtraction: The power of strategic elimination
• Intentional incompetence: Permission to not master everything
• Minimum effective effort: Maintenance vs. optimization modes
• Building celebration into your achievement system
• The relationship between identity and execution
• Engineering consistency by removing friction
• Distinguishing between habits you need vs. habits you think you should have

THINGS MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

• Lisa's newsletter, CUE
• Psychocybernetics by Maxwell Maltz
• Atomic Habits by James Clear
• Obvious to You (video) by Derek Sivers
• Minimum Effective Effort (essay) by Lisa

Season 15 of Behind the Brilliance delivered a mix of leading voices in psychology, entrepreneurship, and life design. This special recap distills the most powerful insights into one place highlighting big ideas and useful tools on happiness, resilience, and building a life and business on your own terms.

Guests include Tal Ben-Shahar, Ellen Hendriksen, Jodi Wellman, Rand Fishkin, Chris Guillebeau, Anne-Laure Le Cunff, Elaine Pofeldt, Rae Wynn-Grant, Ahad Khan, and Sieva Kozinsky.

The episode also includes a listening guide to match your interest with the relevant episode.

The recap concludes with reflections on the season's central theme: learning to work with human nature rather than against it. Essential listening for anyone who wants to understand what made Season 15 special and where to dive in next.

Chris Guillebeau, bestselling author and creator of The Art of Nonconformity, joins Lisa to explore what it really takes to build a self-directed life. He shares his unconventional path from high school dropout and aid worker in West Africa to global traveler, author of nine books, and entrepreneur. Chris unpacks the philosophy behind his work—why you don't have to live your life the way others expect—and introduces the concept of time anxiety, the tension between the fear of running out of time and the paralysis of endless choices.

The conversation covers everything from the psychology of "enough" and how mortality awareness can sharpen your priorities, to practical strategies for leaving things undone, creating accountability structures, and decluttering your calendar. Chris also opens up about ADHD, therapy, and why you should ask yourself at the end of the day, "Did today matter?"

Behind his brilliance: Refusing to accept "no" and always looking for another way.

TOPICS COVERED

· The difference between traditional anxiety and time anxiety

· Why having more choices creates its own form of paralysis

· The two types of time anxiety: existential panic and decision overwhelm

· How ADHD diagnosis changed his relationship with productivity

· Why working for yourself is actually the conservative choice

· The myth that independent work is inherently risky

· Moving from "you can be anything" liberation to burden

· Why curiosity without follow-through is just floating ideas

· The seasonality of creative work and energy cycles

· How to measure success by what you control vs external outcomes

· The power of asking "Did today matter?" over productivity metrics

· Why leaving things undone is a radical act in completion culture

· The difference between hard work and passionate engagement

· How to use death as a clarity tool rather than anxiety trigger

· Platform agnosticism and the creator economy evolution

· The accountability structures that support independent creators

· Why caring about your work trumps optimization systems

· Moving from rules-based to values-based decision making

· The future self trap and why motivation doesn't transfer

· How to create enough-ness in a never-enough culture