You 2.0: Stop Spiraling!
12/29/20251 hr 33 min
The start of a new year is a natural moment to set goals for ourselves. But doing so can also be a little daunting. Today, we kick off a series designed to help you understand and grapple with the mental obstacles that can keep you from charting a new path. We talk with psychologist Greg Walton, who studies how our minds get trapped in negative thought spirals — and how we can begin to break free. Then, in the latest installment of our segment "Your Questions Answered," psychologist and neuroscientist Abigail Marsh answers listener questions about the minds of extremely kind and generous people.
If you enjoyed our conversation with Greg Walton, don't miss our companion conversation about the emotional tools we can use to help someone who's spiraling. You can listen to that episode with a free seven-day trial to our podcast subscription, Hidden Brain+. To sign up, go to support.hiddenbrain.org. Or if you're using an Apple device, you can go to apple.co/hiddenbrain. Thanks, and Happy New Year!
Episode illustration by Getty Images for Unsplash+
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Transcript preview
First 90 secondsShankar Vedantam· Host0:00
This is Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar Vedantam. In 1971, a 17-year-old girl won the Miss Black Tennessee beauty pageant. It set in motion a chain of events that would transform not just her life, but the lives of millions of other people. Born into poverty to a teenage mother in rural Mississippi, Oprah Winfrey had endured a difficult childhood. She bounced between relatives, experienced abuse, and left home at 13. The pageant became the first domino in a series of extraordinary events. Her win caught the attention of WVOL, a local radio station. It offered her a part-time news position. At 19, Oprah became Nashville's first female African American news anchor. She then moved to Baltimore for television news, and eventually to Chicago, where she transformed a struggling morning show into the Oprah Winfrey Show.
Oprah Winfrey· Soundbite0:57
I'm Oprah Winfrey, and that's what we're talking about today.
Shankar Vedantam· Host1:00
Then came a production company, a magazine, a book club, and eventually, her own television network. Oprah Winfrey became a billionaire, a household name. For millions of people, she was the American dream made real. Can you see how each opportunity created momentum for the next, how each win opened doors that were previously closed? As the saying goes, nothing succeeds like success.