[iframe style=”border:none” src=”http://html5-player.libsyn.com/embed/episode/id/2625233/height/100/width/420/thumbnail/no/theme/standard” height=”100″ width=”420″ scrolling=”no” allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen oallowfullscreen msallowfullscreen]

Dr. Kelly McGonigal is a health psychologist at Stanford University and author of, “THE WILLPOWER INSTINCT: How Self-Control Works, Why It Matters, and What You Can Do To Get More of It.” Dr. McGonigal teaches one of the most popular courses at Stanford University called, “The Science of Willpower.” She has helped hundreds of students achieve their goals through the idea of willpower. She believes stress should be welcomed in people’s lives, thus causing greater willpower. Dr. McGonigal breaks down the science behind why we give in to temptation and how we can find the strength to resist.

Find out more about Dr. Kelly McGonigal at KellyMcGonigal.com.

Kelly McGonigal, PhD, is a health psychologist and lecturer at Stanford University, and a leading expert in the new field of “science-help.” She is passionate about translating cutting-edge research from psychology, neuroscience, and medicine into practical strategies for health, happiness, and personal success. Her most recent book, The Willpower Instinct: How Self-Control Works, Why It Matters, and What You Can Do to Get More of It (Penguin 2012), explores the latest research on motivation, temptation, and procrastination, as well as what it takes to transform habits, persevere at challenges, and make a successful change.

Her audio series The Neuroscience of Change (Sounds True 2012) weaves the newest findings of science with Eastern contemplative wisdom to give listeners a revolutionary process for personal transformation. She is also the author of Yoga for Pain Relief: Simple Practices to Calm Your Mind and Heal Your Pain (New Harbinger, 2009), which translates recent advances in neuroscience and medicine into mind-body strategies for relieving chronic pain, stress, depression, and anxiety.

She teaches for a wide range of programs at Stanford University, including the Stanford Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education, the Graduate School of Business, and the School of Medicine’s Health Improvement Program. She has received a number of teaching awards for her undergraduate psychology courses, including Stanford University’s highest teaching honor, the Walter J. Gores award.

Her popular public courses through Stanford’s Continuing Studies program—including the Science of Willpower and the Science of Compassion—demonstrate the applications of psychological science to personal health and happiness, as well as organizational success and social change. Through a wide range of conferences, workshops, university-affiliated programs, and consulting, Dr. McGonigal also provides continuing education and training to executives, teachers, healthcare providers, and other professionals.

Her psychology research (on compassion, mindfulness, and emotion regulation) has been published in The Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Motivation and Emotion, The International Journal of Psychiatry in Medicine, and The Journal of Happiness Studies. From 2005-2012, Dr. McGonigal served as the Editor in Chief of the International Journal of Yoga Therapy, a peer-reviewed journal of mind-body research, healthcare policy, and clinical practice. A long-time practitioner of yoga and meditation, Dr. McGonigal is a founding member of the Yoga Service Council and serves on the advisory boards of several non-profit organizations bringing yoga and meditation to underserved and at-risk populations, including Yoga Bear (providing yoga in hospitals nationwide and to cancer survivors and their caregivers) and The Art of Yoga Project (brining yoga into juvenile detention facilities in the San Francisco Bay Area).

Dr. McGonigal’s work has been covered widely by the media, including the CBS Evening News, U.S. News and World Report, CNN.com, O! The Oprah Magazine, Time magazine, USA Today, and the American Psychological Association’s Monitor on Psychology. She is also a frequent source of expert advice and commentary for media outlets such as the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, MSNBC.com, Web MD, Time, Fitness, Women’s Health, and more. In 2010, Forbes named her one of the 20 most inspiring women to follow on Twitter. In 2012, she teamed up with the Oprah Winfrey Network and Superbetter Labs to create an online game that would spread the benefits of gratitude to millions of people worldwide.

Dr. McGonigal received her PhD in psychology from Stanford University, with a concentration in humanistic medicine. She received a B.A. in Psychology and a B.S. in Mass Communication from Boston University. She is also passionate about the benefits of physical exercise and has been certified as a group fitness instructor since 2000. In her free time, she continues to teach group fitness classes – because sometimes moving, breathing, and sweating is the best thing you can do to create health, joy, and resilience.

ANNOUNCER: Welcome to the JetSetter Show, where we explore lifestyle-friendly destinations worldwide. Enjoy and learn from a variety of experts on topics ranging from upscale travel at wholesale prices, to retiring overseas, to global real estate and business opportunities, to tax havens and expatriate opportunities. You’ll get great ideas on unique cultures, causes, and cruise vacations. Whether you’re wealthy or just want to live a wealthy lifestyle, the JetSetter Show is for you. Here’s your host, Jason Hartman.

JASON HARTMAN: Welcome to today’s show! This is Jason Hartman, your host, and as you may or may not know, every 10th show, we kind of do a special tradition here that originated with my Creating Wealth Show, where we do a topic that is actually off topic on purpose. Something just to do with general life and more successful living, and that’s exactly what we’re going to do today with our special guest. Again, 10th show is off topic, and it is very much intentional, just for personal enrichment, and I hope you enjoy today’s show. And we will be back with our guest, in just a moment.

[MUSIC]

ANNOUNCER (FEMALE): I’ve never really thought of Jason as subversive, but I just found that’s what Wall Street considers him to be!

ANNOUNCER (MALE): Really? How is that possible at all?

ANNOUNCER (FEMALE): Simple. Wall Street believes that real estate investors are dangerous to their schemes, because the dirty truth about income property is that it actually works in real life.

ANNOUNCER (MALE): I know! I mean, how many people do you know, not including insiders, who created wealth with stocks, bonds, and mutual funds? Those options are for people who only want to pretend they’re getting ahead.

ANNOUNCER (FEMALE): Stocks, and other non-direct traded assets, are losing game for most people. The typical scenario is: you make a little, you lose a little, and spin your wheels for decades.

ANNOUNCER (MALE): That’s because the corporate crooks running the stock and bond investing game will always see to it that they win! Which means, unless you’re one of them, you will not win.

ANNOUNCER (FEMALE): And, unluckily for Wall Street, Jason has a unique ability to make the everyday person understand investing the way it should be. He shows them a world where anything less than a 26% annual return is disappointing.

ANNOUNCER (MALE): Yep, and that’s why Jason offers a one book set on creating wealth that comes with 20 digital download audios. He shows us how we can be excited about these scary times, and exploit the incredible opportunities this present economy has afforded us.

ANNOUNCER (FEMALE): We can pick local markets, untouched by the economic downturn, exploit packaged commodities investing, and achieve exceptional returns safely and securely.

ANNOUNCER (MALE): I like how he teaches you to protect the equity in your home before it disappears, and how to outsource your debt obligations to the government.

ANNOUNCER (FEMALE): And this set of advanced strategies for wealth creation is being offered for only $197.

ANNOUNCER (MALE): To get your creating wealth encyclopedia, book one, complete with over 20 hours of audio, go to www.jasonhartman.com/store.

ANNOUNCER (FEMALE): If you want to be able to sit back and collect checks every month, just like a banker, Jason’s creating wealth encyclopedia series is for you.

[MUSIC]

JASON HARTMAN: It’s my pleasure to welcome Dr. Kelly McGonigal to the show. She is a health psychologist at Stanford and the author of The Willpower Instinct. What could be a more appropriate topic for the New Year? Kelly, welcome. How are you?

DR. KELLY MCGONIGAL: I’m doing great, how are you?

JASON HARTMAN: Well, good. So two really important topics, actually. Willpower, which of course a lot of people in the New Year every year, the gym memberships increase, and the health clubs are crowded, and the diets are sold, and the goals are set. And then by about mid-February, it all starts to kind of peter out. And you talked about two areas of great interest to me: willpower, of course, but also, stress. And whether it’s good or bad. Let’s talk about willpower first, if we can, and kind of talk about some of your latest r