How to Understand Yourself Better episode artwork

EPISODE · Mar 9, 2026 · 42 MIN

How to Understand Yourself Better

from Your Lot and Parcel · host Benjamin Diaz/J. Eric Oliver, Author, and Professor of Chicago University

What if everything you thought you knew about yourself was wrong?For over two decades, University of Chicago professor J. Eric Oliver has taught a legendary course—The Intelligible Self—that students consistently describe as life-changing. Now, in How to Know Your Self, he brings that transformative classroom experience to readers everywhere, guiding us through the most profound journey of all: discovering who we really are.With warmth, wit, and a gift for illuminating the unexpected, Oliver weaves together insights from neuroscience, psychology, physics, and ancient philosophy to explore the mystery of selfhood. What is this thing we call "me"? How does it form? And why are the answers we have inherited, even the ones we have arrived at ourselves so often, illusions rather than truth?More than a collection of life hacks or quick fixes, How to Know Your Self offers something rare: a transformative framework for understanding what it means to be a person. Drawing on decades of teaching, research, and lived experience, Oliver reveals how a deeper grasp of the self can fundamentally reshape the way we navigate our one precious life.J. Eric Oliver is the author of How to Know Your Self: The Art & Science of Discovering Who You Really Are. https://www.amazon.com/How-Know-Your-Self-Discovering/dp/1324095237http://www.yourlotandparcel.orgSupport the show

What if everything you thought you knew about yourself was wrong? For over two decades, University of Chicago professor J. Eric Oliver has taught a legendary course—The Intelligible Self—that students consistently describe as life-changing. Now, in How to Know Your Self, he brings that transformative classroom experience to readers everywhere, guiding us through the most profound journey of all: discovering who we really are. With warmth, wit, and a gift for illuminating the unexpected, Olive...

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How to Understand Yourself Better

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This episode is 42 minutes long.

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This episode was published on March 9, 2026.

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What if everything you thought you knew about yourself was wrong?For over two decades, University of Chicago professor J. Eric Oliver has taught a legendary course—The Intelligible Self—that students consistently describe as life-changing. Now, in...

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