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The Self-Help Tools That Actually Work | Spencer Greenberg

August 29, 2026 · 57 min

Show notes

Spencer Greenberg is an entrepreneur and mathematician with a PhD in applied math from NYU. He’s the founder and CEO of ClearerThinking.org, a psychology education and research organization that designs and conducts novel studies in psychology and offers more than 80 interactive educational tools to the general public, used by hundreds of thousands of people. His work has been featured by numerous major media outlets, such as Forbes, The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, The Independent, Lifehacker, Gizmodo, Fast Company, and Financial Times.

Today on the show we discuss: why most self-help advice gets recycled, how to spot grifters and too-good-to-be-true promises, why smart people still get manipulated, the dangerous side of manifestation and toxic positivity, the evidence-backed psychological tools that actually improve your life, how to stop overthinking and turn better decisions into action and much more.


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