EconTalk · Russ Roberts

How to Flourish (with Daniel Coyle)

February 2, 2026·1 hr 15 min·5 clips

How two types of attention in your brain determine whether you feel connected or just productive.

The title flatters the program. Roberts jokes that Coyle has picked a subject made for EconTalk, then slows down and asks what flourishing is supposed to mean. Coyle's definition, joyful, meaningful growth shared with others, sounds appealing, but Roberts keeps pressing on it instead of letting the phrase float by. Stories do most of the work. They spend time with people in changed surroundings, trying to find their footing without a neat plan. Roberts brings in his own move to Israel five years earlier, which someone compared to epinephrine to the heart. Country, language, habits, and norms all changed at once, and the disruption made him feel more alive rather than merely displaced. Coyle hears the pattern. He links the story to group flow, where people organize themselves under pressure without knowing exactly what comes next. He also admits the language can get foggy because the scientific vocabulary for these experiences is still thin. That honesty helps. The conversation works best when it does not try to nail everything down. Uncertainty becomes the hinge. Coyle describes moments when people go somewhere with others, face difficulty, figure things out together, and later recognize that something in them grew. His flock of birds moving through a forest gives the idea shape without pretending to finish it. By the end, flourishing sounds less like reinvention and more like becoming alert enough to trust what uncertainty may open.

As heard by us

Coyle's case that flourishing is always a group project, tested against Roberts's own leap to Jerusalem.

Roberts opens by accusing Coyle of picking a title -- "Flourish" -- calculated to land him on EconTalk, and the joke works because it's probably right.

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Why you'd press play

What makes a life feel good, and why other people are the part you keep skipping.

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