Podcast
The Art of Brilliance Podcast
Hosted by Art of Brilliance / Andy Cope · EN
Dr Andy Cope is a best-selling author and keynote speaker. His weekly podcast provides wisdom, advice, top tips, tears and laughter. His mantra; If you’re gonna rise, you may as well SHINE. Treat yourself to some wellbeing TLC
14episodes
Episodes
Newest firstAll episodes
Social Media and Screens... Devil's Work?
3w ago00:21:22Tap to summarizeIs social media the devil's work? Andy assembles an unlikely panel to fight it out - and referees from the middle.In the blue corner: his son, AoB trainer Ollie Cope, who deleted all his social media accounts and is now doing a PhD on what they do to your brain. In the red corner: AoB's marketing manager Amy Bradley, the creative force behind the Art of Brilliance posts that land in your feed at 6am and the messages that follow - "I really needed to see that today."What follows is a properly good-natured scrap about the most divisive tool of our age. Ollie argues social media has tipped from neutral to net-harmful - hate sells faster, the algorithms learn your biases and feed them back to you, and nobody's incentivised to show you the other side. Amy makes the case that the same tools, used with love, genuinely change people's days. They're both right, which is what makes it interesting.In this episode:Why Ollie loves screens but deleted social media - and the difference between the twoAmy on the "scroll hole," the Mel Robbins 5-second rule, and training your own algorithmThe TikTok experiment that should worry every parentAndy's tongue-in-cheek phone stats (84% have texted someone in the same room... and the one that gets the biggest laugh at conferences)Hate sells faster: how the engagement economy rewards the worst of usThe opportunity cost nobody talks about: 42 days a year, and what you're not doing while you're scrollingHow to mute, guard and curate your way to a feed that's actually good for youNo moral panic. No "delete everything." Just an honest look at the little black rectangles we're all looking at 150 times a day - and how to take responsibility for how we use them.Take what works, leave what doesn't, have a play.
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Could You Be Happier... Even If Nothing Around You Changed?
May 2000:24:23Tap to summarizeCould you be happier, even if nothing in the world around you changed?Andy puts the question to two of the Art of Brilliance trainers, Nikki Ayles and Kev House, in Episode 2 of the new series - and what follows is the most honest 25 minutes you'll spend this week.All three of them, by their own admission, would have said no a few years ago. The thinking went... my happiness is out there somewhere - in the next promotion, the holiday, the perfect Tuesday - and when life finally bends itself into the right shape, I'll catch up with it. Robert Holden calls this the WAIT problem. Most of us call it normal.But somewhere along the way, all three of them changed their minds. And that's what this episode is really about. How they did it. What it cost. And the very ordinary moments - pushing a trolley round Tesco's in Ashby-de-la-Zouch, sitting down for tea with your kids, going for a walk and not looking at your phone - that turned out to be the turning points.In this episode:Andy's epiphany in the cereal aisle: "everywhere I go, I'm there"Nikki on Three Good Things, and what changed when she started doing it on purpose with her kids at the dinner tableKev on the active process - and why he stopped waiting for life to happen to himWhy even the best advice won't land until you're ready to hear itBarbara Fredrickson's broaden-and-build: how happiness right now changes how you see your past and your futureAndy's question that we couldn't stop thinking about: Are we all suffering from human zoochosis?Three different definitions of "happy" - including the calm, contented version that doesn't get a podcast dealThree top tips for getting a bit more of the good stuff (one of which is: get comfortable feeling uncomfortable)If Episode 1 was about whether wellbeing tips actually work, this one goes a layer deeper... whether happiness itself is something you're waiting for or something you're doing.Take what works, leave what doesn't, enjoy.
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Top Wellbeing Tips You Haven't Heard Before
May 100:18:13Tap to summarizeAndy is back - and this time he's not in his car.After two seasons of recording on his iPhone in a layby, Andy has finally splashed out on a proper studio. To mark the occasion, Andy has roped in two of his Art of Being Brilliant co-conspirators, Will Hussey and Hannah Knowles, for a riff on something deceptively simple: top wellbeing tips you haven't heard before.Spoiler: Will's first tip is to stop listening to wellbeing tips. Andy's a little bit thrown. Things go from there.What follows is three trainers who actually know each other thinking out loud about what works, what stops working, and the gap between knowing the stuff and doing it.In this episode:Why other people's tips will only ever get you 75% of the way thereHannah's case for a non-self-improvement day (yes, including a day off from the self-help books)Will on rebranding "wellbeing" as "human-being" - and why eat, move, sleep is still doing most of the heavy liftingThe Olympian's rule that's rewired Hannah's mornings: I'll go firstAndy on habituation, déjà moo, and why his 2008 toothache trick eventually stopped workingReasons vs excuses - and why Will is on day 1,411 of runningNo big claims. No four-step framework. Just three people having a proper conversation about how to be a bit more brilliant on a Monday.Take what works, leave what doesn't, have a play.
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How Santa Saved Christmas
Dec 1000:12:19Tap to summarizeWhat if Christmas itself needed rescuing… from Santa?!In this special end-of-season episode, Andy welcomes his traditional guest: Santa. Except this year, something’s... off.Santa sounds robotic, obsessed with efficiency, and surprisingly keen on replacing elves with 3D printers. Before long, AI Santa is talking KPIs, surveillance elves, and children asking for tactical flamethrowers. Christmas is on the brink - optimised, automated, and completely soulless.Just when things get properly Black Mirror, the real Santa bursts in, boots stomping, jingles flying, to shut down his malfunctioning metallic twin. What follows is classic Santa wisdom... that happiness is getting drowned out by noise, presence matters more than presents, and joy doesn’t need upgrading. AI might be clever... but only humans know how it feels to be truly connected.The episode wraps with both Santa's giving their verdict on what we need most this year - and spoiler... only one of them gets the answer right.A funny, warm, surprisingly moving Christmas finale about slowing down, switching off, and remembering that the real magic isn’t in the tech... it’s in each other.
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Life Enhancer
Dec 300:14:57Tap to summarizeWhat if “feeling fine” isn’t the finish line… but the warning light?In this episode, Andy records from Windsor (with a much cheaper parking rate this time) to unpack one of the biggest myths about happiness... that it’s just positive thinking with a smiley sticker on top.What follows is a fast, funny reality check on modern life - the low-level Monday-morning glumness, the commotion, the sense that your get-up-and-go quietly got up and left. Andy lays out the classic wellbeing scale (from -10 to +10) and explains why most of us are wobbling around the “mildly happy...ish” zone while the modern world keeps nudging us downward.He also dusts off the story of a sceptical delegate who once told him a PhD was “just a long essay on positive thinking,” which gives Andy the perfect excuse to explain what a PhD actually is, why positive thinking isn’t enough, and why psychology has spent 150 years trying to fix brokenness instead of studying brilliance.And that’s where he lands the big idea... traditional psychology is a life-saver - it pulls people from -9 back to zero.But positive psychology? That’s a life-enhancer! It explores what takes people from “I’m fine” to “I’m thriving”If you’ve ever wondered why some people radiate energy while the rest of us cling to ‘mustn’t grumble,’ this one will help you find the switch.
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World Famous Combinations
Nov 2600:22:28Tap to summarizeEver wondered why some things only make sense after someone points them out?That’s the energy of this episode - Andy sitting in a Wembley car park, paying £60 an hour for parking and using the pressure of financial ruin to deliver a whistle-stop tour of the most obvious idea psychology somehow missed for 150 years.From world-famous double acts like fish & chips and Laurel & Hardy, he lands on one glorious truth... suitcases and wheels existed for millennia before anyone thought to combine them. And that, he argues, is exactly what happened to the science of wellbeing. Psychology studied everything that goes wrong with humans... and barely touched the humans who were actually thriving.What follows is a funny, nerdy, surprisingly gripping story about grumbly bonobos, forehead real estate, early brain evolution, ice-pick lobotomies (grim), and how a American psychologist accidentally blew the doors off his own profession by saying, “Hang on - why don’t we study what’s right with people?”Andy loops it all back with one big idea - positive psychology is just suitcases finally meeting wheels. Something obvious in hindsight, but completely game-changing once you see it.Tune in if you want a smart, enjoyable reminder that flourishing isn’t fluffy - it’s overdue, it’s scientific, and it’s hiding in plain sight.
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Ladult: Navigating Safely from Boy to Man
Nov 1900:43:25Tap to summarizeWhat if the algorithm wasn’t raising our boys?In this episode, Dr Andy Cope and his son Ollie join forces with Paul McGee to talk about their new book for teenage lads, Ladult: Navigating Safely from Boy to Man. From toxic masculinity to the chaos of the “manosphere,” they dig into what it actually means to be a good man now - without going all beige, boring, or preachy.You’ll hear about digital natives vs digital immigrants, why screens are brilliant and a nightmare, and how today’s boys are drowning in advice that’s either unhelpful, unrealistic, or just plain unhinged. Andy and Ollie explain how they’ve tried to cut through the noise with something gritty, honest, properly researched - and brave enough to tackle the stuff most books dodge (yes, including the M-word and the internet’s darker corners).Tune in if you’re a parent, a teacher, a teenage boy... or just someone who thinks the next generation of men deserve better than TikTok wisdom and toxic role models.
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Top 10 conferences
Oct 100:16:19Tap to summarizeWhat if your most memorable moments weren’t the smooth ones... but the messy ones?In this episode, Andy looks back on 20 years of keynotes and training and shares his “Top 10” conference memories - from gold mines in Johannesburg to WI meetings where the payment came in Victoria sponge.You’ll hear about blizzards in Birmingham, social workers who made him cry, and why even the hardest rooms can turn into the best ones when you stop faking it and start caring.Tune in for standing ovations, awkward silences, and the thread that ties it all together… whatever the size of the audience, the only thing that really matters is showing up with heart.
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Cost of ease crisis
Sep 2400:19:21Tap to summarizeWhat if convenience was quietly making us weaker?In this episode, Andy riffs on everything from gluten-free pints to e-bikes in Italy, using Deliveroo, and YouTube piano lessons to make a bigger point… modern life has become a masterclass in ease.We’re the first generation in history to die not from scarcity but from excess - too much food, too much scrolling, too much comfort. And in outsourcing every struggle, we’ve stopped flexing the very muscles that build resilience, focus, and grit.Tune in for motorway meal deals, family singalongs, and a thought-provoking nudge... maybe a little inconvenience is exactly what we need to stay strong, present, and fully alive.
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The Clock is TikToking
Sep 1700:24:05Tap to summarizeWhat if time isn’t just slipping by... but being stolen?In this episode, Andy takes aim at the clock - and the way we let busyness, screens, and endless scrolling siphon off our 4,000 weeks of life. With humour and a few sharp jabs at TikTok culture, he explores how our attention has become the real currency of the modern world.From motorway meal deals to midnight doomscrolls, you’ll hear why “killing time” is really just letting it kill you - and how reclaiming even small chunks back can shift everything.Tune in for time maths, digital distractions, and a challenge that might just reset the way you spend your most precious resource… today.
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