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Primal Truths: What Evolutionary Psychology Teaches Us About Leadership, Power, and Relationships with Tim Ash

Built to Finish

Release Date: 01/21/2026

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“We are not broken as humans — we’re living in a culture that ignores how we actually evolved.”

In this episode of Built to Finish, Steven Pivnik sits down with Tim Ash, renowned expert in evolutionary psychology, persuasion, and human behavior, for a wide-ranging and unapologetically honest conversation about what truly drives leadership, relationships, and modern society.

Tim is a best-selling author, international keynote speaker, and founder of a digital marketing agency that helped create over $1.2 billion in value for global brands including Google, Expedia, and Nestlé. Returning to the podcast as Steven’s first-ever repeat guest, Tim brings a deeply informed evolutionary lens to topics most people are afraid to discuss openly.

The conversation centers around Tim’s latest book, Primal Dating, co-authored with Dr. Lamour Gottlieb, and explores why so many modern challenges—from broken relationships to dysfunctional workplace cultures—stem from ignoring our evolutionary wiring.

Episode Takeaways:

  • Why evolutionary psychology is foundational to leadership, marketing, and culture.

  • How tribes, hierarchy, and initiation rituals shape high-performing organizations.

  • The evolutionary differences between men and women—and why modern culture distorts them.

  • Why most relationships fail (and why that doesn’t mean you’ve failed).

  • The myth of “happily ever after” and what humans actually evolved for.

  • Loneliness, technology, and the unintended consequences of digital optionality.

  • How sexual marketplace dynamics affect ambition, power, and self-worth.

  • Why depopulation, polarization, and loneliness are accelerating—and what it means for society.

  • Lessons Tim would give his son vs. his daughter about life, relationships, and long-term strategy.

  • Writing books with conviction: why AI should assist, not replace, original thinking.

  • How leadership, dating, and corporate culture all follow the same primal rules.

  • Salsa dancing as a metaphor for fully expressed living.

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