fe would be a lot easier if we just knew how to make good decisions. Research shows we all make a lot of bad ones. With careers: More than half of teachers quit their jobs within four years. In fact, one study in Philadelphia schools found that a teacher was almost two times more likely to drop out than a student. In our jobs: A study showed that when doctors reckoned themselves “completely certain” about a diagnosis, they were wrong…
er dealt with a really difficult situation? We've all had our emotional resilience tested. Sometimes it feels like you just want to give up. How do the toughest people summon the will to keep going? Steven Southwick and Dennis Charney have studied resilient people for over 20 years. They spoke with Vietnam prisoners of war, Special Forces instructors and civilians who dealt with terrible experiences like medical problems, abuse and trauma. In their book Resilience: The Science of Mastering Life's Greatest Challenges they assembled the 10…
what's going to make you happy? Let's get more specific: what's going to make your brain happy? And let's focus on things that are simple and easy to do instead of stuff like winning the lottery. Neuroscience has answers. I've discussed this subject before and it was so popular I decided to call an expert to get even more dead simple ways to start your brain feeling joy. Alex Korb is a postdoctoral researcher in neuroscience at UCLA and author of The Upward Spiral.…
es it ever feel like people are all self-absorbed jerks? Like they're not listening? Only in it for themselves? You're not crazy. Empathy is declining. Via Empathy: Why It Matters, and How to Get It: A recent study at the University of Michigan revealed a dramatic decline in empathy levels among young Americans between 1980 and today, with the steepest drop being in the last ten years. The shift, say researchers, is in part due to more people living alone…
at are the secrets to success? Well, successful people work hard. But you work hard too, right? And if you keep working harder and harder you're just going to be miserable. So what's the answer? Successful people don't just work hard, they also work different. So let's see what you and I can learn from extremely successful people who achieve big things -- and hear some really cool stories in the process. And since we're talking about big accomplishments, it only makes sense that…
ow what's really interesting? Learning how Navy SEALs build mental toughness to handle deadly situations. Know what else is really interesting? Learning how Olympic athletes deal with the pressure of competition when the entire world is watching. Know what's the most interesting of all? When you find out they do a lot of the same things. "Mental Links To Excellence" is a research study of what Olympians do to prepare for their big day. And so much of it lines up with what I learned researching…
ver had a run of bad luck? It feels like the world is actively conspiring against you. Ever wonder if you can improve your luck? And I don't mean with voodoo or magic crystals. Turns out somebody has done scientific research on luck. So I gave him a call. Richard Wiseman…
all deal with fear of rejection. Jia Jiang did too. But he overcame it... thanks to a box of donuts. He explains how this happened in his wonderful book, Rejection Proof: How I Beat Fear and Became Invincible Through 100 Days of Rejection. His dream was to be an entrepreneur -- and that means a lot of rejection. So how could he beat the fear? By turning it into a game. For 100 days he made ridiculous requests of strangers, expecting to get rejected.…
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