What’s the easiest way you can learn from today’s most interesting thinkers?
watching RSA Animate. They're great little animated videos that explore fascinating ideas. Here are three of my favorites: 1) Steven Johnson covers the ideas from his book Where Good Ideas Come From: More from Where Good Ideas Come From over here. 2) Dan Ariely discusses the research in his book The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty: More from The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty over here and here. 3) Dan Pink explains the insights from his book Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us:…
1 min read
10 Videos Guaranteed To Inspire You
bsp; 1) How to be happier Harvard professor Shawn Achor is the author of the wonderful book The Happiness Advantage. 2) Is it better to come in first... or third? Malcolm Gladwell is the author of the bestsellers Blink, Outliers and The Tipping Point. 3) Why do we lie? And why do we lie to ourselves? Great interview with Dan Ariely, author of Predictably Irrational and The Honest Truth About Dishonesty: How We Lie to Everyone---Especially Ourselves. 4) What’s it take to free…
2 minutes
Can one personality trait determine your future?
search is pointing to conscientiousness as the one-trait-to-rule-them-all in terms of future success, both career-wise and personal. Via How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character: "It would actually be nice if there were some negative things that went along with conscientiousness," Roberts told me. "But at this point it's emerging as one of the primary dimensions of successful functioning across the lifespan. It really goes cradle to grave in terms of how people do." What is it? Basically,…
3 minutes
Which professions have the most psychopaths? The fewest?
O is the profession with the most psychopaths. But first off, psychopath doesn't just mean someone who cuts you up with a chainsaw -- though the majority of people who do things like that are psychopaths. What's the definition? Psychopathy is a personality disorder that has been variously described as characterized by shallow emotions (in particular reduced fear), stress tolerance, lacking empathy, coldheartedness, lacking guilt, egocentricity, superficial character, manipulativeness, irresponsibility, impulsivity and antisocial behaviors such as parasitic lifestyle and criminality. So which professions (other than axe murderer) have the most psychopaths? What about the least? Via…
1 min read
Are hope and despair both self-fulfilling prophecies?
ldiers faced a difficult "final exam" of a march across the desert in full gear. "The study manipulated the soldiers' hopes - and fears - about the difficulty of the march. The goal was to determine what, if any, impact their psychological state had on their physical performance." Via Maximum Brainpower: Challenging the Brain for Health and Wisdom: ...I developed the idea of manipulating hope to understand how optimism and pessimism affect the brain. The result was a large-scale study that…
3 minutes
Do Starbucks employees have more emotional intelligence than your doctor?
Peter Ubel, author of Critical Decisions, has an interesting post over at Forbes that asks that question. He mentions the training baristas get in customer service: As described in Charles Duhigg’s The Power of Habit, Starbucks employees undergo rigorous training in how to recognize and respond to customer needs. They learn about what the company calls the "Latte Method" of responding to unpleasant situations (and really, would you have them call it anything else?). The Latte Method involves: “We Listen to the customer, Acknowledge their complaint, Take…
2 minutes
Are psychopaths more likely to become criminals… or CEOs?
ny psychopathic traits are more common in business leaders than in mentally disturbed criminals. Via The Wisdom of Psychopaths: What Saints, Spies, and Serial Killers Can Teach Us About Success: In 2005, Belinda Board and Katarina Fritzon of the University of Surrey conducted a survey to find out precisely what it was that made business leaders tick. What, they wanted to know, were the key facets of personality that separated those who turn left when boarding an airplane from those…
2 minutes
The Science Of Halloween: 6 Spooky Insights Confirmed By Research
bsp; Happy Halloween! Here's a quick round-up of Halloween themed posts: 1) Don't worry about razor blades in your kids’ halloween candy: "...poisoned treats are best seen as legend. “I have been unable to find a substantiated report of a child being killed or seriously injured by a contaminated treat picked up in the course of trick-or-treating,” he writes. A survey of news reports finds no more than two reported incidents of this type in any given year since 1982, and…
2 minutes
