What secret to peak performance can we learn from Michael Jordan?
bsp; Josh Waitzkin has become a grandmaster in both chess (the movie Searching for Bobby Fischer was about his childhood) and Tai Chi. He realized his gift wasn't greatness in any discipline, his gift was an amazing ability to learn. In his book The Art of Learning, he discusses one of the key elements that pro athletes like Jordan use to perform at their peak: spontaneous relaxation. "...one of the most telling features of a dominant performer is the routine…
2 minutes
Is life really better for beautiful people?
many ways, yes. For one thing, good-looking people are more happy with their lives. Via Beauty Pays: Why Attractive People Are More Successful: Fifty-five percent of the people in the top one-third of looks stated that they were very satisfied or satisfied with their lives; 53 percent of people in the middle half of looks said the same thing; but only 45 percent of the worst-looking one-sixth of the population said they were satisfied. They also make more money.…
3 minutes
Why do smart people lack common sense?
s, some smart people lack common sense. Why? Intelligent people often override common sense with their considerable brain power -- but this isn't always a good thing. Smart people think in situations where they should feel, like in relationships. They may avoid the correct response because it doesn't seem rational when we all know that life isn't always rational. Via The Intelligence Paradox: Why the Intelligent Choice Isn't Always the Smart One: Intelligent people, however, have a tendency to overapply…
2 minutes
Is five minutes all it takes to size someone up?
just five minutes you can often evaluate people with approximately 70% accuracy. Via Honest Signals: How They Shape Our World: The term thin slice comes from a frequently cited article by Nalini Ambady and Robert Rosenthal, in which subjects evaluated thirty-second silent video clips of instructors teaching a class.' Subsequent analysis found that these brief evaluations predicted the instructors' end-of-semester student ratings. Their work built on earlier research that found a similar predictive power in job interviews,' where the…
1 min read
What do the best places to live and work have in common?
ok for areas to live where people are always learning new things. Seek out workplaces where employees are treated as partners, not underlings. These were characteristics that the best places to live and work had in common. Gallup says the Pacific, West, and West North Central regions of the United States currently score highest in those categories. Via Gallup: Learning something new and interesting daily is an important psychological need and one of the most prevalent attributes that people in…
1 min read
Should we take stock market tips from Jim Cramer?
. "...if you watch Mad Money and follow Jim Cramer’s top recommendations, you will lose almost one-third of your money in less than two months." Via Wait: The Art and Science of Delay: According to a detailed analysis published in October 2010, viewers who bought the stocks Cramer recommended the previous night lost money relative to the market overall. Even people who held those stocks for as long as fifty days lost an average of nearly 10 percent relative to…
1 min read
If you give monkeys time and typewriters, will they eventually produce Shakespeare?
me researchers actually tried to test it. No, it didn't work out very well... Via The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human: In 2003, researchers from Plymouth University in England arranged a pilot test of the so-called infinite monkey theory—“ pilot” because we still don’t have the troops of deathless supermonkeys or the infinite time horizon required for a decisive test. But these researchers did have an old computer, and they did have six Sulawesi crested macaques. They put…
2 minutes
Why do we kiss? What type of kissing do men and women like best?
om an interview with William Cane, author of "The Art of Kissing": You list statistics—for example, 67% of men don’t mind a woman’s wearing lipstick when kissing, 53% of women prefer a clean-shaven man, and 33% of people open their eyes while kissing. Do you have favorite statistics? Women’s favorite spot to be kissed, other than the mouth, is the neck. Ninety-six percent of women reported that they like neck kisses, while only about 10% of men do, so a…
3 minutes
