Weekly musings

Handcrafted pieces grounded in science or cultivated through curiosity.

Delve into our world of performance. Expect bright new ideas, tales of trailblazers and rebels, or stories of change that enlighten and entertain in equal measure.

Carol Dweck researches “growth mindset” — the idea that we can grow our brain's capacity to learn and to solve problems. In this talk, she describes two ways to think about a problem that’s slightly too hard for you to solve. Are you not smart enough to solve it … or have you just not solved it yet? A great introduction to this influential field.

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Leaving a high-flying job in consulting, Angela Lee Duckworth took a job teaching math to seventh graders in a New York public school. She quickly realized that IQ wasn't the only thing separating the successful students from those who struggled. Here, she explains her theory of "grit" as a predictor of success.
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Career analyst Dan Pink examines the puzzle of motivation, starting with a fact that social scientists know but most managers don't: Traditional rewards aren't always as effective as we think. Listen for illuminating stories -- and maybe, a way forward.
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Stress. It makes your heart pound, your breathing quicken and your forehead sweat. But while stress has been made into a public health enemy, new research suggests that stress may only be bad for you if you believe that to be the case. Psychologist Kelly McGonigal urges us to see stress as a positive, and introduces us to an unsung mechanism for stress reduction: reaching out to others.
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Nicholas Carr, author of The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains, explains why the human brain struggles to process information that is presented "with the intensity and the quantity and the speed we find ourselves surrounded by today." Revising the 1956 psychology paper, "The Magical Number Seven," Carr explains that our working memory - everything comprising the consciousness at a given moment - can only hold between two and four items at a time.
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One of the most accomplished athletes of her generation, Bethany Hamilton, became a surfing wunderkind when she returned to the sport following a devastating shark attack at age 13. As she continues to chase waves, she also now tackles motherhood.

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