Most Popular Editorials: Are you stuck in a "logic box"?

S2

Are you stuck in a “logic box”? Many years ago, as a young business reporter at the New York Times, I learned about the pernicious concept of institutional imperative. The phrase was coined by Warren Buffett, who first wrote about it in his 1989 letter to shareholders, to help explain why organizations that are run by generally smart leaders often make misguided decisions. Though the term institutional imperative sounds like a good thing, Buffett characterized it as a sheeplike response to power and the status quo that can derail critical thinking. Continued here

�

�

S1

5 Myths About Strategy Unless you have sealed yourself off in a social media echo chamber, lies are easy to spot.  Except, that is, when the lie is a big one.  People hearing or reading big lies start to doubt themselves and think ‘maybe I have got things completely wrong’.  That’s why politicians and propagandists tell big lies. They’re not trying to assert a truth so much as sow doubt and confusion about what is true.  That’s bad, but a smart person can resist a big lie by looking at the evidence at hand. Continued here

You Might Like

�

�

�

S3

How to feel less tired: the 7 types of rest everyone needs These days, it’s hard to find someone who wouldn’t describe themselves as ‘exhausted’. Despite developments in sleep science and increased interest in the secret to getting a good night’s rest, many people feel more tired than ever. So, what gives?  Continued here

�

S4

When It’s OK to Trust Your Gut on a Big Decision Should you use your gut feel or not? Recent research suggests that it can be useful, especially in highly uncertain circumstances where further data gathering and analysis won’t sway you one way or another. Where there is debilitating evidence that delays decision making, trusting your gut allows leaders the freedom to move forward. But before relying on it, do two things. Recognize the type of problem at hand. Ask, What is the level of “unknowability”? Reserve your intuition for those decisions that go beyond routine, where calculations of probabilities and risks are not only unrealistic, they are infeasible. Second, be aware of the context in which you are making the decision. If you’re operating in an environment where successful mental models and schemas have already been developed and proven, focus on method and execution. If you’re seeking to make an unusual, distinctive, “diamond in the rough” type of decision (think about trying to predict the next startup unicorn), gut instinct can be helpful. And once you’ve decided to rely on your intuition, don’t try to explain it or justify to others how you arrived at it. If you apply logic and data to gut feel, the more likely you are to put off a decision or make a worse one. Continued here

You Might Like

�

�

�

S5

The 5 Simple Habits That Can Extend Your Lifespan by Up to 10 Years | by Alexa V.S. | Mind Cafe | Oct, 2021 | Medium According to a 30-year Harvard study, doing these simple and effective things can drastically extend your longevity. Continued here

�

S6

When Multilevel Marketing Met Gen Z - The Atlantic So you’ve been scrolling through Facebook for a while—dull, dull, dull—when you hear the sound of tropical bird chatter. You glimpse a 20-something woman floating in a natural pool of water with her eyes closed, and then she starts to talk to you about her passion for “manifesting money” and how every little thing she’s ever wanted is now hers. What’s this? She’s looking out the window of an airplane, through the clouds at a mossy mountaintop; she’s scooping up sand and blowing it at the camera as if the grains were dandelion seeds; she’s biking in a white dress on a secluded path, no handlebars. She has more time and wealth than she knows what to do with—and so now she will pause to bathe an elephant. Wait a minute, you say to yourself. Could this be my life too? Continued here

�

S7

The Problem with “Greedy Work” Covid-19 has forced millions of people to work from home while juggling caregiving and other commitments. Is this making work more flexible or less? In this interview, Harvard economist Claudia Goldin outlines what she calls “greedy work”: work that pays more in exchange for long, inflexible hours; is a key contributor to the gender pay gap in the U.S.; and is a symptom of rising income inequality. She also discusses how couples can make their relationships more equitable in terms of work and family and provides examples of industries that, by chance or choice, are making flexibility and equal pay a reality. Continued here

�

S8

Misremembering might actually be a sign your memory is working optimally Errors don’t necessarily mean your mind is faulty. They may actually be a sign of a cognitive system with limited capacity working efficiently. Continued here

�

S9

The War on Meritocracy The meritocratic idea was at the heart of the four great revolutions that created the modern world. The most fundamental of these was the industrial revolution which transformed the material basis of civilization and unleashed the energies of self-made men. This was reinforced by a succession of political revolutions. The French Revolution was dedicated to the principle of the "career open to talents". Feudal privileges were abolished; the purchase of jobs was prohibited; elite schools were strengthened. Continued here

S10

How to Work with Someone You Really Don’t Like Not everyone at work needs to be your friend. There’s plenty of psychological research that explains why some relationships are easier than others. Humans are complex social creatures with our own values and embedded beliefs about how people should behave, interact, and communicate. Continued here

S11

Trapped in a Cycle of Distraction? Here’s How to Break Free You tell yourself to not think about it — but that only makes you think about it more. For some strange reason, you can’t get that stupid cake out of your head and soon you find it’s in your mouth. Yum, but also ugh! Continued here

S12

Should You Write What You Know? 31 Authors Weigh In ‹ Literary Hub Write what you know. Everyone who has ever taken a writing class or read a craft book has heard this piece of writing advice—even if only to have it instantly denounced. But which is it? Should you write what you know or shouldn’t you? Worry no more, aspiring writers: the agony of uncertainty is nearly at an end. Here I have collated answers on this very subject from thirty-one famous authors, from Ursula K. Le Guin to Ernest Hemingway to Kazuo Ishiguro. Pick one answer and go with it, or tally up the responses and heed the consensus. Whatever the answer, like all writing advice, it’s up to you to take it or leave it. Continued here

S13

Nuclear Reactors Could Hold the Key to a Green Future | Time On a conference-room whiteboard in the heart of Silicon Valley, Jacob DeWitte sketches his startup’s first product. In red marker, it looks like a beer can in a Koozie, stuck with a crazy straw. In real life, it will be about the size of a hot tub, and made from an array of exotic materials, like zirconium and uranium. Under carefully controlled conditions, they will interact to produce heat, which in turn will make electricity—1.5 megawatts’ worth, enough to power a neighborhood or a factory. DeWitte’s little power plant will run for a decade without refueling and, amazingly, will emit no carbon. ”It’s a metallic thermal battery,” he says, coyly. But more often DeWitte calls it by another name: a nuclear reactor. Continued here

S14

How to Navigate the Ambiguity of a Digital Transformation A successful digital transformation can be hard to predict or plan; it is often the result of new customer interactions, new combinations of talent and teams, unexpected alliances with new partners, and entirely new business models. These components are constantly evolving, shaped, and influenced by algorithmic systems, aggregated in such a way that their collective behavior is more than the sum of their parts. More is different. Just as water becomes ice when cold enough, or graphite turns into diamond under enough pressure, at a critical point, more data and algorithms can transform an organization or an industry into something else entirely. That raises a question for leaders: how do you navigate a transformation from what you know to what you have yet to define? What you need is an emergent approach to digital transformation, focused on the three principles described in this article. Continued here

S15

Boosting Vaccine Production Needs the Right Degree of Flexibility | INSEAD Knowledge The pandemic has seen an unprecedented global effort to accelerate the development of safe and effective vaccines and a rapid expansion of vaccine manufacturing capacity. However, challenges in further scaling up vaccine manufacturing capacity to meet higher-than-expected demand and the resulting inequity in vaccine access have highlighted that our past investments in building vaccine surge capacity were insufficient. It is an issue vaccine companies, governments and multilateral agencies must face squarely in order to improve medium-term access to Covid vaccines as well as to gird humanity better against future pandemics. Continued here

S16

Manage Your Talent Pipeline Like a Supply Chain Supply-chain disruptions are on everyone’s mind these days. But there’s one that few people are thinking about. It involves talent, not goods — and it poses a serious long-term threat to our economy. Continued here

S17

Quit Lying to Yourself - The Atlantic “How to Build a Life” is a weekly column by Arthur Brooks, tackling questions of meaning and happiness. Click here to listen to his new podcast series on all things happiness, How to Build a Happy Life. Continued here

S18

Gratitude Is More Than Just Saying Thank You | Harvard Graduate School of Education Saying thank you is easy. We (mostly) do it every day, without giving it much thought. Someone hands you change at a store, you say thank you. At the bottom of your emails, you write “thanks!” just before adding your name. And next week, at Thanksgiving, however you celebrate the day, you may mention something you’re thankful for — maybe it’s the person taking a walk with you or the table full of amazing pies.  Continued here

S19

Why Diverse Teams Are Smarter Striving to increase workplace diversity is not an empty slogan — it is a good business decision. A 2015 McKinsey report on 366 public companies found that those in the top quartile for ethnic and racial diversity in management were 35% more likely to have financial returns above their industry mean, and those in the top quartile for gender diversity were 15% more likely to have returns above the industry mean. Continued here

S20

Caitlin Flanagan on Turning 60 - The Atlantic Here’s what it feels like to turn 60: weird. On the one hand, you’re still going to the gym and to dinner parties. Sixty-year-olds still perform surgery on people who could choose other doctors. There’s no dithering yet—the senescence is almost undetectable. Continued here

S21

“Intuition is Essential.” Writing Advice from Gabriel García Márquez ‹ Literary Hub In the face of the literary world’s ongoing fetish for youth, I often like to remind myself that Gabriel García Márquez didn’t become famous until he was 40. That’s when he published his fourth novel, One Hundred Years of Solitude. Now, of course, he’s a household name, beloved for his storytelling ability and fantastical imagination (though as he’d tell you, everything in his most famous novel happened—somewhere, to someone). García Márquez is a master of storytelling, but he’s also a master of discipline: above all else, he put in the work. For that alone, we should all listen to his advice. So on the anniversary of his death, here is some collected literary wisdom from one of the all-time greats. Continued here

S22

How one London suburb reduced its morning traffic by 53% In England, only 37% of adults ages 16 or older travel actively (walk, cycle, scoot, or wheel to get from place to place) at least twice a month. We need to find exciting ways to encourage more people to travel actively for the sake of population and planetary health. Continued here

S23

When Is Humor Helpful? An analysis of inpatients’ and outpatients’ comments that employed artificial intelligence and natural language processing found that humor can be an effective communications device. It can help convey that the caregiver empathizes, is compassionate, is trying to be helpful, is attentive, and is pleasant. However, if humor is used in a flippant or sarcastic fashion, it can accentuate the patient’s negative perceptions about the caregiver; it adds insult to injury. Continued here

S24

How to perform well under pressure | Psyche Guides Whatever sphere you inhabit, whether you're a pro or amateur athlete, businessperson, teacher, full-time parent or something else entirely, you're bound to have felt the pressure of your own expectations and the expectations of others. Almost everyone must cope with daunting situations, in which they don't feel they have the skills needed to succeed and meet the weight of those expectations. I'm a sports psychologist and I help teach my clients mental techniques to deal with this kind of pressure. I've found the same practical techniques and principles that I teach to athletes are also invaluable to my clients from many walks of life, including business and theatre. Continued here

S25

Persuasion and the Prestige Paradox: Are High Status People More Likely to Lie? Many have discovered an argument hack. They don’t need to argue that something is false. They just need to show that it’s associated with low status. The converse is also true: You don’t need to argue that something is true. You just need to show that it’s associated with high status. And when low status people express the truth, it sometimes becomes high status to lie. Continued here

S26

How to Ask for the Job Title You Deserve Your job title isn’t everything, but it does matter. Whether you’ve been offered a new job and would like a better title, or have been in the same position for years and want a promotion, what’s the best way to ask for it? Here are some ideas: Continued here

S27

A Guide to Implementing the 4-Day Workweek As organizations continue to explore a variety of flexible work options, one promising avenue is the four-day workweek: The standard 40 hours per week is reduced to 32 hours, with the same pay and the same productivity expectations. Research suggests reducing hours can benefit both employees and employers, but it can be difficult to go from the idea to a successful implementation. In this piece, the authors — a researcher who studies time, money, and happiness and the CEO of a global nonprofit focused on the future of work — outline a six-step guide to help leaders plan, pilot, and roll out a four-day workweek. While no change comes easily, the authors argue that companies willing to embrace models like the four-day workweek will find the experimentation well worth the effort. Continued here

S28

This couple's 8 income streams bring in $3 million per year: 'It all started with side hustles' As a married couple, one of the most rewarding accomplishments of starting our side hustles was the ability to eventually step away from our 9-to-5 jobs. Now we get to focus on things that are important to us, such as spending time with our kids, traveling and giving back. Continued here

S29

How to Save Your Knees Without Giving Up Your Workout - The New York Times In the annals of unsolicited advice, few nuggets have been dispensed as widely and with less supporting evidence than this: “If you keep doing all that running, you’re going to ruin your knees.” Continued here

S30

What Is An Anti-Inflammatory Diet? Benefits, Food List, Advice “An anti-inflammatory diet is not a specific diet per se, but rather a way of eating that focuses on mostly whole, minimally processed foods, and incorporates foods that contain specific nutrients and antioxidants to help combat inflammatory processes in the body,” says Rachel Dyckman, RDN. Continued here

S31

How to Talk to Someone Who Always Gets Defensive | Fatherly Maybe you’re talking with your spouse. Or friend. Or brother. Or colleague. Whoever it is, you know that no matter how carefully you say something, the words won’t get through. They’re just so damn defensive.  Continued here

S32

Why Millennials Could Become the Wealthiest Generation in History (and How to Join the Club) What does this mean? Americans age 70 and above had a net worth of nearly $35 trillion this year, according to Federal Reserve data. This means that Baby Boomers have stockpiled 157% of U.S. gross domestic product and will start giving it to their heirs — including Millennials and Gen Xers. Continued here

S33

Stressed by parenting? Evolution can explain why - BBC Future From an evolutionary perspective, it is not surprising that many of us felt so overwhelmed raising kids in Covid lockdown. Despite the common idea that modern family life consists of small, independent units, the reality is that we would often benefit from help from others to raise our offspring. For much of human history, extended families provided that help. In contemporary industrialised societies, where smaller family units are common, teachers, babysitters and other caregivers have allowed us to replicate that ancient support network.This collaborative way of raising children makes us unique among great apes. Called "cooperative breeding", it is more similar to how seemingly more distant species like meerkats and even ants and bees live - and it has given us crucial evolutionary advantages. Continued here

S34

Why the Most Productive People Don’t Always Make the Best Managers Not every top performer makes for a good manager. In this piece, the authors argue that the difference between a good individual contributor and a good manager hinges on six key abilities: being open to feedback and personal change, supporting others’ development, being open to innovation, communicating well, having good interpersonal skills, and supporting organizational changes. The problem for most organizations is that they hope their new managers will develop these skills after being promoted, but that’s exactly when overwhelmed new managers tend to fall back on their individual contributor skill sets. Instead, the authors suggest that organizations should start developing these skills in all of their employees early on — after all, they’re useful for individual contributors, too. Continued here

S35

Spotting a Modern Business Crisis — Before It Strikes Businesses are embedded in the larger sociopolitical contexts in which they operate — not separate from them. And research shows that in communities under conflict, businesses can be perceived as sociopolitical actors that can have a positive impact on society. So how should organizations define a crisis, prepare for it, and know when and how to intervene? In this roundtable, eight scholars and practitioners discuss the relationship between business and society, how crises for businesses have evolved over the years, and the lessons they hope leaders learn from the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. Continued here

S36

The Future of Performance Reviews Hated by bosses and subordinates alike, traditional performance appraisals have been abandoned by more than a third of U.S. companies. The annual review’s biggest limitation, the authors argue, is its emphasis on holding employees accountable for what they did last year, at the expense of improving performance now and in the future. That’s why many organizations are moving to more-frequent, development-focused conversations between managers and employees. Continued here

S37

What to Do When Your Boss Won’t Advocate for You A boss who doesn’t advocate for you can stunt your growth and block your career opportunities. And you might not even know that you have an unsupportive boss. Most advocacy happens behind the scenes. When you found out you have one, the knee-jerk reaction is to self-promote. But that can backfire in the workplace. You need to start by understanding why your boss isn’t advocating for you. Proactively solicit the gift of your boss’s feedback. Consider getting a coach. You just might not have earned your boss’s advocacy yet. Assuming your performance is strong, here are three steps you can take. First, release your boss from your unmet expectations. You can’t shame someone into being your advocate. Second, find another advocate. The ideal sponsor is a powerful, high-ranking ally within your organization. Third, build your network inside and outside of the organization. We all need champions. Continued here

S38

So Your Boss Offered You a Meaningless Promotion Promotions in title only aren’t a new phenomenon. Some leaders may think that by offering you a better title, they’re honoring your contributions and showing that they value you. Some might offer promotions in title only as a way to retain talent when attrition starts to spike. Or, with the pressure to show progress on their diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) commitments, some companies will be looking for shortcuts — without doing the meaningful work. Offering fake promotions can be a form of diversity washing, where organizations look for quick fixes to their public DEI commitments. The author explains what to do if you think you’re being offered a fake promotion. Continued here

S39

9 Traits of the Most Grounded People in Your Life | Inc.com People rub off on each other. It's why a smile on someone's face can make you feel better, and why a co-worker's negative attitude can ruin your day. In fact, the attitudes and behaviors of the people in your world are so influential that your best strategy for succeeding in life may be to remove complainers, drama magnets, braggarts, and the disingenuous from your circles. Continued here

S40

3 Signs You Possess a Skill Most Don't Have (and How to Capitalize On It) | Inc.com There are many things that can give entrepreneurs an advantage over their competition. Unique life experiences. Strong leadership capabilities. Or even being able to assemble a high-performing, driven team. Continued here

S41

The Motivating (and Demotivating) Effects of Learning Others’ Salaries Pay inequality is common in most workplaces. You get paid significantly more than your subordinates, your boss gets paid more than you, and your boss’s boss gets even more. At some point your employees have wondered about your salary – and their peers’. Should you be worried about that? Recent research sheds some light on this question. Researchers conducted an experiment with a sample of 2,060 employees from all rungs of a large commercial bank in Asia. They found that employees tended to underestimate the pay of their managers, but learning the actual amount led them to work harder. However, while people seemed to be fine with vertical inequality, they had more of a problem with horizontal inequality. Finding out peers get paid more had a negative effect on employees’ effort and performance. Continued here

S42

I Used the '2 Question' Rule to Cut 10 Hours of Meetings Every Week. My Productivity Has Doubled. | Inc.com Meetings are our bane. Or, should I say, a necessary frustration? And while work-from-home life has changed many things about how we manage our day-to-day productivity, meetings seem only to have shifted from in-office tête-à-têtes to Zoom calls. By Zoom's own numbers, daily meeting participants skyrocketed from around 10 million a day in late 2019 to some 300 million in mid-2020. Continued here

S43

Psychologists Say There Are Only 5 Kinds of People in the World. Which One Are You? | Inc.com Your personality influences everything from the friends you choose to the  candidates you vote for in a political election. Yet many people never really spend much time thinking about their personality traits. People who rank highest in conscientiousness are efficient, well-organized, dependable, and self-sufficient. They prefer to plan things in advance and aim for high achievement. People who rank lower in conscientiousness may view those with this personality trait as stubborn and obsessive. Fun fact: Studies show marrying someone high in conscientiousness increases your chances of workplace success. A conscientious spouse can boost your productivity and help you achieve the most. Continued here

S44

Regular 10pm bedtime linked to lower heart risk - BBC News For the study, which was published in the European Heart Journal, the researchers collected data on sleep and wake times over seven days using a wristwatch-like device worn by the volunteers. Study author Dr David Plans, working with the healthtech organisation Huma, said: "While we cannot conclude causation from our study, the results suggest that early or late bedtimes may be more likely to disrupt the body clock, with adverse consequences for cardiovascular health. Regina Giblin, senior cardiac nurse at the British Heart Foundation, said: "This large study suggests that going to sleep between 10 and 11pm could be the sweet spot for most people to keep their heart healthy long-term. Continued here

S45

How to Manage Your Fear of Public Speaking | by Sarah Milstein | Better Humans Public speaking often has personal and professional benefits, and it’s required in many jobs. What do you do if the very thought of it sparks dread? The bad news here is that the fear is not just in your head; it’s a real physical experience. The good news is that you can learn to tackle it, and the steps to doing so are not hard to follow. There are a number of theories about why people get nervous before speaking in front of others. One that makes a lot of sense hypothesizes that standing apart from a group of people and being watched by them (or the idea of doing that) triggers an instinctive sense of potential threat. You’ve probably heard this referred to as the fight-or-flight response, in which adrenaline floods your body. The physical results are distinctly unpleasant: You may not be aware of these specific physical responses, but when you get up in front of an audience, you can tell you’re unhappy. Moreover, you may find yourself deeply concerned about being judged for your ideas or your delivery. Continued here

S46

Trickle-down workaholism in startups If you want to understand why so many startups become infected with unhealthy work habits, or outright workaholism, a good place to start your examination is in the attitudes of their venture capital investors.Consider this Twitter thread involving two famous VCs, Keith Rabois and Mark Suster: Continued here

S47

5 books to help you achieve financial independence in your 40s I have never been a big reader. Picking up a book and blazing through 100 pages never came naturally to me. But there is one topic that interests me more than anything else: personal finance.  Continued here

S48

How to stop mindless scrolling 'Each time you pick up your phone, ask yourself why you’re reaching for it and whether you have a positive end goal in mind.' Continued here

S49

5 pandemic tech innovations that will change travel forever | National Geographic In the 20 months since the COVID-19 pandemic began, technological innovations have gone from futuristic to familiar. These days it’s hard to be out in the world without encountering QR-coded menus or supplying digital vaccine passports. Continued here

S50

Xi Is Running Out of Time | Foreign Affairs How worried should observers be about China’s economy? As recently as midsummer, that seemed like an academic question geared to the long term. In recent months, observers who were already concerned were further dismayed whenever Beijing moved to reel in companies considered to be in the vanguard of the “sunrise industries” that China celebrated as the answer to future competitiveness, growth, and jobs. In response to fresh doubts about the wisdom of these policy campaigns, China’s private-sector entrepreneurs competed to demonstrate fealty to their leaders rather than complain, and many foreign investors waved away worries with the message that Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leaders knew what they were doing and should be trusted. Continued here

S51

There are six main narratives of globalisation, all flawed | Aeon Essays Isaiah Berlin understood the parable of the fox and the hedgehog – ‘the fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing’ – to illustrate two styles of thinking. Hedgehogs relate everything to a single vision, a universally applicable organising principle for understanding the world. Foxes, on the other hand, embrace many values and approaches rather than trying to fit everything into an all-encompassing singular vision. Continued here

S52

Will the magic of psychedelics transform psychiatry? | Drugs | The Guardian Imagine a medicine that could help people process disturbing memories, sparking behavioural changes rather than merely burying and suppressing symptoms and trauma. For the millions suffering with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression, such remedies for their daily struggles could be on the horizon. Psychiatry is rapidly heading towards a new frontier – and it’s all thanks to psychedelics. Continued here

S53

Indian tech companies made big WFH promises. Now they’re calling millions of workers back As attrition rates spike, Indian tech companies scramble to bring workers back to campuses. Continued here

S54

South Korea Is No Country for Young People “Squid Game” reflects a landscape of despair. Continued here

S55

Forgiving people is good for your health. Here’s how to do it. Letting go of the bitterness you feel toward people who have hurt you—even if they don't deserve it and you'll never see them again—is good for your health. Continued here

S56

Your Emails Are 36 Percent More Likely to Get a Reply If You End Them This Way | Inc.com As any salesperson, PR rep, or entrepreneur can tell you, the rate at which people open and respond to your emails can be the difference between accelerating your career and the pit of despair.  Continued here

S57

How to avoid 'toxic positivity' and take the less direct route to happiness There is more than one way to pursue happiness and to cope with the inevitable low times in life. Continued here

S58

Want to Hire People With High Emotional Intelligence? Look for These 5 Things | Inc.com That's because every company lives and dies by the success of their teams. A great team can accomplish much more than a single person, no matter how talented. And a single "brilliant jerk" can totally ruin a potentially high-performing team. Yes, look for a candidate who communicates what they do well. But also look for those who share what they've learned from mentors and colleagues, who give others credit for helping them to become the person they are today. Experienced interviewers know that only a precious few job seekers can identify a true weakness. And even fewer have developed plans to strengthen those weaknesses. To do so takes intense self-reflection, critical thinking, and the ability to accept negative feedback--qualities that take years to develop. Continued here

S59

Bridgewater Investments Founder Ray Dalio: Invest in Idea Meritocracy Continued here

S60

How to cope with an existential crisis | Psyche Guides Are you exhausted from rushing through life doing the same monotonous things over and over again? Perhaps those things that were once meaningful now seem vacuous, and the passion has burned out. Do you feel that pleasures are short-lived and ultimately disappointing, that your life is a series of fragments punctuated with occasional ecstasies that flare up and then, like a firework, fade into darkness and despair? Perhaps you are lonely or pine for past loves. Or you feel empty and lost in the world, or nauseous and sleep-deprived. Maybe you are still looking for a reason to live, or you have too many confused reasons, or you have forgotten what your reasons are. Congratulations – you’re having an existential crisis. Sometimes, the questions ‘Why am I here?’ and ‘What’s it all for?’ haunt you gently like a soft wingbeat with barely a whisper, but sometimes they can feel as if they are asphyxiating your entire being. Whatever form your existential crisis takes, the problem, as the Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard (1813-55) saw it, was that living without passion amounts to not existing at all. And that’s bad for all of us because, without passion, rampant waves of negativity poison the world. Kierkegaard thought that one of the roots of this problem of a world without passion is that too many people – his contemporaries but, by extension, we too – are alienated from a society that overemphasises objectivity and ‘results’ (profits, productivity, outcomes, efficiency) at the expense of personal, passionate, subjective human experiences. Continued here

S61

America’s First Utopian City, Telosa, Could Welcome Its First “Settlers” By 2030 Former Walmart president, Marc Lore, is attempting to create the unthinkable – a Utopian city in the middle of the American desert. The Billionaire is currently spearheading the conceptual and fina… Continued here

S62

Can history teach us anything about the future of war – and peace? | Society | The Guardian Ten years ago, the psychologist Steven Pinker published The Better Angels of Our Nature, in which he argued that violence in almost all its forms - including war - was declining. The book was ecstatically received in many quarters, but then came the backlash, which shows no signs of abating. In September, 17 historians published a riposte to Pinker, suitably entitled The Darker Angels of Our Nature, in which they attacked his "fake history" to "debunk the myth of non-violent modernity". Some may see this as a storm in an intellectual teacup, but the central question - can we learn anything about the future of warfare from the ancient past? - remains an important one. Pinker thought we could and he supported his claim of a long decline with data stretching thousands of years back into prehistory. But among his critics are those who say that warfare between modern nation states, which are only a few hundred years old, has nothing in common with conflict before that time, and therefore it's too soon to say if the supposed "long peace" we've been enjoying since the end of the second world war is a blip or a sustained trend. In 2018, for example, computer scientist Aaron Clauset of the University of Colorado Boulder crunched data on wars fought between 1823 and 2003 and concluded that we'd have to wait at least another century to find out. Clauset doesn't think it would help to add older data into the mix; indeed, he thinks it would muddy the picture. Continued here

S63

How to maintain a healthy brain | Psyche Guides People living in Western nations today can expect to live a considerably longer life, on average, than 100 years or so ago. The dramatically shorter average life expectancies of the past were skewed by tragically high rates of infant mortality. Nonetheless, compared with the mid-19th century, an average five-year-old today can expect to live to 82 rather than 55 – an extra 27 years (based on data from England and Wales). Although this is obviously a welcome development – largely brought about by improvements in healthcare and the defeat of infectious diseases – it is a double-edged sword. The body could well keep going throughout all these decades, but the brain might not; and, if you are left able-bodied but with a permanently compromised brain, then you will be in an unenviable position. Such is the concern that a recent survey by Alzheimer’s Research UK showed that, for almost half of the respondents, dementia is the condition they fear the most, rising to more than 60 per cent among those aged over 65. Continued here

S64

Second act sensations! Meet the people who reached peak fitness – after turning 50 | Fitness | The Guardian Rich started working out, Mags started running and Shashi started walking three times a day. It is possible to reach new goals as you get older and it is not only your physical health that benefits 'I do sometimes feel like a cliche," says Rich Jones. We're in the cafe at his gym and he is in workout gear. It's true, something about the language and the before and after pictures from his physical transformation - severely overweight to lean and chiselled - would appear familiar from thousands of adverts and magazine spreads, if it wasn't for one thing; Jones got into the best shape of his adult life after he passed 50. "On 9 August 2019, I walked in here. I was 54 and 127kg [20st]." He worked out at least six days a week, for 90 minutes or more at a time. "I immersed myself in everything, I did gym, I did classes, Pilates, I even did barre," he says. Within eight or 10 weeks, he was able to stop taking painkillers for a shoulder injury. He now cycles and runs on top of his gym sessions. "It's just a habit - I brush my teeth every day, I go for a run every day." Continued here

S65

Does Having Kids Make You Happy? - The Atlantic Few choices are more important than whether to have children, and psychologists and other social scientists have worked to figure out what having kids means for happiness. Some of the most prominent scholars in the field have argued that if you want to be happy, it’s best to be childless. Others have pushed back, pointing out that a lot depends on who you are and where you live. But a bigger question is also at play: What if the rewards of having children are different from, and deeper than, happiness? The early research is decisive: Having kids is bad for quality of life. In one study, the psychologist Daniel Kahneman and his colleagues asked about 900 employed women to report, at the end of each day, every one of their activities and how happy they were when they did them. They recalled being with their children as less enjoyable than many other activities, such as watching TV, shopping, or preparing food. Other studies find that when a child is born, parents experience a decrease in happiness that doesn’t go away for a long time, in addition to a drop in marital satisfaction that doesn’t usually recover until the children leave the house. As the Harvard professor Dan Gilbert puts it, “The only symptom of empty nest syndrome is nonstop smiling.” After all, having children, particularly when they are young, involves financial struggle, sleep deprivation, and stress. For mothers, there is also in many cases the physical strain of pregnancy and breastfeeding. And children can turn a cheerful and loving romantic partnership into a zero-sum battle over who gets to sleep and work and who doesn’t. As the Atlantic staff writer Jennifer Senior notes in her book, All Joy and No Fun, children provoke a couple’s most frequent arguments—“more than money, more than work, more than in-laws, more than annoying personal habits, communication styles, leisure activities, commitment issues, bothersome friends, sex.” Someone who doesn’t understand this is welcome to spend a full day with an angry 2-year-old (or a sullen 15-year-old); they’ll find out what she means soon enough. Continued here

S66

The Project Economy Has Arrived To take advantage of the new project economy, companies need a new approach to project management: They must adopt a project-driven organizational structure, ensure that executives have the capabilities to effectively sponsor projects, and train managers in modern project management. Continued here

S67

Why Your Group Chat Could Be Worth Millions If you turn it into a DAO, that is. But what’s a DAO? It’s a little bit cryptocurrency, a little bit gamer clan, a little bit pyramid scheme. Continued here

S68

‘Yeah, we’re spooked’: AI starting to have big real-world impact, says expert | Artificial intelligence (AI) | The Guardian Prof Stuart Russell, the founder of the Center for Human-Compatible Artificial Intelligence at the University of California, Berkeley, said most experts believed that machines more intelligent than humans would be developed this century, and he called for international treaties to regulate the development of the technology. Continued here

S69

Mark Zuckerberg on why Facebook is rebranding to Meta - The Verge On Thursday, he officially became the CEO and chairman of Meta, the new parent company name for Facebook. The rebrand is about solidifying the social media giant as being about the metaverse, which Zuckerberg sees as the future of the internet. Zuckerberg is staying in control of everything. He told me in an interview that, unlike the founders of Google who stepped aside in 2015 when it became part of a holding company called Alphabet, he has no plans to give up the top job. Continued here

S70

Ideas | She drew millions of TikTok followers selling a fantasy of rural China. Politics intervened Li Ziqi’s fans span from the U.S. to Bangladesh. But behind the camera, she is just another player in China’s platform economy. Continued here

S71

China's New Quantum Computer Has 1 Million Times the Power of Google's Physicists in China claim they've constructed two quantum computers with performance speeds that outrival competitors in the U.S., debuting a superconducting machine, in addition to an even speedier one that uses light photons to obtain unprecedented results, according to a recent study published in the peer-reviewed journals Physical Review Letters and Science Bulletin. Continued here

S72

Review: ‘The Transcendentalists and Their World,’ by Robert Gross - The Atlantic In the lead-up to the bicentennial of American independence in 1976, a graduate student sent a proposal to an editor at a trade publisher in New York. Would he consider taking on a book about the Minutemen and their “shot heard round the world,” set painstakingly in a history of Concord, Massachusetts, the town where the North Bridge fight broke out? In 1977, that book—which was also the student’s dissertation—won a Bancroft Prize, the highest honor in the history profession. The Minutemen and Their World remains a classic, memorable within a wave of “community studies” that sought to explain big turning points—such as the outbreak of the Revolution and the Salem witch trials—at the level of local ties, focusing on loyalties and antipathies among neighbors, families, holders of property and office, laborers and servants. Continued here

S73

Why even fully vaccinated older people are at high risk for severe COVID-19 | National Geographic Mounting data suggests that older people are at higher risk of severe disease from a breakthrough infection of COVID-19—and scientists say that should come as no surprise. After all, older age brackets have been disproportionately at risk throughout the pandemic, and that continues to be true even once someone is fully vaccinated. Continued here

S74

If You Think Downsizing Might Save Your Company, Think Again Firms often downsize because it is seen as a way to reduce costs, adjust structures, and create leaner, more efficient workplaces. But new research indicates that downsizing may actually increase the likelihood of bankruptcy. The research team examined 2010 data from 4,710 publicly traded firms and determined whether they declared bankruptcy in the subsequent 5-year period. After controlling for known potential drivers of both downsizing and bankruptcy, as well as numerous other factors, they found that downsizing firms were twice as likely to declare bankruptcy as firms that did not downsize. Continued here

S75

The Principles of Persuasion Aren't Just for Business We typically think of business building relationships using the Principles of Persuasion. But anyone can use them when building better relationships. Continued here

S76

Albert Camus on the Three Antidotes to the Absurdity of Life – The Marginalian What an astrophysicist might have the perspective to eulogize as “the incredibly improbable trip that we’re on” the rest of us might, and often do, experience as simply and maddeningly absurd — so uncontrollable and incomprehensible as to barely make sense. What are we to make of, and do with, the absurdity of life that swarms us daily? Oliver Sacks believed that “the most we can do is to write — intelligently, creatively, evocatively — about what it is like living in the world at this time.” And yet parsing the what-it-is-like can itself drive us to despair. Still, parse we must. Continued here

S77

Improve Your Résumé by Turning Bullet Points into Stories There’s nothing wrong with listing your definitive actions and quantifiable results on your resume — this is standard advice. The problem is, however, that you may not be telling an employer what they really need to know. Details are important, but what’s your story? By telling a story in your resume, employers will be able to see what you can do for them based on what you’ve been able to do in the past. Continued here

S78

Ask an Expert: How Do I Become a CEO? I am a 25-year-old woman just starting out in veterinary marketing. During my first three years in the workforce, I worked as a certified technician in veterinary medicine, but recently, I decided I wanted more out of my career. While working, I went back to school to complete my bachelor’s degree in business. During this time, I also approached my boss and asked if she could help me gain more experience on the business side of the industry. Continued here

S79

Who Killed the Billionaire Founder of a Generic Drug Empire? The chairman of Apotex and his wife were brutally murdered last year in their Toronto home. Continued here

S80

Happiness doesn’t follow success: it’s the other way round | Aeon Ideas Work hard, become successful, then you’ll be happy. At least, that’s what many of us were taught by our parents, teachers and peers. The idea that we must pursue success in order to experience happiness is enshrined in the United States’ most treasured institutions (the Declaration of Independence), beliefs (the American dream), and stories (Rocky and Cinderella). Most people want to be happy, so we chase success like a proverbial carrot on a stick – thinking that contentment lurks just the other side of getting into college, landing a dream job, being promoted or making six figures. But for many chasers, both success and happiness remain perpetually out of reach. The problem is that the equation might be backwards. Continued here

S81

Improve Your Résumé by Turning Bullet Points into Stories There’s nothing wrong with listing your definitive actions and quantifiable results on your resume — this is standard advice. The problem is, however, that you may not be telling an employer what they really need to know. Details are important, but what’s your story? By telling a story in your resume, employers will be able to see what you can do for them based on what you’ve been able to do in the past. Continued here

S82

I Left My Corporate Job -- and These 8 Things Became Clear | Inc.com After more than two great decades at Procter & Gamble, I made the leap--a planned exit from corporate life to go all-in on my former side hustle of writing, speaking, and teaching. Now this is my full hustle and believe me, I'm hustlin' (and loving every minute of it). Continued here

S83

How to Get Your To-Do List Done When You’re Always in Meetings You keep waiting for the “perfect time” to sit down and knock out your work presentation in one go, but at the end of the day you realize you spent your time in meetings. You may never get your perfect time or ideal day, so start working within the reality that meetings happen — and that you can get important stuff done in between them. Try to break down the big task into bite-sized ones you can fit in between your meetings. You can also try scheduling in your project work time by blocking off a couple hours at a time and trying to stick to that schedule. Once you have that time, you can prioritize which projects you want to work on and in what order. Don’t let meetings keep you from getting those projects done. There’s plenty of time, if you can strategize and prepare for it. Continued here

S84

Brené Brown’s Empire of Emotion | The New Yorker In August, Brené Brown, the Houston-based writer, researcher, professor, social worker, podcast host, C.E.O., and consultant-guru to organizations including Pixar, Google, and the U.S. Special Forces, met with a group of graduate students at the McCombs School of Business, at the University of Texas at Austin, to talk about emotions. Brown, fifty-five, was wearing a shiny maize blouse, jeans, and a black face mask. It was the first day of her new class, Dare to Lead, and she stood onstage in a small auditorium. There were about a hundred people in the room; Brown had them stand up and introduce themselves. “Howdy!” a Black student in a fleece jacket said, giving a Longhorns salute. “Who else is from Washington, D.C.?” Other students were from Texas, Nigeria, Ohio, Hong Kong. They were concentrating in fields like accounting and management, and they were going to confront one another’s humanity. Continued here

S85

How to Talk to an Employee Who Isn’t Meeting Their Goals Having to tell someone that they’re not meeting their work standards can get awkward fast. Luckily, simply asking them to evaluate themselves can do a lot of the work for you. If they can spot the problems on their own, it saves you a lot of trouble. If not, make sure that your goals and visions are aligned. State the non-negotiables and how it can help them further their career. Be clear about your employee’s failings by describing specific examples and behaviors you observed, giving them guidelines about how they can get back on track. Ask them to create an improvement plan and then review together, filling any gaps they might have missed, setting deadlines, and explaining repercussions if the goals are not met. Confrontation about shortcomings is much easier when it’s done with a shared vision, clear expectations, and a plan to move forward. Continued here

S86

How to Live to 100: A Definitive Guide to Longevity Fitness - InsideHook At this point, we’re all familiar with the trope. A local news station visits a retirement home to celebrate Muriel’s 106th birthday. She’s deaf or blind or both or neither, sitting in a wheelchair in the “good spot” next to the TV set, and a reporter asks her her secret. You’ve lived through both World Wars?! How’d you do it? Then Muriel gets to flash a mischievous grin and tells us she smoked a pack a day for 50 years. Continued here

S87

How to Identify Your Shadow Emotions (and Why You Should) At some point in our childhood, we learn that living in a society means controlling certain emotions. We suppress, in particular, emotions we consider to be “negative”—fear, anger, jealousy, selfishness—for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that we consider them shameful. However suppressed these negative emotions are, they are still there, creating what the Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung called a “shadow self,” complete with “shadow emotions.” Continued here

S88

How to raise a boy: my mission to bring up a son fit for the 21st century | Parents and parenting | The Guardian My little son has a gang he roots for. All boys, dudes everywhere – they’re his gang. I figured this out, recently, when we sat down to watch the Grand National. He’d picked a horse in the family sweepstake and his choice was out in front for most of the race. When it fell back, out of contention, my son paled a bit. Possibly he’d already spent the sweepstake winnings in his head (on stickers, sweets, toy balls) but he took the disappointment quite well, I thought, for a four-year-old. The race was won in the end by a female jockey. It was the only time a woman had ever finished first in a Grand National, the commentators shouted. And all at once my son did cry, real fat gushers, instant snot moustache, the works. Now this was too much, if a girl had gone and beaten all the boys. Continued here

S89

How to make a 5-hour workday the most productive Scandinavian countries dominate the World Happiness Report—Norway being the third most productive country in the world and Helsinki winning the title of the best city for work-life balance. And their standard working week is less than 40 hours long. They work a whopping 359 hours less than Americans every year. Continued here

S90

Climate change: Five dealmakers who will influence the outcome at COP26 - BBC News Not only do countries have differing national priorities, but to make things even more confusing, nations forge alliances with each other and form negotiating blocs within the talks. Countries can be members of several different groups at the same time. Continued here

S91

The Brutal Truth You Need to Accept If You Want to Stop Feeling Constantly Overwhelmed | Inc.com If you feel there aren't enough hours in the day, there are a million and one gurus and companies out there willing to sell you a solution. They've got scheduling hacks, project management tools, and relevant research to offer. Some of this stuff is even useful. But even if you implement every good idea in the bunch, I've got bad news for you: You're still going to feel endlessly overwhelmed.  Continued here

S92

The Long History of Japan’s Tidying Up | The New Yorker “You must take everything out of your room and clean it thoroughly,” a guru writes. “If it is necessary, you may bring everything back in again . . . but if they are not necessary, there is no need to keep them.” You would be forgiven for mistaking this advice as a passage from one of Marie Kondo’s best-selling books. But they are the words of Shunryu Suzuki, the founder of the San Francisco Zen Center and a nourisher of the American counterculture. He wrote them in 1970, more than a decade before Kondo was born. Continued here

S93

Three Simple Ways to Find the Meaning of Life - The Atlantic People who believe that they know their life’s meaning enjoy greater well-being than those who don’t. One 2019 study found that agreeing with the statement “I have a philosophy of life that helps me understand who I am” was associated with fewer symptoms of depression and higher positive affect. Continued here

S94

How Leaders Can Get Honest, Productive Feedback Great leaders are great learners. Their never-ending pursuit of information pushes them to constantly improve and sets them apart from the rest. Feedback serves a crucial role in this process, but getting and learning from it isn’t always easy. If you want to get the feedback that is necessary to improve your leadership, there are a few steps you can take. First, build and maintain a psychologically safe environment. Sharing feedback is often interpersonally risky. To increase the likelihood of your colleagues taking that risk with you, show them that their honesty is valued. You can do this by asking open-ended questions like, “What did you hear when I shared my strategy?” or “How did it feel to you when I sent that email?” Next, be sure to ask for both positive and negative feedback. Listen carefully when receiving it — even if you disagree. You may feel happy, angry, confused, or frustrated by what you hear. Recognize that your reactions are about you, and not the other person. Lastly, express gratitude. Now that you have some new data, you can reflect on the meaning and implication of what you heard, consider what you need to work on, and make a plan of action. Continued here

S95

How Russia Is Cashing In on Climate Change - The New York Times Nowhere do the prospects seem brighter than in Russia’s Far North, where rapidly rising temperatures have opened up a panoply of new possibilities, like mining and energy projects. Perhaps the most profound of these is the prospect, as early as next year, of year-round Arctic shipping with specially designed “ice class” container vessels, offering an alternative to the Suez Canal. Continued here

S96

Highly Intelligent People Are Less Satisfied By Friendships In a paper published in the British Journal of Psychology, researchers Norman Li and Satoshi Kanazawa report that highly intelligent people experience lower life satisfaction when they socialize with friends more frequently. These are the Sherlocks and the Newt Scamanders of the world — the very intelligent few who would be happier if they were left alone. Continued here

S97

The On/Off Trick and Other Best Hacks for Handling Stress - Nir and Far Unlike other animals, which (as far as we know) react solely to what’s going on in their environment, humans can imagine entire realities in our heads. These alternate realities make us act in all sorts of strange ways. For instance, while zebras will run from the sound of a lion in the brush, humans will stampede at the start of a Black Friday sale, imagining the deals we’ll miss if we don’t elbow our way through. Continued here

S98

'Waning' Immunity: What Falling Antibody Counts Really Mean - The Atlantic In early March, Deepta Bhattacharya, an immunologist at the University of Arizona, celebrated a milestone: hitting the point of full vaccination, two weeks after getting his second Pfizer shot. Since then, he’s been watching the number of coronavirus antibodies in his blood slowly but surely decline. Continued here

S99

Simplify Your Time Management With the 'Rule of 4' | Inc.com Simon Sinek has spoken about how much value he's gotten from studying the work of his longtime professional rival Adam Grant. Watching another person do very similar work but with his own unique strengths on display, Sinek claims, both frustrated him and helped him grow. For me, the person who very often makes me feel that way is Oliver Burkeman.  Continued here

S100

3 Ways Senior Leaders Create a Toxic Culture The people at the top of an organization have a disproportionate level of influence over those they lead. If you and your fellow executives fall into bad habits, it’s likely that those further down in the organization will emulate them. There are three common habits you especially want to avoid: (1) Scattered priorities. The implications for an organization whose leadership team is poorly focused are serious: Wasted resources, wasted effort, and widespread confusion become the norm. (2) Unhealthy rivalry. Leadership teams must operate as a unified force. Shared goals must be accompanied by shared accountability. (3) Unproductive conflict. Speaking negatively behind one another’s backs, withholding honest perspectives, or vetoing decisions after they are made should be unacceptable. Continued here