Curious Minds at Work

Most of us believe we can make a difference in the world. That we can have an impact. What holds us back from acting on those beliefs are often the doubts. Doubts about our skills, our credentials, even our roles at work. Alex Budak studied the research and interviewed the changemakers, and he argues we can all be changemakers, no matter our resumes. That’s what led him to write

This year, we witnessed a solar eclipse. Walking the streets of my neighborhood that day, looking through my solar eclipse glasses and sharing them with others, I felt a profound sense of awe. And I saw that awe, that wonder, reflected in the faces of the people around me. For one or two hours, we were part of something bigger than ourselves. And that experience took us out of our

Social connections are one of the keys to a happy and healthy life, yet few of us learn how to build them. If we’re lucky, we have family and friends who model them. But even then, our biology equips us with cognitive biases that can get in the way. Fortunately, award-winning science writer David Robson has studied the research. He shares what he’s learned in his latest book,

There are many good reasons to look to others. For example, you might need expert advice or feedback to improve your performance. But there’s one reason not to, and, that is, to determine your self-worth. When you look to someone else to define you or tell you how to live your life, you lose a lot. And if you find it hard to believe you’d ever let someone else influence you

We’re surrounded by people with knowledge. The manager who can provide expert feedback or the colleague who has important information. These kinds of insights can help us achieve our goals. Yet as much as we need that knowledge, we often don’t act in ways that invite it. It’s when the project runs behind or we can’t make our numbers that we realize, often too late, that

We all want to be happy. In fact, it’s our desire for happiness that drives most of our decisions, like our friendships, our activities, even our purchases. Yet, over time, we find that the things that made us so happy at the start – that new car or delicious meal – end up losing their luster. I was curious about why this happens and what, if anything, we can do about it.

We crave meaning and purpose, yet obtaining them can feel beyond our control, like they're merely products of luck and circumstance. Fortunately, researchers who’ve studied the power of ritual have found they’re more in our control than we think. In this interview, I talk to one of these researchers, psychologist Michael Norton. He shares how rituals, especially ones we creat

At some point, we all get stuck. Maybe it’s in a job or career. Maybe it’s a relationship or business venture. Though it’s something we all experience, when it happens, we can feel alone and out of our depth. Emotions may overwhelm us. Mental traps lure is in. In no time at all, we can’t see a way out. Award-winning professor, researcher, and author, Adam Alter, has spent

When we’re feeling stuck, it’s tempting to believe more thinking is the answer. We stew and we ponder, and then we double down on solutions we’ve tried before. It’s no wonder we start to feel like we just can’t figure it out. But what would happen if we put thinking aside and tried something else? Author and researcher, Norman Farb, has learned that there’s an entire c

When we think of geeks, we tend to think of the people who built the tech we use – from our smartphones to search engines to AI. But if we just focus on the tech, we’re missing out on a lot. We’re overlooking how these same geeks reinvented corporate culture using a repeatable set of norms that ensure sustainable innovation. Andrew McAfee is a principal research scientis