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Social media isn’t always very sociable. Okay, that may not be breaking news, but I think it’s important to step back and reflect on how social media can bring out the worst in people. That’s even true on LinkedIn, which prides itself on being a place for professionals of all sorts. More than once recently,…
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God gave you two ears and one mouth so you can listen twice as much as you talk. If you were a talker growing up, I’ll bet your parents or teachers told you something like this at least once. I may or may not have heard it much more than that! Turns out that’s really…
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How’s your vision? I’m guessing it’s not 20/20, because only about a third of us can see that well without glasses or contacts. (I say this as I grab for my glasses.) I’ve been thinking about vision ever since my good friend Anthony J. James appeared on this episode of The Combustion Chronicles. AJ isn’t…
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No matter how you’ve been affected by all the disruptive events of the past year, I think you’ll agree that we’re no longer the people we were a year ago. Yep, 2020 changed us individually and collectively by rattling us from our comfort zones and dragging us kicking and screaming into a world filled with…
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As the year finally—thankfully—comes to a close, I’ve been thinking a lot about all that we’ve experienced in 2020. It took me all the way back to last spring, as the first waves of the coronavirus pandemic began crashing ashore and changed pretty much everything for pretty much all of us. I remember that at that…
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Rituals are part of who we are as human beings. Whether religious like Passover or secular like Thanksgiving, they help us mark time in the year and they create space for us to remember and reflect. In this year of uncertainty, we need rituals more than ever, even if the traditions we’re accustomed to can’t be replicated.
Read MoreA recent study in Scientific American showed that people learn faster when they are free to choose which action they make, even if the choice initially leads to a negative outcome. The concept, “choice-confirmation bias,” produces “stabler learning over a wide range of simulated conditions than unbiased (no choice) did.” Researchers also believe that choice-confirmation…
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