Most Popular Editorials: Steps to Take When You're Starting to Feel Burned Out

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Steps to Take When You’re Starting to Feel Burned Out Burnout hurts. When you burn out at work, you feel diminished, like a part of yourself has gone into hiding. Challenges that were formerly manageable feel insurmountable. It’s the opposite end of the spectrum from engagement. The engaged employee is energized, involved, and high-performing; the burned-out employee is exhausted, cynical, and overwhelmed. Continued here

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How to Conduct a Great Performance Review. The purpose of performance reviews is two-fold: an accurate and actionable evaluation of performance, and then development of that person’s skills in line with job tasks. For recipients, feedback has intrinsic and extrinsic value. Across fields, research shows that people become high performers by identifying specific areas where they need to improve and then practicing those skills with performance feedback. Continued here

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This tiny defibrillator turns your neighborhood into a communal ER No one wants to imagine how they might die, but statistically, we already have a good idea. Sudden cardiac arrest is the leading cause of natural death in the U.S., and when it happens outside a hospital, nearly 90% of people don’t survive. Products called AEDs—automated defibrillators—can help in the first few minutes. But where can you find one in an emergency? Continued here

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The Maldives is building the world's first floating city The Maldives has long been the picture-perfect paradise getaway, and even more so during the pandemic. Last year saw tourism return to almost pre-pandemic levels with the arrival of 1.3 million travellers, compared to 1.7 million visitors in 2019. And now, the world's lowest-lying nation might just have a stable solution to the stark reality of rising sea levels. The Maldives Floating City has just been green-lit for construction: 5,000 housing units that are linked together and tethered to the floor of a 500-acre lagoon, designed to preserve and enhance its natural and cultural ecosystem. Continued here

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Visualizing the Coming Shift in Global Economic Power (2006-2036p) As the post-pandemic recovery chugs along, the global economy is set to see major changes in the coming decades. Most significantly, China is forecast to pass the United States to become the largest economy globally. Continued here

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A single approach to culture transformation may not fit all Imagine a large consumer-packaged-goods (CPG) organization with lots of business units, all seeking to maximize their own profit-and-loss statements (P&Ls). To keep up with and ultimately surpass competitors, senior leaders at the center of this CPG behemoth want to make significant investments in innovation and new markets—and, in a change from current cultural practices, they want all the business units to cooperate to fuel this growth. Continued here

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Climate change: 'Sand battery' could solve green energy's big problem Finnish researchers have installed the world's first fully working "sand battery" which can store green power for months at a time.The developers say this could solve the problem of year-round supply, a major issue for green energy.Using low-grade sand, the device is charged up with heat made from cheap electricity from solar or wind.The sand stores the heat at around 500C, which can then warm homes in winter when energy is more expensive.Finland gets most of its gas from Russia, so the war in Ukraine has drawn the issue of green power into sharp focus. It has the longest Russian border in the EU and Moscow has now halted gas and electricity supplies in the wake of Finland's decision to join NATO. Continued here

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Reading to improve language skills? Focus on fiction rather than non-fiction Verbal abilities provide benefits in school and in one’s career. Fostering a love for stories and fiction in children should be a high priority.We all know that reading is good for children and for adults, and that we should all be reading more often. One of the most obvious benefits of reading is that it helps improve language skills. A major review of research on leisure reading confirmed that reading does indeed foster better verbal abilities, from preschoolers all the way to university students. But, does it matter what we read?In four separate studies, based on data from almost 1,000 young adults, behavioural scientist Marina Rain and I examined how reading fiction and non-fiction predicts verbal abilities.We found that reading fiction was the stronger and more consistent predictor of language skills compared to reading non-fiction. This was true whether people reported their own reading habits or if we used a more objective measure of lifetime reading (recognizing real author names from among false ones). Importantly, after accounting for fiction reading, reading non-fiction did not predict language skills much at all. Continued here

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Why a placebo can work—even when you know it's fake When Betty Durkin stepped onto her deck last June, she slipped on a loose board and fell on the floor. Durkin broke her neck, seriously bruised her wrists and knees, injured the top of her cervical spine, and got splinters lodged in her face. The pain was instantly unbearable. Continued here

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How to Tell If You’re Delegating Too Much — and What to Do About It If you find yourself frequently miscommunicating with your team, hearing about issues at the last minute, or misunderstanding how your team sets priorities, it may be a sign you’ve delegated too much. To get re-involved, start by taking on a symbolic project that will send a signal you’re re-engaging, and help you re-learn some of the front-line skills you need to have a deep understanding of the work your team is doing. Second, re-set expectations with your team. An off-site or planning meeting can help set a new agenda. Third, double-down on communicating your vision for your team. If people know why they’re doing what they’re doing, or the major goals they should be working toward, they shouldn’t need you to be super-involved in their day-to-day efforts. Continued here

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Climate change: Do we have to rethink what we eat? | DW | 01.07.2022 Asparagus in winter, pears from Argentina, Peruvian blueberries and Californian almonds — these are just a few of the several thousand products shoppers can buy when they enter a supermarket. It's something our ancestors a century ago likely never imagined, but we've become used to this bounty of choice when we select our food."It is truly peculiar to walk into a Carrefour Marche in France or Wal Mart here in the United States and see what's on offer," says Janet Chrzan, a nutritional anthropologist from the University of Pennsylvania. "We are living in a food environment which is unlike anything our species has ever encountered."German supermarkets on the whole have more than 10,000 products. In the US, the average is more than 30,000, according to the American Food Industry Association. Consumers make decisions about which items to put into their shopping baskets in a matter of seconds. And those decisions have implications for the environment. Continued here

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Neuroplasticity: Can You Think Yourself Into a Different Person? - The Best Brain Possible For years she had tried to be the perfect wife and mother but now, divorced, with two sons, having gone through another break-up and in despair about her future, she felt as if she’d failed at it all, and she was tired of it. On June 6,  2007, Debbie Hampton, of Greensboro, North Carolina, took an overdose of more than 90 pills – a combination of ten different prescription drugs, some of which she’d stolen from a neighbor’s bedside cabinet. That afternoon, she’d written a note on her computer: “I’ve screwed up this life so bad that there is no place here for me and nothing I can contribute.” Then, in tears, she went upstairs, sat on her bed, swallowed her pills with some cheap Shiraz and put on a Dido CD to listen to as she died. As she lay down, she felt triumphant. Continued here

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Why Einstein is a "peerless genius" and Hawking is an "ordinary genius" You've heard of Stephen Hawking. How about Renata Kallosh? Didn't think so. Why are some brilliant people called "geniuses," but not others? Continued here

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As the World Shifts, So Should Leaders Two decades ago, extensive research led Nohria, the former dean of Harvard Business School, to conclude that the hallmark of great leadership is the ability to adapt to the times. Today, he says, we’re in a period of significant change, thanks to global events, governmental responses, technological changes, and shifts in demographics, social mores, and labor relationships. Here he discusses those developments and the skills that CEOs will need to successfully steer through them. Continued here

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The giant hangar poised for an aviation revolution Sergey Brin turned internet search into one of the world’s most valuable businesses more than two decades ago. Now he intends to improve a technology which had its heyday long before he was born. Continued here

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Under Anesthesia, Where Do Our Minds Go? After experimenting on a hen, his dog, his goldfish, and himself, dentist William Morton was ready. On Oct. 16, 1846, he hurried to the Massachusetts General Hospital surgical theater for what would be the first successful public test of a general anesthetic.His concoction of sulfuric ether and oil from an orange (just for the fragrance) knocked a young man unconscious while a surgeon cut a tumor from his neck. To the onlooking students and clinicians, it was like a miracle. Some alchemical reaction between the ether and the man's brain allowed him to slip into a state akin to light sleep, to undergo what should have been a painful surgery with little discomfort, and then to return to himself with only a hazy memory of the experience. Continued here

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Does anyone ever really feel 'grown up' ? I asked some older people to find out For as long as I can remember, I've wanted to be a grownup. As children, my friends and I would play at being shopkeepers and customers, thrilled to inhabit an adult role. As a teenager, I lived alone abroad. By my 30s I had all the things I thought signalled adulthood: a career (as a journalist), a home, a husband, a washing machine, a dishwasher and a fridge. All the paperwork and white goods to prove I was finally the competent, confident adult I had always hoped to be. Continued here

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Nuclear Fusion Is Already Facing a Fuel Crisis In the south of France, ITER is inching towards completion. When it’s finally fully switched on in 2035, the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor will be the largest device of its kind ever built, and the flag-bearer for nuclear fusion. Continued here

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How To Discuss Your Plans for Death, Per Estate Lawyers | Well+Good Death comes along with an emotional and logistical cascade of concerns for those close to the person who passed. While working with a palliative-care professional or death doula once death becomes imminent can certainly help with the emotional side of things, creating an estate plan ahead of time mitigates stress related to the logistics. “This is why we always say every adult should have a will,” says estate-planning attorney Rosalyn Carothers, JD. “For one, that allows you to direct what happens to any of your assets, and two, you’re making it easier and less expensive for your family members to help, as you’d have seen fit.” Continued here

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Microsoft’s Code-Writing AI Points to the Future of Computers At the Microsoft Build developer conference today, the company's chief technology officer, Kevin Scott, demonstrated an AI helper for the game Minecraft. The non-player character within the game is powered by the same machine learning technology Microsoft has been testing for auto-generating software code. The feat hints at how recent advances in AI could change personal computing in years to come by replacing interfaces that you tap, type, and click to navigate into interfaces that you simply have a conversation with. Continued here

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Influencer Creep - Real Life When influencers first emerged, they were met with some skepticism from advertisers. Compared to conventional celebrities, bloggers and vloggers were often positioned as risky and unpredictable, operating in a messy and frequently scandalous online Wild West. Disciplined in part by the precarious and ever-shifting work environment created by social media platforms, influencers learned to protect themselves and their content by anticipating and responding to algorithmic changes, researching optimization strategies to gather visibility. Continued here

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Spot the difference: the invincible business of counterfeit goods I was standing in front of an imposing townhouse in the swish 16th arrondissement of Paris. Its classical lines, marble staircases and delicately wrought iron balustrades belied the fierce sense of purpose inside. The Musée de la Contrefaçon is an unusual kind of museum – it specialises in counterfeits. I hoped that my visit would help me understand a problem that luxury brands have been battling for decades: that of mass-market knock-offs and blatant counterfeits. Continued here

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Want to Remember More of What You Read? Do These 4 Things, According to a Linguistics Professor Do you want to remember more of what you read? If so, some ways of reading are better than others. That advice comes from Naomi S. Baron, professor emerita of linguistics at American University, and the author of multiple books and studies on reading and learning. In a piece for Big Think, she explains why some ways of reading, and absorbing information in general, are better than others and lead to greater retention and also greater comprehension, especially of abstract concepts. Continued here

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This creative exercise turns disorganized thoughts into gold Do you have days where you’re facing a huge stack of assignments, but you find yourself unable to get rid of all the thoughts buzzing around in your brain? It might be time to try a brain dump. Continued here

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How I Learned to Eat Alone and Not Be Lonely In the spring of 2020, as my world shrunk to the square footage of my apartment, food became a mode of injecting pleasure and delight into an otherwise bleak and lonely period of my life. I frequently ordered pizza from my favorite local spot in Washington, D.C.; I sampled different brands of instant ramen; I baked loaves of banana bread. In some ways, this routine was familiar. In high school, after my parents separated, I would cook dinner for two—my mom and me—but she worked late and I would eat alone before she got home. For much of the pandemic, though, no one came through the front door. Continued here

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What Leaders Need to Know Before Trying a 4-Day Work Week While there is no easy way to address concerns about how (and how much) we work, research tells us that no matter what we do, taking a holistic, long-term focus on the well-being of the workforce is the best path to both happiness and prosperity. Maybe the answer is a four-day workweek. Or maybe it’s something else. But we must start with an honest appraisal of how productivity and time trade-offs impact the well-being of workers. Before trying a four-day workweek, employers need to be aware of two important factors. First, a reduction in hours must also be accompanied by a revision of or even reduction in workload. Second, time at work could become even more intense and stressful for workers, even if there are productivity benefits to be had. Continued here

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Nonprogrammers are building more of the world's software – a computer scientist explains 'no-code' Developing software used to require programming skills. Today, a growing number of people are building websites, games and even AI programs without writing a line of code. Continued here

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A New Study Points to a Surprisingly Simple Way to Ward Off Knee Pain Researchers surveyed over 1,000 people ages 50 or older with knee osteoarthritis, the most common type of arthritis in the United States. Some had persistent pain at the outset, while others did not. After four years, those who started off without frequent knee pain and walked for exercise at least 10 times were less likely to experience new, regular bouts of stiffness or aches around their knees and had less structural damage in their knees. The study suggested that people with knee osteoarthritis who are bowlegged might particularly benefit from walking. Continued here

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Japan Is Dropping a Gargantuan Turbine Into The Ocean to Harness 'Limitless' Energy Deep beneath the waves there's a source of power quite unlike any other. To tap into it, Japanese engineers have constructed a true leviathan, a beast capable of withstanding the strongest of ocean currents to transform its flow into a virtually limitless supply of electricity. Continued here

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New Theory of Decision-Making Seeks to Explain Why Humans Don’t Make Optimal Choices - Neuroscience News What is neuroscience? Neuroscience is the scientific study of nervous systems. Neuroscience can involve research from many branches of science including those involving neurology, brain science, neurobiology, psychology, computer science, artificial intelligence, statistics, prosthetics, neuroimaging, engineering, medicine, physics, mathematics, pharmacology, electrophysiology, biology, robotics and technology. Continued here

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Want to Excel in ESG? Craft a “Green Ocean” Strategy. For many managers ESG competition leaves them feeling overwhelmed and under-equipped. It’s not surprising. This is a new type of competition, one that often means competing across industries. This means that it requires a new strategy — one that the authors call Green Ocean Strategy. For those companies with stakeholders that care about ESG, Green Ocean strategy is the ideal way to compete in the new and increasingly important arena of ESG performance. The manager who can find an ESG space where their competitor is absent and yet they can excel, execute upon it, and then effectively communicate that performance to their stakeholders, will help ensure the ESG success of their company. Continued here

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People Don’t Want to Be Compared with Others in Performance Reviews. They Want to Be Compared with Themselves Why do people hate performance reviews? Maybe because, according to surveys, most of us don’t think they’re fair. A team of researchers set out to examine this in more detail. In four studies based on the data collected from 1,024 American and Dutch employees, they compared two types of reference points: employees who were compared against each other, and employees whose current performance was compared against their own past performance. The latter seemed to be perceived as far more fair — in that case, participants believed that the evaluations were more individualized, believing that the manager incorporated specific information about them. Thus, they considered that the evaluations were more discerning and accurate, and that they had been treated in a more respectful way. Continued here

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How to Boost Your Brainpower at Any Age Consumer Reports shows you how to boost your brainpower at any age, sharing tips for memory-building games, superfoods, and supplements to preserve and even enhance your thinking skills Continued here

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Long-hypothesized 'next generation wonder material' created for first time For over a decade, scientists have attempted to synthesize a new form of carbon called graphyne with limited success. That endeavor is now at an end, though, thanks to new research from the University of Colorado Boulder. Continued here

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The Best Leaders Are Versatile Ones It is not an overstatement to say that versatility is the most important component of leading effectively today. To cope with the rapid pace of change, leaders must develop the ability to consider opposing needs and avoid maximizing one at the expense of the other simply because their current skill set makes them more attuned to it. To help leaders understand how to build versatility, this practical model emphasizes the opposing but complementary behaviors that are required: It makes the distinction between, on the one hand, how you lead (in terms of interpersonal behaviors for influencing and interacting with other people) and, on the other hand, what you lead (in terms of the organizational issues you focus them on). Continued here

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Does walking build muscle? It’s our most regular form of exercise, but does walking build muscle? We look to studies and an expert for the answer Continued here

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This Nerve Influences Nearly Every Internal Organ. Can It Improve Our Mental State, Too? On social media, exercises that aim to “tone” one of our body’s longest nerves have been touted as a cure-all for anxiety and other psychological ailments. Here’s what the research says. Continued here

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The best games of 2022 so far This clever, shareable word game was the feelgood story of the early part of the year, as mysterious coloured-block emojis proliferated across social feeds and half the planet was drawn into guessing the word of the day. Wordle mania might have dissipated a little since the New York Times took it over, but it’ll still be a defining game of 2022. Continued here

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Why Your Kid Isn't Going to Princeton and a Bunch of Other Top Schools Many of us likely forgot one of the most striking things about the last great college sports scandal - not the illegal early recruiting stings, not the under-the-table payments to incoming athletes and their parents, and not even the many perverts caught in the locker and training rooms. It was a revelation from the Varsity Blues scandal, where fancy, famous, and affluent parents bribed coaches and other admissions officers and used fake resumes to get their mediocre offspring admitted to prestigious colleges through the locker room door by claiming that they were serious jocks. Continued here

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What makes hate a unique emotion – and why that matters | Psyche Ideas How does hating someone compare with anger, contempt or disgust? A clearer picture of what makes it unique is emerging Continued here

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Here’s the Best Way to Answer the Dreaded “Tell Me About Yourself” Question During a Job Interview There are few interview questions job candidates fear more than the infamous "tell me about yourself" prompt. Though you've likely had to answer this question before, it's easy to panic when asked to summarize yourself in a succinct, presentable package. To conquer the "tell me about yourself" question, it helps to know what exactly employers are looking for and how to give it to them. Continued here

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About 200 years ago, the world started getting rich. Why? You can crudely tell the story of our species in three stages. In the first, which lasted for the vast majority of our time on Earth, from the emergence of Homo sapiens over 300,000 years ago to about 12,000 years ago, humans lived largely nomadic lifestyles, subsisting through hunting and foraging for food. In the second, lasting from about 10,000 BC to around 1750 AD, humans adopted agriculture, allowing for a more secure supply of food and leading to the establishment of towns, cities, even empires. Continued here

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Want to Live to 100? Here Are the 10 Most Important Foods To Add to Your Diet There are some specific foods that scientific studies have linked again and again to longevity; not just living into old age, but living well into old age. While no food—or anything for that matter—is a guarantee you’ll live into the triple digits, eating a diet full of foods scientifically linked to longevity can certainly increase your chances. But which ones should you prioritize? There are many nutrient-rich foods out there, but these are the 10 longevity experts say are most important. Continued here

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Keep Forgetting Things? Neuroscience Says These 5 Habits Improve Memory and Leadership Let's start with my favorite on the list, because the neuroscientists who came up with it can't even explain why it works. Researchers from the University of Roehampton in London divided their subjects into three groups.  Continued here

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"If you work hard and succeed, you're a loser": can you really wing it to the top? Forget the spreadsheets and make it up as you go along - that's the message of leaders from Elon Musk to Boris Johnson. But is acting on instinct really a good idea?There are, it seems, two types of "winging it" stories. First, there are the triumphant ones . the victories pulled, cheekily, improbably, from the jaws of defeat. Like the time a historian (who prefers to remain nameless) turned up to give a talk on one subject, only to discover her hosts were expecting, and had advertised, another. "I wrote the full thing - an hour-long show - in 10 panicked minutes," she says. "At the end, a lady came up to congratulate me on how spontaneous my delivery was."Then there is the other kind of winging it story - the kind that ends in ignominy. Remember the safeguarding minister, Rachel Maclean, tying herself in factually inaccurate knots when asked about stop-and-search powers? The Australian journalist Matt Doran, who interviewed Adele without listening to her album? Or the culture secretary, Nadine Dorries, claiming Channel 4 was publicly funded, then that Channel 5 had been privatised?There are even worse examples. Continued here

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The Elements of Good Judgment Judgment—the ability to combine personal qualities with relevant knowledge and experience to form opinions and make decisions—is “the core of exemplary leadership,” according to Noel Tichy and Warren Bennis (the authors of Judgment: How Winning Leaders Make Great Calls). It is what enables a sound choice in the absence of clear-cut, relevant data or an obvious path. Likierman believes that a more precise understanding of what exactly gives someone good judgment may make it possible for people to learn and improve on it. He approached CEOs at a range of companies, from some of the world’s largest right down to start-ups, along with leaders in the professions: senior partners at law and accountancy firms, generals, doctors, scientists, priests, and diplomats. He asked them to share their observations of their own and other people’s exercise of judgment so that he could identify the skills and behaviors that collectively create the conditions for fresh insights and enable decision makers to discern patterns that others miss. As a result, he has identified six key elements that collectively constitute good judgment: learning, trust, experience, detachment, options, and delivery. He describes these elements and offers suggestions for improvement in each one. Continued here

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Here Are the 46 Countries Offering Digital Nomad Visas Elon Musk may be requiring Tesla's office workers to return to in-person work 40 hours a week or lose their jobs, but he's the exception that proves the rule. Once-fierce opponents of remote work are being forced to admit that going back to how things were before just isn't going to happen, while companies like Airbnb with a remote-friendly outlook are formalizing plans to let employees work anywhere forever.With so many workers freed from the shackles of the office, it's no wonder interest in so-called digital nomad visas is spiking. These visas allow remote workers to legally live and work in a given country for periods ranging from one month to four years. According to trend tracking site Exploding Topics, searches for the term are up an incredible 1,900 percent over the past five years.That's interesting news to newly flexible employees, but it's also something to ponder for entrepreneurs in fields like coaching, consulting, and design who can work from wherever they please. With more and more people able to explore longer stays abroad, more and more countries are creating specific programs to lure foreigners for extended stays. Continued here

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The 5-hour rule: How to turn a wasted day into a successful one Most people have at least a few hours to do with what they want. For more than half of the population, those hours are wasted away on non-work-related phone worship. But these are not the people who will become the entrepreneurs, innovators, and success stories of tomorrow.Over the last few decades, a cottage industry has sprung up that examines and dissects the habits and values of "self-made" millionaires. One of the key findings that comes up again and again is known as the "5-hour rule." In short, this is the rule where we spend one hour a day learning, reflecting, and thinking. The rule dates to Benjamin Franklin, who would devote (at least) an hour each day specifically to learning something new. Franklin would rise early to read and write. He even set up his own club of artisans and experimenters. Today, Elon Musk, Oprah Winfrey, and Bill Gates all employ some version of the 5-hour rule.The idea is that devoting an hour of your day to education exercises the mind, improves your skills, and rehearses great discipline. In education-speak, the 5-hour rule gives us both knowledge and skills. Continued here

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More skin infection, less heart disease: study reveals how being tall affects health Taller people have an increased risk of peripheral neuropathy, as well as skin and bone infections, but a lower risk of heart disease, high blood pressure and high cholesterol, according to the world’s largest study of height and disease. Continued here

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How Will You Measure Your Life? Harvard Business School’s Christensen teaches aspiring MBAs how to apply management and innovation theories to build stronger companies. But he also believes that these models can help people lead better lives. In this article, he explains how, exploring questions everyone needs to ask: How can I be happy in my career? How can I be sure that my relationship with my family is an enduring source of happiness? And how can I live my life with integrity?The answer to the first question comes from Frederick Herzberg's assertion that the most powerful motivator isn't money; it's the opportunity to learn, grow in responsibilities, contribute, and be recognized. That's why management, if practiced well, can be the noblest of occupations; no others offer as many ways to help people find those opportunities. It isn't about buying, selling, and investing in companies, as many think. Continued here

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What should you do when a child misbehaves? Like any parenting decision - from whether to sleep train to the dilemma of screen time - how we discipline (or "teach") our children is deeply personal. Our beliefs around discipline have been shaped by our culture, the attitudes of those around us, how we were raised, even our current stress levels. Whether we think discipline is needed at all is also situational, depending even on which rules we set: a three-year-old told not to leave the playroom is more likely to "disobey", for example, than a three-year-old who is allowed to come in and out as she pleases.Even beliefs that are a no-brainer in some societies are unusual in others. "The Anbarra child hears of no rules and receives no punishment," one anthropologist noted of the Aboriginal tribe. Other Aboriginal approaches to discipline include the idea that "the child has the ultimate choice to obey or not and adults are not overly upset if the command is not complied with". Rather than with rewards or punishments, children learn how to behave "through trial and error over a period of years". The Sami, an indigenous group spread across the Arctic, espouse a similar parenting philosophy, letting children make their own decisions about even when to eat and sleep. Instead of punishments, there are intricate, unspoken rules and communal activities that nudge children towards desired behaviour, such as going hunting or fishing together. Continued here

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5 ways to build marketable skills when you’re in a ‘dead-end’ job Here’s a disappointing statistic: A recent survey by job search website Joblist found that nearly three in four people (73%) don’t see an opportunity for growth in their current jobs. This comes at a time when employees are being more thoughtful about the work they’re doing, according to Joblist CEO Kevin Harrington. Continued here

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James Dyson Created 5,127 Versions of a Product That Failed Before Finally Succeeding. His Tenacity Reveals a Secret of Entrepreneurship. Imagine spending five years of your life creating 5,127 versions of a product that failed. That's exactly what the inventor of cyclonic vacuum technology, James Dyson did. Until finally, one magical day, he hit gold — finally succeeding in creating the world's first bagless vacuum cleaner. Continued here

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Being Special Isn't So Special There’s a paradox that is stumping psychologists right now and it’s this: Over the past 50 years, despite the standard of living rising dramatically in the western world, happiness has stayed level, while mental illnesses, anxiety disorders, narcissism, and depression have all gone up.When you study marketing, the first thing you learn is that fear sells. If you make a person feel inadequate or inferior, they will shut up and buy something in order to feel better. A capitalist system markets to everyone constantly, therefore it promotes a society where people constantly feel inadequate and inferior.It's funny, a lot of people who travel to the third-world claim that people are "happier" there. They often follow it up with some banal statement about materialism and how we'd all be so much happier if we knew how to live with less. Continued here

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Think You Have a Great Idea? Ask These 6 Questions to Gain Perspective. When you have an exciting new idea, it’s easy to focus on all its benefits and jump to action. But doing so can lead to failure. Your limited perspective may mean you’re not seeing potential hurdles — and you may be leaving other promising options unexplored.If you want the best ideas to flourish, you need to open your mind to different perspectives - from people beyond your team, whom you don't usually talk to - and ask open-ended questions. After presenting your idea, ask: What stands out to you, and what's missing? What would our critics say? Consider the failure of your idea: What would your premortem reveal? Consider other people outside the room and ask: What would someone on the frontlines say? Finally, put yourself in your competitors' shoes. What flaws or weaknesses in your idea would they celebrate if you were successful? Continued here

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Why Your Inner Circle Should Stay Small, and How to Shrink It We live in a time when “bigger is better” is the prevailing assumption when it comes to, well, just about anything. So it’s only natural for us to want to supersize our network of connections — both online and off — because the more people we know, the greater our chances of being exposed to opportunities that may lead to professional advancement, potential mentors, material success, and so on. But in fact, being what we call a “superconnector” has nothing to do with supersizing your network. Rather, it’s about surrounding yourself with a carefully curated group of people who you admire and respect and with whom you share common beliefs and values — people who will set the tone for the foundation of your larger network filled with people who provide value to one another. And that core group should be a lot smaller than you think. Continued here

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Coffee bad, red wine good? Top food myths busted Modern nutritional science is only a hundred years old, so it’s no surprise that we’re constantly bamboozled by new and competing information about what to put into our bodies – or that we sometimes cling to reassuringly straightforward food myths which may no longer be true. In a world where official dietary advice seems to change all the time, and online opinions are loud and often baseless, we ask eight food and drink experts to cut through the noise and tell it like it is. Continued here

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Shifting from Star Performer to Star Manager You've always been a high achiever.top of your class, captain of your sports teams, star performer at work. Now, you're going to be managing a team of high-performers in a division of your company that everyone's buzzing about. You're confident that you can navigate this new challenge with characteristic success.You're pumped. You set clear goals for yourself and targets for the division. You're well aware that you'll need to rely on your emotional intelligence skills to understand and work through your new team's dynamics. You're focused on achieving your goals and getting results... but before long, you've got problems. Your team doesn't seem to be on board with your plan and they're not delivering. Worse, they seem to be shutting you out. In desperation, you go to a few trusted mentors who tell you: Continued here

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A Forecasting Model Used by the CIA Predicts a Surprising Turn in U.S.-China Relations Here’s some good news on the gloomy international scene: Tensions will ease significantly between the U.S. and China soon, as the Biden administration slashes consumer tariffs and Beijing welcomes the move, at least privately. Expect a new round of trade negotiations too. The thaw comes after U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen makes a big push for change, and as Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, long dismissed as an also-ran, becomes a key player. President Joe Biden and President Xi Jinping reluctantly go along. Continued here

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The Two Choices That Keep a Midlife Crisis at Bay The midlife-crisis phenomenon has taken on almost mythic proportions in the American psyche over the past century. The term was first coined by the Canadian psychoanalyst Elliott Jaques, who noticed a pattern in the lives of "great men" in history: Many of them lost productivity - and even died - in their mid-to-late-30s, which was midlife in past centuries. The idea entered the popular consciousness in the 1970s when the author Gail Sheehy wrote her mega.best seller Passages: Predictable Crises of Adult Life. Sheehy argued that around the age of 40, both men and women tend to descend into a crisis about getting old, running out of time to meet their goals, and questioning life choices. She based her work on in-depth case interviews with 115 individuals, the most famous of whom was the auto entrepreneur John DeLorean. He went on to become infamous in 1982, when, at the age of 57, he was arrested for attempting to sell about 60 pounds of cocaine to undercover federal agents. Continued here

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Two Professors Found What Creates a Mass Shooter. Will Politicians Pay Attention? Each time a high-profile mass shooting happens in America, a grieving and incredulous nation scrambles for answers. Who was this criminal and how could he (usually) have committed such a horrendous and inhumane act? A few details emerge about the individual’s troubled life and then everyone moves on.Three years ago, Jillian Peterson, an associate professor of criminology at Hamline University, and James Densley, a professor of criminal justice at Metro State University, decided to take a different approach. In their view, the failure to gain a more meaningful and evidence-based understanding of why mass shooters do what they do seemed a lost opportunity to stop the next one from happening. Funded by the National Institute of Justice, the research arm of the Department of Justice, their research constructed a database of every mass shooter since 1966 who shot and killed four or more people in a public place, and every shooting incident at schools, workplaces and places of worship since 1999.Peterson and Densley also compiled detailed life histories on 180 shooters, speaking to their spouses, parents, siblings, childhood friends, work colleagues and teachers. As for the gunmen themselves, most don't survive their carnage, but five who did talked to Peterson and Densely from prison, where they were serving life sentences. The researchers also found several people who planned a mass shooting but changed their mind.Their findings, also published in the 2021 book, The Violence Project: How to Stop a Mass Shooting Epidemic, reveal striking commonalities among the perpetrators of mass shootings and suggest a data-backed, mental health-based approach could identify and address the next mass shooter before he pulls the trigger - if only politicians are willing to actually engage in finding and funding targeted solutions. POLITICO talked to Peterson and Densely from their offices in St. Paul, Minn., about how our national understanding about mass shooters has to evolve, why using terms like "monster" is counterproductive, and why political talking points about mental health need to be followed up with concrete action. Continued here

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The Differences between Happiness and Meaning in Life There can be substantial trade-offs between seeking happiness and seeking meaning in life.Happiness and meaning are strongly correlated with each other, and often feed off each other. The more meaning we find in life, the more happy we typically feel, and the more happy we feel, the more we often feel encouraged to pursue even greater meaning and purpose.But not always.An increasing body of research suggests that that there can be substantial trade-offs between seeking happiness and seeking meaning in life. Consider, for instance, the "parenthood paradox": parents often report that they are very happy they had children, but parents who are living with children usually score very low on measures of happiness. It seems that raising children can decrease happiness but increase meaning. Or consider revolutionaries, who often suffer through years of violence and discord for a larger purpose that can ultimately bring great satisfaction and meaning to their lives and the lives of others. Continued here

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How to use food to help your mood | Psyche Guides Depression and low mood are not separate from the rest of your bodily health: the right diet can help reduce your risk.The insufficiency and inaccessibility of our frontline depression treatments has led to a reassessment of our understanding of the mechanisms underlying depression. It has encouraged a move away from the 'serotonin hypothesis' (that reduced activity of serotonin in the brain is the cause of depression) and toward a focus on the interaction between the immune system, the brain and mental states. This field of research, called psychoneuroimmunology, is driving a revolution in the conceptualisation of depressive illness and, consequently, its treatments.The shift in focus also opens up potential new avenues for individual management of depressive symptoms; we might have more power than we thought to support our own brain health and recovery. Though there is no magic bullet, emerging and accumulating evidence indicates that modifiable features of our lifestyles that influence our immune systems - including nutrition - are important factors in our vulnerability to, severity of and recovery from depression. Knowing a little more about the relationship between nutrition, immunity and mood could enable people to stack the odds more in their favour. Continued here

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What to Say and Do When Your Employee Has Another Job Offer It’s normal to get a sinking feeling when one of your employees says, “I have something to tell you.” No manager wants to hear that someone on their team has another job offer in hand. But how should you actually respond to the news? Should you counteroffer? Or just accept that they’re moving on? And how can you tell if the employee is just bluffing to get a raise? Continued here

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How Ambitious Should You Be? Years ago, I was facilitating a board of directors' succession committee to select the company's next CEO. The slate was down to two candidates, each of whom had unique strengths and limitations. The committee chair offered a fascinating observation of them, saying, "One is too ambitious, and the other isn't ambitious enough." When I probed to better understand her concerns, she described a host of traits spanning each candidate's degree of self-interest, achievement orientation, self-awareness, and concern for others. In short, the candidate labeled "too ambitious" had been overly assertive about the financial growth of the company and the candidate labeled "not ambitious enough" had spoken too much about their family and personal interests. Continued here

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Stop Rambling in Meetings -- and Start Getting Your Message Across While it’s important to share your point of view in meetings, it’s critical to know when and how. You don’t want to monopolize the conversation. In this piece, the author offers practical tips for sharing the floor so that you can get your message across more effectively. First, take time to reflect after meetings. If you feel like you have been sharing too much, look back and consider who else contributed. Ask yourself honestly: “Did I talk over people?” Estimate how much of the meeting you were speaking. Also consider using other communication channels to share your ideas. For example, can you keep a running list of your brilliant insights on your computer so you’re better prepared to share them in the next meeting? Or, can you share ideas in a non-meeting setting — for example, in a follow-up email or an internal chat platform? It’s also helpful to give yourself a signal to pause and to practice compressing your thoughts. A trusted colleague or advisor can also provide insights into how you’re meeting your goal of talking less and listening more. Continued here

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If you're so smart, why aren't you rich? Turns out its just chance. The most successful people are not the most talented, just the luckiest, a new computer model of wealth creation confirms. Taking that into account can maximize return on many kinds of investment.The distribution of wealth follows a well-known pattern sometimes called an 80:20 rule: 80 percent of the wealth is owned by 20 percent of the people. Indeed, a report last year concluded that just eight men had a total wealth equivalent to that of the world's poorest 3.8 billion people.This seems to occur in all societies at all scales. It is a well-studied pattern called a power law that crops up in a wide range of social phenomena. But the distribution of wealth is among the most controversial because of the issues it raises about fairness and merit. Why should so few people have so much wealth? Continued here

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How to Spot -- and Develop -- High-Potential Talent in Your Organization Organizations typically look to past performance to identify future leaders. But an employee's track record doesn't tell you who might excel at things they haven't done before, nor does it identify early-career high potentials or people who haven't had equitable access to mentoring, sponsorship, development, and advancement opportunities. The authors have developed a model for predicting leadership potential that's grounded not in achievements but in three observable, measurable behaviors: cognitive quotient, drive quotient, and emotional quotient. They outline the telltale behaviors in each area, and explain how managers can coach employees to develop and refine their skills. Continued here

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How to Influence Your Prospect's Memory and Decisions A 2021 Bain & Co. survey found that 92% of global B2B buyers prefer virtual sales interactions - up 17 percentage points from its May 2020 survey. What's more, 79% of sellers espouse the effectiveness of virtual sales, compared with 54% in 2020.The data isn't surprising. Virtual selling is often cost-efficient and allows for more meetings with prospects. However, flexibility or cost-efficiency doesn't necessarily mean virtual communication is effective.What makes communication effective? As a cognitive neuroscientist, I propose looking at communication effectiveness from the angle of what your audience remembers after your interaction. After all, your audience will make decisions in your favor based on what they remember, not what they forget.Since memory influences decisions, you must ask yourself: What do I want my audience to remember? This question is more complex than it seems on the surface, because memory is multifaceted. There exist multiple pathways to making something memorable. In this article, you'll see one framework for creating memorable messages that influence decisions. Continued here

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Should we be eating three meals a day? It's likely you eat three meals a day – modern life is designed around this way of eating. We're told breakfast is the most important meal of the day, we're given lunch breaks at work, and then our social and family lives revolve around evening meals. But is this the healthiest way to eat?Intermittent fasting, where you restrict your food intake to an eight-hour window, is becoming a huge area of research."You could see a dramatic change just from a small delay in your first meal and advancing your last meal. Making this regular without changing anything else could have a big impact."But whatever changes you make, researchers agree that consistency is crucial."The body works in patterns," says Anderson. "We respond to the anticipation of being fed. One thing intermittent fasting does is it imposes a pattern, and our biological systems do well with a pattern." She says the body picks up on cues to anticipate our eating behaviours so it can best deal with the food when we eat it. Continued here

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Why Your Goals Will Fail, and What You Can Do About It We make well-intentioned goals, with the false belief that we just lack commitment and motivation; that all we need is a good kick in the ass to get us going. This couldn't be farther from the truth, so please stop being so hard on yourself. There are better ways to achieve your full potential, with minimal headache.First, realize that the key to success at pretty much everything comes down to creating productive habits. A habit is defined as a behavior that happens almost involuntarily. I define "productive habits" as behavior that get you what you want in life automatically, without you really trying.But productive habits don't just appear out of thin air. They are created by assembling a chain of individual behaviors, like a string of pearls. These individual behaviors, over time, change our daily actions and in turn, our lives. Productive habits move us to our full potential, morph us into the people we want to become, and ultimately give us the life we want.There are three steps to forming productive habits: Continued here

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Americans are stepping off the ‘hamster wheel’ and redefining what success looks like It only took a few seconds for the idea to take hold.While listening to the radio on his way to work one day, Sam, a nurse, was struck by a question a couple of goofy drive-time radio DJs were kicking around: If you could do anything, what would you do? One host said he'd open a cheese shop in a sleepy town in upstate New York."It was a joke," says Sam, 40, who asked to be identified by his first name only to protect his job and privacy. But the idea has stuck with him for months now. He'd love to open his own little coffee or cheese shop, he says, envisioning hosting wine tastings on Saturday nights."I could sell my house, quit nursing, and go somewhere and just take a stab at this," he tells Fortune. "I feel ridiculous saying that. It was a joke on the radio. It shouldn't be my life plan." Continued here

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A Respected MIT Professor Said Your Success Will Be Determined By 3 Things. Here's How to Get Better at Each of Them Before he died, beloved MIT professor Patrick Winston regularly gave a fascinating and deeply compelling lecture to university students about the value of good communication. In his introduction, he drew attention to the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which calls for court martial for any officer who sends a soldier into battle without a weapon.Winston says there ought to be a similar protection for students -- and I might add, that protection should be provided for entrepreneurs and aspiring business owners, too. Namely, that no one should go through life without being armed with the ability to properly communicate.Because, as Winston puts it: Continued here

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Why we need a new kind of education: Imagination Studies | Aeon Essays We need a new kind of approach to learning that shifts imagination from the periphery to the foundation of all knowledge Continued here

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The Art of Persuasion Hasn't Changed in 2,000 Years More than 2,000 years ago Aristotle outlined a formula on how to become a master of persuasion in his work Rhetoric. To successfully sell your next idea, try using these five rhetorical devices that he identified in your next speech or presentation: The first is egos or "character." In order for your audience to trust you, start your talk by establishing your credibility. Then, make a logical appeal to reason, or "logos." Use data, evidence, and facts to support your pitch. The third device, and perhaps the most important, is "pathos," or emotion. People are moved to action by how a speaker makes them feel. Aristotle believed the best way to transfer emotion from one person to another is through storytelling. The more personal your content is the more your audience will feel connected to you and your idea. Continued here

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Great Leaders Are Thoughtful and Deliberate, Not Impulsive and Reactive All leaders have two selves. There's the self we prefer to present to the world - the one that is run by our pre-frontal cortex and is measured, rational, and capable of making deliberate choices. And then there's the self, run by the amygdala, that is reactive and impulsive and often causes us to fail to meet our commitments or overreact in frustration. The antidote to reacting from the second self is to develop the capacity to observe your two selves in real time. You can start by noticing and labeling your negative emotions such as impatience, frustration, and anger - to get distance from them. Also, watch out for times when you feel you're digging in your heels. The absolute conviction that you're right and the compulsion to take action are both strong indicators that you're operating from that second self. Finally, it's important to ask yourself two key questions in challenging moments: "What else could be true here?" and "What is my responsibility in this?" Questioning your conclusions offsets confirmation bias and looking for your responsibility helps you focus on what you can change - your behavior. Continued here

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How to Quit Intensive Parenting Intensive parenting - the dominant model of modern American child-rearing - is a bit like smoking: The evidence shows that it's unhealthy, yet the addiction can be hard to kick. I'd like to suggest strategies that could help society quit overparenting, and they require parents, policy makers, and even the childless to pitch in. But first, we need to understand why intensive parenting - whereby mothers and fathers overextend their time and money curating their child's life in hopes of maximizing the child's future success - prevails. Continued here

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Want to work abroad? This salary calculator estimates what your job would pay in 38 countries Are you sick of living in the United States? Has being holed up in your apartment for the pandemic made you want to get as far from it as humanly possible - as in boarding a boat or plane, traveling across an ocean and a few continents, then staying indefinitely?That may be a common escapist fantasy, but the most seriously committed know it involves actual logistics research. First you need a job, but you also need to know what that job will buy you. You could be pairing coconut milk with caviar on the balcony of your beach-side tower, or scraping together coins for microwaveable beans in your basement sublet (like, well, lots of people must). It all depends on the money.Lucky for you, this salary calculator might help. Continued here

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5 Things to Do When You Feel Overwhelmed by Your Workload If you have moments of feeling overwhelmed by your workload, start with some deep breathing and healthy self-talk, like saying to yourself, "Even though I have many things to do, I can only focus on the one thing I'm doing right now." Then start tracking your time to figure out how much you're really working, and and how you're spending your time. Your behavior will naturally shift in positive directions due to this monitoring. Third, check your assumptions with others - does your boss really expect an immediate reply? Does your colleague really need that report done today? Next, test your own assumptions about success requires: are they realistic? Finally, change your behavior. Changing your behavior is the best way to change your thoughts. For example, try flipping "When I'm less busy, I'll create some better systems" into "When I create better systems, I'll feel less busy." Continued here

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Can gravity batteries solve our energy storage problems? There is a riddle at the heart of the renewable energy revolution. When the wind blows, the sun shines, and the waves roll, there is abundant green power to be generated. But when skies darken and conditions are calm, what do we do?The answer, today, is to ramp up conventional power production, supplying the grid by burning fossil fuels. It is a 20th Century solution to a 21st Century problem - one that sits in sharp contrast with plans for carbon neutrality.A cleaner future will mean focusing on ever-larger lithium-ion batteries, some energy experts say. Others argue that green hydrogen is the world's best hope. And then there are those placing their bets not on chemistry, but the limitless force that surrounds us all: gravity. Continued here