Better's Blinkist

People put too much pressure on themselves when they read.

. If you want to retain the information for the future, you’ll need to create an easy retrieval system.

23 December, 2018 23:54 Share

Try writing down the crucial information (electronically or on paper), or make highlights and notes in the margins

23 December, 2018 23:54 Share

Try writing down the crucial information (electronically or on paper), or make highlights and notes in the margins. Then, simply file the materials away. This way you can find the information easily, and it will also take away the pressure of memorizing everything.

23 December, 2018 23:54 Share

Becoming a more efficient reader is as easy as kicking a few bad habits.

Normally, the brain can process up to 400 words per minute, but when we read at "talking speed," we only read about 150 words per minute. So if you simply stop subvocalizing, you’ll be able to process more than twice as many words per minute!

23 December, 2018 23:55 Share

You can read faster by taking shortcuts.

First, have a clear purpose in mind and a sense of responsibility for what you read.

23 December, 2018 23:55 Share

"Why do I need this information?

23 December, 2018 23:56 Share

But if your child already has good grades, do you really need to read over their work every day?

23 December, 2018 23:56 Share

reading first the first few introductory paragraphs to get an idea of where the intro is heading

23 December, 2018 23:56 Share

read the subheadings, titles and subtitles that are usually larger and bolded

23 December, 2018 23:56 Share

Pre-viewing provides you with background information, and thus helps you read and comprehend the text faster while reducing the tendency to reread.

23 December, 2018 23:57 Share

To speed up your reading, try only reading the keywords.

focusing only on important words and skipping over the rest.

23 December, 2018 23:58 Share

stop your eyes on thought groups instead of separate words.

23 December, 2018 23:58 Share

Comprehending the whole phrase at each stop will require you to use your peripheral vision.

23 December, 2018 23:59 Share

The more you exercise your eye muscles, the better.

23 December, 2018 23:59 Share

Other techniques you should try are "reading between the lines" and "indenting."

focus on the white space just above each line.

24 December, 2018 00:03 Share

half an inch inside the left margin

24 December, 2018 00:03 Share

reading half an inch before the right margin

24 December, 2018 00:03 Share

Small habits can have a surprisingly powerful impact on your life.

If you want to make a positive change in your life, you should recognize that change requires patience, as well as confidence that your habits are keeping you on the right trajectory – even if you aren’t seeing immediate results.

22 May, 2019 23:09 Share

The key to making big changes in your life doesn’t have to involve major upheaval; you don’t need to revolutionize your behavior or reinvent yourself. Rather, you can make tiny changes to your behavior, which, when repeated time and time again, will become habits that may lead to big results.

22 May, 2019 23:10 Share

Building new habits requires hard-to-miss cues and a plan of action.

Just take the work of Boston-based doctor Anne Thorndike. She wanted to improve her patients’ dietary habits without requiring them to make a conscious decision. How did she pull this off? She had the hospital cafeteria rearranged. Originally, the refrigerators next to the cash registers contained only soda. Thorndike introduced water, not only there, but at every other drink station. Over three months, soda sales dropped by 11 percent, while water sales shot up by 25 percent. People were making healthier choices, just because the cue to drink water rather than soda was more prominent. So simple changes to our environment can make a big difference. Want to practice guitar? Leave the instrument out in the center of the room. Trying to eat healthier snacks? Leave them out on the counter, instead of in the salad drawer. Make your cues as obvious as possible, and you’ll be more likely to respond to them.

24 May, 2019 00:05 Share

Humans are motivated by the anticipation of reward, so making habits attractive will help you stick to them.

A great technique for this is temptation bundling. That’s when you take a behavior that you think of as important but unappealing and link it to a behavior that you’re drawn to – one that will generate that motivating dopamine hit.

24 May, 2019 23:08 Share

If you want to build a new habit, make that habit as easy to adopt as possible.

The first is to focus on reducing friction.

26 May, 2019 22:22 Share

You can also use this approach to increase friction for bad habits

26 May, 2019 22:22 Share

The principle is that any activity can be distilled into a habit that is doable within two minutes. Want to read more? Don’t commit to reading one book every week – instead, make a habit of reading two pages per night. Want to run a marathon? Commit to simply putting on your running gear every day after work.

26 May, 2019 22:23 Share

Making your habits immediately satisfying is essential to effective behavior change.

Our brains, though, evolved to cope with the immediate-return environment of earlier humans, who weren’t thinking about long-term returns like saving for retirement or sticking to a diet. They were focused on immediate concerns like finding their next meal, seeking shelter and staying alert enough to escape any nearby lions.

27 May, 2019 22:54 Share

So when you are pursuing habits with a delayed return, try to attach some immediate gratification to them.

27 May, 2019 22:54 Share

Create a framework to keep your habits on track, using trackers and contracts.

You, too, can develop a habit tracker, using a simple calendar or diary, and crossing off every day that you stick with your chosen behaviors. You’ll find it effective, because habit tracking itself is an attractive, and satisfying, habit. The anticipation and action of crossing off each day will feel good and keep you motivated.

30 May, 2019 02:36 Share

The author had two passions that persisted throughout his life: literature and neuroscience.

while meaning itself is certainly no simple concept, he drew inspiration from writers like T. S. Eliot and his work The Waste Land, which connects meaninglessness to isolation, and came to believe that true meaning lies in human relationships

3 July, 2019 07:12 Share

Multitasking and distraction are the enemies of productivity.

Despite this data, workers feel like they’re working more than ever. That’s because completing small tasks and moving information around makes us feel busy and accomplished – but it’s actually just preventing us from truly focusing

10 June, 2019 05:20 Share

She demonstrates that when switching from task A to task B, our attention stays attached to the first activity, which means we can only half-focus on the second, which hurts our performance. Her experiments utilized two groups: group A worked on word puzzles until she interrupted them to go on to reading resumes and making hypothetical hiring decisions; Group B got to finish their puzzles before moving on to the resumes. In between the two tasks, Leroy would give a quick test to see how many keywords from the puzzles were still stuck in the participants’ minds. The result? Group A was much more focused on the puzzle and therefore less focused on the important task of hiring the right person. The long and short of it? Multitasking is no good for productivity. Neither is being electronically connected all the time. In fact, while it might seem harmless to keep social media and email tabs open in your web browser, the mere fact of seeing things pop up on your screen is enough to derail your focus, even if you’re not immediately addressing notifications.

10 June, 2019 05:36 Share

Focus your brain and be selective about your use of technology.

productive meditation can rewire your brain and help you focus. Here’s how it works: Use moments that would otherwise be unproductive – like walking your dog, taking a shower or commuting to work – to consider a problem you need to take care of without letting your mind change subjects. To get started, ask yourself questions that identify different issues in solving a given problem. Then, once you’ve landed a specific target, ask yourself action questions like, "What do I need to accomplish my goal?" Think of it as a hardcore workout routine for your brain that will help build your focus!

10 June, 2019 05:43 Share

Scheduling both work and free time is essential to restoring energy.

By scheduling everything you do, you’ll free up time for being mindful of how you spend it. At the start of every workday, create a schedule that’s divided into blocks of at least 30 minutes. In this schedule you should set both work and personal tasks like time to relax, eat or catch up on email. It’s inevitable that your schedule will change during the day, but if this happens, just rearrange your blocks. The idea isn’t to strictly abide by your itinerary, but to cultivate awareness about how you spend your time.

10 June, 2019 05:45 Share

What’s in it for me? Get inspired to pull up your sleeves and get to work!

We are constantly being told that we should persevere and soldier on, even if at first it seems too hard. Despite all this emphasis on working hard and keeping at it, however, we don’t really believe that it will get us to the top. In our heart of hearts, we know that it’s talent, not perseverance, that gets people to the top. But this way of thinking is misguided. Talent is overrated. What you really need is grit and determination. Think this assertion seems a bit naive? Well, these blinks provide the arguments to back it up. After reading them, you’ll be in no doubt of just how important hard work truly is.

28 September, 2020 02:07 Share

Even though we like to say that hard work is the key to success, we have a natural-talent bias.

if we’re being honest with ourselves, what we truly believe is that talent trumps hard work.

28 September, 2020 02:08 Share

In the same 2011 study, the musical experts were played two recordings and told that one was a naturally talented musician, while the other represented years of hard work. While the experts had said they favored hard work, they overwhelmingly chose the naturally talented musician as being superior. But here’s the catch: the experts were played identical piano pieces by the same musician! This kind of self-deception happens in the business world as well.

28 September, 2020 02:08 Share

Tsay’s study also looked at the experiences of entrepreneurs and found that the hard-working ones required several years more experience and at least $40,000 more in start-up capital in order to compete against the naturally gifted. More often than not, if a candidate is presented as having a natural talent for connecting with people, they’ll be considered more valuable than someone who has worked hard to build up a network of colleagues.

28 September, 2020 02:09 Share

Effort is twice as valuable as talent, something people with an initial lack of talent often discover.

Effort not only leads to skill; it also leads to results, which makes effort twice as important as talent! You can look at it like an equation: To determine your level of skill, you take your talent in a given field and multiply it by the amount of effort you put in. So, Talent × Effort = Skill.

28 September, 2020 02:10 Share

But when it comes to getting results, you have to put that skill back into the equation. And, once again, the results are going to depend on the amount of effort you put in. So, this time, Skill × Effort = Achievement. You can also look at it in terms of athletics. Even if you’re naturally talented, you still have to put in the effort to practice and develop your skill. If you want to win Olympic gold, for instance, it’s almost completely pure effort that’s going to get you there.

28 September, 2020 02:10 Share

Irving ends up writing and rewriting up to ten drafts of his novels, but he knows that his grit and hard work will pay off. The results speak for themselves: his novel The World According to Garp won the National Book Award in 1978.

28 September, 2020 02:10 Share

By creating and sticking to low-level goals, you can realize long-term goals and keep your dreams alive.

Conventional wisdom says that we should do what we love. But, more importantly, you need to stay committed to doing what you love. Giving yourself small daily chores is a good way to keep up your levels of effort.

28 September, 2020 02:11 Share

Without incorporating these small goals into your everyday life, the big goal will remain frustratingly out of reach. However, having a larger dream and vision in place is important for providing meaning and inspiration in your day-to-day life.

28 September, 2020 02:11 Share

During this career, Seaver orchestrated everything in his life to make sure he kept his goal of pitching alive and well. This meant staying in the shade if he was traveling through a sunny climate since a sunburn on his pitching arm could really interfere with this goal. This is what being loyal to your goal looks like. Seaver’s success was the result of a simple aim.

28 September, 2020 02:12 Share

It is important to choose work that interests you, but don’t let unrealistic expectations get in the way.

Schwartz noticed that this impractical outlook has seeped into both their professional and romantic lives. When it comes to jobs and love, he’s found that today’s young adults are under the impression that there’s one unique and perfect match out there waiting for them, and anything else is simply a waste of time. Today’s generation should know that, in reality, there are many jobs and partners out there that could be the basis for a successful relationship or career. And once you have found that career or partner, don’t forget the importance of sticking with it in order to successfully reach your personal and professional goals.

28 September, 2020 02:22 Share

today’s generation are especially prone to having unrealistic and starry-eyed expectations for what lies ahead.

28 September, 2020 02:23 Share

Be smart about how you practice and avoid getting stuck on autopilot.

People who practice always have more success at mastering a new skill than people who put in no effort at all. That said, cognitive psychologist Anders Ericsson has discovered that the key to this success is intelligent practice. Consider athletics. Successful runners don’t practice with vague goals in mind; they are precise and keep a close eye on every detail of their runs, including keeping track of how their body is responding and the distance they’re covering. Their goals are also precise; they attempt to run 100 meters further than last time, to reach a specific speed by the end of the month or to ease the tension in their shoulders during practice.

28 September, 2020 02:24 Share

It wasn’t until the doctor was pulled aside and told to take a moment – to think and intelligently reflect about what he was doing – that he got it right and began seeing good results. It can be easy to simply put your head down, get to work and end up on autopilot with the assumption that you’ll inevitably end up reaping the rewards of your practice time. But that won’t happen until you stop and reflect on precisely what it is you need to improve and start practicing smart.

28 September, 2020 02:25 Share

Finding purpose in your work is a great motivator, but finding your true calling can take time.

These zookeepers identify their work as a calling, and, as a result, their job gives them a greater sense of purpose in life and the belief that they are contributing to making the world a better place. This also means they are more willing to work overtime and stay on duty to tend to sick animals. If you haven’t found your true calling yet, don’t worry. It can take time and you might even find it while you’re doing something else.

28 September, 2020 02:26 Share

Teachers and parents can help ensure future success by rewarding hard work more than natural talent.

Rather than crushing someone’s hopes, remind children that skill can be achieved through hard work and that grit and determination bring rewards.

28 September, 2020 02:26 Share

It turned out that teachers who placed an emphasis on ranking students according to their grades were setting a bad example for the kids. These children would end up thinking that their level of intelligence was predetermined, and ended up preferring safe tasks that didn’t challenge them.

28 September, 2020 02:27 Share

If the parents and teachers simply tell children that they need to work harder, they will get motivated and achieve better results.

28 September, 2020 02:28 Share

Grit is a valued characteristic in some cultures and successful businesses.

Finnish psychologist Emilia Lahti takes sisu very seriously and has researched what it means to the Finns. After surveying a thousand Finnish people, she found that 83 percent thought that sisu is a characteristic that is learned and not an innate quality. And, just as grit can be learned, it can also be instilled as a virtue in a company.

28 September, 2020 02:28 Share

Final summary

It is true that you should do something you love, but the fact is that you will always hit rough patches. Hard work can lead to procrastination and doubt, and that’s where grit comes in. With determination and resolve, you can motivate yourself to keep working toward your goals and persevere through the toughest of times.

28 September, 2020 02:29 Share

What’s in it for me? Understand the emotions of yourself and others.

ut one of the most important determinants of professional success is actually emotional intelligence, which you can learn outside of school. These blinks will show you how to increase your emotional intelligence and guide you through the steps to becoming a better leader, coworker or partner. They will also reveal how mindfulness can improve your happiness.

18 June, 2020 05:53 Share

You must first develop your capacity to direct your attention as you see fit, and here mindfulness meditation is very useful. With this improved attention, you can get a better understanding of your own cognitive and emotional processes, increasing your self-knowledge. Finally, building on this foundation, you can establish good mental habits for yourself that will increase your happiness and effectiveness.

18 June, 2020 05:54 Share

The basic principle behind the methodology is a three-step approach: You must first develop your capacity to direct your attention as you see fit, and here mindfulness meditation is very useful. With this improved attention, you can get a better understanding of your own cognitive and emotional processes, increasing your self-knowledge. Finally, building on this foundation, you can establish good mental habits for yourself that will increase your happiness and effectiveness.

18 June, 2020 05:54 Share

In these blinks, you’ll discover the different types of emotional intelligence; how meditation benefits your happiness; and that empathy can save your relationships.

18 June, 2020 05:55 Share

Emotional intelligence is one of many different types of intelligence.

Howard Gardner, a developmental psychologist at Harvard, was the first to propose a theory of multiple intelligences. He argued that a child who lacked skills in math, but showed talent in languages or the arts, for example, should still be considered intelligent. To illustrate his argument, Gardner came up with a list of different types of intelligence, which includes among other items intrapersonal intelligence and interpersonal intelligence. Having intrapersonal intelligence means being aware of your own inner feelings, values and goals. Interpersonal intelligence, on the other hand, involves awareness of the feelings, emotions and motivations of others.

18 June, 2020 06:05 Share

The author of the book Emotional Intelligence, Daniel Goleman, grouped emotional intelligence into five categories: Self-awareness is your knowledge about your internal state and about your preferences, resources and intuition. Self-regulation is the ability to control your impulses, resources and state of mind. Motivation is the emotional ability to steer yourself toward your goals. Empathy is your awareness of others’ feelings, needs and concerns. And the final category is social skills: your ability to influence others.

18 June, 2020 06:06 Share

Through emotional-intelligence training, Duane realized that he needed more time for himself and reduced his workdays to four a week. With one less day of work, he found the time to focus more on his well-being, and became motivated to accomplish more while doing less. He became a better listener, learned how to regulate his temper and to understand situations from different perspectives. As a result, Duane became a more effective manager, not only improving his life, but also the lives of those who worked for him.

18 June, 2020 06:07 Share

With practice, emotional intelligence can drastically improve your work performance.

One advantage of developing your emotional intelligence is that it can lead to better work performance. For example, a higher level of motivation – one of the five categories of emotional intelligence – increases optimism, which in turn will improve your performance at work, as shown by a study conducted in the 1980s by American psychologist Martin Seligman. He found that, in their first year of sales, optimistic insurance agents outperformed their pessimistic colleagues by 8 percent and by 31 percent the following year. The study demonstrates that emotional competencies such as optimism can have a considerable effect on employee performance. Understanding and possessing emotional intelligence can also make you a better leader.

18 June, 2020 06:08 Share

Ebenezer Scrooge from Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol is a case in point. In the beginning, Scrooge demonstrates very low levels of intrapersonal emotional intelligence, and, despite his wealth, he is unable to feel happy. As you likely recall, Scrooge is visited by three ghosts, who each seek to counteract his poor self-awareness. In the end, by coming to terms with his thoughts and actions, Scrooge succeeds in improving his emotional intelligence. You, too, can improve your emotional intelligence – even without the help of supernatural visitors. So let’s look at some real-world techniques on how you can achieve that.

18 June, 2020 06:09 Share

Meditation improves concentration, relaxation and alertness, and it makes us happier.

Meditation might seem like something magical, but it’s really nothing more than a mental workout. Just as the many training machines at the gym are designed to exercise different muscles, so different types of meditation are designed to exercise different parts of your mind. The best mental training for developing emotional intelligence is called mindful meditation, or just mindfulness. It improves our concentration by training both our attention and meta attention.

18 June, 2020 06:11 Share

Attention, as defined by the late nineteenth-century psychologist William James, is "taking possession by the mind, in clear and vivid form." Conversely, meta attention is "attention of attention." It’s your ability to realize when you’re paying attention, or when your attention has wavered. To demonstrate this, imagine riding a bicycle. When cycling, you maintain your balance with lots of micro-recoveries. If the bike leans one way, you adjust yourself to the other side, and vice versa. Performing these micro-recoveries keeps you upright and balanced, creating the sensation of a smooth ride. The same goes for attention. When your meta attention is trained well, you can perform a micro-recovery every time you begin to lose focus, bringing your attention back to the task at hand. Doing this often enough will lead to long periods of deep concentration.

18 June, 2020 06:11 Share

mindfulness also clears your head and helps you become more relaxed. Picture a pot of water, full of sediment, that’s constantly being stirred, causing it to turn cloudy. If you stop stirring and leave the pot alone, the water will become calm and clear, and the sediment will sink to the bottom. Similarly, when you relax your mind, your stresses and anxieties will sink to the bottom, allowing you to see more clearly.

18 June, 2020 06:12 Share

clearing your mind through meditation helps it reach its natural state of happiness. To get started with mindfulness meditation, find a comfortable sitting position where you feel relaxed and alert at the same time. Start by taking three slow, deep breaths and then begin to breathe naturally. Now focus your attention on your breath. This can mean observing, for example, the rise and fall of your abdomen or the sensation in your nostrils. Whenever you find your attention has drifted, gently bring it back to your breath. You can do this for ten minutes or however much time feels right to you.

18 June, 2020 06:12 Share

What’s in it for me? To discover meaning in your life, just go with the flow.

Why is it that some people enjoy a happy and creative existence while others seem to find themselves settling into a comfortable but frustrating rut?

8 June, 2020 05:35 Share

A seminal work in psychology, Flow argues that in our increasingly anxious, distracted lives, we can become too focused on external rewards and opinions (for example, by compulsively comparing ourselves with our peers). As a much-needed remedy, the book offers techniques that enable us to focus instead on intrinsic rewards, which can lead us to engage in our interests so totally that we enter a state of pure flow. In such a state, we simply don’t care about external rewards like power or wealth and we don’t even consider the opinions of others. Grounded in years of empirical research, Flow also taps into ancient wisdom, philosophy and modern psychology to provide countless examples of people who discovered how to "get into the zone," and thus lead contented lives and do their best work. For instance, you’ll discover that many scientists did some of their most revolutionary work in their spare time. You’ll find out why a surgeon or millionaire footballer might be deeply bored, while a factory worker waxes lyrical about all manner of subjects. You’ll also learn why going to jail can help you discover your goals and strengthen your resolve – as it did for Malcolm X. And, finally, you’ll see how being more mindful of your surroundings can also help you to get the most out of listening to music.

8 June, 2020 05:36 Share

If you are dissatisfied at work or bored and unhappy at home, these blinks will jolt you out of your rut and drive you to make the most of your limited time on this planet.

8 June, 2020 05:36 Share

We use religion and luxury to hide from an indifferent, meaningless world.

When we view our lives from a distance, they seem insignificant. And when we examine them closely, we notice that we’re unhappy and unfulfilled. To help us cope, most of us look for comfort in religion or we seek external rewards, like wealth or fame. While this approach seems to make sense, it can also lead to us abandoning our critical faculties.

8 June, 2020 05:36 Share

Also, many empires and cultures led their citizens to believe they’d mastered their fates – for instance, the Romans at the height of their power and the Chinese before the Mongol invasion. Although this belief comforted people, it proved completely wrong as each of these civilizations collapsed. And if we’re not hiding behind religion or political ideology to avoid the pointlessness of our lives, we’re struggling to acquire external rewards like power, wealth or fame. But these don’t satisfy us for very long either.

8 June, 2020 05:37 Share

Certainly we live in luxurious times and people from the past wouldn’t believe the conveniences that modern life provides. But having more money and acquiring more stuff doesn’t seem to make us happier. As one study showed, satisfaction with life doesn’t correlate strongly with being wealthy. You don’t need to look far to see evidence of this: just think about the number of rich patients that psychiatrists treat regularly. So in order to give our lives meaning, we try to change the environment around us, whether by displaying our wealth to impress others or chasing powerful positions. Yet these all fail to sustain our happiness.

8 June, 2020 05:37 Share

Our genes impel us to seek basic pleasures, not the skills and challenges found in enjoyment.

While our attention can manage only a limited amount of information during our lifetime, from this dwindling resource most of us choose instant gratification as compensation for the daily grind of our lives. This is because we favor simple pleasure over the more rewarding, yet more difficult to attain, enjoyment. Pleasure provides simple restorative order – much like sleeping or eating: we have evolved so that when our blood sugar is low, we feel famished and are urged to eat something.

8 June, 2020 05:38 Share

Enjoyment, on the other hand, involves us stretching ourselves, using our skills and concentration to transcend the apparent limitations of our genes. In this way, enjoyment helps us to accomplish ambitious goals that we set for ourselves and enables us to gain control over our attention. This can be seen, for example, when we prepare a meal we’ve never made before. The patience and the willingness to experiment that this task requires contributes to the development of a sophisticated palate, which enables us to savor every bite.

8 June, 2020 05:39 Share

Nevertheless, it’s pleasure, not enjoyment, that we seem to prefer, often in the form of pain-free escapism and hedonism. Yet these lack novelty and the opportunity for growth. For example, after a hard day’s work, many of us sit watching TV, films or videos. This state of pure consumption is when we are at our most passive and easily distracted. Furthermore, on the weekends, many of us unwind with alcohol or even other drugs. While these may promise relaxation or an expanded consciousness, the result is often that we damage our ability to concentrate and we lose control. The formulaic storylines of TV programs and the artificial paradise of alcohol or drugs both require external stimulation, while neither allows us to exert skill or to focus fully on our goals.

8 June, 2020 05:40 Share

Our minds often don’t do what they can to achieve growth or complexity, but we shouldn’t take the path of least resistance and most distraction.

8 June, 2020 05:40 Share

The elements of enjoyment are available to everyone, but the goal is unique to each of us.

Across different languages and cultures, people use the same terms to describe what they feel when they are "in the zone." This feeling is one of enjoyment rather than pleasure and it comes when you are engaged in a task or activity that balances skills and challenges, has clear goals and immediate feedback.

10 June, 2020 05:51 Share

Take surgeons, for example, who perform extremely skillful operations. They get immediate visual feedback on how well they are doing by the lack of blood in an incision, while the removal of a diseased organ can provide them with satisfaction due to the certainty that an operation has been a success. But not everyone can have the same goals. Compare surgeons to practitioners of internal medicine. Like surgeons, they have clear goals; unlike surgeons they can’t get immediate feedback and so need to set other goals for enjoyment – perhaps successfully identifying an illness and administering the correct medicine.

10 June, 2020 05:51 Share

Being in the zone means that you’re totally immersed in the task at hand. This combines action and awareness, which gives you a feeling of control. Take rock climbers, for example. Obviously they face extreme danger in their goals, but what they enjoy is using their expertise to quell their fears – for instance, by accurately estimating the difficulty of a climb. To do this, they have to devote their full attention to the task. Such immersion and total concentration has also been observed in Melanesian sailors. Researchers found that these sailors, when blindfolded and taken hundreds of miles from their home island, were able to pinpoint their exact location just by focusing on the way water currents guided the boat.

10 June, 2020 05:52 Share

This immersion that we can see in the surgeon, the rock climber and the Melanesian sailor is so powerful it can release us from our self-consciousness, worries and anxieties and allow us to lose track of time. Indeed, the rock climber focuses so deeply on the intricacies of the rock face that he forgets his problems and surgeons report having the sensation that their operating team is a single organism.

10 June, 2020 05:52 Share

Developing new and interesting skills requires facing challenges that are tied to personal rewards.

One morning in Naples, a US tourist walked into an antique store and asked to buy a sculpture. The owner quoted a steep figure, yet when he saw the tourist was about to pay he claimed the sculpture wasn’t for sale. Why? He quoted the high price not because he wanted to exploit the tourist, but rather because he enjoyed bargaining and the battle of wits it involves, as it sharpened his mental dexterity and his selling skills. Whenever we engage in something like this – something that’s neither too easy nor too difficult – we tend to expand our personal limits and achieve more.

10 June, 2020 05:54 Share

For example, if you’re a beginner at tennis, you’ll first simply enjoy trying to hit the ball over the net. As you improve, this easy challenge will start to bore you and you’ll start looking for ways to further challenge yourself – probably by playing against another person. If you choose an opponent who’s far more skilled than you are, you’ll soon begin to feel out of your depth and anxious. Because the challenge is so difficult, you may even give up the chance to acquire new skills. But if you choose an opponent who’s just above your skill level, your skills may actually improve.

10 June, 2020 05:55 Share

Consider the ceramicist Eva Zeisel, who was imprisoned by Stalin’s police. Motivated by the personal need to maintain her sanity, she played chess against herself in her mind, memorized her own poetry and did gymnastics. She continued to improve her skills even in the worst conditions. People like Zeisel, who had little else to keep them motivated, devised games for themselves to keep themselves sane, improve their skills and powers of imagination and control their consciousness.

10 June, 2020 05:56 Share

Improvement also requires, however, that these skills be aligned with personal goals and passions and remain unaffected by external circumstances such as the promise of a reward if you do well, or the threat of punishment if you don’t.

10 June, 2020 05:56 Share

With discipline, we can use our senses and movements to help us tune into a heightened state of awareness.

For most of us, the idea of paying attention to our walking is an unusual one. Walking simply gets us from A to B. But by paying attention to the variety of sights around you – the people, their interactions, historical relics, architecture and so on – even the most routine actions, such as walking, can be transformed.By practicing mindfulness of our surroundings, we can learn to perceive much more than our automatic response to the world allows.

11 June, 2020 05:45 Share

Yet we rarely get lost in its full complexity. If we can learn to be mindful of the music we listen to, this can unlock other levels: the sensory, feeling the body responding to rhythm and bass; the analogic, when you see corresponding images in your mind’s eye (perhaps Tchaikovsky driving you on a sleigh through a snow-covered forest); and the analytic, in which you analyze the structure of a piece and compare it to other versions and composers and so on. But to become mindful, we need to strengthen our self-control – which can be achieved by tapping into ancient Eastern wisdom. For centuries, yoga has been practiced as a method to free the self from the ego. Yet it can be used also to steer our attention in positive directions that are aligned with specific goals. The steps that yoga prescribes to focus our attention are the practices of nonviolence, obedience, cleanliness, disciplined study and the acknowledgment of a higher power.

11 June, 2020 05:45 Share

It is indeed possible to have unprecedented control over your mind using nothing more than the body you inhabit.

11 June, 2020 05:45 Share

Our memories and thoughts can be cultivated to focus on complex ideas rather than the flaws of the self.

Many of us who play sports and exercise gain enjoyment from the focused attention these activities require. But it's not only through sports that we can achieve this: we can also use our minds to play games and get into the "flow state" which produces enjoyment. Such a mental flow state can result from engaging in language and memory games and exercises. For instance, crosswords kill time on trains, but this pursuit is dependent on an external stimulus. Instead, try creating your own crossword puzzles. Not only can this lead to flow, but it also improves your wordplay skills, making conversations more fun by transcending the usual small talk and mundane exchanges.

11 June, 2020 05:46 Share

You can engage your memory, too. Find a subject that interests you and absorb everything about it, such as lines of poetry you like, or the events of World War II. By doing this, you enable yourself to rely on your own memory to stimulate your mind and to feel a connection with the subject. Furthermore, a flow state can be accomplished by focusing on external things, rather than on one’s flaws. You could try doing what Bertrand Russell did to make himself happy: forget about your own flaws and focus instead on the external world, by immersing yourself in many fields of knowledge, or focusing on people you admire.

11 June, 2020 05:47 Share

Indeed, even the complex worlds of science and philosophy can be enjoyed by both amateurs and academics, as they encourage contemplation and the use of logic. Many scientists, in fact, achieved success because they simply enjoyed the act of improving their scientific skills. For example, Isaac Newton spent two lonely years living in a farmhouse and it was there that he formed his theory of gravity. And Gregor Mendel was a clergyman whose gardening hobby led to the birth of genetics. And let’s not forget Einstein who worked by day in a Swiss patent office, formulating his theories in his free time.

11 June, 2020 05:47 Share

Work that you treat like a game, with intrinsic rewards and varied skills, ceases to be "work."

Many people are dissatisfied with their daily routines and often their jobs are to blame. What makes matters worse is that their leisure time is spent recovering from their work in the laziest way. However, work can be developed into something that provides a challenge, focuses our attention and reduces our anxieties. Consider the elderly residents of a hamlet in the Italian Alps, who didn’t see a distinction between their daily work and their free time. Every day they had to get up at 5 a.m. to milk cows, carry bales of hay for miles, tend the orchard or cook for their families. But when asked what they’d change about their lives if they were wealthy, they responded that they wouldn’t change a thing.

13 June, 2020 08:08 Share

One way of getting into a flow state is to set yourself intrinsic rewards (that is, ones not motivated by cash incentives or extrinsic power), such as trying to surpass your usual performance level or learning as much as possible about the job. Take, for example, the railroad car welder who was very popular with his colleagues. His popularity was due to the fact that he’d learned every essential task in his company’s assembly line and he enjoyed performing all of them. He also refused promotions because he preferred to perform a variety of manual tasks and enjoyed turning each of them into a challenge. When the day was done, he didn’t feel the need to escape but instead spent his free time cultivating his garden. So, to get into a state of flow you should seek out new challenges in work, aiming to learn as much as possible about all of the essential tasks involved in keeping your company running, rather than just clocking in and clocking out.

13 June, 2020 08:10 Share

Engaging with family, friends and community is vital for our happiness, self-expression and growth.

Busy trains and open-plan offices can impinge on our freedom and individuality. Time spent alone allows us to give our undivided attention to something, but it can also lead to boredom. That’s when we need the support of the people we know and trust. In short, good family, friends and neighbors.

13 June, 2020 08:11 Share

Good families provide honest feedback, unconditional acceptance and long-term goals. Families that are conducive to enjoyable experiences are both differentiated, accepting each family member’s distinct skills and traits for what they are, and integrated – being honest, fair to everyone and neglecting no one. For example, parents who take part in challenging, skillful tasks like carpentry or cooking rather than TV-watching or drinking are more likely to see their children try to emulate these positive traits.

13 June, 2020 08:12 Share

We also require good friendships, as these are essential for strengthening our expressive side. The skills we have are either instrumental, like survival and professional skills,or expressive, communicating our personalities clearly. Compared with being alone, spending time with friends nurtures our expressive side: it produces much higher levels of happiness, self-esteem, strength and motivation – not to mention providing an audience.

13 June, 2020 08:12 Share

Finally, we need neighbors and communities to provide us with the opportunity for novelty and growth. If we blank our neighbors or avoid contact with our community, we’ll miss out on their help in the future and confine ourselves to our old habits. Consider, for example, Indian tribes in Canada, who often find areas of rich food resources and establish permanent villages. However, every generation they up sticks and move to a different area where they start again from scratch, which means they have to learn new ways of finding and harvesting food. They do this to jolt themselves out of their routine lives and to regain new skills, health and vigor.

13 June, 2020 08:13 Share

Evolution and innovation usually happen in the realm of the adjacent possible.

Four billion years ago, carbon atoms mulled around in the primordial soup. But as life began, those atoms did not spontaneously arrange themselves into complex life forms like sunflowers or squirrels. First, they had to form simpler structures like molecules, polymers, proteins, cells, primitive organisms and so forth. Each step along the way opened up possibilities for new combinations, expanding the realm of what was possible, until finally a carbon atom could reside in a sunflower.

4 June, 2020 05:26 Share

Similarly, eBay could not be created in the 1950s. First, someone had to invent computers, then a way to connect those computers, then a World Wide Web for people to browse, and then a platform that supported online payments. Both evolution and innovation tend to happen within the bounds of the adjacent possible; in other words, the realm of possibilities available at any given moment

4 June, 2020 05:27 Share

Great leaps beyond the adjacent possible are rare, and doomed to be short-term failures if the environment is simply not yet ready for them. Had YouTube been launched in the 1990s, it would have flopped since neither the fast Internet connections nor the software required to view videos was available then.

4 June, 2020 05:28 Share

World-changing ideas generally evolve over time as slow hunches rather than as sudden breakthroughs.

According to Darwin, the theory of natural selection simply popped into his head when he was contemplating Malthus’ writings on population growth. But Darwin’s notebooks reveal that, far before this so-called epiphany, he had already described a very nearly complete theory of natural selection. This slow hunch only matured into a fully-formed theory over time. Only in retrospect does the idea seem so obvious that it must have come in a flash of insight.

4 June, 2020 05:30 Share

Although in retrospect great discoveries may seem like single, definable eureka-moments, in reality they tend to fade into view slowly. They are like gradually maturing slow hunches, which demand time and cultivation to bloom. According to Darwin, the theory of natural selection simply popped into his head when he was contemplating Malthus’ writings on population growth. But Darwin’s notebooks reveal that, far before this so-called epiphany, he had already described a very nearly complete theory of natural selection. This slow hunch only matured into a fully-formed theory over time. Only in retrospect does the idea seem so obvious that it must have come in a flash of insight

4 June, 2020 05:30 Share

Another slow hunch led to a revolution in the way we share information today: the World Wide Web. As a child, Tim Berners-Lee read a Victorian-era how-to book and was fascinated by the "portal of information" he had found. Well over a decade later, working as a consultant at the Swiss CERN laboratory and partially inspired by the book, he tinkered with a side-project that allowed him to store and connect chunks of information, like nodes in a network. Another decade later, CERN officially authorized him to work on the project, which finally matured into a network where documents on different computers could be connected through hypertext links. After decades of Berners-Lee’s slow hunch maturing and developing, the World Wide Web was born.

4 June, 2020 05:31 Share

Platforms are like springboards for innovations.

Around two decades ago, ecologists understood that a very specific and important type of keystone species warranted its own term entirely. Ecosystem engineers actually create habitats for other organisms, building platforms from which several others benefit. Consider, for example, the beavers that dam rivers, turning forests into wetlands, or the coral that builds thriving reefs in the middle of the ocean. Such platforms exist in the sphere of innovation as well, and they are used as springboards to leap into the adjacent possible. The Global Positioning System (GPS) is a good example of such a platform. Originally developed for military use, it has now spawned countless innovations from GPS trackers to location-based services and advertising.

4 June, 2020 05:32 Share

Ecologists use the term keystone species to describe organisms which are disproportionately important to the welfare of the ecosystem.

4 June, 2020 05:32 Share

Platforms often stack on top of each other, meaning that one platform provides the foundation for even more platforms, which again produce countless new innovations. Beavers fell trees that rot and attract woodpeckers to drill nesting holes in them. But once the woodpeckers have left, these holes are occupied by songbirds. The woodpecker has created a platform for songbirds. The story of Twitter is similar: the Web was based on existing protocols, Twitter was built on the Web, and now countless apps have been designed on the Twitter platform, the adjacent possible is being expanded at every step.

4 June, 2020 05:32 Share

Innovation and evolution thrive in large networks.

The basis of all life on Earth (and likely any extraterrestrial life out there) is carbon, because it is fundamentally good at connecting with other atoms and can thus construct complex chains of molecules. These connections allow new structures like proteins to emerge. Without carbon, the Earth would have likely remained a dead soup of chemicals. Connections also facilitate ideas. When humans first began to organize themselves into settlements, towns and cities, they became members of networks, which exposed them to new ideas and allowed them to spread their own discoveries. Before these connections, a novel idea by one person could well die with her since she had no network to spread it to. Great ideas rise in crowds.

4 June, 2020 05:33 Share

One imagines that in a field like molecular biology, great discoveries are made by peering through a microscope. Strikingly, it turned out the most important ideas arose during regular lab meetings where the scientists informally discussed their work. Other studies have shown that the most creative individuals have broad social networks that extend outside their own organization, and hence get new ideas from many different contexts.

4 June, 2020 05:34 Share

Cities facilitate such large networks, which allow ideas to be diffused and combined in novel ways. This is one of the reasons why cities are disproportionately more creative than smaller towns. Today, though, the greatest such creative network is not a city at all but the World Wide Web, creating, connecting and diffusing ideas more effectively than any network before it.

4 June, 2020 05:35 Share

Collaboration is at least as important a driver of innovation as competition.

The ability of inventors and entrepreneurs to capitalize on their discoveries is often cited as a fundamental driver of innovation. But while the commercialization potential of inventions indeed spurs innovation, it also generates patents and other restrictions, thus hindering the circulation and further development of ideas. Thus with regard to innovation, the very markets which are supposed to guarantee efficiency by rewarding inventors are in fact structurally inefficient, because they artificially prevent ideas from propagating and combining with others.

5 June, 2020 05:39 Share

Over the past 600 years, great inventions and discoveries seem to have increasingly gravitated away from individual inventors and toward networks of people. And even as the age of capitalism dawned and bloomed, most great discoveries have gone unrewarded by the markets. The World Wide Web, the theory of relativity, computers, X-rays, pacemakers and penicillin are but a few examples where the inventor has not profited. Certainly market-spurred innovation has been far more effective than innovation in command economies like the Soviet Union, but that still does not mean it is the optimal way forward. Yes, inventors may well deserve to be rewarded but the real question should be how to increase innovation in general.

5 June, 2020 05:40 Share

Lucky connections between ideas drive innovation.

This mix of turbulence and stability is why liquid networks are optimal for both the evolution of life and for creativity. Innovative networks, too, must teeter on the brink of chaos, in the fruitful realm between order and anarchy, just like water. Random connections drive serendipitous discoveries. Dreams, for example, are the primordial soup of innovation, where ideas connect seemingly at random. In fact, neuroscientists have confirmed that "sleeping on a problem" greatly helps solve it. More than a century ago, the German chemist Kekulé dreamt of a mythological serpent devouring its own tail, and subsequently realized how carbon atoms in a ring formed the molecule benzene

5 June, 2020 05:43 Share

But it seems chaos and creativity are linked even on a neurological level. Ideas are in fact manifestations of a complex network of neurons firing in the brain, and new ideas are only possible when new connections are formed. For some reason, neurons in the brain alternate between states of chaos – where they fire completely out of sync with each other – and organized phase-lock states – where large clusters of neurons fire at exactly the same frequency.

5 June, 2020 05:44 Share

The period of time spent in either state differs from brain to brain. Somewhat counter-intuitively, studies have shown that the longer the spells of chaos a person’s brain tends to experience, the smarter the person usually is.

5 June, 2020 05:44 Share

Serendipitous discoveries can be facilitated by a shared intellectual or physical space.

On an individual level, facilitating such serendipitous connections is simply a matter of simultaneously introducing ideas from different disciplines into your consciousness. Innovators like Benjamin Franklin and Charles Darwin both favored working on multiple projects simultaneously, in a kind of slow multitasking mode. One project would take center stage for days at a time but linger at the back of the mind afterwards too, so connections between projects could be drawn.

6 June, 2020 06:12 Share

The philosopher John Locke understood the importance of cross-referencing as early on as 1652, when he began developing an elaborate system for indexing the content of his commonplace book – essentially a scrapbook of interesting thoughts and findings. Such books formed his repository of ideas and hunches, maturing and waiting to be connected to new ideas. On an organizational level, the key to innovation and inspiration is a network which allows hunches to mature, scatter and combine with others openly.

6 June, 2020 06:13 Share

Great innovations emerge from environments that are partly contaminated by error.

Error is present in both the evolution of life and the innovation of great ideas, and it is not always a bad thing. Consider natural reproduction: genes are passed on from parent to offspring, providing "building instructions" for how the offspring should develop. Without occasional mutations, meaning random errors in those instructions, evolution would have long ago come to a virtual standstill. The elephant’s tusks or peacock’s feathers would have never emerged if only perfect copies of existing genes had propagated. Mutations endow creatures with new traits. While most of them fail fantastically, these errors also produce a few winners, thus driving evolution.

6 June, 2020 06:15 Share

Similarly, Alexander Fleming only discovered penicillin because of an error: he mistakenly allowed a bacteria sample to be contaminated by mold and began to wonder what had killed the bacteria. In fact, major new scientific theories often begin as pesky little errors in the data that keep demonstrating that something in the dominant theory is wrong. Unexplained errors force us to adopt new strategies and to abandon our old assumptions.

6 June, 2020 06:16 Share

In a study, psychologist Charlan Nemeth showed two groups of people slides with various colors on them, and asked the subjects to free-associate words after seeing each slide. Here’s the twist: into the second group, Nemeth inserted actors who occasionally claimed to see different colors than the actual one shown, e.g., "green" when the slide was in fact blue. The first group came up with only the most predictable associations (e.g., "sky" for a blue slide), but the second group was far more creative. The "error" introduced into the group forced them to consider more possibilities than just the obvious ones.

6 June, 2020 06:17 Share

Innovation thrives on reinventing and reusing the old.

Often, ideas are similarly repurposed along the way. Tim Berners-Lee created the World Wide Web as a tool for scholars but in the course of time it became a network for shopping, social networking and pornography, among other things. Johannes Gutenberg, on the other hand, found an innovative use for a 1000-year-old invention: he combined the ancient technology of the wine screw press – used to squeeze juice out of grapes – with his knowledge of metallurgy and created the world’s first printing press. Unconventional uses for old or even discarded items and ideas spur innovation. Nairobian cobblers make rubber sandals out of car tires, and Gustave Flaubert wrote Sentimental Education as a contortion of the old bildungsroman genre. The old is reshaped into the new.

6 June, 2020 06:20 Share

Evolutionary biologists use the term exaptation to describe the phenomenon where a trait originally developed for a specific purpose is eventually used in a completely different way. Feathers, for example, originally evolved as a method for temperature regulation, but today their airfoil-shape helps birds fly.

6 June, 2020 06:20 Share

Discarded spaces are also transformed through innovation. Just as the skeletal structure left behind by dead coral forms the basis of the rich and thriving ecosystem of the reef, abandoned buildings and rundown neighborhoods are often the first homes of innovative urban subcultures. Often, their unconventional thinking and experimentation has no place in glitzy mainstream malls or shopping streets initially, but old buildings allow subcultures to interact and generate ideas that then diffuse and spill over into the mainstream.

6 June, 2020 06:20 Share

Final summary

Both evolution and innovation thrive in collaborative networks where opportunities for serendipitous connections exist. Great discoveries often evolve as slow hunches, maturing and connecting to other ideas over time.

6 June, 2020 06:21 Share

Blinkist takes outstanding nonfiction books and distills their key insights into made-for-mobile book summaries that you can read in just 15 minutes. Learn something new every day - on your smartphone, tablet or PC.

blinkist.com

What’s in it for me?

Whether it’s a parent scolding you for doing something wrong, or your boss publicly calling you out on making a mistake, we’ve all had feelings of shame at one time or another. In fact, shame seems like an inherent part of the human condition. But did you know that shame is actually very harmful, and stops us from living up to our full potential?

1 June, 2020 05:50 Share

In this book, you will find out what exactly shame is and where it arises from. You will discover how it engenders a feeling of unworthiness and how it is endemic in our culture. You’ll also discover the cure for feelings of shame: vulnerability. Vulnerability means the willingness to openly admit failures and weaknesses, and it will help you build up resilience to feelings of shame, and be happier with what you have.

1 June, 2020 05:50 Share

If you then manage to build a culture of vulnerability at work, at school and at home, you’ll rid those places of shame, and find that it results in more creativity, more engagement and healthier families.

1 June, 2020 05:50 Share

Shame is the fear of social disconnection; it’s only human, but harmful nonetheless.

We’ve all experienced shame. And most of us know that shame is triggered by our perception of what others think of us. But to truly understand how shame works, we need to look at a basic human need for connection, love and belonging. As "social animals," we’re wired to seek the company of others;belonging to a group has always been crucial to our survival. In the Stone Age, for example, group members would attack any intruders to protect each other. This need is so strong that socially disconnection causes real pain – one that neuroscience has shown is reinforced by our brain chemistry.

1 June, 2020 05:51 Share

So what's behind our feelings of shame? The belief that we're not worthy of the love, connection and belonging that we need to survive. And if we feel this way, whatever we do or accomplish in our lives will not be enough to satisfy that basic need.

1 June, 2020 05:52 Share

In her research, the author discovered that shame weakens our ability to believe we can improve ourselves. Other researchers also have found that shame leads only to negative, destructive behavior; in blunt terms, shame has zero positive effects. So, although it's only human to feel shame once in a while, the adoption of shame-related behavior in our society is worrying.

1 June, 2020 05:53 Share

Shame is part of our current culture and it promotes a fear of unworthiness – of never having or being enough.

In a world pervaded by social media, we're constantly presenting ourselves and our lives to the public. We share our holiday pictures, the number of "friends" we have or our professional accomplishments for everyone to see – and to envy. Such envy often leads to a feeling of scarcity that we've all felt occasionally – perhaps as we listened to a friend's exotic adventures, or as we gazed longingly at things we could never afford. This is our "never-enough" culture: we live in constant fear that we're not, or we don't have, enough.

1 June, 2020 05:53 Share

When we cannot heal, a fear of scarcity takes over the function performed by "post-traumatic stress." Rather than overcoming the trauma by processing it – which requires vulnerability – we try to numb the fear by seeking to acquire more things, and to be more. The root of this behavior is the false belief that accumulating things or endlessly improving ourselves will shield us from the uncontrollable misfortunes of life. This never-enough thinking kickstarts a cycle of comparison, shame and disengagement.

1 June, 2020 05:54 Share

So feelings of shame and disconnection are rife and harmful in our society. But how can we leave this destructive path? Next, you'll find out about ways to overcome shame by embracing one’s vulnerability.

1 June, 2020 05:54 Share

Vulnerability is the core of all emotions and by no means a sign of weakness.

If you ask people what they think of vulnerability, probably very few of them would consider it positive. We've been raised in a world where being vulnerable is associated with failure and disappointment, while success and strength are considered more important than connecting with our feelings. But if we analyze what vulnerability really is, then we arrive at entirely different conclusions. First, vulnerability is neither good nor bad. Rather, being vulnerable simply means you have the capacity to experience emotions. And though we often associate vulnerability with dark emotions, like fear, grief or sadness, vulnerability is, in fact, also the root of our positive emotions: love, joy, empathy and so on.

1 June, 2020 05:55 Share

For the author, vulnerability means uncertainty, risk and emotional exposure. You might love someone, for example, and in doing so expose yourself emotionally; but you can never be certain that they'll reciprocate, thus you risk being rejected. Like any other feeling, love entails vulnerability. Second, allowing yourself to be vulnerable shows strength and courage – not weakness. If we expose ourselves, it means we make ourselves vulnerable. It also means, though, that we're being courageous; it's much easier to avoid all possibility of failure than to take a risk

1 June, 2020 05:57 Share

We all want love and connection in our lives. What we must fully understand is that such positive feelings are rooted in our vulnerability. If we can accept this fact, and embrace our vulnerability, we can use it to our benefit in both our private and professional lives.

1 June, 2020 05:57 Share

Instead of ignoring our vulnerability, we should embrace it to improve ourselves and our relationships.

Vulnerability is commonly understood as a negative quality, yet it's an essential quality of being human – an integral part of who we are. So how can we deal with our inherent vulnerability in a positive and constructive way? Simple: embrace it. Embracing our vulnerability can help us to learn and develop, both professionally and socially.

1 June, 2020 05:59 Share

In terms of our social development, embracing vulnerability allows us to both experience our emotions authentically and be empathic, enabling us to connect with others. Just as you'd appreciate others being open and honest with you, your vulnerability and willingness to share your feelings and thoughts will be received positively. Indeed, the moments we feel most connected to others are usually those in which we opened up to someone and experienced their empathy.

1 June, 2020 06:00 Share

In terms of professional development, it's only by taking risks and daring to expose our work and ideas to external criticism that we can improve ourselves. If you practice only what you know you're good at, you of course avoid the risk of failure, but you also miss out on a potential new experience. Failing means that we're learning something new.

1 June, 2020 06:00 Share

But what if you don't want to embrace your vulnerability? If you ignore your vulnerability, or you're simply unaware of it, you might end up increasing it. As one study demonstrated, people who believed themselves to be invulnerable to the persuasive power of advertising were, in fact, the most susceptible to it; participants claiming to be unaffected by commercials responded more to them than those who acknowledged their own suggestibility. Clearly, vulnerability is nothing we need to combat, but instead a central part of our emotional lives. If we acknowledge its existence, vulnerability can become a positive instrument.

1 June, 2020 06:01 Share

By understanding and verbalizing our shame, we build a resilience to it and experience others' empathy instead.

We've all wished sometimes for the ground to open and swallow us up, shielding us from the judgmental glances and suppressed laughter of others. And often the feeling of shame is more painful to us than whatever it is we're ashamed about. Shame can certainly be awful. So how can we resolve it? Talking about our feelings of shame and naming them often diminishes their power. In fact, verbalizing our shame actually makes us resilient to it.

1 June, 2020 06:02 Share

This is because shame gains power through being unspeakable: the less we talk about it, the more control it has over our lives. The problem is that it's natural for us to keep our shame to ourselves. Shame doesn't even require the presence of other people: most of us are likely to be our own worst critic, and maintain a stockpile of shame to draw from. But if we generate enough self-compassion, we're able to endure shameful experiences not only without feeling crushed, but to also emerge on the other side as more engaged and courageous.

1 June, 2020 06:03 Share

This is because shame gains power through being unspeakable: the less we talk about it, the more control it has over our lives. The problem is that it's natural for us to keep our shame to ourselves. Shame doesn't even require the presence of other people: most of us are likely to be our own worst critic, and maintain a stockpile of shame to draw from. But if we generate enough self-compassion, we're able to endure shameful experiences not only without feeling crushed, but to also emerge on the other side as more engaged and courageous. In other words, we make ourselves shame-resilient.

1 June, 2020 06:03 Share

When we're resilient to shame, in situations where we'd normally feel shame we can instead feel the empathy of others. Since we feel shame only when we fear others' opinions of us, we can become resilient to it by reaching out and verbalizing it. In doing so, others can then understand our fears and emotions, leading them to empathize with us, and we can then replace any feelings of shame with those of received empathy. We've all experienced the relief of opening up to others, our problems melting away as we begin to feel understood. This is a truly powerful weapon against shame. Gaining resilience towards shame is just the first step on our way to embracing vulnerability and to living a more engaged and connected life

1 June, 2020 06:04 Share

If we feel satisfied with what we are and have, we'll dare to stop hiding our vulnerability.

It's natural, and common, to want to improve ourselves or acquire more. This desire stems not only from a general competitiveness, but also from the need to shield ourselves from harm. "If only we were rich/successful/popular enough," we tell ourselves, "we'd be immune to pain and disappointment." In other words, behind wanting to be and have more is our hope that we can rid ourselves of vulnerability. In reality, vulnerability cannot be overcome, only hidden. Most people are so uncomfortable with their vulnerability, that they try to mask it from others, and even themselves.

2 June, 2020 05:35 Share

How do we hide it? Through behavioral patterns like perfectionism, "foreboding joy" and numbing ourselves with alcohol and other drugs. For example, we've all experienced joyful moments that turned sour because we began to imagine something bad would happen. We do this to galvanize ourselves against the (imagined) impending doom, rather than remain vulnerable to the feeling of joy itself.

2 June, 2020 05:36 Share

Perfectionism works the same way: we strive for perfection to shield ourselves from the possibility of failure. But if instead of allowing our fear of never-enough to take over, we start accepting that we are and have enough already, this will enable us to unmask ourselves and reveal our vulnerability. For example, by ridding ourselves of the unreachable goal of perfection, we're able to open ourselves up to possible criticism or failure without letting it define who we are. Similarly, instead of ruining happy moments by imagining the worst, we can accept that we're worthy of that momentary joy. We should be grateful in those very real happy moments, not afraid of imagined tragedy.

2 June, 2020 05:37 Share

So, by being satisfied with what we are and have, we're able to embrace our vulnerability, freeing us to lose the masks that only serve to harm us. Without such masks, we can finally see ourselves, and be seen by those around us. Next, you’ll read about how a culture of vulnerability can be beneficial at work, at school and at home.

2 June, 2020 05:38 Share

An atmosphere of shame is toxic to any workplace or school.

But anyone who's been under the threat of being publicly shamed knows all too well the hazardous effects it can have on one's productivity. First, shame can lead to disengagement. If we're forced to work or learn in a shame-based environment, at some point we stop being emotionally invested because feeling shame disconnects us from our surroundings. As a result, we probably won't work as hard anymore – or we might even disengage completely by quitting.

2 June, 2020 05:40 Share

Second, such disengagement threatens creativity, innovation and learning. Whether at work or at school, if you want to come up with a creative new idea, or an unusual but effective solution to a problem, you have to feel involved in what you're doing. If, through being shamed, you become disengaged, this leads to disinterest and inaction, holding you back not only from being involved but also from learning about and improving yourself. Indeed, no workplace or school can function without creativity and innovation.

2 June, 2020 05:42 Share

As you can see, an atmosphere of shame in our workplaces and schools is harmful and counterproductive. It's clear that if they want to remain effective and productive, companies and schools should adopt or develop an alternative set of motivational strategies – for instance, by encouraging vulnerability.

2 June, 2020 05:42 Share

Leaders in education, work and society as a whole should combat disengagement by encouraging vulnerability over shame.

Changing general patterns in society always requires engaged individuals taking the first steps. Whether influential employers or managers, teachers or parents, they can all play their part in introducing a culture of vulnerability into our society. There are symptoms of shame culture in almost every workplace or school. You might've heard, for example, of extreme cases in which employees' failures were displayed publicly in the office. In one incident, company employees were shamed into trading offices, and other methods of public humiliation have been used too. However, these behavioral patterns can be transformed so that people are encouraged to accept their vulnerability. Such a culture of worthiness and openness towards vulnerability can combat shame-based problems, and if we learn to engage our own vulnerability we can transfer the same values and concepts to our workplaces, schools, and families.

2 June, 2020 05:44 Share

The power to embrace vulnerability on a professional and societal level lies in the hands of leaders – those in responsible and influential positions – and, by doing so, they can rehumanize education and work. For instance, if you're the head of a division, you probably have more possibilities to shape the behavioral patterns of that division, and thus combat shame, than other employees do. And it's in your best interests to do so: the success of your whole division – and thus your success – will be connected to every change that you encourage. Furthermore, if you, as a person of influence, express problems you're experiencing, or ask for help, this can create an atmosphere of trust, in which vulnerability is not frowned upon, but instead used to improve the working and learning environment. Work, family, schools – all these places suffer from symptoms of shame and disengagement, but they can be turned around by a culture of worthiness and by embracing vulnerability.

2 June, 2020 05:45 Share

Engaged and involved parenting in a shame-free environment will help children develop a sense of their worthiness.

We want only the best for our children. So if we wish for them to lead engaged, connected lives, we have to teach them the underlying principles of worthiness and vulnerability. Firstly, we must consider that children experience shame as trauma. Shameful incidents early on in children's lives can influence not only childhood, but the rest of their lives too. Just think about times when you felt shame in your own childhood. Are they still vivid to you? On the other hand, if children don't experience shame, they feel worthy because they are loved unconditionally and sense that they belong.

3 June, 2020 05:37 Share

Family should be a place where we can truly be ourselves. For our children to grow up with a deep-rooted sense of worthiness and know they're good enough as they are, they need a shame-free home environment. It's far easier for them to learn to love themselves if they are loved unconditionally by their families. This is exactly why, as parents, we must teach our children shame resilience; we do so by being involved and engaged parents, but also by accepting our own worthiness. Creating such an atmosphere requires parents to act as role models, committing themselves to the norms and values of worthiness that they want their children to inherit, instead of simply preaching them. This creates an open and consistent atmosphere for our children to develop in. Put simply, if parents want to teach their children that they're worthy, they must first accept their own worthiness. No child can inherit a quality from a parent that the parent does not actually possess.

3 June, 2020 05:37 Share

Final summary

To live a shame-free life, we must learn to love ourselves unconditionally and to rely on our inherent worthiness when interacting with friends, family and colleagues. In doing so, we dare to be vulnerable because failure and rejection cannot diminish our sense of worthiness. By embracing our vulnerability, by putting ourselves out there and being engaged, we can establish deeper relationships with others and change our private and work lives for the better.

3 June, 2020 05:39 Share

How does shame work? Shame is the fear of social disconnection; it’s only human, but harmful nonetheless. Shame is part of our current culture and it promotes a fear of unworthiness – of never having or being enough.

3 June, 2020 05:40 Share

What is vulnerability and why is it the solution to the problem of shame? Vulnerability is the core of all emotions and by no means a sign of weakness. Instead of ignoring our vulnerability, we should embrace it to improve ourselves and our relationships.

3 June, 2020 05:40 Share

How do we get from shame to vulnerability? By understanding and verbalizing our shame, we build a resilience to it and experience others' empathy instead. If we feel satisfied with what we are and have, we'll dare to stop hiding our vulnerability.

3 June, 2020 05:41 Share

How does a culture of vulnerability benefit our work, education and families? An atmosphere of shame is toxic to any workplace or school. Leaders in education, work and society as a whole should combat disengagement by encouraging vulnerability over shame. Engaged and involved parenting in a shame-free environment will help children develop a sense of their worthiness.

3 June, 2020 05:41 Share

What’s in it for me? Learn how to fill your daily life with love, joy and kindness.

What comes to mind when you think of the word love? Perhaps it’s spending a romantic evening with that one special person, laughing with your closest friends or rocking your newborn to sleep. Most of us tend to think of love as a warm, fuzzy feeling that we have for the people with whom we have close relationships – our family, friends and partners. But this is a very limited view of love, one that inhibits how much happiness and joy we experience. Love is really about building, improving and enjoying our connections to other people and the world around us. And since we’re ultimately connected to everyone and everything, love is something we can weave into every aspect of our lives.

27 May, 2020 05:42 Share

Imagine what your life would be like if every waking moment held the potential for love. This may sound like a delusion or fantasy, but it’s actually something we can all achieve through simple daily practices. With examples drawn from the lives of the author, her friends and her students, Real Love will help you discover how to create deeper love connections. In these blinks, you’ll learn why it’s so important to be a responsible storyteller; when you should embrace your own pettiness; and how staring at trees makes people more compassionate.

27 May, 2020 05:43 Share

The stories told about our lives have a significant impact on how we see ourselves, for better or for worse.

No one knows our lives better than we do, right? It follows then that the stories we share about our experiences will be honest accounts. Well, it turns out that’s not the case. None of us are reliable narrators, no matter whose life we’re talking about – not even our own. Our brains constantly seek to make sense of the events that happen in our lives, filling in any gaps to create cohesive narratives. These stories are so powerful that we assume they must be true, but they’re often misleading. For instance, a child bitten by a dog might believe that all dogs are aggressive. This story will create a lifelong fear of every dog he encounters. These faulty narratives not only shape how we see the world around us, they can also unconsciously influence how we view ourselves.

27 May, 2020 05:44 Share

The stories other people tell about our lives also muddy how we see ourselves. Through their words and actions, our family members and friends can significantly shape our attitudes toward ourselves.

27 May, 2020 05:44 Share

Gus had four rowdy brothers, and his love for books and music labeled him as different in his roughhousing, outdoorsy Montana family. His dislike for their passions – camping, hunting and fishing – meant his family members often put him down. Luckily, Gus also experienced the positive impact stories can have. His uncle Don saw value in his sensitivity and would stand up for Gus, calling him gifted. Over time, Gus’s family began to celebrate his uniqueness, which helped Gus embrace who he was. Once we’re aware that we can all be unreliable narrators – whether we’re telling stories about ourselves or others – we can pay attention to the angle from which we’re telling our stories. For example, remember Diane’s story of being unlovable? She was able to identify it and then reframe it into a more healthy story by practicing mindfulness and self-compassion, which we’ll be looking at in the blinks ahead.

27 May, 2020 05:45 Share

To be happy in the long run, we must first engage with difficult emotions.

We’ve all been there, keeping a lid on anger, frustration or hurt until we explode. But repressing difficult feelings limits our emotional experiences and makes us more miserable. It may seem counter-intuitive, but when we don’t fully engage with emotions that are uncomfortable or painful, we prolong our suffering rather than avoid it.

27 May, 2020 05:48 Share

Author Sharon Salzberg was reminded of this after her close friend committed suicide. During a meditation retreat, Salzberg downplayed the depth of her grief because she was reluctant to engage with it. The monk leading the retreat was shocked by this, encouraging her to release her feelings by crying wholeheartedly. When she found the courage to do this, Salzberg no longer felt imprisoned by her sadness. It wasn’t just Salzberg’s grief that stopped her from openly sharing her feelings at the retreat. She was ashamed to admit her sadness to a role model she admired. Like Salzberg, when we experience difficult emotions such as shame, we often end up isolated because we feel too vulnerable to share our stories. The voice in our head tells us that we’re unworthy of love because we’re defined only by the source of our shame. Even when that source is beyond our control, shame can still dominate our lives.

27 May, 2020 05:49 Share

It isn’t easy, but we can move beyond difficult feelings by acknowledging and exploring them rather than pushing ourselves to "forgive and forget." Through meditation and mindfulness practices, we can connect with our emotional wounds – a crucial milestone on the journey to forgiveness. Once we’ve arrived at forgiveness, we will be free to experience love and joy once more, despite the scars we bear.

27 May, 2020 05:50 Share

For instance, Salzberg accumulated many emotional scars during childhood. By the time she was nine, Salzberg had lost both parents to death and absence. This made her feel abandoned. One day as she was meditating, her childhood loneliness flooded her. But instead of repressing it, she acknowledged that this single feeling didn’t define her because she was still capable of immense love. That understanding helped her view her parents with compassion and forgiveness. Difficult emotions are an inevitable part of the human experience. When we accept and embrace this, we can reconnect with others and foster self-love.

27 May, 2020 05:50 Share

An open and level playing field is the best terrain for achieving real love.

Imagine you’re having coffee with your partner, and she’s distracted. A voice in your head tells you she’s lost interest in you, that it won’t be long before she falls out of love. And you believe this voice without question. Often in relationships, we don’t clearly state what we mean or feel, so our loved one is left to fill in the gaps themselves. And if our loved one doesn’t do a bit of investigating first, they may unwittingly fill those gaps with damaging misinformation. To counteract our faulty gap-filling, we need to practice kindness – to ourselves and to others. Kindness reminds us that we’re worthy and asks us to think of alternative narratives. For example, your partner might be distracted because she’s worried about a downsize at work – something that has nothing to do with you! Instead of acting from a place of hurt, you can reach out from a place of kindness and ask her if she’s all right. This would dispel your negative self-talk and make your partner feel supported, fostering loving connection.

28 May, 2020 05:18 Share

practicing kindness is particularly valuable during moments of conflict because it stops us from lashing out at our partners. While it’s important to acknowledge our anger, we can choose to express it in a constructive way, like explaining to our partner why we’re hurt instead of attacking them.

28 May, 2020 05:19 Share

To build lasting relationships, we must reevaluate our notions of fairness with what Salzberg calls a "willingness to begin again." To achieve this, both we and our partner must stop keeping score and start recognizing that there may be several different ways to resolve a specific conflict. By deciding that we’re "co-sponsoring" each other, we begin to see the relationship as a way to make life better for ourselves and our partner. And this creates a sense of a loving collaboration – rather than competition – filled with mutual support.

28 May, 2020 05:20 Share

What we do with the space between ourselves and our loved ones deeply affects our happiness.

Imagine you’re sitting in the car, sweltering because your partner has turned the heat up too high. Instead of turning it down, you tell yourself that your partner’s comfort is more important than yours. But you can feel your resentment brewing. In a situation like this, you’re encountering one of the most challenging aspects of any close relationship: navigating the space that exists between us and our loved one. That space can be literal, like the interior of a car, but it can also be more figurative: the emotional distance caused by our individual needs and vulnerabilities.

28 May, 2020 05:21 Share

Often, we fill this space with what we assume our partner wants. For instance, Bill attempted to erase the space between him and his wife by being involved in everything she did. When she wanted to go on a three-month trip with her sister, he realized his overinvolvement in her life arose from his own needs, not hers. He wasn’t happy about her trip and told her so, but he respected her decision. His honesty, combined with her gratitude, fortified their love. As with the case of Bill, filling our relationship spaces with positive emotions leads to personal development and stronger connections. But sadly, these spaces often become warzones.

28 May, 2020 05:21 Share

This didn’t mean that happy couples were sweeping conflict under the rug. Rather than avoiding it, they consciously approached differences of opinion with the assumption that their partner had good intentions overall. This meant they could respond without attack or derision, creating what the Gottmans call emotional safety. Based on a couple’s level of emotional safety, the Gottmans could predict with an astonishing 90 percent accuracy how successful a relationship would be. Because we are all individuals with complex needs that are heavily influenced by our fears, there will always be a space between us and others. But navigating this space in the spirit of honesty and kindness frees us to love with less fear and to honor our individual needs.

28 May, 2020 05:22 Share

To create a deep connection with someone, we must let go of our expectations.

From time to time, most of us like to think of ourselves as superheroes, swooping in to heal the broken hearts, minds or bodies of loved ones. But is this actually beneficial or are we just meddling in their problems? Even when we have the best intentions, trying to "fix" someone who’s ill or emotionally injured can be counterproductive. This is because it puts pressure on our loved one to live up to our expectations so they don’t disappoint us. Plus, lots of people are hounding them with suggestions about how to get better, and pressure doesn’t help people heal.

28 May, 2020 05:23 Share

Resisting the urge to offer unsolicited advice and simply being present is often exactly what a vulnerable loved one needs.

28 May, 2020 05:23 Share

Often, we’re so determined to maintain our self-sufficiency that we block ourselves from receiving love. Thinking we can be and do everything puts us under enormous pressure and cuts off our connections to others in times of need. For example, when Sebene was diagnosed with cancer in her mid-thirties, she expended huge amounts of energy in showing people how well she was coping. But when her illness worsened, Sebene was forced to let go of her notion that she was superhuman. When she asked for help, she gave her family and friends the chance to show their love through acts of support. This deepened their emotional connections.

28 May, 2020 05:24 Share

most of us foster unrealistic fantasies about ourselves. But we also carry similar fantasies about other people, which creates a gap between us and them. This occurs especially in relation to what Jungian psychologist James Hollis calls the "Magical Other" – that one and only person who will heal us and make us whole. But this ideal other doesn’t exist outside of movies and novels. When we stop expecting someone else to make us whole, we not only take responsibility for our own healing, but we are also more understanding of other people’s wounds. This understanding deepens our connections with others, leading to mutually satisfying relationships. Just as rain fills a dam after a drought, making space for love means you are creating possibilities – for healing, receiving and making authentic connections.

28 May, 2020 05:25 Share

We can transform jealousy into joy by sifting through its causes.

We all feel the sting of jealousy from time to time. Our best friend marries someone gorgeous and we think we never will, a colleague gets the publishing deal we long for, our yoga buddy nails every pose while we flounder. We feel like there’s not enough love, opportunity or talent to go around. However, there’s a way we can actually benefit from other people’s happiness through what’s called sympathetic joy. We just need to learn how to experience it.

29 May, 2020 05:52 Share

The first step is identifying what’s stopping us from celebrating someone else’s success. Examining why we’ve reacted badly to someone’s good news often pinpoints our own vulnerabilities. For example, a writer might experience difficult emotions if his friend’s book gets a rave review. However, if he spends some time exploring why he feels that way, he might discover it’s because he’s insecure about his own manuscript. Once we’ve identified the emotions that have activated our jealousy, we can move on to the next step – practicing self-compassion. Instead of scolding ourselves for not feeling happy for our friend, we must be kind and patient with ourselves. Taking a humorous approach helps some people achieve this step. For example, one of Salzberg’s friends likes to own her difficult feelings by saying, "I’m embracing the petty within!"

29 May, 2020 05:54 Share

Once compassion has shifted us to a place of self-love, we can start experimenting with sympathetic joy. For this final stage, we must challenge the notion that the things we want are limited resources. Asking ourselves questions can help achieve this; is there more than one potential spouse, book deal or measure of success out there in the world? The answer is, typically, "Yes." Once we open ourselves up to the idea that joy is abundant and arises from many sources – including the happiness of others – we are in the right state to experience sympathetic joy. This not only increases our own happiness but fosters strong connections with others.

29 May, 2020 05:54 Share

the way a partner responds to good news is more important in maintaining a healthy relationship than how they respond to bad news.

29 May, 2020 05:55 Share

The key to creating loving connections is to actively pay attention to the people you encounter and the world around you.

Imagine you’re at the grocery store checkout, mind busily running through your "To Do" list, shoulders tight with stress. You pay the cashier without glancing up. What you haven’t seen is the bright smile he’s sending your way. You’ve just missed out on a dose of connection. The pressures of modern life mean we’re often running on autopilot, not fully present in the moment because we’re absorbed in our own concerns. But this means we’re cheating ourselves not only of receiving love but of creating it through small acts of kindness that cost us little and strengthen our connections to others.

29 May, 2020 05:56 Share

Often, we view people we dislike through a broad lens. This means we’re not paying attention to the ways we’re similar or how interconnected our lives really are. And this actually reduces our own happiness. For instance, during a dinner with the English department of a Midwestern university, a writer friend of Salzberg’s was forced to confront his habit of unconsciously judging people. A woman he’d assumed was uneducated based purely on her dowdy appearance surprised him by sharing her pleasure in reading Proust in the original French. In his haste to categorize her as rural – and therefore not like him – he’d dismissed the potential for shared interests or similarities.

29 May, 2020 05:57 Share

Similarly, when we’re afraid of people, we often judge them according to prejudices or superficial notions. But stepping closer to the person we dislike or fear helps us see beyond our biases and find common ground. As Robi Damelin, an Israeli mother whose son was killed by a Palestinian sniper, pointed out in an article published in Haaretz, the tears of bereft Israeli and Palestinian mothers are the same color and substance.

29 May, 2020 05:58 Share

Similarly, when we’re afraid of people, we often judge them according to prejudices or superficial notions. But stepping closer to the person we dislike or fear helps us see beyond our biases and find common ground. As Robi Damelin, an Israeli mother whose son was killed by a Palestinian sniper, pointed out in an article published in Haaretz, the tears of bereft Israeli and Palestinian mothers are the same color and substance. Valuing similarities over differences helps foster compassion, ultimately increasing everyone’s happiness.

29 May, 2020 05:59 Share

Taking time to embrace the world around us – even for one moment – helps happiness thrive.

In our effort to be happy, we often repress emotions like anger in an effort to avoid confrontation. But this is a false economy. If we deny our anger, we can’t let it go and this stops us from being happy. For example, if we have a messy housemate, we might quietly seethe as we yet again deal with the tower of dirty dishes he left in the kitchen. But until we acknowledge our frustrations, we can’t shift into the mind-set we need to address our problem constructively. And taking constructive action is the key to letting go of anger.

29 May, 2020 06:00 Share

Difficult moments aren’t always the result of someone else’s behavior, however. They often arise when we feel that life has fallen short of our expectations. To combat this, we must open our hearts and embrace life as an adventure, appreciating it for what it is.

29 May, 2020 06:01 Share

Staying curious about our world, the people who occupy it with us and our emotions reminds us that we all belong to the same diverse and interconnected web of life. If we can tap into the sense of abundance that arises from life’s endless wonders, we will be flooded with joy every day.

29 May, 2020 06:02 Share

Final summary

Love isn’t just an emotion; it is a conscious practice that each of us can engage in every day. To achieve this, there are a number of things to which we must pay attention: the validity of our self-talk and what others say about us; the full spectrum of our emotions, including the difficult ones we’d rather avoid; our behavior, particularly during times of conflict; our expectations, both of ourselves and of others; and the world we live in, including our fellow humans. Once we learn to explore and unpack the sources of our difficult emotions with compassion and embrace kindness toward ourselves and others, we can create meaningful relationships and experience more joy every day.

29 May, 2020 06:04 Share

we can increase the quality of our love connections by consciously engaging with our internal emotional landscape and by paying attention to the world around us. This will increase our happiness by supporting our close relationships and creating joy when we interact with strangers. But if we cannot be vulnerable, our relationships will never reach their full potential. And to be vulnerable, we must learn how to be courageous.

29 May, 2020 06:04 Share