The culture of science is changing. The ultimate tool in most fields, once the powerful equation, is now the powerful computer, and this change describes a shift from the quest for powerful abstract formulas to a more open-ended willingness to plug in the data and see what happens. It is a shift from a culture of powerful explanations to a culture of powerful descriptions.
Author: David Berreby | Source: strategy+business | Subject: Math & Science
Doubt, properly channeled, is a gift, one that pairs especially well with an outsized sense of obligation.
Author: Daniel Akst | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Personal Improvement, Psychology | Behavior
We tend to respond to what’s presented to us. It takes extra effort to stop and ask, “What’s missing?” Our energy-conscious brains like to be efficient. The problem is that not having all of the information we need can lead us to make a poor decision.
Author: Eric J. McNulty | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Decision Making, Personal Improvement
Empathy is innate among humans, but it often takes an immersive real-life experience to bring it to the surface.
Author: Deepa Krishnan | Source: strategy+business | Subject: Psychology | Behavior
The best definition of intelligence — artificial or human — that I’ve found is goal-directed adaptive behavior.
Author: Daniel Hulme | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Education | Scholarship, Intelligence | Knowledge
Once you truly understand that you’re guaranteed to miss out on almost every experience the world has to offer, the fact that there are so many you still haven’t experienced stops feeling like a problem. Letting go of all the things you haven’t done, but imagine you could do, lets you focus more intensely on the things you are doing.
Authors: James Surowiecki, Oliver Burkeman | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Personal Improvement, Productivity & Time Management
We live in a culture, and an economy, that seems practically designed to get us to pay attention to things we don’t especially value.
Author: James Surowiecki | Source: strategy+business | Subject: Articles & Links
[Oliver Burkeman recommends] abandoning the delusion that time is something you can manage successfully. Trying to live as efficiently as possible, Burkeman argues, is both futile and self-defeating. There is always more to do, always another small task to complete, and, paradoxically, the better we get at completing tasks, the faster new ones arise. Obsessing over time management therefore means spending your time trying, and … [ Read more ]
Authors: James Surowiecki, Oliver Burkeman | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Life & Society, Personal Improvement, Productivity & Time Management
Don’t deal with people about whose character there is question. It keeps your mind uneasy. It is far better to lose the business.
Author: Alexander Brown | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Business, Personal Improvement, Psychology | Behavior, Relationships
It’s easier to act your way into a new way of thinking than to think your way into a new way of acting.
Authors: Augusto Giacoman, Dave Eberhardt | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Action | Accomplishment, Education | Scholarship, Personal Improvement, Psychology | Behavior, Thought | Inquiry
Emotions create habits. Not repetition. Not frequency. Not fairy dust. Emotions.
Author: BJ Fogg | Source: strategy+business | Subject: Personal Improvement
[BJ Fogg has created] a model with three variables: B = MAP. A behavior happens when the three elements of MAP — Motivation, Ability, and Prompt — come together at the same moment. Motivation is the desire to exhibit the behavior. Ability is the capacity to exhibit it. Prompt is the cue to exhibit it. According to the equation, if you want to craft a … [ Read more ]
Authors: BJ Fogg, Theodore Kinni | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Personal Improvement, Psychology | Behavior
We fail more often because we solve the wrong problem than because we get the wrong solution to the right problem.
Author: Russell Ackoff | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Personal Improvement, Success / Failure
Studies confirm that both men and women tend to equate confidence with competence because they assume that those who do not question their own ability and who view themselves as destined for greatness must have good reason for doing so. In fact, inept individuals tend to be less accurate in evaluating their own talents for the simple reason that they lack the expertise to know … [ Read more ]
Author: Sally Helgesen | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Personal Improvement, Psychology | Behavior
Cunning and deceit will serve a man better than force to rise from a base condition to great fortune.
Author: Machiavelli | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Life & Society, Personal Improvement, Success / Failure
Men in general live as much by appearances as by realities; indeed, they are often moved more by things as they appear than by things as they really are.
Author: Machiavelli | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Life & Society, Psychology | Behavior
Evolution has endowed humans with traits that don’t mix well with complexity and uncertainty, as such environments tend to make people risk-averse, either impulsive or reluctant to act, and focused on fending off dangers.
Authors: Charles Jacoby, Leo M. Tilman | Source: strategy+business | Subject: Psychology | Behavior
Because people want to believe they are good, they are highly susceptible to appeals to their better angels.
Author: Daniel Akst | Source: strategy+business | Subject: Psychology | Behavior
There are two kinds of time: the kind you spend in your own way, and the time that other people control.
Author: Julia Hobsbawm | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Personal Improvement, Productivity & Time Management
What it means to be happy differs widely among people. Some of us, when we say we want to be happy, actually mean that we want to feel calm and relaxed. That’s what we would consider a state of happiness. Then there are others who would say, “I want to be excited and enthusiastic. And if I’m feeling that, then I am happy.” There may … [ Read more ]
Author: Jochen Menges | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Happiness, Personal Improvement, Psychology | Behavior