Curious Minds at Work

Each day, millions of doctors write prescriptions for drugs intended to help their patients. But what if many of our modern health ailments, like depression, anxiety, and chronic pain, would benefit as much, if not more, from a social prescription? What if nature, art, movement, and service could reduce our symptoms, decrease doctor visits, and improve our health? These are questions Julia Hotz se...

We know how important friendships are. At the very least, for our health and well-being. But we also know how hard it gets to make and keep friends over the course of a lifetime, especially as we move, change jobs, and have families. That’s why Anna Goldfarb’s book, Modern Friendship: How to Nurture Our Most Valued Connections, is so important. We need friendships for good health, and Anna’s book...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

There’s more to being a workaholic than working long hours. Consider what motivates you to work more. Where you’re spending your energy. Think about the impact those longer hours have on family and friends. These are some of the distinctions Malissa Clark makes in her book, Never Not Working: Why the Always-on Culture is Bad for Business and How to Fix it. She not only shares a helpful framework f...

We associate the word epidemic with disease. Yet it’s a word we’re increasingly using to refer to a state of mind, namely, loneliness. Researchers have not only found a significant increase in people’s feelings of loneliness, but they’ve also learned how detrimental loneliness can be to our health and wellbeing. One of the most effective antidotes to loneliness is feeling like we belong. In fact,...

One-on-one meetings are the cornerstone of manager-employee relationships. For managers, they’re an opportunity to teach, coach, and mentor. For employees, they’re a chance to grow and develop. But given how important these meetings are, how well are we using them? How effectively do we plan and run them? Bottom line - are they an afterthought or a priority? These are just some of the questions, I...

For many of us, the word addiction quickly conjures up images of drugs and alcohol. But we’re often slower to apply the term to compulsive, tech-induced behaviors like playing video games, checking social media, or shopping online. We prefer to think of these pleasure-seeking activities as harmless distractions. Yet they can just as easily lead to addictive behaviors. And with our ever-present sma...

We go to the dentist, get our eyes checked, and get our cars inspected. These regularly scheduled health and safety audits let us know how we’re doing. But we rarely audit how we spend our time. Sure, most of us have a calendar. Yet few of us study how these calendar events impact our happiness. We rarely track the connection between what we spend our time doing and how well we’re flourishing. As...

I’ve spent a lot of time talking to guests about our relationships at work. For example, we’ve discussed how to listen better, how to navigate conflict, and how to influence others, just to name a few. What I’ve spent less time talking about are the relationships that go beyond work. That’s why I invited Kat Vellos on the show this week to talk about her amazing book, We Should Get Together: The S...

In the U.S., we have laws and policies in place to prevent discrimination of Black workers. In addition, we have leaders who make public pledges in support of diversity goals. Yet the data continue to show that Black employees are less likely to be hired, more likely to stall out in mid-level positions, and stand little chance of gaining senior level positions. Why is that? Adia Harvey Winfield’s...

A well-crafted story can fuel connection. It can inspire trust and entertain. Better still, it can have a ripple effect. Yet most of us avoid telling stories. Instead, we stick to the facts and emphasize the data. Now, even if we believe this is the best way to convey information, our brains, if they could talk, would disagree. That’s why, if we want to connect, persuade, or just keep our audience...

We’re often put on the spot to say something of value. And when it happens, it can catch us off guard. For example, you log in early to a conference call and need to make small talk with high status colleagues. Or you find out in a meeting that a co-worker is leaving the company, and you’re asked to say a few words. These kinds of spontaneous interactions happen more often than we think. But unlik...

Most of us are on a performance treadmill. We show up. We execute. Then tomorrow we do it all over again. But this relentless focus on execution leaves little time for learning. As a result, our skills stagnate, and we accomplish less. Soon we find ourselves working harder while falling further behind. Eduardo Briceno calls this The Performance Paradox: Turning the Power of Mindset into Action, a...

We live and work in a digital world where getting interrupted by communication tools is the norm. That means we shift our attention at least every 47 seconds. Then it takes us about 30 minutes to get back on task. At the same time, we continually interrupt ourselves – looking things up, tracking information down. While some view this as a problem to be solved, Gloria Mark sees it simply as a new r...

As humans, we have certain default settings that help us navigate the world. Yet those same default settings make us vulnerable to fraud and deception. For example, our ability to focus helps us concentrate on what’s right in front of us. But it also prevents us from seeing what’s missing. For example, we’re more willing to believe a presumed investment expert who touts a winning track record with...

We’re often told that saying yes to everything will be the key to our success. It’ll strengthen our relationships, enhance our reputation, and help us achieve our goals. But what if the reverse were true? What if learning how to say no is the game changer? What if mastering this skill is the way to achieve our goals? Vanessa Patrick has written a book on the subject titled, The Power of Saying No:...