Hidden Brain

The Story of Stories

We understand the world through the lens of narrative. When someone offers us a story, our defenses come down; we are transported into another world, and in that world, we update our beliefs and feelings. Stories don't just reflect reality — they shape it.

TED

Why It’s So Hard to Listen When You Disagree | Emily Kasriel | TED

We've bought into a dangerous myth -- listening means agreeing. Listening means agreeing. So we avoid it, and instead, we fixate on trying to explain ourselves more loudly, more fiercely, more insistently.

Hidden Brain

The Story of Stories

Stories are how we make sense of the world, how we connect with others, and how we understand ourselves. But our love of stories has a dark side: it can distort our thinking, make us vulnerable to manipulation, and cause us to ignore evidence that doesn't fit our preferred narrative.

Diet TBPN

$1M Trading Cards Heist, Trevor Milton Returns, The Death Of Common Courtesy | Diet TBPN

If these cards are so valuable, why aren't you using Brinks? You're going to trust FedEx?

The Business of Tech

Andfoods: Beans, cream and kitchen dreams

Not by asking chefs to compromise, but by winning them over on taste, texture and how the cream performs when the kitchen heats up.

Throughline

Can the polygraph test really spot a lie? | Throughline

The machine itself is a bit of what magicians call the misdirect. You're all focused on the machine, but it's actually the questions and the rituals and the penumbra, all the things that are going on around it, which make the polygraph successful in quote marks.

Throughline

Why does everything get a standing ovation now?

Shakespeare had a little trick to get people clapping. He would often write in the epilogue lines to get the audience to applaud. You know, it's a little weird when I've just said, 'Okay, please applaud now.' And then of course people applaud.

Book of the Day

Gov. Andy Beshear on how the midterms will help him weigh his presidential run

Explaining your why, as long as you're doing it authentically, can create grace and space to where we can disagree, but know we're coming from good places.

TED

How to Start Any Conversation the Right Way | Chris Fenning | TED

Every time we communicate, we have an opportunity to create clarity or confusion. And clarity begins from the very first minute. If you get the first minute right, you set your conversation up for success.

Book of the Day

In 'Roll the Calls,' Hollywood's Ari Emanuel reflects on the art of agenting

The art of agenting is being relentless in the pursuit to fulfill the dreams of your clients. That is not easy, right? Because you have to convince somebody that somebody you found that their product was worthy and that there's some great thing there that a larger group of people will like and enjoy and that can create economic benefit for them.

Hidden Brain

How to Make a Difference: Part 2

Most people, when they learn that their neighbors are doing something — whether it's conserving energy or paying their taxes on time — are more likely to do it themselves. But here's the odd thing: when researchers ask people whether learning about social norms changes their own behavior, most people say no. They acknowledge it might change others, but not them.

Diet TBPN

Cambridge AI Safety Plan, Instinct CEO on Invest Like the Best, Zuck Hires MongoDB CEO | Diet TBPN

The biggest thing he can do is to stop uh smiling when he's talking about really bad devastating things.

Diet TBPN

Cambridge AI Safety Plan, Instinct CEO on Invest Like the Best, Zuck Hires MongoDB CEO | Diet TBPN

You can go the opposite way, the the Mark Zuckerberg way and rip it and just be like, "Yeah, I'm having fun with AI." Which is honestly like it feels like people are like, "Yeah, I kind of want that energy a little bit. Just give me the white pill."

Hidden Brain

How to Make a Difference: Part 2

If you give people a sense of what's actually happening, that you give them a realistic view of what other people in their situation are actually doing, sometimes people will say, 'Oh, I thought I was already doing more than the average, but it turns out I'm not. Maybe I should do more.'

It's Been a Minute

The power of giving & receiving advice | It's Been a Minute

I was thinking about how you can get the same piece of information and depending on who is giving it to you, you might respond really differently. I think about if I'm getting advice from a from somebody who doesn't maybe share my values or doesn't know me well or is in my family and feels like they can, you know, they therefore have a right to to tell me uh how to live versus um you know, somebody who I have chosen as a friend and who might be different from me, but who I have like really really deep respect for um that I might take in that information really differently.

Hidden Brain

How to Make a Difference: Part 1

When researchers studied what actually drives charitable giving, they found that people are far more moved by the story of a single identified victim than by statistics about thousands of suffering people. In fact, adding statistical information to an emotional story can actually reduce donations — the numbers seem to crowd out the feelings that motivate generosity.

Fresh Air

Inside the 'modern slavery' where cyber scammers are victims themselves

pig butchering is really the term used by the scammers. And it's this notion that the pig, the victim, is being fattened for slaughter. And they're fattened through a romance scam, one that sometimes develops over weeks or months, or even more than a year, as the scammer builds trust with the victim.

Hidden Brain

How to Make a Difference: Part 1

Most people, when they think about making a difference, think about the size of the action. But research suggests that what matters more is whether the action is targeted — whether it's aimed at a specific person or group of people. When we try to help everyone, we often end up helping no one.

Hidden Brain

Why Conversations Go Wrong

Most people think that arguments and misunderstandings happen because people disagree about facts or values. But Yeomans has found that often, the problem is simpler and more fixable: people don't feel heard. They feel dismissed, or they feel like the other person isn't really engaging with what they've said.

Decoder with Nilay Patel

Adam Conover explains how YouTube ruined everything

I feel the word 'creator' was created by the social media companies as a way to trick people into entering an extremely inequitable economic bargain. Basically they promise, 'Hey, Mr. Beast makes a billion dollars. You could be Mr. Beast. Why don't you work for us basically for free for the rest of your life in the hopes that one day, we'll break off a little chunk of ad revenue for you?' Creator is like when Avon or Mary Kay calls you an entrepreneur.

TED Radio Hour

Less guilt, more joy: A new chapter for climate action

I think, you know, I would call the 2010s maybe the doom and gloom era of climate change communication. And the thing is that it got people's attention. So I think the focus on kind of scaring people and talking about how, you know, awful everything was made people sit up and listen for a period of time. But the problem is doom and gloom messaging doesn't necessarily motivate action.

TED Radio Hour

Less guilt, more joy: A new chapter for climate action

I would call the 2010s maybe the doom and gloom era of climate change communication. And the thing is that it got people's attention. So I think the focus on kind of scaring people and talking about how, you know, awful everything was made people sit up and listen for a period of time. But the problem is doom and gloom messaging doesn't necessarily motivate action.

TED Radio Hour

Less guilt, more joy: A new chapter for climate action

doom and gloom messaging doesn't necessarily motivate action. Negative emotions get exhausting over time.

TED Radio Hour

Less guilt, more joy: A new chapter for climate action

Negative emotions get exhausting over time. So there was a really incredible global mega study looking at 60,000 participants from 63 different countries and testing 11 interventions that were all designed to promote action on climate change. Now, one of these messages was kind of a traditional doom and gloom message about how terrible climate change is and how bad everything's going to be. And at first glance, it looks like that message worked really well. It was one of the messages that people were most likely to share on social media. However, this doom and gloom message actually undermined people's willingness to take a more effortful form of action.

TED Radio Hour

Less guilt, more joy: A new chapter for climate action

I think I would call the 2010s maybe the doom and gloom era of climate change communication. And the thing is that it got people's attention. So I think the focus on kind of scaring people and talking about how awful everything was made people sit up and listen for a period of time. But the problem is doom and gloom messaging doesn't necessarily motivate action.

Hidden Brain

The Things We Don't Say

We don't just fail to say things because we're afraid of rejection or conflict. We also stay silent because we don't realize how much our words matter to other people. We consistently underestimate the power of our own voices.

Hidden Brain

The Things We Don't Say

We think that people will judge us harshly when we acknowledge a weakness or a struggle. But the research suggests that vulnerability often has the opposite effect — it actually makes people like us more and trust us more.

Semafor

'It's Intense Defamation': Hasan Piker Considers Suing His Democratic Critics

You don't need a Joe Rogan of the left. I'm certainly not the Joe Rogan of the left. You need better policies.

Founders

#430 How to Write Ads That Sell

The average salesman seeks favors. He seeks profit for himself. His plea is, 'Buy my goods.' He makes a selfish appeal to selfish people, and of course, he meets resistance. I was selling service.

TED Radio Hour

Trusting medicine in an age of doubt

Everyone has their own story. Everyone has their own reasons for not being vaccinated or getting vaccinated. And most of what I did during that time was just hear someone out that I wouldn't normally write off. That was the most important thing that I did. It wasn't what I said. It was what I did around listening.

Semafor Media

Is Tucker Carlson Running for President? | Semafor Media

Tucker is a savvy media player. He understands how the attention economy works and he knows that it's not necessarily a bad thing for people to speculate about whether you're running for president. It means people pay more attention to the things that you're saying.

TED Radio Hour

Trusting medicine in an age of doubt

Everyone has their own story. Everyone has their own reasons for not being vaccinated or getting vaccinated. And most of what I did during that time was just hear someone out that I would normally write off. That was the most important thing that I did. It wasn't what I said. It was what I did around listening.

TED Radio Hour

Trusting medicine in an age of doubt

Everyone has their own story. Everyone has their own reasons for not being vaccinated or getting vaccinated. And most of what I did during that time was just hear someone out that I wouldn't normally hear. And that was the most important thing that I did. It wasn't what I said. It was what I did around listening.

TED Radio Hour

Trusting medicine in an age of doubt

What I didn't necessarily realize before that moment was that listening was the biggest part. Everyone has their own story. Everyone has their own reasons for not being vaccinated or getting vaccinated. And most of what I did during that time was just hear someone out that I would normally write off. That was the most important thing that I did. It wasn't what I said. It was what I did around listening.

The Prof G Pod

Sam Harris: The Democrats’ Far-Left Problem

All you have to be is a charismatic fraud and uh be incapable of feeling shame no matter how many times you're proven wrong and uh you know, you our politics will will promote you to somewhere near the top of the heap.

Radiolab

Neither Confirm Nor Deny

Whether it comes from government spokespeople or celebrity publicists, the phrase "can neither confirm nor deny" is the perfect non-denial denial. It's such a perfect deflection that it seems like it's been around forever, but reporter Julia Barton takes us back to the 1970s and the surprising origin story of what's now known as a "Glomar Response."

Invest Like the Best with Patrick O'Shaughnessy

John Kim - How to Raise a Few Billion Dollars - [Invest Like the Best, EP.482]

The best fundraisers I've seen don't pitch — they teach. They walk into a room and they make you smarter about the space they're operating in, and the ask almost becomes secondary because you're so compelled by what you've just learned.

Radiolab

Neither Confirm Nor Deny

The phrase 'can neither confirm nor deny' is the perfect non-denial denial. It's such a perfect deflection that it seems like it's been around forever.

Invest Like the Best with Patrick O'Shaughnessy

John Kim - How to Raise a Few Billion Dollars - [Invest Like the Best, EP.482]

The biggest thing I learned from all of those experiences is that confidence really comes from preparation. Most people that I've seen fail in fundraising try to shortcut the preparation phase and just rely on the charisma and the story. The story's important, but you have to be prepared for anybody to punch holes in that story.

Invest Like the Best with Patrick O'Shaughnessy

Jeremy Giffon - The Billion Dollar PDF - [Invest Like the Best, EP.481]

The brilliant insight of the PDF was, nobody cares about the operating history of a company, they care about the story of the company. And the story of the company is best told in a document that you control, that you craft, that has beautiful graphics and beautiful fonts and compelling narrative.

TED

The Counterintuitive Secret of Leadership | Jessica Kriegel | TED

People don't change because you implemented new processes. People will act in alignment with what they believe. And so if you want to change their behavior, you have to shift what it is that they believe.

The Prof G Pod

OpenAI’s First Acquisition: How TBPN Built a $30M Media Business

If someone quotes your post with a thoughtful commentary that's filmed in 4K with cinema cameras and the hosts are wearing suits and they print it. They took the time to print out your post. It's just wow. These people went a lot further to say something. I'm at least going to see what they had to say about the thing that I fired off in the shower.

Idea Knock Down

How Algorithms Manipulate You (and How to Fight Back) | Idea Knock Down | TED

We're basically unleashing the most powerful predictive persuasive algorithms in the history of the world on brains that aren't fully developed yet. When these lawsuits go forward and we get discovery from tech companies, they know that these are problems and then they're doing it anyway.

Idea Knock Down

How Algorithms Manipulate You (and How to Fight Back) | Idea Knock Down | TED

We're basically unleashing the most powerful predictive persuasive algorithms in the history of the world on brains that aren't fully developed yet. Yeah, there's been these like exponential rises in anxiety, depression. Um, you know, young women and girls have fallen off a cliff almost with the rise of social media.

Book of the Day

Revisiting the story of the American Revolution with Rick Atkinson

A people not used to being forced to do things will not be drove. They must be led. And he is a leader and um in the army that he's commanding the army we have today actually that's a fairly critical insight that he's got and a recognition that this is the essence of leadership.

The Prof G Pod

Top House Intelligence Democrat on How Trump Misread Iran

Some people got in his ear and just said, "You know what you know you need to say to Donald Trump to persuade him," which is, "You will be the greatest leader since Napoleon." And painted a picture of Trump Towers being built in Shiraz and Tehran and that sort of thing.

Fresh Air

Writer Kennedy Ryan uses romance novels as a vehicle for discourse

I refer to my romance the way I write it, as Trojan horse, you know? I'm smuggling in discourse, I'm smuggling in the conversation I want to have in what, to me, is the most accessible genre in publishing.

TED Radio Hour

Are we using screens as a scapegoat for teen mental health?

Scary stories sell They always have And the more often you hear something the more likely you are to believe that it's true And scary stories are really easy to sell to parents We are an anxious lot

Pivot

Elon Musk Is a Trillionaire. "He Can Pick the Next President" | Pivot Excerpt

Musk has always been able to do is to create this narrative over numbers that's like no one else in history.