Hidden Brain

Why Conversations Go Wrong

We assume that other people understand us better than they actually do, and other people assume that they understand us better than they actually do. This leads to a kind of mutual overconfidence in our ability to communicate — and it means that the gap between what we intend to say and what others hear is often much larger than we realize.

TED Radio Hour

What this musician’s identity crisis teaches us about navigating change

I think that I was really ignoring my personal relationship with the cello. I think I was using the cello as a tool, trying to extract all the good that I could from it in a way that would make an impact for other people. But I wasn't really considering what does this sound, what does this practice mean for me?

Hidden Brain

Why Conversations Go Wrong

We assume that what's in our head is plain to see to everyone around us. But the thoughts and feelings we have are invisible to others. And when we forget this, and communicate as if our inner world is on full display, conversations go wrong.

TED Intersections

How Tech Will (and Won’t) Replace Your Doctor | TED Intersections

I think there's a problem when people have to look at their sleep tracker to figure out whether they feel well rested. You shouldn't have to like wake up like a how did I sleep last night? Like that should be something that people can get from kind of being in touch with their own bodies.

TED Radio Hour

What this musician’s identity crisis teaches us about navigating change

I think that I was really ignoring my personal relationship with the cello. I think I was using the cello as a tool, trying to extract all the good that I could from it in a way that would make an impact for other people. But I wasn't really considering, what does this sound, what does this practice mean for me?

Hidden Brain

Why Conversations Go Wrong

We often think that the source of conflict in our relationships is a difference of opinions or values. But much of the time, the problem is something more fundamental: we think we're communicating clearly, when we're actually not communicating at all.

TED

The Four Steps to Hearing Hard Feedback Gracefully | Chris Wheatley | TED

And the feedback is that when I'm not at my best, I come across as arrogant, condescending, self-righteous and a know-it-all -- which is a really nice combination and a great way to make friends, if you're interested.

The Prof G Pod

Stanford Professor: Don’t Build Your Life Around Your Kids

If you can align and interconnect who am I, what I believe, and what I'm doing, if you can connect those three dots, your chance of meaning making goes way up. If you can't connect those dots, your chances of meaning making goes way down. You can't connect a dot you've not articulated.

Hidden Brain

Blowing Up Your Life

Most people, when they feel the itch to blow up their lives, assume the discomfort is a signal that something is deeply wrong — that they need radical change. But sometimes the urge to flee is not a sign that your life needs to change; it's a sign that you need to change how you're living your life.

TED Radio Hour

What this musician’s identity crisis teaches us about navigating change

Looking back, I think that I was really ignoring my personal relationship with the cello. I think I was using the cello as a tool, trying to extract all the good that I could from it in a way that would make an impact for other people. But I wasn't really considering, what does this sound, what does this practice mean for me?

Hidden Brain

Blowing Up Your Life

We think that making a big change will make us happy, but what we're really doing is escaping the discomfort of our current situation. And the new situation will eventually have its own discomforts, which we'll want to escape from as well.

Hidden Brain

Blowing Up Your Life

People who blow up their lives often aren't doing something irrational — they're responding to a deep psychological need that their current life isn't meeting. The problem is that blowing up your life is a very blunt instrument for addressing that need.

Hidden Brain

The Things We Don't Say

We often assume that people can read our minds — that our feelings, our appreciation, our love, are somehow transmitted through the ether without our having to say anything. But research consistently shows that we dramatically overestimate how much others know about what we're thinking and feeling.

Hidden Brain

Blowing Up Your Life

People who blow up their lives often don't realize that the discomfort they feel isn't a sign that something is wrong with their life — it's a sign that something is wrong with them. And if you blow up your life without addressing that underlying problem, you're going to find yourself in the same situation a few years later.

Hidden Brain

Blowing Up Your Life

Psychologist Anthony Klotz studies the "jolts" that shake us out of our routines, and how these moments can help us make more intentional decisions about the people we want to become.

Hidden Brain

The Things We Don't Say

We often assume that other people can read our minds — that our feelings, intentions, and inner states are transparent to those around us. But research suggests we dramatically overestimate how much others know about what we're thinking and feeling, while simultaneously underestimating how much our own silence shapes the way others perceive us.

Hidden Brain

The Things We Don't Say

We assume that people know how we feel about them. But the research suggests that our feelings are far more opaque to others than we realize. We think we're an open book, but to everyone else, the pages are often blank.

Hidden Brain

The Things We Don't Say

We often assume that the people around us can read between the lines — that our silence speaks for itself, or that our feelings are obvious from context. But research suggests that what feels transparent to us is often invisible to others. The gap between what we mean and what we actually communicate can be vast, and most of us have no idea how wide it truly is.

Hidden Brain

The Things We Don't Say

We often assume that people who don't speak up are simply withholding information. But research suggests something more surprising: many people who stay silent genuinely believe they have communicated — they think their feelings, intentions, or objections were obvious, even when they said nothing at all.

Hidden Brain

The Things We Don't Say

We're so focused on the content of our conversations that we forget that the way we communicate — whether we speak up or stay silent, whether we text or talk — shapes the quality of our lives and relationships.

Fresh Air

Dolly Parton

I know it costs a lot to make me look as cheap. But anyway, thanks for having me on too.

Hidden Brain

How to Be A Better Partner

When we feel that our partner is not meeting our needs, we tend to assume that we've chosen the wrong person. We blame them for being selfish, or insensitive, or not trying hard enough. But research suggests that the problem often lies not with our partner, but with how well we've communicated what we actually need.

Hidden Brain

How to Be A Better Partner

Most of us think we know what our partners want and need, but research suggests we're not nearly as good at this as we think. We assume that because we love someone, we understand them. But love and understanding are not the same thing.

Hidden Brain

How to Be A Better Partner

Most people think the key to a better relationship is finding the right partner. But research suggests that who you are in a relationship matters more than who your partner is — that the same person can experience very different relationships depending on the skills and outlook they bring to them.

It's Been a Minute

'The Pitt' star Sepideh Moafi on being limitless

We spend our adulthood trying to cover feeling and trying to numb ourselves and distract ourselves. And so acting we get back to the source of like these raw exposed unhinged feelings

Hidden Brain

How to Be A Better Partner

Most of us think we know what our partners want and need. But research suggests we're often wrong — and the problem is that we don't realize we're wrong. We assume that because we love someone and have spent years with them, we must understand them. But love and understanding are not the same thing.

Hidden Brain

How to Be A Better Partner

Most of us think we know what our partners want and need, but research suggests we're often surprisingly wrong. We see our partners through the lens of our own desires and fears, and we mistake what we want for what they want.

Hidden Brain

How to Be A Better Partner

Most of us, when we feel hurt or disappointed by a partner, focus on what our partner did wrong. But Epstein says the more useful question is: what did I do to make it hard for my partner to respond well? It's a subtle shift, but it can transform the way we see our relationships.

Hidden Brain

You Are Not Ordinary

Most of us intuitively understand that we are shaped by the unusual circumstances of our own lives. But we rarely think about the ways in which our era, our country, and our culture have shaped our beliefs, intuitions, and desires — making them feel universal when they are anything but.

Hidden Brain

Making the Most of Your Mistakes

Most people, when they make a mistake, either beat themselves up or quickly move on and try to forget about it. But neither of these responses is optimal. The most effective approach is to sit with the discomfort of a mistake long enough to extract its lessons, but not so long that you become mired in self-criticism.

Hidden Brain

Making the Most of Your Mistakes

We don't learn from experience, we learn from reflecting on experience. If you have a really challenging experience and you just move on, you're not going to get any wiser. You need to actually stop and reflect on what happened.

Hidden Brain

Making the Most of Your Mistakes

Most people, when they make a mistake, either beat themselves up or rationalize why the mistake wasn't really their fault. Both responses are understandable, but neither helps you do better in the future.

Hidden Brain

Making the Most of Your Mistakes

Most of us think we learn from our mistakes, but researchers have found that people often fail to extract useful lessons from their failures. Instead, we focus on the pain of the mistake itself, and quickly move on — which means we're doomed to repeat it.

Hidden Brain

Making the Most of Your Mistakes

Most people, when they make a mistake, either beat themselves up or they get defensive and try to pretend it didn't happen. But there's a third option: to get curious about what went wrong and why — to treat mistakes as information rather than as indictments of your character.

Hidden Brain

Making the Most of Your Mistakes

Most of us think of failure as something to move past as quickly as possible — something to hide or explain away. But researchers have found that the people who benefit most from their mistakes are those who do the opposite: they slow down, sit with the discomfort, and try to understand exactly what went wrong and why.

Hidden Brain

Making the Most of Your Mistakes

Most people, when they make a mistake, do one of two things: They beat themselves up, or they rationalize away the mistake and blame other people. Neither approach actually helps you learn and do better in the future.

Hidden Brain

Making the Most of Your Mistakes

Most people, when they make a mistake, either beat themselves up or they get defensive and they deny that they made a mistake at all. Both of those responses are understandable — but both make it harder to actually learn from what went wrong.

Hidden Brain

Making the Most of Your Mistakes

We have a very egocentric view of our mistakes. We're thinking about how does this reflect on me, how does it make me look. And I think when we do that, we actually lose an opportunity to be curious about the mistake, to learn from the mistake, to understand what really went wrong.

Hidden Brain

You Are Not Ordinary

Most of us know, of course, that we are not actually the center of the universe. But we often act as if we are. We notice when we are the victim of rudeness, but we rarely think about all the times when other people were rude and we weren't around to experience it.

Hidden Brain

You Are Not Ordinary

Most of us recognize that we're shaped by our upbringing and our culture. But researchers who study self-awareness say there's something even more fundamental at work: our failure to realize how different we are from other people. We think everyone sees the world the way we do — that our reactions, our values, our fears, and our hopes are simply the normal human response to life.

Hidden Brain

You Are Not Ordinary

Most of us intuitively feel that we are above average in a variety of ways. We think we're smarter than average, more competent than average, more ethical than average. Psychologists have documented that people's assessments of themselves are, to put it charitably, often not well-calibrated.

TED

Life Lessons from the DJ Booth | ELEW | TED

My mantra is: my mind is the club, I am the DJ [and] my choices affect the atmosphere -- so let's keep that atmosphere groovy.

Hidden Brain

Changing Our Mental Maps

We all have mental maps — representations of how we see ourselves and the world. But the amazing thing is, many of us use mental maps that were drawn up a long time ago, in a completely different context. And we continue to use them, even when the world changes, and even when we change.

Hidden Brain

Changing Our Mental Maps

Most of us recognize that we don't always act in our own best interests. We procrastinate. We reach for the candy bar instead of the apple. We say things we later regret. Psychologists have long recognized that our behavior is shaped by mental maps — internal representations of the world that guide our actions, often without our awareness.

Office Hours

Is an MBA Still Worth the Debt? Scott Galloway Breaks Down the Numbers | Office Hours

Business school is really for what I call the elite and the aimless. I was in investment banking before business school didn't know what I wanted to do next. Just knew I didn't want to be in investment banking.

Hidden Brain

Changing Our Mental Maps

We often think of our beliefs and mental models as reflections of reality — accurate maps of the world that help us navigate our lives. But what happens when the map is wrong? What happens when the map itself is the problem?

Daily Stoic

12 Lessons From Marcus Aurelius To Change Your Life

Ask yourself, am I afraid of death because I won't be able to do this anymore? People in the abstract want to live a long time and then you look at how they spend their days and it's on some of the dumbest imaginable, right? They spend it gossiping. They spend it complaining. They spend it working a job they don't like.

Daily Stoic

How to Feel Everything Without Losing Control With Dr. Becky Kennedy

A lot of us were either raised to try to kick them out of the car, right? Like you're so annoying. my car would be a lot more peaceful if you were just out. But you can't kick feelings out of the car. It's just a biological impossibility. Or what happens cuz we either try so hard to do that and we fail is then the feelings in the back seat take over the driver's seat.

Book of the Day

In 'Names Have Been Changed,' a criminal on the run confesses her story on a podcast

I think the way we speak, like you know, the body, the way we actually make the sounds and especially when we're talking to ourselves in, you know, what we would call our natural voices, like that is in some way maybe the most honest part of ourselves coming out.