How to stay motivated for longer
Dopamine is the brain's reward system, driving us to start and persevere with challenges and feel satisfied when we finish them. But here's the catch: it naturally decreases as we age—unless we take action. Here’s three ways to boost dopamine and stay motivated for longer.
How to become less scared of failure
Failure comes in three flavours says Amy Edmonson in her new book Right Kind of Wrong, basic failures, complex failures and intelligent failures. We are meant to make mistakes she argues. Learning about each of these types of failures will help you become less scared of them.
How dyslexia is a creative superpower
One in five people globally have dyslexia and most hide it from their employers out of fear of prejudice. Rather than a learning disorder, dyslexia can be a problem solving super power. Inside are three ways people with dyslexia can excel at solving complex problems and why you need them on your team.
Psychological safety in teams - why we need it and how to build it.
Google studied 180 teams to figure out what makes them click. Spoiler: It’s not about who’s on the team—it’s about how they work together. The secret? Psychological safety. This article shares three simple ways to build it.
How to choose the right solution
Sometimes, life throws us a choice: stick to your values and face short-term pain or take the easy way out and compromise what you stand for. The latter is tempting—it’s quick, convenient, and feels like a win in the moment. But the real reward comes when you choose the harder path.
How to amplify creativity and problem solving with Chat GPT
It’s easy to ask Chat GPT direct questions and get an answer. However its true power lies in unleashing its iterative conversational powers in a process called exploration driven enquiry.
How the inventor of software CAPTCHA solved two wildly different problems with this one solution
Luis von Ahn invented the software CAPTCHA as a PhD student, who used it to solve two wildly different problems. He then went on to develop Duolingo, a language learning app that’s valued at over US$9 billion after using it solve one of these problems.
Rethink how to find lasting happiness
Oliver Burkeman is an award-winning journalist and contrarian thinker. His book, TheAntidote, Burkeman reckons we’ve got happiness all wrong. Instead of trying harder we should just drop trying to be happy all together. It’s the conditions of happiness we place on ourselves he argues that create a gap in our ability to be happy.
Rethink finding satisfaction at work
In The Song of Significance, Seth Godin highlights a major problem in today’s workplaces: the lack of meaningful and significant work. He offers a clear path to help individuals and organisations rediscover purpose and create work that truly matters.
How to outsmart work overload and bring back creativity
This week I learned how smart people can easily fall into the trap of over relying on their experience to solve problems when pressed for time, instead of remaining open to new and better ideas.
Using a cue and a simple thinking hack can help smart people outsmart this problem.
How to live longer with stress as your friend
In a study of 30,000 people over eight years in the United States, researchers found that people who experienced very high levels of stress in the previous year had a 43% increased chance of dying. But only if they believed stress was bad for them.
How ‘focused distraction’ leads to greater creativity
The key to maintaining productivity when you need to access your creativity isn’t taking days off, it’s building in focused distractions argues Michael Roberto in his book Unlocking Creativity. Small shifts in perspective, environment and activity quickly recharge the mind and overcome the inevitable brain lag that comes from creative overuse.
How to reframe difficult conversations into learning conversations
It’s common to be wary of having difficult conversations. Particularly where the stakes of them going wrong are high. The solution is to turn them into learning conversations instead of inquisitions. This article shows you how.
How innovation is easier when you think in new boxes
This week Luc de Brabandere helps me understand why we can’t think outside the box, we have to create entirely new ones to innovate.
Why anxiety and innovation must coexist
In less than five years, 70% of our workforce will be made up of Gen Z and Millennials. According to Deloitte they suffer significant levels of stress and anxiety which will impact how innovation and complex problems are solved in the future. This article provides three strategies to support the mental health of our younger generation and create conditions to enable innovation and complex problem solving.
Become a better procrastinator to boost your productivity
Oliver Burkeman points out in his book Four Thousand Weeks, we are becoming overly obsessed with mastering something we will never be able to achieve. That is, we'll never be able to accomplish everything we’d like to in the time we’re alive. To accomplish more in the time we have, he argues, we should aim to become better procrastinators. This article shares how you can do that.