Writing can make you happier, healthier, more resilient, more grateful, and a better communicator… Let's look at the science-based benefits of writing. | Continue reading
I always cry at least once when on a long-haul flight. It happens to me even when the movie I’m watching is not particularly sad. And apparently, I’m not the only one experiencing this strange phenomenon. As someone who travels quite a lot, I became curious about the science behi … | Continue reading
I hit an important milestone this week. About 100,000 people have read the writings on this website. I couldn’t hope for that kind of scale when I decided to write one article every weekday. It’s a pretty exciting thought to have thousands of people engaging with ideas coming str … | Continue reading
Second-level thinking is deliberate: it's about using mental models and probability systems to determine the most favourable decision. | Continue reading
Despite external evidence of their competence, people experiencing impostor syndrome will remain convinced that they do not deserve their success. | Continue reading
FOBO, or fear of a better option, means considering all the possible options for fear that you will miss out on the best one. It often leads to indecision. | Continue reading
Most of us have goals we want to accomplish. Some are bigger, some are smaller. Sometimes it feels easy to get the work done, and sometimes it’s hard to stay motivated and we procrastinate. Fundamentally motivation is the desire to act and move towards a specific goal. It often e … | Continue reading
Everyone has heard about absenteeism, a pattern of absence from an obligation, usually at work, which is often a sign of low morale. Much has been written about the cost of absenteeism, with some journalists calling it The Bottom-Line Killer. For entrepreneurs who don’t have a bo … | Continue reading
In my article about neuromyths, I debunked the commonly-held belief that IQ tests results only represent your ability to take IQ tests. In reality—and despite their flaws—IQ tests are predictive of many things. And, in particular, IQ tests can help predict your chances of dying. … | Continue reading
A short talk by Anne-Laure Le cunff about the benefits of writing for makers, given at Backed VC during a mental gym session. | Continue reading
In life, vanity metrics are those shiny medals we collect to make ourselves look good to others, such as job titles, impressive companies, or awards. | Continue reading
While I try to dedicate as much time as possible to reading books and sharing moments with the people I love, I also do enjoy a lazy evening in front of Netflix. I often have conversations about the best shows to watch. Here is an intentionally short list of stuff I’ve recently w … | Continue reading
Environmental psychology focuses on the interplay between people and their surroundings. Let's apply it to something we can control: our bedside table. | Continue reading
The science of decision making can help us understand the process we use to identify and choose alternatives and to produce a final choice. | Continue reading
Building a writing habit is the best thing you can do for your personal growth. See how writing can be incorporated at every step of the mindframing method. | Continue reading
Speed reading promises to help anyone read at speeds of above 1000 words per minute. Sounds fantastic. The problem? It’s completely bogus. | Continue reading
The self-actualisation economy will turn the Maslow's hierarchy of needs upside down, with most of our energy, time, and money spent on improving ourselves. | Continue reading
The Feynman Technique, named after the Nobel prize winning scientist Richard Feynman, is based on the powerful concept of learning by teaching. | Continue reading
JOMO—the joy of missing out—is a way to live an intentional life. It’s realising that FOMO is distracting you from your life’s purpose. | Continue reading
People agree on the benefits of reading books. Why do some people recall everything while others, not so much? How can you better remember what you read? | Continue reading
By asking good questions, your conversations will be more productive and more enjoyable. You will be able to get better ideas and cultivate your curiosity. | Continue reading
What is urgent is often different from what is important. Here are time management techniques to make the most of your day and achieve your goals. | Continue reading
We humans don’t like to stay idle. Even if it means falling to the illusion of productivity. How can we get off the hamster wheel? | Continue reading
Loneliness and solitude are not the same thing. Loneliness produces a feeling of desolation. In contrast, solitude can be a mindful practice. | Continue reading
I absolutely love reading. Fiction, non-fiction, poems, blogs, newspapers, magazines. Unfortunately, in today’s world, we spend less time reading and more time browsing—scrolling through Tweets, liking Instagram posts. It’s a shame, because reading offers many benefits that are b … | Continue reading
Nowadays, when we want to remember something, we mostly use our phone to take a quick note, create a reminder, message ourselves on Slack, or just add it to our calendar. Granted, having a good memory may not be as useful as it used to be, but there’s lots of research showing tha … | Continue reading
I have always struggled with a thought: it’s too late. Too late to publish a book, to start a company, to learn a new language. This is called time anxiety. | Continue reading
Most people want to be happy. Some have lost the will to live, but the majority of human beings are engaged—consciously or unconsciously—in actions designed to improve their levels of happiness. Sometimes, these actions can have the opposite effect, or can make us happy in the sh … | Continue reading
You don’t need to be an athlete to benefit from the flow state. These 5 steps can help you stay relaxed and focused so you can do your best work. | Continue reading
Do you feel like you can remember things better when you actively engage with the information and create your own version of it? That’s called the Generation Effect. In a research paper published in 1978 in the Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, scientists described … | Continue reading
According to Marty McFly in the classic 1985 movie Back to the Future, “If you put your mind to it, you can accomplish anything.” Now that we live in the future, in a world where there is more information available at your fingertips than you could ever consume, at a time where i … | Continue reading
Multitasking has its cost. Learn how to improve your productivity and work better with your team by using mindful context switching. | Continue reading
Have you ever had a great idea while engaged in a totally unrelated activity? That’s actually a fairly common phenomenon. Our brain tends to make interesting connections when not focused on performing a specific task. This is why we have shower thoughts. But to get quality creati … | Continue reading
While note-taking feels natural to students, this is something many people stop doing once they start working, either as an employee or for themselves. We may bookmark something to read it later, but the active process of taking notes when consuming content is not a common habit. … | Continue reading
Not sleeping enought comes at a huge cost to productivity and creativity. So how can you make sure you get enough sleep and sleep better? | Continue reading
Creativity seems like such a fuzzy topic. What does the science say? How can we be more creative and effectively brainstorm new ideas? | Continue reading
Both habits and routines are repeated actions, but habits happen with little or no conscious thought, whereas routines require a higher degree of effort. | Continue reading
Approach your fear of failure by thinking like a kid. Children experiment just for the sake of it. Keep an open mind, and cultivate your curiosity. | Continue reading
It’s common to see progress as linear. When thinking about success, many people imagine a ladder or stairs going up. To progress, you need to climb each step one by one and get closer to the top. Linear model: A then B then C then D. Circular model: A feeds B feeds C, which in … | Continue reading
Procrastination finds its roots in our biology. It’s the result of a constant battle in our brain between the limbic system and the prefrontal cortex. | Continue reading
Mental models affect how we see problems and people. Depending on how you use them, mental models can be incredibly constructive or destructive. | Continue reading
Children have an incredibly inquisitive mind. “Why?” they keep asking. But it seems that as adults we tend to fall into fixed and convenient cognitive patterns. | Continue reading
Our culture loves experts. Whether athletes, chefs, or musicians, some of the biggest celebrities are considered masters of their craft, and we admire the long hours they put into practicing over and over again the same skills so they could become second nature. In 2008, Malcolm … | Continue reading
We spend years of our lives attending school, but there are many life skills missing from the typical curriculum. Critical thinking, constructive conversations, handling money, business writing, time management, and self-care are just but a few. Another skill we don’t spend enoug … | Continue reading
At this point, most people are aware of the benefits of physical exercise. It doesn’t mean we actually act on it—$1.8 billion spent on unused gym memberships in the U.S. only—but we do know physical activity is good for us. What about mental exercise? Shouldn’t we train our brain … | Continue reading
Yesterday evening, Elon Musk gave the first public presentation about Neuralink, a company he founded in 2017 to build brain-computer interfaces. While most of the research in that field has been focused on restoring functionality lost due to paralysis, Elon targets healthy and a … | Continue reading
“What do you want to be when you grow up?” This is almost an automatic question adults ask when chatting with a kid. Maybe it’s a way to connect through a topic that speaks to us, or because it’s often endearing to hear their answers. But why do we insist so much on kids having … | Continue reading
“I’ve decided to take it a bit easy this year too, and relax more and focus on personal growth rather than career.” This is from an email I received this morning in response to my newsletter, where I mentioned that I wanted to slow down and focus on a few core aspects of my life, … | Continue reading