Digital Gems

What's going on with men?

article on charges by statisticians and others that draft lottery was not truly random; Capt W S Pascoe, chief of pub information for Selective Service System, describes preparation and conduct of lottery; graph shows avg lottery number for men born in each mo

The lack of mental health professionals in insurer networks can make it difficult for Americans to access counseling or other behavioral care.

It’s beaches and water (and sometimes snow), according to a study that analyzed median list prices in every state.

Long-distance moves are becoming more common, but they remain the exception. For most, international migration still means crossing a nearby border, not an ocean.

Wealth was turbocharged by the pandemic but careers were not.

Entrepreneurship has increased since the pandemic, accounting for the bulk of job growth.

Since 1992, people have spent more in December than any other month. In 2023, it was around $1,750 per person.

The evidence is piling up....

With the end of enhanced premium tax credits on the horizon, millions are at risk of losing health insurance, especially those living in states that haven’t expanded Medicaid eligibility.

Read online, download a free PDF, or order a copy in print.

It’s easy to stay calm when things are under control. But, sometimes, life happens. A deadline is moved up. Your train is canceled. Your luggage gets lost. Then, your heartbeat goes faster. You can feel the tension in your muscles. Your breathing accelerates. That’s it: You’re stressed. Psychologists often say that our freedom lies in the gap between stimulus and response (this quote is often misattributed to Viktor Frankl). Although you cannot control many of the external events that impact your life, that liminal space offers an opportunity to choose how you react to negative triggers and to regulate your emotions. 1. Identify the emotion When we’re stressed because of external factors, this can translate into anger, disappointment, or resentment. The first step is to pinpoint exactly what emotional state you’re in and to remind yourself that this is just a state, which means that you have the power to alter it. Neuroscientist Antonio Damasio explains how the relationship between the body and the mind shapes our conscious experience. More specifically, what we identify as emotions are just patterns in our body, such as our rate of breathing, our blood flow, or constriction in our gut. By becoming aware of these patterns, a skill called interoceptive awareness, we can gain back control over the corresponding emotions. It’s easier than it sounds to get started. Here are the five main categories of negative emotions: Anxiety: worry, fear, nervosity, panic, etc. Anger: irritation, frustration, rage, etc. Guilt: culpability, remorse, etc. Sadness: despair, hopelessness, etc. Shame: embarrassment, humiliation, etc. Try and find the closest word possible to describe how you feel. This is not about judging the emotion. You are just putting a label on it to illuminate the relationship between your body and your mind. Once you found the right word, move onto the next step. 2. Analyze the emotional trigger While the trigger may seem obvious at first glance. Maybe someone was rude to you or canceled on you last minute. Still, it is crucial to take the time to go deeper and understand the underlying mechanics that connect the trigger to the negative emotion. You need to approach this step from a place of genuine curiosity. Be honest with yourself. What are the things you feel you are not getting? What is the need that isn’t met? Organizational psychologist Dr. Marcia Reynolds created a list of the most common unmet needs, which can be a great place to start. Do you need… Acceptance Attention Autonomy Balance Being in control Being liked Being needed Being right Being treated fairly Being understood Being valued Comfort Consistency Feel included Freedom Fun Independence Love New challenges Order Peacefulness Predictability Respect Safety Dr. Reynolds recommends choosing three unmet needs from this list. These unmet needs, when combined together, form an equation which results in your negative emotional trigger. For instance, let’s say that your client suddenly moved up a deadline without consulting with you. Your equation could look something like this: trigger = lack of consistency + respect + feeling included Or, if you’ve been suddenly asked to deliver a big presentation without much time to prepare, it could look like this: trigger = lack of predictability + peacefulness + being in control Think about a recent stressful experience, and see if you can come up with your equation for this specific event. 3. Shift your emotional state Now that you’ve recognised your emotional state and analyzed the trigger, you can actively shift your emotional state. Remember the gap between stimulus and response? This step is about choosing to feel something different. Depending on where you are, you can use one of the following exercises to effectively change your mood: Walking meditation. Find a quiet place with enough room to walk around — a place as small as 10 by 10 feet / 3 by 3 meters is enough — and start to walk slowly while letting go of the emotions attached to the negative trigger. Focus on the sensations of standing and the movements that keep your balance. Conscious breathing. Breath to relax your body and clear your mind, developing a soft awareness of your breath as it moves in and out of your body. To replace the negative emotional trigger with something positive, it can be helpful to focus on one word which represents how you want to feel, and to keep breathing in and out while visualizing the word. Gratitude practice: Gratitude has many benefits, including a positive impact on relationships, work performance, and even physical health. Think about three things you’re grateful for and write them down in your notes or your journal. As always, there’s no quick hack that applies to everyone. Just like a scientist, try different techniques and see which ones work best for you. It may sound cheesy, but it does boil down to one belief: that even though you’re not in control of these stressful external events, you can regulate your emotions. Even if you don’t apply the exact techniques outlined above, this belief is in itself powerful enough to help you manage those negative triggers. Note: A previous version of this article suggested power posing as a technique to manage negative emotional triggers, but a later study found that power posing doesn’t work. This is a good reminder that strategies based on the latest science can be later debunked. The post How to deal with negative emotional triggers appeared first on Ness Labs.

As we step into the new year, Ness Labs proudly presents a curated selection of January’s most thought-provoking books. This collection, spanning diverse themes from emotions to imagination and embodied living, have been carefully chosen to spark new insights and foster personal growth. They are hopefully gateways to understanding the subtle complexities of your inner lives and the world around you. Enjoy our January selection! Awe In this groundbreaking exploration into the elusive emotion of awe, Dacher Keltner offers a novel perspective on how this profound feeling shapes our lives and societies. An expert in the science of emotions and consultant to Pixar’s Inside Out, Keltner delves deep into the history and science of awe, blending his extensive research with personal anecdotes. The book masterfully illustrates how awe transcends our basic understanding, transforming our brains, bodies, and communities. The narrative is engaging and enlightening, presenting awe not just as an emotion, but as a fundamental human experience that fosters cooperation, cultural development, and a collective identity. This book will resonate with anyone seeking to comprehend the complexities of human emotions, and is a compelling read for those interested in psychology, sociology, and the innate human capacity for wonder, offering practical insights into harnessing the power of awe to enrich our lives and societies. Practices for Embodied Living Hillary McBride’s latest book is a concise yet profound guide that offers an array of practical exercises for people aiming to deepen their connection with their bodies and emotions. This book is a great companion to her previous work, The Wisdom of Your Body, with a wealth of prompts, activities, and reflections, making it an invaluable resource for those grappling with body image issues, trauma, or seeking deeper self-awareness. Its accessibility could extend its application beyond personal use to professionals in therapeutic fields, providing a versatile tool for healing and growth. The book’s layout, with its beautiful illustrations and quotes, further elevates the reading experience, making it not just informative but visually engaging. Overall, Practices for Embodied Living is a transformative guide for anyone on a journey towards more embodied living. Transient and Strange An extraordinary debut from NPR science correspondent Nell Greenfieldboyce, Transient and Strange is a captivating blend of scientific and personal narrative. In this collection of essays, Greenfieldboyce masterfully intertwines her experiences in motherhood and marriage with a deep reverence for the natural world, exploring the intimate ways in which science intersects with our daily lives. Her stories range from the big adventures, like reporting from a space shuttle, to the small touching moments, such as using the science of tornadoes to address her children’s anxieties. Greenfieldboyce’s writing is both emotionally raw and intellectually stimulating, grappling with life’s dualities—birth and death, love and aging, memory and doubt—while maintaining a sense of wonder about the universe, reflecting on the natural world’s marvels from micrometeorites to black holes. This is more than just a science book; it’s a poignant exploration of the human condition through the lens of science, beautifully capturing the ache and awe of ordinary life. The 5 Resets Dr. Aditi Nerurkar’s book presents a transformative approach to managing stress and burnout, challenging the common perception of stress as inherently negative. Her perspective, backed by extensive clinical experience and research, suggests that stress, in its healthy form, is vital for tackling life’s challenges but becomes detrimental when misaligned with our life’s priorities and natural rhythms. The book introduces five powerful mindset shifts to recalibrate stress levels: getting clear on priorities, finding quietness, synchronizing brain and body, taking breaks, and bringing your best self forward. These resets are complemented by fifteen practical techniques aimed at introducing sustainable changes in small, manageable steps. Dr. Nerurkar’s insights debunk myths such as the effectiveness of multitasking and propose time-efficient, cost-free solutions suitable for anyone’s lifestyle. Beying managing stress, the book offers to fundamentally change our relationship with it, offering a path to a more balanced and calmer life. The Imagination Matrix This book by Professor Stephen Aizenstat is an inspiring guide that offers to unlock the vast potential of human imagination to address the complex challenges of today’s world. The Imagination Matrix describes a step-by-step process designed to tap into your creativity with a blend of guided exercises and meditative practices aimed at dismantling mental barriers and habitual patterns that constrain our creative and problem-solving abilities. By helping you go below the superficial layers of everyday life to tap into your inner experiences, the method is particularly helpful for those who feel overwhelmed, allowing them to reconnect with their creative self so they can harness their creativity and in turn meaningfully contribute to our collective intelligence. Do you have any books to recommend for the Ness Labs Best Books series? Please let us know via the contact form. We welcome self-recommendations. The post Ness Labs Best Books of January 2024 appeared first on Ness Labs.

FEATURED TOOL Welcome to this edition of our Tools for Thought series, where we interview founders on a mission to help people make the most of their minds. Jakob Storjohann is the CEO and founder of Ideamap, which is part of Ideanote. Ideamap is a visual workspace for brainstorming where teams collaborate on ideas and use AI to boost their creativity. In this interview, we talked about the relationship between AI and creativity, how to foster collaborative creativity, the integration of AI with human ingenuity in brainstorming, the role of AI in organizing ideas, the importance of high-quality feedback in the creative process, and much more. Enjoy the read! Hi Jakob, thanks for agreeing to this interview! What inspired you to help people brainstorm better? Honestly, it all started because seeing ideas lost in the slog of old, inefficient systems was painful. Our co-founders, the Mehlsen twins, experienced too many brilliant thoughts getting stuck in bureaucracy. So, it started from the perspective of wanting to make ideas matter. And Excel sheets were not the answer. That really led us to try to make working with ideas so simple that we could democratize both the tools and the knowledge of how to innovate. We’ve now built Ideanote, an ultra-efficient idea management platform for businesses of all sizes. We enjoy working with ideas – and everyone we meet likes ideas – but only if we make working with them simple and time-saving enough. Only then can more of them matter across the board. For that one big brand, government agencies, and even your team. We invested early in making AI a part of Ideanote, but at some point, I just had to call it off and say, listen, I don’t know where the AI will lead us. We need a place for experimentation. So we took our time, and what became our AI Brainstorming experiment is now called Ideamap.  This is exciting. How do you think AI can support creativity? It’s one of the most surprising twists isn’t it? If you try to travel back five years and talk about AI, most people said: Sure AI can automation can take menial tasks, but they can’t be creative. Turns out that’s literally what they’re best at. ChatGPT can’t be sure of its facts, but with the right instructions, it can draw on inspiration from, well, anywhere from Napoleon to Platypus to Non-Newtonian fluids. And what is really setting fire to creativity if not inspiration and diverse thought? Sure, AI has a bias, just as our knowledge has, but the sheer breadth and depth of knowledge can inspire anything from a brainstorming session about the next location for your local soccer tournament to new ways of curing diseases. We see AI as a friendly buddy, a sidekick that can help you be a brainstorming partner, and that’s also how we’ve designed Ideamap. How does Ideamap help ideas and AI come together? Ideamap is a cutting-edge tool where AI and human creativity kind of reinvent brainstorming. It stands out by providing a visually engaging and structured space that prompts creative collaboration for teams and even if you are alone, trying to come up with ideas. Here, AI doesn’t just mimic humans, you could say it elevates it: with instant idea generation, automatic idea categorization, AI Actions and interactive AI Copilot. It’s AI from the ground up. It’s very much designed to be a massive time-saver across the board. From ice-breakers at the beginning to not having to sift through ideas by your own to sort them to visualizing them or summarizing them en masse. On top of that it is focused on brainstorming sessions. So, facilitating advanced idea rating sessions like a dot matrix or elo rating is one click. Summarizing the brainstorming session is one click. Templates like SCAMPER or the Disney Method are also just one click away for all of your ideas. You can think of it as an endless canvas where your team’s creativity is amplified by AI co-pilots, who not only generate fresh concepts but also organize and refine them. It’s a brainstorming sidekick for your team. You also have developed some inbuilt AI tools to help people brainstorm faster. Yes! The platform comes with a ton of super useful templates and AI Actions and copilots but it gives you all the power to create your own ways of working with ideas. So, if you’re a Content Marketer you can create a brainstorming workflow with 3 custom AI Actions that let’s you generate 5 Pillar Articles, then 3 Sub-Articles and 5 Headlines per Article in one visual canvas. Or, when working with AI Copilots you can make your buyer personas into copilots and let them give feedback on your ideas organically. Another important part of brainstorming is high-quality feedback. Absolutely. I think sometimes we’re all faced with the fact that we are a little afraid of feedback. We’ve built something nice or we’re thinking in one direction and we’re wondering, does this hold up? With only our own perspective it can sometimes be hard to brainstorm. It’s just not natural to keep being your own devils’ advocate or hype man or fact checker. We can’t have that many hats on. But AI can. So if you have a mindmap of ideas laid out in Ideamap you can invite Grumpy Gus, our grumpiest copilot and really see things from a different perspective without having to do 4D chess with yourself when brainstorming.  How does Ideamap facilitate collaborative creativity? Ideamap is all about boosting creative collaboration, especially for remote teams. We understand that distance can sometimes dampen the brainstorming spark, so we’ve crafted a real-time, infinite canvas where teams can come together no matter where they’re located. Teams can now work side-by-side on the same digital whiteboard, adding, refining, and developing ideas as they flow. Real-time collaboration means no lag, no lost ideas, just seamless exchange and building on each other’s creativity. For structured sessions, Ideamap’s facilitation features help you turn ideation sessions more actionable. When it’s time to make decisions, the voting system simplifies prioritizing ideas, making it faster to identify the gems. Plus, automatic summaries make ideation sessions more actionable, faster. In short, Ideamap brings the energy of in-person ideation sessions to remote teams, ensuring that distance doesn’t hinder creativity but rather opens up a world of collaborative potential. The problem with many brainstorming tools is that you can find yourself locked into the tool. Ideamap is designed with the philosophy that your ideas should never be captive to a single platform. We understand that collaboration and implementation often span across different tools and environments. You can easily share your brainstorming sessions with anyone using shareable links or embed them directly onto websites. For those who work within other productivity suites, Ideamap offers smooth integrations, like with Microsoft Teams, so that you can incorporate brainstorming into your existing workflow without missing a beat. Importing from and exporting to other applications is a snap. You can pull in existing data with a simple CSV import to jumpstart your sessions with pre-existing insights. Conversely, when you’re ready to take your ideas to the next stage, exporting is just as effortless—be it as a CSV for data crunching, an XLSX for further analysis, or into presentation formats to share your vision with stakeholders. By ensuring Ideamap fits intuitively into your broader toolkit, ideas are free to move and evolve beyond the brainstorming phase, fully realizing their potential wherever they’re needed. What kind of people use Ideamap? It’s really useful for freelancers, consultants, students and solo entrepreneurs that might not have a team to rely on for playful diversity of thought. A sounding board if you will. But it is equally lifting up the productivity of brainstorming sessions for your typical product team that wants maximum creativity during product strategy planning. Every role and every team really brainstorms. Ideamap just comes with inbuilt AI templates and facilitation tools that speed the whole process up.  What about you, how do you use Ideamap? We’ve even realized ourselves that we have changed the way we brainstorm as we were developing Ideamap: turns out it’s much faster to let AI generate some topics and ideas just to get everything kickstarted. Way less awkward and way faster. So, boom, generate ice-breakers, generate topics, generate three ideas per topic in 10 seconds, and suddenly, we have a more neutral ground on which we can start talking about opinions, feelings, and ideas. It kickstarts the whole process and lets the ideas flow. The challenge generator that helps us create “how-might-we” type questions has also been a source of inspiration in terms of what challenges we could address. How do you recommend someone get started? Getting started with Ideamap is straightforward and rewarding from the get-go. First, sign up for a free account on our website. You’ll instantly gain access to your own workspace. From there, AI will already generate some brainstorming “rooms” with topics that match your business or interests. A quick way to experience the magic is to step into one of those rooms and just generate about 20 ideas and then hit “AI Group into Topics.” You’ll experience those aha moments as you see ideas being generated and automatically categorized into topics before your eyes. Clicking on the idea to let AI visualize it is another one of those experiences. Next up is inviting your team via a shareable link. Just click share and post that link to your work chat and let people join anonymously in a second so they and the Copilot can all build at the same time. Real-time. Then, try out the comparative voting. Click the facilitation button, then choose from the voting options. We’ve put some work into making it nearly a game-like experience. Ideamap is very visual and clean. For now, people descr...

Welcome to this edition of our Tools for Thought series, where we interview founders on a mission to help us make the most of our mind. Vladimir Oane is the co-founder of Deepstash, an app for building your personal knowledge library, helping you become more inspired and productive through bite-sized ideas curated by a community of smart people like you. In our previous interview, we discussed the nature of ideas and how curation is an act of creation. In this interview, we further explored these topics, and also talked about multiplayer knowledge management, how to combine organization and discovery, the power of ideas to spark conversations, and much more. Enjoy the read! Hi Vladimir, thanks for agreeing to a follow-up interview! Deepstash has grown a lot since we last spoke. Before we get into all the exciting changes, can you remind our readers of Deepstash’s core mission? Delighted to be back. Deepstash is like a sneaky ninja of knowledge. It looks like a regular social media app, but instead of boring news and fake influencer posts, you’ll find amazing insights from books, articles, and podcasts. It’s like a fresh breath of air, keeping you away from the endless scroll of doom and instead filling your mind with stuff that will actually help you grow. For most, Deepstash is like a healthier alternative to social media. For the pro knowledge junkies, it’s like a secret weapon that lets you capture and share the best stuff you’ve learned, turning you into a personal knowledge hub. Is there such a thing as having too many ideas? Yes. I’m one of those unlucky folks who’s constantly plagued by a never-ending stream of ideas. It manifests by never-ending curiosity and involuntary propensity to boil the ocean by debating any little thing… just for the fun of it. On a regular day you may get bored by all the small talk and non-sense that you are exposed to, but you get labeled as an insensitive know-it-all when you open your mouth. Thank God for platforms like ours where I can share our thoughts with like-minded people. Kidding aside, having too many ideas can sometimes lead to procrastination, especially when you feel like you need more information before taking action. But hey, compared to the anxiety-inducing vortex of social media dopamine hits, I’d say it’s a pretty awesome problem to have. The multiplayer aspect of Deepstash is quite unique in the personal management space. What are some of its challenges and opportunities? Let’s take most note-taking tools (and there are so many cool ones out there). They are so appealing with their promise to act like this second brain for all your precious insights. They get me all excited with their graphs, ontologies, and bi-linking features. So cool. But the reality is that taking good notes and keeping them organized is a whole other beast. Months later, your knowledge base turns into a jumbled mess of poorly written, incomplete notes, and that’s the norm for most of us. Left alone, we’re not the best at this knowledge-gathering game. But what if we start playing it together? That’s where Deepstash comes in. Our secret sauce is our social DNA. Ideas are public by default, easily discoverable, and ready to be shared with like-minded folks. Your published ideas get seen by others who are interested in those topics, and you can even grab ideas from others and add them to your private stash. This social multiplayer element not only makes the whole thing more fun but also acts as the ultimate quality check. Knowing that others will read your ideas is a powerful motivator to write things that are clear, concise, and insightful. That’s awesome for both you as the curator and for the ones who save your work. Specifically, how do you balance keeping ideas organized while still making them discoverable? There’s no need to choose between organization and discovery. When you open Deepstash, you’re automatically in discovery mode, and we’ll show you the ideas we think you’ll love, based on the topics and users you follow. We’re taking the amazing recommendation algorithms from those social media apps that we love to hate for ruining our lives and using them for a good cause. As a bonus, all that metadata we gather for recommendations also makes organization a breeze. You don’t need to create a complex tagging system in Deepstash. You can make your own folders, which we call stashes, but all your saved ideas come with topics and other metadata already attached. If you want to see everything you’ve collected about a specific topic, just tap on it, and voilà! It’s all right there. Deepstash features more than 200,000+ ideas from books, podcasts, and articles. What are some of the most popular types of ideas? Productivity and personal growth ideas are the most popular, but they’re just a tiny fraction of the hundreds of diverse topics we cover, like health, investments, and relationships. The beauty of sharing ideas in this bite-sized form is that they can come from anywhere. We’ve seen a surge of ideas from anime TV shows lately! Who knew there were so many life lessons to be learned from this medium? We were so impressed that we’ve added it to our list of featured categories. Each user can check their own stats and explore their individual preferences with some new visuals we just added to their profiles. A lot of apps keep ideas in a silo which makes it hard to actually use those ideas. To re-use one of my favorite quotes: “Ideas are not true unless shared.” It’s something that smarter people like Jefferson or Feynman have highlighted as well. I think it’s important to spread and discuss knowledge with others. That’s why Deepstash doesn’t keep any content behind a paywall like some summarization or reading apps. We believe that ideas should be free and accessible to everyone. For those interested in taking their experience to the next level, we offer a Pro plan that comes with additional goodies on top of the ideas themselves. You’ll get offline storage, more stashes, and audio playback. And if you’re part of the Nesslabs community, we have a pretty good deal for you to try it out. How do users typically use those ideas? Deepstash isn’t your average “content consumption” experience. Beyond life-changing impact, Deepstashers use the platform to: Spark conversations and spread new ideas: “Hey, did you hear about this mind-blowing concept?” Communicate with clarity and precision: “This groundbreaking idea has three key steps.” Reflect on what they’ve learned and absorbed: “What was the most profound takeaway from this book?” It’s about diving into ideas, sharing them with others, and transforming your life. Our community is buzzing with fresh perspectives, and our members are raving about the transformative power of Deepstash. We have over 100,000 glowing testimonials for proof. What about you, how do you use Deepstash nowadays? As an active Deepstash contributor, I devour books, podcasts, and anything else that sparks my curiosity. I love stashing these gems for future reference and sharing them with the world. I am quite grateful for the newly released AI companions. They help me polish my writing or suggest images that would make them easier to remember and stand out from the pile. My obsession with specific topics often leads me to deep dives into particular fields and I use Deepstash to document and share my findings. I recently wrapped up a phase of intense fascination with René Girard’s ideas and because of Deepstash I can have a thought trail of everything that I consumed on the topic, alongside my favorite insights. I’ve got a few stashes that overflow with practical ideas I constantly refer to. Like my treasure trove of interview questions that come in handy during recruitment drives. Or that ever-evolving list of gamification methods we pull from in our product design meetings. How do you recommend someone get started? Grab our app from the App Store or Google Play and embark on a journey of intellectual growth. Tell us about your passions, the books and podcasts that ignite your curiosity, and the authors who inspire you. We’ll curate a personalized collection of ideas to kickstart your learning adventure. With daily recommendations, we’ll keep your reading streak alive, celebrate your achievements, and ensure you’re always on track to become a smarter, more informed individual. And finally… What’s next for Deepstash? This must be the least original answer so far, but we do have some amazing new AI features, helping you polish your writing, suggest relevant images, and ensure your content stands out from the crowd. With more to come. Outside of that you will see Deepstash becoming more fun. Ideas are to be discussed, trashed, debated. As a “great” man once said: “Why so serious?” Thank you so much for your time, Vladimir! Where can people learn more about Deepstash? Get our app for Apple or Android, visit our website or follow us on: X, LinkedIn or Instagram.  The post The Art of Sharing Ideas with Vladimir Oane, Founder of Deepstash appeared first on Ness Labs.

Imagine two aspiring writers, both with the idea of establishing an online writing presence. The first writer, Alex, sets a fixed goal: they aim to grow their newsletter to 1000 subscribers by the end of the month. Alex has heard that consistency is key, so they choose a topic, decide on a format, block time in his calendar, and get started. To maintain the necessary self-discipline, they use a time tracker and a rigid but reassuring productivity framework. The second writer, Jordan, also recognizes the value of consistency but approaches the challenge in an experimental way. They commit to publishing one article every week, but they explore different formats (listicles versus long-form essays), different times to write (morning versus evening), even different places to work from (at home versus a coffee shop). Along the way, Jordan takes notes about how they feel and how the audience responds. Alex is laser-focused on sticking to their plan. In contrast, Emily focuses on discovering the best approach—the ‘creative ikigai’ that fulfills them while benefiting their audience. Before you keep on reading, take a second to ask yourself: Who do you think will succeed? Who will stick to their project for the longer? And, crucially, who will have the most fun? Our two aspiring writers demonstrate how a simple shift in mindset can radically transform the way you approach your most ambitious aspirations. Leveraging your Curiosity In some rare cases, we know exactly what we ought to do next, and it’s just a matter of doing it. But, most times in life, the path forward is unclear—even when we have the illusion of clarity. For instance, let’s say you want to lose weight. You may think that how to do it is clear enough: reduce your calorie intake and increase your physical activity. But you’re actually missing lots of information that you won’t find packaged in a neat framework. When do you tend to crave sugar the most? What are your emotional triggers that make you turn to food as a coping mechanism? What are the best healthy recipes that you find tasty? The only way to find the answers to these questions is through personal experimentation. And yet, most diet programs advocate rigid meal plans and strict exercise routines. You can find this pattern in all areas of our lives. At school, we choose a field of study and follow a strict curriculum. At work, we set KPIs at the beginning of the year and follow a strategic plan. Even in romantic relationships, we often adhere to traditional dating norms and expectations. We optimize our life for certainty. What if instead, we approached everything and everyone from a place of curiosity? Curiosity is humanity’s superpower. It’s the driving force behind our greatest discoveries. It fuels our imagination and enables us to challenge the status quo. In fact, I’m convinced the secret to happiness is curiosity. You can’t stay anxious or lonely for long when you approach everything and everyone from a place of curiosity. And one of the best ways to inject more curiosity into your life is to turn rigid goals into personal experiments. How to run a personal experiment Just like a scientist who observes the world, formulates hypotheses and tests them, you can run personal experiments to gain profound insights into your own life. By systematically exploring different approaches, challenging your assumptions and biases, and embracing failure as a valuable data point, you can make deliberate decisions and unlock your potential without sticking to a predefined path. It’s like building a laboratory for your personal growth, and it only requires four simple steps inspired by the scientific method. 1. Assess the current situation First, you need to understand where you currently stand. A quick way to do this is to capture field notes for a day or two. Just link an anthropologist, you want to keep a log of your experiences. Whenever you take a break or switch between tasks, write down the time and anything you noticed. This could be your reaction after a conversation, moments of procrastination, or ideas that gave you energy. 2. Formulate a research question Go through your notes and look for patterns. What’s working? What are your stressors and sources of joy? What could be better? Then, just like a scientist, turn these observations into a research question. Observation Question I tend to get more done when I wake up early. Would I be more productive if I woke up earlier? I often procrastinate on logistical tasks. Would I find it helpful to work with a virtual assistant? I always get pumped after an interesting conversation. Would I enjoy hosting a podcast? 3. Test your hypothesis Experiments follow a simple format: one action repeated enough times to collect sufficient data. In contrast with a habit where you’d ideally repeat the action forever, an experiment has a predefined number of trials. For instance, “write four articles in two weeks” or “wake up at 6am everyday for one month” or “review progress with an accountability buddy every Monday morning until the end of March.” A simple experiment will help turn your research question into a testable hypothesis. Then, make a pact with yourself to commit to this experiment. 4. Analyze the results After two weeks, one month, one quarter, or whatever the duration of your experiment, review the outcome. How did it feel? Did you manage to stick to your pact? If not, what got in the way? Reflect on the results without any judgment. Remember that the aim of the experiment is not a fixed notion of success, but instead intentional progress. Running personal experiments will allow you to transform linear goals into growth loops. By breaking free from rigid targets, you will unlock many benefits: Increased adaptability: Personal experiments allow for flexibility, enabling you to adjust your approach depending on changing circumstances and preferences. Systematic innovation: Personal experiments often lead to novel insights that can inspire unexpected solutions. Reduced pressure: Personal experiments reduce the pressure of achieving a predefined outcome, fostering a sense of relaxed adventure. Enhanced decision-making: By trying out different approaches, you can make more informed decisions and avoid pitfalls that rigid goals might overlook. The great thing about personal experiments is that you cannot fail. Any outcome is a source of data. Any result is fuel for self-discovery. Your only ambition is to learn more. So, what is your next experiment? The post The Power of Personal Experiments appeared first on Ness Labs.

New Things Under the Sun is a living literature review; as the state of the academic literature evolves, so do we. This (short) post highlights two recent updates. Subscribe now But before getting into that, a reminder: if you have completed the first year of a PhD in economics or a related field and are interested in innovation, the deadline to apply for the Institute for Progress’ (free) Economics of Ideas, Science, and Innovation Online PhD Short Course is January 9, 2024. More info here. Where Research Happens Counts In our post When research over there isn’t helpful here, Caroline Fry and I looked at a series of examples where the applicability of research findings is geographically localized. In this update, we add discussion of a Job Market Paper by Sergio Puerto (see a list of more innovation job market papers here). After discussing some papers that show policy-makers, doctors, and patients have more trust in research conducted in their home countries, the updated post continues… Lastly, Puerto et al. (2023) documents similar results for agriculture, but looking within one specific country - Costa Rica - rather than across them. Puerto is interested in plant breeding in developing countries, where in many years only a very small number of new and improved plant varieties are released. As implied by our opening to this post, in these countries domestic and international private sector R&D on new plant varieties tends to be low or absent, so that resource-constrained public sector breeding programs are often the primary source of new plant varieties. Breeding of these new varieties happens at experimental research stations. Puerto shows the location of these research stations affects the ultimate levels of adoption of new seeds by Costa Rican farmers. His main experiment randomizes 800 farmers across 118 villages into different experimental conditions. Some groups are given the opportunity to buy a recommended new bean seed variety, recently bred by the experimental research station. Puerto argues this matches a typical year, where the resource-constrained public breeders recommend a single new seed variety for a large group of farmers. But another group in Puerto’s experiment is given that same opportunity, but also asked to plant three different bean varieties on test plots on their farm, and then given the opportunity to buy whichever of those three test varieties they most prefer. The idea here is to approximate the value of much more local information on seed varieties - soil, topography, and climate vary across farmers and can mean different seeds are suited to different conditions. Puerto finds the farther a farm is away from the research station where breeding takes place, the more likely it is that farmers will diverge from the research station recommendation and choose an alternative seed. Specifically, the 25% of farms closest to the research station adopted the recommended seed at essentially the same rate as farmers who did not have an opportunity to test other seeds, while the one quarter farthest away were 26% less likely to pick the recommended seed (the average distance was about 150km). Read the whole post Home Bias in Management Research In our post Geography and what gets researched, Caroline Fry and I looked at evidence that where researchers reside affects their choice of study topic. We’ve now added a discussion of Nagaraj and Yao (2023), which presents new data on management research. The updated post now includes these new paragraphs: Nagaraj and Yao (2023) provide additional evidence on the focus of management research. Their study focuses on the complete set of articles published in six top management science journals and, among other things, they’re interested in seeing how where the authors work affects what they choose to study. They can infer where the authors work from the location of their employer; to estimate the place(s) under study, they look for the city, state, country, and nationality words in the title and abstract. By this method, about 15-25% of articles have some kind of regional focus. That lets us ask - do researchers tend to study where they are? Yes and no. In the figure below, Nagaraj and Yao (2023) focus on the 13 countries that are either among the top ten for researcher locations or research focus. On the vertical axis we have the researcher’s location; on the horizontal axis, the country under study (note articles can have more than one researcher and research topic). For each cell, they take all the authors from a given country and compute the share of their regions mentioned in their articles that go to a particular country. The darker the shading, the larger the share. If the diagonal line is darkest, that would tell us researchers are most likely to study their own countries. From Niagara and Yao (2023) We do see a dark diagonal line, consistent with researchers disproportionately studying their home country. But the most striking pattern on this chart is probably the dark vertical line on the right: everyone studies the United States! But setting aside the USA, Nagaraj and Yao’s work does find management researchers tend to be more likely to study their own countries. Read the whole post Thanks for reading! As always, if you want to chat about this post or innovation in generally, let’s grab a virtual coffee. Send me an email at matt.clancy@openphilanthropy.org and we’ll put something in the calendar.

Whether it’s quitting a job, breaking up with someone, or leaving behind a place, we all have at one point or another to learn the difficult art of letting go. Unfortunately, learning to let go is much harder than holding on. Human beings have a tendency to define themselves through what they own, and so we cling onto past sorrows, bad relationships, and even meaningless goals. We hold grudges, dwell on past mistakes, and attach sentimental meaning to inert objects. This is a lot to carry around — a weight that can impede your ability to explore, create, and reinvent yourself. Fortunately, learning to let go is a science as much as an art. Here are five simple exercises you can practice to let go of some of this weight and start living a lighter, freer life. 1. Letting go of things Let’s start with the most practical level of letting go. Mari Kondo built a huge empire around helping people to declutter their homes by letting go of their old stuff. Why do people find it so hard to let go of these physical things? Sometimes, it’s because they have sentimental value. This sentimental value can stem from past experiences or future expectations. Objects with past sentimental value may include a souvenir from a holiday, a bracelet you were wearing on your first date, a cup your grandmother gave you. Objects with future sentimental value may be a box of craft supplies for when you’ll finally start learning how to paint, a collection of books about architecture you will definitely study at some point, or a set of kettlebells for when you will exercise at home — someday. Letting go of these feels like letting go of a dream. Other times, it’s because we are scared of being wasteful. Either we think we’ll need that thing again, or we feel guilty about the money we spent on it in the first place. This is the sunk cost fallacy rearing its ugly head. A great way to get rid of stuff is to do it progressively. Start with the easy stuff—items such as gadgets you haven’t used in years, old papers without much sentimental value, or, the easiest of all, stuff you don’t even remember what they are or what they’re supposed to be used for. Most of us have tons of these in our houses. Gradually move up your decluttering work towards more sentimental items, asking yourself: “Why do I care about this item?” Often, you will realize that the need behind your sentimental attachment to a particular item can be fulfilled in other ways, such as a gratitude practice around the experience tied to the object, or writing about the memory in your journal. This should not be an extremely painful process. If you do deeply care a lot about some items, keep them. Who cares how tidy your home is? As long as it feels like home, it really is all that matters. 2. Letting go of goals Old goals are an invisible weight we carry around without noticing it. Although they may no longer align with our current aspirations, they persist in our subconscious, influencing our decisions and actions. We often cling to old goals out of an artificial sense of obligation to our younger self. For instance, you may be compelled to stick to a career path that was set due to family expectations. Financial milestones — such as achieving a certain level of wealth or property ownership by a specific age — can put too much pressure on you. The weight of outdated goals may even manifest in areas normally considered as intrinsically good, such as wanting to run a marathon when your health might not allow it or pursuing an advanced degree when your life circumstances make it impractical right now. In many cases, specific goals can limit your learning opportunities. Some of the most interesting discoveries we make are serendipitous. Tinkering, playing, experimenting, trying new things are all intrinsically rewarding activities which don’t need an end goal to bring you enjoyment and intellectual stimulation. Learning to let go of your goals is about keeping space in your life for doing things just for the sake of it, not because it neatly fits into a grander scheme. Simply write down your current goals, and ask yourself: “Why do I care about this goal?” Most goals can be transformed into sustainable systems based on enjoying the process rather than obsessing over the end result. If you want to learn, you can do it without aiming for a specific outcome. If you want recognition, you can get it by consistently showing up rather than racing to get to a finish line. If you want to feel helpful, you can do that by meaningfully connecting with others instead of ticking off checkboxes based on artificial milestones. 3. Letting go of control Everyone can see when a manager micromanages their team, when a colleague always takes the lead in conversations, or when a family member sticks to rigid traditions. It’s a bit harder to notice our own attempts at exerting control over our environment. We might plan every detail of a vacation without leaving room for spontaneity or input from others. In our homes, we might plan our meals in advance and adhere to a strict cleaning schedule. Or we may be so committed to our fitness routine that we neglect to take breaks when we’re unwell. Recognizing these patterns in ourselves is challenging, as they often stem from a deep-seated desire for stability and predictability, making them seem more like necessary habits than controlling behaviors. Most parents will also go through an acute experience of having to let go of control: the terrifying moment where they will need to let their kid explore the world on their own. It starts with their first step and only gets harder with time, until they leave for university or get their first job and move out of the house. Learning to let go of your control can be extremely difficult in this case. To break free of the illusion of control, we need to give control to get control. In practice, it means giving people (your kid, your employees, yourself) the flexibility to play with the rules. It starts by asking yourself: “Why do I care about this rule?” Then, instead of a set of rigid rules akin to a psychological prison, define a playground with key principles that are flexible enough to allow for uncertainty and creativity. For instance: “You must finish all your homework before playing” (rigid rule) can become “Focus on finishing your tasks but remember to make time for fun too” (flexible principle) “Exercise every day for exactly one hour” (rigid rule) can become “Exercise three times a week, adjusting the intensity and duration to match your daily health and energy levels” (flexible principle) “No sweets or junk food ever” (rigid rule) can become “Focus on a balanced diet while allowing yourself the flexibility to enjoy treats in moderation” (flexible principle) Ultimately, letting go of control will allow you to embrace adaptability so you can thrive even when things don’t go to plan. 4. Letting go of people Let’s dial it up a bit. It may sound harsh, but it is sometimes better to let go of certain relationships. Some relationships may not reflect who you are today or people may have evolved in a way that has changed the relationship. Learning to let go of a “legacy relationship” doesn’t have to be negative; it can be an opportunity for personal growth. Ask yourself: “Why do I care about this relationship?” A helpful exercise is writing a letter to the person but not sending it to them. Thank them for everything you learned from the relationship. Allow yourself to experience the whole spectrum of emotions that this exercise might elicit, both positive and negative. Most relationships we care about are complex. Embrace that complexity. Maintain an attitude of forgiveness throughout this exercise. Research suggests that forgiving and wishing someone well is connected to better health. It may be that by going through this process you actually realize the relationship is worth keeping. And if that’s not the case, gently let go, be grateful for the lessons you learned about the world and yourself, and keep the good memories as tokens of a relationship that helped you grow. 5. Letting go of the past We also tend to cling onto memories, especially hurtful ones. That’s because our brains are wired to remember painful experiences more vividly as a survival mechanism and these memories often have strong emotional ties that keep them active in our thoughts. This is supposed to help us avoid similar situations in the future. However, this mechanism can sometimes backfire, leading us to relive the negative emotions associated with these memories repeatedly, which can hinder our emotional well-being and prevent us from moving forward. Letting go of the past is hard because, in some way, it requires letting go of a piece of ourselves. Our experiences form the basis for who we are, and breaking free from the weight of past memories also means reinventing our identity. To start this difficult but rewarding process, ask yourself:  “Why do I care about this memory?” You might believe that remembering the pain will prevent future hurt You might consider this memory to be a key part of your personal story You might have a strong emotional connection to the people in this memory You might be concerned that forgetting may lead you to repeat the same mistakes Answering this question will help you replace the static memory with more generative thoughts. For instance, you could journal about the key lessons to be learned from this memory and how you might avoid making a similar mistake in the future, or you might look for more positive experiences in your life that provide healthier alternatives to reinforce your identity. In summary, here are the five questions you can use to practice the art and science of letting go: Letting go of things: “Why do I care about this item?” Letting go of goals: “Why do I care about this goal?” Letting go of control: “Why do I care about this rule?” Letting...

Despite its small size compared to the rest of the body, the human brain consumes a lot of energy, consuming about 20% of the body’s resources. This energy is vital for maintaining the brain’s complex functions such as thinking, memory, and controlling the body. Neuroenergetics is a specialized area of research that aims to understand how the brain manages this energy. The three pillars of neuroenergetics Neuroenergetics connects brain function with its energy demands. It’s the study of how the brain produces, distributes, and uses energy. You can think of neuroenergetics as studying the brain’s budgeting system, similar to how one might manage a financial budget, prioritizing certain activities and functions. This approach helps us understand how the brain uses its limited energy for maximum benefit. And, just like in financial budgeting, sometimes this energy allocation can go awry, leading to deficits or inefficiencies that might contribute to various neurological or mental health disorders. Neuroenergetics aims to understand both the efficient management and potential mismanagement of the brain’s energy resources. Specifically, researchers investigate: 1. Energy Production: This involves how the brain cells, or neurons, produce energy. Neurons are highly active cells that require a constant supply of energy. This energy is primarily produced through oxidative phosphorylation, a process similar to what happens in other body cells, where glucose and oxygen are used to produce ATP (adenosine triphosphate), the main energy molecule. 2. Energy Distribution: The brain has a unique way of distributing energy. Unlike other cells in the body, neurons have long extensions (axons and dendrites), and they need to transport energy efficiently to these distant parts. Understanding how energy is transported and distributed in neurons is a key aspect of neuroenergetics. 3. Energy Usage: Neurons use energy for various functions, like transmitting signals, maintaining the balance of ions across their membranes, and synthesizing neurotransmitters and other molecules. Neuroenergetics examines how energy is utilized for these critical tasks. Researchers in neuroenergetics also look at how changes in brain energy metabolism can affect health. For example, in conditions like Alzheimer’s disease, the brain’s ability to use glucose is impaired, which affects its function. The ultimate understanding of the brain Neuroenergetics is based on the idea that the deepest understanding of brain activity is achieved when it’s broken down into electrochemical processes. As biophysicist Robert Shulman explains: “We have reached the ultimate in understanding brain activity when it is expressed in its different components of action potentials and energy consumption which are describable in measurable chemical terms of the phenomenon.” Specifically, neuroenergetics is based on key assumptions that drive research questions: The laws of physical science can be applied to biological phenomena, including brain function. The brain’s functions are intrinsically tied to its energy consumption and metabolism. Understanding brain activities involves dissecting these into elementary electrical, chemical, and structural processes. Those assumptions serve as the foundation for questions such as: How does the brain produce and distribute energy, particularly how it metabolizes glucose and oxygen? How are different brain states related to energy consumption? How do changes in energy metabolism affect brain health and function, especially in neurological disorders? What are the electrochemical bases of brain activities traditionally described in psychological terms, such as consciousness and memory? For instance, neuroenergetics approaches consciousness by linking it to observable brain energy levels. It suggests that high global brain energy levels are necessary to maintain a state of consciousness, and that changes in energy levels, such as during anesthesia, sleep, or coma, correlate with changes in consciousness states. This approach provides a more concrete, measurable basis for studying consciousness, focusing on electrochemical processes  in the brain rather than abstract concepts. Another promising area of research is the impact of alcohol consumption on brain energy metabolism. By using a new method for combining measures of brain activity and glucose consumptions, scientists have found that heavy drinking shifts the brain toward less efficient energetic states. Finally, neuroenergetics also studies how brain energy relates to mental health issues. Harvard psychiatrist Dr. Chris Palmer discusses this in his book Brain Energy, where he argues that problems with how the brain uses energy could be linked to many disorders including anxiety, depression, ADHD, alcoholism, eating disorders, bipolar disorder, autism, and schizophrenia. Neuroenergetics is a promising field of research. By focusing on how the brain uses energy, it can provide deeper insights into the workings of the brain and opens up new possibilities for treating mental health disorders and other brain-related conditions. The post Neuroenergetics: The Brain’s Energy Budgeting System appeared first on Ness Labs.