The World's Best Book Summaries
What is the key to getting people to onboard with an idea? How do communicate an idea in such a way that gets people to not only listen to it, but act on it? If you want people to hear your idea and act on it, show them how they will benefit. Ultimately, you can use this appeal to self-interest to get them to care about something else. Continue reading to learn how to make your message stick with an appeal to self-interest.
Can you think of a rare event—that happened either in history or in your personal life? Looking back, how likely is it to it happen again? More generally, do you think people under- or overestimate the likelihood of rare events? Rare events happen infrequently enough that we sometimes are lulled into believing they’re rarer than they actually are so that when they do happen, we are more surprised than we should be. According to Nassim Taleb, the author of Fooled by Randomness, people tend underestimate the likelihood of rare events for these reasons: 1) we don’t properly interpret the past,
What exactly is learning comprehension? What role does comprehension play in learning? Is there anything you can do to comprehend and absorb new knowledge faster and more effectively? In the context of learning, comprehension refers to gaining a deep understanding of the underlying principles in order to understand how they apply to different situations. There are two steps to improving your comprehension of the learning material: 1) rule learning and 2) structure building. Learn more about how you can put them to use to help you learn and study more effectively.
What is the relationship between religion and mental illness? Is a belief in God a sign of psychopathology? Psychiatrist M. Scott Peck explores the connection between religion and mental illness in his book The Road Less Traveled. Examining the stories of two different women—one a theist and the other an atheist—Peck determines that dogmatism, rather than particular beliefs, is a more likely cause of psychopathology. Read more to learn about the connection between religion and mental illness.
What’s a personal religion? Do you have one? Whether you realize it or not, you have a personal religion—also known as a worldview. It’s your perception of the world and your relationship to it. You might be hanging on to an inherited worldview that doesn’t reflect reality, causing dissonance in your life. You could benefit from understanding how worldview works—and how to revise your own. Read more to learn about personal religion.
How do you measure intelligence? Do you think it’s possible to come up with an objective and all-encompassing metric of intelligence? If the purpose of learning is to move through life more effectively, the measure of your intelligence should be how well you navigate each day. But, for many reasons, people want a way to quantify cumulative intelligence. There are several models of intelligence that people have developed to understand this. Read more about the most famous and influential models of intelligence and how they compare.
Can you train yourself to embrace uncertainty about your beliefs? How could it make you a better believer? The idea of embracing uncertainty about what you believe can sound scary and even unwise. However, uncertainty can actually make you a better believer. You can learn strategies to leverage uncertainty and cultivate a healthier relationship with your beliefs. Read more to learn how and why to embrace uncertainty.
What is survivorship bias? How does this bias cause us to overestimate the likelihood of success? Survivorship bias is the tendency to mistake the “surviving ” or successful sample as representative of the entire group. This bias causes people to see examples of enormous success as representative of the kind of success any person can expect in that venture or endeavor. For example, people see a fabulously wealthy stockbroker and think, “Trading is very profitable.” Or they see a bestselling author and think, “Writing is a great way to get rich.” In this article, we’ll look at how survivorship bias
Is your emotional side stronger than your rational side? How can you leverage your emotional energy to make positive changes? Your emotional side is usually to blame when changes fail. However, your emotional side is stronger than your rational side. If you learn to harness your emotional energy, it can be a major force for positive change. Keep reading to learn how to get your emotional energy moving in the right direction.
Do you have an idea in mind? What is the core message behind your idea? If you have an idea to communicate, you want it to be sticky: you want people to understand it, remember it, and pass it on. The key to doing this is twofold: identifying your core message and making it compelling. Here is how you can distill the core message of your idea and make it stick.