My Unsung Hero: Sanaa Kerroumi's Story

Across every domain of our lives, our minds have a tendency to get accustomed to things. In fact, the brain seems evolutionarily designed to focus on the new and unexpected, on novel threats and opportunities. In our daily lives, this means we take wonderful things for granted. We cease to appreciate amazing people, or the good fortune of being healthy. This week, neuroscientist Tali Sharot explains why we get used to things — and how to see with fresh eyes.

Our podcast subscription, Hidden Brain+, is now available across platforms and devices. You can sign up for a free seven-day trial at support.hiddenbrain.org or apple.co/hiddenbrain. Your subscription provides key support to help us build you many more episodes of Hidden Brain. We’re truly grateful. 

Some think of religious faith as just that: a leap of faith. But psychologists are increasingly filling in the gaps in our understanding of how beliefs shape — and are shaped by — the human mind. This week, psychologist Ara Norenzayan explores features in the brain that are tied to our capacity for faith. And he shows how all of us, both religious and non-religious people, can use this knowledge to find more meaning in our lives.

For more of our reporting on religion and the mind, be sure to check out our episode "Creating God."
 

Have you ever had an unexplainable feeling of emptiness? Life seems perfect - and yet - something is missing. This week, sociologist Corey Keyes helps us understand where feelings of emptiness come from, how to navigate them and why they're more common than we might assume.

If you missed it, make sure to listen to last week's episode on Why Trying Too Hard Can Backfire On You. Thanks for listening!

Thinking is a human superpower. On a daily basis, thinking and planning and effort bring us innumerable benefits. But like all aspects of human behavior, you can sometimes get too much of a good thing. This week, we talk with philosopher Ted Slingerland about techniques to prevent overthinking, and how we can cultivate the under-appreciated skill of letting go. 

To hear more of our conversation with Ted Slingerland, be sure to check out our Hidden Brain+ episode with him, available now. You can join Hidden Brain+ via Patreon or Apple Podcasts. Thanks for listening! 

The human drive to invent new things has led to pathbreaking achievements in medicine, science and society. But our desire to create can keep us from seeing one of the most powerful paths to progress: subtraction. In a favorite conversation from 2022, engineer Leidy Klotz shares how streamlining and simplifying is sometimes the best path to innovation. 

Today's episode concludes our Innovation 2.0 series. If you've enjoyed these episodes, please tell a friend about them! They can find all of the stories in this series in this podcast feed, or at https://hiddenbrain.org/. Thanks for listening! 

Most of us love to brainstorm with colleagues. But so often, our idea-generating sessions don't lead to anything tangible. Teams fill up walls with sticky notes about creative possibilities and suggestions for improvement, but nothing actually gets implemented. Some researchers even have a name for it: "innovation theater." This week, we explore the science of execution. Psychologist Bob Sutton tells us how to move from innovation theater . . . to actual innovation.

You can find all the episodes in our Innovation 2.0 series in this podcast feed, or on our website, hiddenbrain.org. 

Think about the last time you asked someone for something. Maybe you were nervous or worried about what the person would think of you. Chances are that you didn’t stop to think about the pressure you were exerting on that person. This week, we continue our Innovation 2.0 series with a 2020 episode about a phenomenon known as as “egocentric bias.” We talk with psychologist Vanessa Bohns about how this bias leads us astray, and how we can use this knowledge to ask for the things we need. 

Did you catch the first two episodes in our Innovation 2.0 series? You can find them in this podcast feed or on our website. And if you're enjoying this series, please share it with a friend or family member. Thanks! 

Have you ever been in a situation where you felt that people wrote you off? Maybe a teacher suggested you weren't talented enough to take a certain class, or a boss implied that you didn't have the smarts needed to handle a big project. In the latest in our "Innovation 2.0 series," we talk with Mary Murphy, who studies what she calls "cultures of genius." We'll look at how these cultures can keep people and organizations from thriving, and how we can create environments that better foster our growth.

Do you know someone who'd find the ideas in today's episode to be useful? Please share it with them! And if you liked today's conversation, you might also like these classic Hidden Brain episodes: 

 The Edge Effect

The Secret to Great Teams

Dream Jobs

Why is it so hard to guess where we're meant to be? To predict where we'll end up? Nearly all of us have had the experience of traveling down one road, only to realize it's not the road for us. At the University of Virginia, Saras Sarasvathy uses the lens of entrepreneurship to study how we plan and prepare for the future. We kick off our new "Innovation 2.0" series by talking with Saras about how we pursue goals and make decisions.

Do you know someone who might benefit from our conversation with Saras about expert entrepreneurs? Please share it with them if so! And be sure to check out our other conversations about how to get out of ruts and figure out a path forward: 

Who Do You Want to Be?

You 2.0 : How to Break Out of a Rut

If you're a parent or a teacher, you've probably wondered how to balance play and safety for the kids in your care. You don't want to put children in danger, but you also don't want to rob them of the joy of exploration. This week, we talk with psychologist Peter Gray about how this balance has changed — for parents and children alike — and what we can do about it.

For more of our reporting on children and parents, check out these classic Hidden Brain episodes:

Kinder-Gardening

Bringing Up Baby 

The best way to have uncomfortable conversations with family members or friends who don't see the problem or how you perceive them to be part of the problem, and how to avoid finger-pointing so we can have effective discussions rather than arguments. If you find value in these podcast episodes, please show your support through Venmo @TimberHawkeye or with as little as $1 a month through https://Patreon.com/BuddhistBootCamp or a one-time contribution at https://www.buddhistbootcamp.com/support Thank you for being a Soldier of Peace in the Army of Love.

Class on Tuesday April 19! Inspired by Sutra 1.5
We looked at pain and our relationship to it. Then moved through our practice with kindness, the kind of kindness to oneself that comes from an understanding of impermanence, from the pain of losing the things we love, and of deep understanding and knowing that we all suffer and we share in sorrow; that is not ours alone to bear. With that understanding of suffering... the forgiveness and compassion that can shift our relationship to pain... to one with willingness and curiosity instead of judgement and the suffering that comes from resisting it.

In the end, we wrapped ourselves all up inside of blankets, tight ones with a sandbag on the thighs and an eye bag too! Deep sense withdrawal to take us inward with the softness of blankets and being all snuggled in!

Where am I being kind and compassionate in my everyday life? Daniel Fava, a web-designer and online marketing strategist, is confronted by this very relatable question as he joins Gordon for the next conversation on the podcast. In this episode, Daniel explores with Gordon what he learned about kindness and compassion 13 years ago on a trip to India and how he is still applying it today. Listen in for an encouraging reminder that a small act, when done with love, can be the most powerful act of all.  Read More...

kindnessandcompassion.com

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Links & Resources Mentioned

Private Practice Elevation – https://privatepracticeelevation.com/

Daniel Fava on Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/DanielFava/

Youth With A Mission (YWAM) – https://ywam.org/

Book
Discernment: Reading the Signs of Daily Life, by Henri J. M. Nouwen

L’ARCHE – https://www.larche.org/

I want to talk about kindness, I just think it's a topic that could be talked about a bit more often and could be more addressed. A lot of people are stressed out and have challenges dealing with emotions. And that's what's most important to practice: caring, empathy, love, kindness. But that's also the hardest to do. And here's the thing, it's like when it's the holidays, right? So at Christmas, you have family stress. You have finances, presents, sometimes traveling, and that is the most stressful time of year. And exercise is the number one way to reduce stress, but it's also the least amount of time people work out. It's kind of funny, but then we have summer as well. Most people, or a good number of people don't really work out in the summer because they are camping and traveling and spending time with family. So I was just comparing the two like we need to exercise to reduce stress right at the holidays.

It's the same thing right now as a good majority of our population is stressed out for whatever reason. It's an interesting paradigm and how that works because it's like they conflict. And I relate most things to food and exercise because that's what we do. But I mean, it's the same thing at the grocery store, right during the holidays when you should be eating healthier and cleaner because our stress is so high. That's when we go and we buy the pies and pastries and refined sugar, right? 

So we have to kind of flip that around. We have to make better choices. And I think when it comes to understanding anger and frustration, like with friends or family members, it's something that most of us don't practice. It's not something you learn in school, it's not something that you could read books and learn about, but it's not something that we openly work on in practice, and I think that we'd be much better off if we did. But it's really that understanding of trying to put yourself in someone else's shoes, which is challenging, of course, but try to see the situation from someone else's perspective. Usually we have so much tunnel vision. It's all about me. It's like ego. Ego and superego, I think.

Listen to Brady Newby tell his tragic story of the losses to suicide that let him to a life of suicide prevention. His honest and heartbreaking story will touch your heart. He talks about the wisdom his grandmother gave him, "to just love her", as he wrestled with his daughter coming out gay. He is the Founder and President of Kind Like Kamree Foundation, a Utah based 501(c)3 non-profit. Find out the inspiring things they are accomplishing as a Foundation, honoring the memory of his late daughter Kamree. You can't miss this episode!