Think Again

Adam Grant (2021).?Think again: The power of knowing what you don’t know.?Viking: New York

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2?mental fitness … the ability to rethink and unlearn

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3?first-instinct fallacy … students’ … who rethink their first answers rather than staying anchored to them end up improving their scores … recent studies … it’s not so much changing your answer that improves your score as considering whether you should change it

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4?Questioning ourselves makes the world more unpredictable

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4?When it comes to our knowledge and opinions … we tend to stick to our guns … We listen to views that make us feel good, instead of ideas that make us think hard

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4?frog in a pot … this popular story … isn’t true

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7?If you’re a firefighter, dropping your tools doesn’t just require you to unlearn habits and disregard instincts.?Discarding your equipment means admitting failure and shedding part of your identity

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7?the challenge of rethinking assumptions is surprisingly common

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8?This book is about the value of rethinking … It’s also about … encouraging that same agility in others

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10?The senseless deaths of three Black citizens – George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery – left millions of white people realizing that just as sexism is not a women’s issue, racism is not only an issue for people of color … Black Lives Matter

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10?we live in an increasingly divisive time … Calcified ideologies are tearing American culture apart

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10-11 ?My aim in this book is to explore how rethinking happens … how we can encourage other people to think again … how we can create communities of lifelong learners

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11?As early as the 1880s, scientists had begun highlighting the important role that wild fires play in the life cycles of forests

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12?This book is an invitation to let go of knowledge and opinions that are no longer serving you well, and to anchor your sense of self in flexibility rather than consistency … It’s a path to learning more from the people around you and living with fewer regrets

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15?Progress is impossible without change; and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.?– George Bernard Shaw

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16?Mike Lazaridis dreamed up the idea for the BlackBerry … As of the summer of 2009, it accounted for nearly half of the U.S. smart-phone market.?By 2014, its market share had plummeted to less than 1 percent

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16?we live in a rapidly changing world, where we need to spend as much time rethinking as we do thinking.

????Rethinking is a skill set, but it’s also a mindset

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17?The accelerating pace of change means that we need to question our beliefs more readily than ever before

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17?In education … it often takes years for a curriculum to be updated and textbooks to be revised … outdated facts are mental fossils that are best abandoned

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17?[footnote] “blowing smoke up your arse” … 1700s

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18?We’re swift to recognize when other people need to think again … Unfortunately, when it comes to our own knowledge and opinions, we often favor feeling right over being right … We need to develop the habit of forming our own second opinions

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18-19?Two decades ago … Phil Tetlock discovered … we often slip into the mindsets of three different professions: preachers, prosecutors, and politicians … we become so wrapped up in preaching that we’re right, prosecuting others who are wrong, and politicking for support that we don’t bother to rethink our own views

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19-20?If you’re a scientist … rethinking is fundamental … constantly aware of the limits of your understanding … doubt what you know … curious about what you don’t know, and update your views based on new data … being a scientist is … a frame of mind – a mode of thinking that differs from preaching, prosecuting, and politicking.?We move into scientist mode when we’re searching for the truth: we run experiments to test hypotheses and discover knowledge

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21?the best strategists are actually slow and unsure

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24?Mental horsepower doesn’t guarantee mental dexterity … Research reveals that the higher you score on an IQ test, the more likely you are to fall for stereotypes, because you’re faster at recognizing patterns.?And recent experiments suggest that the smarter you are, the more you might struggle to update your beliefs

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24-25?The better you are at crunching numbers, the more spectacularly you fail at analyzing patterns that contradict your views … confirmation bias … desirability bias … can actually contort our intelligence into a weapon against the truth

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25?the “I’m not biased” bias

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25?scientist mode … We don’t start with answers or solutions; we lead with questions and puzzles … It requires searching for reasons why we might be wrong

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26?the purpose of learning isn’t to affirm our beliefs; it’s to evolve our beliefs

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27?Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi … cognitive flexibility

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27?What set great presidents apart was their intellectual curiosity and openness

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27?the process of rethinking … starts with intellectual humility

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28?If knowledge is power, knowing what we don’t know is wisdom.

????Scientific thinking favors humility over pride, doubt over certainty, curiosity over closure

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29?rethinking.?That’s what resurrected Apple from the brink of bankruptcy to become the world’s most valuable company

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31?Research shows that when people are resistant to change, it helps to reinforce what will stay the same.?Visions for change are more compelling when they include visions of continuity. ?Although our strategy might evolve, our identity will endure

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33?Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge. – Charles Darwin

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35?[Gabriel] Anton’s syndrome – a deficit of self-awareness

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37?In theory, confidence and competence go hand in hand.?In practice, they often diverge … In a meta-analysis of ninety-five studies involving over a hundred thousand people, women typically underestimated their leadership skills, while men overestimated their skills

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37-38?The opposite of armchair quarterback syndrome is imposter syndrome, where competence exceeds confidence … They’re genuinely unaware of just how intelligent, creative, or charming they are

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38-39?David Dunning and Justin Kruger … the Dunning-Kruger effect, it’s when we lack competence that we’re most likely to be brimming with overconfidence … people who scored the lowest on tests of logical reasoning, grammar, and sense of humor had the most inflated opinions of their skills … The less intelligent we are in a particular domain, the more we seem to overestimate our actual intelligence in that domain … This tendency matters because it compromises self-awareness

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42?metacognitive skill, the ability to think about our thinking

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44?A bit of knowledge can be a dangerous thing

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45?Iceland … David Oddsson … lacked … humility

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45?“Arrogance is ignorance plus conviction,” blogger Tim Urban explains.?“While humility is a permeable filter that absorbs life experience and converts it into knowledge and wisdom, arrogance is a rubber shield that life experience simply bounces off of.”??

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46?You can be confident in your ability to achieve a goal in the future while maintaining the humility to question whether you have the right tools in the present.?That’s the sweet spot of confidence

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47?What we want is confident humility: having faith in our capability while appreciating that we may not have the right solution or even be addressing the right problem

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48?Confident humility can be taught

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48?students who are willing to revise their beliefs get higher grades than their peers … Instead of just assuming they’ve mastered the material, they quiz themselves to test their understanding

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48?The most effective leaders score high in both confidence and humility

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48?we’re sometimes better off underestimating ourselves

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50?felt like imposters … especially common among women and marginalized groups.?Strangely, it also seems to be particularly pronounced among high achievers

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50?Those who self-identified as imposters … were rated as more empathetic, respectful, and professional, as well as more effective in asking questions and sharing information

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51-52?three benefits of doubt … first … it can motivate us to work harder … Second … can motivate us to work smarter … Third … can make us better learners … Elizabeth Krumrei Mancuso … “Learning requires the humility to realize one has something to learn.” … effective leaders … were more likely to seek out second opinions from colleagues

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53?Halla [Tomasdottir] … instead of prosecuting her opponents, she ran a positive campaign

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53?Knowledge is best sought from experts, but creativity and wisdom can come from anywhere

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54?Iceland’s presidential election … Halla … came in second

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59?Murray Davis argued that when ideas survive, it’s not because they’re true – it’s because they’re interesting

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59?totalitarian ego … its job is to keep out threatening information … protecting our self-image by feeding us comforting lies

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59?Richard Feynman … “You must not fool yourself – and you are the easiest person to fool.”

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60?when our core beliefs are challenged, it can trigger the amygdala, the primitive “lizard brain” that breezes right past cool rationality and activates a hot fight-or-flight response.?The anger and fear are visceral

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60?“Presented with someone else’s argument, we’re quite adept at spotting the weakness,” journalist Elizabeth Kolbert writes, but “the positions we’re blind about are our own.”

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61-62?Daniel Kahneman … he genuinely enjoys discovering that he was wrong, because it means he is now less wrong than before … “Being wrong is the only way I feel sure I’ve learned anything.” … he refuses to let his beliefs become part of his identity

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62?To unlock the joy of being wrong, we need to detach … two kinds of detachment … detaching your present from your past and detaching your opinions from your identity

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63?Ray Dalio … “If you don’t look back at yourself and think, ‘Wow, how stupid I was a year ago,’ then you must not have learned much in the last year.”

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64?Who you are should be a question of what you value, not what you believe

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67?The single most important driver of forecasters’ success was how often they updated their beliefs

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67?Kathryn Schulz … “Although small amounts of evidence are sufficient to make us draw conclusions, they are seldom sufficient to make us revise them.”

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67-68?the best forecasters … saw their opinions more as hunches than as truths

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68-69?Kjirste Morrell … “There’s no benefit to me for being wrong for longer.?It’s much better if I change my beliefs sooner, and it’s a good feeling to have that sense of a discovery, that surprise – I would think people would enjoy that.”

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72?Research suggests that the more frequently we make fun of ourselves, the happier we tend to be

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72?Jean-Pierre Beugoms …?when he makes a forecast, he also makes a list of the conditions in which it should hold true – as well as the conditions under which he would change his mind

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72?[footnote] When men make self-deprecating jokes, they’re seen as more capable leaders, but when women do it, they’re judged as less capable

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73?When you form an opinion, ask yourself what would have to happen to prove it false

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73?Psychologists find that admitting we were wrong doesn’t make us look less competent.?It’s a display of honesty and a willingness to learn … Will Smith … “Taking responsibility is taking your power back.”

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78?Karen “Etty” Jehn … relationship conflict … task conflict … the two types of conflict

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80?A meta-analysis … showed that relationship conflict is generally bad for performance, but some task conflict can be beneficial; it’s been linked to higher creativity and smarter choices … “The absence of conflict is not harmony, it’s apathy.”

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81?Agreeable people tend to be nice.?Friendly.?Polite.?Canadian

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83?The ideal members of a challenge network are disagreeable, because they’re fearless about questioning the ways things have always been done and holding us accountable for thinking again

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84?cultural misfits are most likely to add value when they have strong bonds with their colleagues

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85?too many leaders shield themselves from task conflict … they tune out boat-rockers and listen to bootlickers

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86-87?challenge networks … consider their values along with their personalities – I’m looking for disagreeable people who are givers, not takers.?Disagreeable givers often make the best critics: their intent is to elevate the work, not feed their own egos

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88?good fights … the tension is intellectual, not emotional.?The tone is vigorous and feisty rather than combative or aggressive

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89?when I argue with someone … it’s a sign of respect

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92?a common mistake … we argue about why … We’re more likely to have a good fight if we argue about how

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102?convincing other people to rethink their opinions … a more collaborative approach – one in which we show more humility and curiosity, and invite others to think more like scientists

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104-106?In a negotiation, agreeing with someone else’s argument is disarming … The experts … devoting more than a third of their planning comments to finding common ground … the experts … presented fewer reasons to support their case.?They didn’t want to water down their best points … the average negotiators … lost ground … because of the weakness of their least compelling one … The skilled negotiators rarely went on offense or defense … they expressed curiosity … experts … appeared less assertive … asking

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107?We won’t have much luck changing other people’s minds if we refuse to change ours.?We can demonstrate openness by acknowledging where we agree with our critics and even what we’ve learned from them.?Then, when we ask what views they might be willing to revise, we’re not hypocrites

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108-109?how to improve at finding common ground … he considers the strongest version of their case … careful not to come on too strong

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110?Harish [Natarajan] … “If you have too many arguments, you’ll dilute the power of each and every one,”

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110?the best way to approach a debate … three key factors: how much people care about the issue, how open they are to our particular argument, and how strong-willed they are in general.?If they’re not invested in the issue or they’re receptive to our perspective, more reasons can help

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111?A single line of argument feels like a conversation; multiple lines of argument can become an onslaught

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111?the most convincing source is often the one closest to your audience

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112?We simply asked fans one question: are you planning to attend??Attendance climbed … Psychologists have long found that the person most likely to persuade you to change your mind is you

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115?The more anger and hostility the other person expresses, the more curiosity and interest you show.?When someone is losing control, your tranquility is a sign of strength.?It takes the wind out of their emotional sails

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116?In a heated argument, you can always stop and ask, “What evidence would change your mind?”

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116?focus on understanding and learning rather than arguing and persuading

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117?Research shows that in courtrooms, expert witnesses and deliberating jurors are more credible and more persuasive when they express moderate confidence, rather than high or low confidence

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118?Michele Hansen … “I’m probably not the candidate you’ve been envisioning,” her cover letter began.?“I don’t have a decade of experience as a Product Manager nor am I a Certified Financial Planner.” … But what I do have are skills that can’t be taught.?I take ownership of projects far beyond my pay grade and what is in my defined scope of responsibilities.?I don’t wait for people to tell me what to do and go seek for myself what needs to be done.?I invest myself deeply in my projects and it shows in everything I do, from my projects at work to my projects that I undertake on my own time at night.?I’m entrepreneurial, I get things done, and I know I would make an excellent right hand for the co-founder leading this project.?I love breaking new ground and starting with a blank slate.?(And any of my previous bosses would be able to attest to these traits.)

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118?she asked about experiments they’d run recently that had surprised them … when they were sure they were right but were later proven wrong

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118-119?there’s evidence that people are more interested in hiring candidates who acknowledge legitimate weaknesses as opposed to bragging or humblebragging

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119?Michele didn’t go on defense or offense … demonstrating that she was self-aware enough to discern her short-comings and secure enough to admit them?

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119?If we approach an argument as a war, there will be winners and losers.?If we see it more as a dance, we can begin to choreograph a way forward

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122?how to break overconfidence cycles that are steeped in stereotypes and prejudice about entire groups of people

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123?[Boston Red Sox … New York Yankees]?the two teams had a century-long rivalry, widely viewed as the most heated in all of American professional sports

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123?in a 2019 analysis of tweets, the Yankees were the most hated baseball team in twenty-eight of the fifty U.S. states

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124?A rivalry exists whenever we reserve special animosity for a group we see as competing with us for resources or threatening our identities

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125?Why do people form stereotypes about rival groups in the first place and what does it take to get them to rethink them?

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126?In every human society, people are motivated to seek belonging and status

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126?Rivalries are most likely to develop between teams that are geographically close, compete regularly, and are evenly matched

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127?George Kelly … we become especially hostile when trying to defend opinions that we know, deep down, are false

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127?group polarization … Polarization is reinforced by conformity

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128?Upon returning from space, astronauts are less focused on individual achievements and personal happiness, and more concerned about the collective good … known as the overview effect

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129?There’s some evidence that common identity can build bridges between rivals

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130?Humanizing the other side

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131?In an ideal world, learning about individual group members will humanize the group, but often getting to know a person better just establishes her as different from the rest of her group

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135?We found that it was thinking about the arbitrariness of their animosity – not the positive qualities of their rival – that mattered

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136?To activate counter factual think, you might ask people questions like: How would your stereotypes be different if you’d been born Black, Hispanic, Asian, or Native American??What opinions would you hold if you’d been raised on a farm versus in a city, or in a culture on the other side of the world??What beliefs would you cling to if you lived in the 1700s?

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137?People gain humility when they reflect on how different circumstances could have led them to different beliefs

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138?many of our beliefs are cultural truisms: widely shared, but rarely questioned

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139?Research suggests that there are more similarities between groups than we recognize.?And there’s typically more variety within groups than between them

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139?In a meta-analysis of over five hundred studies with over 250,000 participants, interacting with members of another group reduced prejudice in 94 percent of the cases

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140?name three Black serial killers

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140?not to overlook the power of conversation

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140-141?Daryl [Davis] … “We are living in space-age times, yet there are still so many of us thinking with stone-age minds,”

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143?It’s a rare person who wants to hear what he doesn’t want to hear. – Attributed to Dick Cavett

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144?measles is on the rise for the first time in at least half a century, and its mortality rate is around one in a thousand … These deaths could have been prevented by the vaccine

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146?motivational interviewing.?The central premise is that we can rarely motivate someone else to change.?We’re better off helping them find their own motivation to change

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147?The process of motivational interviewing involves three key techniques:

-????????Asking open-ended questions

-????????Engaging in reflective listening

-????????Affirming the person’s desire and ability to change

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148?antivaccination community … Vaccine whisperers

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149?Motivational interviewing has been the subject of more than a thousand controlled trials … It’s been used effectively by health professionals … by coaches … teachers … consultants … public health workers … and environmental activists … Similar techniques have opened the minds of prejudiced voters … conflict mediators … motivational interviewing is twice as likely to result in a full agreement as standard mediation

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149?Overall, motivational interviewing has a statistically and clinically meaningful effect on behavior change in roughly three out of four studies, and psychologists and physicians using it have a success rate of four in five.?There aren’t many practical theories in the behavioral sciences with a body of evidence this robust

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150?[footnote] the word abracadabra comes from a Hebrew phrase that means “I create as I speak.”

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151?the most effective way to help others open their minds is often to listen

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152?In motivational interviewing, there’s a distinction between sustain talk and change talk

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153?There’s a fourth technique of motivational interviewing … summarizing

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155?Motivational interviewing requires a genuine desire to help people reach their goals

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158?When people have a chance to express themselves out loud, they often discover new thoughts

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158?Inverse charisma

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159?[Québec] Arnaud [Gagneur] … “I started a dialogue … The aim was to build a trusting relationship.?If you present information without permission, no one will listen to you.”

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159?Listening is a way of offering others our scarcest, most precious gift: our attention

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160?it’s easy to conclude that the ends justify whatever means are necessary.?But it is worth remembering that the means are a measure of our character … We should also ask whether we’re proud of how we’ve achieved it

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163?Columbia University campus in New York … home of the Difficult Conversation Lab … Peter T. Coleman

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164?impressive … 100 percent … to … sign a joint statement … Instead of describing the issue as a black-and-white disagreement … the article framed the debate as a complex problem with many shades of gray, representing a number of different viewpoints

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165?Hearing an opposing opinion doesn’t necessarily motivate you to rethink your own stance; it makes it easier for you to stick to your guns … Presenting two extremes isn’t the solution; it’s part of the polarization problem … binary bias.?It’s a basic human tendency to seek clarity and closure by simplifying a complex continuum into two categories.?To paraphrase the humorist Robert Benchley, there are two kinds of people: those who divide the world into two kinds of people, and those who don’t.?

????An antidote to this proclivity is complexifying: showcasing the range of perspectives on a given topic … Walt Whitman, it takes a multitude of views to help people realize that they too contain multitudes.?

????A dose of complexity can disrupt overconfidence cycles and spur rethinking cycles.?It gives us more humility about our knowledge and more doubts about our opinions, and it can make us curious enough to discover information we are lacking … framing … issue … as one involving many interrelated dilemmas

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168?What we believe depends on what we want to believe

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168?There’s evidence that higher levels of education predict heightened concern about climate change among Democrats but dampened concern among Republicans

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169?binary bias … Only one side can be right, because there is only one truth

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169?To overcome binary bias, a good starting point is to become aware of the range of perspectives across a given spectrum … on climate change, there are at least six camps of thought

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169-170?It’s especially important to distinguish skeptics from deniers … skepticism is “foundational to the scientific method,” whereas denial is “the a priori rejection of ideas without objective consideration.”

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170?Although no more than 10 percent of Americans are dismissive of climate change, it’s these rare deniers who get the most press

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171?As consumers of information, we have a role to play in embracing a more nuanced point of view.?When we’re reading, listening, or watching, we can learn to recognize complexity as a signal of credibility

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171?multiple experiments have shown that when experts express doubt, they become more persuasive

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172?study showed that older adults who drank a daily cup or two of coffee had a lower risk of mild cognitive impairment, relative to abstainers, occasional consumers, and heavier consumers

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173?asking “how” tends to reduce polarization

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173?to get better at conveying complexity … include caveats

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177?decades of evidence that although students might enjoy listening, reading, or doing, they don’t actually learn better that way

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177?Appreciating complexity reminds us that no behavior is always effective and that all cures have unintended consequences

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178?randomly assigning people to reflect on the intentions and interests of their political opposites made them less receptive to rethinking their own attitudes … Perspective-taking consistently fails … What works is not perspective-taking but perspective-seeking: actually talking to people to gain insight into the nuances of their views

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179?“I have a lot of respect for people like you who stand by their principles,”

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179-180?productive conversations … They’re not less emotional – they’re more emotionally complex … What stands in the way of rethinking isn’t the expression of emotion; it’s a restricted range of emotion

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181?In the spring of 2020, a Black man named Christian Cooper was bird-watching in Central Park when a white woman walked by with her dog

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182?the complex reality that racism is a function of our actions, not merely our intentions

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182?Ibram X. Kendi writes, “Racist and antiracist are not fixed identities.?We can be a racist one minute and an antiracist the next.”

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185?No schooling was allowed to interfere with my education.?– Grant Allen

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187?Even if you’re not a teacher by profession, you probably have roles in which you spend time educating others

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187?encourage students to question themselves and one another

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190?teach kids to think like fact-checkers: the guidelines include (1) “interrogate information instead of simply consuming it,” (2) “reject rank and popularity as a proxy for reliability,” and (3) “understand that the sender of information is often not its source.”

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190-191?a lecture … and … an active-learning session … the data suggest that you … will … enjoy the subject more when it’s delivered by lecture … the students … actually gained more knowledge and skill from the active-learning session.?It required more mental effort, which made it less fun but led to deeper understanding

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191-192?A meta-analysis compared the effects of lecturing and active learning on students’ mastery of the material … (STEM) … On average, students scored half a letter grade worse under traditional lecturing than through active learning – and students were 1.55 times more likely to fail in classes with traditional lecturing … even captivating lectures fall short … they turn students into passive receivers of information rather than active thinkers … experiments have shown that when a speaker delivers an inspiring message, the audience scrutinizes the material less carefully and forgets more of the content … the awestruck effect

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194?Robert Nozick … insisted on teaching a new class every year … he wasn’t content for students to learn from him.?He wanted them to learn with him

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195?a new assignment to teach rethinking … work in small groups … question a popular practice, to champion an idea that went against the grain of conventional wisdom, or to challenge principles covered in class

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195?grades are not a strong predictor of job performance.?

????Achieving excellence in school often requires mastering old ways of thinking.?Building an influential career demands new ways of thinking.?In a classic study of highly accomplished architects, the most creative ones graduated with a B average

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196?straight-A students … terrified of being wrong

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196-197?Lauren McCann … invited her classmates to write letters to their freshmen selves covering what they wish they had known back then … DearPennFresh.com

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197?It’s been demonstrated repeatedly that one of the best ways to learn is to teach

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197?“passion talks” … All students give a passion talk as a way of introducing themselves to their peers

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198?Ron Berger … “grapples” – problems to work through in phases … psychologists find that one of the hallmarks of an open mind is responding to confusion with curiosity and interest … Ron … wanted students to embrace confusion … “do it yourself” (DIY) … blueprints … he required them to do at least four different drafts … “Quality means rethinking, reworking, and polishing,” … revise their thinking based on input from others … challenge network … He encouraged students to be specific and kind: to critique the work rather than the author … they should say “I think” rather than “This isn’t good.” … show humility and curiosity … outside experts

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203?good teachers introduce new thoughts, but great teachers introduce new ways of thinking … education is … the habits we develop as we keep revising our drafts and the skills we build to keep learning

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205?If only it weren’t for the people … earth would be an engineer’s paradise. – Kurt Vonnegut

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208?[Luca Parmitano … International Space Station … July 2013 … spacewalk … NASA … 1986 … Challenger … 2003 … Colombia] NASA … became victims of overconfidence cycles … Evidence shows that in learning cultures, organizations innovate more and make fewer mistakes … learning cultures thrive under a particular combination of psychological safety and accountability

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209?[Amy Edmondson] psychologically safe teams reported more errors, but they actually made fewer errors.?By freely admitting their mistakes, they were able to learn what had caused them and eliminate them moving forward

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209?the factors that distinguish teams with high performance and well-being … What mattered most was psychological safety

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209?psychological safety … It’s fostering a climate of respect, trust and openness in which people can raise concerns and suggestions without fear of reprisal.?It’s the foundation of a learning culture

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210-211?Ellen Ochoa … at NASA, the performance culture was eroding psychological safety … To combat that problem and nudge the culture toward learning … 3x5 note card in her pocket with questions …

-????????What leads you to that assumption??Why do you think it is correct??What might happen if it’s wrong?

-????????What are the uncertainties in your analysis?

-????????I understand the advantages of your recommendation.?What are the disadvantages?

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211?How do you know??It’s a question we need to ask more often, both of ourselves and of others

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213?managers … We advised them to tell their teams about a time when they benefited from constructive criticism and to identify the areas that they were working to improve now

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214?“Mean Tweets” … Mean Reviews, where faculty members read harsh comments from student course evaluations … although I take my work seriously, I don’t take myself too seriously

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215?[footnote] Experiments show that people who haven’t proven their competence are respected less if they admit their weaknesses

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216?In performance cultures, people often become attached to best practices … frozen in time

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217?Focusing on results might be good for short-term performance, but it can be an obstacle to long-term learning

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217?Research shows that when we have to explain the procedures behind our decisions in real time, we think more critically and process the possibilities more thoroughly … Process accountability

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218?Decision Outcome … Decision Process

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219?Requiring proof is an enemy of progress

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219?Rethinking is more likely when we separate the initial decision makers from the later decision evaluators

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226?blirtatiousness … combination of blurting and flirting

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229?Escalation of commitment is a major factor in preventable failures … it can be fueled by … grit

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230?identity foreclosure – when we settle prematurely on a sense of self without due diligence

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230?what do you want to be when you grow up? … kids might be better off learning about careers as actions to take rather than as identities to claim

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232?students express more interest in science when it’s presented as something we do rather than someone we are

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232?the average person ends up holding a dozen different jobs … Choosing a career isn’t like finding a soul mate … Your future self doesn’t exist right now … and your interests might change over time

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233?students who are the most certain about their careers at twenty are often the ones with the deepest regrets by thirty

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233?it’s better to lose the past two years of progress than to waste the next twenty

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235?Deciding to leave a current career path is often easier than identifying a new one … expand your repertoire of possible selves

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236?A successful relationship requires regular rethinking.?Sometimes being considerate means reconsidering something as simple as our habits

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237?checkups … it’s worth pausing once or twice a year to reflect on how our aspirations have changed

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237-238?The kingdom of Bhutan has a Gross National Happiness index … Psychologists find that the more people value happiness, the less happy they often become with their lives … There’s even evidence that placing a great deal of importance on happiness is a risk factor for depression

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238?meaning is healthier than happiness … While enjoyment waxes and wanes, meaning tends to last

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239?As Ernest Hemingway wrote, “You can’t get away from yourself by moving from one place to another.”

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240?It’s our actions – not our surroundings – that bring us meaning and belonging

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240?instead of searching for the job where we’ll be happiest, we might be better off pursuing the job where we expect to learn and contribute the most.

????Psychologists find that passions are often developed, not discovered … By investing in learning and problem solving, we can develop our passions – and build the skills necessary to do the work and lead the lives we find worthwhile

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241?contribute to something important

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242-243?If you visited a certain floor of the hospital, it wouldn’t be long before cancer patients told you how grateful they were for Candice Walker … she was a custodian.?Her official job was to keep the cancer center clean

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243?The simplest way to start rethinking our options is to question what we do daily

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247?the word scientist … wasn’t coined until 1833

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249?Great Depression… 1932 … Franklin Delano Roosevelt … “the country demands bold, persistent experimentation.”

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250?Complex problems like pandemics, climate change, and political polarization call on us to stay mentally flexible.?In the face of any number of unknown and evolving threats, humility, doubt, and curiosity are vital to discovery