I’ve been thinking a lot lately about destiny. I think destiny exists. Within each of us is a particular set of proclivities that when matched with just the right environmental triggers, then BAM, there it is. It’s undeniable. Even though our conscious minds may go through many tricks to deny the reality of the match, […]
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The hypnotic attraction of power and fame blinds us to inner value
In a completely commercialized society in which salability and optimal profit constitute the core values, and in which every person experiences [themselves] as ‘capital’ that [they have] to invest on the market with the aim of optimal profit (success), [their] inner value counts as little as that of a dental cream or a patent medicine. Whether [one] is kind, […]
The Role of Luck in Life Success Is Far Greater Than We Realized
[This article originally appeared in Scientific American] What does it take to succeed? What are the secrets of the most successful people? Judging by the popularity of magazines such as Success, Forbes, Inc., and Entrepreneur, there is no shortage of interest in these questions. There is a deep underlying assumption, however, that we can learn […]
An Existential-Humanistic View of Personality Change: Co-Occurring Changes with Psychological Well-Being in a 10 Year Cohort Study
An Existential-Humanistic View of Personality Change: Co-Occurring Changes with Psychological Well-Being in a 10 Year Cohort Study Hilda Osafo Hounkpatin • Alex M. Wood • Christopher J. Boyce • Graham Dunn Abstract Increasingly, psychological research has indicated that an individual’s per- sonality changes across the lifespan. We aim to better understand personality change by examining […]
The time has come for dimensional personality disorder diagnosis
“We are concerned about the implications of retaining a categorical system that has been so thoroughly shown to be empirically and clinically problematic. It is very difficult to justify allocating resources toward continued research on an approach that has proven to be fundamentally flawed, as opposed to a dimensional model that points to exciting new […]
The Twice Exceptional Movement: Supporting Bright and Creative Students with Learning Difficulties
One school fixed its attention upon the importance of the subject-matter of the curriculum as compared with the contents of the child’s own experience. Not so, says the other school. The child is the starting point, the center, and the end. [Their] development, [their] growth, is the ideal. Not knowledge, but self-realization is the goal. […]
The Paradox of Intelligence: Heritability and Malleability Coexist in Hidden Gene-Environment Interplay
This integrative review advances the idea that gene–environment interplay underlies differences in human intelligence, and that the high heritability of IQ is not merely a product of genetic variation. Gene-environment correlations and interactions are obscured by typical research approaches, but their contribution to the development of intelligence explains a paradoxical body of evidence from recent […]
[Beautiful Minds] January 2018 Newsletter
Hi All, Happy New Year! This year, I’m off on a journey. I decided to drop everything and put my entire being into a book project I really believe in. I feel such an emotional connection to this project, and think it can help a lot of people. So, starting January 3rd, I will be moving […]
The Possibility Index
I recently had the pleasure of partnering with U.S. Bank to help bring greater awareness of the 2017 “Possibility Index“. This index measures how Americans are doing and feeling in their workplaces, homes and spare time, as well as how they talked about their lives online. The Possibility Index score represents the average of four […]
The Mindful Personality II: Exploring the Metatraits from a Cybernetic Perspective
The Mindful Personality II: Exploring the Metatraits from a Cybernetic Perspective Adam W. Hanley & Anne K. Baker & Eric L. Garland Abstract Relationships between dispositional mindfulness and the personality metatraits, stability and plasticity, remain unexplored despite continued efforts to more accurately characterize associations between dispositional mindfulness and personality. The metatraits are theorized to constitute […]
[Beautiful Minds] November 2017 Newsletter
[Subscribe to the free monthly Beautiful Minds Newsletter] Hi All, Welcome to the November, 2017 Beautiful Minds Newsletter! Here’s some updates on creativity, well-being, and the mind from October. Enjoy! Podcast Episodes The Power Paradox with Dacher Keltner Peak Performance with Brad Stulberg and Steve Magness Making Good Decisions with Cheryl Strauss Einhorn The Art of Charm […]
Narcissism and Self-Esteem Are Very Different
As the mythology goes, Narcissus fell in love so much with his own reflection in a pool of water that he was unable to do anything else but admire himself. Eventually, he withered away and died staring at his reflection. Did Narcissus have excessively high self-esteem? Was that his main issue? Or was it something […]