In a Nutshell: Ever feel like you’re the only one living in reality? According to my guest today, the human brain only processes about 1/1000th of the information it’s taking in at a given moment. In other words, we all operate under some delusions every single day. And some of those delusions may actually help us successfully navigate our lives, our relationships, and our businesses.
Guest: Shankar Vedantam, Host and Executive Editor of The Hidden Brain Podcast. Shankar is a longtime journalist who’s won multiple awards for his work at NPR and The Washington Post. He’s also the author of The Hidden Brain and his latest book, Useful Delusions.
My Key Takeaways:
- Delusion is a paradox we can learn to solve by separating helpful delusions from harmful ones.
- Context is key to keeping our self-delusions in the proper perspective.
- We need new questions to help us square our delusions and objective truths with the perceptions of folks we might not always agree with.
Also Learn:
- What kinds of dialogues Shankar recommends using when you’re talking to someone with an unhealthy delusion.
- How storytelling can be key to improving our understanding of money.
- Why Shankar calls the values of compassion and curiosity his “North Star.”
Complementary blog post: Author, speaker, and consultant Annette Simmons discusses how to tell stories that connect with and persuade people. Listen/read here.
Resources Featured In This Episode
Values Clarification Toolkit Click here to download this FREE tool and start living your values.
