Psychology

I also want to dispel the hero-myth of entrepreneurs, that they're somehow super-gifted individuals who are better than me or the people I know. I don't know any like that – my friends sleep late, smell funny, do stupid stuff and have weird joint problems.

Co-Founder of Square & Mobile Payment Pioneer

Doing something that has never been done before is terrifying… all the people who love you will tell you not to do it… not because they're jealous, but because they're genuinely scared for you… they're worried for your wellbeing.

Co-Founder of Square & Mobile Payment Pioneer

We want to be influenced because we want to be right. We want to take the more adaptive strategies in any situations in order to have good outcomes. It's an evolutionary psychological adaptation.

Influence & Persuasion Expert; Author of "Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion

You have to step back and focus on the merits of the offer- not the person who brought the offer to you. That's how you defend yourself. You recognise that there's something that goes on first as important as the message itself inclining you towards purchase or agreement.

Influence & Persuasion Expert; Author of "Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion

We have the tendency to follow those who are comparable to us. It reduces uncertainty and provides us with an extremely effective shortcut into deciding how to best behave in a world that has become overloaded with information and stimulus.

Influence & Persuasion Expert; Author of "Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion

If you go into a new situation where you don't know anybody and you want to be more influential, don't look around the room and say hmmm… who can most help me here?… instead, look around and say hmmm…. Who can I most help here? You will put that person in a position where they will be standing on the balls of their feet to help you!

Influence & Persuasion Expert; Author of "Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion

We all inhabit distinctive inner universes. We all see and experience the world in a slightly different way. Understanding perception has a lot of consequences for understanding who we are.

Neuroscientist & leading researcher on consciousness and perception

Sensory data by itself is not red, it's not anything. It's just energy. Sensory signals don't come with labels attached. Redness is coming from within my brain, as a way of predicting how certain patterns of light appear.

Neuroscientist & leading researcher on consciousness and perception

The way I prefer to think of perception is as a processor of active construction, a controlled hallucination. Everything we perceive is a kind of inference, a burst guess about what's out there.

Neuroscientist & leading researcher on consciousness and perception

Consciousness is any kind of subjective experience whatsoever. It's what goes away when you fall into a dreamless sleep or go into general anesthesia, and what comes back when you wake-up or come around.

Neuroscientist & leading researcher on consciousness and perception

We live downstream of a very high-quality tool for manipulating each other in a collaborative way, which has been augmented by the perverse incentives surrounding manipulating each other in a hostile way. The explosion in the number of people who are interacting with each other has- today- made the problem effectively unsolvable.

Evolutionary biologist and podcaster known for critical COVID-19 vaccine commentary

At a point, we developed language sophisticated enough to transmit abstract ideas with precision from one mind to another. That enables high quality parallel processing of problems such that we literally have emergent cognition. When people gather, they talk about difficult puzzles they face, and the product of their thinking exceeds the sum of their individual capacity to reason through it.

Evolutionary biologist and podcaster known for critical COVID-19 vaccine commentary

Rationality applies whether you believe in it or not. One idea follows from another – or it doesn't – and if you want some of your beliefs to lead to other beliefs, you have no choice but to be rational.

Cognitive Scientist & Psychologist Known for Research on Language and Human Nature

When I look at my own life- the things that I'm most embarrassed about are the moments where I acted, or didn't act, because of fear. The moments I'm most proud of are those where I acted with some semblance of courage.

Author & Stoicism Expert; Marketer & Media Strategist

Courage is not the opposite of fear, rather it is the triumph over fear. There is nothing courageous about a guaranteed outcome, right? Courage is being yourself in a world where everyone tries to be like everyone else.

Author & Stoicism Expert; Marketer & Media Strategist

Fear just finds a new thing to be scared of. People are worried about having mean things said about them on twitter… they're worried about losing their jobs… and yes, all those things suck, and could happen, but it's not the same as being tied-up and roasted at the stake!

Author & Stoicism Expert; Marketer & Media Strategist