Mastering Your Emotions for a Better Life

Listen to the full Podcast here or if you’re time poor I’ve selected 3 more sound bites I found particularly interesting.

Walter Isaacson is a well-known biographer, with works on Henry Kissinger, Albert Einstein, Benjamin Franklin and Steve Jobs among his subjects. His ability to bring his subjects to light and to blend deep research and page turning story telling is unparalleled.

In his new book The Code Breaker he returns to his usual themes of science, genius, experiment, code, thinking different — and meets his first female subject, Jennifer Doudna, the winner of the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry  for her work on the CRISPR system of gene editing. 

Many readers and listeners mention they use ambient music when working or trying to focus – this has increased in the work from home culture. 

Research has found that concentrated work or studying while listening to ambient music reduces stress and anxiety while improving performance, focus and brain function. Brian Eno’s Music for Airports has always been one of my go-to albums.

I liked Farnham Street’s focus on understanding feedback in this piece. Change can be difficult when you’re not sure exactly what you are doing well or not and how you need to change.

I thought this is a good reminder of how to seek out constructive feedback, learn to recognise if it is helpful and in your best interests and put these pieces together to accelerate your motivation to inspire the creation of a plan for improvement.

3 mins

There’s often a juxtaposition between opinion, knowledge and intuition. We’ve all had it I’m sure (somewhere between one, the other or all 3 many times). Intuition can be very powerful if considered and very dangerous if blindly relied upon. 

This piece is a reminder to trust, feel and listen to our intuition but also apply a few rules so that we can leverage it in a positive way and not fall into the trap of the gut feel. Worth the read.

2 mins

Do you think that you are an optimist or pessimist? Glass half full or half empty and how does this effect other areas of your life? If you see it half empty can you change this attitude? This is the topic of Darius Foroux’s article, where he agrees that people are not 100% one way or the other, he argues that optimism will make your life better. 

He proposes that when we adopt an optimistic perspective on the world, we behave differently – you believe in the future so you invest in your education, your health and your possessions over time. You recognise that the world is progressing, and you don’t want to fall behind.

2 mins