Most Popular Editorials: Stressed by parenting? Evolution can explain why - BBC Future

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Stressed by parenting? Evolution can explain why - BBC Future From an evolutionary perspective, it is not surprising that many of us felt so overwhelmed raising kids in Covid lockdown. Despite the common idea that modern family life consists of small, independent units, the reality is that we would often benefit from help from others to raise our offspring. For much of human history, extended families provided that help. In contemporary industrialised societies, where smaller family units are common, teachers, babysitters and other caregivers have allowed us to replicate that ancient support network.This collaborative way of raising children makes us unique among great apes. Called "cooperative breeding", it is more similar to how seemingly more distant species like meerkats and even ants and bees live - and it has given us crucial evolutionary advantages. Continued here

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How to Save Your Knees Without Giving Up Your Workout - The New York Times In the annals of unsolicited advice, few nuggets have been dispensed as widely and with less supporting evidence than this: “If you keep doing all that running, you’re going to ruin your knees.” Continued here

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What Is An Anti-Inflammatory Diet? Benefits, Food List, Advice “An anti-inflammatory diet is not a specific diet per se, but rather a way of eating that focuses on mostly whole, minimally processed foods, and incorporates foods that contain specific nutrients and antioxidants to help combat inflammatory processes in the body,” says Rachel Dyckman, RDN. Continued here

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How to Talk to Someone Who Always Gets Defensive | Fatherly Maybe you’re talking with your spouse. Or friend. Or brother. Or colleague. Whoever it is, you know that no matter how carefully you say something, the words won’t get through. They’re just so damn defensive.  Continued here

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Why Millennials Could Become the Wealthiest Generation in History (and How to Join the Club) What does this mean? Americans age 70 and above had a net worth of nearly $35 trillion this year, according to Federal Reserve data. This means that Baby Boomers have stockpiled 157% of U.S. gross domestic product and will start giving it to their heirs — including Millennials and Gen Xers. Continued here

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Why the Most Productive People Don’t Always Make the Best Managers Not every top performer makes for a good manager. In this piece, the authors argue that the difference between a good individual contributor and a good manager hinges on six key abilities: being open to feedback and personal change, supporting others’ development, being open to innovation, communicating well, having good interpersonal skills, and supporting organizational changes. The problem for most organizations is that they hope their new managers will develop these skills after being promoted, but that’s exactly when overwhelmed new managers tend to fall back on their individual contributor skill sets. Instead, the authors suggest that organizations should start developing these skills in all of their employees early on — after all, they’re useful for individual contributors, too. Continued here

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Spotting a Modern Business Crisis — Before It Strikes Businesses are embedded in the larger sociopolitical contexts in which they operate — not separate from them. And research shows that in communities under conflict, businesses can be perceived as sociopolitical actors that can have a positive impact on society. So how should organizations define a crisis, prepare for it, and know when and how to intervene? In this roundtable, eight scholars and practitioners discuss the relationship between business and society, how crises for businesses have evolved over the years, and the lessons they hope leaders learn from the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. Continued here

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The Future of Performance Reviews Hated by bosses and subordinates alike, traditional performance appraisals have been abandoned by more than a third of U.S. companies. The annual review’s biggest limitation, the authors argue, is its emphasis on holding employees accountable for what they did last year, at the expense of improving performance now and in the future. That’s why many organizations are moving to more-frequent, development-focused conversations between managers and employees. Continued here

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What to Do When Your Boss Won’t Advocate for You A boss who doesn’t advocate for you can stunt your growth and block your career opportunities. And you might not even know that you have an unsupportive boss. Most advocacy happens behind the scenes. When you found out you have one, the knee-jerk reaction is to self-promote. But that can backfire in the workplace. You need to start by understanding why your boss isn’t advocating for you. Proactively solicit the gift of your boss’s feedback. Consider getting a coach. You just might not have earned your boss’s advocacy yet. Assuming your performance is strong, here are three steps you can take. First, release your boss from your unmet expectations. You can’t shame someone into being your advocate. Second, find another advocate. The ideal sponsor is a powerful, high-ranking ally within your organization. Third, build your network inside and outside of the organization. We all need champions. Continued here

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So Your Boss Offered You a Meaningless Promotion Promotions in title only aren’t a new phenomenon. Some leaders may think that by offering you a better title, they’re honoring your contributions and showing that they value you. Some might offer promotions in title only as a way to retain talent when attrition starts to spike. Or, with the pressure to show progress on their diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) commitments, some companies will be looking for shortcuts — without doing the meaningful work. Offering fake promotions can be a form of diversity washing, where organizations look for quick fixes to their public DEI commitments. The author explains what to do if you think you’re being offered a fake promotion. Continued here

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9 Traits of the Most Grounded People in Your Life | Inc.com People rub off on each other. It's why a smile on someone's face can make you feel better, and why a co-worker's negative attitude can ruin your day. In fact, the attitudes and behaviors of the people in your world are so influential that your best strategy for succeeding in life may be to remove complainers, drama magnets, braggarts, and the disingenuous from your circles. Continued here

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3 Signs You Possess a Skill Most Don't Have (and How to Capitalize On It) | Inc.com There are many things that can give entrepreneurs an advantage over their competition. Unique life experiences. Strong leadership capabilities. Or even being able to assemble a high-performing, driven team. Continued here

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The Motivating (and Demotivating) Effects of Learning Others’ Salaries Pay inequality is common in most workplaces. You get paid significantly more than your subordinates, your boss gets paid more than you, and your boss’s boss gets even more. At some point your employees have wondered about your salary – and their peers’. Should you be worried about that? Recent research sheds some light on this question. Researchers conducted an experiment with a sample of 2,060 employees from all rungs of a large commercial bank in Asia. They found that employees tended to underestimate the pay of their managers, but learning the actual amount led them to work harder. However, while people seemed to be fine with vertical inequality, they had more of a problem with horizontal inequality. Finding out peers get paid more had a negative effect on employees’ effort and performance. Continued here

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I Used the '2 Question' Rule to Cut 10 Hours of Meetings Every Week. My Productivity Has Doubled. | Inc.com Meetings are our bane. Or, should I say, a necessary frustration? And while work-from-home life has changed many things about how we manage our day-to-day productivity, meetings seem only to have shifted from in-office tête-à-têtes to Zoom calls. By Zoom's own numbers, daily meeting participants skyrocketed from around 10 million a day in late 2019 to some 300 million in mid-2020. Continued here

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Psychologists Say There Are Only 5 Kinds of People in the World. Which One Are You? | Inc.com Your personality influences everything from the friends you choose to the  candidates you vote for in a political election. Yet many people never really spend much time thinking about their personality traits. People who rank highest in conscientiousness are efficient, well-organized, dependable, and self-sufficient. They prefer to plan things in advance and aim for high achievement. People who rank lower in conscientiousness may view those with this personality trait as stubborn and obsessive. Fun fact: Studies show marrying someone high in conscientiousness increases your chances of workplace success. A conscientious spouse can boost your productivity and help you achieve the most. Continued here

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Regular 10pm bedtime linked to lower heart risk - BBC News For the study, which was published in the European Heart Journal, the researchers collected data on sleep and wake times over seven days using a wristwatch-like device worn by the volunteers. Study author Dr David Plans, working with the healthtech organisation Huma, said: "While we cannot conclude causation from our study, the results suggest that early or late bedtimes may be more likely to disrupt the body clock, with adverse consequences for cardiovascular health. Regina Giblin, senior cardiac nurse at the British Heart Foundation, said: "This large study suggests that going to sleep between 10 and 11pm could be the sweet spot for most people to keep their heart healthy long-term. Continued here

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How to Manage Your Fear of Public Speaking | by Sarah Milstein | Better Humans Public speaking often has personal and professional benefits, and it’s required in many jobs. What do you do if the very thought of it sparks dread? The bad news here is that the fear is not just in your head; it’s a real physical experience. The good news is that you can learn to tackle it, and the steps to doing so are not hard to follow. There are a number of theories about why people get nervous before speaking in front of others. One that makes a lot of sense hypothesizes that standing apart from a group of people and being watched by them (or the idea of doing that) triggers an instinctive sense of potential threat. You’ve probably heard this referred to as the fight-or-flight response, in which adrenaline floods your body. The physical results are distinctly unpleasant: You may not be aware of these specific physical responses, but when you get up in front of an audience, you can tell you’re unhappy. Moreover, you may find yourself deeply concerned about being judged for your ideas or your delivery. Continued here

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Trickle-down workaholism in startups If you want to understand why so many startups become infected with unhealthy work habits, or outright workaholism, a good place to start your examination is in the attitudes of their venture capital investors.Consider this Twitter thread involving two famous VCs, Keith Rabois and Mark Suster: Continued here

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5 books to help you achieve financial independence in your 40s I have never been a big reader. Picking up a book and blazing through 100 pages never came naturally to me. But there is one topic that interests me more than anything else: personal finance.  Continued here

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How to stop mindless scrolling 'Each time you pick up your phone, ask yourself why you’re reaching for it and whether you have a positive end goal in mind.' Continued here

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5 pandemic tech innovations that will change travel forever | National Geographic In the 20 months since the COVID-19 pandemic began, technological innovations have gone from futuristic to familiar. These days it’s hard to be out in the world without encountering QR-coded menus or supplying digital vaccine passports. Continued here

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Xi Is Running Out of Time | Foreign Affairs How worried should observers be about China’s economy? As recently as midsummer, that seemed like an academic question geared to the long term. In recent months, observers who were already concerned were further dismayed whenever Beijing moved to reel in companies considered to be in the vanguard of the “sunrise industries” that China celebrated as the answer to future competitiveness, growth, and jobs. In response to fresh doubts about the wisdom of these policy campaigns, China’s private-sector entrepreneurs competed to demonstrate fealty to their leaders rather than complain, and many foreign investors waved away worries with the message that Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leaders knew what they were doing and should be trusted. Continued here

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There are six main narratives of globalisation, all flawed | Aeon Essays Isaiah Berlin understood the parable of the fox and the hedgehog – ‘the fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing’ – to illustrate two styles of thinking. Hedgehogs relate everything to a single vision, a universally applicable organising principle for understanding the world. Foxes, on the other hand, embrace many values and approaches rather than trying to fit everything into an all-encompassing singular vision. Continued here

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Will the magic of psychedelics transform psychiatry? | Drugs | The Guardian Imagine a medicine that could help people process disturbing memories, sparking behavioural changes rather than merely burying and suppressing symptoms and trauma. For the millions suffering with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression, such remedies for their daily struggles could be on the horizon. Psychiatry is rapidly heading towards a new frontier – and it’s all thanks to psychedelics. Continued here

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Indian tech companies made big WFH promises. Now they’re calling millions of workers back As attrition rates spike, Indian tech companies scramble to bring workers back to campuses. Continued here

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South Korea Is No Country for Young People “Squid Game” reflects a landscape of despair. Continued here

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Forgiving people is good for your health. Here’s how to do it. Letting go of the bitterness you feel toward people who have hurt you—even if they don't deserve it and you'll never see them again—is good for your health. Continued here

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Your Emails Are 36 Percent More Likely to Get a Reply If You End Them This Way | Inc.com As any salesperson, PR rep, or entrepreneur can tell you, the rate at which people open and respond to your emails can be the difference between accelerating your career and the pit of despair.  Continued here

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How to avoid 'toxic positivity' and take the less direct route to happiness There is more than one way to pursue happiness and to cope with the inevitable low times in life. Continued here

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Want to Hire People With High Emotional Intelligence? Look for These 5 Things | Inc.com That's because every company lives and dies by the success of their teams. A great team can accomplish much more than a single person, no matter how talented. And a single "brilliant jerk" can totally ruin a potentially high-performing team. Yes, look for a candidate who communicates what they do well. But also look for those who share what they've learned from mentors and colleagues, who give others credit for helping them to become the person they are today. Experienced interviewers know that only a precious few job seekers can identify a true weakness. And even fewer have developed plans to strengthen those weaknesses. To do so takes intense self-reflection, critical thinking, and the ability to accept negative feedback--qualities that take years to develop. Continued here

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Bridgewater Investments Founder Ray Dalio: Invest in Idea Meritocracy Continued here

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How to cope with an existential crisis | Psyche Guides Are you exhausted from rushing through life doing the same monotonous things over and over again? Perhaps those things that were once meaningful now seem vacuous, and the passion has burned out. Do you feel that pleasures are short-lived and ultimately disappointing, that your life is a series of fragments punctuated with occasional ecstasies that flare up and then, like a firework, fade into darkness and despair? Perhaps you are lonely or pine for past loves. Or you feel empty and lost in the world, or nauseous and sleep-deprived. Maybe you are still looking for a reason to live, or you have too many confused reasons, or you have forgotten what your reasons are. Congratulations – you’re having an existential crisis. Sometimes, the questions ‘Why am I here?’ and ‘What’s it all for?’ haunt you gently like a soft wingbeat with barely a whisper, but sometimes they can feel as if they are asphyxiating your entire being. Whatever form your existential crisis takes, the problem, as the Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard (1813-55) saw it, was that living without passion amounts to not existing at all. And that’s bad for all of us because, without passion, rampant waves of negativity poison the world. Kierkegaard thought that one of the roots of this problem of a world without passion is that too many people – his contemporaries but, by extension, we too – are alienated from a society that overemphasises objectivity and ‘results’ (profits, productivity, outcomes, efficiency) at the expense of personal, passionate, subjective human experiences. Continued here

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America’s First Utopian City, Telosa, Could Welcome Its First “Settlers” By 2030 Former Walmart president, Marc Lore, is attempting to create the unthinkable – a Utopian city in the middle of the American desert. The Billionaire is currently spearheading the conceptual and fina… Continued here

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Can history teach us anything about the future of war – and peace? | Society | The Guardian Ten years ago, the psychologist Steven Pinker published The Better Angels of Our Nature, in which he argued that violence in almost all its forms - including war - was declining. The book was ecstatically received in many quarters, but then came the backlash, which shows no signs of abating. In September, 17 historians published a riposte to Pinker, suitably entitled The Darker Angels of Our Nature, in which they attacked his "fake history" to "debunk the myth of non-violent modernity". Some may see this as a storm in an intellectual teacup, but the central question - can we learn anything about the future of warfare from the ancient past? - remains an important one. Pinker thought we could and he supported his claim of a long decline with data stretching thousands of years back into prehistory. But among his critics are those who say that warfare between modern nation states, which are only a few hundred years old, has nothing in common with conflict before that time, and therefore it's too soon to say if the supposed "long peace" we've been enjoying since the end of the second world war is a blip or a sustained trend. In 2018, for example, computer scientist Aaron Clauset of the University of Colorado Boulder crunched data on wars fought between 1823 and 2003 and concluded that we'd have to wait at least another century to find out. Clauset doesn't think it would help to add older data into the mix; indeed, he thinks it would muddy the picture. Continued here

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How to maintain a healthy brain | Psyche Guides People living in Western nations today can expect to live a considerably longer life, on average, than 100 years or so ago. The dramatically shorter average life expectancies of the past were skewed by tragically high rates of infant mortality. Nonetheless, compared with the mid-19th century, an average five-year-old today can expect to live to 82 rather than 55 – an extra 27 years (based on data from England and Wales). Although this is obviously a welcome development – largely brought about by improvements in healthcare and the defeat of infectious diseases – it is a double-edged sword. The body could well keep going throughout all these decades, but the brain might not; and, if you are left able-bodied but with a permanently compromised brain, then you will be in an unenviable position. Such is the concern that a recent survey by Alzheimer’s Research UK showed that, for almost half of the respondents, dementia is the condition they fear the most, rising to more than 60 per cent among those aged over 65. Continued here

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Second act sensations! Meet the people who reached peak fitness – after turning 50 | Fitness | The Guardian Rich started working out, Mags started running and Shashi started walking three times a day. It is possible to reach new goals as you get older and it is not only your physical health that benefits 'I do sometimes feel like a cliche," says Rich Jones. We're in the cafe at his gym and he is in workout gear. It's true, something about the language and the before and after pictures from his physical transformation - severely overweight to lean and chiselled - would appear familiar from thousands of adverts and magazine spreads, if it wasn't for one thing; Jones got into the best shape of his adult life after he passed 50. "On 9 August 2019, I walked in here. I was 54 and 127kg [20st]." He worked out at least six days a week, for 90 minutes or more at a time. "I immersed myself in everything, I did gym, I did classes, Pilates, I even did barre," he says. Within eight or 10 weeks, he was able to stop taking painkillers for a shoulder injury. He now cycles and runs on top of his gym sessions. "It's just a habit - I brush my teeth every day, I go for a run every day." Continued here

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Does Having Kids Make You Happy? - The Atlantic Few choices are more important than whether to have children, and psychologists and other social scientists have worked to figure out what having kids means for happiness. Some of the most prominent scholars in the field have argued that if you want to be happy, it’s best to be childless. Others have pushed back, pointing out that a lot depends on who you are and where you live. But a bigger question is also at play: What if the rewards of having children are different from, and deeper than, happiness? The early research is decisive: Having kids is bad for quality of life. In one study, the psychologist Daniel Kahneman and his colleagues asked about 900 employed women to report, at the end of each day, every one of their activities and how happy they were when they did them. They recalled being with their children as less enjoyable than many other activities, such as watching TV, shopping, or preparing food. Other studies find that when a child is born, parents experience a decrease in happiness that doesn’t go away for a long time, in addition to a drop in marital satisfaction that doesn’t usually recover until the children leave the house. As the Harvard professor Dan Gilbert puts it, “The only symptom of empty nest syndrome is nonstop smiling.” After all, having children, particularly when they are young, involves financial struggle, sleep deprivation, and stress. For mothers, there is also in many cases the physical strain of pregnancy and breastfeeding. And children can turn a cheerful and loving romantic partnership into a zero-sum battle over who gets to sleep and work and who doesn’t. As the Atlantic staff writer Jennifer Senior notes in her book, All Joy and No Fun, children provoke a couple’s most frequent arguments—“more than money, more than work, more than in-laws, more than annoying personal habits, communication styles, leisure activities, commitment issues, bothersome friends, sex.” Someone who doesn’t understand this is welcome to spend a full day with an angry 2-year-old (or a sullen 15-year-old); they’ll find out what she means soon enough. Continued here

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The Project Economy Has Arrived To take advantage of the new project economy, companies need a new approach to project management: They must adopt a project-driven organizational structure, ensure that executives have the capabilities to effectively sponsor projects, and train managers in modern project management. Continued here

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Why Your Group Chat Could Be Worth Millions If you turn it into a DAO, that is. But what’s a DAO? It’s a little bit cryptocurrency, a little bit gamer clan, a little bit pyramid scheme. Continued here

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‘Yeah, we’re spooked’: AI starting to have big real-world impact, says expert | Artificial intelligence (AI) | The Guardian Prof Stuart Russell, the founder of the Center for Human-Compatible Artificial Intelligence at the University of California, Berkeley, said most experts believed that machines more intelligent than humans would be developed this century, and he called for international treaties to regulate the development of the technology. Continued here