How to find fulfillment: Lessons from ‘dark horse’ success

Read more at BigThink.com: Follow Big Think here: YouTube: http://goo.gl/CPTsV5 Facebook: https://ift.tt/1qJMX5g Twitter: https://twitter.com/bigthink So, when people think of a dark horse I think most people think of people who were successful that nobody saw coming. And that’s technically true, but in our research we actually found that dark horses are people who prioritize personal fulfillment over conventional notions of success, and that priority is what actually puts them on a very individual path, but it’s also ultimately what allows them to be both successful and happy. And I think those lessons end up being valuable to anybody who wants to live a more fulfilling life. So the origins of Dark Horse are a little bit personal, right. I’m a Harvard professor today, but I also was a high school dropout with a 0.9 GPA; ended up getting married right out of high school, had two kids by the time I was 21, and ended up working a string of minimum wage jobs and was actually on welfare for a little while. So my future was sort of bleak and I felt a bit lost. And it was actually my dad who gave me this piece of advice that changed everything. So he said if I wanted something better, I need to figure out what truly motivated me and stay really close to that the rest of my life. He felt like that was going to be important for me being able to achieve what I could. And that piece of advice put me on a completely different path that led me to get a GED, then eventually to college, and then ultimately to Harvard where I’ve spent the last decade getting to study what makes people tick. And so for me Dark Horse is kind of like the culmination of a lot of things that I care about. Because when I think about how we can use these insights from the science that I’m a part of and other things, I think helping people live more fulfilling lives is probably right at the top of the list. But I think there’s kind of, for me, there’s almost like this laddering of like how we get to this, like how do you end up pursuing a fulfilling life? And I think knowing what motivates you is like core to that. It’s not everything, but if you don’t truly know what matters most to you and what really drives you, there’s really no chance of having a consistently fulfilling life. You might be successful at some stuff, but you’re probably not going to be successful and happy. And so the interesting thing about – there’s two things that I think are really fascinating that dark horses taught us that are different than the way most of us think about things. So first is even how we define who we are. Because I think self-knowledge is this vital thing, and most of us when we talk about who we are we tend to think about things like what we’re good at or what job we do. Dark horses, right off the bat they’ll talk about the things that motivate them, the things that matter most to them and they build their identity off of that. So to the question of if knowing what motivates you is so important; like why do we struggle to figure that out, and like how could we get better at that? So I think that the biggest challenge with the motivation aspect is that when we tend to think about what motivates us we tend to look at what society tells us we all should be motivated by. If you just look outward you realize there’s some big things, some universal things like competition, money, collaboration, stuff that we kind of all feel like affects us in some way. But what we found is like—look, the truth is human beings are just more complicated than that, so all of us are motivated by a wide range of things, some of them are those big universals, but what we found is there’s also a whole bunch of very specific things that tend to be particular to you as an individual. So for example, in the Dark Horse Project we actually talked to people who were genuinely motivated by specific things like organizing people’s closets—like genuinely motivated! I can’t understand that for the life of me. It has zero motivational influence. Or aligning physical objects with your hands—like truly motivating. These are so specific they probably don’t matter to very many people, but they matter deeply to these individuals. And what dark horses taught us is that when it comes to living a fulfilling life those specific motives are every bit as important as the big general ones.

Yaqeen Niyat Kamai Aur Anchor | Qasim Ali Shah

In this video, Qasim Ali Shah talking about on the topic "Yaqeen Niyat Kamai Aur Anchor". He is also sharing his experience, wisdom and knowledge that will be helpful for all of those who want to know about this topic. ===== ABOUT Qasim Ali Shah ===== Qasim Ali Shah is a Public Speaker- Teacher- Writer- Corporate Trainer & Leader for every age group- Businessmen- Corporate executives- Employees- Students- Housewives- Networkers- Sportsmen and for all who wish everlasting Success- Happiness- Peace and Personal Growth. He helps people to change their belief & thought pattern- experience less stress and more success in their lives through better communication- positive thinking and spiritual knowledge. ===== FOLLOW ME ON THE SOCIALS ===== - Qasim Ali Shah: https://goo.gl/6BKcxu - Google+: https://goo.gl/uPyGvT - Twitter: https://goo.gl/78MVoA - Website : https://goo.gl/Tgjy6u ===== Team Member: Waqas Nasir =====

Why whistleblowing is the loneliest and most courageous act in the world | Alice Dreger

Read more at BigThink.com: Follow Big Think here: YouTube: http://goo.gl/CPTsV5 Facebook: https://ift.tt/1qJMX5g Twitter: https://twitter.com/bigthink The mob is very rarely turned. The best you can hope for with a mob is to calm them down a little, but they’ll rarely turn. I think sometimes you have to walk and certainly choose your battles; you can’t throw yourself against the wall constantly and survive. The way I think about integrity is to remember that at the end of the day there’s only one person I have to sleep with, and that’s myself. And am I going to be able to, at the end of the day, feel that I acted with integrity, feel like I treated other people well, that I upheld principles that I really care about? And that on some days can be really, really hard, because it’s not the evil people who challenge your integrity, it’s the good people. It’s the people you like, it’s the people who most of the time do the right thing. And what ends up happening is because we have interests in our lives, because we’re interested in, for example, not unreasonably: making more money, wanting a more comfortable life, wanting to take care of our friends and family— those are the kinds of things that lead to corruption within systems, lead to misuse of resources, lead to people mistreating each other. And it’s not really very hard to call out when somebody who is known to be awful is doing something awful, it’s much harder when it’s the good people around them cooperating or being complicit in that situation. We see that, for example, with the MeToo movement where people are now exposing individuals who have been known to be creeps and awful people, but all the people around them decided not to stand up because it was too costly to them personally or because they have the attitude of “it’s not their job” to stand up. So I think one of the things you have to ask yourself as you think about whether or not to call out bad behavior is: can you get other people to do it with you? That will often help lighten the blow of the backlash. And then can you afford to lose what it is you might lose? And for some of us we can afford that so in my own life, for example, I’ve been able in many circumstances to go ahead and call out bad behavior because I have the resources to survive the backlash. But I always try to think of, at the end of the day and at the end of my life, when I look back will I feel like I did the right thing? And that to me is really important. I was raised in a conservative Roman Catholic family and so the message from my parents all the time, especially from my dad, was always: if you do the right thing you go to heaven, if you do the wrong thing you go to hell. Well, I never had faith. It never worked for me, so I became an atheist very cognitively by the time I was about probably 14, and certainly by 16 and 18 I knew that I had no belief in heaven and hell. So then there was the question: how do you make sure you do the right thing? And for me it was really clear, because my mother had said it to me: all the dogma in the world you don’t really need. At the end of the day what you need is to know, did you treat other people well? Did you take care of injustice? And for me that was a very clear organizing principle, so for me I’m not thinking about what happens after I die, I’m thinking about the end of the day and the end of my life, and thinking if I look back will I feel good about what I did? Or will I feel crummy about what I did? And Catholicism irritates me for many reasons, but one of the reasons it irritates me is because it has the confessional booth. And what happens when you’ve done something that lacks integrity is you go into the confessional booth and you tell somebody (who had nothing to do with the situation) that you did it, and that person forgives you. That’s a, I’m sorry, shitty system. You can bleep it out if you have to. That’s a system in which there isn’t really accountability where somebody is able to just let you off the hook. And if you’re going to live with integrity you need to not have that ability to go buy the little ticket and get out of jail free, you know, do your seven Hail Mary’s and be on your way; you need a situation where you have an inner voice that says “Well you did that badly and you need to make good on it.” And then you go and you apologize to the person you hurt, not to the priest, and you go and you promise not to do it again, not to God but to the person you did it to. And then you have, I think, moral accountability on the earth, which is where we live the moral experience. We don’t live it in the afterlife.

Being nice is not going to end racism | Robin DiAngelo

Read more at BigThink.com: Follow Big Think here: YouTube: http://goo.gl/CPTsV5 Facebook: https://ift.tt/1qJMX5g Twitter: https://twitter.com/bigthink After several decades of doing this work I feel like I know my people fairly well, and most people, most white people are not going to do anything different. Most white people that attend my workshops will say “Wow, that was really interesting or provocative,” if they’re open. If they’re not open they’ll just have their reasons why they have to reject what I said. But even those who are open to the message, if it is not sustained it won’t make much of an impact. I often say when I’m in front of a group “Everything outside of this room will compel you not to see this anymore.” The forces are incredibly seductive. The forces of white solidarity, the forces of keeping other white people comfortable, the forces to not see or name any of this. And if you don’t put some kind of structure around yourself to keep you focused there you’re going to slip right back into the status quo. For so many white people we think that the answer to racism is friendliness. If you notice the evidence that most white people will give for why they’re not racist, one of their top pieces of evidence is “I know people of color. I have friends of color.” If we look at that evidence as a way to understand the deeper structure of meaning, right, it’s actually quite revealing. So in order for a claim like that—“I know people of color, I have friends of color” —In order for a claim like that to be good evidence of my lack of racism, a racist can’t be able to do that. Otherwise it’s not good evidence. “This is what distinguishes me from a racist. I have people of color in my life. I live in New York City. I was in Teach for America. I went to a diverse school.” These are all the claims that white people will make for their lack of racism. Well that must mean a racist cannot live in New York City, could not know or speak to or be friendly to people of color, could not be in the Peace Corp, et cetera. And I’m hoping you can see right now how ridiculous that evidence is. Because even in an avowed racist can do all of those things. So most white people believe that niceness is all it takes, and the status quo of our society is the reproduction of racial inequality. That’s what it does. It’s a default of all of our institutions, our norms and our policies. It’s what our society does, it’s what it’s always done.

Education doesn’t happen on paper. It happens between people. | Elizabeth Alexander

*Note: This is a repost of a video that was originally uploaded on Sunday, Oct 21. It has been reuploaded to fix a typo and to update the cover image.* Read more at BigThink.com: Follow Big Think here: YouTube: http://goo.gl/CPTsV5 Facebook: https://ift.tt/1qJMX5g Twitter: https://twitter.com/bigthink

Is technology corrupting humanity? History says no. | Elad Gil

Read more at BigThink.com: Follow Big Think here: YouTube: http://goo.gl/CPTsV5 Facebook: https://ift.tt/1qJMX5g Twitter: https://twitter.com/bigthink

Lahore Bestival at Expo Centre | Qasim Ali Shah

In this video, Qasim Ali Shah talking about on the topic "Lahore Bestival". The LAHORE BESTIVAL aims to celebrate and promote the joys and rewards of reading, writing, and literacy, It’s a source of broadcasting awareness and positivity by promoting the culture of book reading in Pakistan. It acknowledges national and regional authors and the rich culture of the written words, ideas, and the imaginations. The Bestival strives to benefit the breadth of the community by hosting a variety of events, including author readings and presentations, panel discussions, book signings, workshops, 100 plus publishers, literary gatherings and conversations, as well as incorporating other allied arts and entertainment. ===== ABOUT Qasim Ali Shah ===== Qasim Ali Shah is a Public Speaker- Teacher- Writer- Corporate Trainer & Leader for every age group- Businessmen- Corporate executives- Employees- Students- Housewives- Networkers- Sportsmen and for all who wish everlasting Success- Happiness- Peace and Personal Growth. He helps people to change their belief & thought pattern- experience less stress and more success in their lives through better communication- positive thinking and spiritual knowledge. ===== FOLLOW ME ON THE SOCIALS ===== - Qasim Ali Shah: https://goo.gl/6BKcxu - Google+: https://goo.gl/uPyGvT - Twitter: https://goo.gl/78MVoA - Website : https://goo.gl/Tgjy6u ===== Team Member: Waqas Nasir =====