The 10 Best Ideas I Learned in 2022

Consuming online content makes us feel like we're learning, but 90% of the content is useless junk—small talk, clickbait, marketing—which crowds out actual info from our minds. As such, we feel we're getting smarter as we get stupider.

According to multiple studies, what best predicts whether someone becomes a leader? Their experience? Their IQ?

Nope.

The amount of time they spend talking. It doesn't even matter what they say, just how much they say it.

We suck at picking leaders.

The more we eliminate struggles from our lives, the more we create artificial struggles – sports, video games, Twitter culture wars – because the mind wants peace, but needs conflict.

We're better at solving other people's problems than our own, because detachment yields objectivity. But Kross et al (2014) found that viewing oneself in the 3rd person yields the same detachment, so when trying to help yourself, imagine you're helping a friend.