Sublime

Choking is merely a vivid example of the havoc that can be caused by too much thought. It's an illustration of rationality gone awry, of what happens when we rely on the wrong brain areas. For opera singers and golf players, such deliberate thought processes interfere with the trained movements of their muscles, so that their own bodies betray them

Intelligence is not only the ability to reason; it is also the ability to find relevant material in memory and to deploy attention when needed.

Research by Claude Steele and Joshua Aronson shows that even checking a box to indicate your race or sex can trigger the stereotype in your mind and lower your test score.

This classic effect (which is even more striking when the words are printed in color) reflects the intervention of your executive control system. When the words and colors conflict, the central executive must inhibit word reading to remain focused on the task of naming the ink color.

A defining feature of the theory group was the explicit value that the researchers there placed on concentration, which I soon understood to be the single most important skill required for success in our field. In his book “Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!,” the Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard P. Feynman recalled delivering his first gradua

In cultivating a mind-set for reflective improvisation,

Our goal is to get our reflexive minds to execute on our deliberative minds’ best intentions.