Shankar Vedantam

When we head into a negotiation — whether we're asking for a raise or trying to get our spouse to do the dishes — our focus is usually on getting the other person to agree to our preferred outcome. What we don't focus on are our own biases and blind spots. This week, as we

This week on My Unsung Hero: After running the New York City Marathon some 30 years ago, Nancy Willis couldn’t find her 8-year-old son. After a frantic search, a woman appeared, holding his hand. https://t.co/ILIFw6ydez

For an upcoming podcast episode, we’re looking for examples of a time when you engaged in a perverse pleasure – where you deliberately sought out something painful or embarrassing or grotesque, just to test your limits, or because you were curious. If you have a story like this

When is the last time you really connected with someone? How did it feel? This week, we kick off our Relationships 2.0 series with an episode on connection — why it’s so difficult to achieve in our modern lives, and how we can all get better at it. https://t.co/OR2n98APx0

All of us want to be recognized for the unique individuals we are. And yet, the experience of being seen in this way can be dispiritingly rare. This week, we kick off our Relationships 2.0 series with an episode on what researcher @allison_pugh calls "connective labor," and how

“It was profoundly different from anything that anyone could have described to me.” Have you ever experienced something that changed you in a way you couldn’t have seen coming? This week, we talk to philosopher Laurie Paul about these experiences. How can we plan for the future

This week on My Unsung Hero: In 1968, when Terry Hill was four, she and her two young siblings were left briefly in the car by themselves. Her one-year-old brother accidentally hit the gearshift, and the car began to roll toward oncoming traffic. Then a young man rushed over.

“It was profoundly different from anything that anyone could have described to me.” Have you ever experienced something that changed you in a way you couldn’t have seen coming? This week, we talk to philosopher L.A. Paul about these experiences. How can we plan for the future

“Until you're actually experiencing that change, there are just dimensions of it that you can't predict.” When faced with life-altering decisions, we try our best to navigate the unknown. But there’s a stark difference between knowing something and experiencing it. This week, a

“When you get a confession from an innocent person and close that case, you're not doing a whole lot of good for public safety.” – psychologist Saul Kassin This week, the psychology behind false confessions. https://t.co/lwgmTltmxr

Common sense says innocent people don’t confess to crimes they didn’t commit. But psychologist Saul Kassin says that’s a myth. He studies why false confessions happen, and how people end up betraying their own self-interest. This week, we revisit that fascinating conversation.

This week on My Unsung Hero: Glenna Osborne’s father was a firefighter for years. Early in his career, he almost died in a house fire. The man who saved his life turned into a forever friend — and someone Glenna's family will always cherish. https://t.co/QhM6vPDP1U

“I define an inflection point as something that changes what is true about the rules around your business, typically by a factor of ten or more.” -@rgmcgrath In this week’s episode, the science of inflection points. https://t.co/njqLhTj8sA

“It's very hard for human beings to think about these exponential changes that can come out and really shift what's possible in the world.” In 1995, Newsweek ran an article mocking the hype around a new tech trend: something called the “world wide web.” It’s easy to look at this

"There is a time and a place for a particular strategy to be successful. And when the conditions change, you can't just rinse and repeat.” Whether in business or in life, what worked in the past is not guaranteed to work in the future. This week, we talk to @rgmcgrath about

This week on My Unsung Hero: One evening after class, Ellen Wyoming DeLoy was one of the only people to exit at her stop on a train ride home. The conductor began ringing the bell – and she realized he had alerted her to potential danger. https://t.co/CSklg7QD8a

“That colleague was not saying, don't be gay. He was saying, it's fine for you to be gay and say that you're gay— but don't flaunt it.” Have you ever hidden away a part of yourself because you were afraid you wouldn’t be accepted? This week, we discuss the phenomenon of