Personal Growth

Having spent over seven years as a member of the cast of the NBC sitcom “The Office,” Rainn Wilson is known almost universally for his role as egomaniac Dwight Schrute. […]

Organisations from Google to Twitter are achieving some stunning results by carving out time for staff to work on whatever it is that inspires them.

Crucial to an entrepreneur’s success is the idea that he or she can play their hand better than anyone else at the table, but what accounts for such a strong optimistic outlook?

If you were to track the daily happenings that flatten people’s moods, you would likely find rejection at the core.

He’s known as the “Berlin patient,” and he seems to be the first man to beat HIV. 

Law schools are manufacturing more lawyers than America needs, and law students aren’t happy about it. The demand for lawyers has fallen off a cliff, reports Slate.

Pessimism is often wrong because people assume a world where there is no change or innovation. They fail to recognize insights that might alter current trends, says Bill Gates.

How will the Giving Pledge, Bill Gates and Warren Buffett’s quest to get billionaires to donate half their wealth to charity, impact philanthropy and the world’s needy?

The idea of empowering the public is a contradiction in terms: power is gained, not granted. When you ‘empower’ people, you’re not empowering them, you’re enfeebling them.

Historic successes and colossal failure are often fueled by the same impulses: ambition, audacity, passion, and a burning desire to comment meaningfully on the world around us.

A study said to shake psychology’s foundations finds that daydreaming is rarely helpful. Furthermore, it challenges the idea that the mind responds to a stimulus out in the world.

Forbes’ Katie Phillips sets some limits on political correctness and politeness even though obeying her conscience could cost her some Facebook friends.

Behind the fiercely ambitious texts of the iconoclastic philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche was a kind man who was nice to children and terribly polite, writes Jonathan Rée.

Aggressive campaigns by colleges to boost their number of applicants gives the impression of exclusivity, but is this statistical allure harmful to education? Many say, ‘Yes’.

“That there are seemingly endless metaphors and universal life lessons that can be gleaned from baseball is one of the many things that make the game so interesting.”

The jungle has often been a metaphor for the breakdown of morality. Think “Heart of Darkness” or “Aguirre: Wrath of God.” And now we have a true story to add […]

The last day of The Daily Beast’s ideas forum in New Orleans features talks from political thinkers like James Carville and business leaders from India and China.

“Can the innovative ‘do-it-yourself’ education movement really replace the dying university model?” Alan Jacobs says universities are decadent outposts in austere times.

“Why does a melancholy mood turn us into a better artist? The answer returns us to the intertwined nature of emotion and cognition.” The Frontal Cortex on creativity.

“It is easy to talk about great ideas as if they were light-bulb moments, sudden epiphanies where everything comes together at once…but that’s rarely how it works.”

Venture capitalist and early Facebook investor Peter Thiel is offering a unique ‘scholarship’: $100,000 for entrepreneurs under the age of twenty to drop out of college.

“True breakthroughs in understanding come not from following the rulebook, but from tracking down its contradictions.” The Guardian praises the paradoxical mind.

Much of the accepted wisdom on bullying is not only ineffective, it makes things worse. Advice to “just be nice”, “don’t be a tattletale” and “‘just ignore them'” needs revisiting.

In his new book, bestselling author Steven Johnson discusses the history and sources of innovation. Johnson asks: Where do good ideas come from?

World authority on ants E.O. Wilson explains what humans can learn from these tiny animals that work together, share food and send elders into battle to protect the young.

Far from simply being a relaxed state, meditation is a period of heightened mental activity. Long-term practice can increase one’s capacity for attention as well as compassion.

“Don’t trade your passion, originality, and curiosity for some second-hand notion of success.” William Deresiewicz urges freshmen not to play it safe.rn

“The strained economy shouldn’t keep the nation from crafting school improvements, but Obama’s pitch for longer school years is unhelpful right now.”

“Collective intelligence exists among groups of people who cooperate well; such intelligence extends beyond the cognitive abilities of the groups’ individual members.”

“Although we currently assume that the only way to improve is to constantly practice, research demonstrates that we can also improve through mere exposure.”