Read Beat (...and repeat)

After suffering a panic attack in a speaking engagement in front of some 100 people, Chris Bailey decided to investigate the cause of the anxiety he suffered. The result is his book, "How to Calm Your Mind."
For years leading up to the attack, Bailey, who's first book was "The Productivity Project," had been obsessed with the subject of productivity, the topic he was on stage to speak about. 
Yet striving for accomplishment can make us less productive, said Bailey. "Researching and writing "How To Calm Your Mind" showed me that we become more productive when we leave the frenetic pace behind and instead work deliberately and calmly on what's truly important. Studies show that a standard eight hours of work can take around nine and a half hours when we're working anxiously--and that's a conservative estimate," he said.
Spend more time in the analog world versus digital, Bailey told Steve Tarter. 
Be aware that the internet is loaded with distractions and our brains gravitate to what releases the most dopamine--superstimuli included. One of the things he advises is that people take a month-long "stimulation fast" to settle the mind.
"I follow a simple rule: if I want an experience to be meaningful or have depth, I do it in the physical, analog world. If I want something done efficiently, I do it digitally," he said.

"Your information has a life of its own, and it’s using you to get what it wants." If that sounds like a science fiction story then you haven't talked to Caleb Scharf, author of "The Ascent of Information: How Data Rules the World."
One of the most unique features of the human race is the vast amount of information we carry around. But in our rush to build the infrastructure for the 20 quintillion bits we create every day, we’ve failed to ask exactly why we’re expending ever-increasing amounts of energy, resources, and human effort to maintain all this data.
Caleb Scharf argues that information is, in a very real sense, alive. All the data we create—all of our emails, tweets, selfies, A.I.-generated text and funny cat videos—amounts to an aggregate lifeform. It has goals and needs. It can control our behavior and influence our well-being. And it’s an organism that has evolved right alongside us.
Come 2040, Scharf notes, unless we find new ways to store all our tweets and videos (or come up with a new energy supply) we're going to be in trouble.
In the meantime, Scharf, whose previous books include The Zoomable Universe, The Copernicus Complex, and Gravity’s Engines, suggests that everyone recognize that we have a problem and that the problem is us.
"Information wants to grow," Scharf told Steve Tarter. "That's kind of terrifying but if we can understand that maybe we can do a better job of maintaining our civilization and not ruining the planet," he said.
People need to think about the world in a different way. For example: Do you really need to post a picture of your sandwich?

Illinois is a state that brings a lot of variety and history to the table. "Illinois Trails & Traces" is proof of that.
Author Gary Marx and Dan Overturf team up to provide unique portraits of people and places across the state.
Marx is a journalist who worked for numerous newspapers including the Southern Illinoisian in Carbondale, Ill. and the Kansas City Star in Kansas City, Mo. Sadly, Marx passed away at the age of 70 in December 2022.
Overturf is the professor emeritus of photography at Southern Illinois University where he taught for 30 years.
The pair combined on a previous book, "A River Through Illinois," published in 2007.
This time around Marx and Overturf are on the trail for interesting characters and they find them, beautifully photographed by Overturf, with fascinating passages from Marx who knows how to get his point across in a succinct manner that allows one to sail through the book.
Overturf told Steve Tarter that he set up photographs of the individuals in the book the old-fashioned way, using lights and staging them in an environment that showcases their interest or work. 
You'll think you know these people after you read about them and view the pictures.
Backroads and byways come back to life in a book that sheds new light on sites from Cahokia Mounds to Galena,

Todd Kashdan isn't preaching insubordination just to be a disruption. His approach is that insubordination, rather than be viewed merely as a negative exercise, is actually something than help societies to progress.

Kashdan, a professor of psychology at George Mason University, is talking about principled insubordination, challenging conventional wisdom and improving on it. 

Most would-be rebels lack the skills to overcome hostile audiences who cling desperately to the way things are so Kashdan has supplied a guidebook.
 
His book is filled with history and stories to make his point. One of his examples is about basketball great Wilt Chamberlain foregoing success at the free throw line  when he decided to try an underhanded approach for a season. But Wilt the Stilt thought people were making fun of his "granny style" and went back to the traditional overhand approach and, similarly, went back to missing free throws again.

Kashdan's point? It's not easy to go against the status quo--even if you're an NBA star.

Some of the author's suggestions include: 
--Resist the allure of complacency.
--Produce messages that influence the majority– when in the minority.
--Manage the discomfort when trying to rebel
--Champion ideas that run counter to traditional thinking

Kashdan told Steve Tarter that his favorite band Fugazi was not only musically advanced  but "lived their values." They never charged high prices for a concert or used the traditional record company approach, said Kashdan. 

The authors want to point out how powerfully we are influenced by our perspectives and prejudices—our frames, noted Forbes magazine. 

Humanity faces unprecedented challenges that threaten our very existence but don't give up on the human spirit--and intelligence, said De Vericourt in an interview with Steve Tarter.
 
To frame is to make a mental model that enables us to make sense of new situations. Frames guide the decisions we make and the results we attain. People have long focused on traits like memory and reasoning, leaving framing all but ignored. But with computers becoming better at some of those cognitive tasks, framing stands out as a critical function—and only humans can do it, said De Vericourt. 
 
In an age where machines continue to advance, de Vericourt points out that "machines as we know them today can only work with data that's provided."
 
Remember that the Wright brothers, the fathers of modern aviation, ran a bike shop in Ohio, he said. They were normal people who used a design frame to come up with the first flight.

Around the world, there are millions of hostile rivalries, yet only a fraction erupt into violence, a fact too many accounts overlook. When hostilities do break out such as the conflict between Russia and the Ukraine, it's that rare case where factors have forced that most costly of actions, war.

"Unchecked leaders ignore the cost of war," said Christopher Blattman, referring to Vladimir Putin.  Blattman's book, "Why We Fight," reminds us that enemies usually are almost always willing to split the pie than spoil it for everyone or struggle over thin slices. 

A professor at the University of Chicago, Blattman doesn't just study warring states but street gangs that operate in places like Chicago and Medellín, Columbia.

"We need to understand why gangs are fighting," he told Steve Tarter. Some of the reasons that Blattman has run across include angry vendettas and the need to maintain a reputation.

Regarding the Russia-Ukraine conflict, Blattman ventures that it might turn into another Kashmir, contested territory between India and Pakistan where the parties remain unable to agree on terms but have at least stopped fighting. "That allows kids to go to school again and farmers to plant crops," he said.

Instead of supressing a young person's curiosity about  an individual who might be different, a parent should accept it, said Amber O'Neill Johnston, author of "A Place to Belong."

Turn the idea of being color blind on its head, she said.  In "A Place to Belong,"  she helps families to honor their cultural heritage and champion diversity in the context of daily family life by:
 
  •  Fostering open dialogue around discrimination, race, gender, disability, and class
  •  Teaching “hard history” in an age-appropriate way
  •  Curating a diverse selection of books and media choices in which children see themselves and people who are different
  •  Celebrating cultural heritage through art, music, and poetry
  •  Modeling activism and engaging in community service projects as a family
 
Johnston, a homeschooling mother of four, told Steve Tarter that schools that lack diversity in their student makeup might consider a relationship with a sister school in order to help kids better understand and appreciate people who are racially and culturally different. 

As enjoyable as the book, itself, is the lilting Scottish accent of author/artist Johanna Basford as she chats with Steve Tarter about "30 Days of Creativity."
Basford, an accomplished player in the adult coloring book world, has numerous titles to her credit but "30 Days" is an effort to let someone who may never have picked up a crayon to join in.
She suggests spending just 10 minutes a day--for 30 days--to follow along with her book to see what you can do.
"Once you start and get going, you'll be amazed at how much skill you have," she said.
Basford is a cheerleader for the inner artist in all of us. "Comparison is the thief of job. Don't doubt yourself," she urges.
"If you're worried about showing your work to people, you're showing it to the wrong people," said Basford.
"Forget about perfection. Just aim for progress," she said. 

You were born influential. But then you were taught to suppress that power, to follow the rules, to wait your turn, to not make waves.  Zoe Chance, author of "Influence is Your Superpower," seeks to explain how you can rediscover the power that brings great ideas to life.

It's about giving that power to everybody, not just left in the hands of the power-hungry people in this world, Chance told Steve Tarter.

The author explained that the brain has two systems, one that makes an immediate, intuitive response and the other works on a more thoughtful response.

Chance calls that first system the gator, using the analogy on alligators she observed at Gatorland in Florida. "What you notice is how lazy they are," she said. Alligators won't bite on a chunk of meat thrown by them being creatures that can go a long time without eating, said Chance.

"Their dominant response is to ignore the situation," she said. The judge, on the other hand, represents a reasoned, thoughtful approach to a problem. But the problem is that, typically, people use the gator response 95 percent of the time, said Chance, whose class at Yale University is one of the most popular on campus.
 
After all, who doesn't want to be influential.2

Before you order that favorite pair of jeans, you may want to hear what Maxine Bedat has to say on what she found out about the clothing industry. 
Did you know how many thousands of miles were involved or the number of hands who picked, spun, wove, dyed, packaged, shipped, and sold the item to get it to you? 
Did you know that in the 1960s, about 95 percent of what Americans wore was produced in this country and now about 2 percent is?
Bedat makes the point that today's fashion industry operates with radical opacity, and it's only getting worse to disguise countless environmental and labor abuses. 
In "Unraveled," Bedat sets off to follow the production of a pair of blue jeans from cotton field to landfill, the life of the garment. 
In doing so, she explores factories in China where chemicals banned in the West slosh on factory floors and drain into waterways used to irrigate local family farms. 
Sewing floors in Bangladesh and Sri Lanka are crammed with women working for illegally low wages to produce garments as efficiently as machines. 
Back in America, our jeans get stowed, picked, and shipped out by Amazon warehouse workers pushed to be as quick as the robots primed to replace them. 
Bedat reminds us that the Levis brand, so very American in its heritage, and one that once employed thousands in Texas and California, has now moved all production offshore. 
The author told Steve Tarter that it wouldn't take much to allow for workers in Bangladesh and Sri Lanka to earn a living wage for their labors while some of the wealthiest people in the world derive some of their income from the fashion industry.

Business & Economics - Industries - Fashion & Textile Industry

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• MBMaxine Bedat

• MBMaxine Bedat