Tali Sharot on Our Power to Change Others

Tali Sharot is a professor of cognitive neuroscience and a leading expert on the neural basis of emotion, decision making and optimism. She has been featured in numerous media outlets,including The New York Times, Time magazine, The Washington Post, CNN, BBC, and more. Her TED talk on the optimism bias was viewed over 2 million times. Her latest book, The Influential Mind: What the Brain Reveals About Our Power to Change Others, tackles the neuroscience behind influence -- what we so often get wrong about it, how we can learn to influence others, and how to understand when we are being influenced. In the interview, Tali and I discuss: How our brains are wired to look on the bright side, and why that tendency can both help and hurt us. Why stress can diminish our bias toward optimism How we can remain optimistic in the face of failure or fear of failure Why a failure in Tali’s own life ended up giving her the idea for her research on the optimism bias Why facts and data don’t tend to change minds once we form a belief. When hope can be a better influencer than fear — and the other way around. How Tali would advise the Democratic party leading up to the 2020 presidential elections. - Get your FREE copy of my e-book. Text OZAN to 345345 or navigate to weeklycontrarian.com to download a free copy of my e-book, The Contrarian Handbook: 8 Principles for Innovating Your Thinking. Along with your free e-book, you’ll get the Weekly Contrarian — a newsletter that challenges conventional wisdom and changes the way we look at the world (plus access to exclusive content for subscribers only). Don’t want to miss future episodes? Be sure to subscribe to the podcast and leave a review on iTunes or Google Play. As always, thanks for listening.