Big Think

• Stoicism: Turn suffering into unshakeable inner strength | Chloé Valdary

  Chloé Valdary shares the ancient Stoic principle that can defeat modern despair.   It can be difficult to process sadness. People often try to numb it, avoid it, or deny that they’re even experiencing it, instead of better understanding and working through the emotion. The Stoics offer a more head-on approach. This school of philosophy is often falsely associated with the suppression of emotions. But it’s more accurate to say that the Stoics were interested in how people can respond virtuously to life’s trials and tragedies. The answer, according to general Stoic thought, is that we shouldn’t deny emotions or the things that make us feel pain or sadness, but rather strive to accept that which we cannot control and do our best to process our emotions in a way that puts us on a productive path forward. As Chloé Valdary, @cvaldary — an American writer and founder of the conflict-resolution program Theory of Enchantment — explains in this Big Think interview, Stoicism not only can help us work through sadness as individuals, but it can also teach us to recognize the many forms that suffering can take in others. 0:00 Transcending suffering 1:08 The origin of Stoic philosophy 2:40 How to practice ‘sympatheia’ 4:48 Managing sadness with Stoicism 5:57 Developing inner strength: Know yourself, know others ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- About Chloé Valdary: After spending a year as a Bartley fellow at the Wall Street Journal, Chloé Valdary developed The Theory of Enchantment, an innovative framework for compassionate antiracism that combines social emotional learning (SEL), character development, and interpersonal growth as tools for leadership development in the boardroom and beyond. Chloé has trained around the world, including in South Africa, The Netherlands, Germany, and Israel. Her clients have included high school and college students, government agencies, business teams, + many more. She has also lectured in universities across America, including Harvard and Georgetown. Her work has been covered in Psychology Today Magazine and her writings have appeared in the New York Times and the Wall St Journal. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  --------  

  7:57

  --------

  7:57
• How to live after your soulmate has died | Michelle Thaller

  Astronomer Michelle Thaller explains the healing power of physics after losing her husband. Grief is a haunting and powerful psychological force. It struck astronomer Dr. Michelle Thaller in 2020 when her husband died of cancer. She was left feeling utterly disconnected from the people and places around her, as if the fundamental nature of reality had shifted and Earth was no longer her home. She still lives with the pain. But as she told Big Think, she has found that the pursuits that make us feel connected to the Universe — science, poetry, art, literature — can serve as tools that help us continue pushing forward and living enriching lives. The pain from losing our loved ones may never disappear completely. But finding ways to connect to something larger than ourselves just might give us a path out of grief. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- About Michelle Thaller: Dr. Michelle Thaller is an astronomer who studies binary stars and the life cycles of stars. She is Assistant Director of Science Communication at NASA. She went to college at Harvard University, completed a post-doctoral research fellowship at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena, Calif. then started working for the Jet Propulsion Laboratory's (JPL) Spitzer Space Telescope. After a hugely successful mission, she moved on to NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), in the Washington D.C. area. In her off-hours often puts on about 30lbs of Elizabethan garb and performs intricate Renaissance dances. For more information, visit NASA. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  --------  

  8:04

  --------

  8:04
• Your money trauma starts at childhood | Your Brain on Money

  Do you remember feeling “money shame” for the first time? It’s no secret that the values, advice, and experiences we encounter as children shape how we relate to other people later in life. But less obvious is how our early experiences shape our relationship with money. Like other relationships, the ways we interact with money — whether it be spending, saving, or investing — can be highly emotionally charged, sometimes to the extent that we lose our control to make smart financial decisions. That’s why it’s important to understand where you come from before plotting where you’re going when it comes to personal finance. Doing so will not only help you plan for financial success, but it will also give you the tools to help your children develop a healthy and positive relationship with money. Kathleen Burns Kingsbury’s title is incorrectly cited in the video as financial psychologist. Kingsbury’s title is wealth psychology expert. We created this video in partnership with @MillionStoriesMedia ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  --------  

  7:58

  --------

  7:58
• 3 game theory tactics, explained

  How to maximize wins and minimize losses, explained by four experts on game theory. Game theory is a useful tool for decision-making in situations where the outcome depends on multiple parties. It provides a systematic way to analyze the interdependence of individuals or organizations and their potential strategies. Not only does game theory help you identify the optimal strategy for achieving your goals, it can also help you avoid the sunk-cost fallacy — the tendency to persist in an endeavor because of the resources you've already invested. By taking into account the potential actions and responses of other players, game theory allows you to minimize your losses and make informed choices that lead to better outcomes. Whether you're negotiating a business deal or making investment decisions, game theory can be a valuable asset in helping you make smarter choices and achieve your objectives. 0:00 What is game theory? 1:08 War: Learn from Reagan and Gorbachev 2:58 Poker: The sunk cost fallacy 5:56 Zero-sum games: The minimax strategy Read the video transcript ► https://bigthink.com/series/the-big-t... ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- About Kevin Zollman: Kevin Zollman is an associate professor in the Department of Philosophy at Carnegie Mellon University. He is also an associate fellow at the Center for Philosophy of Science at the University of Pittsburgh, visiting professor at the Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy (part of Ludwig-Maximilians Universität), and an associate editor of the journal Philosophy of Science. His research focuses on game theory, agent based modeling, and the philosophy of science. Zollman is the co-author of The Game Theorist's Guide to Parenting: How the Science of Strategic Thinking Can Help You Deal with the Toughest Negotiators You Know--Your Kids, with Paul Raeburn. About Annie Duke: Annie Duke has leveraged her expertise in the science of smart decision making to excel at pursuits as varied as championship poker to public speaking. For two decades, Annie was one of the top poker players in the world. In 2004, she bested a field of 234 players to win her first World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelet. The same year, she triumphed in the $2 million winner-take-all, invitation-only WSOP Tournament of Champions. In 2010, she won the prestigious NBC National Heads-Up Poker Championship. Prior to becoming a professional poker player, Annie was awarded the National Science Foundation Fellowship. Thanks to this fellowship, she studied Cognitive Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania. About Liv Boeree: Olivia "Liv" Boeree is a poker player, TV presenter and model from England who won the 2010 European Poker Tour in Sanremo. Born in Kent, Boeree studied at Ashford School before going on to earn a First Class Honours degree in Physics with Astrophysics at the University of Manchester. She was the #1 ranked female player on the Global Poker Index as of November 2015, and #6 on the female all-time live poker winnings list. About Julia Galef: Julia Galef is a New York-based writer and public speaker specializing in science, rationality, and design. She serves on the board of directors of the New York City Skeptics, co-hosts their official podcast, Rationally Speaking, and co-writes the blog Rationally Speaking along with philosopher of science Massimo Pigliucci. She has moderated panel discussions at The Amazing Meeting and the Northeast Conference on Science and Skepticism, and gives frequent public lectures to organizations including the Center for Inquiry and the Secular Student Alliance. Julia received her B.A. in statistics from Columbia in 2005. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  --------  

  8:10

  --------

  8:10
• Why the ultra rich get rich, explained in two charts | Brian Klaas

  **💸 The Genius Myth: Why Billionaires Aren’t Always Brilliant** We’ve been sold a lie — that extreme wealth is the mark of genius. But when you peel back the layers, you find that **luck, not talent**, is often the true engine behind billionaire success. While talent follows a normal curve — nobody is *a billion times more talented* than anyone else — **wealth doesn’t follow the same rules**. It’s wildly uneven, with a few sitting on astronomical fortunes and many scraping by. This disconnect points to something else at play: **luck striking in the middle of the talent curve**, not at the extremes. A striking study simulating a world with randomly distributed talent and random events found that the **richest individuals weren’t the most talented** — just marginally above average people who got lucky again and again. Real-world outcomes echo this. **Enter Elon Musk.** Sure, he has some talent — but he's also a prime example of someone who mistook wealth for genius. His Twitter/X debacle revealed that success in one domain doesn’t guarantee competence elsewhere. The myth of his infallible intellect unraveled when **his “genius” failed to translate across industries**. But there’s another trait common to billionaires: **greed**. Unlike most people who might be content with enough, many billionaires obsessively chase more. It’s not just brilliance or even luck — it’s an insatiable hunger that propels them to hoard wealth, not distribute it. So the next time someone equates riches with brilliance, remember: **lightning didn’t strike them because they were the tallest tree — it struck where there were just more trees.** Folllow this Podcast for daily Episodes --------------------------------------------10:23-26 --------------------------------- Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  --------  

  9:24

  --------

  9:24

More Education podcasts

Trending Education podcasts

About Big Think