James Victore and Ben Barry: How to Build Your Own Career

In a world where there is no more “traditional path” how to we take our career where we want it to go? In this interview with 99U Director Jocelyn Glei, artist James Victore and Facebook’s Ben Barry share the lessons learned from forging their own path — both outside and inside of a larger organization. One of the first misnomers? That you need to pay your dues. “That has fear in it,” says Victore, “If you have something you love, pursue it with all of your heart and the universe will help you.”

The Psychological Comforts of Storytelling

Cody C. Delistraty, in The Atlantic, ponders "Why, throughout human history, have people been so drawn to fiction?":

Humans have been telling stories for thousands of years, sharing them orally even before the invention of writing. In one way or another, much of people’s lives are spent telling stories—often about other people. In her paper “Gossip in Evolutionary Perspective,” evolutionary psychologist Robin Dunbar found stories’ direct relevance to humans: Social topics—especially gossip—account for 65 percent of all human conversations in public places.

Stories can be a way for humans to feel that we have control over the world. They allow people to see patterns where there is chaos, meaning where there is randomness. Humans are inclined to see narratives where there are none because it can afford meaning to our lives—a form of existential problem-solving. In a 1944 study conducted by Fritz Heider and Marianne Simmel at Smith College, 34 college students were shown a short film in which two triangles and a circle moved across the screen and a rectangle remained stationary on one side of the screen. When asked what they saw, 33 of the 34 students anthropomorphized the shapes and created a narrative: The circle was “worried,” the “little triangle” was an “innocent young thing,” the big triangle was “blinded by rage and frustration.” Only one student recorded that all he saw were geometric shapes on a screen.

What Is History For?

Another short film from The School of Life. 

How We Got To Now With Steven Johnson, Premieres Tonight.

HOW WE GOT TO NOW WITH STEVEN JOHNSON premieres Wednesdays, October 15, 9-11 p.m. and October 22-November 12, 10-11 p.m. ET on PBS. Get the companion book. 

Walter Mischel, The Marshallow Test, and Self-Control

Maria Konnikova, in The New Yorker, talks with Walter Mischel about his new book The Marshmallow Test: Mastering Self-Control:

Mischel believes that the skills which enable us to delay gratification are the same skills that allow us to make other good choices despite temptations to do otherwise. “We’ve found a way to really improve human choice and freedom,” he told me. “If we have the skills to allow us to make discriminations about when we do or don’t do something, when we do or don’t drink something, and when we do and when we don’t wait for something, we are no longer victims of our desires.” As Roy Baumeister, a professor of psychology at Florida State University who studies willpower, put it, self-control is like a muscle: the more you use it, the stronger it gets. Avoiding something tempting once will help you develop the ability to resist other temptations in the future.