A mule was grazing in a pasture when a worker was stealing corn from his boss's barn. There was a ventriloquist nearby who could see the mule, as well as the worker stealing the corn, but the worker could not see him. The ventriloquist threw his voice into the mule, and it said, "Hey, stop stealing the boss's corn." The worker looked around but only saw the mule and he replied to the mule, "Mule, I am tending to my business and you'd better be tending to your business." The mule repeated himself, "Hey, stop stealing the boss's corn." The man replied, "Mule, how many times have I got to tell you to tend to your business and leave me alone?" The ventriloquist picked up a small stone, threw it and it hit the mule. Surprised, the mule galloped up toward the boss's house. The worker dropped the sack of corn and ran behind yelling, "Boss! Boss! This mule is getting ready to tell you a big lie!"

Richard Thaler, an economist, showed that people don't always make fully rational choices, and that their decisions can be greatly affected by apparently minor factors (such as where high-calorie foods are placed in a grocery store). Guided by Thaler's work, companies and governments found that if you reduce or simplify form-filling requirements, you can make a difference in people's lives. With these findings in mind, the Behavioural Insights Team's new report offers a success story. Road accidents are a leading cause of deaths and injuries in the UK, and accidents are often caused by drivers who have previously been caught speeding. To address that problem, the team adopted a simple tactic, in the form of a letter, briefly explaining to those drivers that speed limits are a reasonable and important idea. Remarkably, the intervention cut repeat offenses by 20 percent over the next six-month period — which almost certainly saved lives.

Agriculture in the South of the United States was oriented toward large-scale plantations that produced cotton for export, as well as other agricultural export products such as tobacco and sugar. It has traditionally been endorsed by migrant workers who move from area to area according to these crops that need harvesting. Many immigrants from China and the Philippines in Asia, and Mexico in South America became migrant workers when they first arrived in the United States. Often they had problems with the English language or no skills that they could immediately use in the new country. Objectively, their way of life was little better than slavery. They were housed in substandard conditions, received wages far below the minimum, and had no medical benefits. The migrant workers had no labor unions that could bargain for better wages or improved working conditions. Employers who hired and exploited them were making fortunes by the sweat of their workers' brows.

Terraforming is a hypothetical procedure by which a planet's atmosphere is engineered to make it like Earth's. The primary candidate for terraforming is Mars, a world similar in size to our own and known to have water-ice locked away beneath its surface that could be melted. The process would require technologies to first generate significant quantities of oxygen ㅡ say by using genetically modified plants ㅡ and then use known greenhouse gases to increase the surface temperature to melt Mars's ice reserves. Scientists have suggested this could be done by steering asteroids rich in the greenhouse gas ammonia onto a collision course with Mars. It's thought to be quite difficult to be carried out, but proponents of terraforming, nevertheless, insist that it be developed for the very survival of our species - the human population will soon become too great for Earth to sustain on its own.

Economics posits an underlying logic to human behavior: whether it be a purchase of food or a choice about savings, all decisions are aimed at maximizing utility. If I prefer strawberries over bananas I am said to gain more utility from strawberries than bananas, perhaps quantified as a utility of ‘four' compared to ‘two.' Maximization of utility is the sole aim of rational economic man, and while economics is often thought of as the study of money, money is simply needed to buy things, and the utility generated is the drive of behavior. Utility is subjective; strawberries add to my well-being but reduce that of someone who dislikes them. Early theories saw utility as a scale like money: someone with a utility of four was twice as happy as someone with a utility of two. But because it is impossible to precisely measure, economists now think of it as a ranking — we can say someone gains more utility from strawberries than bananas because we see him choose strawberries, but we can't really assess how much absolute utility they provide.

The California Gold Rush led a huge number of Englishmen to depart to build new lives in America, as the new steamships allowed cheap, if comfortless and disagreeable, transatlantic passage. In addition, due to a fungal blight that had ruined Ireland's potato harvest in the 1840s, countless Irish people abandoned their motherland and headed to America, a new land of opportunity. Pogroms following the assassination of the Tsar Liberator also sparked Russian Jewish emigration. America, accordingly, enacted laws to grant land to those willing to settle and cultivate farms, encouraging western expansion. The immigrant gateway of Ellis Island was also set up in 1892. However, the process was not all-inclusive. Increasing Asian immigrants, in particular Chinese people, to California alarmed local authorities who lobbied for strict quotas on Asians, and general limits were implemented after World War I.

Information is stored in the brain in a huge web. Let's say you see a dog. The incoming sensory signals indicate a furry, four-legged thing and, with the addition of certain other observations, they pull up memories of previously sighted dogs. If, along with those memories, your brain comes up with the word ‘dog,' it makes links (probably unconsciously) with things like dog kennels, dog food and dogged behavior. Thus, a very wide range of ideas and knowledge becomes available for us to make use of as we construct our thoughts about what we are sensing. Without the name ‘dog' our response would be limited and restricted to the particular thing we are seeing. Hence, it is often said that the more words we encounter and grasp, the more easily and quickly we can unlock the gate to abstraction and generalization.

Have you heard about the Monty Hall problem? It is named after the presenter of the American game show, Let's Make a Deal, where the climax was to choose a prize from behind one of three doors. Imagine yourself in this situation. Behind two doors are booby prizes but behind one door is a fabulous prize, a $100,000 Ferrari. You can't make a choice instantly, hesitate for a few minutes, and finally choose door A. The host of the show, Monty, says, ‘You chose door A, but let me show you what's behind door C.' He then opens door C to reveal one of the booby prizes. Monty says, ‘You chose door A initially, but do you want to change your decision to door B?' Most people who encounter this problem for the very first time think that it makes no difference, because they reason that it is a 50-50 chance to win the Ferrari. Indeed, people are reluctant to change their minds once they have made a choice. Some may say that we stubbornly stick with our decisions because we have the courage of our conviction. What do you think you should do — switch or stick? The correct solution to the Monty Hall problem is to switch because you are more likely to win than if you stick with your first choice. The reason is that, when you first choose a door, you have a one-out-of-three chance that you are correct. Now, after Monty has revealed one of the booby prizes, with two doors left, the remaining door that you did not select has a one-out-of-two chance, which has better odds than the door you first chose out of three. The Monty Hall problem represents our egocentric bias, which blinds us to a more favorable option while we're living in this intricate world.

A fifth grader in elementary school who was not interested in writing, Russell didn't like Mr. Fleagle standing in front of him in writing class. Russell could hardly concentrate in this class. Mr. Fleagle explained how to write well, but it didn't sound interesting to him at all. He thought the class would never end. Mr. Fleagle finally asked the students to write an essay on a choice of several topics. Russell thought most of them would be dull. However, the topic "The Art of Eating Spaghetti" immediately sparked an interest. It reminded him of his first memory with spaghetti. The sweetest memory prompted a new desire to write. He put down his experience and turned in it to the teacher. In the next class, Mr. Fleagle announced that his work was an excellent piece of writing. Russell couldn't hide the smile that came across his face.

One of the most surprising things about motivation is that it often comes after starting a new behavior, not before. In fact, active inspiration can be a far more powerful motivator. Motivation is often the result of action, not the cause of it. Getting started, even in very small ways, is a form of active inspiration that naturally produces momentum. This effect can be referred to as the Physics of Productivity because this can be seen as basically Newton's First Law applied to habit formation: Objects in motion tend to stay in motion. Once a task has begun, it is easier to continue moving it forward. You don't need much motivation once you've started a behavior. Nearly all of the friction in a task is at the beginning. After you start, progress occurs more naturally. Get started first, and you'll feel the task is much easier to finish.

Reading to oneself is a modern activity which was almost unknown to the scholars of the classical and medieval worlds, while until the eighteenth century the term "reading" undoubtedly meant reading aloud. Only during the nineteenth century did silent reading become commonplace. One should be wary, however, of assuming that silent reading came about simply because reading aloud was a distraction to others. Examinations of factors related to the historical development of silent reading have revealed that it became the usual mode of reading for most adults mainly because the overall situation regarding reading changed a lot. The last century saw a steady gradual increase in literacy and thus in the number of readers. As the number of readers increased, the number of potential listeners declined and thus there was some reduction in the need to read aloud. As reading for the benefit of listeners grew less common, so came the flourishing of reading as a private activity in such public places as libraries, railway carriages and offices.

There was a man who worked all of his life and saved all of his money. He was a real miser and loved money more than just about anything. Just before he died, he said to his brother, "Now listen, when I die, I want you to take all my money and place it in the coffin with me. I want to take my money with me to the afterlife." His brother promised he would. Soon after, the man died. He was laid out in the coffin and his brother was sitting nearby with his friend. Following the funeral, just before the coffin was closed, he said, "Wait just a minute!" He approached the coffin with a shiny box and placed it near the older brother's feet. Then the coffin was closed. His friend said, "I hope you weren't crazy enough to put all that money in the coffin for him." "Yes," he said, "I promised and I would never go back on my word. "You mean to tell me you put more than $150,000 in the coffin with him?" "I sure did," he replied. "I got it all together, put it into my account, and wrote him a check. I put the check in the coffin."

Paul Cuffee, born on Cuttyhunk Island near New Bedford, was the son of Cuffee Slocum, a freed slave, and Ruth Moses, a Wampanoag Indian. By the time Cuffee was sixteen, he was earning a living as a sailor on a whaling vessel. After making numerous voyages, he was captured by the British but later released. He studied mathematics and navigation but soon returned to the sea. In 1795, he bought his first ship, Ranger, and in eleven years he had become a landholder and owner of numerous other sailing vessels. Cuffee was also a believer in free blacks voluntarily returning to Africa. In 1811, aboard his ship Traveller, he sailed to Sierra Leone, where he founded the organization the Friendly Society, which helped blacks return to Africa. In 1815, he sailed with thirty-eight colonists for Africa. It was to be his last voyage, however, for he died September 9, 1817. What led to his death was not uncovered.

When there are many firms in a market, they compete and keep prices low. Suppose that prices and profits were particularly high in some industry. This would attract new firms who would enter the market and compete prices down. A monopoly in which one firm controls an entire market is the totally opposite case. A monopoly can arise when there are high barriers — perhaps technological or legal — to competitors entering. Because the monopoly governs the entire market, it can set the price of the good or the quantity supplied. Economic theory says that monopolists restrict output relative to what would be produced in a competitive market, prompting higher prices and greater profits. Economists tend to be critical of monopolies because consumers lose out compared to the higher output that would emerge in a competitive market. This is one of the justifications for competition policy, which aims at restricting the formation of monopolies.

Trepanation (or trepanning) involves drilling a hole through the skull to reveal the brain. It is a routine procedure during brain surgery, allowing access to the brain. The term is better known, however, for its intriguing history. Thousands of skulls — dating back to the Stone Age and from dozens of different countries — have been found with neatly rounded holes that could only have been made deliberately. It may have been for pain relief or to remove splinters of bone from people with head injuries. More likely it was ritualistic, perhaps to release spirits from people thought to be possessed, or to bring about some kind of spiritual transformation. In the 1960s, self-trepanation became a minority cult, adherents claiming that it put them in a state of higher consciousness. Some of those who did it are still alive today, though whether they enjoy elevated consciousness is less certain. There is no way of telling exactly why each procedure was done. But one thing is sure: a specific purpose led to the individual procedure.

Gene therapy involves inserting healthy genes into cells to replace faulty ones. It was first suggested, amid much excitement in the 1990s, but getting the genes to the right places and activating them there have proved enormous. The brain presents special challenges for gene therapy. Indeed, few conditions are caused by single gene mutations and the brain is so complicated that even a marginal fault in one part during gene therapy is likely to produce many other knock-on dysfunctions. In addition, gene therapy depends on cell reproduction — the replacement genes must become numerous enough to have an effect. Brain cells, however, are not routinely replaced like other cells and, as people age, producing new ones becomes even slower. Despite these problems, gene therapy for brain disorders is looking hopeful. For example, dopamine-producing genes have been inserted into neurons in the brains of people with Parkinson's disease with apparent benefit. Brain tumors in mice have been shrunk by inserting viruses carrying cell-destroying genes.

Fairly early in my career, I attended an idea exchange with three other leaders in Orlando, Florida. At first when I arrived, I was intimidated. As we talked and shared ideas, it became clear very quickly that I was not in their league. Their organizations were six times the size of mine, and they had many more and much better ideas than I did. I felt like I was in over my head and trying to swim. Despite that, I was encouraged. Why? Because I discovered that great men were willing to share their ideas. And I was learning so much. You can learn only if others are ahead of you. The first ten years that I was intentionally pursuing personal growth, I was always behind trying to catch up. I had to get over the comparison gap. I had to learn to become comfortable with being out of my comfort zone. It was a difficult transition, but it was well worth it.

Life experiences can provide nontraditional, returning students with rich memories to enliven class discussion. Many professors secretly admit that they especially like working with returning, nontraditional students because of how engaging they can be through their vivid personal examples. However, significant life experiences can also complicate nontraditional students' learning, because it is so easy to develop what some refer to as "hardening of the categories." That is, returning students' life experiences may have persuaded them to think about things in a certain way, and their beliefs may have become very settled over time. During their college experience, though, returning students are going to run into all kinds of challenges to their beliefs. Their personal convictions may encourage them to defend vigorously what they know to be true because they have lived it. Unfortunately, personal experience and depth of convictions do not guarantee that the principles will generalize to others. The solution is to practice mindful behavior. Become your own devil's advocate.