When you face a difficult situation, how often have you heard someone say, ‘just use your head’? This week on the Evolving Leader podcast, Jean and Scott talk to acclaimed science writer Annie Murphy Paul who turns that around and says that in fact we ‘think outside the brain’, suggesting that the people, things and space around us have a profound effect on how we think, feel and develop. Published in 2021, her book ‘The Extended Mind, The Power of Thinking Outside the Brain’ has been awarded the New York Times Editors Choice and Washington Post Best Nonfiction Book of 2021.

0.00 Introduction

2.26 Can we start with your background, and how you became interested in the biological and social sciences.

4.46 Can we look at what the components are of the extended mind and could you give us some examples of the research that you have uncovered when talking to neuroscientists and psychologists that bring this to life.

10.17 Can you tell us a little about how ‘the body knows before the mind’.

13.35 What other thoughts and ideas could you share about how we could build greater awareness of our interoceptive processes?

15.49 Could you talk to us about emotional reappraisal?

19.30 What happens to our thinking when we are moving and what is the ideal amount of movement?

24.02 How do gestures impact our thinking?

27.14 Can we move to thinking about how extending the intelligence out of the mind to our surroundings

29.47 What has been most surprising in all of this for you?

31.47 How has it changed you?

33.36 Thinking about the challenges that are facing leaders, particularly around Covid and the decision to bring people back, when to work at home and when to work in a collaborative physical space. What are your insights there?

35.50 What’s next for you?

37.34 Is there anything else that you would leave us with today?

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The Evolving Leader is researched, written and presented by Jean Gomes and Scott Allender with production by Phil Kerby. It is an Outside production.

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Thinking Outside the Brain with Annie Murphy Paul