Powerful strategies to combat the design flaws of the human brain that make life in the twenty-first century unreasonably difficult.

If other animals could study us the way we study them, they would be puzzled by our unique ability to inflict misery on ourselves. We expend a lot of energy replaying past anguish, anticipating future distress, and stewing in self-righteous anger. Other animals would call us out for being oddly paradoxical creatures who long to be happy but who are the source of their own suffering, We worry about things we have no control over. We complain about not being understood while casting a critical eye on others. We stubbornly defend our beliefs despite contradictory evidence. Complicating all of this is our struggle to adapt to a complex world that we created. who struggle to adapt to a confusing world that we ourselves created.

In our defence, we haven?t yet mastered our neuron-packed brains, whose incredible complexity evolved over millennia in a very different world than today?s. The result of this evolutionary journey? Five design features that often morph into design flaws in need of fixing.

Hard to Be Human corrals the best insights from psychology, neuroscience, physics, and philosophy to reveal powerful strategies for the five big battles we each face in the war with our misguided, misbehaving selves. Tapping into deeply personal stories to ground the concepts in real life, Cadsby reveals how we can overcome our design flaws to be smarter, happier, and better adapted to the complexities of life in the twenty-first century.

• An examination of human tendencies to underthink and overreact and how these behaviours of the brain affect business leaders and workplace decision-making
• Appeals to readers of Steven Pinker and of Daniel Kahneman?s book on behavourial economics Thinking, Fast and Slow, who are looking for a broader perspective on how our cognitive biases relate to everyday problems
• Author has extensive experience as a director on company and non-profit boards and is a sought-after speaker on the topics of decision-making, team dialogue, and leadership
• Author is a bestselling author of two investing books and most recently Closing the Mind Gap: Smarter Decision Making in a Hypercomplex World
• Our five big cognitive flaws emanate from five big design features:

1. Greedy Reductionism: We simplify everything we contemplate (design feature) ? including the more complicated scenarios in our lives that other animals do not have to contend with (flaw: chapters 3 and 4). In our greed to reduce all of reality, we oversimplify.
2. Certainty Addiction: We are addicted to the feeling of certainty (design feature) ? despite being confronted by ambiguity and uncertainty that do not plague other animals (flaw: chapters 5 and 6). We?re overconfident.
3. Emotional Hostage-Taking: We react swiftly and strongly to threats (design feature) ? but are prone to overreacting, in part because of the unique human proclivity for excessive, unproductive rumination (flaw: chapters 7 and 8). We take ourselves emotionally hostage.
4. Competing Selves: We adapt with flexibility to different people and different situations (design feature) ? but, unlike other animals, we are afflicted with fractured psyches ? the competing drives within us that often clash (flaw: chapters 9 and 10). We are burdened by inner conflict.
5. Misguided Meaning: We are constantly trying to make sense of things (design feature) but struggle to find overarching meaning in our lives and impending death ? a conundrum that other animals are not perturbed by (flaw: chapters 11 and 12). We are misguided by asking the wrong question about life?s meaning.