This Week: Your Mind, Upgraded

What to do when AI moves faster than your brain—and why your human weirdness might be an advantage.

Your brain is an impressive organ, no doubt—but there’s always room for improvement. This week, we explored a range of ideas to help sharpen your thinking, whether through cutting-edge machine learning tools or some good old-fashioned self-reflection. Whichever path you choose, here are a few of the most thought-provoking things we read and listened to.

This Week on the Next Big Idea Podcast

The tsunami is already here.

AI, according to Andy Sack and Adam Brotman, co-founders of Forum3 and co-authors of the new book AI First, isn't just a neat new tool. It's "a tsunami of technology and capabilities." And if you don't start learning how to use it properly, they say, "you are absolutely gonna be left behind." The problem? Most people are using AI wrong. They're treating it like Google search when it should be treated like "an alien synthetic intelligence that can really reason and think and help you." In this episode, Andy and Adam share the mindset shifts and practical techniques that can help you harness AI to supercharge your productivity, creativity, and capability. Listen on Spotify or Apple Podcasts:

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Book Bite of the Week

Your brain is lying to you. And that’s actually awesome.

We like to think of the brain as a tidy, logical machine. But the truth is, it’s more like a trickster—brilliant, unpredictable, and prone to invent stories rather than admit ignorance. That’s the idea at the heart of The Mind Electric: A Neurologist on the Strangeness and Wonder of Our Brains, a fascinating new book by Pria Anand. Pria is a neurologist at the Boston Medical Center and an Assistant Professor at the Boston University School of Medicine. Drawing from clinical experience, global folklore, and the history of medicine itself, she explains why our need to tell stories is actually our greatest superpower. Buy the book on Amazon or listen to Pria’s summary in the Next Big Idea app.

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This Week on the Next Big Idea Daily Podcast

Ever feel like you don’t fit in? Good.

In a world that where “fitting in” can seem critical to your survival, it’s worth asking: what if your power lies in… not belonging? Psychiatrist Rami Kaminski thinks that for some of us, that sense of being an outsider isn’t a flaw—it’s a feature. In his provocative new book The Gift of Not Belonging: How Outsiders Thrive in a World of Joiners, he introduces the concept of the “otrovert”: someone who doesn’t turn inward like an introvert or outward like an extrovert—but somewhere else entirely. If you’ve ever felt like you’re in the room but not quite of it, this one’s for you. Listen on Spotify or Apple Podcasts:

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This Week on Author Insider

How are some writers remarkably productive, and what can the rest of us learn from them? We just hosted an exclusive conversation with Cal Newport, Georgetown professor, New Yorker contributor, bestselling author, podcast host, and deep thinker. How does he do it all without losing his mind? Get access to video of the conversation and unlock insights to help launch or build your own writing career by joining our growing community at Author Insider.

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Happy Pub Week!

The following Next Big Idea Club Must-Read authors get to celebrate the publication of their books today--congratulations to them all! Adam Brotman & Andy Sack, AI First: The Playbook for a Future-Proof Business and Brand; Emily Kasriel, Deep Listening: Transform Your Relationships with Family, Friends, and Foes; Joseph Jebelli, The Brain at Rest: How the Art and Science of Doing Nothing Can Improve Your Life;

Heidi Boghosian

, Cyber Citizens: Saving Democracy with Digital Literacy.