Paul Craven on Magic, Money & The Mind

What do Magic, Money & The Mind have in common? They're all things that interest my guest on this episode, Paul Craven. As he explains, the tricks our minds play on us is what allows magic tricks to amaze us and drives many of our financial decisions.

Paul is an expert in behavioural science, decision making, investment and psychology, applying the inner operations of the mind to the economic world. On this episode, you can hear Paul do a magic trick on the podcast - no mean feat, given you can't see him and hear about what he's learned from his extensive career in finance. He's got some fabulous stories and fascinating insights, which he tells in an engaging style.

In our discussion, Paul talks about:

Aristotle's ideas on Rhetoric: 👉 https://boords.com/ethos-pathos-logos

Charles Ellis 'Winning The Loser's Game' 👉 https://g.co/kgs/FPoVmR

Illusionist Derren Brown's story about dealing with a potential attacker by distracting him 👉https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/derren-brown-explains-how-reduce-mugger-tears-using-nothing-words-9859017.html

Louise Leakey's TED Talks on Humanity's Origins 👉 https://www.ted.com/talks/louise_leakey_a_dig_for_humanity_s_origins?language=en

Pareidolia, the idea that we see faces in everyday objects. For more on that, I recommend 👉 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22686500 and 👉 https://earthsky.org/human-world/seeing-things-that-arent-there

The Makapansgat jaspilite cobble 👉 https://www.researchgate.net/figure/The-Makapansgat-jaspilite-cobble-a-manuport-from-South-Africa-scale-in-cm_fig4_322234501

You can find out more about Paul on his personal website 👉 https://www.paulcraven.com/ & find him on social media 👉 https://twitter.com/cravenpartners