Jamil Zaki

Here's why that matters now and why it links directly to the work I've spent the last years doing.

While researching my upcoming book, The Mattering Effect, I sat down with Stanford psychologist Jamil Zaki who studies cynicism for a living.

I brought him a question about the environments we all move through and what came back stopped me cold.

He told me we're living inside a marketplace, a system where almost every environment we enter whether it's work, school, our churches, even our own families quietly asks us to prove our worth before it will treat us like we have any.

What's your thought on that?

I am a huge fan of Jamil Zaki's work.

I think he's a great psychologist, he's a great writer, and-

Yeah

Um, so she's, I mean, she's just phenomenal.

People are always sending me her videos and saying, did you see she spoke about empathy? Um, In academia, there's a gentleman named Jamil Zaki.

He has been talking and writing about empathy for longer than anybody else.

So there are a handful, Tess, of really interesting people who are running big enterprises.

At its very worst, naive forms of hope can lure people away from the urgent work of change.

Stanford neuroscientist Jamil Zaki has identified in his research that people often associate cynicism with cognitive intelligence and high levels of trust or hopefulness with a lack of discernment.

But his research has found the opposite to be true.

In fact, cynics do less well on cognitive tests and have a more difficult time spotting cheaters and liars than their more trusting counterparts.