What if you could finally finish the things you keep putting off?
What if being distracted wasn’t a personality trait, but a problem you could actually solve?
This December, join bestselling author Nir Eyal for an evening of powerful conversations about attention, habits, technology and designing a life that isn’t controlled by distraction.
🇦🇺 Brisbane City Hall - 1 December 🇦🇺 Melbourne, Plenary Theatre - 3 December 🇦🇺 Sydney Town Hall - 4 December
Your attention is your life. Choose what gets it.
🎟️ Head to thinkable.events to get your tickets now!
Two words that can disarm almost any insult: "say that again."
Jefferson Fisher taught our Thinkable audience this one live, and you could see people mentally filing it away for their next family dinner. Most belittling comments are designed to be said once, land hard, and move on before anyone can respond. Asking the person to repeat it removes that entire advantage.
Suddenly they have to say the insult slowly, out loud, a second time, without the cover of momentum. Fisher's observation is that most people either soften it on the repeat or realise how it sounds and back off entirely. Either way, you never raised your voice.
It's a small trick built on a bigger idea: you don't need a clever comeback to hold your ground. Sometimes you just need to remove the emotional payoff the other person was counting on.
Would "say that again" actually stop you in the moment, or is the instinct to fire back too strong?
If your boundary has never upset anyone, it might not actually be a boundary.
That's the idea Jefferson Fisher left us with after his Thinkable show, and it's been rattling around our office ever since. His claim: "Their discomfort over your boundary is not a sign that it's wrong. It's a sign that it's working."
Most of us are taught the opposite: that a good boundary should land softly, please everyone, cause no friction at all. Fisher argues that's backwards. Real boundaries cost something. If the other person adjusts without any resistance, you probably weren't asking for much in the first place.
It reframes the guilt a lot of people feel the moment they see someone react badly to being told no.
Where's the line for you: is discomfort proof a boundary is fair, or proof it's gone too far?
Someone is rude to you. What you do in the next ten seconds decides who wins.
Jefferson Fisher demonstrated this live during his Thinkable tour stop, and the room went completely silent watching him do it. Most people get this moment backwards: the instinct is to fire something back immediately. Fisher's advice is the opposite. Say nothing. Let the silence sit for an uncomfortable ten seconds. Then, if you speak at all, say only this: "That's below my standard for response."
No raised voice or matching their energy. Simply a line that draws the boundary without ever crossing into their fight.
His reasoning is that silence can't be misquoted, twisted, or used against you later. The person who reacts instantly hands the other person exactly what they wanted.
Would you be able to hold that silence, or would the words come out before you could stop them?
🎙️ We’re thrilled to welcome Ali Rizvi as host for An Evening with Steven Pinker in Montreal & Toronto!
A physician, writer, and public speaker, Rizvi is a passionate advocate for reason, scientific thinking, and critical inquiry.
Through his work, he explores questions of faith, identity, secularism, and the assumptions we inherit, bringing a thoughtful and compelling perspective to an evening dedicated to challenging ideas, open inquiry, and meaningful conversation.
📍 Montreal : September 13 📍 Toronto : September 15
You can win the argument and still lose everything that mattered.
That's the idea Jefferson Fisher opened with when he brought his Thinkable show to town, and you could feel the room sit with it. He said the courtroom taught him something most people never learn outside of one: being right and being effective are not the same thing.
"Winning an argument is a losing game," he told the crowd. "You've likely lost something far more valuable: their trust." His advice is to stop treating disagreements as fights to win and start treating them as knots to untangle together. The moment you're trying to defeat the other person, you've already lost the thing the argument was supposedly about.
It's a hard swap to make in the heat of the moment, especially with the people closest to you, where being "right" can feel like the whole point.
Have you ever won an argument and immediately known you'd lost something bigger?
And just ONE word swap gives completely different meeting:
Consider: ”Your presentation was bad.” Vs "The presentation needs changes.”
We watched a full room sit with that the night Jefferson Fisher broke it down on the Thinkable stage. He spent years cross-examining hostile witnesses as a trial lawyer before he started teaching the rest of us to stop doing to our colleagues what lawyers do to opposing counsel.
Jefferson’ rule (in general actually) is to separate the person from the problem. Put the issue on the table between you, not the person across from you. Suddenly you're not opponents. You're two people looking at the same knot, trying to untangle it.
Simple to say, I now, but it’s rarely how feedback actually gets delivered under pressure.
Was the last piece of feedback you gave that landed badly really about the person, or about the problem?
And just like that, our Australian tour with Anna Funder comes to a close❤️
From the first conversation to the final applause, audiences across the country came together for evenings filled with big ideas, thoughtful questions and stories that stayed with us long after the lights went down.
A huge thank you to everyone who joined us, to our wonderful hosts who helped bring each evening to life, and of course, to Anna for sharing her stories, ideas and time with us.
It was a privilege to take these conversations on the road and share them with so many of you.
Discover what’s coming up next at thinkable.events
What if the thing you're chasing is the exact reason you can't feel satisfied once you catch it?
Ryan Holiday has spent years studying people who reached extraordinary heights, fame, wealth, power, only to find the achievement didn't deliver what they expected.
His argument is that ambition itself can operate like an addiction. Each goal quiets the craving for a moment, then the craving comes back louder, demanding a bigger goal.
Holiday isn't dismissing achievement so much as asking whether the thing being chased will actually satisfy anyone, or just buy a few months before the next want shows up.
That's an uncomfortable question in a culture that treats constant wanting as basically the same thing as ambition.
Do you actually want what you're chasing right now, or have you just stopped asking?
Thinkable
What if you could finally finish the things you keep putting off?
What if being distracted wasn’t a personality trait, but a problem you could actually solve?
This December, join bestselling author Nir Eyal for an evening of powerful conversations about attention, habits, technology and designing a life that isn’t controlled by distraction.
🇦🇺 Brisbane City Hall - 1 December
🇦🇺 Melbourne, Plenary Theatre - 3 December
🇦🇺 Sydney Town Hall - 4 December
Your attention is your life. Choose what gets it.
🎟️ Head to thinkable.events to get your tickets now!
1 week ago | [YT] | 4
View 0 replies
Thinkable
Two words that can disarm almost any insult: "say that again."
Jefferson Fisher taught our Thinkable audience this one live, and you could see people mentally filing it away for their next family dinner. Most belittling comments are designed to be said once, land hard, and move on before anyone can respond. Asking the person to repeat it removes that entire advantage.
Suddenly they have to say the insult slowly, out loud, a second time, without the cover of momentum. Fisher's observation is that most people either soften it on the repeat or realise how it sounds and back off entirely. Either way, you never raised your voice.
It's a small trick built on a bigger idea: you don't need a clever comeback to hold your ground. Sometimes you just need to remove the emotional payoff the other person was counting on.
Would "say that again" actually stop you in the moment, or is the instinct to fire back too strong?
#Confidence #StandUpForYourself #Communication #JeffersonFisher
1 week ago | [YT] | 12
View 1 reply
Thinkable
If your boundary has never upset anyone, it might not actually be a boundary.
That's the idea Jefferson Fisher left us with after his Thinkable show, and it's been rattling around our office ever since. His claim: "Their discomfort over your boundary is not a sign that it's wrong. It's a sign that it's working."
Most of us are taught the opposite: that a good boundary should land softly, please everyone, cause no friction at all. Fisher argues that's backwards. Real boundaries cost something. If the other person adjusts without any resistance, you probably weren't asking for much in the first place.
It reframes the guilt a lot of people feel the moment they see someone react badly to being told no.
Where's the line for you: is discomfort proof a boundary is fair, or proof it's gone too far?
#Boundaries #SelfWorth #MentalHealth #JeffersonFisher
2 weeks ago | [YT] | 2
View 0 replies
Thinkable
Someone is rude to you. What you do in the next ten seconds decides who wins.
Jefferson Fisher demonstrated this live during his Thinkable tour stop, and the room went completely silent watching him do it. Most people get this moment backwards: the instinct is to fire something back immediately. Fisher's advice is the opposite. Say nothing. Let the silence sit for an uncomfortable ten seconds. Then, if you speak at all, say only this: "That's below my standard for response."
No raised voice or matching their energy. Simply a line that draws the boundary without ever crossing into their fight.
His reasoning is that silence can't be misquoted, twisted, or used against you later. The person who reacts instantly hands the other person exactly what they wanted.
Would you be able to hold that silence, or would the words come out before you could stop them?
#Boundaries #SelfRespect #EmotionalIntelligence #JeffersonFisher
2 weeks ago | [YT] | 10
View 0 replies
Thinkable
🎙️ We’re thrilled to welcome Ali Rizvi as host for An Evening with Steven Pinker in Montreal & Toronto!
A physician, writer, and public speaker, Rizvi is a passionate advocate for reason, scientific thinking, and critical inquiry.
Through his work, he explores questions of faith, identity, secularism, and the assumptions we inherit, bringing a thoughtful and compelling perspective to an evening dedicated to challenging ideas, open inquiry, and meaningful conversation.
📍 Montreal : September 13
📍 Toronto : September 15
🎟️ Tickets available via thinkable.events
2 weeks ago | [YT] | 3
View 0 replies
Thinkable
You can win the argument and still lose everything that mattered.
That's the idea Jefferson Fisher opened with when he brought his Thinkable show to town, and you could feel the room sit with it. He said the courtroom taught him something most people never learn outside of one: being right and being effective are not the same thing.
"Winning an argument is a losing game," he told the crowd. "You've likely lost something far more valuable: their trust." His advice is to stop treating disagreements as fights to win and start treating them as knots to untangle together. The moment you're trying to defeat the other person, you've already lost the thing the argument was supposedly about.
It's a hard swap to make in the heat of the moment, especially with the people closest to you, where being "right" can feel like the whole point.
Have you ever won an argument and immediately known you'd lost something bigger?
#Relationships #Trust #Communication #JeffersonFisher
2 weeks ago | [YT] | 3
View 0 replies
Thinkable
There are two ways to open hard conversations.
And just ONE word swap gives completely different meeting:
Consider: ”Your presentation was bad.” Vs "The presentation needs changes.”
We watched a full room sit with that the night Jefferson Fisher broke it down on the Thinkable stage. He spent years cross-examining hostile witnesses as a trial lawyer before he started teaching the rest of us to stop doing to our colleagues what lawyers do to opposing counsel.
Jefferson’ rule (in general actually) is to separate the person from the problem. Put the issue on the table between you, not the person across from you. Suddenly you're not opponents. You're two people looking at the same knot, trying to untangle it.
Simple to say, I now, but it’s rarely how feedback actually gets delivered under pressure.
Was the last piece of feedback you gave that landed badly really about the person, or about the problem?
#Leadership #Feedback #WorkplaceCommunication #JeffersonFisher
3 weeks ago | [YT] | 7
View 0 replies
Thinkable
Montréal, are you ready for a conversation that might change the way you see the world?
Steven Pinker is coming to Théâtre Rialto for an evening of big ideas, fascinating questions, and a closer look at what drives human progress.
📍 Montréal | September 13
Come curious. Leave with something to think about.
Visit thinkable.events to get your tickets now!
3 weeks ago | [YT] | 8
View 0 replies
Thinkable
And just like that, our Australian tour with Anna Funder comes to a close❤️
From the first conversation to the final applause, audiences across the country came together for evenings filled with big ideas, thoughtful questions and stories that stayed with us long after the lights went down.
A huge thank you to everyone who joined us, to our wonderful hosts who helped bring each evening to life, and of course, to Anna for sharing her stories, ideas and time with us.
It was a privilege to take these conversations on the road and share them with so many of you.
Discover what’s coming up next at thinkable.events
3 weeks ago | [YT] | 2
View 0 replies
Thinkable
What if the thing you're chasing is the exact reason you can't feel satisfied once you catch it?
Ryan Holiday has spent years studying people who reached extraordinary heights, fame, wealth, power, only to find the achievement didn't deliver what they expected.
His argument is that ambition itself can operate like an addiction. Each goal quiets the craving for a moment, then the craving comes back louder, demanding a bigger goal.
Holiday isn't dismissing achievement so much as asking whether the thing being chased will actually satisfy anyone, or just buy a few months before the next want shows up.
That's an uncomfortable question in a culture that treats constant wanting as basically the same thing as
ambition.
Do you actually want what you're chasing right now, or have you just stopped asking?
3 weeks ago | [YT] | 3
View 0 replies
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