Daniel Siegel in conversation with Paul Zak

This talk took place September 8, 2016, at the Moss Theatre in Santa Monica as part of Live Talks Los Angeles series. 

Dr. Daniel J. Siegel is a clinical professor of psychiatry at the UCLA School of Medicine, where he also helped to establish the Mindful Awareness Research Center.  He also heads up the Mindsight Institute, an educational center devoted to promoting insight, compassion, and empathy in individuals, families, institutions, and communities. Dr. Siegel’s books include three New YorkTimes bestsellers: 
Brainstorm, and, with Tina Payne Bryson, Ph.D, The Whole-Brain Child and No-Drama Discipline. As a lecturer, he’s spoken before King of Thailand, Pope John Paul II, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, at Google University, and TEDx.

Paul Zak‘s two decades of research have taken him from the Pentagon to Fortune 50 boardrooms to the rain forest of Papua New Guinea.  All this in a quest to understand the neuroscience of human connection, human happiness, and effective teamwork.  His academic lab and companies he has started develop and deploy neuroscience technologies to solve real problems faced by real people.

Paul is the founding Director of the Center for Neuroeconomics Studies and Professor of Economics, Psychology and Management at Claremont Graduate University.

His latest book, Trust Factor: The Science of Creating High Performance Companies, uses neuroscience to measure and manage organizational cultures to inspire teamwork and accelerate business outcomes.  His 2012 book, The Moral Molecule: The Source of Love and Prosperity, recounted his unlikely discovery of the neurochemical oxytocin as the key driver of trust, love, and morality that distinguish our humanity.    

What we mean by the term “mind” has traditionally been the province of philosophers, but what might neuroscience teach us about it? How does the mind differ from consciousness? And how do we know who we really are? In Mind: A Journey to the Heart of Being Human, Dr. Siegel explores the nature of the who, how, what, why, and when of your mind—of your self—from the perspective of neuroscience. Mind is the essence of our true nature, our deepest sense of being alive, here, right now, in this moment. How science explains this most perplexing of topics is truly one of the most exciting journeys into knowledge we can take.