Hi! I’m Nick Chesterley. I’m a behavioural economist and Canadian public servant. My interests span behavioural economics, public policy, history, leadership, self-improvement, human nature, and decision making: I read widely. What unites my interests is that I think we should do more to focus on the important, not just the urgent. The modern world is a noisy and complicated place: there’s a constant flow of information, whether it’s at work, from social media, or on Netflix. That makes for a lot of headlines, but not a lot more trendlines.

At heart, I’m interested in how we can find wisdom in a world increasingly full of noise, and how both individuals and society can make good decisions. How can we lead meaningful individual lives, and how can we structure our societies to help us do so? Together I hope we can distill some wisdom from the world around us, and identify some actions we can take to make a difference to our world.