Paul Craven

Public speaker on behavioural science and founding member of the Cialdini Institute. Historian, golfer and member of The Magic Circle. Ex-Schroders, PIMCO & GS.

[Paul Craven @CravenPartners]

“There are, it seems to me, four main pathways to the truth: science, reason, intuition and imagination.”
(Dr. Iain McGilchrist)

[Paul Craven @CravenPartners]

Most people optimise for the deal.

The best optimise for the relationship.
Looks slower. Feels inefficient.
But often wins…and better for both sides based on trust.

Victor Frankl had it right: “Man is pushed by drives but pulled by values.”
https://t.co/VvXxuQE7qG

[Paul Craven @CravenPartners]

Fantastic Saturday at the @Chartered_Accts UK annual conference! Thrilled to present ‘Ethical Persuasion in a Noisy World’ - weaving @RobertCialdini’s principles with @arthurbrooks’ résumé vs. eulogy virtues.

Huge thanks to the engaged audience & top #CAANZUKConf team.
📸 @Toby_P_Photo

[Paul Craven @CravenPartners]

Two monks come to a river. A woman can’t cross.
The older monk carries her over and sets her down.

Hours later, the younger monk protests: “We’re not supposed to touch women.”

“I put her down hours ago,” the older monk says. “Why are YOU still carrying her?”

[Paul Craven @CravenPartners]

💯

[Rod Dreher @roddreher]

Iain McGilchrist speaking today at Pusey House chapel in Oxford. What a gift that good man is to all of us. I think he is the most important public intellectual in the Western world. I wish more people knew about him and his work.

[Paul Craven @CravenPartners]

“Complex institutions often benefit from a little randomness.

The irony is that hereditary peers are aristocratic in origin yet cognitively closer to a random slice of humanity than peers selected by political parties.”

[Polemic Paine @PolemicTMM]

Labour celebrates removing hereditary peers on the principle that birth should not give you a vote in Parliament. Sounds fair enough.

But hereditary peers arrive through a strange historical lottery. Within a narrow social class the selection is largely random. Nobody filters them for ideological reliability or party loyalty.

Party appointed peers pass through multiple gates. Patronage. donor networks. Think tanks. Political reputation.

Filtered systems produce competence but also consensus.
Unfiltered systems produce eccentrics but also intellectual outliers.

Complex institutions often benefit from a little randomness.

The irony is that hereditary peers are aristocratic in origin yet cognitively closer to a random slice of humanity than peers selected by political parties.

[Paul Craven @CravenPartners]

“I’d like to admit my curiosity…”
👏👏👏

https://t.co/yeM6fXtCaj

[Huw van Steenis @huwsteenis]

An Oxford student magazine asked me this week:

What do you wish you had known as a student that you know now?

My answer started with a conversation at a Morgan Stanley CIO event that has stayed with me ever since.

During the global financial crisis, @nfergus told me he wished more central bankers and financiers had studied history rather than economics.

He was right.

Reading economic history, including from emerging markets, has often more helpful than talking to conventional policymakers hooked on their fair-weather economic models.

🧵

[Culture Explorer @CultureExploreX]

https://t.co/WE9STjmrBi

[Mike Bales 🫡🇺🇸 @MikeBales]

In every relationship there is one person who stacks the dishwasher like a Roman architect and one who stacks it like a raccoon on crystal meth. 🤨

[Paul Craven @CravenPartners]

🤣

[Paul Craven @CravenPartners]

Yesterday @holland_tom was outstanding as guest editor on @BBCRadio4’s @R4Today – curious and mixed with faith and history. Odd Japanese toilet ghosts (0:44:30), beautiful 800 years of worship at @SalisburyCath (1:22:15), @BeefyBotham (1:41:40), @walkermarcus’ inspiring Thought for the Day for @SaveTheParish (1:48:25), fascinating AI chat with Kate Mosse (1:51:30), powerful re-centring of England’s birth in 927 A.D. with @MichaelWoodMV (2:19:55), and that heavenly choir finale (2:48:20) – pure goosebumps!
https://t.co/75sUHBEXw0

[St. Andrew’s Church, Deal @church34364]

@holland_tom was a JOY as guest editor on @BBCr4today - learned, humane and quirky: Japanese toilet ghosts, 800 years of Salisbury Cathedral, AI hallucinations, England in 927 (not 1066) - then a reflective close with a heavenly choir. Also @WalkerMarcus. https://t.co/F3IYiXOSPs

[Paul Craven @CravenPartners]

@george_yarrow @Gerald_Ashley Very McGilchristian analogy, George? Left-hemisphere narrow focus on the ‘dot’ distorts the peripheral field into monsters; shift to open, direct attention and the human reality reappears. Ideological demonisation perhaps works the same way?

[St. Andrew’s Church, Deal @church34364]

Joyous!

Anna Lapwood is the official organist of the Royal Albert Hall. A few years ago she was practising in Salisbury Cathedral, and…

…better let her tell the story. ❤️

https://t.co/OS2nc6aFeL

[Paul Craven @CravenPartners]

@unfoldedbeagle I don’t disagree - as my definition of ‘by the heart’ would include intuition and imagination!

[Paul Craven @CravenPartners]

“There are, it seems to me, four main pathways to the truth: science, reason, intuition and imagination.”
(Dr. Iain McGilchrist)

[Ed West @edwest]

My latest, on the cultural phenomenon of the 2020s, and what it says about how the establishment approaches history

[Gerald Ashley @Gerald_Ashley]

Final #FF of 2025 - So a Bumper Offering!
So here are the very best I can suggest, all are consistently v interesting.
@asentance @Faenerator @AndrewOrlowski @MarketBlondes @truemagic68 @JavierBlas @BristOliver @CharlotteCGill @xGeorgeCooper @grumpyinnovator @sebs_tweets @mdvex22 @DMcWilliams_UK @DavidDeutschOxf @nrogers_eq @TheSimonEvans @EdConwaySky @Frencheconomics @joefattorini @george_yarrow @Madz_Grant @julianHjessop @John_Stepek @RoryMaw @DanNeidle @PolemicTMM @darioperkins @Peter_Turchin @rorysutherland @CravenPartners @ahistoryinart @EuroBriefing @WilliamSitwell @rshotton

[Paul Craven @CravenPartners]

Henri Bergson argued that real time isn’t clock ticks but ‘la durée’ - a flowing, lived continuity. Einstein disagreed, insisting philosophy had no place in physics. Bergson’s reply: physics has no monopoly on reality.

[Reads with Ravi @readswithravi]

Warren Buffett in his last letter to Berkshire shareholders:

“Decide what you would like your obituary to say and live the life to deserve it.”

[Paul Craven @CravenPartners]

When a security gate appears to be designed like… er…a ladder. #fail