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1. The 3:47 PM decision
Martinez makes a decision in thirty seconds and does not notice how. · individual
2. How the brain regulates emotion
The prefrontal-amygdala relationship, reappraisal against suppression, and why culture changes the cost. · individual
3. Warning signals and the resource view
Interoception and emotional awareness, alexithymia, and why regulation is a state and not a skill one has or lacks. · individual
4. Identity threat
Why the chapter calls leadership stress an identity violation, the chemistry of defence, and the defensive spiral. · individual
5. Decoupling, not degradation
Why stressed executive function feels clear, and what the chapter says is shown against hypothesised. · individual
6. Biases as shortcuts: confirmation and availability
Why awareness does not remove biases, and how confirmation and availability worked at Meridian. · individual
7. Biases as shortcuts: anchoring, sunk cost, attribution
Chen's fifteen per cent, her escalating commitment, and self-sealing explanations. · individual
8. Working memory and external support
The updated capacity limit, chunking, and why complex decisions need cognitive support outside the head. · individual
9. Ego depletion and decision fatigue
What failed to replicate, what may survive, and why willpower is a poor strategy. · individual
10. Identity, ego and the limits of self-assessment
The default mode network, dissonance, social pain, public scrutiny, and the contested Dunning-Kruger effect. · individual
11. Attention and its constraints
Vigilance, multitasking, blindness to the unexpected, and the conditions for flow. · individual
12. Memory systems and learning windows
Working, episodic, semantic and procedural memory, and the chapter's extension from rodent reconsolidation to learning reviews. · individual
13. Sleep, circadian rhythm and timing
Sleep's roles, chronic partial restriction, the comparison to intoxication, and when to decide. · individual
14. Meridian: Chen, Martinez and Washington
Decoupling, suppression and working memory overload in three leaders. · individual
15. Meridian: Johnson, Rodriguez and the failure cascade
Bias amplification, learned withdrawal, and interlocking failures at system level. · system
16. Integration and practices
The seven claims, the evidence ledger, and four practices that work around the constraints. · individual