Make sense of — and excel in — your life, your work, your world.
A weekly reckoning with the decline of clear thinking, hosted by veteran journalist Eli Amdur.
“We’re not political, just critical.”
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Vantage Point is made possible by partners who believe, as we do, in the enduring value of clear thinking — named alongside the work, never shouting over it.
Four ways we sharpen the mind
Vantage Point follows a rhythm. One major commentary, then the segments listeners come back for.
Commentary
One deep, original essay each episode: history, ideas, and the case for thinking better.
Eli’s Aphorisms
Short, pithy truths from a half-century career. Take them or leave them.
From Great Minds
Einstein, Bohr, Twain. The thinkers who still have something to teach us.
What If?
A provocation to carry into your week. The question matters more than the answer.
What’s coming
Eight inaugural episodes laying out the vision: what critical thinking is, where it went, and how to get it back. New episodes release weekly — subscribe so you never miss one.
The Critical Decline of Critical Thinking
Where has critical thinking gone, and the 10 kinds of it.
Listen →How the Ancient Greeks Educated Me
What a 1950s public school and a Greek ideal still teach us.
Listen →Dialogue Deficiency
The world’s most insidious disease, and why it’s worse than the rest.
Listen →Alliances Are More Important Than Ever
From the Hanseatic League to NATO and BRICS, by the numbers.
Listen →Copernicus: Father of the Scientific Revolution
The original critical thinker, and the book he saw only as he died.
Listen →Jevons Paradox: Perhaps Not a Paradox
Why efficiency makes us use more, and what AI has to do with it.
Listen →If You Want to Be a Writer, Start Writing
The weighty, wonderful responsibility of putting words on a page.
Listen →To Become a Great Writer, Never Stop Writing
Ten practices to develop the gift, from Faulkner to your delete key.
Listen →Becoming Great Is a Decision, Not a Happenstance
Sandy Koufax, and why greatness comes from beating yourself, not others.
Listen →Don’t Expect to Be Spoon-Fed
Three months in, a listener asked for the how-tos. Here is why the answer is no.
Listen →The Power of the Positive Word
Two nearly identical towns, one ballot question, opposite results. The only difference was the wording.
Listen →Will You Recognize the Next Great Idea?
Why the best ideas rarely come from where you’d expect.
Listen →It is not AI that will threaten you. The threat will come from another human being who will use AI better than you do.
Fifty years of asking better questions.
Eli Amdur is a journalist, columnist, and career advisor whose writing has appeared in Forbes and the Las Vegas Review-Journal and Sun, with a weekly column in The Record for 24 years and more than 3,000 published articles. He taught graduate leadership and communication at Fairleigh Dickinson University for 15 years, and has personally coached over 7,000 professionals from 78 countries.
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