1.  New research detailed in the Harvard Business Review suggests that when it comes to goal-setting, we perceive modest improvement targets as being easier to achieve than maintaining our status quo. The researchers put it this way:

“When we’re judging the difficulty of a goal, the first thing our brains see is the size of the gap that separates the goal from the baseline. The bigger the gap, the more difficult the goal. But with a status quo goal, there’s no gap to evaluate, so our negativity bias kicks in, and our brains start generating reasons we might fail.”

This held true across a range of different categories. The bottom line: If you’re in the market for a new success strategy, try setting slightly loftier goals rather than smaller ones closer to your baseline.

2.  McKinsey Global Institute released a new report today on applying AI for social good. The cases they detail aren’t idyllic future ones, such as AI as a cure for cancer. Instead, the report includes a library of 160 cases and six fleshed-out current examples of AI applications that can have a large-scale social impact. That should make for interesting reading for entrepreneurs with big ideas.