Psychology

Firms like McKinsey are self-reporting that their people are 5x more productive in-flow than out of flow… 500% more productive. That means you can work Monday in-flow and take the rest of the week off – and you'd still get as much done as your peers. Work two days a week? You're now 1000% more productive than the competition.

Author & Researcher on Flow State & Human Peak Performance

One of the amazing things is how adaptable our brains our – and by day 2, I was feeling really good. NASA is pretty good at understanding how to keep you healthy in space; and so you go through sleep-shifts to help you stay rested, and to make sure you don't get a drop in performance from being tired.

Astronaut and educator who conducted spacewalks on the Hubble Space Telescope

Being at that altitude though – 100 miles higher than the space station, enables you to see even more of the planet's curvature – it's a different viewpoint, a different experience and perspective – you truly felt like you were interacting with the environment, you felt like a real spaceman – it was extraordinary.

Astronaut and educator who conducted spacewalks on the Hubble Space Telescope

I realised that what people do is, instead of figuring out the right thing to do and then doing it whether they want to or not, doing the ethical thing, what they do is they figure out what they want to do and then come up with the rationalisation for doing it, whether it's right or wrong. And we fool ourselves.

Co-inventor of Public-Key Cryptography & Diffie-Hellman Key Exchange

Our number one instinct is survival, followed by reproduction. People started to realise that if they took care of themselves, they would live longer, have better sex and have healthier children. The mission of my family, which ended up being Lululemon, was for people to be able to live healthier, longer, and more fun lives.

Founder of Lululemon Athletica, Canadian entrepreneur and philanthropist

There's an old adage that the boxer is the last one to know – it's not true, he's the first one to know, but the last to acknowledge it. You can learn from defeat – it's not the end of the world, but you have to learn from it and realise that there are times when you can come back, and times where you have to say, 'enough… enough…. You're getting too hurt… you're just not the guy you were…'

Founder of PostSecret, anonymous confessions project & book series

Anyone can have a good trainer; you can learn the moves and get fit. Any boxer or athlete can get super fit – the edge is mental ability – It's having the self-belief. If you're not right in the head? You'll never do it. I've seen guys getting beaten mentally. Mike Tyson beat a lot of fighters mentally before they even got in the ring, Tyson Fury does the same thing – they get in people's minds.

Founder of PostSecret, anonymous confessions project & book series

To be a great fighter you obviously have to have talent, but what really matters is dedication and discipline. I've seen so many guys with talent where I've thought, 'this guy's going to be a world champion…' but they've not had the dedication. They've not given what you had to give, which is everything. To succeed as a boxer, you have to dedicate your life to it… it's a very short career for a professional fighter.

Founder of PostSecret, anonymous confessions project & book series

This is nothing to do with the 0.000001% who go on to be professional fighters – it's about the 99.9% of people who train because they enjoy it, and connect with it – and who apply the lessons they've learned to deal with the setbacks, failures, victories, challenges and tests they're going to get in work and life.

Boxing coach of Conor McGregor at Straight Blast Gym Dublin

We should learn how to fight not flight. And fight doesn't have to be a physical thing – it can be that you feel something's going to be uncomfortable 'okay well let's avoid it'. No, go through with it but go through with it in a progressive manner, and go through with it in an intelligent manner and measure your results.

Boxing coach of Conor McGregor at Straight Blast Gym Dublin

If you want to grow, you need to go through something uncomfortable and come out the other end. If you want to grow, you have to go forward in progressive steps. It should always be a little bit uncomfortable because otherwise there's no growth. And that's the secret. It's like playing chess but while getting punched in the face.

Boxing coach of Conor McGregor at Straight Blast Gym Dublin

I earn my living from coaching people how to fight… it may come as a surprise, therefore, to learn that until I was in my early twenties, I was terrified of fighting. I hated arguing, shouting, violence – all forms of conflict, basically. That's not unusual, of course, but to be honest, I was a bit of a wimp – or, as some of the kids in school liked to tell me, a pussy.

Boxing coach of Conor McGregor at Straight Blast Gym Dublin

Our psychology is open-ended: we can plug in variables, and are not just tied to constants. We can expand our circle of sympathy – we can employ the logic of impartiality, and the emotional prompts of human contact and vicarious experience, and expand our fellow-feeling from our family to our clan, our nation, tribe, and from there to all of humanity and even other sentient beings.

Cognitive Scientist & Psychologist Known for Research on Language and Human Nature

Our news outlets could report the fact that 137,000 people escaped from extreme poverty yesterday, every day for the past 30 years – but they never ran that headline, with the result that over a billion people escaped poverty and nobody knows about it.

Cognitive Scientist & Psychologist Known for Research on Language and Human Nature

Having negotiation skills means that you can weaponize emotional intelligence. If you want people to cooperate with you… if you want to connect with people who you don't share any common-ground with…. If you want to get a deal done without regrets…. That's where negotiation techniques can work, across all cultures.

Former FBI Hostage Negotiator & Author of "Never Split the Difference

All you've got to do is- to their face- call yourself every name that they are harbouring about you, it's that simple; it means you're demonstrating understanding. Whatever adjective from your culture best describes the worst possible name they could think of for you- all you've got to do is look them in the eye and say you feel I am – that's super simple, right? The thing is, it may sound easy- but it's hard to do- but if you can do it- it can unlock a situation in a heartbeat.

Former FBI Hostage Negotiator & Author of "Never Split the Difference