From 600+ conversations with the world’s leading thinkers.
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.
You can't control what happens to you, you can only control how you react to it. So, focusing on what's in your control and accepting for the time being what's beyond your control is a really useful therapeutic idea.
I think that if you care about something, then you have a mission. Knowing that, and that your specific set of skills and experience brings something special to that mission, are key.
I never had a conscious thought that music would be my everything, but I never had anything that pulled me elsewhere, and anything that threatened that sacred part of my life felt like an assault on my being and my sense of worth.
We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts, we make the world.
Etiquette is the glue that holds society together. Humans are social creatures, after all—we need connection to survive. But with global cultures in flux and the post-pandemic digital age, shadow epidemics of anxiety and loneliness are on the rise.
We like to think of data as being objective, but the answers we get are often shaped by the questions we ask. When those questions are biased, the data is, too.
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.
I guess the only thing I would say is if you get to the point to where you could comfortably believe that I could die tomorrow and I wouldn't regret my life, I think at least for me, I think that's where success would be.
I truly believe humans have the capacity to change. That's the definition of freedom… our ability to choose who we want to be.
Storytelling is an extraordinary powerful human skill that all of us are wired for; but its best used in the service of ideas.
When our original participants reached approximately 80 years of age, we invited them to reflect on their lives. We asked, 'What are your greatest sources of pride, and what are your deepest regrets?' The predominant regret was the disproportionate time spent working and the inadequate time spent with loved ones.