From 600+ conversations with the world’s leading thinkers.
The world is lying to you. It tells you that in 10,000 hours you can become excellent at what you do and that your strength will never wane. That is a complete, utter, falsehood. At some point, the greatness that came to define who 'you' are will wane.
If your judgement is hijacked by emotions such as rage, fear, neediness, loneliness, or anger, you will act out of impulse – not out of value. This can be incredibly harmful – when the dust settles, you may realise you've messed-up.
Consciousness is any kind of subjective experience whatsoever. The philosopher, Thomas Nagel, put it like this, 'for a conscious organism, there is something it is like to be that organism…' – there is something it is like to be me, to be you, to be a dolphin – but there's probably nothing like what it is to be a chair, table, or iPhone.
I urge everyone to channel their inner teenager. Think back to those fearless days brimming with creativity and ambition. As we age, societal rewards for 'playing it safe' can stifle our innovative spirit.
What binds exceptional creators together is their relentless effort. Regardless of the challenges or roadblocks along the way, these people persist and find ways to overcome obstacles.
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.
Individuals who are creative are sensitive, they can be vulnerable and can take things incredibly personally – often they are putting the rawest version of themselves out there so when that's criticised it can be really difficult and damaging. We try to put ourselves in our client's shoes and champion empathy as a team.
Success is really a portal into the next stage that we're possibly capable of doing, and we have to decide how we're going to face that tsunami of emotions that then comes flying at us when we thought all we were going to have was happiness.
When you love what you do, when you're excited about your field, when you've chosen a path that connects with you personally- you will learn fast, you will accomplish in 5 years what it would take others 15 years to do.
Fusion – or 'identity fusion' to be more precise – is basically a form of group alignment in which essential features of your personal identity are felt to be shared with the group. What this means is that there are basically two ways of becoming fused. One is to undergo an experience that becomes a core feature of who you are – such as a painful or frightening ordeal.
Bystander effect isn't necessarily due to a lack of willingness or ability to make a difference. Rather, the real challenge stems from feeling overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of the issues we're passionate about. They're vast, and against them, we often feel insignificant.
When Putin invaded in February 2022, we made the mistake of thinking that Putin's of this conflict would be one made by a 'reasonable person'. There are some very worrying elements of intelligence suggesting he has been very seriously out of touch… isolated from reality… and that he's only listening to those telling him what he wants to hear.