From 600+ conversations with the world’s leading thinkers.
Those suffering Anorexia Nervosa are obsessed with weight, checking sometimes 30 times a day, and keeping a close reign on their weight. A pound gain in weight can be perceived as terrible.
Empowerment means we are able to sustain hope in a situation that may – to many outsiders – look hopeless.
This is where people expect me to reveal some magical formula I've discovered in the caves of Indonesia. You're going to be disappointed. I'm about to tell you some of the simplest, most mundane things in the world. They're so basic that many people don't even want to bother with them. But trust me, these basics are far more important than attending a breathwork class three times a week.
I actually encrypt my wishes and goals into the things I do. There are creative ways for each of us to embed our wishes into our daily lives, but we have to set those wishes to start with.
We are all strategists or game theorists at heart – it took several decades of people writing-down models and articles before we recognised what we know from playing poker; we don't know our opponent's hand.
My wife quipped that we're all going to die and it just happened to be her turn. Her pragmatic and humorous attitude was a guide as to how to accept what is unchangeable and inevitable.
The best portraits happen when you strip away all the pretense, all the masks people wear, and you find that raw, honest moment. That's when magic happens.
In life, we all take various risks- not knowing how serious an outcome will be when we start. For so many things we do, we have to take a risk on someone else's word, with only their judgement calculating what the risk will be to us.
We compensate for our failure to exercise actual control over events by creating a generalized, subjective sense of control by undertaking acts the effect of which on the environment is illusory.
Fundamentally you build trust with people by giving them trust.
It's conceivable that survival odds were higher for ancestors who embraced false information endorsed by their tribe, compared to those who acknowledged empirically accurate information but were thereby alienated from their group.
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.