From 600+ conversations with the world’s leading thinkers.
Most people we have worked with who have accomplished great things have an other-centred purpose, and that's never just 'make a lot of money…' – it could be to make women's lives easier, to close the inequality gap, to change the world, it's something which isn't strictly personal and selfish.
Being able to trust is actually what makes us human. It's a very innate thing. And often, distrust and mistrust are learned behaviours that start to set in around the age of four.
Humanity, having never faced any serious competition or whole-species-threats, feels relatively safe from existential events and cannot conceive any threats it may be creating.
The reality is – you can't accomplish anything unless you're all in emotionally, physically… you have to put it all on the table. You can't just put a little part of you out there in case you get hurt… guess what… everything about competition will hurt. The losses hurt… a huge wipe out hurts…. Breaking a board and getting hit on the head, that hurts. The more you do it – the more you build a mental scar tissue that you can lean on – That's the 'stuff' that lets you pick up the pieces and go again.
Small hedge funds do better than big ones... big hedge funds did better when they were small... therefore the industry did better when it was small... That third step in the logic is something that investors don't spend a lot of time thinking about because there's nobody around to point that out to them!
Humans have this incredible ability; we understand the world around us, we can dream, we can share visions of the future and persuade each other- and ourselves- to improve. This is so deep in our biology.
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.
75% of people won't purchase from a brand they don't inherently trust.
There's a misconception that outstanding work and profound well-being are mutually exclusive. But in reality, both are crucial for lasting success—emphasis on 'lasting'.
On the night of my 30th birthday, I was at a bar in San Francisco... I walked out of that bar at midnight, drunk. I didn't even own running gear, I had some comfortable silk boxer shorts on – took off my pants – and took off down an alleyway stumbling south without knowing that a town called Half Moon Bay was nearly 30 miles away. When the alcohol wore off, I had this epiphany. I looked up and saw heaven – I saw the stars – it was the first moment of clarity I had since I'd given up running. It made me realise that perhaps I was on this earth to be a runner – I wasn't happy being a business guy, it was making me miserable. I was comfortable, but miserable.
True grit is that rare strength and resilience to dust yourself off, look at what went wrong, refine your proposition and plough on. Always be prepared to adapt: an open mind is everything – but stay focused on your end game.
You can think of the human mind as a measuring instrument. We're making judgements all the time and studies show that on a day-to-day basis, when presented with the same evidence, our judgements may be different. If you see the mind as a measuring instrument, you start to see it as a scale, a bafflingly variable and noisy scale.