We go to war not because we ignore the costs, but because we know there are costs, but we are willing to pay those costs because we get something from the war which we wouldn't get otherwise.
— Christopher BlattmanAbout 65% of the population mouth breathes at night. If you're breathing through your mouth for eight hours, you increase your susceptibility to respiratory illnesses, sleep apnea, snoring, and allergies. You get less oxygen and overwork your body.
I learned a long time ago that life is not a race against other people. Life is a competition with yourself. One of the greatest achievements in life is to outperform yourself and live your greatest life possible. Greatness lives in all of us, but we must all find what it is that ignites our souls.
Our brains consist of about 100 billion nerve cells and neurons, with a potential for making anywhere from tens to hundreds of trillions, some even say a quadrillion, connections known as synapses. Due to a phenomenon known as neuroplasticity, our neural network continually restructures itself. Each time we learn something new or encounter a fresh experience, we trigger a reconfiguration of our brains.
Distrust in government is very dangerous – what follows is the ability for authoritarian and totalitarian forms of government to take control, and that doesn't do anybody, any good.
Success means having a lifestyle that I enjoy. It means slowing down, enjoying what I do, and having as few stakeholders as possible. I don't want a bunch of investors. I don't want a ton of employees.
Great entrepreneurs are people with tremendous passion. Without passion you cannot go on a journey that requires such huge personal sacrifices, looks bleak, risky and impossible in the beginning…
Music ties into memory in two ways. First, music itself can be tremendously impactful, so we remember it — and we also remember everything happening around us when we heard it.
You don't have to choose a business that's going to drown you, be a treadmill, or suck you underneath. You can start slow, make a bit of money and then double down. You don't have to risk it all at the beginning. Start slow… make a bit of money… make a bit more… then you're playing with the house's money.
The essence of public health as a field of action is that it tries to stop problems from happening where possible, and prepares societies for problems that are unavoidable. That's why it requires us to understand the entire population.
Growth is like an elixir. It's exciting, it creates more and more growth, and it's a helluva lot of fun. Business is fun, it's a game. You're playing against others, and you want to win!
If we want to live and become 100 years old, we need to have parents and grandparents that have lived that long- that's it. There's not much we can do in terms of environmental influence, eating well, and living well – those things help of course but to get to great age, you need the genes.
When you're not in a geopolitical recession, political risk still matters, but it matters largely at a country level and primarily in emerging markets. But in a geopolitical recession, suddenly the biggest macro risks are by their nature political. And you focus less on growth and more on stability and resilience, and that's a problem because the free market model tells you 'don't focus on resilience and stability, focus first and foremost on growth and everything else will take care of itself'.