From 600+ conversations with the world’s leading thinkers.
You need to know the reason you're there at that surgical table with a knife in your hand. You have to be clear that you are using these sophisticated tools (tools which can cause a lot of harm) to fundamentally and primarily help that entity, that child in front of you.
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 party must end. At some point, the greatness that came to define who 'you' are will wane.
Most people don't know who they are. They're trying to be what other people want them to be- or they're trying to create something that fills a void that comes from within. The pressure to conform is huge right now, especially with people getting cancelled; saying what you really feel can make you unpopular… so people box themselves into a place where they're not celebrated or respected for being truthful. It's tragic.
We are first generation entrepreneurs, with middle class values, coming from middle class backgrounds, we never expected to be so wealthy! Our first reaction therefore is to share.
We are part of the continuum of evolution, and [we] are not the only beings on the Earth with personalities, minds, thoughts and feelings.
I don't care about legacy, it's an old idea because we don't consume time like we did before. Time is now simultaneous – before, it was linear. Today it is a wall in front of us. When time is a wall, there is no place for legacy.
Having grown up and worked in this environment, I strongly believe there is a solution to everything as long as you are not willing to accept a status quo and constantly look for better results.
What's unique about Stoic Capitalist is that I aimed to shift those ideas from mere coping to succeeding on a much larger scale. At its core, Stoicism as a coping mechanism involves reining in emotion and distinguishing between what you can and cannot control.
The very idea that – say – Make America Great Again – should be our guiding creed captures almost all the counter-enlightenment themes. It idealises the greatness of a nation as the ultimate good, as opposed to making all people healthier, safer, happier, richer and better educated. Rather than looking ahead to the progress that can be made, it looks back to a hypothetical golden-age to which we must return.
I am a proud Jamaican who can run fast and make people smile. I try to be myself whether I am hanging out with my friends or on the world stage. I try to enjoy life and treat people with respect.
Before you succeed, you must first learn to fail. If you keep repeating the same thing, you're always going to fail, you need to adjust. We have to look at failures and use them as an educational tool.
There's a tension amongst the countries who belong to, and who have led, international organisations. Are they there to solve problems which no country can alone solve? Or – are they there to impose one particular view of the world on the rest of the world?