Psychology

Four days before she died, she challenged my daughter and I to try and find a pocketful of happiness in each day, which has become the mantra by which we navigate the abyss of grief, following her death. I don't think you ever get over grief, you just have to find a way to accommodate and travel around it.

British actor known for Withnail and I and Star Wars: The Force Awakens

I began a conversation with my future wife in January 1983 and 38 years later, that conversation ended when she drew her last breath at 7.30 in the evening on the 2nd of September 2021. To be truly and completely seen, understood and loved by another Human Being, was her greatest gift to me.

British actor known for Withnail and I and Star Wars: The Force Awakens

A less experienced, less comfortable, version of myself would get angry and then realise they were angry. The meditative version of me can anticipate when I'm going to get angry- and then, it becomes a choice. Do you want to be angry? Or have a different attitude? It's been enormously powerful, and I've been doing it for 8 years.

Entrepreneurship is not for everybody, and it's also worth noting that you're not entitled to be a great entrepreneur. You're not entitled to be successful if you start a company, in fact the most likely outcome is that you won't be. Sometimes I meet founders and entrepreneurs who complain about how hard their fundraising or engineering challenges are… Guess what… yes…. It's really f***ing hard. That's the truth.

As a leader, you must evolve with the role. When I was 22, 23, 24, I was learning what it meant to be an entrepreneur and a CEO, it felt like I was spinning out of control. My identity, and that of the company, were one-and-the=same, and that's not just inaccurate, it's unhealthy. Once I was able to separate my identity from the business, it got me really focussed on how I could become a better leader.

I'm not saying that we should take-on less stress… the problem with the narratives around hustle-culture is that these narratives operate on one paradigm… you should either be working really hard, nor not working too hard.. that's a really primitive conversation. To be successful, you have to overcome a level of stress that would break most people. Building a company is not a sprint, it's a marathon… if you look at the world's best marathon runners, they're running in 4 minute miles. You have to learn how to take on an incredible amount of stress, and sustain it for a really long time.

anybody who's in wonderhell will know what that word means the second they see the word.

I went to see a psychiatrists and was like 'I think there's something wrong with my brain'. He diagnosed me fairly quickly as being a born overachiever. Born overachievement complex was my issue, and he said we can work on that. I said overachievement? That's a feature, not a bug. He's like yeah but it's not tenable. And I said no, no, I'm fine, I'm totally fine and he countered with the checkmate of 'but you're here'.

If I finish a marathon at 4.02 (which is the fastest I've ever ran a marathon in my life), what is the first thing that occurs to me? Oh that was so close to 3.59, I wonder if I could do it. Then as soon as you imagine yourself crossing the line at 3.59 boom, you're in wonderhell because everything that you do, every time that you run you're like 'if I could just keep that up for 25 more miles that could be 3.59'. So as soon as you see it, you can't unsee it.

Every time we achieve some version of success, whether you've sold that first company or maybe you've just sold your first tube of lipstick or your first consulting contract, every time we achieve some version of success we see another version of ourselves that we didn't even know was possible. We as humans wonder what else potential we have to explore.

I spent 20 years in executive search, and I was hired by my clients to call 'the most successful people' in the world. Bold face names in bold face organisations. It was my job to recruit them away on behalf of my clients- it would sound difficult right? I would call super successful people and try to get them to do something different. However it wasn't that hard, because despite all the success, which is why I was calling them, they were not very happy which is why they were calling me back.

Our brains are not wired to think statistically or in terms of probabilities. That's sad because whole industries have emerged to exploit this reality – top of the list, casinos. The whole point of the scientific method is to do all you can to prevent yourself from thinking something is true that is not.

Renowned Astrophysicist & Director of Hayden Planetarium

The fact that you and I are alive is against stupendous odds. One day we will die, and that's sad, but there are people who will never die because they were never born. We're the lucky ones, we get to die. You can only die if you were alive.

Renowned Astrophysicist & Director of Hayden Planetarium

I don't care about legacy – not because I'm not thinking of legacy, but because I'm thinking about how to make the greatest positive difference in the current moment I'm living in, and not obsessing about how I'll be looked back on. You're setting yourself up for misery if you focus too much on legacy honestly, but if you try and make a positive difference in the current moment of your life, you're doing the right thing.

You can have your best day and your worst day on the same day. There's so much happening at once, and everything happens so fast… the emotional highs and lows are tense.

This might sound strange, but I've never been 'afraid.' I've certainly been nervous- very nervous- but I've never been afraid. That's what has allowed me to come back from injuries- I'm not afraid of the consequences. I know the risks, I accept the risks, but I'm not afraid of the risks.

Olympic Alpine Skier with Most World Cup Wins by Female Athlete