Wisdom in fragments

To the striver, that addiction is success. It activates the same neurobiology and dopamine pathways as alcohol or drugs. When the business collapses, their life ends not just in terms of work, but their whole sense of self is removed. All addicts are the same.

Social Scientist & Author on Happiness, Meaning, and Conservative Values

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.

Social Scientist & Author on Happiness, Meaning, and Conservative Values

Many studies have shown and said that consumers would rather choose a sustainable product or service from a transformed business over others.

To bring your stakeholders and to do that, you must show that this transformation you are proposing makes good business sense.

In the end, what happened is I climbed Everest, I came back, and inadvertently I had transformed everyone that works at Arçelik literally from people who are working to earn money and live their lives, to people who are working to do their best they possibly could in terms of mitigating this climate crisis.

I nearly died several times. I shared everything openly with everyone. I shared how my whole thought process and character had completely changed in that expedition, but also how my own purpose had completely changed.

All leadership really is, is empowering people to find their purpose, because the only way people are fully engaged and productive and happy, which I think is one of the most important things people forget, is when they are working towards a higher purpose.

Women account for a mere 0.5% of recorded history.

With leadership and privilege comes immense responsibility. And in this case, it basically took 20 years for the US to replace the Taliban, with the Taliban. This is a backward step of epic proportions for women's rights.

As a collective, we tend to look at progress as being linear, especially where it concerns women's rights. This is a huge mistake and breeds complacency because we risk losing the hard-won gains.

Women in Iran are quite possibly the greatest threat to the regime, they are courageous and relentless in their pursuit of justice, human rights, and freedom from oppression and make the sacrifices needed to bring about change for future generations.

The myth of women's inferiority is the product of a social system that has produced and fostered countless other inequalities, inferiorities, degradations, and discriminations. The ripple effects of the creation of these systems continue to this day – to the point where they are deeply embedded into society.

Uncertainty creates a strategic incentive for a rational man to go to war. That's not necessarily a mistake as, at the moment, people may wish they had better information, but they may also realise they've made the optimal choice.

Economist specializing in conflict, development, and poverty research

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.

Economist specializing in conflict, development, and poverty research

There is a famous Iraqi idiom which states that if you think your opponents can eat you for dinner, then you'd better eat them for lunch.

Economist specializing in conflict, development, and poverty research

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.

Economist specializing in conflict, development, and poverty research