Leadership

99.9% of the time, you are not in a burning building- and that is precisely the time to think about what you would do in that 0.1% of time when it is on fire. A lack of information and preparedness in an emergency or crisis can be the difference between carrying yourself through, and sometimes, catastrophic outcomes.

Canadian Astronaut & International Space Station Commander

Having a plan, feeling confident and being competent are the greatest antidotes to fear. If you're just trying to deal with the unknown by crossing your fingers and hoping, you will be utterly helpless when a situation finally manifests. In reality, you're rarely (if ever) completely helpless, you allow yourself to be helpless.

Canadian Astronaut & International Space Station Commander

You have to have some humility in life before you can begin to understand yourself, and before you can begin to change yourself, the world, or other people. If you only think others have problems, you're never going to be able to look at yourself and change who you are.

Author of "The 48 Laws of Power" & Strategist

You have some smart people gaslighting us into telling us this isn't true... and that's now how history works. Those same people, when a Donald Trump figure comes onto the scene- or some other toxic force- are like who's going to save us? But they discouraged you from believing people had the power to do that.

Author & Stoicism Expert; Marketer & Media Strategist

Legacy is not for us to decide, it's not for us to chase, it's not for us to get, it's not for us to enjoy. I don't think about it much.

Author & Stoicism Expert; Marketer & Media Strategist

If something goes wrong – as a leader, you take ownership – you cannot blame anyone else. If you are in charge of a team, you absolutely have to take ownership when something goes wrong, it's your fault.

Former Navy SEAL Commander & Leadership Author

The greatest leaders have humility. A good leader is a humble leader. A good leader listens to people, gets other inputs, admits when they're wrong… and that boils down to humility; it's the single most important characteristic that I see in leaders.

Former Navy SEAL Commander & Leadership Author

When you fail, you take ownership of the failure, and then you assess what mistakes were made, what could be done differently, what better instructions you could have given, what better support you could have given, then you fix those problems, move on and try again, simple.

Former Navy SEAL Commander & Leadership Author

Fundamentally you build trust with people by giving them trust.

Former Navy SEAL Commander & Leadership Author

The single most important thing someone can do for a talk is to plan three or four rehearsals in front of people who are like the audience who will be receiving it; it may be one person or three, but you really should do that and discover what works, what doesn't, what's clumsy, what resonates.

Curator of TED Talks & Author of "The Long Tail

If you offer no vision for the future, someone else will. Our geopolitics cannot tolerate a vacuum, and if you retreat- whether physically or ideologically- someone else will come up with a plan which may not be complementary for democracy.

World Chess Champion & Political Activist Against Russian Authoritarianism

If you think of a candle- it's bright, but the light goes out in all directions, like a sphere. If you think of a laser beam- the light is concentrated in one direction, and it can be much more powerful than a candle. Goals focus our energy in the same way.

Psychologist & Author of "Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance

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.

Psychologist & Author of "Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance

The zeitgeist of this moment is not about charismatic leaders but about an awakened citizenry. This isn't an era of soloists. It's an era of change led by the choir, where everyone is learning to sing their own note by living as authentically as we can.

Author of "A Return to Love" & Spiritual Activist

Don't become paralysed by anticipating the unexpected. It does not pay to be worried about failure. If your mind is crowded with thoughts of what could happen, you will never achieve your best performance.

Lunar Module Pilot on Apollo 11; Second Person to Walk on Moon

Every failure has lessons it can give us- and knowing failure is possible and monitoring where you expect it to occur, allows you to divert your attention to the necessary observations and actions to carry out the positive.

Lunar Module Pilot on Apollo 11; Second Person to Walk on Moon