From 600+ conversations with the world’s leading thinkers.
Our brains actively construct a model of the world, which is our actual experience. Incoming sensory data serves mainly to verify and correct this internal model.
There's a vested interest – if the ideas you're teaching and have worked on are completely abandoned in favour of something else, then your legacy goes to zero. I think that's a big force.
...in situations of high uncertainty, personal information exchange may reach market-wide impacts, as the examples of bank runs and speculative attacks on national currencies show.
Our brains are adapted to pick leaders based on characteristics that are no longer adaptive, or necessary today. In times of crisis for example, we are wired to gravitate towards strong men – strong males who are overconfident and speak of solutions in simplistic terms. That's what historically it took to survive.
Despite every adversity, never give up on your dreams. I am living proof that having been born and brought up in the smallest country in the Southern Hemisphere, it is possible to fulfil your ambition and succeed despite seemingly insurmountable odds.
It taught me the difference between the two types of people in the world. Those that own the store, and those that scrape shit off the floor. You have to decide which one you want to be.
From her, I learned that grief is the cost of deep love. By keeping this awareness ever-present in our daily lives, it prompts us to reflect on the importance of life. 'What do I want to do today, knowing tomorrow is not promised to me?'
I remember writing myself a letter- it's something I encourage women to do today- listing the things they've achieved in their career and personal lives. Before you go into that next important meeting, event or anything outside your comfort zone it's a great tool to give yourself that boost. Women need to be their own cheerleaders and remind themselves of the amazing things they've achieved.
I remember one particular interview with a boy, Peter, aged just 14. He told me how he posted on Instagram and then waited and waited for someone to like his posts. When they didn't' it made him feel awful and invisible. It's so heart-wrenching to think of that.
I believe it's crucial, especially in social settings, to be both interesting and interested. Being well-informed and keeping up with current events make you more engaging, but showing genuine interest in others is key.
We never have direct access to the world in itself; we only have access to the model our brain is constructing. It works as a sort of 'best guess.' The brain isn't trying to find the absolute truth or create a perfect replica of the outside world's structure.
We have to live in the world as it is, not the world as we wish it would be, is something that we misunderstand. If we are realistic those ideals are usually out of reach, and in fact thinking about them and dreaming about them is a way to punish ourselves for the fact our lives are never going to match up to those ideals.