Wisdom in fragments

If you feel scared; the starting point is to understand why. You need to then understand how to make the fear work for you – if an emotion doesn't work for you, it works against you.

Special Forces: World's Toughest Test Host & Former SAS Soldier

I look at life as a game rather than as success and failure. For most people, failure is a dirty word... they avoid anything to do with failure, they won't go anywhere near it. It stops them trying – stops them committing – stops them experimenting.

Special Forces: World's Toughest Test Host & Former SAS Soldier

For all of us, greatness is there from the off, it's right there in your headspace and mindset. It's sabotaged either by yourself or by what's going on around you. Society restricts us in a way that doesn't allow us to operate at our full potential.

Special Forces: World's Toughest Test Host & Former SAS Soldier

By encouraging them to pay attention as they overeat, we can reduce the reward value of that habit to zero in just 10-15 sessions of eating. These are people who could have been overeating for decades, but their behaviour can change quickly.

Neuroscientist & Expert on Habit Change and Mindfulness-Based Treatments

I've never had a patient come in after I told them to pay attention to smoking who was full of joy at how delicious cigarettes taste and smell, they often come in and balk at how they didn't notice it sooner.

Neuroscientist & Expert on Habit Change and Mindfulness-Based Treatments

Neuroscience shows us that habit formation is based on how rewarding something is, not willpower. Willpower isn't even in the equation. We like to think of willpower is something, but it's more myth than muscle.

Neuroscientist & Expert on Habit Change and Mindfulness-Based Treatments

You can think of habits as a 'set and forget,' we set the habit, we set the behaviour, and we forget about the details. That frees up our brain to learn new things throughout the day.

Neuroscientist & Expert on Habit Change and Mindfulness-Based Treatments

Taoism speaks to the interconnectedness of the universe, and how everything and everyone has an impact on everything and everyone. Governance must widen its' perspectives to think about the implications, and ramifications, of business in society.

Alibaba's vision statement includes a mention of how long it wants to last, and that is specifically 102 years. Jack Ma wanted Alibaba to be the only internet company that spanned three centuries.

Jack said, 'Well, what do you know about PayPal?' – his response, 'I don't know anything about PayPal'. Jack then said, 'Okay, you're hired, we want you to be the CEO of Ali Pay!'

Jack Ma encouraged the entire company to practice and learn Tai Chi in their free time, it is a practice that allows one to embrace the seeming contradictions in the world, and in business. Let me give you some examples – how do you become a profitable business while also doing good for society?

When China started its open-door policy, 40 years ago, it was a much different environment. There was nothing to work with! It was a communist system before that, a planned economy, no free market. People started building things from scratch.

Markets are good at things that have prices, but certain things cannot have prices. Whenever you have situations where you can't have prices, it's not a question of a missing market, it's that you cannot fundamentally construct this market, and this is when government intervention is required.

Partner at Andreessen Horowitz, early Bitcoin and cryptocurrency advocate

We need to get out of the peacetime footing that we are on and we need to get onto a wartime footing against this climate crisis. During World War II, the US allocated 50% of GDP roughly to fighting, and I believe we need to get to 50% of GDP sustained over 5 to 10 years.

Partner at Andreessen Horowitz, early Bitcoin and cryptocurrency advocate

We are now trapping in the Earth's atmospheric oceanic system dangerous amounts of greenhouse gases which is equal to four Hiroshima sized nuclear bombs per second. Imagine if we had alien spaceships hovering above earth, dropping four Hiroshima nuclear bombs into our atmosphere every second. What would we do? We would drop everything until we got rid of them.

Partner at Andreessen Horowitz, early Bitcoin and cryptocurrency advocate

The real scarcity today is attention to the importance of the question, to what end are we deploying this capital. The knowledge age economy is aspirational and that is where I believe we should aim for as we are clearly not there yet. We are in a limbo now, an interregnum phase and this is when everything is particularly unsettling.

Partner at Andreessen Horowitz, early Bitcoin and cryptocurrency advocate