From 600+ conversations with the world’s leading thinkers.
My mother Bess taught me very early on to take risks and just go for it. I don't like to waste people's time, and I don't like my time wasted because time is the only thing you can't get back.
You cannot run a business without great people, who are incentivised to be great; and so, you must protect them, and pay them appropriately.
The way you eliminate fear is to approach your situation from every angle, almost as though it were a logic puzzle. It's also setting a goal but not being afraid to back away if you think that you're going to do irreversible damage on the way there.
No one has to be a genius, but everyone has to participate.
I told my dad from the beginning, we're fighting both disease and doubt, and we have to tackle them simultaneously.
Any time you get angry, frustrated or disappointed, it's worth remembering that those emotions are just a first draft. You would never publish a draft version of your blog, right? The same is true of emotion- a lot of people just go ahead and 'publish' – internalising how they feel – without stopping for a second and thinking that maybe they ought to do a revision.
Time is a very valuable thing, when you contribute your time to others- you've contributed something of great value.
If you love solving problems, that's kind of where entrepreneurship comes from, and you hone your skills by bringing people and resources together around your vision and ideas to solve problems.
When your business becomes a unicorn and heads for the stratosphere, there's a temptation to slide into the primary activity of the business being turning capital, and so customer focus can get lost. Once you stop putting customer first, the competition will destroy you.
I am not someone who puts a lot of pressure on myself. I love a challenge and live for the big stage of an Olympic Games or World Championships. Some people get nervous for the big events but I look forward to them.
It's about the pursuit of a vision. It's about being brutally honest each day. It's about truly understanding the role of housekeeping versus the relationship with your customer.
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.