From 600+ conversations with the world’s leading thinkers.
Happiness is a measure that reflects the success with which people achieve their personal objectives of living levels, happy and healthy families and satisfying work.
People ask me all the time what do you want to be known for? My answer is simple. I want people to say 'Shaquille O'Neal was a nice guy…' forget how much money I made, forget how many championships I won, or what type of businessman I am.
I wanted to impart this fundamental philosophy that a person should endeavour to better the world, an aspiration divorced from monetary considerations. While some might contend that financial power is a prerequisite for effecting change, I don't subscribe to this belief.
We didn't just make technology, it made us. In the modern context, this phenomenon terrifies some people and excites others- but it's going to happen. We have to understand how humans and their tools and technologies blend at scale – it's going to be an absolutely fascinating journey.
I want to either hit a homerun or walk or even strike out. This means I fail far more often than I succeed. But the important point is that what I lose when I fail is trivial, epsilon compared to what I make when I succeed.
Humans often come together by believing in ideas that may only exist in our imaginations. We have an ability to imagine together, to merge our ideas as a collective, which can slowly move us toward a future once believed to be impossible. This is part of what changes us from being simple animals to a group that will soon travel to Mars and perhaps even further. To me that is magic.
True art, real art, real creativity, comes from somewhere else. It isn't about a picture or decoration- there's a divinity to it…
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.
My role isn't to support one side or another but to pursue truth through my work, giving people an authentic view of the complexities of war. It's not a black-and-white issue; the people involved are complex and exist on a spectrum, and I try to convey that in my reporting.
I'm 65 years old, and one of the things that amazes me is the number of people who work to get to a certain level of success in showbusiness, and then quit to go play golf?! There is nothing else I would want to do in this world.
At one site, a mature man carrying a white flag was shot dead by an Israeli soldier. To those less experienced or with a 'soft' generally compassionate outlook, this might immediately seem a clear case of unlawful killing – a 'war crime'. However, the general offered a different perspective. He considered the terrain and highlighted the dilemma faced by the soldier in high-risk situations: might the soldier be genuinely uncertain over whether the white flag genuinely signified surrender?
People are individuals, they have to make lives and decide how to live their individuality – and society provides labels to allow that for example, 'I am a man, and here are the things that men typically do, and so I'm going to do those things…' or 'I'm British, that means I must like tea and cricket… or a cheeky Nando's'