From 600+ conversations with the world’s leading thinkers.
Everyone in a high functioning organisation is simultaneously a teacher and a student. They will have been taught by others, and will be teaching others.
When I was 15, I rearranged the sales floor in the boutique I was working in and was the best salesperson in the store. At 25, when my boss Anne Klein died, I took over designing and changed the look of the collection to make it younger and sexier, and also changed how it was shown and sold in the showroom – not to mention just having had a baby while all this was happening.
I was only 9 years old, but I loved ski racing. I loved skiing in general, and was lucky enough to meet my idol, Picabo Street. I met her at an autograph signing at a ski shop in Minnesota, and I said that's it… that's what I want to do… and this is who I want to be like. From then on, I made ski racing my focus, and my dad helped me create a ten-year plan to make the next Olympics.
Even if I had all the money in the world, no problem worth fixing can be solved in my lifetime. The best I can do is to be part of the process, and to help the world figure it out.
Making mistakes is necessary- if you don't make mistakes, you can never grow. Every failure is a little lesson in how to be a winner. Failure is an opportunity to learn, to start again, to see problems, and find solutions. Failing may be the reason you win next time!
Why would anybody at all invest in an economy where the three leaders said the country was bankrupt?! That's what's killed off confidence and investment in the economy.
We are held back by our deep, underlying fears. Fears of rejection, fears of being the imposter. We need to reframe these fears and work on regret minimisation. If you didn't take that action, spark up that conversation, or try that idea, would you regret it? if you would- then don't hesitate, do it.
If you don't have some failures continually, it is a signal that you have retreated into the conservative past. Most people still interpret failure as an unfortunate thing to get to success, but this isn't actually what it means.
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.
A less experienced, less comfortable, version of myself would get angry and then realise they were angry. The meditative version of me can anticipate when I'm going to get angry- and then, it becomes a choice. Do you want to be angry? Or have a different attitude?
I believe the traditional perception, which posits that success is merely an accumulation of advantages while failure is an accumulation of disadvantages, is overly simplistic. It's the disadvantages that offer a more fertile ground for learning, albeit for a smaller cohort. The depth of learning and engagement derived from tackling difficulties is substantially richer compared to that gleaned from facing advantages.
Everyone says, 'oh it's fine to make mistakes, it's fine to do things wrong'. But actually? making that true is really difficult.