From 600+ conversations with the world’s leading thinkers.
My whole life I'd thought of Earth as this place where we're in control of our lives. I'd wake up, go to the grocery store, take my kid to a baseball game. It was this safe, stable cocoon. Now it wasn't that anymore. In space I could see the Earth in relation to the stars and the sun and the moon. The Earth is a planet. It's a spaceship. We're zipping around the universe, hurtling through the chaos of space with asteroids and black holes and everything else, and we think we're safe but, boy, we are right out there in the middle of it.
The world of celebrity offers an escape from the real world, and offers different things to different people. To many, the celebrity world is aspirational, they imagine themselves living that lifestyle and dream of how it would be to go to that premiere, have that fancy house, or that expensive vacation. For others, the world of celebrity is like watching a car-wreck.
You can have athletes that are at their physical peak but without the right mental resilience and approach, their performance will not be where it needs to. I've focused on that a lot through my career- learning through experiences and trying to keep a perspective on what I'd achieved previously, what I was going to achieve, and how to get the most out of communication with the people around me.
If you want other people to open their minds, you have to open yours too.
Top leadership must take an active interest in projects. They should foster a culture where bad news is welcomed, not just good news. If a leader inadvertently suppresses bad news, it results in a dysfunctional governance structure.
Fear is healthy, fear is natural, and if anyone's ever told you they've been to combat and were never afraid... they're either lying or a sociopath. Fear is a very good reaction; it makes you think more clearly.
Regrets tell you what you value. We need to think about regrets as photographic negatives of the good life. Each regret reveals what we want out of life. We want stability; a good life is not precarious. We want to do something with our lives; a good life is not without boldness.
You are the king (or queen) of your castle. When you step off land into the ocean, you're at the mercy of the most powerful energy source there is – you can paddle out into the water with a picture in your mind of what the surf might be like and what waves might come, and things can change… the wind… the tide… the swell…
Disruption is treated as an event, and it is a constant and that is the interesting sort of fallacy. As humans we want this state of consistency but if we are taking it as a hypothesis, we are constantly being disrupted, constantly changing and the groundwork we are standing on is shifting all the time.
One reason conflict resilience has declined is that it's become easier to fire off a snarky message or simply block someone and move on. If we share physical space, avoidance has limits; I can leave the room, but I might still run into you in the hallway. Online, though, I can just delete, mute, or block you with no further engagement.
We have been interested in celebrities since the dawn of time. Jesus was the first celebrity, then the royal families. Celebrity culture exists even at a micro-level... It's human nature to be interested in the captain of the football team, the head cheerleader or who is doing what with who.
Don't become paralysed by anticipating the unexpected. It does not pay to be worried about failure. If your mind is crowded with thoughts of what could happen, you will never achieve your best performance.