From 600+ conversations with the world’s leading thinkers.
I think these are all cases where our brains lie to us. It's not because they're doing something insidious or that there's some advantage to messing up our sense of happiness—it's just the normal processes of our brains sometimes go awry, and we end up not appreciating what we have as much as we could.
If our senses are really how we understand the world, and there are differences in those sensory windows, then our internal world will be different. Perhaps these differences explain the diversity of beliefs.
The number one thing I've discovered is that people deny that they have any of these traits. We always want to say it's that other person who is a narcissist, the other person is aggressive, they have envy, but no…. not us. We deny we have these qualities and make out as if we are the exception.
The crux of the matter is the internal liberation that comes from acknowledging that there will always be more to do than we can handle, and that certainty about the future is unattainable. It's a form of defeat, yet immensely productive, because as long as you believe mastering everything is just extremely challenging, you'll continue to struggle.
My wife Freada coined a phrase, distance travelled. We're very interested in where somebody started in life, and what hurdles and barriers they have already overcome in their journey – and how that grit has got them to where they are now. That's an indicator of resilience, persistence, and many other character traits that are significant in terms of entrepreneurial success.
I think it's an act of great arrogance and folly to imagine that in a highly racialized society that I would escape and not have racialized thoughts.
In war, you're forced to survive. It's kill or be killed, it's the most basic human instinct. You have to unleash that aggressive shadow side of yourself. It gives you a profound sense of being alive, it becomes a dopamine slot machine.
It's about catching that surge of emotion, be it offense or anger, usually incited by someone attempting to ignite your social identity or signal an outgroup threat, with a likely aim to shape your thoughts or actions.
I genuinely don't care about scrutiny – it's a zero on a scale of 1 to 10 for me. If the table goes cold, I'll walk out of the casino. I'm good… I've got my nest-egg… I'm happy. I do this every day because I like it and want to accomplish my goals.
The vast majority of people- if they can benefit from something or make some money, will look the other way. It's personal greed, without thought about the consequences.
More than just being a luxury item, they are pieces that represent milestone moments- that's why they're important.
On the night of my 30th birthday, I was at a bar in San Francisco... I walked out of that bar at midnight, drunk. I didn't even own running gear, I had some comfortable silk boxer shorts on – took off my pants – and took off down an alleyway stumbling south without knowing that a town called Half Moon Bay was nearly 30 miles away. When the alcohol wore off, I had this epiphany. I looked up and saw heaven – I saw the stars – it was the first moment of clarity I had since I'd given up running. It made me realise that perhaps I was on this earth to be a runner – I wasn't happy being a business guy, it was making me miserable. I was comfortable, but miserable.