From 600+ conversations with the world’s leading thinkers.
We're no longer just measuring ourselves against the 120 members of our local community. Instead, with our devices, we're exposed to global icons like Bill Gates, Oprah, or LeBron James, setting standards for our intelligence, beauty, and self-worth. This expanded comparison can be detrimental.
You only get to really redesign markets root and branch when they are failing so dramatically that everyone acknowledges it. Markets are a little like language. It's hard to change the spelling of certain words in the English language, even though those spellings are dysfunctional.
We're a multicultural society because we had a multicultural empire. The reason you and I are here talking is because some English people went to India and invaded it in the 17th century.
Our entire civilisation is a manifestation of the complex inner worlds we carry with us. Everything around us, our buildings, cultures, politics, economies, statues, art and music are reflections of who we were, are and want to be.
In biology we are still in a kind of Ptolemaic era with man considering himself the centre of the universe.
I can't advertise chewing gum to my children because it's unethical, but I can feed them all sorts of narratives that will have a profound impact on their personal trajectories. It's quite an extraordinarily hypocritical position.
When I was a journalist, you had to always have three sources, or they would not run the story. Now, according to 'sources', not even on-the-record, is good enough. Everyone wants to be first and often that leads to mistakes.
We need to give women the freedom and confidence to believe and be whatever they want to. This isn't just about business, but about social conditioning in all cultures.
When you don't know your self-worth, you're more docile and easier to control by the 'machine.' That's the cult-like structure society is built around.
So much of silence is about perpetuating the status quo, reinforcing what someone or dominant groups within an entity or organization have deemed appropriate, good, polite. Being different inherently exposes you to vulnerability; you're pushing against everything that the forces of mimicry urge you to do, which is to conform.
I wasn't just fighting for myself. I was fighting for an entire country and millions of fans around the world who believe in me. That is why I will always give 100% in and out of the ring.
We live in a very unethical society. We don't teach ethics at home, schools or university. As a consequence most businesses don't have a code of ethics or conduct.