From 600+ conversations with the world’s leading thinkers.
Dehumanizing the victim through the internet has enabled people to commit crimes and not worry about their conscience.
As a team captain, you have to figure out how people work, you have to make sure you say the right thing to the right person… you have to know when to shout, when to listen, when to be tough and when to be kind.
I believe happiness is a consequence, not a goal. If you engage in the right activities that bring contentment, happiness will naturally follow. Viewing happiness as a goal makes it elusive; it's like chasing an illusory concept. Once you grasp it, it tends to dissipate—such is the nature of emotions.
The ability to build trust is an essential human skill but it's not easy to build trust relationships quickly and certainly not in the midst of crisis. That comes from consistent behaviour that demonstrates integrity, honesty, truthfulness, and keeping one's word.
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.
This stubbornness was further highlighted during a significant hiatus from swimming at 15, amidst the turmoil of war. My father had left the country, leaving me to navigate adolescence in rebellion, seeking normalcy in defiance. That year was transformative—cutting my hair, getting a piercing, and quitting swimming symbolised a personal revolution, leading me to realize my participation in the sport was for my own sake, not merely to fulfil my father's expectations.
We have these floods of ideas when we allow ourselves to slow down – you get this pent-up energy that flows out of you.
My advice is not to shy away from it but to anticipate and even embrace it. Consider it a signal that what you're facing is important and that you're eager to excel. This perspective allows you to channel your nervous energy into a productive question: 'What am I going to do about it?'
When you set out on that yellow-brick-road of life to fulfil your goals, just be the best you can be – and whether that means you finish as champion, first, second, tenth, whatever… if you've done your best? You're winning. The martial arts however can teach you a lot about how to perform – how to dig deep – and how to be better than you think you can be.
I do believe there's something fundamentally essential about free play—the open-ended combination of elements not confined by a narrow context. This concept is vital not only to humanity but to life itself.
I can't make people do anything. What I can do is find the right people—those who fit the culture—and let their humanity shine. Then, I need to create the support and mechanisms for that to happen.
If you fail many times in life, it can be frustrating, but, if you look differently at that, you can see that if you fail many times, you get up many times. If you didn't get up after the first fall, you could never have fought. Failure just means you got knocked down.