From 600+ conversations with the world’s leading thinkers.
The greatest leaders have humility. A good leader is a humble leader. A good leader listens to people, gets other inputs, admits when they're wrong… and that boils down to humility; it's the single most important characteristic that I see in leaders.
Uncertainty creates a strategic incentive for a rational man to go to war. That's not necessarily a mistake as, at the moment, people may wish they had better information, but they may also realise they've made the optimal choice.
Every time we achieve some version of success we see another version of ourselves that we didn't even know was possible. We as humans wonder what else potential we have to explore. I didn't know that it was available to me but now that it is, and that's amazing and it's exciting and it's wonderful, it's also anxiety provoking and stress inducing and identity questioning.
It's only when you look back that you can connect the dots to where we are right now. All of us go through things that make us think, 'this makes no sense, why is this happening to me!…' but when you look back you realise that had it not been for 'that,' you wouldn't have had that opportunity… that meeting… that chance… that love.
The people in the advanced countries now face a choice: we can express justified horror, or we can seek to understand what may have led to the crimes. If we refuse to do the latter, we will be contributing to the likelihood that much worse lies ahead.
The reason we can't be happy, and not worry about other people's opinions, is that we're sharing our minds with a machine that does worry about other people's opinions and which does get anxious. If we can dissociate from that, and learn to manage it, it can improve our lives significantly.
Those anxieties have been largely invented as an answer to an internal threat Putin was facing. He knew the Russian people have been getting fed-up of Putinism, and that has to be a major factor in the invention of this external threat.
The general body of research suggests a moderate positive correlation between religiosity and happiness. Religion provides a sense of community and cohesion within an in-group. It draws clear lines between in-group members, with whom I can engage in cooperative behaviour and reciprocal exchanges, and out-group members. Religion also offers purpose and meaning through a supernatural narrative.
The smallest male can be dominant based on his social skills. Think about it; nobody walks into a big store in London and assumes the biggest person is the boss! It might be the old man; it might be the young woman!
It has certainly affected the appetite to investors to engage in LIBOR denominated contracts. Financial markets depend on trust, and we had precious little trust as it was. The LIBOR scandal has done nothing to restore that trust.
When I sense stress, I allot three minutes to fully immerse myself in it. Many individuals attempt to escape stress, but evasion often amplifies it. It's akin to instructing someone not to think of pink elephants; the very command makes it impossible not to.
I believe it's crucial, especially in social settings, to be both interesting and interested. Being well-informed and keeping up with current events make you more engaging, but showing genuine interest in others is key.