Psychology

You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end—which you can never afford to lose—with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.

A lot of that feeling of alienation that you see in The Office, Dilbert, and so-forth is driven by people feeling that they don't understand context, and ultimately decisions don't make sense.

Co-Founder of Slack, Former CEO & Creator of Flickr

Fundamentally, it's really hard to work on intellectual and complex projects collaboratively. Complexity is underestimated, even by the people who are in the thick of it.

Co-Founder of Slack, Former CEO & Creator of Flickr

We have the unusual paradox of being both highly individualistic, yet in essence social. We exist in what I describe as a collective survival exercise.

Biologist and systems theorist known for work on evolution and social cooperation

The people who do better are somehow better connected. In other words, there is an inherent logic in the idea that the more connections individuals make within their communities the better off they will be emotionally, socially, physically and economically.

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.

Manchester City Captain & Belgian Football Legend

A lot of people assume that I would choose not to have bipolar disorder; but I'm grateful for it. I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world, because I feel like all the ups and downs have formed who I am, and made be braver, tougher… more creative and more capable.

Professional wrestler and WWE performer, known as AJ Lee

The most important lesson I learned is that you have to show 100% genuine emotion and personality through everything you do and allow that to connect to people. You cannot keep things inside because you think people won't accept you, or will think you're strange; just let your freak flag fly.

Professional wrestler and WWE performer, known as AJ Lee

I'm a firm believer that creativity comes from restrictions, so I'm really grateful that I grew-up with so many restrictions around me. When you give people limitations and say, 'here's a canvas, but you can only paint with yellow..' – the wheels start turning, and you plan to get out of the box you're put in.

Professional wrestler and WWE performer, known as AJ Lee

In business, you get incredible highs and lows… and it can take a decade of work before you start to see the story, and so having peer networks around you helps you realise other people have been through this.

Co-Founder of Atlassian & Technology Entrepreneur

The best way of managing fear is preparation; and amazingly, unlike other types of public appearance that involve major planning and rehearsals, people don't often prepare enough for talks.

Curator of TED Talks & Author of "The Long Tail

There's no such thing as a formula for a great talk but the best are the ones where a speaker connects deeply with an audience, shows them why their passion matters, and takes the audience on a journey.

Curator of TED Talks & Author of "The Long Tail

Storytelling is an extraordinary powerful human skill that all of us are wired for; but its best used in the service of ideas.

Curator of TED Talks & Author of "The Long Tail

The systems we now use exist at a scale that's actually hard to comprehend as human beings. On Facebook, you are one of several billion people and at that scale, it's easy to become a number, or simply a wallet.

CEO and Chairwoman of Mozilla Foundation and Mozilla Corporation

The military have always done a great job of creating this band of brothers – groups who are so close-knit they very literally behave like family, and from an evolutionary perspective- we're wired to do anything to protect our family.

You can't just roll out of bed and be the best in the world at something, you need to have great genes and put in the hard-work, get the breaks, and really have that balance of nature and nurture.