Wisdom in fragments

Fear is healthy, fear is natural, and if anyone's ever told you they've been to combat and were never afraid… they're either lying or a sociopath. Fear is a very good reaction; it makes you think more clearly. The fine line is panic. Panic is contagious- if one person panics, everyone panics. Fear is healthy, but panic is contagious. As a leader, you also realise that calm is contagious.

Former Navy SEAL who shot Osama bin Laden in 2011

In the West, politicians will say anything and not care about it- they'll be out of office by the time they would be held to account. The Chinese tend to under-promise and over-perform, they don't want to lose face.

Environmental lawyer and founder of ClientEarth

In China, we have been working closely with the Chinese Supreme Court prosecutors and administrative environment. In the last two years, these prosecutors have initiated over 100,000 cases- they do things in a big way- and want to transform the landscape such that companies know they will get hammered if they don't comply.

Environmental lawyer and founder of ClientEarth

If you or I buy an organic veggie-burger, that's great, but we're swimming against billions in subsidies. These are changes which will require government action at the highest level, consumer action alone will not get us there.

Environmental lawyer and founder of ClientEarth

We can't only rely on consumers making individual choices. If you switched your energy to someone who told you they are selling you 100% renewable energy, that's great, but it doesn't shift the energy system to renewables. You need to have energy markets that are designed to encourage investment into renewable energy.

Environmental lawyer and founder of ClientEarth

By the middle of century, the temperature and humidity in parts of the world will be so high at parts of the year that the human system will not be able to cool itself, you are effectively being cooked. One of the places this will happen first, with potentially grave consequences, is the Arabian Peninsula- disrupting Hajj.

Environmental lawyer and founder of ClientEarth

The people who will be disproportionately harmed by climate change are those who are (in general) less advantaged economically and socially. Justice means equality of opportunity for all human beings, and that equality of opportunity is quickly reduced if you're in Bangladesh and your home is flooded or if you're in Nigeria and your crops fail because the rains have changed.

Environmental lawyer and founder of ClientEarth

My hope is that the world will come to realise that doing good and doing well are not in opposition, and then effectively can begin to contribute to solving the big challenges we face, environmentally and socially. If I contributed in some small way to making that happen, I'd feel very good about my life.

Founder of Social Venture Network & Pioneer of Social Impact Investing

We are now at the same crossroads, with impact. There is an interesting parallel here with 1933, when we introduced the GAAP. Until then, there had been no real transparency on profit! After the Great Wall Street Crash of 1929, investors sat-up and said 'hey, this is crazy!' and they got transparency through the adoption of GAAP.

Founder of Social Venture Network & Pioneer of Social Impact Investing

Out of the 1,800 companies we measured, 250 created more environmental damage a year than profit. 600 created environmental damage of 25% or more of their profits. Together, the 1,800 businesses we researched created over $3 trillion of environmental damage in a single year.

Founder of Social Venture Network & Pioneer of Social Impact Investing

This is transforming the whole of our economy and we are seeing more companies making decisions across those dimensions of risk-return-impact and being judged on the basis of the profit and impact they create. It really turns our economies away from risk-return (where they create profit without counting the huge damage they cause) to risk-return-impact.

Founder of Social Venture Network & Pioneer of Social Impact Investing

I became a venture capitalist because I wanted to help society by creating jobs at a time of high unemployment in the UK. As the years went by, I realised that while we were indeed helping people who came from nothing to make money, improve the lives of people around them, create jobs, financial value and wealth- the gap between rich and poor was getting bigger, not smaller.

Founder of Social Venture Network & Pioneer of Social Impact Investing

Your readers may be disappointed, but there's only one thing I would suggest they do. Find three other people and meet regularly- once a week on Zoom. Hold each other to account, the end. Either you're willing to do that or you're not. If you're willing to do that, it will change your life.

Marketing Thought Leader & Author of "The Purple Cow

Creativity is about solving interesting problems, and problems are interesting because they have constraints. You cannot think outside the box, but you can think along the edges of the box. The box is something to lever and learn against. Look for the edges of the box and don't deny the boundaries!

Marketing Thought Leader & Author of "The Purple Cow

Writer's block was only invented 100 years ago; the term didn't exist before that. Writer's block is simply a fear of bad writing, not an inability to write. Nobody gets talkers' block! Everyone can talk! Instead of calling it writer's block, we should say, 'I haven't done enough writing yet, so I feel blocked.'

Marketing Thought Leader & Author of "The Purple Cow

You can't be in both lanes; you have to pick one. If you are making a film and you go to Warner Brothers, they'll give you $50 million and a whole stack of notes that will make your movie worse creatively, but more successful from their commercial perspective so it can get through gatekeepers and return the investment.

Marketing Thought Leader & Author of "The Purple Cow