Psychology

It is natural that a society would want to keep what they think works, the status quo. We are also acutely aware that technological changes alters society in unpredictable ways. It is the uncertainty associated with change—especially the fear of losing what we value—that leads to resistance to change.

Harvard Professor of International Development & Innovation Policy Expert

My mother's unbelievable parenting in deploying enormous self-esteem and confidence meant I believed in myself in a way that was blind. The best entrepreneurs are the most optimistic and completely out of tune with reality right? Why would you do it otherwise. My father made me a word-is-bond, word-is-everything, shake a hand and stick to it kinda' guy. That combined with blind faith and belief has become an amazing concoction and something I live-off even today.

Serial Entrepreneur, Author & Digital Marketing Strategist

To be an entrepreneur, you need a love for process and to be comfortable with adversity. If you love process and you're comfortable with adversity, and if you love the journey over the fruits and riches of that journey- then you have what it takes to be a successful entrepreneur. Entrepreneurship is on a pedestal; everyone wants to be one. Here's the truth, it sucks. Entrepreneurship is hard and almost everyone loses.

Serial Entrepreneur, Author & Digital Marketing Strategist

When I was a door to door salesman, I learned a very valuable lesson. 1 in 10 people would talk to you, 9 out of 10 would slam the door in your face. Sometimes you would get 30 doors in a row slammed in your face, but that means that there are 3 yes' coming your way.

Icelandic billionaire businessman and former chess player

We only make progress by getting up from getting kicked to the ground. How does a baby learn to walk? It falls, gets back up… falls, gets back up, and one day its running. Here's the thing about life. You will fall, stumble and fail- that's inevitable. You need to analyse it when it happens, learn from those mistakes, and move on.

Icelandic billionaire businessman and former chess player

Are you the guy who wants to know what he gets at the end of the month? Or are you the guy who says I'll take my chances and will do very well or very badly. If you can make that distinction in your own mind, the rest is up to you. That's where entrepreneurship comes from; it means you can live with risk.

Icelandic billionaire businessman and former chess player

The first one is to believe in the 'otherisation'. The otherisation states that anybody who is looking at the world through their lens is on one group, and everybody outside of this world view is another. And they are different and separate.

ISIS and Al Qaeda don't radicalise anybody, what they do is tip people over the edge. The online phenomenon just speeds it up.

Every single individual in the world, including you and I, have a grievance or a problem at any given moment in time. When you and I go to sleep tonight in our own beds, you'll be thinking about a problem that's affecting you and I'll be thinking about a problem that's affecting me.

Salman Abedi, Khalid Masood, Khuram Butt, all of these people and the people in ISIS, Al Qaeda, Boko Haram, Al-Shabaab… We tend to think sometimes that they are extremism. But the reality is they didn't breed extremism. Islamist extremism bred them.

We all have obstacles we think can't be overcome, but if our dream is great enough, and we work hard enough, the world is ours for the taking. Keep an open mind: look for learnings everywhere and don't be afraid to fail.

The most important lesson I've learned is that my energy level and outlook have an impact on the people around me and it's my responsibility to approach every day with positivity and excitement. We say that we are responsible for treating others the way we want to be treated, and at the most basic level, all of us can treat each other well by giving positive energy to those around us.

Co-founder of WeWork, co-working space company

Success is different for everyone, but for me success has always been about finding meaning and personal fulfillment. While that may have meant different things at different times in my life, learning, making meaningful connections with people and helping others achieve this same level of satisfaction has been a sign of success for me.

Co-founder of WeWork, co-working space company

I started to get concerned about the natural world as a child and there are 2 images that I remember always from my childhood. In London Zoo, I remember the sound of the iron doors that clanged behind us as we went in. And there they were… these wretched creatures, walking up and down their very small caged area. I hated it! I absolutely hated it without knowing why really, at that age. Later in the Kruger, I saw a group of lions, obviously a pride, sitting peacefully and calmly under a tree. And these two contrasting images in a way became symbols for the rest of my life and the way I think about wildlife. One is how not to keep them, and one is how to leave them alone where they should be.

British actress known for "Born Free" and animal welfare advocacy

In our culture, particularly in the last 300-500 years in Western culture, people have become much more ambivalent to ecstatic experiences. The idea of losing control is seen as dangerous and shameful... We're a culture that's very much about individual autonomy, and ecstasy is the opposite of that – it's about surrendering control.

I use the word ecstasy, which people think means being very, very happy- but in Ancient Greek it means ecstatic, which means standing outside. It's a moment where you go beyond your ordinary sense of self and feel connected to something great and new.