From 600+ conversations with the world’s leading thinkers.
I cannot help but admire the insight of our Jewish sages of old who taught that every child is born with equal affinities toward goodness and evil, in Hebrew yetzer hatov and yetzer hara. This means that we are not born as a tabula rasa.
I remember being on a spacewalk and had a few seconds to see a view that humans were not meant to see. It was like I was hearing from God. But then, I had to get back to work.
Our emotions are connected to our beliefs and opinions. Epictetus said what causes men suffering is not events, but their opinion about events. That piece of wisdom is very useful because it gives you some ability to have control over your emotions.
There's a great quote that is 'political correctness is tyranny with manners'. With Lululemon, we put authenticity into everything we did, it was about being great. Our vision statement was about elevating the world from a place of mediocrity to greatness.
You shouldn't think of yourself as the person you are now – you are constantly changing – this is often called a growth mindset. When you think about human nature, you think of it as malleable, as something constantly growing and in-flux rather than something fixed.
The real mystery is not why organisms as complicated as us age and die, but why there is a kind of immortality through the germ line! There clearly is some way that all the damaging aspects of life that feed into ageing are overcome in the germ line.
My hands have been known mostly for the leather gloves that I've used as an instrument to punish opposing fighters. Outside the ring, though, I want my legacy to be the man with bare hands that offered kindness and hope to those in need.
An actor who isn't acting becomes a sort of non-person. If you're not acting, what are you?
Boys we just donated to the Salvation Army. They help people that do not have homes or food. Always remember in life there will always be someone that will be in more in need. We could only afford a dime that year, but we gave to help out others!
When I set a goal for myself, and achieve that goal, that's what winning is to me. 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.
Unlearning silence doesn't mean speaking incessantly—the world is far too noisy for that. Instead, it means understanding the difference between choosing to be silent and having silence imposed upon you. It's recognizing whether silence is additive or oppressive, whether it's reflective and generative or merely detracting. It's about having agency: Do I get to choose when to be silent?
There's an interesting over-representation of physicists within the existentialist community. Physicists, especially astronomers and cosmologists have had a glimpse of how vast the universe is, and the potential value of it, versus our planet.