From 600+ conversations with the world’s leading thinkers.
You must call yourself out for who you're not, and that's where you start to grow. That's where you can really fix the problems in your life when you recognise that.
When you shift from a personal attribution for not knowing—thinking, 'I don't know, but everyone else seems to, so I'll fake it or avoid the situation'—to a universal attribution—realizing, 'I don't know, you don't know, nobody knows'—you stand taller. This allows you to embrace what I believe is the most successful mindset: confident uncertainty.
Robustness is being in a good place and having a plan, resilience is being able to implement that plan and stay in a good place.
What analysts mean by 'game changing' is, in fact, the level of naturalisation of technology. This is the degree to which a technology becomes an intuitive part of human life.
Fear is a complex emotion that's moulded by years of experience. Much like fitness training, confronting fear is progressive. You can't begin with soaring in a wingsuit through a narrow canyon at astonishing speeds. This sport mandates extensive training and preparation.
Being underestimated often brings out the best in me. It's not just about overcoming insecurity but leveraging it as a catalyst to ensure that I bring everything I have to the mission and that I muster the courage to show people who I really am.
If you want other people to open their minds, you have to open yours too.
Space also taught me that when you think you're at 100% of your physical or mental capacity, you're not. We have enormous reserves within us (which we don't tap into for good reason), but we are all capable of pushing ourselves a lot further than we think.
We can expand our circle of sympathy – we can employ the logic of impartiality, and the emotional prompts of human contact and vicarious experience, and expand our fellow-feeling from our family to our clan, our nation, tribe, and from there to all of humanity and even other sentient beings.
We have these myths about genius. We think those people have extra powers that we don't... that they were born differently... that they went to the right schools. I wanted to demystify this process. If you don't understand the process, you will never, ever, get there.
I believe it boils down to confidence and fearlessness—believing in yourself and your own perspective. When you fail to follow your vision and instead listen to the consensus, it dilutes your vision. Consensus tends to pull everything towards mediocrity.
When these people are under stress, they make bad decisions. They get reactive. One of the key findings in our conclusions is that the unsuccessful founders were more reactive. They weren't measured. They weren't deliberate. They didn't make decisions based on facts — their emotions carried them away.