From 600+ conversations with the world’s leading thinkers.
You need to hire people who are smart, ideally smarter than you. There's a reason Google, Apple and their peers are filled with PhD's. The smarter your team (whether academically, or in experience) the more they will deliver.
Mental resilience comes from knowing, deep down, that you're supposed to be where you are. Confidence in your purpose is crucial. By focusing on the next step while keeping the big picture in mind, you can effectively accomplish the mission.
When I decided to climb Everest, the reason was simply to draw attention to what was happening with the glaciers but also, when I talked about sustainability, it was hard to keep people's attention. You start talking and 5 minutes later, it's an abstract topic. The audience start checking their emails or yawning, and this really frustrated me.
When I contemplate legacy, I envision a harmonious blend of various elements. My hope is for an upcoming generation that's not only fortified by financial prowess and influence but also recognizes the value beyond materialism. I yearn for them to embrace a 'co-spirituality.'
If you want other people to open their minds, you have to open yours too.
As Carl von Clausewitz said, 'no plan survives first contact with the enemy.' It's not about having a plan, it's about planning. When you are in a fluid situation, things change, and you have to adapt quickly. You cannot freeze into inaction.
I hope that the totality of what I've done, or that which Freada and I have done together, really gives people a sense of hope and possibility, in a practical way, that business can be a constructive force in the world and genuinely help make the world a better place for everyone.
We have the technological means to deal with climate change. We have the technological means to deal with pandemics. This is not a technical problem. It is mostly a political problem. If we get our politics under control, the rest is fun and games.
In this industry, whether you're learning to act or write, you often develop skills in isolation. It's easy to see your own discipline as encompassing the whole creative universe. However, once you're on set, the reality of the collaboration involved becomes apparent very quickly.
I believe the traditional perception, which posits that success is merely an accumulation of advantages while failure is an accumulation of disadvantages, is overly simplistic. It's the disadvantages that offer a more fertile ground for learning, albeit for a smaller cohort. The depth of learning and engagement derived from tackling difficulties is substantially richer compared to that gleaned from facing advantages.
Adversity is happening all around us at the individual level, it's happening at a company level, it's happening at industry levels; and we can either face it and learn from it or we can pretend it's not happening. And I think that is the key.
As a captain however, you don't have any power, but you still need to be able to influence people, do the right thing, and move people in the same direction.