From 600+ conversations with the world’s leading thinkers.
Bystander effect isn't necessarily due to a lack of willingness or ability to make a difference. Rather, the real challenge stems from feeling overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of the issues we're passionate about. They're vast, and against them, we often feel insignificant.
We have to interact with everyone so no one feels left out or ashamed; these negative emotions can kill curiosity and creativity.
You need to work like someone's trying to take it all away from you, because they are.
No one man can, for any considerable time, wear one face to himself, and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which is the true one.
We mustn't focus exclusively on this threat, and it tends to be the case that the global elite does. I was at Davos in January 2020 and climate change was the agenda – and the pandemic had already begun! It was quite difficult to persuade people that there might be a nearer-term threat facing us than climate change.
The smallest male can be dominant based on his social skills. Think about it; nobody walks into a big store in London and assumes the biggest person is the boss! It might be the old man; it might be the young woman!
I tried to remain as emotionless as possible – remaining as much of a scientist as I could be, going with the evidence. I felt that although I didn't have a coach on hand in Ireland, and even though the sport of MMA was very small, I had mountains of evidence I could study.
Our brains are adapted to pick leaders based on characteristics that are no longer adaptive, or necessary today. In times of crisis for example, we are wired to gravitate towards strong men – strong males who are overconfident and speak of solutions in simplistic terms. That's what historically it took to survive.
I believe businesses need to move away from having profit as their primary reason for existing. Profit primacy can be replaced by mission primacy.
When you're angry, you're in a frantic state of mind, you are not the best version of yourself. When you're fighting the very best martial artists on the planet, you cannot react out of emotion. You have to be cool, calm, collected and in the moment.
We have to stop pretending that there's no adversity, or that we can't do anything about the adversity we face. We need to fix the culture of silence and ignorance surrounding bias and adversity.
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.