Wisdom in fragments

We are now at the same crossroads, with impact. There is an interesting parallel here with 1933, when we introduced the GAAP. Until then, there had been no real transparency on profit! After the Great Wall Street Crash of 1929, investors sat-up and said 'hey, this is crazy!' and they got transparency through the adoption of GAAP.

Founder of Social Venture Network & Pioneer of Social Impact Investing

Out of the 1,800 companies we measured, 250 created more environmental damage a year than profit. 600 created environmental damage of 25% or more of their profits. Together, the 1,800 businesses we researched created over $3 trillion of environmental damage in a single year.

Founder of Social Venture Network & Pioneer of Social Impact Investing

This is transforming the whole of our economy and we are seeing more companies making decisions across those dimensions of risk-return-impact and being judged on the basis of the profit and impact they create. It really turns our economies away from risk-return (where they create profit without counting the huge damage they cause) to risk-return-impact.

Founder of Social Venture Network & Pioneer of Social Impact Investing

I became a venture capitalist because I wanted to help society by creating jobs at a time of high unemployment in the UK. As the years went by, I realised that while we were indeed helping people who came from nothing to make money, improve the lives of people around them, create jobs, financial value and wealth- the gap between rich and poor was getting bigger, not smaller.

Founder of Social Venture Network & Pioneer of Social Impact Investing

Your readers may be disappointed, but there's only one thing I would suggest they do. Find three other people and meet regularly- once a week on Zoom. Hold each other to account, the end. Either you're willing to do that or you're not. If you're willing to do that, it will change your life.

Marketing Thought Leader & Author of "The Purple Cow

Creativity is about solving interesting problems, and problems are interesting because they have constraints. You cannot think outside the box, but you can think along the edges of the box. The box is something to lever and learn against. Look for the edges of the box and don't deny the boundaries!

Marketing Thought Leader & Author of "The Purple Cow

Writer's block was only invented 100 years ago; the term didn't exist before that. Writer's block is simply a fear of bad writing, not an inability to write. Nobody gets talkers' block! Everyone can talk! Instead of calling it writer's block, we should say, 'I haven't done enough writing yet, so I feel blocked.'

Marketing Thought Leader & Author of "The Purple Cow

You can't be in both lanes; you have to pick one. If you are making a film and you go to Warner Brothers, they'll give you $50 million and a whole stack of notes that will make your movie worse creatively, but more successful from their commercial perspective so it can get through gatekeepers and return the investment.

Marketing Thought Leader & Author of "The Purple Cow

We embrace imposter syndrome because it gives us a chance to get off the hook. If you're an imposter it feels like the kind, mature thing to do is to not ship the work and to say, 'no, this isn't for me to do…' In fact, imposter syndrome is a symptom that we are leading because leaders are doing something that's never been done before and so of course you will feel like an imposter, because you are one!

Marketing Thought Leader & Author of "The Purple Cow

What it means to be creative is pretty simple. It's to do something human, something generous, something that might not work. It has to be all 3 of those things. You will find creative accountants, politicians, housekeepers and engineers… being creative is to solve interesting problems!

Marketing Thought Leader & Author of "The Purple Cow

I can see from people I've lost in my life that the thing you leave behind is love, so I hope I've created a bit of that too… I know I've been lucky to receive a lot.

British Pop Singer & "Murder on the Dancefloor" Artist

Grayson Perry once said that, 'art is our way of creating the narrative to what goes on around us…' and that really stuck with me. As silly as the discos are, they are actually how our family have made a story out of our world being turned upside down.

British Pop Singer & "Murder on the Dancefloor" Artist

It may be an overused phrase, but the only way social media can work is if you are incredibly authentic. If you try and cultivate and curate too much it can be very obvious and transparent.

British Pop Singer & "Murder on the Dancefloor" Artist

To have a career, you have to be able to break out of your ways of thinking about success, otherwise you'll just end up disappointed. Nobody has an upward trajectory all the time- there's undulations that go on.

British Pop Singer & "Murder on the Dancefloor" Artist

The crucial bit came when I was 20 and we got dropped from our record deal, leaving us high and dry. That was when I thought, 'am I going to be someone who only wants to do music when it's all going well? And only when it's served to me on a plate? Or do I want to do this… no matter what…' For me, there was nothing else, I wanted to make music.

British Pop Singer & "Murder on the Dancefloor" Artist

Music is something that affects your senses in a way that nothing else really can- it's like a time-travel portal! You can listen to something and it transports back to that place… that bar… that nightclub… that time with your friends….

British Pop Singer & "Murder on the Dancefloor" Artist