From 600+ conversations with the world’s leading thinkers.
Globalisation is here to stay. You cannot, however, look at it as a natural phenomenon on which you have no influence- it's not like a typhoon or a cyclone. It's a process- and a process on which you can have influence.
The fact that you and I are alive is against stupendous odds. One day we will die, and that's sad, but there are people who will never die because they were never born. We're the lucky ones, we get to die. You can only die if you were alive.
True success in life can only be gauged by something which is priceless; how much love you have in your life – I am truly fortunate to be surrounded by extremely loving and fun family and friends and nothing beats spending time with the people I love.
The world is lying to you. It tells you that in 10,000 hours you can become excellent at what you do and that your strength will never wane. That is a complete, utter, falsehood. At some point, the party must end. At some point, the greatness that came to define who 'you' are will wane.
The reality is we live in a very dynamic world that's full of risks and all we should really care about are risk drivers – both financial and non-financial. Alternatives may provide us with ways of hedging out or managing future risks better.
MMA serves as my ministry. As a Christian, I want to convey unconditional love to everyone. The real value lies not in winning titles but in the ability to positively impact the lives of my teammates, trainers, friends, family, and future generations.
Choices are like train tracks – the train go where the tracks take them – we go where our choices take-us. Our lives are a reflection of the poor, and the positive, life choices we've made (and make!).
There's no way electrical signals alone can produce the sensation of taste. That's the hard problem of consciousness: qualia—the sensations and feelings through which we know the world and ourselves—bear no resemblance to electrical impulses, and physics offers no explanation for how one could give rise to the other.
For thousands of years of human history—let alone pre-history—there was never this sense, so common to us now, of a future likely to be radically different from the present. There was really a sense that humanity had already reached its peak, and so the question wasn't what comes next that's better, but rather how to prevent decline and loss.
The best parenting advice I've ever received came from a friend's father, a humble man from the American South. As he detected my apprehension upon learning of my impending fatherhood, he simply said, 'Andy, you just love them and keep them dry.' This advice, as understated as it may appear, proved to be the most profound parenting counsel I've ever received.
As a collective, we tend to look at progress as being linear, especially where it concerns women's rights. This is a huge mistake and breeds complacency because we risk losing the hard-won gains.
There is a big black box of as-yet unimagined risk. Most of what now seem like the biggest risks to society were unknown one hundred years ago.