From 600+ conversations with the world’s leading thinkers.
The 'Doomers' often anthropomorphize computers by attributing human characteristics to them. While this is an understandable tendency, it's essential to recognize that humans have evolved their competitive nature and occasional violent impulses from survival in a world marked by resource scarcity and competition.
Music is often better than speech at conveying and understanding emotion, because music has a kind of openness and ambiguity to it. Words, on the other hand, tend to put things into boxes.
Mental wellness is an unwavering commitment to reality, regardless of the cost. Trauma, in this light, can be a powerful teacher, offering a stark glimpse of reality, a contrast to the daily bombardment of trivial concerns.
When Google (a very high IQ place!) looked into their highest performing teams, they found the hallmark of those teams was a sense of psychological and emotional safety.
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.
One of the psychological effects of that is it can blur the boundaries between self and group and create this feeling that you are the group, and the group is you. And this obviously has the capacity to promote quite strong forms of pro-group action.
Every person is different, but every sale is the same. The question is, where does the person start out on the certainty continuum?
Risk is actually an asset. Fear isn't meant to be dismissed; it's intended to be embraced. Fear sharpens your focus, enhances your performance, and boosts your resilience. This is something many haven't realised—fear is a superpower meant to be embraced, not avoided.
Champions possess a distinct mindset, a relentless drive for excellence that sets them apart. They're not content with just doing okay; they strive for excellence constantly. Being second is not an option for them, they aim for the top.
The human mind can shape itself – the human mind can take itself as an object and change – no other living creature on the planet can do that, and it gives me tremendous optimism.
There are cultures in which a young man, to signal his interest in a woman, would camp outside her house for any number of days. The ones who aren't really interested say, '...to hell with it, it's not worth it!' – In this sense, signalling screens people out.
We're breathing, defecating pieces of meat that are no more significant or enduring than lizards or potatoes.