Wisdom in fragments

We have to remember – there's no Planet B, we have to protect Earth. Maybe eventually we'll make star ships, but that isn't happening for a thousand years. We need to figure out how to live here sustainably for the long term.

NASA Astronaut & International Space Station Commander

In space, you can only worry about the things you can control – not the constant low-level simmering danger that you might explode and die. If you worried about that, even a two-week flight would be hell, never mind a 200 day one.

NASA Astronaut & International Space Station Commander

The perspective of seeing the Earth from space has rewired our brain. We used to have a 2-dimensional view for hundreds of thousands of years. Then we became 3-dimensional with aircraft and rockets. Now with Hubble we have a 4-dimensional view of our universe. When you see a galaxy that's a billion light years away, you're seeing a billion years into the past in real time.

NASA Astronaut & International Space Station Commander

I came away from space flight realising that I don't have enough faith to be an atheist. Life is so amazing. Even the simplest organisms have millions of cells that have to randomly align in a perfect way, and those processes are infinitesimally less complex than emotions and consciousness. When you look at the universe and the forces of nature – science has to explain how it all works, but to my mind, there just has to be a creator.

NASA Astronaut & International Space Station Commander

Governments need to use their money to develop the future, not recover the past. We have to take this chance, if we don't, we're really going to be in trouble.

Swiss Adventurer & Pilot of Solar-Powered Aircraft Solar Impulse

Even if there was no climate change… even if there was no problem with the environment… we would still need to replace the polluting infrastructure we have because it is too expensive and too outdated compared to modern, efficient, infrastructure.

Swiss Adventurer & Pilot of Solar-Powered Aircraft Solar Impulse

We can only solve our ecological problems by linking ecology and economy. If we can create the right economic environment, change will happen. If it's more profitable to be efficient than wasteful, we will be efficient.

Swiss Adventurer & Pilot of Solar-Powered Aircraft Solar Impulse

We waste 75% of the energy we produce, half the food we produce and half of our natural resources. So much of our waste is waste because people don't understand that it's a resource that can be used!

Swiss Adventurer & Pilot of Solar-Powered Aircraft Solar Impulse

If you speak to heads of states and corporations about the costs, that will be incurred to protect the environment, they will never invite you again. If you come and speak their language about job-creation and profit, they will welcome you with open arms and tell you to start implementing.

Swiss Adventurer & Pilot of Solar-Powered Aircraft Solar Impulse

We must not only use the emotional part of exploration, but also the state of mind of exploration which encourages us to get out of our bad habits, beliefs, everything we know, our comfort zone, and even our way of thinking. The mindset of exploration encourages us to find new solutions.

Swiss Adventurer & Pilot of Solar-Powered Aircraft Solar Impulse

If you have a national or multinational brand, your customers are as diverse as the human population. If you're smart, you realise that you need people in your business who can relate to all those different kinds of people. This is actually one of the smartest supports for diversity and inclusion in the workplace.

Psychologist who popularized the concept of emotional intelligence

Research tells us that if you have a friend- as a child- who belongs to a group that your own group doesn't get along with, you will never have a bias against that group as an adult.

Psychologist who popularized the concept of emotional intelligence

We have a blind spot about the ways in which the things we innocently buy and use actually are decaying the environment we depend on, the global systems that support life on the planet. We are super-monkeys- super because of the technology, and our monkeys because our brains haven't kept up with the change.

Psychologist who popularized the concept of emotional intelligence

Our brain was designed for survival and was developed in the 99.9% of human history that occurred before culture and civilisation. As a result, there are situations in our lives today where the brain doesn't work so-well. We call this an emotional hijack.

Psychologist who popularized the concept of emotional intelligence

Studies show that to get an MBA and to be a high-level executive you need to be a standard-deviation above the norm (have an IQ of 114 or more). After that, it turns out there's a negative relationship between IQ and leadership effectiveness. Perhaps because at that point people become narcissistic or egocentric.

Psychologist who popularized the concept of emotional intelligence

Emotions are the brain's way of making us pay attention immediately to what is most important so that we can react as quickly as possible. In evolution, that meant 'survival' – the rustle in the bushes may be our next meal or may make us its next meal – something that we have to chase, or run away from – and in either case, we don't want to have to stop and think.

Psychologist who popularized the concept of emotional intelligence