From 600+ conversations with the world’s leading thinkers.
The more you do it – the more you build a mental scar tissue that you can lean on – That's the 'stuff' that lets you pick up the pieces and go again.
The moment you send Billy Connolly, Lenny Henry and Victoria Wood out somewhere to make an appeal – they are representatives of 'normal people' perhaps in some ways more than pop stars.... Comedians are a kind of humdrum kind of celebrity, and as such I think they're very good at evoking empathy.
Women were never in the driver's seat with dating. It always came down to the man to take the lead, to ask the girl... There was this playbook where the guy has the power, the girl is weak and fragile waiting to be saved by Prince Charming... and this is disempowering for both sides.
Play is inherently interactive, granting agency whether indoors or outdoors. When competition was added into the mix, playing with friends introduced me to complex concepts like game theory, including strategies involving threats, promises, and bluffs.
It's not just the hostage who suffers, but their entire family. In some cases, families endure greater agony, living in uncertainty about their loved one's fate. For example, during my captivity, my wife was unaware of my survival for three and a half years.
We are held back by our deep, underlying fears. Fears of rejection, fears of being the imposter. We need to reframe these fears and work on regret minimisation. If you didn't take that action, spark up that conversation, or try that idea, would you regret it?
The adjustment to life post-hostage varies significantly from person to person. Some adapt swiftly, while others may take years, and a few, unfortunately, never fully recover from the trauma—though they are the minority.
Success should simply mean enjoying what you do and feeling purposeful. If you have all the money in the world but spend every day miserably staring at a computer screen, feeling bored, uninspired, not learning or contributing meaningfully, then no amount of money makes you successful.
It's not even about achieving something – it's about changing mindset. At that age, kids can go strongly in one direction or another in life, and being able to give them a steer is a huge accomplishment.
The average person works more than five days a week… they're burned out by the weekend, they end up drinking too much alcohol, too much caffeine, they don't look after themselves, they're reacting to how they feel instead of preparing for the tasks ahead.
Super-specialisation at the expense of a breadth of knowledge is a modern-day fallacy. If you're super-specialised in one particular area, at the expense of that breadth, you are quite likely to make errors in other, bigger fields.
Fundamentally you build trust with people by giving them trust.