From 600+ conversations with the world’s leading thinkers.
I am hopeful that we, in Western countries, are on the path towards a post-homophobic society. I was very gratified a couple of years ago to see a survey of 16-24 year olds. When asked about their own sexuality, 49% said they would not define themselves as 100% straight.
My father taught me an important lesson; when you get something, when you receive something, it's important to give back. This lesson is something that has really stuck with me through my whole life.
Bill Drayton has pioneered the field of social entrepreneurship, growing a global association of over 3,900 leading social entrepreneurs who work together to create an 'Everyone a Changemaker' world.
We keep getting told we need to be living our best life- but we forget we already are. We have a weird epidemic of hating on ourselves, if we stopped doing that, life would get way easier.
I've described celebrities as being 'double agents of the patriarchy,' and whilst things are getting better- and language is changing, we are still not always calling out those who fat shame or age shame women.
Even when I reached the top, I never forgot where I came from. I wondered about the millions of my fellow countrymen who didn't have the chance I got and continued to languish in poverty.
I feel it is the duty for every human and company to do something to either make their community, their city, their state, their country or the world a better place to live.
The EU needs reform. Countries have transferred jurisdiction over legislations to a centre that makes decisions in somewhat of a vacuum, featuring a European Parliament that cannot itself initiate legislation. We have a paradox therefore where national parliaments give certain powers to the centre, without being compensated through the creation of an essential federal sovereignty; this is ineffective, and denying this is not helping us debate what is wrong with the EU and how to fix it. We need to work together as nations to reform and democratise EU institutions.
For all of us, greatness is there from the off, it's right there in your headspace and mindset. It's sabotaged either by yourself or by what's going on around you. Society restricts us in a way that doesn't allow us to operate at our full potential.
The future isn't written, and so whether it's too late to fix this is not determined but it has on many occasions this year in particular felt that we've crossed the point of no return. We need to be optimistic to do so, pessimism serves nothing.
In biology we are still in a kind of Ptolemaic era with man considering himself the centre of the universe.
Consider a car with malfunctioning brakes; it's unsafe to let it on the street, as it could cause harm. You'd need to confine it, but you wouldn't punish it or moralize its malfunction. Instead, you'd seek to understand why its brakes failed.