From 600+ conversations with the world’s leading thinkers.
We're choosing brands like we choose friends. And that is a huge responsibility because they've got to be a real friend, not a false friend.
The physical and mental aspects of our lives are inseparable and taking care of the basic physical requirements is essential. Athletes and leaders rarely experience deep relaxation and this can become transformative in their lives.
It is natural that a society would want to keep what they think works, the status quo. We are also acutely aware that technological changes alters society in unpredictable ways. It is the uncertainty associated with change—especially the fear of losing what we value—that leads to resistance to change.
I believe it's more fundamental: similar to the 'use it or lose it' principle that applies to muscles, our brains engage in a nightly routine that stimulates thoughts and ideas not typically relied upon during the day. This built-in process keeps our thinking adaptive and nimble, fostering divergent thoughts and offering an evolutionary advantage.
I'm a firm believer that creativity comes from restrictions, so I'm really grateful that I grew-up with so many restrictions around me. When you give people limitations and say, 'here's a canvas, but you can only paint with yellow..' – the wheels start turning, and you plan to get out of the box you're put in.
You should never place your value as a human being on results. You don't control the results of the game – people get lucky or go bankrupt. Also, what happens when you achieve your result? What long-term satisfaction does that bring you?
If I ask better questions, they come up with better answers.
You can have your best day and your worst day on the same day. There's so much happening at once, and everything happens so fast… the emotional highs and lows are tense.
We can actually retrain our brains to think about and handle conflict differently. Some of this comes down to self-awareness, but also to taking intentional pauses that help us recognise what we're feeling. There's a lot of research on affective labeling—the act of naming our emotions and fears—which helps reduce what's called limbic irritability.
Mind, body, and spirit have to come together, and I think when you have early trauma that gets disrupted, your mind gets separated from your body. Your mind becomes this sort of distracted, dissociated place to go when this alarm in your body—if your parents are screaming at each other or your dad's an alcoholic—there's only so much a child can take.
We have to honour all parts of ourselves; and the wellness, social-media, and culture of the modern world has encouraged us to be this faux-perfect… a virtuous, pure version of ourselves. Everyone has dark thoughts and demons… we can't suppress that and ignore it. If we do, we'll never heal.
Bubbles are driven by people piling into ideas now, that they think will make them lots and lots of money in the future. The more people that pile in, the more quickly innovation can spread... But if the capital is misallocated? then when the money meets common sense, you get a bust.