From 600+ conversations with the world’s leading thinkers.
If you're simply trained in accounting or marketing, you'll never have what I call a kind of epiphany. A fantastic business stumbles onto something psychological which just gives it a fantastic edge.
The problem with market research is that people don't think what they feel, don't say what they think, and don't do what they say.
The rumour is often significantly more interesting than the facts. And the rumour is often very persuasive to the people who've heard it; they've heard it from somebody they trust. When the target says, 'No, that's not true,' the audience says, 'Oh, of course he or she would deny it,' and so it really puts the target at a disadvantage.
Fear is healthy, fear is natural, and if anyone's ever told you they've been to combat and were never afraid... they're either lying or a sociopath. Fear is a very good reaction; it makes you think more clearly.
You achieve your best performance by doing the best you can without having your mind clouded by drifting thoughts of what could happen when something goes wrong. That's what you train for, and your training gives you the ability to build the mental tools and programmes of action to make good decisions.
have to persuade people to part with money for goods or services that are used by others
Built into her edict, is not to feel any guilt if you find happiness or joy after her death. That is an extraordinarily generous piece of advice.
You create change in other people when you're totally honest, transparent, and authentic. When you show people who you really are, with all your flaws, with all your vulnerabilities...it moves them. People would come up to me crying and thanking me for telling the truth.
The first one is to believe in the 'otherisation'. The otherisation states that anybody who is looking at the world through their lens is on one group, and everybody outside of this world view is another. And they are different and separate.
It took me a long time to figure out that the sensation I was having was anxiety- it's a real, physical, feeling that manifests within you. It's so much more than just being 'in your head' it's your whole body.
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.
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.