From 600+ conversations with the world’s leading thinkers.
I believe the most effective strategy for maintaining resilience is mastering the art of self-soothing. The ability to calm oneself instantly, at any moment, stands out as a pivotal skill. It enables you to recover from setbacks and face adversity more effectively. Being able to soothe and calm yourself enhances your clarity of thought, which is invaluable during challenging times.
While pain is inevitable, suffering is optional. Painful events are a given in life, but the transformation of this pain into enduring suffering lies within our control. The critical aspect isn't the adversity one faces, but how one responds to such adversity. This reaction, rather than the events themselves, forms the narrative of our lives.
Organizations fail when leaders fail to write-down their own depreciating intellectual capital, and bureaucracies exaggerate that problem by vesting so much power in so few people. Most change management programs are in-fact catch-up programs.
If you say 'I hate politics!' you are removing yourself from the public sphere, and are rejecting the ability to be a political subject. You are submitting yourself to a higher order, a powerful ruler.
income inequality, as a measure of relative depravation, was consistently associated with violent crimes.
Risk is actually an asset. Fear isn't meant to be dismissed; it's intended to be embraced. Fear sharpens your focus, enhances your performance, and boosts your resilience. This is something many haven't realised—fear is a superpower meant to be embraced, not avoided.
The greatest leaders have humility. A good leader is a humble leader. A good leader listens to people, gets other inputs, admits when they're wrong… and that boils down to humility; it's the single most important characteristic that I see in leaders.
...in situations of high uncertainty, personal information exchange may reach market-wide impacts, as the examples of bank runs and speculative attacks on national currencies show.
My job is to help people recognise the origins and intentions behind these responses. Unlike the common societal and professional desire to dismiss these responses as merely negative, I believe we should examine them more closely. How is drinking serving you?
It seems, to me, that relationships are face to face things. There is no point in having a virtual relationship if you are never going to see those individuals again as it crowds your 'mental boxes'. To think of this in context, they are real cognitive limits.
The most corrupting idea about power is that it gives you a set of techniques to enable you to get more of what you want, no questions asked. If we think about power in that way, our soul will get eroded.
When I sense stress, I allot three minutes to fully immerse myself in it. Many individuals attempt to escape stress, but evasion often amplifies it. It's akin to instructing someone not to think of pink elephants; the very command makes it impossible not to.