From 600+ conversations with the world’s leading thinkers.
The greatest risk often lies in people's biased perceptions of risk itself. These biases, both psychological and political, tend to lead to a dangerous underestimation of risk. Our advice, backed by data and methodologies we've developed, is focused on debiasing risk.
I could have been born in the third century as a goat herder in Mongolia, or even as a goat. This is the realization that should open up a mental horizon where we can say, 'I know I'm going to die – maybe in the future, maybe in the next few minutes – and therefore every minute I'm here is precious.'
When we contemplate our desires, it's essential to recognise that our minds might already be whispering that certain dreams are unattainable. It's so potent that it prevents us from even picturing it. To manifest it in reality, we first need to visualise it in our minds.
Your body was built to handle stress, making it one of your most high-performing functions. However, it's not always productive to view stress as something that needs to be mitigated.
Our brains are adapted to pick leaders based on characteristics that are no longer adaptive, or necessary today. In times of crisis, we are wired to gravitate towards strong men – strong males who are overconfident and speak of solutions in simplistic terms.
The world we see is always constructed by our brain. We never have direct access to the world in itself; we only have access to the model our brain is constructing. It works as a sort of 'best guess.' The brain isn't trying to find the absolute truth or create a perfect replica of the outside world's structure. It's trying to find a model that works—one that is adaptive and allows you to function.
People like Trump rally people behind them by pointing out threats; these may be real, but most likely are imaginary or inflated. Then he says, 'only I can protect you.'
Don't make the mistake of confusing net worth and self-worth.
Our brains actively construct a model of the world, which is our actual experience. Incoming sensory data serves mainly to verify and correct this internal model.
You must call yourself out for who you're not, and that's where you start to grow. That's where you can really fix the problems in your life when you recognise that.
Our research over the past 45+ years shows that when you're actively noticing, your neurons are firing, and that's literally and figuratively enlivening. And what do we do when we're having fun? We notice, we engage. So mindfulness is not just beneficial—it's enjoyable.
Every failure has lessons it can give us- and knowing failure is possible and monitoring where you expect it to occur, allows you to divert your attention to the necessary observations and actions to carry out the positive.