From 600+ conversations with the world’s leading thinkers.
It's not success we should be seeking but consonance, alignment, flow. When what we do actually matters to us. We are being called upon to solve a problem at hand, to use what we do best in the world, and in turn being rewarded for in a way that is meaningful to us.
But when it comes to claims like 'pets alleviate depression,' there's really no solid evidence. In fact, the findings so far are pretty ambiguous. And in one study that found no significant overall effect, cat owners were actually more depressed than the control group.
You can never convince a chimpanzee to give you a banana by promising him that after he dies, he will go to chimpanzee Heaven, and there receive countless bananas for his good deeds. No chimpanzee will ever believe that. Only humans believe such stories. This is why we rule the world, whereas the chimpanzees are locked up in zoos and research laboratories.
You need to master the basics and do the little things right. If you want to do something well you do it 1,000 times, if you want to do something great you do it 10,000 times. There's an old warrior saying, the more you sweat in training, the less you bleed in battle.
Look at Jeff Bezos telling his 1.5 million employees to 'wake up every morning terrified and stay terrified all day.' They're not getting rich; they're barely scraping by. Yet he wants them living in terror so he can get even richer. That's crazy. That's a crazy society and a crazy life.
Uncertainty and fear are enemies of economic growth. To change motivation, it is important to give hope and make people believe. But also to give concrete results. It is important to value the positive instead of only highlighting the worst.
You start by asking yourself certain questions: who am I? what is it that wants to know who I am? What do I want for myself and the world? What is my purpose? What gives me meaning and purpose in life?
I don't believe that social media is directly responsible for mental health issues. I see social media more as an accelerant than a cause. It tends to amplify pre-existing conditions, speeding up and enlarging problems rather than creating them.
We can use the pain of our past as a catapult propelling us forward. As the saying goes, 'the best revenge is a life well-lived.' So, the most gratifying way to spite all those who tried to harm me during my childhood is to say, 'Look at me now; I'm speaking to Vikas Shah, 50 years later.'
Dyslexics, like me, often possess above-average intelligence, but we grapple with sequential thinking. Instead of thinking linearly from A to B to C to D, we jump from A to B to Z. Over time, I've learned to turn a perceived 'weakness' into a strength.
Distraction is one of those epidemics that we didn't realise existed until quite recently. At a societal level, it's inevitable that our distraction will be impacting our ability to communicate with each other, and will lead to a lowering of focus and attention across our whole population.
The small things are what make the biggest impact sometimes – and that starts with how you treat people. My 90 seconds with Picabo changed my life. You'd be surprised how many kids have parents and peers around there who tell them they can't, I want to tell them they can.