Richard E. Grant emigrated from Swaziland to London in 1982, with dreams of making it as an actor, when he unexpectedly met and fell in love with renowned dialect coach Joan Washington. Their relationship and marriage, navigating the highs and lows of Hollywood, parenthood and loss, lasted almost forty years. When Joan died in 2021, her final challenge to him was to find ‘a pocketful of happiness in every day’. His honest (and frequently hilarious) memoir is written in honour of that challenge –  Richard has faithfully kept a diary since childhood, and in these entries he shares in raw detail everything he has experienced : both the pain of losing his beloved wife, and the excitement of their life together, from the role that transformed his life overnight in Withnail & I to his thrilling Oscar nomination thirty years later for Can You Ever Forgive Me? In this interview, I speak to Richard E. Grant on finding happiness, companionship, joy, and how we can all find that Pocketful of Happiness.

Thought Economics

Ranjay Gulati is the Paul R. Lawrence MBA Class of 1942 Professor and the former Unit Head of the Organisational Behaviour Unit at Harvard Business School. In his new book, Deep Purpose: The Heart and Soul of High-Performance Companies, he argues that companies must embed purpose more deeply than they currently do, treating it as a radically new operating system for enterprise. At a time when many have become cynical about purpose, Gulati documents the vast performance gains that purpose-driven companies achieve as well as the social benefits they deliver. In this interview, I speak to Professor Ranjay Gulati about deep purpose, leadership, and his field research in organisations including Etsy, Lego, Warby Parker, Mahindra, Microsoft and the Seattle Seahawks. Gulati discusses how long-term value and short-term performance need not conflict but rather, when leaders go deep on purpose, high-performance and durable profits typically follow, delighting all stakeholders. Deeper engagement with purpose holds the key, not merely to the well-being of individual companies, but to humanity’s future.

Thought Economics

Marianne Williamson is a bestselling author, non-profit and political activist, and spiritual thought leader. For over three decades Marianne has been a leader in spiritual and religiously progressive circles. She is the author of 14 books, four of which have been #1 New York Times best sellers. A quote from the mega best seller A Return to Love, “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure…” is considered an anthem for a contemporary generation of seekers. Williamson founded Project Angel Food, a non-profit that has delivered more than 13 million meals to ill and dying homebound patients since 1989. The group was created to help people suffering from the ravages of HIV/AIDS. She has also worked throughout her career on poverty, anti-hunger, and racial reconciliation issues. She has advocated for reparations for slavery since the 1990’s and was the first candidate in the 2020 presidential primary season to make it a pillar of her campaign. In 2004, she co-founded The Peace Alliance and supports the creation of a U.S. Department of Peace. In addition, she advocates for a cabinet level Department of Children and Youth to adequately address the chronic trauma of millions of American children. In this exclusive interview, I speak with Marianne Williamson about spirituality, love, finding purpose and fixing our broken society.

Thought Economics

Matthew McConaughey is an Academy Award®-winning actor and producer who has played starring roles in some of the most seminal, and commercially successful films in recent history including A Time to Kill (1996), U-571 (2000), the Wedding Planner (2001), Failure to Launch (2006), Magic Mike (2012), The Wolf of Wall Street (2013), Dallas Buyers Club (2013), Interstellar (2014), The Dark Tower (2017) and The Gentlemen (2019). In 2009, Matthew and his wife, Camila, founded the just keep livin Foundation, which helps at-risk high school students make healthier mind, body, and spirit choices. In 2019, McConaughey became a professor of practice at the University of Texas at Austin, as well as Minister of Culture/M.O.C. for the University of Texas and the City of Austin. McConaughey is also brand ambassador for Lincoln Motor Company, an owner of the Major League Soccer club Austin FC, and co-creator of his favourite bourbon on the planet, Wild Turkey Longbranch. McConaughey has led a charmed and full life. His recent memoir Greenlights takes the reader along with him as he tries to work out this riddle called life but unlike most, he fills it with practical advice and lessons from his life to ours. As Matthew wrote his memoir, the process revealed a theme- an approach- to living that gave him satisfaction at the time, and still today. He calls this process, ‘catching greenlights’ and in this exclusive interview, I spoke to Matthew McConaughey about how we can apply the lessons from his life, to our own. As he says himself, “…hopefully, it’s medicine that tastes good, a couple of aspirin instead of the infirmary, a spaceship to Mars without needing your pilot’s license, going to church without having to be born again, and laughing through the tears.” 

Thought Economics

As society has moved through the renaissance into modernity, the questions of why (typically the domain of theology) moved from the arts to science, the preciseness of the latter arguably unsuited to such philosophical questions.  The primacy of overtly scientific approaches to understanding life has come at a tremendous cost; in some ways we see the world in shades of grey rather than in full colour. For many thinkers therefore, the pull of the questions of meaning are too strong to ignore.  In this exclusive interview, I spoke to Dr. Jordan B. Peterson – professor of psychology at the University of Toronto, a clinical psychologist and the author of the multi-million copy bestseller 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos.  We discuss the question of how we can find meaning in a complex world.

Thought Economics

In these exclusive interviews we speak to Sir Antony Gormley (One of the world’s most influential sculptors), Bear Grylls (Adventurer, TV Host & Author), Marina Abramović (internationally acclaimed performance artist), Sir Ken Robinson (widely considered to be the world’s foremost expert on creativity, innovation and human resources in education and business), Sadhguru (visionary, yogi & mystic), Sir Anish Kapoor (Internationally renowned artist and sculptor), Captain Alan Bean (NASA astronaut and artist, fourth person to walk on the Moon), Dan Pink (bestselling author and expert on human behaviour), Susan Cain (Author, Chief Revolutionary and Co-Founder of Quiet Revolution), Dr. Eric Thomas (World Renowned Author, Speaker, Educator and Pastor) and Robin Sharma (Leadership Expert, Author & Speaker). We discuss the essence of our life long journey of understanding our purpose, and who we are.

Thought Economics

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