Every year I get more of an understanding of what I need to be happy. If I haven’t slept enough, or if I haven’t exercised, I’m more likely to be in a bad mood. My silly brain will think it’s because I haven’t written a good joke that day, but actually I’m just tired or I need a poo.
In the last five years, what new belief, behaviour, or habit has most improved your life?
Question
What advice would you give your twenty-year-old self, and what should they ignore?
Time & hindsight
Question
What is the part of your job that people would be surprised is most of your job?
Craft & work
No big challenge has ever been solved and no lasting improvement has ever been achieved unless people dare to try something different. Dare to think different.
Duke University Commencement, Duke Today, 13 May 2018 source ↗
Others on this question
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Joe Lycett
Comedian, television presenter and artist
Akio Toyoda
President of Toyota Motor Corporation, 2009–2023; chairman from 2023
Even I can't predict what kind of car we will be driving 20 years from now, but my time at Babson taught me to embrace change rather than run from it, and I urge all of you to do the same.
Recorded
Babson College Graduate Commencement, Babson College (Babson Thought & Action), 21 May 2019
source ↗
Drew Houston
Co-founder and chief executive of Dropbox
That night, I realized there are no warmups, no practice rounds, no reset buttons. Every day we're writing a few more words of a story. And when you die, it's not like “here lies Drew, he came in 174th place.” So from then on, I stopped trying to make my life perfect, and instead tried to make it interesting. I wanted my story to be an adventure — and that's made all the difference.
Recorded
MIT 147th Commencement, MIT News (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), 7 June 2013
source ↗
Andrew Ng
Co-founder of Coursera and of Google Brain; founder of DeepLearning.AI
I just finished reading BJ Fogg's new book, Tiny Habits: The Small Changes That Change Everything. Fogg explains that the best way to build a new habit is to start small and succeed, rather than starting too big and giving up. For example, rather than trying to exercise for 30 minutes a day, he recommends aspiring to do just one push-up, and doing it consistently. This approach may be helpful to those of you who want to spend more time studying. If you hold yourself accountable for watching, say, 10 seconds of an educational video every day — and you do so consistently — the habit of studying daily will grow naturally.
More from Tim Cook
View profile →Fearlessness means taking the first step, even if you don't know where it will take you. It means being driven by a higher purpose rather than by applause.”
In every way at every turn, the question we ask ourselves is not what can we do, but what should we do?.”
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