My son. He is a teenager.
What keeps you awake at night?
Question
What is your favourite side project?
Craft & work
Question
What is an unusual habit or an absurd thing that you love?
Daily life
Question
How has a failure, or apparent failure, set you up for later success? Do you have a favourite failure?
Failure & regret
Question
What inspires you to learn?
Attention & the world
Question
Who helps you get things done?
Craft & work
Question
When you feel overwhelmed or unfocused, what do you do?
Daily life
Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
A long-running fixed question in The Guardian's weekly Q&A questionnaire.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
The toughest job I had as secretary was having to take the time, usually late at night, to write notes to the families of those who lost loved ones.
Chuck Oldham, The Pentagon: 75 Years, Defense Media Network, 24 January 2019 source ↗
Others on this question
View all 198 →
Abigail Breslin
American actress
I always think that my ceiling is going to collapse on me.
Lil Nas X
American rapper
Figuring out the best way to introduce the next version of myself.
The Middle East crisis.
More from Leon Panetta
View profile →I think what we’re trying to do at the Panetta Institute is to try to get all young people to understand that they have a duty to give back to our country in some capacity.
Could I imagine a world without cursing? Hell, no! Every place I've ever gone, people have had to hold their ears.
You can see your political career going up in smoke, but more importantly, you also worry about your family.
one of the things that I learned — and I also pass this on to our students — which is that knowledge is power.
there was no way I could have accomplished the bin Laden operation without the help of Special Forces
When I have a sense that things are screwed up, and I’m just not sure whether or not we’ll find an answer, the thing I do is usually sit at the piano, and I play a song by Beethoven called Para Elisa (Für Elise)
More on daily life
- What single thing would improve the quality of your life? 208 answers
- What is an unusual habit or an absurd thing that you love? 37 answers
- When you feel overwhelmed or unfocused, what do you do? 26 answers
- In the last five years, what have you become better at saying no to? 23 answers
- In the last five years, what new belief, behaviour, or habit has most improved your life? 21 answers
- What does the first sixty minutes of your day look like? 21 answers
Also answered this
Edwina Currie, Bill Clinton, Zack Polanski, Krishnan Guru-Murthy, Emma Barnett, Anita Rani
Search the directory for somebody in particular.
Explore further
- All daily life questions
- The The Q&A questionnaire — 25 questions from the same format
- Explore the archive — by field, age, era, and subject