Thought provoking

The fear people have about the idea of adherence to protocol

is rigidity. They imagine mindless automatons, heads down in a checklist, incapable of looking out their windshield and coping with the real world in front of them. But what you find, when a checklist is well made, is exactly the opposite. The checklist gets the dumb stuff out of the way,

“if we can recognise that change and uncertainty are basic principles,” as the futurist and environmentalist Hazel Henderson put it, “we can greet the future… with the understanding that we do not know enough to be pessimistic .” You can take a crisis very seriously indeed without fooling yourself that you know the worst outcome is certain.

In Four Thousand Weeks I explored the fascinating work of the art historian Jennifer Roberts, and carried out her exercise of looking at a single painting for three hours straight, so as to experience the truth that really seeing a painting is an undertaking that just takes the time it takes.

The conventional strategy for subtraction is to do it by default: Procrastinate on everything that isn’t a priority. Rebel against the escalating commitments on your time. Opt out and ignore.

historically the company’s strength has never been grounded and rooted in execution. The only new product launch that succeeded was Airbnb.com. Every other big launch over the last eight years has actually been a complete flop. Our strength and the focus of leadership has always been marketing and storytelling. It was never been about technology ex

As the great Elizabeth Gilbert puts it: “You are afraid of surrender because you don’t want to lose control. But you never had control; all you had was anxiety.”