“More than anything else, what differentiates people who live up to their potential from those who don’t is a willingness to look at themselves and others objectively.”

By and large, life will give you what you deserve and it doesn’t give a damn what you like. So it is up to you to take full responsibility to connect what you want with what you need to do to get it, and then to do those things.

I don’t think individual media outlets will regulate. There are such things as self-regulatory organizations that will look at the members of the industry and their behavior and establish standards of behavior.

People who confuse what they wish were true with what is really true create distorted pictures of reality that make it impossible for them to make the best choices.

It’s more important to do big things well than to do small things perfectly.

Some people seek to understand, and some people seek to portray what they want to portray.

I also believe that everyone needs to think independently and make their own decisions on what makes the most sense.

That’s what I mean by radical truth. I mean accepting reality.

A beautiful deleveraging balances the three options. In other words, there is a certain amount of austerity, there is a certain amount of debt restructuring, and there is a certain amount of printing of money. When done in the right mix, it isn’t dramatic.

School typically doesn’t prepare young people for real life – unless their lives are spent following instructions and pleasing others. In my opinion, that’s why so many students who succeed in school fail in life.

Nature gave us pain as a messaging device to tell us that we are approaching, or that we have exceeded, our limits in some way.

Most people have a hard time confronting their weaknesses in a really straightforward, evidence-based way. They also have problems speaking frankly to others. Some people love knowing about their weaknesses and mistakes and those of others because it helps them be so much better, while others can’t stand it.

I believe that for the most part, achieving success – whatever that is for you – is mostly a matter of personal choice and that, initially, making the right choices can be difficult.

Everyone has to decide for themselves what works for them and their organization.

There is a strong tendency to get used to and accept very bad things that would be shocking if seen with fresh eyes.

Watch out for people who think it’s embarrassing not to know.

The pain of problems is a call to find solutions rather than a reason for unhappiness and inaction, so it’s silly, pointless, and harmful to be upset at the problems and choices that come at you (though it’s understandable).