One question · 6 of 22 answers to it
Originally asked
Vogue, to one guest at a time, on camera, 73 Questions
Vogue's 73 Questions has repeatedly used this direct advice-network prompt.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
Author of Wild and Tiny Beautiful Things
I also think that most of us get wisdom from a wide range of sources, from the people we know and love, from strangers on the street, from therapists and counselors, from teachers, from…
Recorded · The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss · 2018
American football quarterback
I prayed a lot about it. I sought a lot of advice from my dad.
Recorded · Academy of Achievement · 2007
Founder, chairman and chief executive of Rakuten
Many times when I found myself at a personal crossroads – when I graduated from Hitotsubashi University and was unsure about whether I wanted to go into research or become a businessman,…
Recorded · Rakuten Today · 2016
Artist
Still, I do have people I turn to before that point… I’ll send my ideas or images to a friends group chat or I ask my boyfriend, you know?
Recorded · The Talks · 2022
Founder and executive chairperson of Biocon
I consider Mr. Narayanan Vaghul my mentor, because he gave me a huge amount of support and confidence, and understood my business model.
Recorded · People Matters · 2011
Biologist and physician; Nobel laureate in chemistry for the discovery of ubiquitin-mediated protein degradation
I abandoned surgery, I abandoned medicine. The only person I consulted was my wife when I said ‘Listen, next month, we’re not going to have a salary.
Recorded · Nanyang Technological University Institute of Advanced Studies · 2025
Answers marked Recorded were said elsewhere and are quoted with the publication and date they came from. Those people have not joined — nobody here answers on anyone else's behalf.
Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
This exact question recurs in The Guardian's institutional Q&A pool.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
English business magnate
Northern Rock, and not winning the bid to take on the lottery.
Recorded · The Guardian · 2010
British boxer
Losing in the 2012 world championships final.
Recorded · The Guardian · 2012
Being absent from my son’s life when I’m at work.
Recorded · The Guardian · 2025
Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
The Guardian's long-running Q&A repeatedly asks this standing question, with minor tense variation.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
British actress
Either shredding duck in a Chinese restaurant, or Oblivion.
Recorded · The Guardian · 2016
British singer
When I was younger, I appeared in the Halifax adverts that featured a cake or a bridge made of hundreds of people. You stood there for three days and were not even really seen.
Recorded · The Guardian · 2021
When I started as a researcher in the BBC, I was working for an editor who was a self-confessed misogynist.
Recorded · The Guardian · 2024
Originally asked
Lifehacker, to people about their working day, How I Work
Lifehacker repeatedly used this exact prompt in its named How I Work questionnaire.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
Theoretical physicist; Nobel laureate in Physics, 1965
I had nothing to do, so I start to figure out the motion of the rotating plate.
Recorded · Engineering and Science / Caltech Magazine · 1985
Novelist and short-story writer
Beyond that, editing an anthology gives me a chance to find a few new readers for my colleagues’ excellent work.
Recorded · Fiction Writers Review · 2011
Structural biologist; Nobel laureate in Chemistry, 2009
I like reading, I like swimming.I go snorkeling if I can. But not because I’m stuck, but because I enjoy them. And when I am swimming or whatever, I find I have more time to think.
Recorded · Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings
Recorded for public figures, from the source their answers were taken from. Browse by era too.
Every question the bank can deal, in the order it was written. See all 126.
Alfred Molina, Alfre Woodard, Alison Steadman, Allison Janney, Black Francis, Blake Masters, Chris O'Dowd, Circuit des Yeux, Cuba Gooding Jr, Daniel Ek, Ellen Arkbro, Engelbert Humperdinck, Gustavo Dudamel, Haile Gebrselassie, Harlan Coben, Hayley Atwell, James Cameron, Jeff Goldblum, Jo Brand, John M. Martinis, Joss Stone, Julia Stiles, Katie Kitamura, Loraine James, Lorraine Pascale, Mary McCartney, Neil Patrick Harris, Orlando Bloom, Raf Simons, Ranulph Fiennes, Robert Ballard, Romesh Ranganathan, Ronnie Wood, Rufus Wainwright, Simone Giertz, Stéphane Lambiel, Terence Conran, Thomas Mars, Tina Fey, Weyes Blood
You are dealt a few questions at a time and answer the ones you want to. What you write gets a permanent address and keeps it. Rewrite it whenever you like and say why — the new version goes up beside the old one rather than over it, so changing your mind reads as thinking rather than as a reversal.
You write before you read. Other members' answers to a question stay shut until you have answered it or passed on it, because reading first changes what you would have said. Passing is free and it is permanent.
Most of what is here so far was said somewhere else and recorded with its source — a named person, a publication and a date, on every line. Nothing has been deleted.