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Richard Leakey

Palaeoanthropologist and conservationist; head of the Kenya Wildlife Service

Recorded said elsewhere, not written here
It’s very hard to give people advice, because you don’t know their personality. Personality is a big part of that. Everybody is faced with passing opportunities. Many people watch the opportunity come and watch it go. I say, if an opportunity comes and you have got the self-confidence, grab it. Ride it for a bit. If it’s not the right opportunity, do something else, but be positive about opportunities.

Academy of Achievement recorded interview, American Academy of Achievement, 21 June 2007 source ↗

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Mario Molina Atmospheric chemist; Nobel laureate in Chemistry, 1995
The advice that I would give is try to find something that you like. Try to devote your energies to being very good at it. Try to achieve excellence. Don’t necessarily have as a goal success or getting prizes or whatever, but just doing very good work. And work hard. Keep working at it. Be patient. Realize that you don’t always see the benefits of what you’re doing, short-term. But in the end, the activities that I do, for example, scientific research, can be extremely rewarding. It’s really a very fascinating career.
Recorded Academy of Achievement interview, Sun Valley, Idaho, 29 June 1996 source ↗
Rahul Dravid India Test and one-day international cricketer, 1996–2012; later India head coach
I know it is utterly fanciful to expect professional cricketers to play the game like amateurs; but the trick, I believe, is taking the spirit of the amateur - of discovery, of learning, of pure joy, of playing by the rules - into our profession. Taking it to practice or play, even when there's an epidemic of white-line fever breaking out all over the field.
Recorded Bradman Oration, Anzac Hall, Australian War Memorial, Canberra, ESPNcricinfo, 14 December 2011 source ↗
Derek Sivers Founder of CD Baby; author of Anything You Want
Yeah, anybody asks me about it, my advice was always, do not do it. In fact, it still is. Somebody just asked me last week, I was like, do not do it.
Recorded Tim Ferriss, The Tim Ferriss Show podcast, 23 April 2023 source ↗
Naomi Osaka Japanese professional tennis player
I feel uncomfortable being the spokesperson or face of athlete mental health as it's still so new to me and I don't have all the answers. I do hope that people can relate and understand it's O.K. to not be O.K., and it's O.K. to talk about it. There are people who can help, and there is usually light at the end of any tunnel.
Recorded First-person cover essay, Time, 8 July 2021 source ↗

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Question How has a setback or failure set you up for later success? Failure & regret
So Cambridge rejected me. Quite rightly, although at the time I thought it was a little churlish. So, I had to do it without any university training. ... and I began to realize that there were probably a lot more of these things, and that if you find these things, you get a position in the ladder which you can’t get to unless you have either got an education or something else. So by finding important things, you immediately get into the game, which you’d been excluded from otherwise.
Recorded Academy of Achievement recorded interview, American Academy of Achievement, 21 June 2007 source ↗

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