Feeling and being unfocused.
Which trait do you most dislike in yourself?
Question
What has been your biggest disappointment?
Failure & regret
Question
Which teacher, parent, coach or friend most made you who you are, and what did you learn from them?
Relationships
Question
What are bad recommendations you hear in your profession or area of expertise?
Craft & work
Question
When was the last time you changed your mind about something?
Change of mind
Question
What do you need to believe in order to get through the day?
Values & belief
Question
How has a failure, or apparent failure, set you up for later success? Do you have a favourite failure?
Failure & regret
Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
The Guardian's The Q&A has retained this Proust-derived prompt from at least 2007 through 2026, and ABC independently put it to the Obamas in 2011.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
I noticed I did have an anger. Many people have anger and I was one of them.
The Talks, The Talks, 15 October 2014 source ↗
Others on this question
View all 257 →Maxi-multitasking.
I get distracted by anything and everything, so all my projects finish just before the deadline. Sometimes, it’s a bit too tight.
Mike Wallace
American journalist
Self-absorption.
More from David Lynch
View profile →On my film Dune, that experience could have finished me. It was so horrible. I identify so much with my films – and I knew I sold out – and meditation kept me from jumping off the cliff.
To me, the greatest master that ever walked the earth. Maybe some could be as great, but none could be greater.
Recorded
Asaad Saad, Maharishi University of Management commencement Q&A, TIME, 27 June 2016
source ↗
Be true to yourself. Find your own voice and be true to that voice. Never take a bad idea, but never turn down a good idea. And, of course, have final cut. And be true to the ideas.
If I had found something that was better than TM, I’m not stupid, I would have gone and done that. We’re looking for the best thing we can get for ourselves.
Recorded
Etan Ilfeld, The Etan Ilfeld Podcast / Watkins Magazine, Watkins MIND BODY SPIRIT Magazine, 28 January 2025
source ↗
Transcendental Meditation, it’s obviously the most important thing to do day in and day out. Transcending is the key to a better and better life, and this idea is catching on more and more in the world.
Recorded
Asaad Saad, Maharishi University of Management commencement Q&A, TIME, 27 June 2016
source ↗
But there’s always a way. Sometimes restrictions are a big blessing.
More on identity & self
Also answered this
Adrian Scarborough, Matthew Modine, Frank Cottrell-Boyce, Geoffrey Rush, Cybill Shepherd, Romesh Ranganathan
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