For a fork in the road. People on what they stopped doing and how they knew, what they refuse to make more efficient, and where they think the consensus in their own field has it wrong.
22 people · 155 answers
Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town; chair of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission; Nobel Peace Prize, 1984
Recorded · American Academy of Achievement · 2004
I stopped being a teacher when the South African Government introduced a deliberately inferior education for blacks called Bantu education, and I felt I wasn’t ready to collaborate with…
Operatic soprano and recitalist
Recorded · Academy of Achievement (achievement.org)
As a very young singer, I was invited to the opera house in Berlin by the then-director of the opera house, Egon Seefehlner, and I had one opera to my name that I knew.
Founder of CD Baby; author of Anything You Want
Recorded · The Tim Ferriss Show · 2023
I read that at a key fork in the road moment for me where I just sold CD Baby and had a ton of money.
Chinese professional tennis player, 1999–2014
Recorded · WTA (archived) · 2014
The task of finally making a decision to hang up my racquet felt a lot more difficult than winning seven matches in a row in the Australian heat.
United States basketball player, Los Angeles Lakers, 1996–2016
Recorded · The Players' Tribune · 2015
You gave a six-year-old boy his Laker dream And I'll always love you for it. But I can't love you obsessively for much longer. This season is all I have left to give.
Ballerina and ballet master; répétiteur for the Balanchine Trust
Recorded · Academy of Achievement (achievement.org)
By the time I admitted that I needed a hip operation, I had denied it for so long that it was a breakthrough to suddenly say, “I need this.” I knew I would probably never dance again, but I…
Novelist, poet and essayist
Recorded · ursulakleguin.com (the author's own site) · 2014
Books aren’t just commodities; the profit motive is often in conflict with the aims of art. We live in capitalism, its power seems inescapable — but then, so did the divine right of kings.
India Test and one-day international cricketer, 1996–2012; later India head coach
Recorded · ESPNcricinfo · 2011
One of the biggest challenges that the game must respond to today, I believe, is charting out a clear road map for the three formats.
Atmospheric chemist; Nobel laureate in Chemistry, 1995
Recorded · Chemical & Engineering News · 2013
As I was starting my academic career, it was almost considered to be a negative signal to your career to get involved in politics ...
Palaeoanthropologist; University of the Witwatersrand
Recorded · American Academy of Achievement · 2012
There was very much a real feel that we probably pretty much discovered every major fossil field in Africa. And in fact, some scientists even wrote that down at the turn of the millennia.
Architect; Pritzker Prize laureate, 1995
Recorded · The Hyatt Foundation / The Pritzker Architecture Prize · 1995
The modern architecture that I have been weaned on also espouses (clear) function, (exposed) structure, and (raw) material as principles—characteristics that tend to be accessed only from…
Essayist and novelist
Recorded · The Guardian · 2010
Don’t write in public places. In the early 1990s I went to live in Paris.
British track cyclist, 1994–2013
Recorded · The Independent · 2010
I don't enjoy it but I know that I have got to live with [myself] if I'm not going to give it 100 per cent.
Film director and screenwriter
Recorded · Polygon · 2019
There were times when I thought I wanted to be a cartoonist. If I weren’t a film director, I think cartoons would have been a good alternative.
Mountaineer and explorer; first ascent of Everest, 1953
Recorded · Academy of Achievement
I still regard adventure pretty much as a hobby to tell you the honest truth, and I think this approach to it keeps one refreshed almost.
Novelist, poet and essayist
Recorded · ursulakleguin.com (the author's own site) · 2014
I’ve had a long career as a writer, and a good one, in good company. Here at the end of it, I don’t want to watch American literature get sold down the river.
Founder of CD Baby; author of Anything You Want
Recorded · Derek Sivers · 2011
Do you have a big visionary master plan for how the world will work in twenty years? Do you have massive ambitions to revolutionize your industry? Don’t feel bad if you don’t. I never did.
Playwright and screenwriter
Recorded · The Paris Review, Issue 109, Winter 1988 · 1988
I don’t think of it as research. I read for interest and enjoyment, and when I cease to enjoy it I stop.
Japanese professional tennis player
Recorded · Time · 2021
I communicated that I wanted to skip press conferences at Roland Garros to exercise self-care and preservation of my mental health. I stand by that. Athletes are humans.
Co-founder of Viaweb and of the startup accelerator Y Combinator; essayist
Recorded · paulgraham.com · 2016
When I ask myself what I've found life is too short for, the word that pops into my head is “bullshit.” I realize that answer is somewhat tautological.
Novelist and essayist
Recorded · The Guardian · 2010
Protect the time and space in which you write. Keep everybody away from it, even the people who are most important to you.
Co-founder and chief executive of Apple; co-founder of NeXT; chief executive of Pixar
Recorded · Fortune · 2008
We tend to focus much more. People think focus means saying yes to the thing you've got to focus on. But that's not what it means at all.
United States artistic gymnast
Recorded · Rev · 2021
I just felt like it would be a little bit better to take a back seat, work on my mindfulness.
Novelist, dramatist and screenwriter
Recorded · The Guardian · 2010
Do restrict your browsing to a few websites a day. Don’t go near the online bookies – unless it’s research. […] Do not search amazon.co.uk for the book you haven’t written yet.
Actor and film-maker; host of the Armchair Expert podcast
Recorded · The Tim Ferriss Show · 2020
I would always be tempted to take a movie I liked less if the payday was twice as much, and I’ve interviewed a couple people that grew up with wealth and I’ve watched them navigate their…
Neuroscientist; professor of neuroscience and psychology at the University of California, Berkeley
Recorded · The Tim Ferriss Show · 2023
there were a group of scientists from the University of Geneva who conducted a brilliant study.
Author and probability researcher; Distinguished Professor of Risk Engineering at NYU
Recorded · The Tim Ferriss Show · 2023
I say envious of people who are erudite. Like if someone knows Latin very well, I’m envious. If someone knows Sanskrit, I’m envious. And I discovered that early on.
Mathematician and computer scientist; Turing Award, 1968
Recorded · Bell Communications Research Colloquium Seminar (transcription hosted by the University of Virginia Department of Computer Science) · 1986
I worked for ten years with John Tukey at Bell Labs. He had tremendous drive. One day about three or four years after I joined, I discovered that John Tukey was slightly younger than I was.
Songwriter, musician and novelist
Recorded · BBC Radio 4
I’m envious of people who don’t need that.
Prime Minister of New Zealand, 2017–2023; Leader of the Labour Party 2017–2023
Recorded · Harvard Magazine · 2022
Recently I had the privilege of joining ex German Chancellor, Angela Merkel on a panel. I have long been in awe of her leadership, not least for her endurance. She was in power for 16 years.
Aung San Suu Kyi, Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Charlie Munger, Chris Hoy, Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard, David Vélez, Derek Sivers, Desmond Tutu, Edmund Hillary, Jocelyn Bell Burnell, Mario Molina, Mellody Hobson, Mohamed ElBaradei, Oliver Sacks, Richard Feynman, Serena Williams, Shinya Yamanaka, Simone Biles, Steve Jobs, Warren Buffett, Winston Churchill