Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
The rule of law, democracy, freedom of speech, freedom of expression - we cannot take them for granted. They do not exist willy-nilly across the world; they are very rare.
As hundreds of millions of Chinese have improved their standard of living, this has put enormous pressure on natural resources, raw materials, and food basics, among others.
We strive for a culture of constant communication. Team members know in real time if there are performance issues. Team leaders know in real time if a team member is unhappy.
As an independent skeptical of all news stations and wanting to understand diverse perspectives, I tend to navigate between CNN, ABC, PBS, MSNBC, NBC, CBS, CNBC, and yes, FOX.
My father is with me every day. Although he passed away in 2003, he continues to live on inside me and through me - at home and work, on crowded subway cars and busy sidewalks.
Often, just explicitly acknowledging how the other side must see things can help them open up to see your side and can help both parties achieve a fair and constructive outcome.
The advent of Kindle, the iPad, and other portable reading devices has so far simply resulted in turning analog print into digital print while keeping the same linear prose format.
Unless we can join forces and recognize each other's humanity, how can we do business together, let alone make progress on the increasingly complex and difficult problems in society?
From an early age, my initiative took many forms - teaching myself magic so I could do magic shows, buying wholesale goods and then selling them to other kids, learning many languages.
My dad's life story was a string of kindness. He treated everyone as an equal, whether it was the bank teller or the bank president. He even attributed his survival to the courage of kindness.
We all have a responsibility to try and make this world better, whether it's through our work, the causes we champion, the way that we treat people, or the values we impart to the next generation.
It's very important for people to know what gives them meaning. But it's hard for people to figure out if you're not connecting with yourself and taking the time to just be introspective and daydream.
When I applied to law school, I wrote on my application that I wanted to do two things. One was to solve antitrust law's irregularities and problems, and the second was to solve the Arab-Israeli conflict.
There are corporate environments where a person has dedicated their life to working hard, and then they're fired with a security person escorting them out the door. I find that so demeaning and disrespectful.
As a business owner, I understand the importance of prioritizing your bottom line, but it's equally as important to consider how you can succeed while also thinking about the long-term impact on the community.
No matter if we're in a contentious situation or simply engaging in an everyday interaction, we should aspire to have the strength to be kind always. If each of us shared this aspiration, we'd all be better off.
Big failures hold better lessons than any success - as long as you are in tune with yourself and are open to learning from them. I can trace every one of my accomplishments to earlier failures that I learned from.
Relying on the power of kindness is a sensitive undertaking. The challenge is to inspire people to be kind more often without tainting the selflessness that comes from doing something nice with no ulterior motive.
Few times in history do totalitarian or authoritarian regimes successfully repress their people for more than two generations, and zero times in history do these regimes last much longer than that, relatively speaking.
Showers last only 10 minutes, but you can't do anything else in there but think. The shower is probably the main place I come up with ideas. That's where I came up with the concept for OneVoice, my nonprofit organization.
I try hard to always question myself and wonder, 'What could I have done better? What did I do wrong?' The culture at our company is to be self-critical, but you have to balance that as a leader with praise for your team.
If you had asked me when I was in law school or in college or as a kid, 'Is Daniel going to be running a food company?' I would tell you you're cuckoo. What I was going to be doing was representing Israel at the United Nations.
My dad was born in 1930 in Lithuania, located in Eastern Europe. He was 9 years old when the war started, and his family was sent to the Kovno ghetto. They were soon separated and sent to the Dachau concentration camp in Germany.
One of the magical things about kindness is that it's what we nerds call a 'happiness aggregator.' People confuse kindness with being nice. And they're very different. You can be nice and be passive. But kindness requires action.
When you're building a business, you want to focus and deliver excellence at what you do. This simply cannot be done when you are launching multiple ventures, dozens of new products, and selling everywhere and anywhere at the same time.
To maintain our entrepreneurial spirit, we have to create a culture in which everyone remembers that every order, big or small - and every interaction, every moment - will define what our company is today and what it will become tomorrow.
The reason people buy Kind bars is that they're delicious and they're healthful. If the product doesn't taste good, isn't the right price, or doesn't fit their lifestyle choice, even if it's made by Mother Teresa, it's not going to work out.
KIND had grown from a team of dedicated, overworked generalists to a large, professional organization with specialists who had either come in from outside or had been groomed internally to grow in a focused area about which they're passionate.
You have a deeper purpose that drives you. You have to talk to yourself about what that purpose is. If you run through like a hamster to chase fame or money, you might end up wasting your life away. You find what drives you and gives you energy.
The truth is that a campaign defines how the electorate will see their president - and this all the more true when shaping the president's image in the eyes of the largest constituency that will actually not vote for them: the international community.
I believe that everyone in a company should pitch in to foster a culture of ownership and respect. At KIND, this belief translates to everyone being in the trenches - from team members just starting out to executives who have been with the company for years.
Israel, for me, represents so much more than a nation. It's a very idealized example for the world. It's not just a nation that needs to be strong, secure, and safe. For me, for the sake of humanity, Israel needs to be a light that is an example to all nations.
The ideal is to build a culture of healthy discussion, where everyone's ideas are valued. At KIND, we want everyone to be comfortable challenging my or anyone else's ideas without ever feeling or making someone else feel that the questioning is a personal attack.
We need to understand the other side to impact the other side. We become much more effective as humans and leaders when we engage in hearty conversations with those who are different from us, not necessarily to change our opinions, but to build the empathy muscle.
I know that when you are experiencing failure, it's pretty damn painful. It is easy in retrospect to wax poetic about it. But in the moment, you don't think you will survive, let alone have the time to reflect on how valuable those lessons will be for you in the future.
First of all, magicians practice a lot. It requires a lot of discipline. Second, you can't be afraid to be a leader, to go onstage, and you learn to have presence. You need to be able to visualize and connect and create. Most important, you learn to think outside the box.
KIND has gone through many iterations as it deepens its social impact. When you're selling a million dollars a year, the impact you can have is very different than when you are selling over a billion dollars a year. Scale has allowed us to do things we never thought possible.
I make mistakes daily, letting generalizations creep into my thoughts and negatively affect my behavior. These mistakes have taught me that the first step to successfully choosing kindness is being more mindful about it, letting go of impatience and intolerance along the way.
We don't always know exactly what we're doing as parents. Children don't come with instruction manuals, as the saying goes. So it's important to me that I always question the choices I'm making as a father, to really stay alert and open to the balance between being too hard or too soft.
Growing up, I heard a lot about strength. My dad - a Holocaust survivor - embodied it, though he would never say that about himself. Not only did he survive one of the most horrific events in history, but he never lost hope along the way, crediting acts of kindness with keeping him alive.
When I was 26, I founded Peaceworks as a food company that brought together Israelis, Arabs, Turks, and others in conflict regions to make and sell various food products from the Middle East. That economic cooperation helped bridge divides and cultivate mutual understanding among neighbors.
When you're bringing an idea to fruition, there are two distinct phases: the skeptic phase and the evangelist phase. During the first phase, you have to be willing to ask the hardest questions - is this idea worth pursuing? But once you are convinced, you flip a switch. It's about getting it done.
When I was a kid, we'd go to the movies, and my parents would reach out to everyone around us in the theater, most of whom could barely afford the movie ticket. They'd hand out popcorn and Milk Duds, strike up conversations with them, lend shoulders to cry on, learn their names, and smile at everyone.
As a society, we're failing to recognize something my dad knew to be true - that kindness is the greatest show of strength. Too often, we are led to believe that strength is best demonstrated by exerting dominance or superiority over others, while kindness is portrayed as the opposite - a sign of weakness.
Russia and China have maintained that people prize stability over freedom and that as long as the central State creates conditions for economic growth, people will be complacent and will be willing to literally sell away their rights. In fact, this very economic growth will eventually catch up with these regimes.
I have a whole section of a filing cabinet in my office full of ideas. Some are ideas for books or articles I want to write. One is a romantic comedy; one's about my dad's life. I've also got ideas for books on moral relativism as well as democracy and human nature. There's also a really cool concept for a spy novel.
The power of the individual, market forces, and the private sector permeate our lives. With that power comes responsibility to address huge challenges. Climate change cannot be solved by governments alone. Xenophobia, hatred, and intolerance - more business leaders have to play a role in trying to be positive leaders, civic leaders.
I have an innate sense of justice and felt compelled to create an organization that would ensure consumers are provided with sound nutrition guidance. In establishing Feed the Truth, my intent is to elevate reputable science, bolster the voices of the nutrition community, and improve the guidance and information offered to Americans.
My dad had this incredible kindness that oozed through every part of his body. He had the ability to look at life positively in spite of what he went through. He was a Holocaust survivor. When he was 15-1/2 years old, he was liberated from the Dachau Concentration Camp by American soldiers who risked a lot to save people they had never met.