We're all human, and part of being human is showing respect and support for others' life choices.
— Daniel Lubetzky
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.
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.
I cannot think of any venture I have initiated where an earlier failure wasn't an important precursor to an eventual success.
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.
Peace is an idea born from hope and the desire to see your children raise a family, walk in a market, and engage in simple pleasures of everyday life without fear.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Civilized discourse demands critical thinking, self-reflexiveness, sober-headed analysis.
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.
While domestically the president may be able to somewhat reshape his/her image through defining moments and actions, this is far less feasible internationally.
I'm never going to give up - it's part of my lifeblood to help, protect, and defend Israel.
It takes strength to be kind; it's not a weakness.
I can't tell you exactly why my work ethic is the way that it is, but I know that I will always work harder than anyone else I know.
When someone gives 60 days' notice, they're able to play an active role in identifying and training their replacement.
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.
When I was eight, I started what could be considered my first business, performing magic shows in Mexico City.
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.
Chaos does not unify. Chaos only serves the most extreme elements of society that seek to destabilize any semblance of order to fulfill their selfish lust for power.
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.
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.
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.
Wall Street sharks will go where they smell the blood, and you cannot change that.
Our world desperately needs real leadership.
America already suffers from a uniformed and increasingly polarized citizenry. FOX seems to eagerly exploit this dynamic, and in so doing, accentuate it.
Longer distances yield local media coverage that tends to be more one-dimensional and absolute, less nuanced, and more sporadic.
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.
Tasting failure, even when you truly believe in a project, is a critical part of the growth process.
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.
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.
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.
Trying to forget or hide your mistakes is a huge error. Rather, hold them near and dear to your heart. Wear them proudly.
Failure holds the seeds for greatness - so long as you water those seeds with introspection, they can be the root of your success.
Like many start-up stories, mine has been rocky.
If you can inculcate in your team that every moment means everything, you can then step back to let them lead.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Why stick to just prose or just music or just newspaper or just video? Why not create new models for information that combine elements of them all?
I was very proud to support Obama's presidential campaign, from the primaries all the way to his historic victory.
Everyone that is not an ultra-conservative recognizes the irony of FOX's 'Fair and Balanced' moniker, which only accentuates its actual bias.
Only Americans vote for their president, but foreigners care almost as much - and sometimes more - about who will lead the most powerful nation in the world.
Kindness boggles my mind. It's the only force in nature that increases simultaneously for the giver and the receiver.
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.
It doesn't matter who you are or where you come from - there's no substitute for hard work.
