It's the question we asked after the George Floyd 2020 riots -- the costliest civil disorder in U.S. insurance history -- and the student riots now going on in France: how do ordinary people, together, do what none of them would ever try alone?

Compare this Catholic School reading list for 9th grade: Homer, The Odyssey Genesis and Exodus Plato Virgil, The Aeneid Beowulf and The Song of Roland The Gospel of Luke and Acts Hemingway, The Old Man and the Sea Wilder, Our Town

The five takeaways from Lift: 1. Nobody is self-made. 2. Look for the person who sees your strength. 3. Build a small circle that tells you the truth. 4. Learn the rules of the room before you follow them. 5. One honest voice.

In the space between eleven jurors and a single hold out was a gap, and in that gap we learned something important about human nature.

The enemy within is the virtue signaler whose real intent is to win praise not to be your friend.

The ancient Greek word krisis meant a turning point, a decision, a judgment, a selection. Under great pressure, our tendency is to react, and reacting can freeze us in a room we should have left. But a crisis, as the Greeks meant it, asks us to decide.

Malcolm Forbes would put down his Fabergé pen, pour a cup of coffee, and listen as though you had discovered something so valuable that he owed you a gift. Then he would smile and look you in the eyes. “Without you, we ain’t,” he liked to say.

We've all been in situations where the tone is distinctly uncomfortable, even hostile. We may not know the reasons, and may never find out. Therefore, we are better off analyzing a tough situation with limited information rather than just reacting.

In my book Lift, I call this the 'grandchildren test.' Will your works leave a better world for them? That's the test of a life well lived.

There are three kinds of truth in life. The truth, the whole truth, and a three-year-old’s truth. That is the story behind my book Lift.

The Talmud tells us hospitality towards guests is a duty, not a courtesy.

When Michael Phelps talkss to his four boys about swimming, he doesn’t start with 28 medals; he starts with the letter C.