Twelve personal tips for creative intellectual leadership

1. Read widely, often outside of one’s main areas of work, interest.
2. Remain constantly curious, skeptical, and question everything to get to the fundamentals.
3. Continuously debate with one self and with others to stay free of prejudices and to learn and innovate, and to build a network.
4. Combine humility with confidence.
5. Go to the balcony often and look at the big picture – do this alone.
6. Enjoy the race, but be indifferent to the results and credits.
7. Surround oneself with good, bright, motivated, and questioning people – select them. carefully, learn from them, mentor them, coach them, and let them coach you.
8. Don’t allow “group-think” to set in, avoid attending too many canned talks or large conferences or courses.
9. Don’t let conventions, norms, social rules come in the way. In fact, every convention or norm hides a truth, expose it.
10. Try something new every day.
11. Dedicate 1 or 2 of your best work hours  each day to focus on high-impact work, which you may otherwise put off.
12. Constantly work toward making oneself redundant – life is short, and you want to be free to leave any time.