The great majority of that which gives you angst never happens, so you must evict it. Don’t let it live rent-free in your brain.

Peter Guber currently serves as chairman and CEO of Mandalay Entertainment Group. Prior to Mandalay, he was chairman and CEO of Sony Pictures Entertainment. He has produced or executive produced (personally or through his companies) films that have garnered five Best Picture Academy Award nominations (winning for Rain Man) and box office hits that include The Color Purple, Midnight Express, Batman, Flashdance, and The Kids Are All Right. Peter is also co-owner and co-executive chairman of the 2015 and 2017 NBA Champions, the Golden State Warriors, an owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers, and an owner and executive chairman of Major League Soccer’s Los Angeles Football Club (LAFC). Peter is a noted author whose works include Shootout: Surviving Fame and (Mis)Fortune in Hollywood and his most recent book, Tell to Win: Connect, Persuade, and Triumph with the Hidden Power of Story, which was an instant #1 New York Times bestseller.

How has a failure, or apparent failure, set you up for later success? Do you have a “favorite failure” of yours?

When I was a young executive at Columbia Pictures in the ’70s, the company was ferociously trying to stop the onslaught of the video cassette industry, believing that the motion picture incumbency as producers and distributors of filmed content to movie theaters was threatened by this new challenge. I argued that this was a new way to reach audiences who could now time-shift content to their schedule and would only be a value-add to our business and to our audience. The executives had a narrow view of their offering. When they finally succumbed to seeing its value, they began to see it not as a time bomb but a treasure.

I lived the first 33 years of my life actively trying to avoid failure. More recently, I’ve worried less about failing and more about not risking failure enough, because I’m reasonably sure that there’s not a failure I can’t survive.

Franklin Leonard has been described by NBC News as “the man behind Hollywood’s secret screenplay database, ‘The Black List.'” In 2005, Franklin surveyed almost 100 film industry development executives about their favorite scripts from that year that had not been made into feature films. Since then the voter pool has grown to 500 film executives. Now, more than 300 Black List screenplays have been made as feature films. Those films have earned more than $26 billion in worldwide box office sales, have been nominated for 264 Academy Awards, and have won 48, including Best Pictures Slumdog Millionaire, The King’s Speech, Argo, and Spotlight, and ten of the last 20 screenwriting Oscars.

How has a failure, or apparent failure, set you up for later success? Do you have a “favorite failure” of yours?

Arguably, the first three years of my career were a catalog of failed attempts at careers I thought that I might like: The congressional campaign I helped run was unsuccessful. My writing in the Trinidad Guardian newspaper was good but unremarkable. I was a mediocre analyst at McKinsey and Company. Those nonsuccesses led me to give Hollywood a shot, and ironically, my work at the Black List, in many ways, a synthesis of helming a movement, driven by writing, that requires a real understanding of corporate systems and operations.

You do not have to earn love. You simply have to exist.

Sharon Salzberg has played a crucial role in bringing meditation and mindfulness practices to the West and mainstream culture since 1974, when she first began teaching. She is the co-founder of the Insight Meditation Society and the author of ten books, including the New York Times bestseller Real Happiness, her seminal work, Lovingkindness, and her new book, Real Love: The Art of Mindful Connection. Renowned for her down-to-earth teaching style, Sharon offers a secular, modern approach to Buddhist teachings, making them instantly accessible. She is a regular columnist for On Being, a contributor to The Huffington, and the host of her own podcast: Metta Hour.

How has a failure, or apparent failure, set you up for later success? Do you have a “favorite failure” of yours?

In my early teaching career I was too petrified to give lectures. The structure of our intensive meditation retreats is one where people meditate throughout the day, with question-and-answer sessions, small group and individual teacher contact, and a formal lecture each night. The first retreats I taught in this country, I couldn’t give a single talk—my colleagues had to do them all.

Do no harm to others. Be true to yourself. To me, being a good human being, and the way to true inner happiness, is through altruistic actions, being mindful of others.

Eric Ripert is recognized as one of the best chefs in the world. In 1995, at just 29 years old, he earned a four-star rating from The New York Times. Twenty years later and for the fifth consecutive time, Le Bernardin, where Eric is the chef and a co-owner, again earned the New York Times‘ highest rating of four stars, becoming the only restaurant to maintain this superior status for such a marathon length of time. In 1998, the James Beard Foundation named him Top Chef in New York City and in 2013, Outstanding Chef of the Year. In 2009, Avec Eric, his first TV show, debuted and ran for two seasons, earning two Daytime Emmy Awards. It returned for a third season on the Cooking Channel in 2015. Eric has also hosted the show On the Table on YouTube, which debuted in July 2012, and he has appeared in media worldwide. He is the author of the New York Times best-selling memoir 32 Yolks: From My Mother’s Table to Working the Line, Avec Eric, and several other books.

What is the book (or books) you’ve given most as a gift, and why? Or what are one to three books that have greatly influenced your life?

My two standby books to gift are The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho and A Plea for the Animals by Buddhist monk Matthieu Ricard. Easy to read, The Alchemist speaks of everyone having an ultimate goal in life, but most of us are too afraid to pursue it. The encouragement to fulfill your dreams is very inspirational! Reading A Plea for Animals raised many personal struggles for me. As a Buddhist, I’ve always been deeply conflicted between an appreciation for meat and fish as ingredients and taking responsibility for the death of another creature. Matthieu Ricard’s staggering facts and passionate argument challenged me emotionally and intellectually.

Whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right. —Henry Ford

Fedor Holz is widely regarded as one of the best poker players in the modern era. In July 2016, he won his first World Series of Poker bracelet in the $111,111 High Roller for One Drop, securing $4,981,775. He was ranked by PocketFives as the best online multitable tournament player in 2014 and 2015. He has more than $23.3 million in earnings from live events. Fedor is the co-founder and CEO of Primed, a startup and investment company based in Vienna. Their first product is Primed Mind, a mindset coaching app, which helps you experience the same visualization and goal-setting techniques used to train the world’s most notable poker phenoms.

What is the book (or books) you’ve given most as a gift, and why? Or what are one to three books that have greatly influenced your life?

Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl. His descriptions of his life in Nazi death camps, while everyone he loved around him perished, had a lasting impact on me and especially on how I decide what I want to spend my time on. [From it] I interpreted that we cannot avoid suffering, but we can choose how to cope with it, and that having meaning in our life is essential.

What purchase of $100 or less has most positively impacted your life in the last six months (or in recent memory)?

A Deuserband Original has been an amazing discovery for me. Especially when I spend long sessions in a chair, it feels great to stretch my arms and back, and it improved your posture.

When 99 percent of your life is your work, either you are really bad at what yo do or you are completely off balance with the rest of your life; neither is something to be proud of.

Jérôme Jarre dropped out of business school at age 19 and moved to China. After failing in six startups, he focused all of his energy on cracking social media, and within 12 months, his videos about happiness and challenging fears reached 1.5 billion views, making him a pioneer of the mobile video industry. In 2013, Jérôme co-created the first mobile-only advertising agency with Gary Vaynerchuk and helped advise some of the largest companies in the world, pairing influencers with brands. In 2017, after supporting local NGOs across the globe, Jérôme united 50 of the largest mobile influencers through LOVE ARMY, which raised $2.7 million for the drought in Somalia and spent every penny directly on the ground.

What is the book (or books) you’ve given most as a gift, and why? Or what are one to three books that have greatly influenced your life?

Propaganda by Edward Bernays, along with the documentary The Century of the Self. This book opened my eyes to the marketing industry in a time when I was blindly playing my role in it. Essentially, Edward Bernays is the ancestor of the entire marketing space, he is the father of all the marketing gurus and agencies. He became fascinated at the beginning of the last century by what Hitler’s army had created—a complete illusion, “propaganda” that millions of people in Europe believed. So he moved to New York and decided to apply this technique to business. And because of the bad reputation of the word “propaganda,” he remained it “public relations” and created the first PR firm in America.

Sometimes you need to allow life to save you from getting what you want.

Brandon Stanton is the creator of the #1 New York Times best-selling books Humans of New York, Humans of New York: Stories, as well as the children’s book, Little Humans of New York. In 2013, he was named one of the “30 Under 30 People Changing the World” by Time magazine. Brandon has told stories from around the world in collaboration with the United Nations, and was invited to photograph President Obama in the Oval Office. His photography and storytelling blog, Humans of New York, is followed by more than 25 million people on several social media platforms. He is a graduate of the University of Georgia and lives in New York City.

How has a failure, or apparent failure, set you up for later success? Do you have a “favorite failure” of yours?

At the time I was fired from my trading job, I was convinced that I wanted to be a successful bond trader. Sometimes you need to allow life to save you from getting what you want.

In the last five years, what new belief, behavior, or habit has most improved your life?

Be very careful with the moral high ground. It helps to resolve conflict when you realize that everyone has different moral codes, and very few people intentionally make immoral decisions. Chase Jarvis once told me: “Everyone wants to see themselves as a good person.” No matter how egregious the crime, the criminal usually has a reason for viewing it as morally acceptable.