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Robert D. Hormats is the U.S. Under Secretary of State for Economic, Business, and Agricultural Affairs. He was formerly vice chairman of Goldman Sachs (International) and managing director of Goldman,[…]

How do I make the world a better place?

Question: What should we be asking ourselves? 

Robert Hormats: The question people should be asking themselves is, “What am I doing to ensure that the world I leave behind, the country I leave behind, the society I leave behind, is better than the one I found? How can I ensure that people who are coming after me have the same or better opportunities than I did? How can I demonstrate by the way I live my life that I have respect for the views of others, and I am willing to listen to others, and I have the integrity to accept good ideas from others even if their ideas didn’t conform to my preconceived notions?”

Those are the kinds of things people should be asking themselves about the way they live their lives. 

If you are willing to live your life in a way so that when people look back on your life; or you look back on it yourself, you can say, “I did the best I could do to leave the world, or society, or my country better than I found it.”

 

Recorded On: July 25, 2007


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