Amp Elevate Quotes

One of the greatest myths in the world - & the phrase 'greatest myths' is just a fancy way of saying 'big fat lies' -- is that troublesome things get less & less troublesome if you do them more & more. People say this myth when they are teaching children to ride bicycles, for instance, as though falling off a bicycle & skinning your knee is less troublesome the fourteenth time you do it than it is the first time. The truth is that troublesome things tend to remain troublesome no matter how many times you do them, & that you should avoid doing them unless they are absolutely urgent.

Okay, okay, okay. I understood that pushing the elevator button over and over again would not make the elevator appear sooner. But I couldn't help myself

This is the new year the new you. You can pass through another year, coasting on cruise control. Or you can step out of your comfort zone, trying things you have never done before, & make 2012 as the year that you elevate from where you are & soar high. Make it happen!

My mind then wandered. I thought of this: I thought of how every day each of us experiences a few little moments that have just a bit more resonance than other moments—we hear a word that sticks in our mind—or maybe we have a small experience that pulls us out of ourselves, if only briefly—we share a hotel elevator with a bride in her veils, say, or a stranger gives us a piece of bread to feed to the mallard ducks in the lagoon; a small child starts a conversation with us in a Dairy Queen—or we have an episode like the one I had with the M&M cars back at the Husky station. And if we were to collect these small moments in a notebook and save them over a period of months we would see certain trends emerge from our collection—certain voices would emerge that have been trying to speak through us. We would realize that we have been having another life altogether; one we didn’t even know was going on inside us. And maybe this other life is more important than the one we think of as being real—this clunky day-to-day world of furniture and noise and metal. So just maybe it is these small silent moments which are the true story-making events of our lives.

Rolling his eyes, Zane got on the elevator once the door opened. “You know, at first I was insulted by the way you treat me. Then I realized it’s not personal; you treat everyone like shit. I find it doesn’t bother me all too much anymore,” he said. “Usually I only don’t bother people I want to see naked,” Ty told him seriously as the elevator rose. “So stop it. You’re freaking me out.

Subject: Sundown Date: June 14 2011 09:35 To: Christian Grey Dear Completely & Utterly Smitten I love waking up with you, too. But I love being in bed with you and in elevators and on pianos and billiard tables and boats and desks and showers and bathtubs and strange wooden crosses with shackles and four poster beds with red satin sheets and boathouses and childhood bedrooms. Yours Sex Mad and Insatiable xx

Dinner later. My house. Bring clothes for the weekend, ’cause you won’t be making it home.” Ty didn’t say another word, just turned and headed for the elevator at a stroll, shrugging into his overcoat as he went. Zane watched him go, enjoying the sight. “Score,” he said under his breath before he grabbed his phone and keys and hurried to follow.

Usually I only don't bother people I want to see naked," Ty told him seriously as the elevator rose. "So stop it. You're freaking me out.

To: Christian Grey Dear Completely & Utterly Smitten I love waking up to you, too. But I love being in bed with you and in elevators and on pianos and billiard tables and boats and desks and showers and bathtubs and strange wooden crosses with shackels and four-poster beds with red satin sheets and boathouses and childhood bedrooms.

His dad’s gruff voice interrupted his pitiful thoughts. “Can I be frank?” “Sure. Can I be beans?” Without even having to look up, Dex knew what his dad was doing. “Stop. You know how I hate when you do that.” “Do what?” Tony grunted. “Do that puckered ass thing with your lips.” “And you know all about puckered asses.” Dex arched an eyebrow at his dad. “You know, at times I wonder who the grown-up is here.” The elevator pinged and they exited into a long white hall with dark gray flooring. “And I wonder if you’ve lost more than a few marbles. Like the entire bag.

He watched the elevator numbers change, approaching their floor. "Ty," he said quietly. Ty glanced at him and frowned slightly. "My ass hurts too," Zane admitted quietly as the doors opened to other people.

Math is “maths,” an elevator is a “lift,” a truck is a “lorry,” a flashlight is a “torch,” and “crisps” are what they call potato chips, while “chips” over here means French fries. Just as riding the double-decker buses thrills me, I get a thrill out of hearing people talk.

If you don't know how to execute, every strategy will fail, even the most promising ones. As one of my former bosses observed: “No strategy is better than its execution.

Priority” should ideally only be used as a singular word. The moment you have many priorities, you actually have none.

The origins of your superiority complex lies less in how you can elevate your own self-worth & more in how you can dedicate your abilities to lower someone else's.

I ripped the pages out of the book. I reversed the order, so the last one was first, and the first was last. When I flipped through them, it looked like the man was floating up through the sky. And if I'd had more pictures, he would've flown through a window, back into the building, and the smoke would've poured into the hole that the plane was about to come out of. Dad would've left his messages backward, until the machine was empty, and the plane would've flown backward away from him, all the way to Boston. He would've taken the elevator to the street and pressed the button for the top floor. He would've walked backward to the subway, and the subway would've gone backward through the tunnel, back to our stop. Dad would've gone backward through the turnstile, then swiped his Metrocard backward, then walked home backward as he read the New York Times from right to left. He would've spit coffee into his mug, unbrushed his teeth, and put hair on his face with a razor. He would've gotten back into bed, the alarm would've rung backward, he would've dreamt backward. Then he would've gotten up again at the end of the night before the worst day. He would've walked backward to my room, whistling 'I Am the Walrus' backward. He would've gotten into bed with me. We would've looked at the stars on my ceiling, which would've pulled back their light from our eyes. I'd have said 'Nothing' backward. He'd have said 'Yeah, buddy?' backward. I'd have said 'Dad?' backward, which would have sounded the same as 'Dad' forward. He would have told me the story of the Sixth Borough, from the voice in the can at the end to the beginning, from 'I love you' to 'Once upon a time.' We would have been safe.

I don't like categorizing stuff, but women's roles all through history have been to act as hierophant or someone who's guarded the secrets or guarded the temple. I'm a girl doing what guys usually did, the way that I look, the goals and kinds of things I want to help achieve through rock. It's more heroic stuff and heroic stuff has been traditionally male. Like Hendrix and Jim Morrison and all those people. I mean, Jim Morrison was trying to elevate the word; he was the poet in rock & roll before me. He was an academic poet. Lou Reed -- another academic poet. I'm more like down-to-earth than them guys

Emotionally mature people show an inclusive, respectful, and coequal attitude toward other people. They elevate you with them, rather than make you feel less than.

16 Over the footbridge.— In our relations with people who are bashful about their feelings, we must be capable of dissimulation; they feel a sudden hatred against anyone who catches them in a tender, enthusiastic, or elevated feeling, as if he had seen their secrets. If you want to make them feel good at such moments, you have to make them laugh or voice some cold but witty sarcasm; then their feeling freezes and they regain power over themselves. But I am giving you the moral before telling the story. There was a time in our lives when we were so close that nothing seemed to obstruct our friendship and brotherhood, and only a small footbridge separated us. Just as you were about to step on it, I asked you: “Do you want to cross the footbridge to me?” —Immediately, you did not want to any more; and when I asked you again, you remained silent. Since then mountains and torrential rivers and whatever separates and alienates have been cast between us, and even if we wanted to get together, we couldn’t. But when you now think of that little footbridge, words fail you and you sob and marvel.

The connection was so bad, and I couldn't talk at all during most of the call. How terrible it is when you say I love you and the person at the other end shouts back 'What?' I've been reading a miscellany of Vedanta all [358] day. Marriage partners are to serve each other. Elevate, help, teach, strengthen each other, but above all, serve. Raise their children honorably, lovingly, and with detachment. A child is a guest in the house, to be loved and respected-never possessed, since he belongs to God. How wonderful, how sane, how beautifully difficult, and therefore true. The joy of responsibility for the first time in my life.

as architect of choosing... choose. to. live. awakened. entirely. wholly. wildly powerful,  deeply masterful,  authentically creative, thriving.  this is not a hoped-for possible self. [reminder: this is an immutable Law of your being] needing not to learn the skill of being whole,  the antidote is to unlearn the habit of living incompletely here’s the practice: ‘know thyself‘—its about spirit  righteousness is underrated elevate connection with the changeless essence seek similitude with the will of Source and will of self 'choose thyself'—its about substance sacred. sagacious. spacious. in thought, word and deed— intend to: honor virtue. innovate enthusiastically. master integrity. 'become who you are'—its about style  a human, being an entrepreneur of life experiences a human, being a purveyor of preferences being-well with the known experience of soul, in service your relationship with insecurities, contradictions, & failures? obstacles or...invitations to grow? [mindset forms manifestation] emotions are messengers are gifts data for discernment: dare to deconstruct them your fears a belief renovation: fear.less. & aspire towards ascendance, anyway support your shine lean into the Light be.come. incandescent as architect of choosing, I choose...  to disrupt the energy of the status quo, to eclipse the realms of ordinary, & to live--a life-well lived. w/ spirit, substance & style.

How can you not be concerned that I might have cancer?” I ask. “I found a lump on my breast.” Touch it, Ely. Touch it. “Lie. Not only are you biting your lip, which you always do when you lie, but your mom told me about the alleged lump in the elevator this morning. The doctor said it was an overgrown pimple.” Monkeys!

You know, at first I was insulted by the way you treat me. Then I realized it’s not personal; you treat everyone like shit. I find it doesn’t bother me all too much anymore,” he said. “Usually I only don’t bother people I want to see naked,” Ty told him seriously as the elevator rose. “So stop it. You’re freaking me out.

Get in the habit of constantly prioritizing and reprioritizing. Most

I just mean, like, who is leaking fucking elevator tapes? Who’s checking for that? It’s not like Solange was in there—

good judgment comes from bad judgment.” Experience may be overrated by some, but it's hard to find a substitute for it.

Let's Elevate, Educate, and Empower Our Youth...Not Incarcerate Them! Try To HELP Our Youth...Don't HURT Them! Lord knows they'll have plenty of enough hurdles to leap over in their lives!

. . . when we take upon ourselves his yoke of obedience, his yoke is easy, his burden is light (Matt. 11:28-30). When is a burden light? It is when we find our burdensome lives caught up, elevated, borne aloft by something greater than our lives. Mission gives meaning. Jesus does not come to us to relieve us of all yokes or burdens; rather, he comes offering us a yoke worth wearing, a burden worth bearing. It is a great gift not to have to make your life mean something, to have your life given significance by the Lord whose cross, when taken up, takes us up as well. 119-120

Dennis asked, “Do you enjoy jazz? Because I love it, and I know of a place downtown where we could go.” “And then we can have broken glass and arsenic for dinner!” I felt like replying, because I barely tolerated jazz when I encountered it in elevators or dental offices. But I considered that when you meet somebody who really loves something, the high-road thing to do is to try to love it, too, so I wrote back, “That sounds great!

I’m always jealous of people who get to be new to New York because they get to be amazed by it... I worry that it’s like living at a high elevation. I’ve gotten used to breathing here and every part of my body is tuned to living here.

If you dine at SkyCity, revolving just beneath the 520-foot-high observation deck, the elevator ride is free (otherwise it’s $18), but be forewarned that the restaurant is one of Seattle’s priciest (you’re paying for the million-dollar view).

Jimmy never met Joe Louis before that trial, only the jury didn’t know that. But Jimmy was strong for civil rights. That part is true. The only thing is, every time he won a trial, he thought he could never lose. And have no doubt: he hated Bobby with a passion. I heard him call Bobby a spoiled brat to his face in an elevator and start after him. I held Jimmy back. Many a time Jimmy said to me they got the wrong brother. But he hated brother Jack, too. Jimmy said they were young millionaires who had never done a day’s work.

What gives you your sense of importance and makes you feel special? Who and what bring out the best in you? What does it take to make you feel like a million bucks and ready to take on the world? When people make you feel important, doesn’t it elevate them in your eyes? Learn to do the same for others.

Vagueness causes confusion, but clarity of thought and purpose is a huge advantage in business. Good leadership requires a never‐ending process of boiling things down to their essentials. Spell out what you mean! If priorities are not clearly understood at the top, how distorted will they be down the line?

When the attachment figure is also a threat to the child, two systems with conflicting goals are activated simultaneously or sequentially: the attachment system, whose goal is to seek proximity, and the defense systems, whose goal is to protect. In these contexts, the social engagement system is profoundly compromised and its development interrupted by threatening conditions. This intolerable conflict between the need for attachment and the need for defense with the same caregiver results in the disorganized–disoriented attachment pattern (Main & Solomon, 1986). A contradictory set of behaviors ensues to support the different goals of the animal defense systems and of the attachment system (Lyons-Ruth & Jacobvitz, 1999; Main & Morgan, 1996; Steele, van der Hart, & Nijenhuis, 2001; van der Hart, Nijenhuis, & Steele, 2006). When the attachment system is stimulated by hunger, discomfort, or threat, the child instinctively seeks proximity to attachment figures. But during proximity with a person who is threatening, the defensive subsystems of flight, fight, freeze, or feigned death/shut down behaviors are mobilized. The cry for help is truncated because the person whom the child would turn to is the threat. Children who suffer attachment trauma fall into the dissociative–disorganized category and are generally unable to effectively auto- or interactively regulate, having experienced extremes of low arousal (as in neglect) and high arousal (as in abuse) that tend to endure over time (Schore, 2009b). In the context of chronic danger, patterns of high sympathetic dominance are apt to become established, along with elevated heart rate, higher cortisol levels, and easily activated alarm responses. Children must be hypervigilantly prepared and on guard to avoid danger yet primed to quickly activate a dorsal vagal feigned death state in the face of inescapable threat. In the context of neglect, instead of increased sympathetic nervous system tone, increased dorsal vagal tone, decreased heart rate, and shutdown (Schore, 2001a) may become chronic, reflecting both the lack of stimulation in the environment and the need to be unobtrusive.

He wisely resolved to be particularly careful that no sign of admiration should now escape him, nothing that could elevate her with the hope of influencing his felicity; sensible that if such an idea had been suggested, his behaviour during the last day must have material weight in confirming or crushing it.

Preparing myself for the ritual, dressing myself in beautiful things in white, blue and gold, and arriving at the doors of the temple, I am always thinking about what I am about to do, the role I am about to step into, and preparing a space in my thoughts for that. When I hear the ritual begin, a deep calm enters me and any thoughts I had of who I am and what I may be doing in my everyday life leave me, making that space for the Goddess. Entering the temple and seeing the assembled congregation sets up a dialogue with them in my actions, it is their presence that elevates me from being a magician seeking a connection with the divine, to a Priestess seeking that connection in the service of others.

I shake my head in unfortunate assent...in any life age and stage to this necessary truth one must be able to maintain and without forced effort. Jealousy, dislike, envy, hatred are low-living, human traits, of a rejectable, and dejected nature. Elevate your mindfulness & emotional state when in the presence of those trapped in their negative miserable ones. I recommend when that's finished, recalibrate who you've allowed to access your inner/outer circle perimeter - the gift of your personal/professional contact & presence...then...adjust control measures accordingly. You can believe with full certainty you'll be on a healthy and gold-bricked wealthy boulevard to practicing soul abuse & neglect prevention - by the lightning-quick process of connection elimination. Selah...

And I said, “I’m not pregnant anymore.” He turned to me with this look on his face like, I never thought you’d do this to me. The elevator doors opened and we both just stood there. Not saying a word. They closed. And we took the elevator all the way to the top. And then all the way back down. Right before we got to the lobby again, Graham hit the button for the second floor. And he got off.

When I finally calmed down, I handed her the Ewok. "Can you go back and give it to him" I said. "Oh, honey," she answered. "That's so sweet of you. But Isabel can clean the Lego set. It'll be good as new for Auggie, don't worry." "No, for the other kid," I answered. She looked at me a second, like she didn't know what to say. "Via said he doesn't speak any English," I sai. "It must be really scary for him, being in the hospital." She nodded slowly. "Yeah," she whispered. "It must be." She closed her eyes and hugged me again. And then she took me over to the security desk, where I waited until she went back up the elevator and, after about five minutes, came back down again. "Did he like it?" I asked. "Honeyboy," she said softly, brushing the hair out of my eyes. "You made his day.

Do you think she’s forever?” Michael stares straight ahead, waiting for the doors to the elevator to open. “Oh, I knew you were her forever as soon as I saw the way she looked at you, Zee.” He slides his hands into his pockets, clears his throat. And then he turns and looks me straight in the eye and says, “I’m just really glad you’ve figured out she’s yours, man. Because you deserve that. And so does she.

The people’s hero does not only have to be someone in possession of the scepter of power. It can be anyone capable of giving unity, prosperity, security, peace and a sense of worthiness to his people. Such a figure gets elevated to the status of a revered hero with the human touch if he imparts a sense of oneness on a multi-racial, multi-ethnic and multi-religious group; especially a diverse people who have been fighting one another for years and centuries...

Last year we stepped onto an elevator. We politely asked the white lady behind us If she could please take the next lift To continue social distancing. Her face flared up like a cross in the night. Are you kidding me? she yelled, Like we'd just declared Elevators for us only Or Yous must enter from the back Or No yous or dogs allowed Or We have the right to refuse Humanity to anyone Why it's so perturbing for privileged groups to follow restrictions of place & personhood. Doing so means for once wearing the chains their power has shackled on the rest of us. It is to surrender the one difference that kept them separate & thus superior. Meanwhile, for generations we've stayed home, [segre] gated, kept out of parks, kept out of playgrounds, kept out of pools, kept out of public spaces, kept out of outside spaces, kept out of outer space, kept out of movie theaters, kept out of malls, kept out of restrooms, kept out of restaurants, kept out of taxis, kept out of buses, kept out of beaches, kept out of ballot boxes, kept out of office, kept out of the army, kept out of the hospitals, kept out of hotels, kept out of clubs, kept out of jobs, kept out of schools, kept out of sports, kept out of streets, kept out of water, kept out of land, kept out of kept in kept from kept behind kept below kept down kept without life. Some were asked to walk a fraction / of our exclusion for a year & it almost destroyed all they thought they were. Yet here we are. Still walking, still kept.

    Lead then, said EVE. Hee leading swiftly rowld   In tangles, and make intricate seem strait,   To mischief swift. Hope elevates, and joy   Bright'ns his Crest, as when a wandring Fire   Compact of unctuous vapor, which the Night   Condenses, and the cold invirons round,   Kindl'd through agitation to a Flame,   Which oft, they say, some evil Spirit attends,   Hovering and blazing with delusive Light,   Misleads th' amaz'd Night-wanderer from his way   To Boggs and Mires, & oft through Pond or Poole,   There swallow'd up and lost, from succour farr.

Even as to himself, a man cannot pretend to know what he is in himself from the knowledge he has by internal sensation. For as he does not as it were create himself, and does not come by the conception of himself a priori but empirically, it naturally follows that he can obtain his knowledge even of himself only by the inner sense, and consequently only through the appearances of his nature and the way in which his consciousness is affected. At the same time, beyond these characteristics of his own subject, made up of mere appearances, he must necessarily suppose something else as their basis, namely, his ego, whatever its characteristics in itself may be... Now man really finds in himself a faculty by which he distinguishes himself from everything else, even from himself as affected by objects, and that is reason. This being pure spontaneity is even elevated above the understanding. For although the latter is a spontaneity and does not, like sense, merely contain intuitions that arise when we are affected by things (and are therefore passive), yet it cannot produce from its activity any other conceptions than those which merely serve to bring the intuitions of sense under rules, and thereby to unite them in one consciousness, and without this use of the sensibility it could not think at all; whereas, on the contrary, reason shows so pure a spontaneity in the case of what I call "ideas" [Ideal Conceptions] that it thereby far transcends everything that the sensibility can give it, and exhibits its most important function in distinguishing the world of sense from that of understanding, and thereby prescribing the limits of the understanding itself.

Don't bother pulling my string again- Not behind those doll eyes anymore I won't say what's expected, kid, laugh at your tantrum on the floor I'm just not looking at you, kid, I'm not a piss-poor heart anymore; Not going home with the lowest bid Out of stock- your projection whore I'm never going back to the toy box Elevated up from the cellar- home of the wish-washed pretty cocks Out of the dark, preachin' Helen Keller Bored with the coin-operated allure I'm top shelf, kid, out of your reach You can't afford to walk in the store Turn around, kid, don't slip in bleach -from 'Ragdoll$ & Riche$

...those are the boys I switch my hips at. Not because they're cute or interesting--- they're often obnoxious & only want a taste of my gutter-slick tongue & brownness; they act as if they could elevate my life with a taste of their powder-milk-tinged pomp. No, I date those boys because they are safe. They can't dance bachata or sing Juan Luis Guerra, can't recite Salomé Ureńa or even name the forefathers; they wrap their flag around their shoulders like a safety blanket, & if a heart has topography, I know none of those boys know the coordinates to navigate & survive mine's rough terrain. In other words, these boys would be no distraction.

I think in the ever growing diversity of the distinct and person-centred presentations of autism it is important to know and acknowledge the crucial differences between Autism & Asperger's Syndrome. Both are which are forms of autism but have different "mechanics" that drive them. I have Autism (as opposed to Asperger's Syndrome) I live in a world before the literal, words tumble in my mind into sounds I love tone, melody and beats they brings my world alive. I live in world world where visuals hold no significance fragmented and not in my "mind's eye" and need to be touched in order to be "seen". I like elevated gesture and tone when people speak dead words wander alive into my mind and give them meaning and circumstance. Where a sense of "self" is not wanting to be exposed by the directness of people but at the same time I want to understand "other" even if I struggle to at times. I am empathic young man and this not through lack of care nor wanting. I care deeply. Logic and literalism are not the name of the game for me to "decode" the word around me it's sensing, patterning and feeling to gain an "understanding". I am using a different part of my brain. So as with AS Autism has many different presentations too this is mine. I think it is important to know differences it has helped me so much to know that.

Travis Sanchez rubbed a hand over his head as he stepped into an elevator at the Red Stone Security building. His Mohawk was gone and he wore his hair in a buzz cut these days. It was probably his military background, but he always came back to this cut out of habit. The walk to Harrison's office was too short. He wasn't sure why his boss had called him in after his last security detail, but a small burst of panic had detonated in his gut. He loved this job, but there had been some issues with the CEO he'd recently been guarding not following Travis' orders. The asshole had almost gotten himself killed and now Travis wondered if his head was on the chopping block because of it.

Freud elevated unconscious processes to the throne of the mind, imbuing them with the power to guide our every thought and deed, and to a significant extent writing free will out of the picture. Decades later, neuroscience has linked genetic mechanisms to neuronal circuits coursing with a multiplicity of neurotransmitters to argue that the brain is a machine whose behavior is predestined, or at least determined, in such a way as seemingly to leave no room for the will. It is not merely that will is not free, in the modern scientific view; not merely that it is constrained, a captive of material forces. It is, more radically, that the will, a manifestation of the mind, does not even exist, because a mind independent of brain does not exist.

...afflictions arise from identifying with a false sense of self, whereas great contentment arises from seeing the true nature of things. If one believes that the self exists solidly and independently, as it appears, then the dissolution of the self at death is a disaster. But if the self is understood to be illusory from the beginning, the dissolution of the self at death is simply another opportunity for awakening. The conventional self is simply a convenient designation for the everyday collection of transitory aggregates: body, feelings, recognitions, karmic formations, and consciousness. Ultimately, the self as a permanent entity is an illusion and all attempts to elevate the self merely compound the illusion. The stronger one grasps at the illusory self, the more one suffers when the illusion shatters.

Something is bothering you. I have sensed it all morning.” He slid his communicator back into his pocket then took her hand in his, linking their fingers together. The action took her off guard, but she welcomed it. The first time she’d held his hand he’d been confused by it, but this was the second time in the last few days he’d initiated it. She loved it. “Nothing, just… I was hoping that this evening we could talk about something.” His shoulders stiffened just the slightest fraction. She was getting good at reading the subtle changes in his body language. “What about?” “Not now. I know you need to get to one of your job sites. Or there’s an emergency at the Samio.” He raised a dark eyebrow. “How do you know this?” “Because your communicator has been buzzing like crazy since we…” Her cheeks heated up and she cleared her throat. It had started going off when she’d been sitting on his face this morning. They’d both ignored it. Then when she got out of the shower she’d found him responding to what seemed like dozens of communications, one buzz after another. The sounds had been maddening. He’d stopped responding when they left his place, but she understood how busy he was and didn’t want to get in the way of that. “Since we what?” he murmured, leaning closer as they came to a stop in front of another elevator. This one had a shiny, sleek-looking silver door. “You know what,” she whispered, glancing around. There were two males waiting at the next elevator and though they weren’t looking in their direction she wasn’t going to talk about that in public. “I want to hear you say it.” “That’s because you’re a pervert.” He gave her one of those grins that made her wonder how she’d ever lived without knowing this male. It still stunned her how much he’d come to mean to her in the past week and a half. “That’s very true where you’re concerned.” He dropped a kiss on her forehead. -Con & Leilani

The cardboard that he stopped at had been written on in February, 1938. The handwriting, in blue-lead pencil, was his brother Seymour's: My twenty-first birthday. Presents, presents, presents. Zooey and the baby, as usual, shopped lower Broadway. They gave me a fine supply of itching powder and a box of three stink bombs. I'm to drop the bombs in the elevator at Columbia or ‘someplace very crowded’ as soon as I get a good chance. Several acts of vaudeville tonight for my entertainment. Les and Bessie did a lovely soft-shoe on sand swiped by Boo Boo from the urn in the lobby. When they were finished, B. and Boo Boo did a pretty funny imitation of them. Les nearly in tears. The baby sang ‘Abdul Abulbul Amir.’ Z. did the Will Mahoney exit Les taught him, ran smack into the bookcase, and was furious. The twins did B.'s and my old Buck & Bubbles imitation. But to perfection. Marvellous. In the middle of it, the doorman called up on the housephone and asked if anybody was dancing up there. A Mr. Seligman, on the fourth—

The emphasis on shifting essences, uncertainty, and fiercely contrasting opposite states was, of course, neither new nor unique to Byron. He and the other Romantic poets, however, took the ideas and emotions to a particularly intense extreme. Shelley's belief that poetry "marries exultation and horror, grief and pleasure, eternity and change," and that it "subdues to union, under its light yoke, all irreconcilable things," was in sympathy not only with the views of Byron but those of Keats as well. "Negative capability," wrote Keats, exists "when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching out after fact & reason." The "poetical Character," he said: has no self-it is every thing and nothing-It has no character-it enjoys light and shade; it lives in gusto, be it foul or fair, high or low, rich or poor, mean or elevated-It has as much delight in conceiving an Iago as an Imogen. What shocks the virtuous philosopher, delights the camelion Poet. It does no harm from its relish of the dark side of things any more than from its taste for the bright one; because they both end in speculation.

For nothing is so productive of elevation of mind as to be able to examine methodically and truly every object which is presented to thee in life, and always to look at things so as to see at the same time what kind of universe this is, and what kind of use everything performs in it, and what value everything has with reference to the whole, and what with reference to man, who is a citizen of the highest city, of which all other cities are like families; what each thing is, and of what it is composed, and how long it is the nature of this thing to endure which now makes an impression on me, and what virtue I have need of with respect to it, such as gentleness, manliness, truth, fidelity, simplicity, contentment, and the rest. Wherefore, on every occasion a man should say: this comes from God; and this is according to the apportionment and spinning of the thread of destiny, and such-like coincidence and chance; and this is from one of the same stock, and a kinsman and partner, one who knows not however what is according to his nature. But I know; for this reason I behave towards him according to the natural law of fellowship with benevolence and justice.

When he reached the doorman, he stopped. “Did you see Miss Christian come in a few minutes ago?” The doorman nodded. “Yes, sir. She got here just before you arrived.” Relief staggered him. He bolted for the elevator. A few moments later, he strode into the apartment. “Kelly? Kelly, honey, where are you?” Not waiting for an answer, he hurried into the bedroom to see her sitting on the edge of the bed, her face pale and drawn in pain. When she heard him, she looked up and he winced at the dullness in her eyes. She’d been crying. “I thought I could do it,” she said in a raw voice, before he could beg her forgiveness. “I thought I could just go on and forget and that I could accept others thinking the worst of me as long as you and I were okay again. I did myself a huge disservice.” “Kelly…” Something in her look silenced him and he stood several feet away, a feeling of helplessness gripping him as he watched her try to compose herself. “I sat there tonight while your friends and your mother looked at me in disgust, while they looked at you with a mixture of pity and disbelief in their eyes. All because you took me back. The tramp who betrayed you in the worst possible manner. And I thought to myself I don’t deserve this. I’ve never deserved it. I deserve better.” She raised her eyes to his and he flinched at the horrible pain he saw reflected there. Then she laughed. A raw, terrible sound that grated across his ears. “And earlier tonight you forgave me. You stood there and told me it no longer mattered what happened in the past because you forgave me and you wanted to move forward.” She curled her fingers into tight balls and rage flared in her eyes. She stood and stared him down even as tears ran in endless streams down her cheeks. “Well, I don’t forgive you. Nor can I forget that you betrayed me in the worst way a man can betray the woman he’s supposed to love and be sworn to protect.” He took a step back, reeling from the fury in her voice. His eyes narrowed. “You don’t forgive me?” “I told you the truth that day,” she said hoarsely, her voice cracking under the weight of her tears. “I begged you to believe me. I got down on my knees and begged you. And what did you do? You wrote me a damn check and told me to get out.” He took another step back, his hand going to his hair. Something was wrong, terribly wrong. So much of that day was a blur. He remembered her on her knees, her tear-stained face, how she put her hand on his leg and whispered, “Please don’t do this.” It made him sick. He never wanted to go back to the way he felt that day, but somehow this was worse because there was something terribly wrong in her eyes and in her voice. “Your brother assaulted me. He forced himself on me. I didn’t invite his attentions. I wore the bruises from his attack for two weeks. Two weeks. I was so stunned by what he’d done that all I could think about was getting to you. I knew you’d fix it. You’d protect me. You’d take care of me. I knew you’d make it right. All I could think about was running to you. And, oh God, I did and you looked right through me.” The sick knot in his stomach grew and his chest tightened so much he couldn’t breathe. “You wouldn’t listen,” she said tearfully. “You wouldn’t listen to anything I had to say. You’d already made your mind up.” He swallowed and closed the distance between them, worried that she’d fall if he didn’t make her sit. But she shook him off and turned her back, her shoulders heaving as her quiet sobs fell over the room. “I’m listening now, Kelly,” he forced out. “Tell me what happened. I’ll believe you. I swear.” But he knew. He already knew. So much of that day was replaying over and over in his head and suddenly he was able to see so clearly what he’d refused to see before. And it was killing him. His brother had lied to him after all. Not just lied but he’d carefully orchestrated the truth and twisted it so cleverly that Ryan had been completely deceived.

Prospective data indicates that the CRP is a better predictor of cardiovascular risk than a low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol, the standby predictor of cardiovascular disease. The CRP advantage is that “inflammation,” (but not the elevated LDL) is associated with the components of the metabolic syndrome. CRP levels are not only demonstrated with “inflammation” of cardiovascular disease, but also with triglycerides, obesity, elevated blood pressure, and elevated fasting blood glucose. In addition, CRP also correlates with endothelial dysfunction, impaired fibrinolysis, and most importantly, insulin resistance, which is hyperinsulinemia, type 2 diabetes. I ask you, the reader, to please note that the clinical conditions associated with CRP, especially its application for cardiovascular disease, is the pathology of insulin resistance, hyperinsulinemia, type 2 diabetes. Please see Chapter 14, Pathology of Type 2 Diabetes.

Justin Schmidt, an entomologist who studies venomous stings, created the Schmidt Sting Pain Index to quantify the pain inflicted by ants and other stinging creatures. His surprisingly poetic descriptions give some order to the hierarchy of ant stings as compared to those of bees and wasps: 1.0 Sweat bee: Light, ephemeral, almost fruity. A tiny spark has singed a single hair on your arm. 1.2 Fire ant: Sharp, sudden, mildly alarming. Like walking across a shag carpet & reaching for the light switch. 1.8 Bullhorn acacia ant: A rare, piercing, elevated sort of pain. Someone has fired a staple into your cheek. 2.0 Bald-faced hornet: Rich, hearty, slightly crunchy. Similar to getting your hand mashed in a revolving door. 2.0 Yellowjacket: Hot and smoky, almost irreverent. Imagine W. C. Fields extinguishing a cigar on tongue. 2.x Honey bee and European hornet: Like a matchhead that flips off and burns on your skin. 3.0 Red harvester ant: Bold and unrelenting. Somebody is using a drill to excavate your ingrown toenail. 3.0 Paper wasp: Caustic & burning. Distinctly bitter aftertaste. Like spilling a beaker of hydrochloric acid on a paper cut. 4.0 Tarantula hawk: Blinding, fierce, shockingly electric. A running hair drier has been dropped into your bubble bath. 4.0+ Bullet ant: Pure, intense, brilliant pain. Like fire-walking over flaming charcoal with a 3-inch rusty nail in your heel.

When we react to problems, as opposed to create with them, we get hooked into stress. When we are under constant low-grade stress—and it’s estimated that over 80 percent of us are all the time—this begins to hurt us.1 When we are stressed, our nervous system tightens up and we lose our creativity. Stress stops us learning, and if we aren’t learning, we aren’t growing.2 Stress, AKA fear, corrodes the curiosity and courage we need to experiment with the new. It is almost impossible to play big in life, if we are scared of looking like idiots, going bankrupt, or being rejected. Stress kills creativity and kills us too. Whereas small amounts of stress help us focus, engage, and learn, chronic or elevated stress burns us out, literally as well as metaphorically. People who live near airports and deal with the stress of giant airplanes roaring above them have higher rates of cardiac arrest than those who don’t.3 People who deal with a controlling or uncommunicative boss have a 60 percent higher chance of developing coronary heart disease than those who don’t.4 Stress leads to tangible changes inside all the cells of the body. Specific genes start to express proteins, which leads to inflammation; and chronic inflammation is associated with killers such as heart disease and cancer. Over time, stress reduces our ability to prevent aging, heal wounds, fight infections, and even be successfully immunized.5 Unmanaged stress, simply from having a sense of disempowerment at work, can be more dangerous than smoking or high cholesterol.

Gary Taubes, Why We Get Fat: And What to Do About It (New York: Anchor Books, 2010). For an expanded discussion of Taubes’s arguments, see Good Calories, Bad Calories: Fats, Carbs, and the Controversial Science of Diet and Health (New York: Anchor Books, 2008). It includes a helpful summary of Taubes’s conclusions (p. 454): 1. Dietary fat, whether saturated or not, is not a cause of obesity, heart disease, or any other chronic disease of civilization. 2. The problem is the carbohydrates in the diet, their effect on insulin secretion, and thus the hormonal regulation of homeostasis—the entire harmonic ensemble of the human body. The more easily digestible and refined the carbohydrates, the greater the effect on our health, weight, and well-being. 3. Sugars—sucrose and high-fructose corn syrup, specifically—are particularly harmful, probably because the combination of fructose and glucose simultaneously elevates insulin levels while overloading the liver with carbohydrates. 4. Through their direct effect on insulin and blood sugar, refined carbohydrates, starches, and sugars are the dietary cause of coronary heart disease and diabetes. They are the most likely dietary causes of cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, and the other chronic diseases of civilization. 5. Obesity is a disorder of excess fat accumulation, not overeating, and not sedentary behavior. 6. Consuming excess calories does not cause us to grow fatter, any more than it causes a child to grow taller. Expending more energy than we consume does not lead to long-term weight loss; it leads to hunger. 7. Fattening and obesity are caused by an imbalance—a disequilibrium—in the hormonal regulation of adipose tissue and fat metabolism. Fat synthesis and storage exceed the mobilization of fat from the adipose tissue and its subsequent oxidation. We become leaner when the hormonal regulation of the fat tissue reverses this balance. 8. Insulin is the primary regulator of fat storage. When insulin levels are elevated—either chronically or after a meal—we accumulate fat in our fat tissue. When insulin levels fall, we release fat from our fat tissue and use it for fuel. 9. By stimulating insulin secretion, carbohydrates make us fat and ultimately cause obesity. The fewer carbohydrates we consume, the leaner we will be. 10. By driving fat accumulation, carbohydrates also increase hunger and decrease the amount of energy we expend in metabolism and physical activity. For a fascinating discussion of the role of fat in a healthy diet, see also Nina Teicholz, The Big Fat Surprise: Why Butter, Meat and Cheese Belong in a Healthy Diet (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2014).

The analogy between infertile heterosexuals and same-sex couples misses the point. The extension of marriage to infertile heterosexual couples serves not to deprecate same-sex couples, but to preserve the equal status of women in marriage. A test for fertility would be unfair to women because all women spend most of their adult lives in a state of infertility. Fertile women are infertile most days of a month, and postmenopausal women are always infertile. A fertility requirement would also render women susceptible to enormous abuse by men, providing a ready excuse for men who would trade in older women for nubile brides. The status of women in marriage would be intolerably diminished through this practice. Infertility is less common among men, as they can sire children into old age. Moreover, men, like women, typically do not discover that they are infertile until they attempt to sire children, at which time they ought already to be married. A measure that serves primarily to protect women and to preserve their equal status within the institution of marriage is not a measure that is an appropriate basis by which to judge that the same should go for same-sex couples. One of the great challenges men and women face in marriage is in coming to terms with their differences while respecting the status of the other as an equal. Acceptance of infertility is a measure promoting this end. A measure to accommodate the reality of sex-based difference in marriage is no reason to extend marriage to same-sex couples. Moreover, accommodation for infertility in no way diminishes the reality that the inequality of the parent-child relationship is what differentiates marriage from other contractual relationships. It is the parent-child relation, as it emerges from sexual difference and procreation, which elevates marriage above a mere contract, and renders it a sacred duty.

On a wooden chair facing the elevator's control panel covered in black fur and wearing a pair of green Bermuda shorts from which protruded two hand-like callused feet, sat a monkey. It spun on its seat, wrapped its feet around the backrest of the chair, opened its coconut-shaped mouth and said, “Hello, Miss.

I'm not dead!” she hissed, “I'm right here, you stupid BABOON!” “…Chimpanzee!” Spat Chimp 5M51. “Think what you must,” he said, as he lifted his chin. “But think about this. Can you remember the events before this elevator?

C-reactive protein is your main biomarker for inflammation and is therefore commonly tested where there is an elevated risk for heart disease. 

going to get through the next few weeks. Her job in one of London’s most popular publishing houses Partridge & Co. propelled her out of her much-loved apartment and into the busy streets with a spring to her step each morning. She loved it completely; the thrill, the buzz, and the energy that thrummed through the third floor each time she stepped out of the elevator.

list of his 13 virtues, taken from his autobiography, An American Life: Temperance. Eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation. Silence. Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation. Order. Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have its time. Resolution. Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve. Frugality. Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself; i.e., waste nothing. Industry. Lose no time; be always employ’d in something useful; cut off all unnecessary actions. Sincerity. Use no hurtful deceit; think innocently and justly, and, if you speak, speak accordingly. Justice. Wrong none by doing injuries, or omitting the benefits that are your duty. Moderation. Avoid extremes; forbear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve. Cleanliness. Tolerate no uncleanliness in body, clothes, or habitation. Tranquility. Be not disturbed at trifles, or at accidents common or unavoidable. Chastity.

elevate learning as a core metric. The enemy of creation is not uncertainty, it’s inertia.

Blood pressure: Take and compare two blood pressure readings—one while lying down and one while standing. Lie down for five minutes before taking the first reading. Then stand up and immediately take your blood pressure again. If your blood pressure is lower after standing, you probably have reduced adrenal gland function—more specifically inadequate aldosterone, which is an adrenal hormone that regulates your blood pressure. The degree to which blood pressure drops while standing is often proportionate to the degree of aldosterone-related adrenal issues. If your adrenal function is normal, your body will elevate your blood pressure when you stand up in order to push blood to your brain. If adrenal function is not normal, your blood pressure does not elevate, and this is why overtrained athletes tend to get dizzy more often.

larynx (pp. 352–354), and (2) smaller intrinsic muscles that control tension in the glottal vocal folds or that open and close the glottis. These smaller muscles insert on the thyroid, arytenoid, and corniculate cartilages. The opening or closing of the glottis involves rotational movements of the arytenoid cartilages. When you swallow, both sets of muscles work together to prevent food or drink from entering the glottis. Food is crushed and chewed into a pasty mass, known as a bolus, before being swallowed. Muscles of the neck and pharynx then elevate the larynx, bending the epiglottis over the glottis, so that the bolus can glide across the epiglottis rather than falling into the larynx. While this movement is under way, the glottis is closed. Foods or liquids that touch the vestibular folds or glottis trigger the coughing reflex. In a cough, the glottis is kept closed while the chest and abdominal muscles contract, compressing the lungs. When the glottis is opened suddenly, a blast of air from the trachea ejects material that blocks the entrance to the glottis. Sound Production How do you produce sounds? Air passing through your open glottis vibrates its vocal folds and produces sound waves. The pitch of the sound depends on the diameter, length, and tension in your vocal folds. The diameter and length are directly related to the size of your larynx. You control the tension by contracting voluntary muscles that reposition the arytenoid cartilages relative to the thyroid cartilage. When the distance increases, your vocal folds tense and the pitch rises. When the distance decreases, your vocal folds relax and the pitch falls. Children have slender, short vocal folds, so their voices tend to be high pitched. At puberty, the larynx of males enlarges much more than that of females. The vocal cords of an adult male are thicker and longer, so they produce lower tones than those of an adult female. Sound production at the larynx is called phonation (fo.-NA .-shun; phone, voice). Phonation is one part of speech production. Clear speech also requires articulation, the modification of those sounds by voluntary movements of other structures, such as the tongue, teeth, and lips to form words. In a stringed instrument, such as a guitar, the quality of the sound produced does not depend solely on the nature of the vibrating string. Rather, the entire instrument becomes involved as the walls vibrate and the composite sound echoes within the hollow body. Similar amplification and resonance take place within your pharynx, oral cavity, nasal cavity, and paranasal sinuses. The combination gives you the particular and distinctive sound of your voice. That sound changes when you have a sinus infection and your nasal cavity and paranasal sinuses are filled with mucus rather than air.

These qualities make drivers massively valuable. Finding, recruiting, rewarding, and retaining them should be among your top priorities. Recognize them privately and publicly, promote them, and elevate them as example of what others should aspire to. That will start waking up those who are merely along for the ride. Celebrate people who own their responsibilities, take and defend clear positions, argue for their preferred strategies, and seek to move the dial.

This line of inquiry has other benefits. Employees should be able to look at themselves in the mirror and feel strongly that they matter to the organization, that they contribute in significant ways, that their absence would significantly hurt its results. If they can say those things honestly, they will feel far more secure and confident in their own value. It will also advance their careers at any company that recognizes and rewards

Several short tenures in a row also imply that you had poor judgment in choosing those roles or perhaps that you're the kind of person who gets into chronic conflicts with management. One brief tenure will be seen as a fluke by future employers, but a series of them will be seen as a red flag. The shortest tenure I ever had was three years; all of my others were in the five‐to‐seven‐year range.

Experience can be a proxy for aptitude but not a perfect one. People that have been with successful companies are often swept along in the vortex of the company's momentum. The aura of a great company can rub off on its employees, to the point that it can be hard to separate the company's success from the employee's. We've mistakenly hired some passengers this way, thinking they were drivers.

Conversely, I'm always intrigued by candidates who once crashed and burned with a company and learned something from facing those serious challenges. Humans always learn more from our struggles and failures than from our easy successes. Your experience will only be valuable to prospective employers if it taught you useful lessons that you can take into your next role. Speak credibly and insightfully, in detail, about your experiences, no matter how disappointing they were.

Whenever talent is in short supply, as it almost always is in Silicon Valley, betting on aptitude is a great recruiting strategy for employers, albeit a less certain one. You can hire people ahead of their own development curve and inspire them to grow into challenging new roles.

big red flag in many workplace cultures is a sense of entitlement. We always sought low maintenance, low drama personalities. We valued traits such as strong task ownership, a sense of urgency, and a “no excuses” mentality. People who get things done rather than explain why they can't. This personality type lines up with our obsession with hiring drivers rather than passengers, as we saw in an earlier chapter.

You will have numerous jobs, titles, and pay grades over your career, not just between companies but within companies. At each step, be thoughtful and purposeful rather than opportunistic. Sometimes it might be best to take a step backward in title or pay to set up a better path forward. Your peer group will try to influence your career decisions, but be your own person. Steer your own ship. Never put your personal decisions to a vote.

What does that mean? For starters, never go into a board meeting, tee up a topic, and ask them what they think. Instead, prep carefully with your team in advance, and then go in and tell them what you think. If they then respond with questions or concerns, that's fine. You have started the meeting by filling a vacuum, instead of creating one. That will make it much harder for them to dominate the discussion.

This is essentially a people's contest. On the side of the Union it is a struggle for maintaining in the world that form and substance of government whose leading object is to elevate the condition of men; to lift artificial weights from all shoulders; to clear the paths of laudable pursuits for all; to afford all an unfettered start and a fair chance in the race of life. Yielding to partial and temporary departures, from necessity, this is the leading object of the Government for whose existence we contend. I am most happy to believe that the plain people understand and appreciate this. It is worthy of note that while, in this the Government's hour of trial, large numbers of those in the army and navy who have been favored with the offices have resigned and proved false to the hand which

This table represents the degree of hypertension associated with different blood pressure levels. Note that, except for Stage 2, experts suggest that hypertension should be diagnosed only after at least two elevated blood pressure readings taken during different office visits. If your systolic and diastolic readings fall into different categories, the higher category defines your blood pressure classification. These classifications do not apply if you are taking antihypertensive drugs or are acutely ill.

Night is an element of love; like fog. It liberates space, lets freshness cross it. Its magic elevates the body, brings to the surface the mystery of just being alive, being. With or without stars and galaxies, the sky becomes a private territory—the imagination’s own scope. These are moments when one reaches all there is between the moon and oneself. — Etel Adnan, Etel Adnan: on Love and the Cost We Are Not Willing to Pay Today (Hatje Cantz Verlag GmbH & Co KG, 2011)

Bar9ine Coffee Cart & Mobile Bar offers a variety of classic and craft beverages. Our goal is to elevate your beverage experience. We come to you with our mobile coffee and beverage bar. A variety of options are available to cater to your specific event. From high-class service to elegant beverages, Bar9ine is perfectly convenient for any occasion including weddings, corporate event catering, and much more!

Twenge finds that there are just two activities that are significantly correlated with depression and other suicide-related outcomes (such as considering suicide, making a plan, or making an actual attempt): electronic device use (such as smartphone, tablet, or computer) and watching TV. On the other hand, there are five activities that have inverse relationships with depression (meaning that kids who spend more hours per week on these activities show lower rates of depression): sports and other forms of exercise, attending religious services, reading books and other print media, in-person social interactions, and doing homework. Notice anything about the difference between the two lists? Screen versus nonscreen. When kids use screens for two hours of their leisure time per day or less, there is no elevate risk of depression. But above two hours per day, the risks grow larger with each additional hour of screen time. Conversely, kids who spend more time off screens, especially if they are engaged in nonscreen social activities, are at lower risk for depression and suicidal thinking.

I've been in companies that thought employees should be number one because they reasoned that well‐treated employees would therefore treat customers the best. Why be indirect about it? We don't have any reason to exist without our customers.

At Data Domain, we saw many of our competitors second‐guessing their strategy and tweaking their plans for no good reason. We left them behind at least in part because we didn't do that. We kept our heads down, trusted our strategy, and focused on getting better and better at executing it.

Even those who have never interacted with X will hear through the grapevine that X is abusive, unscrupulous, dishonest, or whatever the problem might be. If such behavior goes unaddressed—or even worse, if it is rewarded with a promotion for delivering strong business results—people across the company will conclude that the values and the inspirational posters are bullshit. Everyone will know that the real, unspoken culture is “Do whatever you want, as long as you make your numbers.

Culture results from consequences, good and bad, as well as from the lack of consequences. If you want a strong culture, you will have to make hard decisions to let certain people go for the greater good. There's no way to avoid those cases.

Not surprisingly, his answer was his sales team. The answer I was hoping for, however, was his leadership peer group, meaning his counterparts in engineering, marketing, finance, services, and so on, because that's the team that really runs any company. The sales team by itself is a just one silo within the bigger organization.

Many companies are plagued by good execution within individual silos but terrible execution across silos.

Personally, I considered it a failure on my part if executives had to come to me to adjudicate.

But if you as the leader keep stressing the importance of going direct, you can break everyone's habit of staying within silos. After a while, people will engage laterally just as easily as they do inside their own teams.

Hiring decisions are naturally fraught with bias because so many human qualities are impossible to measure objectively. It's forgivable that some hiring decisions end up as failures, but what's not forgivable is refusing to recognize, acknowledge, and take action on hiring mistakes. Even after decades of experience, I have repeatedly hired executives who were successful in their past roles, well respected, well liked—and nevertheless turned out to be terrible hires. It happens to all of us!

Whenever there are glaring discrepancies in evaluating one of our executives, we double down on analysis rather than jumping to conclusions. There must be a reason why people are having very different experiences with this person. With enough time devoted to discussion, we always get to the bottom of it. Analysis first—especially when someone's future career is at stake.

Data Domain, we didn't hire our first full‐time salesperson until well into my tenure as CEO. First, we had to establish a good product‐market fit before we could attempt to cross the proverbial chasm between early adopters and the mass market—a concept first described in Geoff Moore's book Crossing the Chasm. We weren't ready yet to establish a systemic, repeatable sales process that would yield consistent results.

Selling in these initial stages is more akin to business development than a defined, repeatable sales process. In a business development situation, every aspect is interpreted case by case, and we adapt to the circumstances at hand. Pricing and contract terms are flexible. Selling, by contrast, is a systemic, highly standardized process.

One trap that leaders often fall into is failing to adjust to the natural life cycle of a company as it grows and evolves. If you try to run a mature, 500‐person company like a 10‐person start‐up, you will almost certainly fail. But, paradoxically, if you lose all the scrappiness of a 10‐person start‐up, your mature company may never reach its full potential.

The formative stage is treacherous and the subject of much study and analysis by management experts. Notably, as previously mentioned, consultant Geoffrey Moore coined the term “crossing the chasm” back in 1991 to describe the unique challenges and activities associated with this phase of a start‐up's evolution. Lots of companies make it far enough to attract some early adopters, and they have enough funding to pursue a much bigger market. But then they fall into the chasm between appealing to a narrow niche audience and building a large and sustainable customer base.

You'll know when it's time to ramp up when customers are virtually ripping the product from your hands. If you feel overwhelmed by demand, you need to mentally adjust to the next stage of development.

We are all prisoners of our past to some extent. We bring our frame of reference, shaped by our unique combination of experiences, into any new role. But the most valuable leaders are those who can combine the scrappiness of a start‐up leader with the organizational and diplomatic discipline needed in a big company. Those who can scale up or scale down as required. Those who can set aside their experience when necessary, apply first principles, and think through situations in their elementary form.

Similarly, I ask our teams what's the one thing we should be doing urgently that we are not doing for some reason? This is to avoid getting too engrossed in day‐to‐day activities and failing to see the forest for the trees. Always be paranoid about what you are not doing but should be. And, conversely, what are you doing that's of marginal value but crowding our more essential ways to use our time and resources?