“
The key is in accepting your thoughts, all of them, even the bad ones. Accept thoughts, but don’t become them. Understand, for instance, that having a sad thought, even having a continual succession of sad thoughts, is not the same as being a sad person. You can walk through a storm and feel the wind but you know you are not the wind.
”
”
Matt Haig (Reasons to Stay Alive)
“
Things get done only if the data we gather can inform and inspire those in a position to make difference.
”
”
Mike Schmoker (Results: The Key to Continuous School Improvement)
“
The key to happiness - or that even more desired thing, calmness - lies not in always thinking happy thoughts. No. That is impossible. No mind on earth with any kind of intelligence could spend a lifetime enjoying only happy thoughts. They key is in accepting your thoughts, all of them, even the bad ones. Accept thoughts, but don't become them.
Understand, for instance, that having a sad thought, even having a continual succession of sad thoughts, is not the same as being a sad person.
”
”
Matt Haig (Reasons to Stay Alive)
“
Success lasts a lifetime but stops at the end of your life. Significance lasts many lifetimes and continues long after you’re gone.
”
”
Mensah Oteh (Unlocking Life's Treasure Chest: Wisdom keys to keep you inspired, encouraged, motivated and focused)
“
Wisdom is really the key to wealth. With great wisdom, comes great wealth and success. Rather than pursuing wealth, pursue wisdom. The aggressive pursuit of wealth can lead to disappointment.
Wisdom is defined as the quality of having experience, and being able to discern or judge what is true, right, or lasting. Wisdom is basically the practical application of knowledge.
Rich people have small TVs and big libraries, and poor people have small libraries and big TVs.
Become completely focused on one subject and study the subject for a long period of time. Don't skip around from one subject to the next.
The problem is generally not money. Jesus taught that the problem was attachment to possessions and dependence on money rather than dependence on God.
Those who love people, acquire wealth so they can give generously. After all, money feeds, shelters, and clothes people.
They key is to work extremely hard for a short period of time (1-5 years), create abundant wealth, and then make money work hard for you through wise investments that yield a passive income for life.
Don't let the opinions of the average man sway you. Dream, and he thinks you're crazy. Succeed, and he thinks you're lucky. Acquire wealth, and he thinks you're greedy. Pay no attention. He simply doesn't understand.
Failure is success if we learn from it. Continuing failure eventually leads to success. Those who dare to fail miserably can achieve greatly.
Whenever you pursue a goal, it should be with complete focus. This means no interruptions.
Only when one loves his career and is skilled at it can he truly succeed.
Never rush into an investment without prior research and deliberation.
With preferred shares, investors are guaranteed a dividend forever, while common stocks have variable dividends.
Some regions with very low or no income taxes include the following: Nevada, Texas, Wyoming, Delaware, South Dakota, Cyprus, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Panama, San Marino, Seychelles, Isle of Man, Channel Islands, Curaçao, Bahamas, British Virgin Islands, Brunei, Monaco, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Bermuda, Kuwait, Oman, Andorra, Cayman Islands, Belize, Vanuatu, and Campione d'Italia.
There is only one God who is infinite and supreme above all things. Do not replace that infinite one with finite idols. As frustrated as you may feel due to your life circumstances, do not vent it by cursing God or unnecessarily uttering his name.
Greed leads to poverty. Greed inclines people to act impulsively in hopes of gaining more.
The benefit of giving to the poor is so great that a beggar is actually doing the giver a favor by allowing the person to give. The more I give away, the more that comes back.
Earn as much as you can. Save as much as you can. Invest as much as you can. Give as much as you can.
”
”
H.W. Charles (The Money Code: Become a Millionaire With the Ancient Jewish Code)
“
If one is praying every day, as he should, for enlightenment and guidance, the one certain thing is that he will not go on holding to the same ideas as he grows older, but that he will be continually revising, enlarging, and expanding them. He will die daily, as the man he is, to be reborn bigger and wiser and better on the morrow.
”
”
Emmet Fox (The Sermon on the Mount: The Key to Success in Life - A Practical Approach to Jesus's Teachings, Personal Transformation, and the Power of Positive Thinking in the Sermon on the Mount)
“
No methodology can guarantee success. But a good methodology can provide a feedback loop for continual improvement and learning.
”
”
Ash Maurya (Scaling Lean: Mastering the Key Metrics for Startup Growth)
“
Never stop learning. View technology as a means to personal growth, and seek out opportunities to continually learn in your retirement years.
”
”
Fritz Gilbert (Keys to a Successful Retirement: Staying Happy, Active, and Productive in Your Retired Years)
“
I’m convinced that parents are the most essential key to unlocking the next generation’s curiosity, creativity, and innovation. So much can be said for providing a home full of books, art supplies, open-ended toys, and freedom to wander outdoors. Being stingy with screen time and generous with our attention to a child’s natural interests can translate the message to him or her that learning matters better than any standardized test. And for parents like myself, this may require questioning the same method by which they were educated. Not only has our modern method of education continually declined in its success since we ourselves went through the system; it has left us wanting more—more education for ourselves, and definitely more for our kids.
”
”
Tsh Oxenreider (Notes from a Blue Bike: The Art of Living Intentionally in a Chaotic World)
“
She dances,
She dances around the burning flames with passion,
Under the same dull stars,
Under the same hell with crimson embers crashing,
Under the same silver chains that wires,
All her beauty and who she is inside,
She's left with the loneliness of human existence,
She's left questioning how she's survived,
She's left with this awakening of brutal resilience,
Her true beauty that she denies,
As much she's like to deny it,
As much as it continues to shine,
That she doesn't even have to admit,
Because we all know it's true,
Her glory and success,
After all she's been through,
Her triumph and madness,
AND YET,
SHE STANDS.
Broken legs- but she's still standing,
Still dancing in this void,
You must wonder how she's still dancing,
You must wonder how she's not destroyed,
She doesn't even begin to drown within the flames,
But little do you realize,
Within these chains,
She weeps and she cries,
But she still goes on,
And just you thought you could stop her?
You thought you'd be the one?
Well, let me tell you, because you thought wrong.
Nothing will ever silence her,
Because I KNOW,
I know that she is admiringly strong,
Her undeniable beauty,
The triumph of her song,
She's shining bright like a ruby,
Reflecting in the golden sand,
She's shining brighter like no other,
She's far more than human or man,
AND YET,
SHE STANDS.
She continues to dance with free-spirit,
Even though she's locked in these chains,
Though she never desired to change it,
Even throughout the agonizing pain,
Throughout all the distress,
Anxiety, depression, tears and sorrow,
She still dances so beautify in her dress,
She looks forward to tomorrow,
Not because of a fresh start but a new page,
A new day full of opportunities,
Despite being trapped in her cage,
She still smiles after being beaten so brutally,
A smile that could brighten anyone's day,
She's so much more than anyone could ask for,
She's so much more than I could ever say,
She's a girl absolutely everyone should adore,
She never gets in the way,
Even after her hearts been broken,
Even after the way she has been treated,
After all these severe emotions,
After all all the blood she's bled,
AND YET,
SHE STANDS.
Even if sometimes she wonders why she's still here,
She wonders why she's not dead,
But there's this one thing that had been here throughout every tear,
Throughout the blazing fire leaving her cheeks cherry red,
Everyday this thing has given her a place to exist,
This thing, person, these people,
Like warm sunlight it had so softly kissed,
The apples of her cheeks,
Even when she's feeling feeble,
Always there at her worst and at her best
Because of you and all the other people,
She has this thing deep inside her chest,
That she will cherish forever,
Even once you're gone,
Because today she smiles like no other,
Even when the sun sets at dawn,
Because today is the day,
She just wants you to remember,
In dark and stormy weather,
It gets better.
And after what she's been through she knows,
Throughout the highs and the lows,
Because of you and all others,
After crossing the seas,
She has come to understand,
You have formed this key,
This key to free her from this land,
This endless gorge that swallowed her,
Her and other men,
She had never knew, nor had she planned,
That because of you,
She's free.
AND YET,
THIS VERY DAY,
SHE DANCES.
EVEN IN THE RAIN.
”
”
Gabrielle Renee
“
The key questions and challenges that we must all continue to pose and remind this key sector (the media) should be, 'Do you realize the power you have, to build and to destroy; to promote success or failure; to bring life or death to a cause or talent; to give a platform or take it away?
”
”
Archibald Marwizi (Making Success Deliberate)
“
Fail Fast: break items into small chunks which allows for more experimentation, leading to more chances for success Fail Forward: learn from what didn’t work, but continue toward what will work Fail Better: the best way to increase our amount of learning is to increase our amount of failure
”
”
Erik Qualman (Digital Leader: 5 Simple Keys to Success and Influence)
“
In particular, interrogative e-mails like these generate an initial instinct to dash off the quickest possible response that will clear the message—temporarily—out of your inbox. A quick response will, in the short term, provide you with some minor relief because you’re bouncing the responsibility implied by the message off your court and back onto the sender’s. This relief, however, is short-lived, as this responsibility will continue to bounce back again and again, continually sapping your time and attention. I suggest, therefore, that the right strategy when faced with a question of this type is to pause a moment before replying and take the time to answer the following key prompt: What is the project represented by this message, and what is the most efficient (in terms of messages generated) process for bringing this project to a successful conclusion? Once you’ve answered this question for yourself, replace a quick response with one that takes the time to describe the process you identified, points out the current step, and emphasizes the step that comes next. I call this the process-centric approach to e-mail, and it’s designed to minimize both the number of e-mails you receive and the amount of mental clutter they generate.
”
”
Cal Newport (Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World)
“
Our tendency is to try something a few times, and if it works, it gets reinforced, and we continue to do it; if it doesn’t work, we abandon it. In psychology this is called the law of effects—we tend to keep doing things we are rewarded for doing. The opposite, however, is also true: we tend to avoid what punishes us or gives us pain.
”
”
Andy Andrews (The Seven Decisions: Understanding the Keys to Personal Success)
“
It’s a key responsibility of the leader, in any field of endeavor (athletic team, military, or business) to assure the successful continuity or ability of his organization to carry on should he die or become incapacitated. It’s his duty to plan for such a contingency out of loyalty to his people and, if in a business endeavor, loyalty to his customers and, clients.
”
”
Harold G. Moore (Hal Moore on Leadership: Winning When Outgunned and Outmanned)
“
Decision #7: I know my purpose and take daily action in the direction of my vision. Consistency is key. If you continually take steps in the right direction, you will eventually arrive at your destination. Consistent action yields consistent results. “For a dream comes through much activity, and a fool’s voice is known by his many words,” King Solomon promised in the book of Ecclesiastes (5:3 NKJV).
”
”
Valorie Burton (Successful Women Think Differently: 9 Habits to Make You Happier, Healthier, and More Resilient)
“
Unbelievable” is the key word. That a science is incomplete or has flaws is what one expects but that the whole of the establishment opinion on diet-heart is totally meaningless, is hard to understand. How could they keep doing the same experiment over and over without success? How could that be? How could they get away with it? Why would they want to get away with it? New trials continue to show nothing. Well, not nothing. They clearly show that low-fat is ineffective for weight loss or just about everything else.
”
”
Richard David Feinman (The World Turned Upside Down: The Second Low-Carbohydrate Revolution)
“
Mental toughness is the ability to focus on and execute solutions, especially in the face of adversity.
Greatness rarely happens on accident. If you want to achieve excellence, you will have to act like you really want it. How? Quite simply: by dedicating time and energy into consistently doing what needs to be done.
Excuses are the antithesis of accountability.
Important decisions aren’t supposed to be easy, but don’t let that stop you from making them.
When it comes to decisions, decide to always decide.
The second we stop growing, we start dying. Stagnation easily morphs into laziness, and once a person stops trying to grow and improve, he or she is nothing more than mediocre.
Develop the no-excuse mentality.
Do not let anything interrupt those tasks that are most critical for growth in the important areas of your life. Find a way, no matter what, to prioritize your daily process goals, even when you have a viable excuse to justify not doing it.
“If you don’t evaluate yourself, how in the heck are you ever going to know what you are doing well and what you need to improve?
Those who are most successful evaluate themselves daily. Daily evaluation is the key to daily success, and daily success is the key to success in life.
If you want to achieve greatness, push yourself to the limits of your potential by continuously looking for improvements.
Within 60 seconds, replace all problem-focused thought with solution-focused thinking.
When people focus on problems, their problems actually grow and reproduce. When you train your mind to focus on solutions, guess what expands?
Talking about your problems will lead to more problems, not to solutions. If you want solutions, start thinking and talking about your solutions.
Believe that every problem, no matter how large, has at the very least a +1 solution, you will find it easier to stay on the solution side of the chalkboard.
When you set your mind to do something, find a way to get it done…no matter what!
If you come up short on your discipline, keep fighting, kicking, and scratching to improve. Find the nearest mirror and look yourself in the eye while you tell yourself, “There is no excuse, and this will not happen again.” Get outside help if needed, but never, ever give up on being disciplined.
Greatness will not magically appear in your life without significant accountability, focus, and optimism on your part. Are you ready to commit fully to turning your potential into a leadership performance that will propel you to greatness.
Mental toughness is understanding that the only true obstacles in life are self-imposed. You always have the choice to stay down or rise above. In truth, the only real obstacles to your ultimate success will come from within yourself and fall into one of the following three categories: apathy, laziness and fear.
Laziness breeds more laziness. When you start the day by sleeping past the alarm or cutting corners in the morning, you’re more likely to continue that slothful attitude later in the day.
”
”
Jason Selk (Executive Toughness: The Mental-Training Program to Increase Your Leadership Performance)
“
Here are the four keys to successful commitments: 1. Strong desire: In order to fully commit to something, you need a clear and personally compelling reason. Without a strong desire you will struggle when the implementation gets difficult, but with a compelling desire, seemingly insurmountable obstacles are seen as challenges to be met. The desired end result needs to be meaningful enough to get you through the hard times and keep you on track. 2. Keystone actions: Once you have an intense desire to accomplish something, you then need to identify the core actions that will produce the result you’re after. In today’s world, many of us have become spectators rather than participants. We must remember that it’s what we do that counts. In most endeavors there are often many activities that help you accomplish your goal. However there are usually a few core activities that account for the majority of the results, and in some cases there are only one or two keystone actions that ultimately produce the result. It is critical that you identify these keystones and focus on them. 3. Count the costs: Commitments require sacrifice. In any effort there are benefits and costs. Too often we claim to commit to something without considering the costs, the hardships that will have to be overcome to accomplish your desire. Costs can include time, money, risk, uncertainty, loss of comfort, and so on. Identifying the costs before you commit allows you to consciously choose whether you are willing to pay the price of your commitment. When you face any of these costs, it is extremely helpful to recognize that you anticipated them and decided that reaching your goal was worth it. 4. Act on commitments, not feelings: There will be times when you won’t feel like doing the critical activities. We’ve all been there. Getting out of bed at 5:30 a.m. to jog in the winter cold can be daunting, especially when you’re in a toasty warm bed. It is during these times that you will need to learn to act on your commitments instead of your feelings. If you don’t, you will never build any momentum and will get stuck continually restarting or, as is so often the case, giving up. Learning to do the things you need to do, regardless of how you feel, is a core discipline for success.
”
”
Brian P. Moran (The 12 Week Year: Get More Done in 12 Weeks than Others Do in 12 Months)
“
She dances,
She dances around the burning flames with passion,
Under the same dull stars,
Under the same hell with crimson embers crashing,
Under the same silver chains that wires,
All her beauty and who she is inside,
She's left with the loneliness of human existence,
She's left questioning how she's survived,
She's left with this awakening of brutal resilience,
Her true beauty that she denies,
As much she's like to deny it,
As much as it continues to shine,
That she doesn't even have to admit,
Because we all know it's true,
Her glory and success,
After all she's been through,
Her triumph and madness,
AND YET,
SHE STANDS.
Broken legs- but she's still standing,
Still dancing in this void,
You must wonder how she's still dancing,
You must wonder how she's not destroyed,
She doesn't even begin to drown within the flames,
But little do you realize,
Within these chains,
She weeps and she cries,
But she still goes on,
And just you thought you could stop her?
You thought you'd be the one?
Well, let me tell you, because you thought wrong.
Nothing will ever silence her,
Because I KNOW,
I know that she is admiringly strong,
Her undeniable beauty,
The triumph of her song,
She's shining bright like a ruby,
Reflecting in the golden sand,
She's shining brighter like no other,
She's far more than human or man,
AND YET,
SHE STANDS.
She continues to dance with free-spirit,
Even though she's locked in these chains,
Though she never desired to change it,
Even throughout the agonizing pain,
Throughout all the distress,
Anxiety, depression, tears and sorrow,
She still dances so beautify in her dress,
She looks forward to tomorrow,
Not because of a fresh start but a new page,
A new day full of opportunities,
Despite being trapped in her cage,
She still smiles after being beaten so brutally,
A smile that could brighten anyone's day,
She's so much more than anyone could ask for,
She's so much more than I could ever say,
She's a girl absolutely everyone should adore,
She never gets in the way,
Even after her hearts been broken,
Even after the way she has been treated,
After all these severe emotions,
After all all the blood she's bled,
AND YET,
SHE STANDS.
Even if sometimes she wonders why she's still here,
She wonders why she's not dead,
But there's this one thing that had been here throughout every tear,
Throughout the blazing fire leaving her cheeks cherry red,
Everyday this thing has given her a place to exist,
This thing, person, these people,
Like warm sunlight it had so softly kissed,
The apples of her cheeks,
Even when she's feeling feeble,
Always there at her worst and at her best
Because of you and all the other people,
She has this thing deep inside her chest,
That she will cherish forever,
Even once you're gone,
Because today she smiles like no other,
Even when the sun sets at dawn,
Because today is the day,
She just wants you to remember,
In dark and stormy weather,
It gets better.
And after what she's been through she knows,
Throughout the highs and the lows,
Because of you and all others,
After crossing the seas,
She has come to understand,
You have formed this key,
This key to free her from this land,
This endless gorge that swallowed her,
Her and other men,
She had never knew, nor had she planned,
That because of you,
She's free.
AND YET,
THIS VERY DAY,
SHE STILL DANCES,
EVEN IN THE RAIN.
”
”
Gabrielle Renee
“
The Portal Potion Success! After weeks and weeks of trying, I’ve finally discovered the correct ingredients for the potion I’d hoped to create for my son! With just a few drops, the potion turns any written work into a portal to the world it describes. Even with my ability to create portals to and from the Otherworld, I never thought it would be possible to create a substance that allowed me passage to any world I wished. My son will get to see the places and meet the characters he’s spent his whole childhood dreaming about! And best of all, I’ll get to watch his happiness soar as it happens! The ingredients are much simpler than I imagined, but difficult to obtain. Their purposes are more metaphysical than practical, so it took some imagination to get the concoction right. The first requirement is a branch from the oldest tree in the woods. To bring the pages to life, I figured the potion would need the very thing that brought the paper to life in the first place. And what else has more life than an ancient tree? The second ingredient is a feather from the finest pheasant in the sky. This will guarantee your potion has no limits, like a bird in flight. It will ensure you can travel to lands far and wide, beyond your imagination. The third component is a liquefied lock and key that belonged to a true love. Just as this person unlocked your heart to a life of love, it will open the door of the literary dimensions your heart desires to experience. The fourth ingredient is two weeks of moonlight. Just as the moon causes waves in the ocean, the moonlight will stir your potion to life. Last, but most important, give the potion a spark of magic to activate all the ingredients. Send it a beam of joy straight from your heart. The potion does not work on any biographies or history books, but purely on works that have been imagined. Now, I must warn about the dangers of entering a fictional world: 1. Time only exists as long as the story continues. Be sure to leave the book before the story ends, or you may disappear as the story concludes. 2. Each world is made of only what the author describes. Do not expect the characters to have any knowledge of our world or the Otherworld. 3. Beware of the story’s villains. Unlike people in our world or the Otherworld, most literary villains are created to be heartless and stripped of all morals, so do not expect any mercy should you cross paths with one. 4. The book you choose to enter will act as your entrance and exit. Be certain nothing happens to it; it is your only way out. The
”
”
Chris Colfer (Beyond the Kingdoms (The Land of Stories, #4))
“
MARCH 25 From Glory to Glory But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord. 2 CORINTHIANS 3:18 KJV THE SCRIPTURE SAYS “we are God’s workmanship” (Ephesians 2:10), which implies that you are a “work in progress.” Throughout our lives, God is continually shaping us into the people He wants us to be. The key to future success is to not be discouraged about your past or present while you are in the process of being “completed.” God loves you unconditionally. You may not understand everything you are going through right now. But hold your head high, knowing that God is in control and He has a great plan and purpose for your life. Your dreams may not have turned out exactly as you’d hoped, but the Bible says that God’s ways are better and higher than our ways.
”
”
Joel Osteen (Your Best Life Begins Each Morning: Devotions to Start Every New Day of the Year)
“
The problem, Augustine came to believe, is that if you think you can organize your own salvation you are magnifying the very sin that keeps you from it. To believe that you can be captain of your own life is to suffer the sin of pride. What is pride? These days the word “pride” has positive connotations. It means feeling good about yourself and the things associated with you. When we use it negatively, we think of the arrogant person, someone who is puffed up and egotistical, boasting and strutting about. But that is not really the core of pride. That is just one way the disease of pride presents itself. By another definition, pride is building your happiness around your accomplishments, using your work as the measure of your worth. It is believing that you can arrive at fulfillment on your own, driven by your own individual efforts. Pride can come in bloated form. This is the puffed-up Donald Trump style of pride. This person wants people to see visible proof of his superiority. He wants to be on the VIP list. In conversation, he boasts, he brags. He needs to see his superiority reflected in other people’s eyes. He believes that this feeling of superiority will eventually bring him peace. That version is familiar. But there are other proud people who have low self-esteem. They feel they haven’t lived up to their potential. They feel unworthy. They want to hide and disappear, to fade into the background and nurse their own hurts. We don’t associate them with pride, but they are still, at root, suffering from the same disease. They are still yoking happiness to accomplishment; it’s just that they are giving themselves a D– rather than an A+. They tend to be just as solipsistic, and in their own way as self-centered, only in a self-pitying and isolating way rather than in an assertive and bragging way. One key paradox of pride is that it often combines extreme self-confidence with extreme anxiety. The proud person often appears self-sufficient and egotistical but is really touchy and unstable. The proud person tries to establish self-worth by winning a great reputation, but of course this makes him utterly dependent on the gossipy and unstable crowd for his own identity. The proud person is competitive. But there are always other people who might do better. The most ruthlessly competitive person in the contest sets the standard that all else must meet or get left behind. Everybody else has to be just as monomaniacally driven to success. One can never be secure. As Dante put it, the “ardor to outshine / Burned in my bosom with a kind of rage.” Hungry for exaltation, the proud person has a tendency to make himself ridiculous. Proud people have an amazing tendency to turn themselves into buffoons, with a comb-over that fools nobody, with golden bathroom fixtures that impress nobody, with name-dropping stories that inspire nobody. Every proud man, Augustine writes, “heeds himself, and he who pleases himself seems great to himself. But he who pleases himself pleases a fool, for he himself is a fool when he is pleasing himself.”16 Pride, the minister and writer Tim Keller has observed, is unstable because other people are absentmindedly or intentionally treating the proud man’s ego with less reverence than he thinks it deserves. He continually finds that his feelings are hurt. He is perpetually putting up a front. The self-cultivator spends more energy trying to display the fact that he is happy—posting highlight reel Facebook photos and all the rest—than he does actually being happy. Augustine suddenly came to realize that the solution to his problem would come only after a transformation more fundamental than any he had previously entertained, a renunciation of the very idea that he could be the source of his own solution.
”
”
David Brooks (The Road to Character)
“
You can change your patterns. You can change your roles, but you can only do that by altering your environment—whether that means having frank conversations to reestablish boundaries and expectations, or whether that means physically separating yourself from certain individuals or places. If you remain stuck in the same roles and patterns, it doesn’t matter how much willpower you exert; your efforts will continue to be confined within the limiting context of your role. You’ll remain hostage to a context that you mistakenly believe to be fixed identity. But you absolutely can change your roles, even abruptly and dramatically. People mistakenly believe they must be fully qualified to take on a particular role. But this is false. You actually become qualified through the role itself. For example, when Lauren and I became foster parents, we didn’t have any parenting experience. Sure, I read several books on the topic, many with smart ideas and innovative solutions to try. But theory and experience are two radically different things. I imagine all first-time parents go through a similar trajectory—you learn through doing.
”
”
Benjamin P. Hardy (Willpower Doesn't Work: Discover the Hidden Keys to Success)
“
People, especially those in charge, rarely invite you into their offices and give freely of their time. Instead, you have to do something unique, compelling, even funny or a bit daring, to earn it. Even if you happen to be an exceptionally well-rounded person who possesses all of the scrappy qualities discussed so far, it’s still important to be prepared, dig deep, do the prep work, and think on your feet. Harry Gordon Selfridge, who founded the London-based department store Selfridges, knew the value of doing his homework. Selfridge, an American from Chicago, traveled to London in 1906 with the hope of building his “dream store.” He did just that in 1909, and more than a century later, his stores continue to serve customers in London, Manchester, and Birmingham. Selfridges’ success and staying power is rooted in the scrappy efforts of Harry Selfridge himself, a creative marketer who exhibited “a revolutionary understanding of publicity and the theatre of retail,” as he is described on the Selfridges’ Web site. His department store was known for creating events to attract special clientele, engaging shoppers in a way other retailers had never done before, catering to the holidays, adapting to cultural trends, and changing with the times and political movements such as the suffragists. Selfridge was noted to have said, “People will sit up and take notice of you if you will sit up and take notice of what makes them sit up and take notice.” How do you get people to take notice? How do you stand out in a positive way in order to make things happen? The curiosity and imagination Selfridge employed to successfully build his retail stores can be just as valuable for you to embrace in your circumstances. Perhaps you have landed a meeting, interview, or a quick coffee date with a key decision maker at a company that has sparked your interest. To maximize the impression you’re going to make, you have to know your audience. That means you must respectfully learn what you can about the person, their industry, or the culture of their organization. In fact, it pays to become familiar not only with the person’s current position but also their background, philosophies, triumphs, failures, and major breakthroughs. With that information in hand, you are less likely to waste the precious time you have and more likely to engage in genuine and meaningful conversation.
”
”
Terri L. Sjodin (Scrappy: A Little Book About Choosing to Play Big)
“
Key to the success of many with ADHD is finding the “right life” in which to live. This means a job in which their particular talents for nonlinear thinking and quick emergency response are prized, and a spouse who can appreciate, or at least learn to live with, an often uneven distribution of work within the relationship. Without these things, many with ADHD feel that they don’t really fit into the world, or that the face that they put forward in order to fit in is false. The other critical factor for the success of an ADHD spouse in a relationship is for both partners to continue to respect differences and act on that respect. Here’s what one woman with ADHD says about living a life in which others assume that “different” is not worthy of respect: I think [my husband] uses the ADD as an excuse to be bossy and stuff sometimes but I find it very upsetting and hard on my self esteem to have my disorder and learning disabilities used that way. We do have very different perspectives but reality is perspective. Just because I see things differently from someone else doesn’t make one wrong or right…how I experience life is colored by my perception, it is what it is. I hate how people try to invalidate my thoughts feelings and perceptions because they are different from theirs. Like telling me [since] they feel…different[ly] from me [that their feelings] should make me magically change! It doesn’t work that way. Even if my ADD makes me see or remember something “not right” it’s still MY reality. It is like those movies where the hero has something crazy going on where they experience reality differently from everyone else.
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Melissa Orlov (The ADHD Effect on Marriage: Understand and Rebuild Your Relationship in Six Steps)
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Performance measure. Throughout this book, the term performance measure refers to an indicator used by management to measure, report, and improve performance. Performance measures are classed as key result indicators, result indicators, performance indicators, or key performance indicators. Critical success factors (CSFs). CSFs are the list of issues or aspects of organizational performance that determine ongoing health, vitality, and wellbeing. Normally there are between five and eight CSFs in any organization. Success factors. A list of 30 or so issues or aspects of organizational performance that management knows are important in order to perform well in any given sector/ industry. Some of these success factors are much more important; these are known as critical success factors. Balanced scorecard. A term first introduced by Kaplan and Norton describing how you need to measure performance in a more holistic way. You need to see an organization’s performance in a number of different perspectives. For the purposes of this book, there are six perspectives in a balanced scorecard (see Exhibit 1.7). Oracles and young guns. In an organization, oracles are those gray-haired individuals who have seen it all before. They are often considered to be slow, ponderous, and, quite frankly, a nuisance by the new management. Often they are retired early or made redundant only to be rehired as contractors at twice their previous salary when management realizes they have lost too much institutional knowledge. Their considered pace is often a reflection that they can see that an exercise is futile because it has failed twice before. The young guns are fearless and precocious leaders of the future who are not afraid to go where angels fear to tread. These staff members have not yet achieved management positions. The mixing of the oracles and young guns during a KPI project benefits both parties and the organization. The young guns learn much and the oracles rediscover their energy being around these live wires. Empowerment. For the purposes of this book, empowerment is an outcome of a process that matches competencies, skills, and motivations with the required level of autonomy and responsibility in the workplace. Senior management team (SMT). The team comprised of the CEO and all direct reports. Better practice. The efficient and effective way management and staff undertake business activities in all key processes: leadership, planning, customers, suppliers, community relations, production and supply of products and services, employee wellbeing, and so forth. Best practice. A commonly misused term, especially because what is best practice for one organization may not be best practice for another, albeit they are in the same sector. Best practice is where better practices, when effectively linked together, lead to sustainable world-class outcomes in quality, customer service, flexibility, timeliness, innovation, cost, and competitiveness. Best-practice organizations commonly use the latest time-saving technologies, always focus on the 80/20, are members of quality management and continuous improvement professional bodies, and utilize benchmarking. Exhibit 1.10 shows the contents of the toolkit used by best-practice organizations to achieve world-class performance. EXHIBIT 1.10 Best-Practice Toolkit Benchmarking. An ongoing, systematic process to search for international better practices, compare against them, and then introduce them, modified where necessary, into your organization. Benchmarking may be focused on products, services, business practices, and processes of recognized leading organizations.
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Douglas W. Hubbard (Business Intelligence Sampler: Book Excerpts by Douglas Hubbard, David Parmenter, Wayne Eckerson, Dalton Cervo and Mark Allen, Ed Barrows and Andy Neely)
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The key to overcoming the ill effects of a love of comfort is a commitment to continual growth and skill development. One of the saddest things I see in my work is when an individual achieves a certain level of success in their career and, out of comfort or overconfidence, stops focusing on developing their skills.
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Anonymous
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A continuing thread of Europe’s transformation over the seven decades since 1950 has been the central importance of Germany. Change here, in the country that did more than any other to destroy the continent during the first half of the twentieth century, has been especially profound. Despite its destruction as a nation state at the end of the Second World War, Germany has remained at the heart of Europe’s development – central to post-war economic recovery, central to the Cold War, central to the ending of the Cold War, central to widening European integration, central to the creation of the Euro, central to the crisis of the Eurozone, central to the migration crisis, and central to the still-embryonic steps to reform the European Union after its recent serious travails. In the meantime Germany has become a vital pillar of stable liberal democracy, it presides over Europe’s strongest economy, has overcome forty years of division to attain national unity, and has reluctantly acquired the mantle of European leadership. Germany’s own transformation has played a key role in Europe’s post-war story – and is far from the least successful part.
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Ian Kershaw (Roller-Coaster: Europe, 1950-2017)
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digital marketing agency phoenix
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It's not unreasonable [...] to suppose that some kind of cosmic "sky-ground" religion lay behind the alignments to the solstices and the equinoxes at Watson Brake and at the other early sites--a religion sufficiently robust to ensure the continuous successful transmission of a system of geometry, astronomy, and architecture over thousands of years.
John Clark is in no doubt. 'The evidence,' he says, 'suggests very old and widely disseminated knowledge about how to build large sites. The building lore persisted remarkably intact for so long that I think we can, and must, assume that it was part of special knowledge tied to ritual practice.'
Where did this special knowledge come from before it appeared at Watson Brake?
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Graham Hancock (America Before: The Key to Earth's Lost Civilization)
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During the “Bay of Pigs Invasion” One Douglas “B-26” airplane with counterfeit Cuban markings was fired on and crashed into the sea about 30 miles north of the island. Another of these aircraft, which was also damaged but still air worthy, continued north and landed at Boca Chica Key Naval Air Station near Key West, Florida. The following day the crew was quickly flown to exile in Nicaragua.
The United States government announced that the downed aircraft belonged to the Cuban air force and was manned by Cuban dissidents. In reply to this, Castro appeared on Cuban State television and denounced these claims. He put his military on high alert and directed defensive operations from the Cuban Military Headquarters, which had just been bombed by two of the masquerading airplanes. Fidel issued orders to detain anyone who was suspected of conspiracy or treason. Lists of these people had previously been prepared and were used to round up suspected dissenters. Within days, his overzealous police force and army incarcerated about 20,000 Cuban citizens, using whatever means were available, including a sports stadium. In a speech to the people, Fidel finally admitted to the public that his Movement was Socialistic.
The Cuban Foreign Minister Raúl Roa García, successfully presented evidence at the United Nations, proving that the attacks were foreign in origin. Adlai Stevenson, the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, replied that the United States had not participated in any action against Cuba. Ambassador Stevenson, knowing better, insisted that the aircraft that had landed in Miami had Cuban markings and therefore must have been of Cuban origin. Stevenson’s comments sounded contrived since the aircraft had Plexiglas noses, normally used as the bombardier’s station, whereas the actual Cuban B-26’s had solid noses with armament. It was obvious to the General Assembly that the United States Ambassador had been perpetrating an outright lie or, in diplomatic double talk, an untruth! It was an embarrassing moment that left the United States’ veracity open to ridicule
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Hank Bracker
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a key part of their subsequent success was rooted in the insight that continuous improvement to the shopping experience rather than any one particular improvement had the potential to be a major competitive edge. Tesco’s improvements included their ‘One in front’ commitment to effectively abolish checkout line-ups, baby-changing and bottle-warming facilities, ATMs, escorted searches for product requests and priority parking for pregnant mums. It was not that one improvement was more successful than another; it was the relentless implementation of a never-ending stream of small improvements that steadily improved Tesco’s image relative to their competitors, who were left seemingly forever floundering in their wake. The scheme also got Tesco’s staff more engaged in service delivery and coming up with ideas for further improvements. ‘Every little helps’ helped Tesco attract over a million new shoppers in the period from 1990–1995.
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Greg Thain (Store Wars: The Worldwide Battle for Mindspace and Shelfspace, Online and In-store)
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In North America the evidence is that hunter-gatherers bounced back quite successfully within less than a millennium of the onset of the Younger Dryas, and thereafter there is a thin but fairly continuous archaeological record. What is mysterious is not so much the early appearance of mound-building in this new age--perhaps as early as 8,000 years ago, as we've seen--or the sophistication of sites such as Watson Brake 5,500 years ago, nor even their obvious astronomical and geometrical connections to later vast earthworks such as Moundville and Cahokia, but that in this early monumental architecture of the New World memes of geometry, astronomy, and solar alignments consistently appear that are also found in the early monumental architecture of the Old World at iconic sites such as Stonehenge and the Great Pyramid of Giza. A tremendous leap forward in agricultural know-how, coupled with the sudden uptake of eerily distinctive spiritual ideas concerning the afterlife journey of the soul, also often accompanies the architectural memes. It's therefore hard to avoid the impression that some kind of 'package' is involved here.
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Graham Hancock (America Before: The Key to Earth's Lost Civilization)
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Another example of educational hype is in some ways the second coming of the growth mindset concept: ‘grit’. This is the idea, promoted by the psychologist Angela Duckworth, that the ability to stick to a task you’re passionate about, and not give up even when life puts obstacles in your path, is key to life success, and far more important than innate talent. The appetite for her message was immense: at the time of this writing, her TED talk on the subject has received 25.5 million views (19.5m on the TED website and a further 6m on YouTube; Angela Lee Duckworth, ‘Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance’, presented at TED Talks Education, April 2013), and her subsequent book, Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance, became a New York Times bestseller and continues to sell steadily. Like mindset, grit has become part of the philosophy of many schools, including KIPP (Knowledge is Power Program) schools, the biggest charter school group in the US, which teaches almost 90,000 students. To her credit, Duckworth has been concerned about how overhyped her results have become. She told an NPR interviewer in 2015 that ‘the enthusiasm is getting ahead of the science’ (Anya Kamenetz, ‘A Key Researcher Says “Grit” Isn’t Ready For High-Stakes Measures’, NPR, 13 May 2015). A wise statement, given that the meta-analytic evidence for the impact of grit (or interventions trying to teach it) is extremely weak. See Credé et al., ‘Much Ado about Grit: A Meta-Analytic Synthesis of the Grit Literature’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 113, no. 3 (Sept. 2017): pp. 492–511. And Marcus Credé, ‘What Shall We Do About Grit? A Critical Review of What We Know and What We Don’t Know’, Educational Researcher 47, no. 9 (Dec. 2018): pp. 606–11.
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Stuart Ritchie (Science Fictions)
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Gilder G, 1996. The Moral Sources of Capitalism. In: Gerson M (ed.), The Essential Neo-Conservative Reader. Reading, Massachusetts: Addison-Wesley Publishing Co., pp. 151-159
Quoting page 154:
The next step above potlatching was the use of real money. The invention of money enabled the pattern of giving to be extended as far as the reach of faith and trust from the mumi’s tribe to the world economy. Among the most important transitional devices was the Chinese Hui. This became the key mode of capital formation for the overseas Chinese in their phenomenal success as tradesmen and retailers everywhere they went, from San Francisco to Singapore. A more sophisticated and purposeful development of the potlatching principle, the Hui began when the organizer needed money for an investment. He would raise it from a group of kin and friends and commit himself to give a series of ten feasts for them. At each feast a similar amount of money would be convivially raised and given by lot or by secret bidding to one of the other members. The rotating distribution would continue until every member had won a collection. Similar systems, called the Ko or Tanamoshi, created saving for the Japanese; and the West African Susu device of the Yoruba, when transplanted to the West Indies, provided the capital base for Caribbean retailing. This mode of capital formation also emerged prosperously among West Indians when they migrated to American cities. All these arrangements required entrusting money or property to others and awaiting returns in the uncertain future.
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Mark Gerson (The Essential Neoconservative Reader)
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When Fear says, ‘The key to success is knowing when to quit and move on.’ You have to say, ‘The key to success is refusing to quit and continuing to move forward.’ Tell yourself again and again, ‘I refuse to quit.
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Darrin Donnelly (Victory Favors the Fearless: How to Defeat the 7 Fears That Hold You Back (Sports for the Soul Book 5))
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The central tenets include the elimination (or preferably the privatization) of government services of all kinds, an all-out assault on the ability of labor to organize, the massive deregulation of every segment of the economy, and the absolute faith in market-based principles to adjudicate all elements of social, political, cultural, and economic life. The results have been staggering levels of wealth and income inequality, the disappearance or significant shredding of even the most grudging social safety net provisions, the loss of the “commons” in virtually all sectors, and the truncation (ideally to zero) of public expectations for anything that might be provided by something called “society.” These then are three broad categories of consequences that we take up below: militarism (and threats of war and “terrorism”), environmental catastrophe, and the seemingly more mundane suite of neoliberal effects. But these phenomena produce reactions. Once these effects are out in the world, we need to think about the way in which social movements cohere around them, and demands for progressive change are asserted. But at the same time, we want to think about the ways in which elites (who are advantaged by maintaining or reinforcing the status quo) respond to those reactions. These are the matters that we take up in chapter six. Over the past several years (as in the many decades before), we have seen an enormous panoply of social movements for social, political, and economic justice: anti-austerity movements, environmental activism, human rights promotion (including expansions of the definition of “human” and the list of rights themselves), criminal justice reform, poverty elimination/reduction, and many others. One disheartening continuity has been the successful ability of elites to keep these movements separated from, and often, in fact, antagonistic to each other. One of our key objectives here is to demonstrate the fundamental linkages among these seemingly disparate issues, in order to provide the rationale and impetus for coalition and unity.
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Noam Chomsky (Consequences of Capitalism: Manufacturing Discontent and Resistance)
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Failure has been the key ingredient to my success in sports and in life. Had I not known failure, I would have continued to accept “good enough.” I might be a mediocre lawyer or athlete. Instead, I’m a two-time CrossFit Games champion.
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Katrin Davidsdottir (Dottir: My Journey to Becoming a Two-Time CrossFit Games Champion)
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In the ever-evolving business landscape, continuous learning is the key to resilience and success. As leaders, we must champion this mindset at all levels.
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Ravinder Tulsiani (Your Leadership EDGE: Mastering Management Skills for Today’s Workforce)
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Belief is one of the key ingredients to improving your self-discipline. Success becomes your reality when you believe you can do more, and it allows you to break down the limitations you have placed on yourself. Self-discipline is about endurance. When you are determined to continue but your mind is telling you to quit, you will build a resilience that will make you unstoppable.
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Daniel Walter (The Power of Discipline: How to Use Self Control and Mental Toughness to Achieve Your Goals)
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The judges who breach, violate, and break the concept of the constitution and law are not fair to society, even to themselves; they just put the mask on their faces as the judge. However, history is their judge that does not ignore the reality.
A verdict is neither a vote nor a consensus nor a customary decision; it is the interpretation and conclusion of the constitution and law, and judges set it accordingly in the context of that and ensure its implementation.
The constitution is like a rose; foreign policy is its fragrance that flies freely everywhere, and everyone feels equally beyond restrictions. Sure, such context carries beauty, dignity, self-determination, freedom, and success; otherwise, the sting of thorns becomes a painful risk.
In a civilized century, it is a tragedy that one dares not express one’s feelings that may abuse God, prophets, or sacred figures. But more than that, one cannot speak a word against the wrongdoing of a handful of army generals or ISI officials. In Pakistan, veteran journalists, top judges, and other key figures draw breath under the spying eyes of the ISI; even higher and minister-level personalities are the victims of such conduct. One has to live in such surroundings.
Tit for Tat is neither a constitution nor a law; it is just an act of revenge. If it continues, be sure everything collapses wherever it happens.
The cheap army, undemocratic state, and corrupt nation neither fulfill their oath nor comply with their constitution.
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Ehsan Sehgal
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Humility is the true key to success. Successful people lose their way at times. They often embrace and overindulge from the fruits of success. Humility halts this arrogance and self-indulging trap. Humble people share the credit and wealth, remaining focused and hungry to continue the journey of success.
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Rick Pitino
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In addition, a rise in bullying is evident in the largely radical collectivistic-influenced public school system. Last, but not least, an essential key to it all is a steady increase in suicide rates. However, in this new age, these obvious signs of suppression—clearly evident in all totalitarian-collective societies—are kept in balance by suppressants, through a steady increase of anti-anxiety medications and antidepressants (i.e., happy pills). Society becomes more and more deprived (in lack of ambition) and grows reliant upon the perfectly steady increase in entitlement benefits solidified through learned helplessness, successfully blinding society to the rapidly increasing collective oppression. This precise process of ambient socialism has taken place in the United States during the end of the twentieth century and continues to transpire ever more rapidly in the twenty-first century.
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Mikkel Clair Nissen (Manipulism and the Weapon of Guilt: Collectivism Exposed)
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We can only continue to promote invention, creativity and success by asking of ourselves, our situations and problems some key questions. What questions are you asking today?
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Archibald Marwizi (Making Success Deliberate)
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The significant relationships of early adulthood are thus construed as the means to an end of individual achievement, and these "transitional figures" must be cast off or reconstructed following the realization of success. If in the process, however, they become, like Dido, an impediment to the fulfillment of the Dream, then the relationship must be renounced, "to allow the developmental process" to continue. This process is defined by Levinson explicitly as one of individuation: "throughout the life cycle, but especially in the key transition periods . . . the developmental process of individuation is going on." The process refers "to the changes in a person's relationships to himself and to the external world," the relationships that constitute his "Life Structure" (p. 195).
If in the course of "Becoming One's Own Man," this structure is discovered to be flawed and threatens the great expectations of the Dream, then in order to avert "serious Failure or Decline," the man must "break out" to salvage his Dream. This act of breaking out is consummated by a "marker event" of separation, such as "leaving his wife, quitting his job, or moving to another region" (p. 206). Thus the road to mid-life salvation runs through either achievement or separation.
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Carol Gilligan (In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women’s Development)
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Yet, as Brandon explained with a mixture of bitterness and regret, college proved to be the start of a long series of disappointments. Unable to pass calculus or physics, he switched his major from engineering to criminal justice. Still optimistic, he applied to several police departments upon graduation, excited about a future of “catching crooks.” The first department used a bewildering lottery system for hiring, and he didn’t make the cut. The second informed him that he had failed a mandatory spelling test (“I had a degree!”) and refused to consider his application. Finally, he became “completely turned off to this idea” when the third department disqualified him because of a minor incident in college in which he and his roommate “borrowed” a school-owned buffing machine as a harmless prank. Because he “could have been charged with a felony,” the department informed him, he was ineligible for police duty. Regrettably, his college had no record of the incident. Brandon had volunteered the information out of a desire to illustrate his honest and upstanding character and improve his odds of getting the job. With “two dreams deferred,”2 Brandon took a job as the nightshift manager of a clothing chain, hoping it would be temporary. Eleven years later, he describes his typical day, which consists of unloading shipments, steaming and pricing garments, and restocking the floor, as “not challenging at all. I don’t get to solve problems or be creative. I don’t get to work with numbers, and I am a numbers guy. I basically babysit a team and deal with personnel.” When his loans came out of deferment, he couldn’t afford the monthly payments and decided to get a master’s degree—partly to increase his earning potential and partly to put his loans back into deferment. After all, it had been “hammered into his head” that higher education was the key to success. He put on twenty-five pounds while working and going to school full-time for three years. He finally earned a master’s degree in government, paid for with more loans from “that mean lady Sallie Mae.”3 So far, Brandon has still not found a job that will pay him enough to cover his monthly loan and living expenses. He has managed to keep the loans in deferment by continually consolidating—a strategy that costs him $5,000 a year in interest. Taking
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Jennifer M. Silva (Coming Up Short: Working-Class Adulthood in an Age of Uncertainty)
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To achieve success, you need to develop the ability to see through your mind’s eye continuously.
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Mensah Oteh (Wisdom Keys In Words: A collection of the Inspirational words that will change your life)
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Interestingly, Jockey’s first attempt to enter India wasn’t with the Genomals. It was with Associated Apparels in 1962. Through the 1960s, many foreign innerwear brands were launched in India. Associated Apparels introduced the then world-famous Maidenform bras (owned today by Hanes) and tied up with Jockey to launch Jockey underwear in 1962. The international brand, Lovable, entered India in 1966 through a licensing deal and became a huge success. Along with it entered the brand Daisy Dee, through a subsidiary of Lovable, followed by Feelings. In 1971, Maxwell Industries launched VIP-branded innerwear for men in the economy segment, catching the attention of the discerning public with an advertisement featuring a Bollywood actor. In 1973, however, Jockey decided to leave India after the Indian government used the Foreign Exchange Regulation Act (FERA) to force multinational companies to dilute their ownership in their Indian ventures to 40 per cent. After Jockey exited India, its competitors flourished. Associated Apparels continued to focus on mid-premium innerwear during the 1980s and was successful in establishing themselves as a dominant player in the mid-premium innerwear segment through Liberty (men) and Libertina (women). Maxwell Industries, during the 1980s, launched the brand, Frenchie, to cater to the mid-premium innerwear segment. In 1985, Rupa & Co. emerged in the innerwear market, offering products across categories, including men, women and kids, and became one of the biggest manufacturers and sellers of innerwear in India. The success of Rupa was followed by many other domestic brands in the 1980s and ’90s, including Amul, Lux Cozi and Dollar in the men’s category, while Neva, Bodycare, Softy, Lady Care, Little Lacy, Red Rose, Sonari, Feather Line, etc., were the key players in the lingerie market. Then came the liberalization of 1991. With the regulatory hurdles to enter India removed, Jockey decided to return to India. And this time, it chose the right partners.
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Saurabh Mukherjea (The Unusual Billionaires)
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Los Angeles—the dream-making capital of the world—serves as the backdrop for a number of the stories I recount. Some readers who cut their teeth in the urban centers of Europe or on the East Coast of America may prefer to dismiss what happens in Los Angeles as from a place apart, the aberrations of a migrant’s city within a migrant land. Such sentiments are understandable. Awash in the solar energy of a subtropical paradise, Los Angelinos engage life in the moment. The pace is fast, the music loud, and money is on display. Part of me, too, would prefer to dismiss such an existence as a mythmaker’s parody. But the place is real. In its immediacy and in its magnification of the familiar, Los Angeles creates its own reality and in so doing offers a “fast-forward” simulation of our collective future as a migrant culture. As Americans we must now decide whether such a future is of our choice, and whether it is sustainable. In the pages that follow, it is my goal to help inform that choice. Will we learn as a people to constructively channel the opportunities and individual enticements of the Fast New World toward an equitable social order, as Adam Smith had envisioned, or will the material demand for economic growth continue to erode the microcultures and intimate social bonds that are the hallmark of our humanity and the keys to health and personal happiness? Have the goals of America’s original social experiment been hijacked by its commercial success, threatening the delicate dance between individual desire and social responsibility, or will the nation in its migrant wisdom effectively apply its market and military dominance to remain a “beacon of hope,” enhancing the well-being of all the world’s peoples? This is a critical time in America, a time for careful thought and diligent action, for we have discovered in our commercial success that in an open society the real enemy is the self-interest that begins with a healthy appetite for life and mushrooms into manic excess during affluent times. Americans are again in the vanguard of human experience, and the world is watching. It is again a time for choosing.
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Peter C. Whybrow (American Mania: When More is Not Enough)
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RESENTMENT
- “Resentment is blockade No. 1 to spiritual power.”
-“Resentment is a poisonous emotion that eats away at a person's peace of mind and mental well-being. It also affects their ability to respond positively to others.”
-“Resentment says volumes about the person who resents, but very little about the persons or actions the resentment is directed at.”
-“When you embrace resentment, you empower others to affect your emotional response.”
-“People must be given the same rights you have, to think, speak and act as they wish. No amount of resentment can or will change others opinions about you/ towards you.”
- Sekou Obadias – Author of “SOGANUTU” – A book of life’s Maxims
SUCCESS
-“God’s plan for man’s success is built on four pillars:
(1) faith/belief.
(2) initiative/effort.
(3) obedience/discipline to the laws of the universe.
(4) benevolence- what you do to others and for others.
-“Success is 80% psychology and 20% effort. Once the mind is programme to succeed, and you initiate the effort, the universe will provide the tools to achieve success.”
-“People inability to succeed, is not necessarily attributed to their lack of opportunity, desire or effort.“
-“The absolute reason why people are unsuccessful is their lack of knowledge of how their minds work. As a result, they fail to take the actions necessary to achieve their desired objective.”
-“Success is not final, neither is failure fatal….it is the courage to continue that counts.”
-“Success is all about consistency with the fundamentals.”
-“Whatever man has done, man can do…”modeling is the key to duplicating any form of human excellence.” If you want what others have, just know what they know, and do what they do.”
-“If there is no visual plan or path to success for you to model, then it is your responsibility to create a path for others to follow.“
- Sekou Obadias – Author of “SOGANUTU” – A book of life’s Maxims
TEMPERANCE
-“A balance life requires one to be temperate in all things - abstaining from that which is bad for you and be moderate with that which is good for you.”
- Sekou Obadias – Author of “SOGANUTU” – A book of life’s Maxims
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Sekou Obadias
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Self-awareness is the key to find our uniqueness. The latter increases our chance to succeed in our personal, career, and business lives...
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Assegid Habtewold (The 9 Cardinal Building Blocks: For continued success in leadership)
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Like high blood pressure and diabetes, chronic inflammation has no visible symptoms (though it can be measured by a lab test known as high-sensitivity C-reactive protein [hs CRP]). But it damages the vascular system, the organs, the brain, and body tissues. It slowly erodes your health, gradually overwhelming the body’s anti-inflammatory defenses. It causes heart disease. It causes cognitive decline and memory loss. Even obesity and diabetes are linked to inflammation because fat cells are veritable factories for inflammatory chemicals. In fact, it’s likely that inflammation is the key link between obesity and all the diseases obesity puts you at risk for developing. When your joints are chronically inflamed, degenerative diseases like arthritis are right around the corner. Inflamed lungs cause asthma and other respiratory illnesses. Inflammation in the brain is linked to Alzheimer’s disease and other neurological conditions, including brain fog and everyday memory lapses that we write off as normal aging—except those memory lapses are not an inevitable consequence of aging at all. They are, however, an inevitable consequence of inflammation, because inflammation sets your brain on fire. Those “I forgot where I parked the car” moments start happening more frequently, and occurring prematurely. Inflamed arteries can signal the onset of heart disease. Chronic inflammation has also been linked to various forms of cancer; it triggers harmful changes on a molecular level that result in the growth of cancer cells. Inflammation is so central to the process of aging and breakdown at the cellular level that some health pundits have begun referring to the phenomena as “inflam-aging.” That’s because inflammation accelerates aging, including the visible signs of aging we all see in the skin. In addition to making us sick, chronic inflammation can make permanent weight loss fiendishly difficult. The fat cells keep churning out inflammatory proteins called cytokines, promoting even more inflammation. That inflammation in turn prevents the energy-making structures in the cells, called mitochondria, from doing their jobs efficiently, much like a heat wave would affect the output of a factory that lacks air-conditioning—productivity declines under extreme conditions. One of the duties of the mitochondria is burning fat; inflammation interferes with the job of the mitochondria, making fat burning more difficult and fat loss nearly impossible. While someone trying to lose weight may initially be successful, after a while, the number on the scale gets stuck. The much-discussed weight-loss “plateau” is often a result of this cycle of inflammation and fat storage. And here’s even more bad news: Adding more exercise or eating fewer calories in an attempt to break through the plateau will have some effect on weight loss, but not much. And continuing to lose weight becomes much harder to accomplish. Why? Because inflammation decreases our normal ability to burn calories. (We’ll tell you more about other factors that contribute to the plateau—and how the Smart Fat Solution can help you to move beyond them—in Part 2 of this book.)
”
”
Steven Masley (Smart Fat: Eat More Fat. Lose More Weight. Get Healthy Now.)
“
On the 23rd of September 2013, I decided to write every day. Since that time, this discipline has resulted in publishing a couple of books, about 50 blog posts, and a dozen chapters of a novel. Writing itself is rarely fun. There are days (like today) when I need to force myself to sit down and glue myself to the keyboard. I have some quirks that seem to help, like writing on the train while commuting, but generally, it’s tedious work. I put my thoughts on the screen one keystroke after another, minute after minute. I’ve been doing it for about an hour a day for the last fifteen months. And I’m also in the top 25% for income earned by all authors on this planet. Which is not saying much, by the way; the top 5% are the ones making real money. But ask the 75% earning less than me about their writing habits. In most cases, you’ll find that they are less consistent. Ask those who are more successful than me, and you will discover that those earners would consider an hour a day a ridiculously short amount of time to be writing. Knowledge items: • The word consistency means something firm, inflexible, and adamant • Inconsistency is irrational, and it’s a question of attitude • Intention, attitude, and commitment determine your consistency • Your habits define your constitution • The key to personal change is a habit’s streak • Huge steps require huge labor input and are very hard to continue consistently
”
”
Michal Stawicki (The Art of Persistence: Stop Quitting, Ignore Shiny Objects and Climb Your Way to Success)
“
The effective use of time is the best-kept secret of those who have created a successful life and continue to experience it every day
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”
Mensah Oteh (Unlocking Life's Treasure Chest: Wisdom keys to keep you inspired, encouraged, motivated and focused)
“
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? Mastery by George Leonard. I first read this book 20 years ago, after reading Leonard’s Esquire article, the seed from which the book grew. Leonard wrote the book to share lessons from becoming an Aikido master teacher, despite starting practice at the advanced age of 47. I raced through its 170-plus pages in a state of almost feverish excitement, so strongly did it affirm our swimming method. The book helped me see swimming as an ideal vehicle for teaching the mastery habits and behaviors closely interwoven with our instruction in the physical techniques of swimming. I love this book because it is as good a guide as I’ve ever seen to a life well lived. A brief summary: Life is not designed to hand us success or satisfaction, but rather to present us with challenges that make us grow. Mastery is the mysterious process by which those challenges become progressively easier and more satisfying through practice. The key to that satisfaction is to reach the nirvana in which love of practice for its own sake (intrinsic) replaces the original goal (extrinsic) as our grail. The antithesis of mastery is the pursuit of quick fixes. My five steps to mastery: Choose a worthy and meaningful challenge. Seek a sensei or master teacher (like George Leonard) to help you establish the right path and priorities. Practice diligently, always striving to hone key skills and to progress incrementally toward new levels of competence. Love the plateau. All worthwhile progress occurs through brief, thrilling leaps forward followed by long stretches during which you feel you’re going nowhere. Though it seems as if we’re making no progress, we are turning new behaviors into habits. Learning continues at the cellular level . . . if you follow good practice principles. Mastery is a journey, not a destination. True masters never believe they have attained mastery. There is always more to be learned and greater skill to be developed.
”
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Timothy Ferriss (Tribe Of Mentors: Short Life Advice from the Best in the World)
“
It is the despair of multitudes that our personal emotions are not subject to our own direct, willful manipulation. Instead, our emotions stubbornly remain at all times just automatic mental reactions to our perceptions. But therein lies the key to success. The quality, quantity and continuity of the emotions we continuously experience can definitely be influenced immensely by shifting those perceptions, and thus our choice of desires, through understanding the universal pursuit of happiness better.
”
”
George Hammond
“
Building resilience as a corporate executive leader is a must.
One key to effective leadership is building emotional intelligence and setting achievable goals with a growth mindset. Resilience plays a vital role in this process, allowing executive leaders to adapt, adjust, and stay focused on the vision. Remember, continual learning and adaptability are crucial for leading your team successfully.
”
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Henrietta Newton Martin,Senior Legal Counsel & Author
“
In the years following World War II, the Kaizen methodology continued to evolve thanks to the work of both Japanese and American managers—three of which are listed here: The Iowa-born statistician Dr. William Edwards Deming made many consulting trips to Japan during reconstruction efforts and was so influential in turning around Japanese industry that he was awarded the Second Order Medal of the Sacred Treasure by Emperor Hirohito in 1960. (We’ll be referring to Deming’s work many times throughout this book.) The business consultant Masaaki Imai published a management guidebook entitled “Kaizen: The Key to Japan’s Competitive Success.” He also founded the Kaizen Institute Consulting Group (KICG) with the aim of introducing Kaizen techniques to Western companies. Dr. Jeffrey Liker (Professor Emeritus of Industrial and Operations Engineering at the University of Michigan) would bring Kaizen into the mainstream when he published his book of “manufacturing ideals” called “The Toyota Way.” The book showcased many Kaizen-related principles and described the philosophy and values that dictate the modus operandi of the Toyota Motor Corporation.
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Anthony Raymond (Ikigai & Kaizen: The Japanese Strategy to Achieve Personal Happiness and Professional Success (How to set goals, stop procrastinating, be more productive, build good habits, focus, & thrive))
“
One notable example of this is the ever present “People You May Know” or “Friend suggestions” feature. Every social platform at scale has some kind of implementation of it for a reason: it works incredibly well. My friend Aatif Awan, formerly vice president of growth at LinkedIn—who helped them scale to hundreds of millions of users and spearheaded their acquisition by Microsoft—explains how their algorithm works: People You May Know was a key part of LinkedIn’s success, generating billions of connections within the network. It started with “completing the triangle”—if a bunch of your friends have all connected with Alice but you haven’t yet, then there’s a good chance you might know Alice, too. Later, we incorporated implicit signals—maybe Alice just updated her profile to say she works at your same company. Maybe she’s viewed your profile multiple times over several days. Putting all of these inputs into a machine learning model continued to give us mileage on this feature over many years.77
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Andrew Chen (The Cold Start Problem: How to Start and Scale Network Effects)
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THE STRATEGIC CONSEQUENCES OF CHINESE RACISM: A Strategic Asymmetry for the United States
Draft Report
Submitted 7 January 2013
Project Number: HQ006721370003000
Since our genus Homo first evolved in the Pliocene, humans have favored those who are biologically related. In general, the closer the relationship, the greater the preferential treatment. The vast majority of animals behave in this way, and humans are no different. In a world of scarce resources and many threats, the evolutionary process would select nepotism, thus promoting the survival of the next generation. However, this process is relative. Parents are more willing to provide for their own children than for the children of relatives, or rarely for those of strangers.
The essence of an inclusive fitness explanation of ethnocentrism, then, is that individuals generally should be more willing to support, privilege, and sacrifice for their own family, then their more distant kin, their ethnic group, and then others, such as a global community, in decreasing order of importance. ...
The in-group/out-group division is also important for explaining ethnocentrism and individual readiness to kill outsiders before in-group members. Irenäus Eibl-Eibesfeldt draws on psychologist Erik Erikson’s concept of “cultural pseudo speciation,” and says that in almost all cultures humans form subgroups usually based on kinship; these “eventually distinguish themselves from others by dialect and other subgroup characteristics and go on to form new cultures.” ...
When an individual considers whether to support a larger group, several metrics are available. One of these ... is ethnocentrism, a continuation of one’s willingness to sacrifice for one’s family because of the notion of common kinship. As I discussed above, the ways humans determine their relations with unrelated individuals are complex, but the key factors are physical resemblance, as well as environmental causes like shared culture, history, and language. ...
I have shown that in-group/out-group distinctions like ethnocentrism and xenophobia are not quirks of human behavior in certain settings. Instead, they are systematic and consistent behavioral strategies, or traits. They apply to all humans... They are widespread because they increased survival and reproductive success and were thus favored by natural selection over evolutionary history. ...
Chinese racism ... is a strategic asset that makes a formidable adversary. ... The government educates the people to be proud of being Han and of China. In turn, the Chinese people are proud and fiercely patriotic as well as ethnocentric, racist, and xenophobic. This aids the government and permits them to maintain high levels of popular support. ...
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”
Anonymous
“
It is true that vaccines have in the past taken a long, long time to develop. Until 2020, a new vaccine usually took at least ten years to develop from concept to roll-out. Many took much longer. The malaria vaccine programme at the Jenner Institute has been going for twenty-five years, and research into malaria vaccines had been going on for more than a hundred years – so far, with limited success. The lab-to-jab record-holder was the mumps vaccine, developed in four years by Maurice Hilleman in the United States in the 1960s.1 But the standard lengthy timeline we were all used to was never because vaccine development required ten, fifteen or thirty years of continuous painstaking lab work, clinical trials and data analysis. For every vaccine that had ever been developed up until 2020, most of the elapsed development time was spent waiting. In 2020, there were three key factors that enabled us to cut out the waiting and crunch ten years into one: first, the work we had already done; second, changes to the way funding was given out; and third, doing in parallel things that we would normally do in sequence.
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Sarah Gilbert (Vaxxers: A Pioneering Moment in Scientific History)
“
The key to continued success is to discard what doesn’t work.
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Germany Kent
“
A continuous stream of well-designed practice exercises reinforce specific concepts or skills, leading to enhanced retention. The key is aligning practice activities with targeted objectives for optimal results.
”
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Asuni LadyZeal
“
Continuous improvement is a key aspect of a rapid learning approach, and adjustments based on student feedback contribute to the refinement of your teaching methods.
”
”
Asuni LadyZeal
“
The Agile project manager plays a crucial role in ensuring the successful delivery of projects using Agile methodologies. They act as facilitators, coaches, and leaders, guiding the team through the iterative development process.
Here are some key responsibilities of an Agile project manager:
Orchestrating the project's lifecycle: This involves planning and breakdown of work into sprints, facilitating ceremonies like daily stand-ups, sprint planning, and retrospectives, and ensuring the project progresses smoothly towards its goals.
Promoting collaboration and communication: Agile thrives on open communication and collaboration. The project manager fosters an environment where team members feel comfortable sharing ideas, concerns, and updates. They actively remove roadblocks and ensure everyone is aligned with the project vision and goals.
Empowering the team: Agile teams are self-organizing and empowered to make decisions. The project manager provides guidance and support but avoids micromanaging. They trust the team's expertise and encourage them to take ownership of their work.
Stakeholder management: The project manager acts as a bridge between the development team and stakeholders, including clients, sponsors, and other interested parties. They keep stakeholders informed of project progress, manage expectations, and address their concerns.
Continuous improvement: Agile is an iterative process that emphasizes continuous improvement. The project manager actively seeks feedback from team members and stakeholders, analyzes project data, and identifies areas for improvement. They implement changes to the process and tools to enhance efficiency and effectiveness.
Overall, the Agile project manager plays a vital role in driving successful project delivery through Agile methodologies. They wear multiple hats, acting as facilitators, coaches, leaders, and problem-solvers, ensuring the team has the resources, support, and environment they need to thrive.
”
”
Vitta Labs
“
Tip #2: Do More Work When You Send or Reply to E-mails Consider the following standard e-mails: E-mail #1: “It was great to meet you last week. I’d love to follow up on some of those issues we discussed. Do you want to grab coffee?” E-mail #2: “We should get back to the research problem we discussed during my last visit. Remind me where we are with that?” E-mail #3: “I took a stab at that article we discussed. It’s attached. Thoughts?” These three examples should be familiar to most knowledge workers, as they’re representative of many of the messages that fill their inboxes. They’re also potential productivity land mines: How you respond to them will have a significant impact on how much time and attention the resulting conversation ultimately consumes. In particular, interrogative e-mails like these generate an initial instinct to dash off the quickest possible response that will clear the message—temporarily—out of your inbox. A quick response will, in the short term, provide you with some minor relief because you’re bouncing the responsibility implied by the message off your court and back onto the sender’s. This relief, however, is short-lived, as this responsibility will continue to bounce back again and again, continually sapping your time and attention. I suggest, therefore, that the right strategy when faced with a question of this type is to pause a moment before replying and take the time to answer the following key prompt: What is the project represented by this message, and what is the most efficient (in terms of messages generated) process for bringing this project to a successful conclusion?
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Cal Newport (Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World)
“
Years later, I would read books on mindfulness and meditation and realize that the key to happiness, or that even-more-desired thing, calmness, lies not in always thinking happy thoughts. No, that's impossible. No mind on Earth with any kind of intelligence could spend a lifetime enjoying only happy thoughts. The key is in accepting your thoughts - all of them, even the bad ones. Accept thoughts, but don't become them. Understand, for instance, that having a sad thought - even having a continual succession of sad thoughts - is not the same as being a sad person. You can walk through a storm and feel the wind, but you know you are not the wind.
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”
Matt Haig (Reasons to Stay Alive)
“
Discipline and consistency are the keys to success. Any valuable product only comes to completion when the individual or group works continuously toward achieving it.
”
”
Fred Mankind
“
A key tenet of rapid learning involves an ongoing feedback loop. Whether through interactions with peers, guidance from instructors, or personal reflection, learners constantly evaluate their performance, enabling iterative adjustments for continuous enhancement of the learning process.
”
”
Asuni LadyZeal
“
Underperformance can be attributed to three key factors: emotions, motivations, or lack of knowledge in a specific area
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”
Asuni LadyZeal
“
One of the key factors in successful selling is to be prepared to hear a no and continue.
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Brian Tracy (Close That Sale! The 24 Best Sales Closing Techniques Ever Discovered)
“
Is the cause of America the cause of all mankind? And what is that cause after all? From distant glimmerings of “America” (the Waldseemüller map of 1507) to “City upon a Hill” and “Magnalia Christi Americana,” into the nineteenth century with “American Scholar” and the “[slaves’] fourth of July,” and continued throughout the twentieth century with “double-consciousness,” “Trans-national America,” “settlement ideal,” “American Dream,” “I have a dream,” “Postethnic America,” “Achieving . . . America,” and the “heyday of the fuzzies,” Americans have been trying to figure this out for quite some time. Over the course of the centuries, Americans learned and self-taught, native born and immigrant, religious and secular, and left and right have contributed to this long conversation by offering new arguments and key terms for Americans to think about the world, themselves, their truth, and their America. No one, so far, has been successful in answering these questions once and for all. They only came up with provisional explanations and then posed new questions. Perhaps we should not want it any other way. And so the conversation of American thought continues.
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”
Jennifer Ratner-Rosenhagen (The Ideas That Made America: A Brief History)
“
A key criteria to be successful in any field is the desire to continually strive to be a better version of yourself. This is very different from the skill of accumulating and remembering facts which may helps in studies and in getting qualifications.
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”
Abhishek Ratna (small wins BIG SUCCESS: A handbook for exemplary success in post Covid19 Outbreak Era)
“
Some conservative political strategists admitted that appealing to racial fears and antagonisms was central to this strategy, though it had to be done surreptitiously. H.R. Haldeman, one of Nixon's key advisers, recalls that Nixon himself deliverately pursued a Southern, racial strategy: 'He [President Nixon] emphasized that ou have to face the fact that the whole problem is really the blacks. The key is to devise a system that recognizes this while not appearing to.' Similarly, John Erlichman, special counsel to the president, explained the Nixon administration's campaign strategy of 1968 in this way: 'We'll go after the racists.' In Erlichman's view, 'that subliminal appeal to the anti-black voter was always present in Nixon's statements and speeches.' Republican strategist Kevin Phillips is often credited for offering the most influential argument in favor of a race-based strategy for Republican political dominance in the South. He argued in The Emerging Republican Majority, published in 1969, that Nixon's successful presidential election campaign could point the way toward long-term political realignment and the building of a new Republican majority, if Republicans continued to campaign primarily on the basis of racial issues, using coded antiblack rhetoric.
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Michelle Alexander (The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness)
“
One interesting aspect of his book is that it argued that the more specialized a species is, the less likely it is to continue to recognize appropriate habitats as
conditions change. Species displaying a less plastic/diverse inventory of behavioral choices, such as those focusing on a single type of food, are the most susceptible. For instance, parasites often have a single host species, which does not present any
problems for them as long as the host species does not become extinct. That is why, according to Eldredge, ecologically specialized species become extinct at much higher rates than do ecologically generalized species in the fossil record. The concept that specialization often leads to an evolutionary dead end was first proposed by Cope as the “law of the unspecialized” and has continued to be key for evolutionary biology since then. In Eldredge’s view, the balance of life will tend to produce ecologically specialized organisms because they often flourish
more than generalists in the short run, but extinction then normally affects more the ranks of the specialists. In the long run, the generalists thus hang on—‘living fossils’ often being generalists—whereas the ranks of specialists are quickly refilled by the continuous evolution of new taxa. For him, taxa that descend from species that are already somewhat specialized tend to have a greater chance of focusing on a specific portion of the resources not completely exploited by the parental taxa. He designated this as a “ratchet-like mechanism” of the quick accumulation of evolutionary change as lineages keep splitting and new taxa are formed from old ones within specialized lineages. Thus, he directly connects behavioral/ecological specializations to cladogenesis and the rapid evolutionary events predicted in punctuated equilibrium. In turn, he argues that stasis is often related to generalist lineages because without a comparable degree of successful speciation, these lineages tend to have far fewer extant species at any one time than their specialized counterparts. That is, generalists are not really evolving at slower morphological rates: they are simply not generating so many new species. As a result, the gradual fluctuation of form among the members of the generalized taxa is not being fixed by cladogenesis, thus leading to new species.
”
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Rui Diogo (Evolution Driven by Organismal Behavior: A Unifying View of Life, Function, Form, Mismatches and Trends)
“
She dances,
She dances around the burning flames with passion,
Under the same dull stars,
Under the same hell with crimson embers crashing,
Under the same silver chains that wires,
All her beauty and who she is inside,
She's left with the loneliness of human existence,
She's left questioning how she's survived,
She's left with this awakening of brutal resilience,
Her true beauty that she denies,
As much she's like to deny it,
As much as it continues to shine,
That she doesn't even have to admit,
Because we all know it's true,
Her glory and success,
After all she's been through,
Her triumph and madness,
AND YET,
SHE STANDS.
Broken legs- but she's still standing,
Still dancing in this void,
You must wonder how she's still dancing,
You must wonder how she's not destroyed,
She doesn't even begin to drown within the flames,
But little do you realize,
Within these chains,
She weeps and she cries,
But she still goes on,
And just you thought you could stop her?
You thought you'd be the one?
Well, let me tell you, because you thought wrong.
Nothing will ever silence her,
Because I KNOW,
I know that she is admiringly strong,
Her undeniable beauty,
The triumph of her song,
She's shining bright like a ruby,
Reflecting in the golden sand,
She's shining brighter like no other,
She's far more than human or man,
AND YET,
SHE STANDS.
She continues to dance with free-spirit,
Even though she's locked in these chains,
Though she never desired to change it,
Even throughout the agonizing pain,
Throughout all the distress,
Anxiety, depression, tears and sorrow,
She still dances so beautify in her dress,
She looks forward to tomorrow,
Not because of a fresh start but a new page,
A new day full of opportunities,
Despite being trapped in her cage,
She still smiles after being beaten so brutally,
A smile that could brighten anyone's day,
She's so much more than anyone could ask for,
She's so much more than I could ever say,
She's a girl absolutely everyone should adore,
She never gets in the way,
Even after her hearts been broken,
Even after the way she has been treated,
After all these severe emotions,
After all all the blood she's bled,
AND YET,
SHE STANDS.
Even if sometimes she wonders why she's still here,
She wonders why she's not dead,
But there's this one thing that had been here throughout every tear,
Throughout the blazing fire leaving her cheeks cherry red,
Everyday this thing has given her a place to exist,
This thing, person, these people,
Like warm sunlight it had so softly kissed,
The apples of her cheeks,
Even when she's feeling feeble,
Always there at her worst and at her best
Because of you and all the other people,
She has this thing deep inside her chest,
That she will cherish forever,
Even once you're gone,
Because today she smiles like no other,
Even when the sun sets at dawn,
Because today is the day,
She just wants you to remember,
In dark and stormy weather,
It gets better.
And after what she's been through she knows,
Throughout the highs and the lows,
Because of you and all others,
After crossing the seas,
She has come to understand,
You have formed this key,
This key to free her from this land,
This endless gorge that swallowed her,
Her and other men,
She had never knew, nor had she planned,
That because of you,
AND YET,
THIS VERY DAY,
SHE DANCES.
EVEN IN THE RAIN.
”
”
Gabrielle Renee
“
1. The chief root of monetary troubles is the scientific authority the Keynesians gave the superstition that increasing the quantity of money can ensure prosperity and full employment.
2. The superstition was fought successfully by economists for two centuries of stable prices during the age of modern industrialism and the gold standard.
3. Before then inflation largely dominated history.
4. Keynes’s (macro-economic) error was to suppose that labour demand and supply can be equated (and unemployment avoided) by managing total demand. Employment depends on demand in each sector of the economy. Managing total demand by expanding money supply created only temporary and therefore unstable employment.
5. A “lost generation” of economists who have learned nothing else continues to offer the quack “full employment” remedy and to win short-term popularity for it.
6. No government, national or international, that wants to remain in office can be expected to limit the quantity of money better than a gold standard or any other (semi-) automatic system because in practice it succumbs to sectional pressures for additional cheap money and expenditure.
7. The gold standard, balanced budgets, fixed exchanges, enabled governments to resist sectional importunities. The removal of these “shackles” has enabled governments to act more irresponsibly.
8. The only hope for stable money and resistance to inflation is to protect money from politics by removing the power of government to require its citizens to use its money as the only legal tender.
9. Government would then not inflate its supply, because it would be forsaken for other currencies.
10. Inflation can therefore be stopped by introducing competition in currency. The notion that it is a proper function of government to issue the national currency is false. Citizens should be free to use and refuse any currencies they wish: politicians would then have to limit their quantities. Then inflation would be avoided.
”
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Friedrich A. Hayek
“
Rather than relying on willpower, you’ll need to create an automated response for how to deal with challenges. In other words, you’ll need to create a trigger for the trigger. Once you get triggered to self-sabotage, that very trigger triggers you to do something more positive. Sound complex? It’s not. This is called implementation intentions, and it’s a well-researched idea in organizational and motivation psychology. Once you’ve outsourced your proactive response to self-destruction to your environment, your level of rest and recovery deepens, because your level of internal consistency increases. At the most fundamental level, rest is about alignment and being in a state of peace and confidence. You can’t have confidence if you continually act in ways contrary to your goals. Here’s how it works.
”
”
Benjamin P. Hardy (Willpower Doesn't Work: Discover the Hidden Keys to Success)
“
Okay, great,” I continued. “The key here is that you always remember that rapport is not a constant; it goes up and down throughout the sale, depending on the following two things: “One, how your prospect thinks and feels about the last point you made; and two, his belief as to whether or not you are on the same page with him, in regards to that point.
”
”
Jordan Belfort (Way of the Wolf: Straight line selling: Master the art of persuasion, influence, and success)
“
We could express this power in the following way: Most of the time we live in an interior world of dreams, desires, and obsessive thoughts. But in this period of exceptional creativity, we are impelled by the need to get something done that has a practical effect. We force ourselves to step outside our inner chamber of habitual thoughts and connect to the world. At these moments, suddenly exposed to new details and ideas, we become more inspired and creative. Once the deadline has passed or the crisis is over, this feeling of power and heightened creativity generally fades away. We return to our distracted state and the sense of control is gone. The problem we face is that this form of power and intelligence is either ignored as a subject of study or is surrounded by all kinds of myths and misconceptions, all of which only add to the mystery. We imagine that creativity and brilliance just appear out of nowhere, the fruit of natural talent, or perhaps of a good mood, or an alignment of the stars. It would be an immense help to clear up the mystery—to name this feeling of power, and to understand how it can be manufactured and maintained. Let us call this sensation mastery—the feeling that we have a greater command of reality, other people, and ourselves. Although it might be something we experience for only a short while, for others—Masters of their field—it becomes their way of life, their way of seeing the world. And at the root of this power is a simple process that leads to mastery—one that is accessible to all of us. The process can be illustrated in the following manner: Let us say we are learning the piano, or entering a new job where we must acquire certain skills. In the beginning, we are outsiders. Our initial impressions of the piano or the work environment are based on prejudgments, and often contain an element of fear. When we first study the piano, the keyboard looks rather intimidating—we don’t understand the relationships between the keys, the chords, the pedals, and everything else that goes into creating music. In a new job situation, we are ignorant of the power relationships between people, the psychology of our boss, the rules and procedures that are considered critical for success. We are confused—the knowledge we need in both cases is over our heads. Although we might enter these situations with excitement about what we can learn or do with our new skills, we quickly realize how much hard work there is ahead of us. The great danger is that we give in to feelings of boredom, impatience, fear, and confusion. We stop observing and learning. The process comes to a halt. If, on the other hand, we manage these emotions and allow time to take its course, something remarkable begins to take shape. As we continue to observe and follow the lead of others, we gain clarity, learning the rules and seeing how things work and fit together. If we keep practicing, we gain fluency; basic skills are mastered, allowing us to take on newer and more exciting challenges.
”
”
Robert Greene (The Concise Mastery (The Modern Machiavellian Robert Greene Book 1))
“
The key is in accepting your thoughts, all of them, even the bad ones. Accept
thoughts, but don’t become them. Understand, for instance, that having a sad thought, even having a continual succession of sad thoughts, is not the same as being a sad person. You can walk through a storm and feel the wind but you know you are not the wind.
”
”
Matt Haig (Reasons to Stay Alive / Notes on a Nervous Planet)
“
The key to long-term success is a willingness to disrupt your own comfort for the sake of continued growth.
”
”
Todd Henry (Die Empty: Unleash Your Best Work Every Day)
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To confront the overwhelming mystery of what banged and why it banged, Einstein’s theory isn’t enough because it treats space and time as smooth and continuous. Success will require new insights into what might seem the simplest entity of all: ‘mere’ empty space. We know that no material can be chopped into arbitrarily small pieces: eventually you get down to discrete atoms. Likewise, even space and time can’t be divided up indefinitely. There are powerful reasons to suspect that space has a grainy and ‘atomic’ structure – but on a scale a trillion trillion times smaller than atoms. This is key ‘unfinished business’ for twenty-first-century science. According to the most
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Martin J. Rees (From Here to Infinity: Scientific Horizons (Reith Lectures 2010))
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Your ability to discern key people in your life and organization before you bring them in saves you lots of time, trouble, and regrets... Watch out!!!
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Assegid Habtewold (The 9 Cardinal Building Blocks: For continued success in leadership)
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Meadows also received a text on December 20, 2020, from Mike Lindell, a mustachioed, self-described former crack addict who’d made a fortune as CEO of the bedding company My Pillow. Lindell, who was an infomercial star, major Trump rally fixture, and financial backer of various protests against the former president’s loss, implored Meadows to have federal agents seize voting machines in key states. He was famous for wearing a large cross necklace and his message was an overheated blend of Christian prayer and internet insanity. “Hey Mark, I felt I was suppose to text you this message … You being a man a faith and on the front line of the decisions that are going to be historical! I would ask that you pray for wisdom and discernment from God! You are one of the people the president trusts the most. That being said I want to add my input.… Everything Sidney has said is true!” Lindell wrote. “We have to get the machines and everything we already have proves the President won by millions of votes! I have read and not validated yet that you and others talked him out of seizing them … If true . I pray it is part of a bigger plan … I am grateful that on the night of the election the algorithms of the corrupt machines broke and they realized our president would win in spite of the historical fraud! I look for deviations every day in my business … when I find one I investigate relentlessly until I know why it happened and how it happened … (this is my gift from God that has made my business so successful) From 11:15 pm on the night of the election I have spent all my time running impossible deviations and numbers from this election … I also was blessed to be able to get info and help Sidney Lin General Flynn and everyone else out there gathering all the massive evidence! I have been sickened by politicians (especially republicans) judges, the media not wanting to see truth (no matter what the truth would be!) This is the biggest cover up of one of the worst crimes in history! I have spent over a million$to help uncover this fraud and used my platform so people can get the word not to give up! The people on both sides have to see the truth and when they do.… There will not be no civil war, people (including politicians!) are fearing! The only thing any of us should fear is fear of the Lord! Every person on this planet needs to know the truth and see the evidence!!! Mark . God has his hand in all of this and has put you on the front line … I will continue praying for you to have great wisdom and discernment! Blessings Mike.” Meadows seemed grateful
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Denver Riggleman (The Breach: The Untold Story of the Investigation into January 6th)
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The key to success is to be a lifelong learner who continuously works hard to improve.
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Jon Gordon (The Hard Hat: 21 Ways to be a Great Teammate)