Deliver More Than Expected Quotes

It’s okay how some stories leave off without an ending. Life doesn’t always deliver the one you would expect.

Always deliver more than expected.

A cultured society that has fallen away from its religious traditions expects more from art than the aesthetic consciousness and the 'standpoint of art' can deliver. The Romantic desire for a new mythology... gives the artist and his task in the world the consciousness of a new consecration. He is something like a 'secular saviour' for his creations are expected to achieve on a small scale the propitiation of disaster for which an unsaved world hopes.

At this second appearing to take the oath of the Presidential office there is less occasion for an extended address than there was at the first. Then a statement somewhat in detail of a course to be pursued seemed fitting and proper. Now, at the expiration of four years, during which public declarations have been constantly called forth on every point and phase of the great contest which still absorbs the attention and engrosses the energies of the nation, little that is new could be presented. The progress of our arms, upon which all else chiefly depends, is as well known to the public as to myself, and it is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory and encouraging to all. With high hope for the future, no prediction in regard to it is ventured. On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil war. All dreaded it, all sought to avert it. While the inaugural address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, insurgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war--seeking to dissolve the Union and divide effects by negotiation. Both parties deprecated war, but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish, and the war came. One-eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was somehow the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union even by war, while the Government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it. Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with or even before the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. "Woe unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh." If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said "the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether." With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.

Some stories leave off without an ending. Life doesn't always deliver the one you would expect.

Absolute certainty is no more attainable in metaphysics than it is in any other field of rational inquiry and it is unfair to criticize metaphysics for failing to deliver what no other discipline - not even mathematics - is expected to deliver.

You can overcome the things that are done to you, but you cannot escape the things that you have done. Here is the truth: It matters, what you do at war. It matters more than you ever want to know. Because countries, like people, have collective consciences and memories and souls, and the violence we deliver in the name of our nation is pooled like sickly tar at the bottom of who we are. The soldiers who don't die for us come home again. They bring with them the killers they became on our national behalf, and sit with their polluted memories and broken emotions in our homes and schools and temples. We may wish it were not so, but action amounts to identity. We become what we do.You can tell yourself all the stories you want, but you can't leave your actions over there. You can't build a wall and expect to live on the other side of memory. All of the poison seeps back into our soil.

In all areas of your life, look for the multiplier opportunities where you can go a little further, push yourself a little harder, last a little longer, prepare a little better, and deliver a little bit more. Where can you do better and more than expected? When can you do the totally unexpected? Find as many opportunities for 'WOW,' and the level and speed of your accomplishments will astonish you... and everyone else around you.

Feeding people half-truths or bullshit to make them feel better (which is almost always about making ourselves feel more comfortable) is unkind. Not getting clear with a colleague about your expectations because it feels too hard, yet holding them accountable or blaming them for not delivering is unkind. Talking about people rather than to them is unkind.

We got to the moment when I wake up from being "mostly dead" and say: "I'll beat you both apart! I'll take you both together!", Fezzik cups my mouth with his hand, and answers his own question to Inigo as to how long it might be before Miracle Max's pill begins to take effect by stating: "I guess not very long." As soon as he delivered that line, there issued forth from Andre' one of the most monumental farts any of us had ever heard. Now I suppose you wouldn't expect a man of Andre's proportions to pass gas quietly or unobtrusively, but this particular one was truly epic, a veritable symphony of gastric distress that roared for more than several seconds and shook the very foundations of the wood and plaster set were now grabbing on to out of sheer fear. It was long enough and loud enough that every member of the crew had time to stop what they were doing and take notice. All I can say is that it was a wind that could have held up in comparison to the one Slim Pickens emitted int eh campfire scene in Mel Brooks's Blazing Saddles, widely acknowledged as the champion of all cinematic farts. Except of course, this one wasn't in the script.

Value can’t be created without understanding what people want (market research). Attracting customers first requires getting their attention, then making them interested (marketing). In order to close a sale, people must first trust your ability to deliver on what’s promised (value delivery and operations). Customer satisfaction depends on reliably exceeding the customer’s expectations (customer service). Profit sufficiency requires bringing in more money than is spent (finance).

It's okay how some stories leave off without an ending. Life doesn't always deliver the one you would expect.

Everybody has got to live for something, but Jesus is arguing that, if he is not that thing, it will fail you. First, it will enslave you. Whatever that thing is, you will tell yourself that you have to have it or there is no tomorrow. That means that if anything threatens it, you will become inordinately scared; if anyone blocks it, you will become inordinately angry; and if you fail to achieve it, you will never be able to forgive yourself. But second, if you do achieve it, it will fail to deliver the fulfillment you expected. Let me give you an eloquent contemporary expression of what Jesus is saying. Nobody put this better than the American writer David Foster Wallace. He got to the top of his profession. He was an award-winning, bestselling postmodern novelist known around the world for his boundary-pushing storytelling. He once wrote a sentence that was more than a thousand words long. A few years before the end of his life, he gave a now-famous commencement speech at Kenyon College. He said to the graduating class, Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of god . . . to worship . . . is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things, if they are where you tap real meaning in life, then you will never have enough, never feel you have enough. It’s the truth. Worship your own body and beauty and sexual allure, and you will always feel ugly. And when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before [your loved ones] finally plant you. . . . Worship power, and you will end up feeling weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to numb you to your own fear. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart, you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. Look, the insidious thing about these forms of worship is not that they are evil or sinful; it is that they’re unconscious. They are default settings.4 Wallace was by no means a religious person, but he understood that everyone worships, everyone trusts in something for their salvation, everyone bases their lives on something that requires faith. A couple of years after giving that speech, Wallace killed himself. And this nonreligious man’s parting words to us are pretty terrifying: “Something will eat you alive.” Because even though you might never call it worship, you can be absolutely sure you are worshipping and you are seeking. And Jesus says, “Unless you’re worshipping me, unless I’m the center of your life, unless you’re trying to get your spiritual thirst quenched through me and not through these other things, unless you see that the solution must come inside rather than just pass by outside, then whatever you worship will abandon you in the end.

This framing accents the importance of building a tidier system, one that incorporates the array of existing child care centers, then pushes to make their classrooms more uniform, with a socialization agenda "aligned" with the curricular content that first or second graders are expected to know. Like the common school movement, uniform indicators of quality, centralized regulation, more highly credientialed teachers are to ensure that instruction--rather than creating engaging activities for children to explore--will be delivered in more uniform ways. And the state signals to parents that this is now the appropriate way to raise one's three- or four-year-old. Modern child rearing is equated with systems building in the eyes of universal pre-kindergarten advocates--and parents hear this discourse through upbeat articles in daily newspapers, public service annoucement, and from school authorities.

In 90% of cases, you can start with one of the two most effective ways to open a speech: ask a question or start with a story. Our brain doesn’t remember what we hear. It remembers only what we “see” or imagine while we listen. You can remember stories. Everything else is quickly forgotten. Smell is the most powerful sense out of 4 to immerse audience members into a scene. Every sentence either helps to drive your point home, or it detracts from clarity. There is no middle point. If you don’t have a foundational phrase in your speech, it means that your message is not clear enough to you, and if it’s not clear to you, there is no way it will be clear to your audience. Share your failures first. Show your audience members that you are not any better, smarter or more talented than they are. You are not an actor, you are a speaker. The main skill of an actor is to play a role; to be someone else. Your main skill as a speaker is to be yourself. People will forgive you for anything except for being boring. Speaking without passion is boring. If you are not excited about what you are talking about, how can you expect your audience to be excited? Never hide behind a lectern or a table. Your audience needs to see 100% of your body. Speak slowly and people will consider you to be a thoughtful and clever person. Leaders don’t talk much, but each word holds a lot of meaning and value. You always speak to only one person. Have a conversation directly with one person, look him or her in the eye. After you have logically completed one idea, which usually is 10-20 seconds, scan the audience and then stop your eyes on another person. Repeat this process again. Cover the entire room with eye contact. When you scan the audience and pick people for eye contact, pick positive people more often. When you pause, your audience thinks about your message and reflects. Pausing builds an audiences’ confidence. If you don’t pause, your audience doesn’t have time to digest what you've told them and hence, they will not remember a word of what you've said. Pause before and after you make an important point and stand still. During this pause, people think about your words and your message sinks in. After you make an important point and stand still. During this pause, people think about your words and your message sinks in. Speakers use filler words when they don’t know what to say, but they feel uncomfortable with silence. Have you ever seen a speaker who went on stage with a piece of paper and notes? Have you ever been one of these speakers? When people see you with paper in your hands, they instantly think, “This speaker is not sincere. He has a script and will talk according to the script.” The best speeches are not written, they are rewritten. Bad speakers create a 10 minutes speech and deliver it in 7 minutes. Great speakers create a 5 minute speech and deliver it in 7 minutes. Explain your ideas in a simple manner, so that the average 12-year-old child can understand the concept. Good speakers and experts can always explain the most complex ideas with very simple words. Stories evoke emotions. Factual information conveys logic. Emotions are far more important in a speech than logic. If you're considering whether to use statistics or a story, use a story. PowerPoint is for pictures not for words. Use as few words on the slide as possible. Never learn your speech word for word. Just rehearse it enough times to internalize the flow. If you watch a video of your speech, you can triple the pace of your development as a speaker. Make videos a habit. Meaningless words and clichés neither convey value nor information. Avoid them. Never apologize on stage. If people need to put in a lot of effort to understand you they simply won’t listen. On the other hand if you use very simple language you will connect with the audience and your speech will be remembered.

When I leave this court I shall go away condemned by you to death, but they will go away convicted by Truth herself of depravity and wickedness. And they accept their sentence even as I accept mine...I tell you, my executioners, that as soon as I am dead, vengeance shall fall upon you with a punishment far more painful than your killing of me. You have brought about my death in the belief that through it you will be delivered from submitting your conduct to criticism; but I say that the result will be just the opposite. You will have more critics... If you expect to stop denunciation of your wrong way of life by putting people to death, there is something amiss with your reasoning.This way of escape is neither possible nor creditable; the best and easiest way is not to stop the mouths of others, but to make yourselves as good men as you can. This is my last message to you who voted for my condemnation.

Over the top? You bet. Not only did we want our people to come in for dinner; we wanted them to have a better experience than anyone else in the room. It was a way to say thank you for all that the team gave us—their creativity, good humor, and hard work. But it was also to show them the same graciousness they delivered every day.

I happened to be in Shelby's shop when a basket of strawberries was delivered," she added casually. "You wouldn't happen to know anything about that, would you, dear?" "Strawberries?" Alan gave her another noncommittal smile. "I'm quite fond of them myself." "I'm much too clever to be conned," Myra told him, shaking her finger. "And I know you entirely too well.A man like you doesn't send baskets of strawberries or spend afternoons at the zoo unless he's infatuated." "I'm not infatuated with Shelby," Alan corrected mildly as he sipped his tea. "I'm in love with her." Myra's planned retort came out as a huff of breath. "Well then," she managed. "That was quicker than even I expected." "It was instant," Alan murmured, not quite as easy now that he'd made the statement. "Lovely." Myra leaned forward to pat his knee. "I can't think of anyone who deserves the shock of love at first sight more.

When I got home at night, and delivered this message for Joe, my sister “went on the Rampage,” in a more alarming degree than at any previous period. She asked me and Joe whether we supposed she was door-mats under our feet, and how we dared to use her so, and what company we graciously thought she was fit for? When she had exhausted a torrent of such inquiries, she threw a candlestick at Joe, burst into a loud sobbing, got out the dustpan—which was always a very bad sign—put on her coarse apron, and began cleaning up to a terrible extent. Not satisfied with a dry cleaning, she took to a pail and scrubbing-brush, and cleaned us out of house and home, so that we stood shivering in the back-yard. It was ten o’clock at night before we ventured to creep in again, and then she asked Joe why he hadn’t married a Negress Slave at once? Joe offered no answer, poor fellow, but stood feeling his whisker and looking dejectedly at me, as if he thought it really might have been a better speculation.

To Polish the Gold & Help Others Shine . . . Catch people doing things right: Outstanding leaders know that people will be more engaged, perform at higher levels, and be more loyal when they are appreciated and celebrated. Jeff West, international speaker and author of The Unexpected Tour Guide, shares that “People will jump over high hurdles, fight fires and break through walls for leaders who find them doing things right. Building that kind of chemistry is essential if a team is going to jell.” Capitalize on the opportunity to notice what people are doing right at work and at home and they will deliver their best. As the old saying goes, “A person who feels appreciated will always do more than expected.

What do I have to fear from them now that everything is over? Since they can no longer make things any worse for me, they can no longer frighten me. Anxiety and terror are ills from which they have delivered me for ever: this is real relief for me. Real ills have little hold over me; I deal easily with those that I actually experience, but not with those that I fear. My fevered imagination adds them together, turns them over and over, draws them out and increases them. The expectation of them tortures me a hundred times more than their actual presence, and the threat of them is far worse than the blow itself. As soon as they happen, the experience of them strips them of their imagined aura and cuts them down to their true size.

As soon as he delivered that line, there issued forth from André one of the most monumental farts any of us had ever heard. Now, I suppose you wouldn’t expect a man of André’s proportions to pass gas quietly or unobtrusively, but this particular one was truly epic, a veritable symphony of gastric distress that roared for more than several seconds and shook the very foundations of the wood and plaster set we were now grabbing on to out of sheer fear. It was long enough and loud enough that every member of the crew had time to stop what they were doing and take notice. All I can say is that it was a wind that could have held up in comparison to the one Slim Pickens emitted in the campfire scene in Mel Brooks’s Blazing Saddles, widely acknowledged as the champion of all cinematic farts.

Less effective male professors routinely receive higher student evaluations than more effective female teachers. Students believe that male professors hand marking back more quickly – even when that is impossible because it’s an online course delivered by a single lecturer, but where half the students are led to believe that the professor is male and half female. Female professors are penalised if they aren’t deemed sufficiently warm and accessible. But if they are warm and accessible they can be penalised for not appearing authoritative or professional. On the other hand, appearing authoritative and knowledgeable as a woman can result in student disapproval, because this violates gendered expectations.38 Meanwhile men are rewarded if they are accessible at a level that is simply expected in women and therefore only noticed if it’s absent.

Start releasing the American dream. In The Progress Paradox, Gregg Easterbrook uses parameters like healthcare, options, living space per person and mobility to conclude that we who live middle-class lives in North America or Europe are living a lifestyle that is, materially speaking, "better than 99 percent of all the people who have ever lived in human history." 2 He goes on to show the great paradox of our material wealth. As our lives have grown more comfortable, more affluent and filled with more possessions, "depression in the Western nations has increased ten times."3 Why? Easterbook cites Martin Seligman, past president of the American Psychological Association, who identifies rampant individualism (viewing everything through the "I," which inevitably leads to loneliness) and runaway consumerism (thinking that owning more will make us happy and then being disappointed when it fails to deliver) .4 Like the rich farmer in Luke's parable, excessive individualism and rampant consumerism distracts us from the care of our souls. We enlarge on the outside and shrivel on the inside, and we find ourselves spiritually bankrupt. If any characteristic of North American society might disqualify us from effective involvement in mission in our globalized world, it is the relentless pursuit of the so-called American dream. (I think it affects Canadians too.) The belief that each successive generation will do better economically than the preceding one leads to exaggerated expectations of life and feelings of entitlement. If my worldview dictates that a happy and successful life is my right, I will run away from the sacrifices needed to be a genuine participant in the global mission of God.

(BDO) October 22: The Dollar Squeeze A debt is a short cash position—i.e., a commitment to deliver cash that one doesn’t have. Because the dollar is the world’s reserve currency, and because of the dollar surplus recycling that has taken place over the past few years…lots of dollar denominated debt has been built up around the world. So, as dollar liquidity has become tight, there has been a dollar squeeze. This squeeze…is hitting dollar-indebted emerging markets (particularly those of commodity exporters) and is supporting the dollar. When this short squeeze ends, which will happen when either the debtors default or get the liquidity to prevent their default, the US dollar will decline. Until then, we expect to remain long the USD against the euro and emerging market currencies. The actual price of anything is always equal to the amount of spending on the item being exchanged divided by the quantity of the item being sold (i.e., P = $/Q), so a) knowing who is spending and who is selling what quantity (and ideally why) is the ideal way to get at the price at any time, and b) prices don’t always react to changes in fundamentals as they happen in the ways characterized by those who seek to explain price movements in connection with unfolding news. During this period, volatility remained extremely high for reasons that had nothing to do with fundamentals and everything to do with who was getting in and out of positions for various reasons—like being squeezed, no longer being squeezed, rebalancing portfolios, etc. For example, on Tuesday, October 28, the S&P gained more than 10 percent and the next day it fell by 1.1 percent when the Fed cut interest rates by another 50 basis points. Closing the month, the S&P was down 17 percent—the largest single-month drop since October 1987.

You will have thoughts about something in the morning like a song, a person, a requirement of something and by evening the same opportunities will be presented to you on a platter. You will be the right person at the right time due to energy synchronisation in your life. This will go to a level when you will feel that you have a direct connection with God. You will also have the feeling of holding a power when things just happen in business and personal life just by thinking about them. You are presented with opportunities by people which you never expected. These things will happen quite often. The only precaution is to keep your goal higher as sometimes you yourself don't believe that you deserve more than what you are getting. Remember that the universe has an abundance of energy. When it starts delivering the burst of energy, you will not be able to imagine what the universe can provide you.

It was the ultimate sacrilege that Jesus Christ, the very Son of God, was rejected and even put to death. And it continues. In many parts of the world today we see a growing rejection of the Son of God. His divinity is questioned. His gospel is deemed irrelevant. In day-to-day life, His teachings are ignored. Those who legitimately speak in His name find little respect in secular society. If we ignore the Lord and His servants, we may just as well be atheists—the end result is practically the same. It is what Mormon described as typical after extended periods of peace and prosperity: “Then is the time that they do harden their hearts, and do forget the Lord their God, and do trample under their feet the Holy One” (Helaman 12:2). And so we should ask ourselves, do we reverence the Holy One and those He has sent? Some years before he was called as an Apostle himself, Elder Robert D. Hales recounted an experience that demonstrated his father’s sense of that holy calling. Elder Hales said: "Some years ago Father, then over eighty years of age, was expecting a visit from a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles on a snowy winter day. Father, an artist, had painted a picture of the home of the Apostle. Rather than have the painting delivered to him, this sweet Apostle wanted to go personally to pick the painting up and thank my father for it. Knowing that Father would be concerned that everything was in readiness for the forthcoming visit, I dropped by his home. Because of the depth of the snow, snowplows had caused a snowbank in front of the walkway to the front door. Father had shoveled the walks and then labored to remove the snowbank. He returned to the house exhausted and in pain. When I arrived, he was experiencing heart pain from overexertion and stressful anxiety. My first concern was to warn him of his unwise physical efforts. Didn’t he know what the result of his labor would be? "'Robert,' he said through interrupted short breaths, 'do you realize an Apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ is coming to my home? The walks must be clean. He should not have to come through a snowdrift.' He raised his hand, saying, 'Oh, Robert, don’t ever forget or take for granted the privilege it is to know and to serve with Apostles of the Lord.'" [In CR, April 1992, 89; or “Gratitude for the Goodness of God,” Ensign, May 1992, 64] I think it is more than coincidence that such a father would be blessed to have a son serve as an Apostle. You might ask yourself, “Do I see the calling of the prophets and apostles as sacred? Do I treat their counsel seriously, or is it a light thing with me?” President Gordon B. Hinckley, for instance, has counseled us to pursue education and vocational training; to avoid pornography as a plague; to respect women; to eliminate consumer debt; to be grateful, smart, clean, true, humble, and prayerful; and to do our best, our very best. Do your actions show that you want to know and do what he teaches? Do you actively study his words and the statements of the Brethren? Is this something you hunger and thirst for? If so, you have a sense of the sacredness of the calling of prophets as the witnesses and messengers of the Son of God.

How do you build peaks? You create a positive moment with elements of elevation, insight, pride, and/ or connection. We’ll explore those final three elements later, but for now, let’s focus on elevation. To elevate a moment, do three things: First, boost sensory appeal. Second, raise the stakes. Third, break the script. (Breaking the script means to violate expectations about an experience—the next chapter is devoted to the concept.) Moments of elevation need not have all three elements but most have at least two. Boosting sensory appeal is about “turning up the volume” on reality. Things look better or taste better or sound better or feel better than they usually do. Weddings have flowers and food and music and dancing. (And they need not be superexpensive—see the footnote for more.IV) The Popsicle Hotline offers sweet treats delivered on silver trays by white-gloved waiters. The Trial of Human Nature is conducted in a real courtroom. It’s amazing how many times people actually wear different clothes to peak events: graduation robes and wedding dresses and home-team colors. At Hillsdale High, the lawyers wore suits and the witnesses came in costume. A peak means something special is happening; it should look different. To raise the stakes is to add an element of productive pressure: a competition, a game, a performance, a deadline, a public commitment. Consider the pregame jitters at a basketball game, or the sweaty-hands thrill of taking the stage at Signing Day, or the pressure of the oral defense at Hillsdale High’s Senior Exhibition. Remember how the teacher Susan Bedford said that, in designing the Trial, she and Greg Jouriles were deliberately trying to “up the ante” for their students. They made their students conduct the Trial in front of a jury that included the principal and varsity quarterback. That’s pressure. One simple diagnostic to gauge whether you’ve transcended the ordinary is if people feel the need to pull out their cameras. If they take pictures, it must be a special occasion. (Not counting the selfie addict, who thinks his face is a special occasion.) Our instinct to capture a moment says: I want to remember this. That’s a moment of elevation.

On the other hand, some of the family’s impatience with the public is justified. When I use Federal Express, I accept as a condition of business that its standardized forms must be filled out in printed letters. An e-mail address off by a single character goes nowhere. Transposing two digits in a phone number gets me somebody speaking heatedly in Portuguese. Electronic media tell you instantly when you’ve made an error; with the post office, you have to wait. Haven’t we all at some point tested its humanity? I send mail to friends in Upper Molar, New York (they live in Upper Nyack), and expect a stranger to laugh and deliver it in forty-eight hours. More often than not, the stranger does. With its mission of universal service, the Postal Service is like an urban emergency room contractually obligated to accept every sore throat, pregnancy, and demented parent that comes its way. You may have to wait for hours in a dimly lit corridor. The staff may be short-tempered and dilatory. But eventually you will get treated. In the Central Post Office’s Nixie unit—where mail arrives that has been illegibly or incorrectly addressed—I see street numbers in the seventy thousands; impossible pairings of zip codes and streets; addresses without a name, without a street, without a city; addresses that consist of the description of a building; addresses written in water-based ink that rain has blurred. Skilled Nixie clerks study the orphans one at a time. Either they find a home for them or they apply that most expressive of postal markings, the vermilion finger of accusation that lays the blame squarely on you, the sender.

For certainly your desire for peace, and prosperity, and plenty is not prompted by any purpose of using these blessings honestly, that is to say, with moderation, sobriety, temperance, and piety; for your purpose rather is to run riot in an endless variety of sottish pleasures, and thus to generate from your prosperity a moral pestilence which will prove a thousand-fold more disastrous than the fiercest enemies. It was such a calamity as this that Scipio, your chief pontiff, your best man in the judgment of the whole senate, feared when he refused to agree to the destruction of Carthage, Rome's rival; and opposed Cato, who advised its destruction. He feared security, that enemy of weak minds, and he perceived that a wholesome fear would be a fit guardian for the citizens. And he was not mistaken: the event proved how wisely he had spoken. For when Carthage was destroyed, and the Roman republic delivered from its great cause of anxiety, a crowd of disastrous evils forthwith resulted from the prosperous condition of things. First concord was weakened, and destroyed by fierce and bloody seditions; then followed, by a concatenation of baleful causes, civil wars, which brought in their train such massacres, such bloodshed, such lawless and cruel proscription and plunder, that those Romans who, in the days of their virtue, had expected injury only at the hands of their enemies, now that their virtue was lost, suffered greater cruelties at the hands of their fellow-citizens. The lust of rule, which with other vices existed among the Romans in more unmitigated intensity than among any other people, after it had taken possession of the more powerful few, subdued under its yoke the rest, worn and wearied.

Waiting on God doesn’t mean sitting around and hoping. Waiting means believing he will do what he’s promised and then acting with confidence. Waiting on God is not at all like the meaningless waiting that you do at the dentist’s office. You know, he’s overbooked, so you’re still sitting there more than an hour past your scheduled appointment. You’re a man, but you’re now reading Family Circle magazine. You’ve begun to read the article titled “The 7 Best Chicken Recipes in the World.” When you’re a man and you’re getting ready to tear a chicken recipe out of Family Circle magazine because the recipe sounds so good, you know that you have been waiting too long! But waiting on God is not like that. Waiting on God is an active life based on confidence in his presence and promises, not a passive existence haunted by occasional doubt. Waiting on God isn’t internal torment that results in paralysis. No, waiting on God is internal rest that results in courageous action. Waiting is your calling. Waiting is your blessing. Every one of God’s children has been chosen to wait, because every one of God’s children lives between the “already” and the “not yet.” Already this world has been broken by sin, but not yet has it been made new again. Already Jesus has come, but not yet has he returned to take you home with him forever. Already your sin has been forgiven, but not yet have you been fully delivered from it. Already Jesus reigns, but not yet has his final kingdom come. Already sin has been defeated, but not yet has it been completely destroyed. Already the Holy Spirit has been given, but not yet have you been perfectly formed into the likeness of Jesus. Already God has given you his Word, but not yet has it totally transformed your life. Already you have been given grace, but not yet has that grace finished its work. You see, we’re all called to wait because we all live right smack dab in the middle of God’s grand redemptive story. We all wait for the final end of the work that God has begun in and for us. We don’t just wait—we wait in hope. And what does hope in God look like? It is a confident expectation of a guaranteed result. We wait believing that what God has begun he will complete, so we live with confidence and courage. We get up every morning and act upon what is to come, and because what is to come is sure, we know that our labor in God’s name is never in vain. So we wait and act. We wait and work. We wait and fight. We wait and conquer. We wait and proclaim. We wait and run. We wait and sacrifice. We wait and give. We wait and worship. Waiting on God is an action based on confident assurance of grace to come.

Herbenick invited me to sit in on the Human Sexuality class she was about to teach, one of the most popular courses on Indiana’s campus. She was, on that day, delivering a lecture on gender disparities in sexual satisfaction. More than one hundred fifty students were already seated in the classroom when we arrived, nearly all of them female, most dressed in sweats, their hair pulled into haphazard ponytails. They listened raptly as Herbenick explained the vastly different language young men and young women use when describing “good sex.” “Men are more likely to talk about pleasure, about orgasm,” Herbenick said. “Women talk more about absence of pain. Thirty percent of female college students say they experience pain during their sexual encounters as opposed to five percent of men.” The rates of pain among women, she added, shoot up to 70 percent when anal sex is included. Until recently, anal sex was a relatively rare practice among young adults. But as it’s become disproportionately common in porn—and the big payoff in R-rated fare such as Kingsman and The To Do List—it’s also on the rise in real life. In 1992 only 16 percent of women aged eighteen to twenty-four said they had tried anal sex. Today 20 percent of women eighteen to nineteen have, and by ages twenty to twenty-four it’s up to 40 percent. A 2014 study of heterosexuals sixteen to eighteen years old—and can we pause for a moment to consider just how young that is?—found that it was mainly boys who pushed for “fifth base,” approaching it less as a form of intimacy with a partner (who they assumed would both need to be and could be coerced into it) than a competition with other boys. Girls were expected to endure the act, which they consistently reported as painful. Both sexes blamed that discomfort on the girls themselves, for being “naïve or flawed,” unable to “relax.” Deborah Tolman has bluntly called anal “the new oral.” “Since all girls are now presumed to have oral sex in their repertoire,” she said, “anal sex is becoming the new ‘Will she do it or not?’ behavior, the new ‘Prove you love me.’” And still, she added, “girls’ sexual pleasure is not part of the equation.” According to Herbenick, the rise of anal sex places new pressures on young women to perform or else be labeled a prude. “It’s a metaphor, a symbol in one concrete behavior for the lack of education about sex, the normalization of female pain, and the way what had once been stigmatized has, over the course of a decade, become expected. If you don’t want to do it you’re suddenly not good enough, you’re frigid, you’re missing out, you’re not exploring your sexuality, you’re not adventurous.

You don’t tip before I’ve delivered the service, mate.” I may be a prostitute but I don’t accept payment when I haven’t worked for it. I’ll be vulnerable to peculiar demands later on. “I want you to have it.” Ali shifts his feet uncomfortably. He gazes at me for a long moment, seemingly debating what to say. “I...I want us to have sex as though we’re making love.” Making love? Jaysus. I scratch my head. I am at a loss why the words scare me. It’s not like I don’t understand what it’s about, theoretically. “Okay. You mean more kisses and shit?” Ali laughs. “And shit.” His face lights up and he looks about ten years younger. “Like cuddles.” Cuddles. Hugs. Kisses. Luxuries for other people. Sex has been only sex to me in the last few years. I guess grown-ups sometimes need some tender loving care. Fuck knows why Ali wants that from me, but if it’s what he fancies, it’s not the weirdest request I’ve ever heard. “’Course. The customer is always right.” A frown appears briefly on his handsome face. I take his hand and lead him into the bedroom. We are still standing when I start kissing him, slowly at first as if I need to taste his lips and savour them. All the while, I try to think of him as someone I want. Strangely, it turns me on more than I care to admit. As I undress him, each small button of his shirt I undo brings expectation that thrills me. His strong hands seem too big for the same task, but they are delicate at the same time with the act of revealing my body. Soon, we are both topless and breathing heavily with anticipation. Even with my boyfriends, I have always been a fuck first, think later kind of guy, so this is brand new

One of the worst disconnects of a business software development effort is seen in the gap between domain experts and software developers. Generally speaking, true domain experts are focused on delivering business value. On the other hand, software developers are typically drawn to technology and technical solutions to business problems. It’s not that software developers have wrong motivations; it’s just what tends to grab their attention. Even when software developers engage with domain experts, the collaboration is largely at a surface level, and the software that gets developed often results in a translation/mapping between how the business thinks and operates and how the software developer interprets that. The resulting software generally does not reflect a recognizable realization of the mental model of the domain experts, or perhaps it does so only partially. Over time this disconnect becomes costly. The translation of domain knowledge into software is lost as developers transition to other projects or leave the company. A different, yet related problem is when one or more domain experts do not agree with each other. This tends to happen because each expert has more or less experience in the specific domain being modeled, or they are simply experts in related but different areas. It’s also common for multiple “domain experts” to have no expertise in a given domain, where they are more of a business analyst, yet they are expected to bring insightful direction to discussions. When this situation goes unchecked, it results in blurred rather than crisp mental models, which lead to conflicting software models. Worse still is when the technical approach to software development actually wrongly changes the way the business functions. While a different scenario, it is well known that enterprise resource planning (ERP) software will often change the overall business operations of an organization to fit the way the ERP functions. The total cost of owning the ERP cannot be fully calculated in terms of license and maintenance fees. The reorganization and disruption to the business can be far more costly than either of those two tangible factors. A similar dynamic is at play as your software development teams interpret what the business needs into what the newly developed software actually does. This can be both costly and disruptive to the business, its customers, and its partners. Furthermore, this technical interpretation is both unnecessary and avoidable with the use of proven software development techniques. The solution is a key investment.

And then, as if delivered by a bolt of lightning, I recalled an incident that occurred between us at least 45 years ago. I was an asthmatic child, and on so many evenings could not run to the door (as instructed to do by our mother) to say hello to my father and give him a hug and a kiss when he came home late each evening from the hotel kitchens. I would instead remain upstairs, bedridden, gasping for every breath, waiting expectantly for Father to come upstairs and just say hello to me and maybe, just maybe, for the first time, say “Hello, Jeanot, I love you.” But those words never came. And then, as I listened to your music, the memory came back of an evening, more than 45 years ago, when I was again sick, and Father came upstairs. But this evening was different. He sat next to me on my bed and, as I was sitting upright and struggling for the next breath, he began gently stroking my hair for a period of time that I wished would have lasted an eternity. Today, as you played us the Chopin, tears came to my eyes. It struck me that while Father could not say these words, “I love you,” they were expressed even more poignantly in the gentle stroking of a little boy’s hair by his father’s powerful hands. I recall that as he sat with me my asthma attack subsided. I

And then, as if delivered by a bolt of lightning, I recalled an incident that occurred between us at least 45 years ago. I was an asthmatic child, and on so many evenings could not run to the door (as instructed to do by our mother) to say hello to my father and give him a hug and a kiss when he came home late each evening from the hotel kitchens. I would instead remain upstairs, bedridden, gasping for every breath, waiting expectantly for Father to come upstairs and just say hello to me and maybe, just maybe, for the first time, say “Hello, Jeanot, I love you.” But those words never came. And then, as I listened to your music, the memory came back of an evening, more than 45 years ago, when I was again sick, and Father came upstairs. But this evening was different. He sat next to me on my bed and, as I was sitting upright and struggling for the next breath, he began gently stroking my hair for a period of time that I wished would have lasted an eternity. Today, as you played us the Chopin, tears came to my eyes. It struck me that while Father could not say these words, “I love you,” they were expressed even more poignantly in the gentle stroking of a little boy’s hair by his father’s powerful hands. I recall that as he sat with me my asthma attack subsided. I had completely forgotten that incident. I must have buried it in my own desire to perhaps keep my father at a distance, to continuously prove either that I was unlovable, or that he was just a cold s.o.b. who only knew work, work, and more work. But not so. My father showed me love in so many ways. We keep looking so hard in life for the “specific message,” and yet we are blinded to the fact that the message is all around us, and within us all the time. We just have to stop demanding that it be on OUR terms or conditions, and instead open ourselves to the possibility that what we seek may be in front of us all the time. Thank you, John Imhof

Risk more than is required. Learn more than is normal. Be strong. Show courage. Breathe. Excel. Love. Lead. Speak your truth. Live your values. Laugh. Cry. Innovate. Simplify. Adore mastery. Release mediocrity. Aim for genius. Stay humble. Be kinder than expected. Deliver more than is needed. Exude passion. Shatter your limits. Transcend your fears. Inspire others by your bigness. Dream big but start small. Act now. Don't stop. Change the world.

Building a successful startup requires more than just a good idea. It requires a deep understanding of your target market, their needs, and the ability to deliver value that exceeds their expectations.

Value can’t be created without understanding what people want (market research). Attracting customers first requires getting their attention, then making them interested (marketing). In order to close a sale, people must trust your ability to deliver on what’s promised (value delivery and operations). Customer satisfaction depends on exceeding the customer’s expectations (customer service). Profit sufficiency requires bringing in more money than is spent (finance).

It was on that call that he introduced me to the concept of restaurant-smart vs. corporate-smart. He described the distinction between the two. In the simplest terms: Where do the highest-paid people in the company work? In the restaurants themselves, or in the corporate offices? That says a lot about how the company is run. In restaurant-smart companies, members of the team have more autonomy and creative latitude. Because they tend to feel a greater sense of ownership, they give more of themselves to the job. They can often offer better hospitality because they’re nimble; there aren’t a lot of rules and systems getting in the way of human connection. But those restaurants tend not to have a lot of corporate support or oversight—the systems that make great businesses. Corporate-smart companies, on the other hand, have all the back-end systems and controls in areas like accounting, purchasing, and human resources that are needed to make them great businesses, and they’re often more profitable as a result. But systems are, by definition, controls—and the more control you take away from the people on the ground, the less creative they can be, and guests can feel that. Restaurant-smart companies can be great businesses, and corporate-smart companies can deliver great hospitality. But their priorities are different, in ways that fundamentally affect the guests’ experience.

Excellence in Statistics: Rigor Statisticians are specialists in coming to conclusions beyond your data safely—they are your best protection against fooling yourself in an uncertain world. To them, inferring something sloppily is a greater sin than leaving your mind a blank slate, so expect a good statistician to put the brakes on your exuberance. They care deeply about whether the methods applied are right for the problem and they agonize over which inferences are valid from the information at hand. The result? A perspective that helps leaders make important decisions in a risk-controlled manner. In other words, they use data to minimize the chance that you’ll come to an unwise conclusion. Excellence in Machine Learning: Performance You might be an applied machine-learning/AI engineer if your response to “I bet you couldn’t build a model that passes testing at 99.99999% accuracy” is “Watch me.” With the coding chops to build both prototypes and production systems that work and the stubborn resilience to fail every hour for several years if that’s what it takes, machine-learning specialists know that they won’t find the perfect solution in a textbook. Instead, they’ll be engaged in a marathon of trial and error. Having great intuition for how long it’ll take them to try each new option is a huge plus and is more valuable than an intimate knowledge of how the algorithms work (though it’s nice to have both). Performance means more than clearing a metric—it also means reliable, scalable, and easy-to-maintain models that perform well in production. Engineering excellence is a must. The result? A system that automates a tricky task well enough to pass your statistician’s strict testing bar and deliver the audacious performance a business leader demands. Wide Versus Deep What the previous two roles have in common is that they both provide high-effort solutions to specific problems. If the problems they tackle aren’t worth solving, you end up wasting their time and your money. A frequent lament among business leaders is, “Our data science group is useless.” And the problem usually lies in an absence of analytics expertise. Statisticians and machine-learning engineers are narrow-and-deep workers—the shape of a rabbit hole, incidentally—so it’s really important to point them at problems that deserve the effort. If your experts are carefully solving the wrong problems, your investment in data science will suffer low returns. To ensure that you can make good use of narrow-and-deep experts, you either need to be sure you already have the right problem or you need a wide-and-shallow approach to finding one.

Sophie was smiling at the baby, who was making a determined play for the cat’s nose. Vim expected the beast to issue the kind of reprimand children remembered long after the scratches had healed, but the cat instead walked away, all the more dignified for its missing parts. “He must go terrorize mice,” Sophie said, rising with the child in her arms. “You’re telling me that cat still mouses?” Vim asked, taking the baby from her in a maneuver that was beginning to feel automatic. “Of course Pee Wee mouses.” Sophie turned a smile on him. “A few battle scars won’t slow a warrior like him down.” “A name like Pee Wee might.” She wrapped her hand into the crook of his elbow as they started across the alley. “Elizabeth gets more grief over his name than Pee Wee does.” “And rightly so. Why on earth would you inflict a feminine name on a big, black tom cat?” “I didn’t name him Elizabeth. I named him Bête Noir, after the French for black beast. Merriweather started calling him Betty Knorr after some actress, which was a tad too informal for such an animal, and hence he became Elizabeth. He answers to it now.” Vim suppressed the twitching of his lips, because this explanation was delivered with a perfectly straight face. “I suppose all that counts is that the cat recognizes it. It isn’t as if the cats were going to comprehend the French.” “It’s silly.” She paused inside the garden gate, her expression self-conscious. He stopped with her on the path, cradling the baby against his chest and trying to fathom what she needed to hear at the moment. “To the cat it isn’t silly, Sophie. To him, your kindness and care are the difference between life and death.” “He’s just a cat.” But she looked pleased with Vim’s observations. “And this is just a baby. Come.

A man's voice was saying, "Odette seems a little off tonight." "You think?" answered a woman. "Less confident than last night's," said the man. "I wonder if she's injured." A loud put-upon sigh. "Not to mention that the swans sound more like a herd of elephants." Oh, come on, Grigori wanted to say: You spoiled, spoiled people. The dancer was wonderful, just like the swan-girls, doing their best to deliver them magnificence. If she was "slightly off", it was nothing Grigori had been able to notice. These people - himself included - were all so thoroughly indulged, could they not simply accept the wonder of it, sitting in this lush, gilded theater while a live orchestra accompanied so much physical exquisiteness? And this man thought he had the right to be disappointed! That these people expected so much, that they could expect that much, and not be ashamed of their petty disappointments.

Come on, Melinda. You can’t avoid it forever. We both know you’re pregnant.” “Ugh,” she said, accepting the cool, wet cloth. She pressed it to her face, her brow, her neck. She didn’t have any more to say. But Jack knew. There had been tears, exhaustion, nausea. She turned watering eyes up to him. He shrugged and said, “You eased up on the breast-feeding, popped an egg and I nailed it.” Her eyes narrowed as if to say she did not appreciate the explanation. He held out a hand to bring her to her feet. “You have to wean David,” he said. “Your body can’t completely nourish two children. You’ll get weak. You’re already exhausted.” “I don’t want to be pregnant right now,” she said. “I’m barely over being pregnant.” “I understand.” “No, you don’t. Because you haven’t ever been pregnant.” He thought this would probably be a bad time to tell her that he did so understand, since he had lived with a pregnant person and listened very attentively to every complaint. “We should go see John right away, so you can find out how pregnant.” “How long have you suspected?” she asked him. “I don’t know. A few weeks. It was a little tougher this time….” “Oh, yeah?” “Well, yeah. Since you haven’t had a period since the first time I laid a hand on you. God, for a supposedly sterile woman, you certainly are fertile.” Then he grinned, fully aware it would have got him smacked if he hadn’t been holding the baby. She whirled away from him and went to sit on their bed. She put her face in her hands and began to cry. Well, he’d been expecting exactly this. There’d been a lot of crying lately and he knew she was going to be mighty pissed off. He sat down beside her, put an arm around her and pulled her close. David patted her head. “It’s going to be okay,” he said. “I’m not delivering this one. I want that understood.” “Try not to be cute,” she said through her tears. “I think my back already hurts.” “Can I get you something? Soda? Crackers? Arsenic?” “Very funny.” She turned her head to look at him. “Are you upset?” He shook his head. “I’m sorry it happened so soon. Sorry for you. I know there are times you get damned uncomfortable and I wanted you to get a break.” “I should never have gone away with you.” “Nah. You were already pregnant. Wanna bet?” “You knew before that?” “I wondered why you were so emotional, and that was a possible reason. I never bought your whole sterile thing. But I don’t have a problem with it. I wanted more kids. I like the idea of a larger family than the three of us. I come from a big family.” “There will not be five, I can guarantee you that,” she said. Then she bored a hole through him with her eyes. “Snip, snip.” “You’re not going to blame this on me, Mel. I suggested birth control. A couple of times, as a matter of fact. You were the one said it could never happen twice. And then explained that whole business about not ovulating while you’re nursing. How’s that working for you so far? Hmm?” “Screw you,” she said, not sweetly. “Well, obviously…” “I’d like you to understand I wasn’t relying on that breast-feeding thing. I’m a midwife—I know that’s not foolproof. I really didn’t think it possible that… Shit,” she said. She sighed deeply. “I just barely got back into my jeans….” “Yeah, those jeans. Whoa, damn. Those jeans really do it to me. No one wears a pair of jeans like you do.” “Aren’t you getting a little sick of having a fat wife?” “You’re not fat. You’re perfect. I love your body, pregnant and unpregnant. I know you’re trying to get me all worked up, but I’m not going there. You can try to pick a fight with me all day and I just won’t play. It wouldn’t be a fair fight—you’re out to get me and we both know it. Do you have appointments this morning?” “Why?” “Because I want to go to Grace Valley for an ultrasound. I want to know when I have to have the house done.” *

13 Simple Ways to Deliver Service Beyond Self 1. Make it Easy for People to Do Business with You. 2. Be an Awesome, Sincere Listener. 3. Listen to Customers’ Words and tone of voice, body language, and how they feel. Ask questions, listen, and meet them on their level. Explain, guide, educate, assist and do what is necessary to help them get the information they need to fully understand regarding their question or issue. 4. Show Enthusiasm. Greet customers with genuine interest. Give them your best. Think, act, and talk with positive enthusiasm and you will attract positive results. Your attitude is contagious! 5. Identify and Anticipate Needs. Most customer needs are more emotional rather than logical. 6. Under Promise & Over Deliver. Apply the principle of “Service Beyond Self” . . . give more than expected. Meet and exceed their expectations. If you can’t serve their needs, connect them with whoever can. 7. Make them Feel Important. Our deepest desire is to feel important. People rarely care how much you know until they know how much you care. Use their names, find ways to compliment them—and be sincere. 8. Take Responsibility for their Satisfaction. Do whatever is necessary to help them solve their problems. Let them know that if they can’t find answers to their questions to come back to you for help. 9. Treat your TEAM well. Fellow colleagues are your internal customers and need a regular dose of appreciation. Thank them and find ways to let them know how important they are. Treat your colleagues with respect; chances are they will have a higher regard for customers. 10. Choose an Attitude of Gratitude. Gratitude changes your perspective and helps you appreciate the good rather than simply taking it for granted. 11. Perform, Provide and Follow-Up. Always perform or provide your service in a spirit of excellence and integrity. If you say you’re going to do something—DO IT! There is tremendous value in being a resource for your customer. If you can help them to succeed, they are more likely to help you succeed. 12. Use Gracious Words. "Thank you, thank you very much.

12 Simple Ways to Deliver Service Beyond Self 1. Make it Easy for People to Do Business with You. 2. Be an Awesome, Sincere Listener. 3. Listen to Customers’ Words and tone of voice, body language, and how they feel. Ask questions, listen, and meet them on their level. Explain, guide, educate, assist and do what is necessary to help them get the information they need to fully understand regarding their question or issue. 4. Show Enthusiasm. Greet customers with genuine interest. Give them your best. Think, act, and talk with positive enthusiasm and you will attract positive results. Your attitude is contagious! 5. Identify and Anticipate Needs. Most customer needs are more emotional rather than logical. 6. Under Promise & Over Deliver. Apply the principle of “Service Beyond Self” . . . give more than expected. Meet and exceed their expectations. If you can’t serve their needs, connect them with whoever can. 7. Make them Feel Important. Our deepest desire is to feel important. People rarely care how much you know until they know how much you care. Use their names, find ways to compliment them—and be sincere. 8. Take Responsibility for their Satisfaction. Do whatever is necessary to help them solve their problems. Let them know that if they can’t find answers to their questions to come back to you for help. 9. Treat your TEAM well. Fellow colleagues are your internal customers and need a regular dose of appreciation. Thank them and find ways to let them know how important they are. Treat your colleagues with respect; chances are they will have a higher regard for customers. 10. Choose an Attitude of Gratitude. Gratitude changes your perspective and helps you appreciate the good rather than simply taking it for granted. 11. Perform, Provide and Follow-Up. Always perform or provide your service in a spirit of excellence and integrity. If you say you’re going to do something—DO IT! There is tremendous value in being a resource for your customer. If you can help them to succeed, they are more likely to help you succeed. Use Gracious Words. "Thank you, thank you very much.

CIOs must shift focus from internal customers to external customers. IT must shift focus from providing service to providing value. Everything is moving to the cloud; CIOs must assume a “cloud first” mentality. Innovation is more than new technology—it's also about change management, enabling new processes, and hiring the best talent. CIOs need to work closely with the business to create innovation that drives real value. CEOs expect more from their CIOs than ever before. CIOs must deliver on a higher set of expectations, or they will be replaced. CIOs must shift from a measurement mentality to a value creation mentality. CIOs must shift focus from historical data to real-time information. Today, IT is all about creating real business value. All business is digital. All business. When IT has a bad day, the business has a bad day. IT still matters. It matters to the top line and to the bottom line. IT matters more than ever because IT is everywhere in the business. Without IT, you're out of business. CIOs need to step up, raise the bar, and elevate their game to meet the challenges of the big shift. I hope you enjoy reading this book and find it a useful addition to your library. It's the fourth book I've authored on the topic of

May 3 MORNING “In the world ye shall have tribulation.” — John 16:33 ART thou asking the reason of this, believer? Look upward to thy heavenly Father, and behold Him pure and holy. Dost thou know that thou art one day to be like Him? Wilt thou easily be conformed to His image? Wilt thou not require much refining in the furnace of affliction to purify thee? Will it be an easy thing to get rid of thy corruptions, and make thee perfect even as thy Father which is in heaven is perfect? Next, Christian, turn thine eye downward. Dost thou know what foes thou hast beneath thy feet? Thou wast once a servant of Satan, and no king will willingly lose his subjects. Dost thou think that Satan will let thee alone? No, he will be always at thee, for he “goeth about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.” Expect trouble, therefore, Christian, when thou lookest beneath thee. Then look around thee. Where art thou? Thou art in an enemy’s country, a stranger and a sojourner. The world is not thy friend. If it be, then thou art not God’s friend, for he who is the friend of the world is the enemy of God. Be assured that thou shalt find foemen everywhere. When thou sleepest, think that thou art resting on the battlefield; when thou walkest, suspect an ambush in every hedge. As mosquitoes are said to bite strangers more than natives, so will the trials of earth be sharpest to you. Lastly, look within thee, into thine own heart and observe what is there. Sin and self are still within. Ah! if thou hadst no devil to tempt thee, no enemies to fight thee, and no world to ensnare thee, thou wouldst still find in thyself evil enough to be a sore trouble to thee, for “the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked.” Expect trouble then, but despond not on account of it, for God is with thee to help and to strengthen thee. He hath said, “I will be with thee in trouble; I will deliver thee and honour thee.

KRAs and KPIs KRA and KPI are two confusing acronyms for an approach commonly recommended for identifying a person’s major job responsibilities. KRA stands for key result areas; KPI stands for key performance indicators. As academics and consultants explain this jargon, key result areas are the primary components or parts of the job in which a person is expected to deliver results. Key performance indicators represent the measures that will be used to determine how well the individual has performed. In other words, KRAs tell where the individual is supposed to concentrate her attention; KPIs tell how her performance in the specified areas should be measured. Probably few parts of the performance appraisal process create more misunderstanding and bewilderment than do the notion of KRAs and KPIs. The reason is that so much of the material written about KPIs and KRAs is both

Probably the most daunting challenge in delivering growth is that if you fail once to deliver it, the odds that you ever will be able to deliver in the future are very low. This is the conclusion of a remarkable study, Stall Points, that the Corporate Strategy Board published in 1998.8 It examined the 172 companies that had spent time on Fortune’s list of the 50 largest companies between 1955 and 1995. Only 5 percent of these companies were able to sustain a real, inflation-adjusted growth rate of more than 6 percent across their entire tenure in this group. The other 95 percent reached a point at which their growth simply stalled, to rates at or below the rate of growth of the gross national product (GNP). Stalling is understandable, given our expectations that all growth markets become saturated and mature. What is scary is that of all these companies whose growth had stalled, only 4 percent were able to successfully reignite their growth even to a rate of 1 percent above GNP growth. Once growth had stalled, in other words, it proved nearly impossible to restart it.

When you’ve prepared, practiced, studied, and consistently put in the required effort, sooner or later you’ll be presented with your own moment of truth. In that moment, you will define who you are and who you are becoming. It is in those moments where growth and improvement live—when we either step forward or shrink back, when we climb to the top of the podium and seize the medal or we continue to applaud sullenly from the crowd for others’ victories. We’ll also look at how you can consistently deliver more than people expect, compounding your good fortune even further.

But every time, I’ve made sure to apologize—not for the feedback itself, but for the way I delivered it.

Again, what more agreeable to faith than to feel assured that God is a propitious Father when Christ is acknowledged as a brother and propitiator, than confidently to expect all prosperity and gladness from Him, whose ineffable love towards us was such that He “spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all” (Rom. 8:

The Four Dominant Learning Styles What are the Four Types of Learners? If you have spent any considerable amount of time in a learning institution, you know for almost a fact that each learner is different from the next. It is relatively easy to pick out the differences among learners. For instance, you can identify a student who has an easier time retaining information when presented in a particular format. Until recent decades, education seemed to be incredibly rigid towards the learners. Most often than not, they were subjected to a one-size-fits-all model that never accommodated for the differences in learning. However, research and studies made tremendous strides in identifying and reconciling these discrepancies. Nowadays, educators are developing strategies that help them reach out to each student's specific learning style. This gives each learner a fair chance at acquiring an education. This article seeks to breakdown the four main ways that learners acquire, process, and retain information. Visual Learners Information is optimally acquired and processed for this type of learners when conveyed in graphic or diagrammatic form. Such students retain content when it is presented as diagrams, charts, etcetera with much more ease. Some of them also lean towards pictures and videos at times. These learners tend to better at processing robust information rather than bits and pieces. This makes them holistic learners. Hence, they derive more value from summarized visual aids as opposed to segments. Auditory Learners On the other hand, these students learn more by processing information that has been delivered verbally. Such students are also more attentive to their instructors in class. Sometimes, they will do so at the expense of taking notes which can sometimes be mistaken for subpar engagement. Such learners will also thrive in group discussions where they get to talk through schoolwork with their peers. This not only reinforces their understanding but also presents an excellent opportunity to learn from others. Similarly, they can obtain significant value from reading out what they have written. Reading/Writing Learners These students lean more towards written information. For as long as they read through the content, they stand a better chance at retaining it. Such students prefer text-heavy learning. Thus, written assignments, handouts in class, or even taking notes are their most effective learning modes. Kinesthetic Learners Essentially, these students learn by doing. These are the students that rely on hands-on participation in class. For as long as they are physically proactive in the learning process, such learners stand a better chance at retaining and retrieving the knowledge acquired. This also earns them the popular term, tactile learners, since they tend to engage most of their sense in the learning process. As you would expect, such leaners have the most difficulties in conventional learning institutions. However, they tend to thrive in practical-oriented set-ups, such as workshops and laboratories. These four modalities will provide sufficient background knowledge on learning styles for you to formulate your own assessment. Ask yourself first, no less, what type of a learner are you?

Love is daily admitting to yourself, your spouse, and God that you are not able to love this way without God’s protecting, providing, forgiving, rescuing, and delivering grace. After reading this chapter, there are two things you should be left with. First, you should be confronted with the fact that love is fundamentally deeper and more active than some warm, romantic feeling of affection toward someone to whom you are attracted. It is not some generalized response of happiness when you are with this particular person. No, love is a specific commitment of the heart to a specific person that causes you to give yourself to a specific lifestyle of care that requires you to be willing to make sacrifices that have that person’s good in view. Love is never general, and it never remains in the realm of feelings. Love desires, love thinks, love chooses, love decides, love acts, and love speaks in an ongoing, day-by-day commitment to the welfare of another. Real love is concrete, specific, and active.

Amazon, the world’s largest online retailer, has changed how we shop and what we expect of shipping and deliveries. More than half of US households are members of Amazon Prime, and Amazon delivered ten billion packages in 2018, which is two billion more than the number of people on this planet. Amazon Web Services (AWS) provides cloud computing services and applications that enable start-ups and established companies to easily create new products and services, just as the iPhone App Store opened whole new pathways for business. Amazon’s Echo has created a new market for smart home speakers, and Amazon Studios is making hit TV shows and movies. Amazon is also poised to disrupt the health and pharmacy industries. At first its purchase of the Whole Foods Market chain was confounding, until it became apparent that the move could be a brilliant way to tie together the strands of a new Bezos business model, which involves retailing, online ordering, and superfast delivery, combined with physical outposts. Bezos is also building a private space company with the long-term goal of moving heavy industry to space, and he has become the owner of the Washington Post.

Feeding people half-truths or bullshit to make them feel better (which is almost always about making ourselves feel more comfortable) is unkind. Not getting clear with a colleague about your expectations because it feels too hard, yet holding them accountable or blaming them for not delivering is unkind. Talking about people rather than to them is unkind. This lesson has so wildly transformed my life that we live by it at home. If Ellen is trying to figure out how to handle a college roommate issue or Charlie needs to talk to a friend about something…clear is kind. Unclear is unkind.

That trifecta—humanities, technology, business—is what has made him one of our era’s most successful and influential innovators. Like Steve Jobs, Bezos has transformed multiple industries. Amazon, the world’s largest online retailer, has changed how we shop and what we expect of shipping and deliveries. More than half of US households are members of Amazon Prime, and Amazon delivered ten billion packages in 2018, which is two billion more than the number of people on this planet. Amazon Web Services (AWS) provides cloud computing services and applications that enable start-ups and established companies to easily create new products and services, just as the iPhone App Store opened whole new pathways for business. Amazon’s Echo has created a new market for smart home speakers, and Amazon Studios is making hit TV shows and movies. Amazon is also poised to disrupt the health and pharmacy industries. At first its purchase of the Whole Foods Market chain was confounding, until it became apparent that the move could be a brilliant way to tie together the strands of a new Bezos business model, which involves retailing, online ordering, and superfast delivery, combined with physical outposts. Bezos is also building a private space company with the long-term goal of moving heavy industry to space, and he has become the owner of the Washington Post.

Outcome Based Education The first time you read this poem I need you to remember something They do not teach you in school Like Doctor’s, Lawyers, Soldiers, Teachers don’t have an oath, not at all Yet, students aren’t footballs They aren’t The student aren’t born dull or bright Teachers make them that way, a plight Obe comes for rescue to make learning, a delight Yet, is content about Obe too abstract to understand? Is the material about Obe too tough to grasp and comprehend? Do a new way to be adopted to explain and define Obe? Its an easy concept once you agree Outcomes are not scores, averages or grade point Only needs is to look education from a new viewpoint Obe is holistic way of enlightening and empowering learners It is a paradigm shift to make them achievers Obe is what they’ll be able to know and do Skills and knowledge they need to have at debut Course Outcome(CO) is what they’ll know after each course This is the skill they will acquire without any force Program Specific Outcomes(PSO) are specific to program, USPs of department, its hologram What they’ll be able to do at time of graduation accomplishment, achievement, acclamations Program Educational Objectives(PEOs) are the achievements they’ll have in their career Indicates what they’ll achieve and how they perform during first few years Program Outcomes (POs) is what they’ll be able to know and do upon graduation Skills, knowledge and behaviour they’ll acquire, will give their career acceleration. Obe wants all learner to learn and be successful 1 paradigm 2 purpose 3 premises 4 principles 5 Practices of obe makes you accountable 1 paradigm what and whether students learn successfully is more important than how and when they learn 2 Purpose maximize condition of success for all students, send fully equipped student into world to make their dreams unfurl 3 Premises All students can succeed and learn maybe not on same day and same way, Success breads success , colleges control condition of success 4 principles clarity of focus on outcomes, expended opportunity to all, high expectation from all, designing curriculum to attain outcome 5 practices define outcome, design curriculum, deliver instruction, document result, determine advancement These are 1 paradigm 2 purpose 3 premises 4 principles 5 Practices for Obe accomplishment ----------------By Dr. Kshitij Shinghal Special thanks to Dr. William Spady and references from his book “ Outcome Based Education: Critical Issues

Of course, Adam was still counting days the old way, as Sunday was the first day of the week, so he was misinforming me as to which day his father actually arrived in Spain, seemingly by accident, by mistake. Perhaps it was a mistake that Adam had confused the European calendar with the Israeli calendar from time to time; perhaps it was not a mistake. Ferran actually arrived the following day, Tuesday, according to the Gregorian calendar and not Monday, when we had all been preparing for his arrival with Martina in vain. I had wanted to introduce her to the old man nicely. However, Tuesday, when he was scheduled to arrive, Mario Larese - Mister Twister - showed up, banging the glass of the store-front door, echoing throughout the entire store and upstairs apartment, as if he was about to break the glass if I did not go down to open it. He was knocking on the plain, large glass of the door with either a lighter or with his metal ring; I don't know which, but it was terrible. I knew Ferran could arrive at any moment, so I told Martina it might be best if she went home to Paola and let me take care of the business. I couldn't ignore Mario, who was almost breaking the glass, seemingly because he had seen my scooter parked in front of the store. I opened the door and he started pushing his way inside, saying, “Let's smoke a joint and drink a coffee.” I replied, “Slow down, cowboy. I've got company, I'm expecting more company, and I just woke up. I have no time now; sorry, Mario.” He kept banging the door because he wanted to smoke somewhere early in the morning, and Canale Vuo was still closed. I was so tempted to slap him. Unintentionally, I let slip that I was expecting Ferran, which only increased his refusal to leave. Theatrical. Dramatic. He wasn't going to get out of my store, my way, my day, my life, my struggle, or my schedule. Meanwhile, the same time, Nico was bugging me on the phone to make sure I delivered a box of 1,000 cones for La Silla because they needed it to make pre-rolled joints for their smokers. They sold 2-3,000 pre-rolled joints a week, ordering two boxes weekly, thus making me waste my time for free. I started to think it had all been planned just to make me lose time every week. They sold 3,000 joints a week and yet couldn't afford more than two boxes of cones to purchase to keep up. Tuesday morning was so urgent for La Silla to get those 1,000 brown cones right then. Just for Nico's 5-euro commission and so he wouldn't be embarrassed in front of his friends at La Silla with his sales performance - no problem. I couldn't kick out Mario, and I didn't want to kick out Martina, who apparently didn't want to leave. I asked them to leave, but Mario was leaning on the kitchen table and unable to look up or turn toward me to meet my gaze. Martina was looking at me angrily. So, I told them both, “OK then, stay here; let the old man inside once he arrives. I have to deliver this box of cones to La Silla right away, but I will be right back. 20 minutes tops.” Adam had also failed to inform me that he had copied a set of keys for his dad at one point, and he had somehow sent them to Israel by mail, I guess. Martina did not need to stay in the store to let Ferran in, but I did not know that. Adam was always secretive and brief with his words, as if it cost him money to say words out of his mouth or dictate to Rachel what to write in an email or what he was supposed to tell me on the phone. I thought that Martina had to stay to let Ferran into the store in case he arrived just when I went to La Mesa to do a favor for Nico. I was on my way back to Urgell from La Silla, when Adam suddenly called me from Amsterdam, screaming on the phone.

Before I was a Christian, it was hard for me to grasp that God’s love isn’t gauged by earthly circumstances. I completely relate to those who are asking, “If God can’t give us earthly blessings, why should we follow him?” My answer now, as a Christian, is that God is worth it. We all desire to be known, loved, and seen for who we truly are. Most of those tangible or social goals such as money, power, and relationships seem to be one step ahead of us. Should we reach them, those things never deliver the feeling of self-worth we expect to gain from them. We are nothing but slaves to the next goal. We might be able to choose our slave master, but we are slaves nonetheless.

What VALUE do you bring to others? What wisdom are you providing without expectation of return? What are you worth as a person? Is that the rate at which you’re earning? Maybe you’re not giving value or service better than you’re paid to deliver. Would you pay your rate? How can you increase your personal value you offer to your employer? Hill says time and time again to render more service than is expected of you. Are you doing more than expected? Or are you still sporting the loser’s philosophy of “They don’t pay me enough. . .” Winner or whiner? The choice is obvious to me. You? Service comes from your heart – not from your head. Service is not a policy, it’s a PERSON! Be that person and you will win in sales and in life.

Her preferred strategy was to prepare people for the worst, then hopefully deliver more than they were expecting.

He suddenly thrust. Amanda blocked the blow, but barely. He thrust again and again, driving her back across the ship before she even knew what was happening. In mere seconds, she had her back at the rail and sweat was pouring down her body, pooling between her breasts and legs. She was even more furious than before at his display of skill. He smiled. “Come now, darling. I have no wish to fight with you, especially as your blade is not blunted. Besides, we both know you cannot best me.” But she would try. She would make him sit up and take real notice of her. She was not a fancy lady, but she could match him in every other way. Amanda growled and attacked. She thrust hard and he met her, taking a step back, a step aside, until they were moving rapidly in a vicious circle of hard blow after hard blow. Iron rang. Sweat burned in her eyes. Of course he was master here. She hadn’t expected to win. But she wanted to somehow hurt him. There was nothing she wanted more—she wanted him to feel what she had felt, damn him! Her arm was aching now. She was at her physical limit, but she would not give up. “Damn you!” she gasped, and she halted, pretending to be exhausted and ready to submit to his mercy. He bought her game, a grin appearing on his handsome face. “Well done,” he began. Amanda feinted, thrust and sliced off the rest of his shirt buttons. He was so surprised he simply stared down at his shirt, now shredded in two. Then, slowly, he looked up at her. His blue eyes were brilliant, hot, and he slowly, boldly smiled. He wasn’t angry. She understood the heat, and a savage sense of triumph rose up in her. He might not want her with his fine intellectual mind, but just now, she had provoked him so thoroughly that he wanted her right then. She knew, beyond any doubt, that reason had been conquered by lust. “What’s wrong, de Warenne?” she murmured seductively. “Maybe it isn’t a fancy lady that you really want.” Before she had even delivered this last call to arms, he attacked. He had the edge of both shirt and chemise hooked over his blade, and with one flick of his wrist, blunted tip or no, her clothes would be ripped in two. She stilled, breathing hard, her body pulsing in frenzied excitement. “Go ahead,” she managed. “Take my clothes.” His face hardened. He slowly lowered the big blunted tip of his sword between her breasts. “I believe we are done,” he said harshly. She stared at the tip, then lifted her gaze. “I am not done.” His brows lifted. “I have my blade against your heart, darling. In actual battle, you would be dead.” “Most men would prefer me warm and alive in their beds,” she challenged tauntingly. His eyes blazed. He removed the sword, tossing it aside and it clattered across the deck. “You have won, Amanda,” he said. “I concede defeat.” He was turning to walk away. Amanda thrust, catching the buttons of his breeches, and cut them free. He froze. “Maybe,” she said softly, “my opponent would be as easily deceived as you have been and throw his sword aside too soon, falsely thinking himself in no further danger. Maybe, in a real battle, skill will have little to do with the victory. Turn around,” she ordered.

Freshen up your attitude A lot of people rely on yesterday’s attitude, or last week’s attitude, or last year’s attitude. That thing is old and stale. Start putting on a fresh new attitude, every morning. Get your mind going in the right direction. Develop the habit of living in a positive mind-set. This is what the Bible’s Daniel did. The scripture says he had an excellent spirit. He was a cut above. He stood out in the crowd. How did he do it? Every morning he got up early, opened his window, and thanked God for the day. He thanked God for His goodness, and thanked Him that he was well able. He was putting on that fresh new attitude, setting his mind for victory. Daniel was serving the king in a foreign land, when the king issued a decree that no one could pray to any God except the king’s God. If they did, they would be thrown into a lion’s den. That threat didn’t stop Daniel. He got up every morning and kept praying to Jehovah. Daniel’s enemies told the king, who had already issued the decree. He loved Daniel, but he couldn’t go back on his word. Daniel said, “Don’t worry, King, I’m going to be fine. The God I serve is well able to deliver me.” That’s what happens when you start the day off in faith, thinking positive thoughts on purpose. When you’re in a difficult situation, you don’t shrink back in fear with thoughts like: “Why is this happening to me?” Instead, you rise up in faith and say, “My God is well able. I’m armed with strength for this battle. I can do all things through Christ. If God be for me, who dare be against me?” The authorities threw Daniel into the lion’s den with more than one hundred hungry lions. Everyone expected Daniel to be eaten in a few minutes. But when you have this attitude of faith, God will fight your battles for you. God sent an angel to close the mouths of the lions. The king came by the next morning, and there was Daniel lying on the grass resting. The king got him out and said, “From now on we’re going to all worship the God of Daniel, the true and living God.” It’s interesting that the scripture says nothing negative about Joseph and Daniel. I’m sure they made mistakes, but you can’t find a record of anything they did wrong. There are stories of other great heroes of faith like Abraham, David, Moses, Paul, and Peter failing and making mistakes. Daniel and Joseph were good people, but they had bad circumstances. Unfair things happened to them. They were mistreated and faced huge obstacles. If you study their lives you’ll find one common denominator: They were always positive. They had this attitude of faith. They didn’t make excuses or say things like “God, why is this happening to me?” They started off each day with their minds going in the right direction, knowing that our God is well able. They both saw favor and blessings in amazing ways. In the same way, you can be a good person and have bad circumstances.

Cal studied Savvy as the C-130 sped down the runway. The plane held a half-dozen marines and supplies bound for Manda Bay. She'd chosen the seat across from him near the tail of the aircraft and donned protective headphones. Between the headphones and other passengers, there was no way for them to discuss the mission during the flight. He’d been released from the brig at two thirty in the morning and was told he’d be departing on the transport as scheduled. Savvy hadn't stopped by his CLU to offer an explanation, and he’d decided not to go to hers. He needed to sleep. They'd have time to sort things out before departure. But daylight brought no communication from her, and he’d been surprised to find himself alone in the vehicle that delivered him to the airstrip the US military shared with the international airport. He’d begun to wonder if the op would be canceled, when she arrived seven minutes before their scheduled takeoff. She’d dropped into the seat across from him with little more than a nod in his direction, donned the headphones, and cracked open a file. She stared at the papers on her lap as if they held the meaning of the universe. They reached cruising altitude. The interior was loud, but not so loud the headphones were necessary. Still, she kept them on. He’d been watching her for twenty minutes, noting that she had yet to turn a page. He’d been looking forward to seeing her. He’d wanted to check the bruises on her neck, make sure she was okay. But the concern had evaporated in the wake of her avoidance. Her utter lack of acknowledgment of what had transpired last night. He reminded himself she’d been assaulted. It was wrong of him to expect her to be rational, cool, and calm today. She’d said the man had assaulted her before, and Evers had indicated the same with his words and actions. She had the right to be messed up. If this were a normal situation. But nothing about this was normal. They were heading into a covert op, and he knew next to nothing of their plan. Worse, he needed to know if she was on her game. He needed Savannah James, Paramilitary Operations Officer for the Special Operations Group within SAD. He needed the covert operator who could do everything he could do, backward and in high heels. He didn’t know if that woman had boarded this turboprop. Flights always took longer on C-130s, and he estimated they’d be in the air about three and a half hours. Too long to wait to find out what was going on in that complex brain of hers. He unbuckled his harness and moved to the empty seat next to her. Her fingers tightened on the files in her lap. He reached over and extracted the papers from her grip and set them aside. He slid a hand down her arm and took her hand, interlocking his fingers with hers. Her hand was tight, stiff, then all at once, she relaxed and squeezed his hand. After a moment, she pulled off the protective headphones and leaned her head on his shoulder. Something in his chest shifted. He was holding hands with Savvy as she leaned on him, and it felt…right. Good. Like something he’d needed forever but hadn't known. Several marines sat too close for them to attempt conversation, and a guy sitting across the empty fuselage watched with unabashed curiosity. Cal didn't care. He liked the way she leaned on him. The way she was willing to accept comfort. The way her hand felt in his. And he was thankful he hadn't been cut from this mission, no matter how much he hadn't wanted it at first. The idea of her having to pretend to be a sexual plaything to anyone but him made his blood pressure spike. It was messed up, but he couldn't deny it. The fact that he didn't like the idea of any other man touching her—even if it was only an act—was a problem to deal with when they returned to Camp Citron. Right now, he was a soldier embarking on a mission, and as he would on any mission, he’d protect his teammate at all costs.

Claude Steele, this time joined by Geoffrey Cohen, offers important insights. To investigate how a teacher might gain the trust of a student when giving feedback across racial lines, they created a scenario in which Black and White Stanford University students were asked to write essays about a favorite teacher. The students were told that the essays would be considered for publication in a journal about teaching and that they would receive feedback from a reviewer who they were led to believe was White. A Polaroid snapshot was taken of each student and attached to the essay as it was turned in, signaling to the students that the reviewer would be able to identify the race of the essay writer. Several days later the students returned to receive the reviewer’s comments, with the opportunity to “revise and resubmit” the essay. What was varied in the experiment was how the feedback was delivered. When the feedback was given in a constructive but critical manner, Black students were more suspicious than white students that the feedback was racially biased, and consequently, the Black students were less likely than the White students to rewrite the essay for further consideration. The same was true when the critical feedback was buffered by an opening statement praising the essay, such as “There were many good things about your essay.” However, when the feedback was introduced by a statement that conveyed a high standard (reminding the writer that the essay had to be of publishable quality) and high expectations (assuring the student of the reviewer’s belief that with effort and attention to the feedback, the standard could be met), the Black students not only responded positively by revising the essays and resubmitting them, but they did so at a higher rate than the White students in the study.66

With such draconian measures in academic settings, we must ask some serious questions. First, how can an educator give students the right tools of critical thinking, and encourage them to work hard if most students expect to receive high grades simply because they are paying customers? Second, can we say in good faith that academics living under such precarious conditions and contingent employment are free to teach, write, and think? More importantly, can we trust the competency and the critical thinking abilities of students graduating from elite private universities knowing that many of them expect to and do get inflated grades because they are paying customers? It is perhaps no wonder why we have so many disqualified, incompetent, and corrupt people at the top of every American institution. Some students no longer see the professor or the instructor with high respect. They see them as service providers whose role is to help pave their way into their next step, be it getting into a graduate school, getting a highly paid job, and so on. Likewise, many educators start acting almost like celebrities who are more concerned about their ratings, reviews, and student evaluations (their public image) than they are in delivering knowledge and critical tools for students take home. After all, what should we expect from a customer-service provider relationship that is primarily for profit?

As one goes up the ranks in any organisation, success is defined more by the way you manage your teams, your people’s expectations, the way you motivate them into delivering what you expect, and how you stand by your people and lead from the front. These are things which make you stand out, rather than subject matter expertise

I’m not here to give you a road map. I’m here to tell you: this is what you should expect to see. If I gave you the map Lewis and Clark made, it would be pretty easy to get from here to the West Coast. That’s why everybody remembers the names Lewis and Clark and nobody remembers who read their map and took the trip the second time. “If you don’t think you can deal with this amount of uncertainty and failure,” he continued, “then wait for Lewis and Clark to deliver the map and you can be one of those people who does a good job following their lead. But if you want to be one of those people who do what these innovators did, be prepared, like they did, to fail and get frostbite and have people not make it. If you’re not prepared for that stuff, that’s okay: don’t do it. There is plenty of room in the world for other people. But if you do want to do it—if you want to go off and do really big things—be prepared for them to take way longer than you thought, cost way more than you expected, and be full of failures that are painful, embarrassing, and frustrating. If it’s not going to kill you, keep trudging through the mud.

People with views of the Thames seemed always to be looking out, expecting more from the promise than the view would ever deliver.

his…demands?” And then she had held her breath as if seriously expecting Isabel to answer. And last night as Isabel passed a half-open bedroom door, she had overheard a fellow guest speaking to her maid. “I do so admire Lady Isabel for not feeling the need to bow to the demands of fashion,” the woman had said. “She dresses instead in what is comfortable even if it is not in the first stare. Though I find it no wonder her husband has strayed.” Isabel had gritted her teeth and gone on down to dinner, where she smiled and flirted and silently dared anyone to comment to her face that her dress was at least two years old. If only her early departure wouldn’t cause so much comment, she would call for her carriage and go home right now. But that was impossible. For one thing, she didn’t have a carriage, for she had come up from London with a fellow guest. Too short of funds to afford a post-chaise, she was equally dependent on her friend for transport back to the city when the hunting party broke up. And secondly, of course, there were only two places she could go—Maxton Abbey, or the London house—and her husband might be at either one. Unless, with her safely stashed at the Beckhams’, he had accepted yet another of the many invitations he received. But she couldn’t take the chance. After little more than a year of marriage, the pattern was ingrained—wherever one of the Maxwells went, the other took pains not to go. She could not burst in on her husband; what if he were entertaining his mistress? Better not to know. She might go to the village of Barton Bristow, descending on her sister. But Emily’s tiny cottage was scarcely large enough for her and her companion, with no room for a guest—and Mrs. Dalrymple’s constant chatter and menial deference was enough to set Isabel’s teeth on edge. In fact, the only nice thing Isabel could say about being married was that at least she wasn’t required to drag a spinster companion around the countryside with her to preserve her reputation, as Emily had to do. Isabel turned her borrowed mount over to the stable boys and strode across to the house, where the butler intercepted her in the front hall. “A letter has just been delivered for you, Lady Isabel, by a special messenger. He said a post-chaise will call for you tomorrow.” She took the folded sheet with trepidation. Who could be summoning her? Not her husband, that was certain. Her father, possibly, for yet another lecture on the duties of a young wife? She broke the seal and unfolded the page. My dearest Isabel, You will remember from happier days that I will soon celebrate my seventieth birthday… Uncle Josiah. But her moment of relief soon

Whether criticism or praise, it’s a leader’s job to give their team feedback all the time. But every person on the team should be hearing more about what they did well than what they could do better, or they’re going to feel deflated and unmotivated. And if you can’t find more compliments to deliver than criticism, that’s a failure in leadership—either you’re not coaching the person sufficiently, or you’ve tried and it’s not working, which means they should no longer be on the team.

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Not all of Blizzard’s employees took to the intense office culture, such as Andy Weir, a programmer who hated being dropped into the pressure cooker. The day before he left on a weekend trip for which he’d provided weeks of notice, his bosses criticized him for taking off, then demanded that he leave them with a phone number. “Over the course of the weekend they probably called me twenty times,” Weir said. “And I was not an important engineer.” During the game’s final stretch, when everyone was expected to test out the game during their spare time, Weir complained to a colleague that he was sick of doing extra QA work and not getting paid for it. Weir became the target of endless bullying around the office. Colleagues would dismiss him, ignore him, and deride his ideas. “So many people were shitty to me, I have to assume I brought it on myself in some way,” Weir said. He was criticized for delivering inadequate code that broke the game’s launcher, which made things more difficult for everybody. He’d fume: How could he live up to expectations when nobody was mentoring or teaching him? There were no structures in place to help younger employees learn how to fix bugs or write better code. “We were so busy running as fast as we could, there was no culture of mentorship or training,” said Wyatt. Less than a year into the job, Weir was fired for his poor performance. “This was a dream job for me, working at Blizzard,” Weir said. “I was absolutely crushed.” But Andy Weir wound up doing just fine. Two decades later, he published a novel called The Martian, the film adaptation of which would star Matt Damon and earn more than $630 million worldwide.

Technology research projects three to five years from commercialization were the feeder system for DuPont’s future revenues and margins. There were lots of them, all consuming precious resources, particularly the expertise of key people whose efforts were diluted over too many projects. In Connelly’s view, so many projects could neither be properly managed nor given the proper amount of resources. He and Bingham looked at the hundreds of projects that were within three to five years of launch and picked seventy-five (limited to no more than a handful per business unit) that they judged had the highest probability of success. The top seventy-five projects had to meet three criteria: address a well-defined unmet market need; the business must have or be reasonably expected to develop a unique solution to the need; and the business must have an effective route by which the solution could be delivered to the market. For a company whose development efforts had been driven by R&D for most of its two-hundred-year history, that shift represented a major turning point.