Differentiate Yourself Quotes

Be faithful to that which exists nowhere but in yourself- and thus make yourself indispensable.

Online word-of-mouth is very powerful. These days customer service is one of the most important differentiation factors used by customers to pick one brand over others.

Thinking about what your customers like and what they exactly like are two different things.

You can’t ignore the importance of being unique, remarkable, and differentiated in a highly crowded market.

Launching a similar product still needs some kind of differentiation.

Can you guess what makes me choose other restaurants over vegan restaurants when there is a perfect match in my dietary needs and those restaurants’ offerings? It is the inability of most of the vegan restaurants to differentiate between the needs of a vegan who never had meat and a vegan who is not born as one but became one with time.

How can families harm us when they love us? Very easily, unfortunately. Most of us overlook one important fact when we think love is enough: Love and respect aren't the same thing. Love is fusion. As a baby, you belong to your parents, you're extension of them. Respect is differentiation: you belong to yourself, and you're an extension of no one. Differentiation is essential for happiness of adults.

Fast reading of a great novel will get us the plot. It will get us names, a shadowy idea of characters, a sketch of settings. It will not get us subtleties, small differentiations, depth of emotion and observation, multilayered human experience, the appreciation of simile and metaphor, any sense of context, any comparison with other novels, other writers. Fast reading will not get us cadence and complexities of style and language. It will not get us anything that enters not just the conscious mind but the unconscious. It will not allow the book to burrow down into our memory and become part of ourselves, the accumulation of knowledge and wisdom and vicarious experience which helps to form us as complete human beings. It will not develop our awareness or add to the sum of our knowledge and intelligence. Read parts of a newspaper quickly or an encyclopaedia entry, or a fast-food thriller, but do not insult yourself or a book which has been created with its author's painstakingly acquired skill and effort, by seeing how fast you can dispose of it.

So in a world where everyone is competing with their answers, how do you differentiate yourself from everyone else? With a question.

Fast reading of a great novel will get us the plot. It will get us names, a shadowy idea of characters, a sketch of settings. It will not get us subtleties, small differentiations, depth of emotion and observation, multilayered human experience, the appreciation of simile and metaphor, any sense of context, any comparison with other novels, other writers. Fast reading will not get us cadence and complexities of style and language. It will not get us anything that enters not just the conscious mind but the unconscious. It will not allow the book to burrow down into our memory and become part of ourselves, the accumulation of knowledge and wisdom and vicarious experience which helps to form us as complete human beings. It will not develop our awareness or add to the sum of our knowledge and intelligence. Read parts of a newspaper quickly or an encyclopaedia entry, or a fast-food thriller, but do not insult yourself or a book which has been created with its author's painstakingly acquired skill and effort, by seeing how fast you can dispose of it

understand this, imagine what would happen if you started feeling tremendous love for all creatures, for every plant, for every animal, and for all the beauties of nature. Imagine if every child seemed like your own, and every person you saw looked like a beautiful flower, with its own color, its own expression, shape, and sounds. As you went deeper and deeper, you would start noticing a phenomenal thing—you are no longer judging. The process of judging has simply stopped. There is just appreciating and honoring. Where there used to be judging, there is now respecting, loving, and cherishing. To differentiate is to judge. To see, to experience, and to honor is to participate in life instead of standing back and judging it. When

You won't be able to equal him," he stressed in a whisper. "It's up to you to differentiate yourself.

Having a Grand Slam offer makes it almost impossible to lose. But why? What gives it such an impact? In short, having a Grand Slam Offer helps with all three of the requirements for growth: getting more customers, getting them to pay more, and getting them to do so more times. How? It allows you to differentiate yourself from the marketplace. In other words, it allows you to sell your product based on VALUE not on PRICE. Commoditized = Price Driven Purchases (race to the bottom) Differentiated = Value Driven Purchases (sell in a category of one with no comparison. Yes, market matters, which I will expound on in the next chapter) A commodity, as I define it, is a product available from many places. For that reason, it’s prone to purchases based on “price” instead of “value.” If all products are “equal,” then the cheapest one is the most valuable by default. In other words, if a prospect compares your product to another and thinks “these are pretty much the same, I’ll buy the cheaper one,” then they commoditized you. How embarrassing! But

You have taught yourself to read English, too,” Pepe said slowly to the boy; the girl suddenly gave him the shivers, for no known reason. “English is just a little different—I can understand it,” the boy told him,

Here’s the short version of how to practice mindfuless: 1. Start with two minutes. For two minutes a day, direct your attention to your breath: the way the air comes into your body and your chest and belly expand, and the way the breath leaves your body and your chest and belly deflate. 2. The first thing that will happen is your mind will wander to something else. That’s normal. That’s healthy. That’s actually the point. Notice that your mind wandered, let those extraneous thoughts go—you can return to them as soon as the two minutes are up—and allow your attention to return to your breath. 3. Noticing that your mind wandered and then returning your attention to your breath is the real work of mindfulness. It’s not so much about paying attention to your breath as it is about noticing what you’re paying attention to without judgment, and making a choice about whether you want to pay attention to it. What you’re “mindful” of is both your breath and your attention to your breath. By practicing this skill of noticing what you’re paying attention to, you are teaching yourself to be in control of your brain, so that your brain is not in control of you. This regular two-minute practice will gradually result in periodic moments throughout the day when you notice what you’re paying attention to and then decide if that’s what you want to pay attention to right now, or if you want to pay attention to something else. What you pay attention to matters less than how you pay attention. This is a sideways strategy for weeding trauma out of your garden. It’s a way of simply noticing a weed and then deciding if you want to water it or not, pull it or not, fertilize it or not. The weed of trauma will gradually disappear as long as at least half the time you choose not to nurture it. And the more you choose to withdraw your protection from the trauma, the faster it will wither and die. Mindfulness is good for everyone and everything. It is to your mind what exercise and green vegetables are to your body. If you change only one thing in your life as a result of reading this book, make it this daily two-minute practice. The practice grants the opportunity to “cultivate deep respect for emotions,” differentiating their causes from their effects and granting you choice over how you manage them.

If you look and express yourself like everybody else, then you will be treated and taken like everybody else; but If you distinguish yourself and act differently then you will be treat and taken differently—Boomerang Effect!

You might be too enmeshed with the other person, or “codependent,” and you must learn to set better “boundaries.” The basic premise underlying this point of view is that the ideal relationship is one between two self-sufficient people who unite in a mature, respectful way while maintaining clear boundaries. If you develop a strong dependency on your partner, you are deficient in some way and are advised to work on yourself to become more “differentiated” and develop a “greater sense of self.” The worst possible scenario is that you will end up needing your partner, which is equated with “addiction” to him or her, and addiction, we all know, is a dangerous prospect. While the teachings of the codependency movement remain immensely helpful in dealing with family members who suffer from substance abuse (as was the initial intention), they can be misleading and even damaging when applied indiscriminately to all relationships.

What differentiates successful entrepreneurs from everyone else is their willingness not only to face fear, but also to embrace fear. If you’re not really scared of what you’re doing, that means you’re not pushing the envelope, you’re not challenging yourself.

O my brave Almighty Human, with the ever-effulgent flow of courage, conscience and compassion, turn yourself into a vivacious humanizer, and start walking with bold footsteps while eliminating racism, terminating misogyny, destroying homophobia and all other primitiveness that have turned humanity into the most inhuman species on earth.

All things are crystallised liquid light; the differentiation or infinity of expression is caused by the conceiver's desire to know himself. Your conception of yourself automatically determines the velocity necessary to express that which you have conceived yourself to be. The world is an ocean of liquid light in countless different states of crystallisation.

Kuan Yin looks very traditional. Her hands are folded together. The thick cloth of her costume is folded perfectly," describes Lena. "Just as in the previous session, I’m reminded of the significance of the folds. I’m having an interesting vision that I haven’t thought about in many years. I see a beautiful tree where I used to go when I was a teenager. It stands majestic, atop the rolling hills behind the house where I grew up. Kuan Yin is at the tree looking very luminous. I see the bark of the tree, which looks very real, very three-dimensional. For some reason, Kuan Yin is touching the trunk of the tree. She suddenly seems very small next to me and she wants me to touch the tree. I’m not sure why. There is a tiny bird, with pretty feathers in its nest. It is about the size of a wren. I see the texture of the tree. I think it might be a birch. I’m not sure. ’Why should I touch the tree,’ I ask. She’s telling me that I created the tree, that it is another realm I was able to visit because life was too painful and lonely at home.” “You created the tree. You create your whole world with thoughts,” assures Kuan Yin. “Every time I try to touch the tree, Kuan Yin wants to help me touch it. There’s something different about this conversation. Usually we work on something about the earth. Because we’re revisiting my childhood, I get the impression Kuan Yin’s trying to show me something that maybe I created in my childhood.” “Well, do we all create our reality?” Kuan Yin asks of Lena. “I think she’s going to answer her own question,” comments Lena, from her trance. “Yes, you can create your reality. Once you free yourself from the negative effects of karma. I know it is sometimes difficult to differentiate between free will and karma. Focus upon your free will and your ability to create reality. I’m optimistic and hopeful you can do this.

The only way to separate yourself from a person like my mother is to embody her fears and insecurities about herself, to become as far removed from her idealized self-image as possible. Or, to be more specific: Go through an awkward Goth phase. Buzz all your hair off in the middle of the night, surprising her in the morning. Get a memento mori tattoo somewhere conspicuous, a reminder that the body is nothing. Put on twenty pounds and wear a tight dress. Now you're free.

The single most important practice in Stoic philosophy is differentiating between what we can change and what we can’t. What we have influence over and what we do not. A flight is delayed because of weather—no amount of yelling at an airline representative will end a storm. No amount of wishing will make you taller or shorter or born in a different country. No matter how hard you try, you can’t make someone like you. And on top of that, time spent hurling yourself at these immovable objects is time not spent on the things we can change.

The concept of self as a solo thing is so toxic to the way we relate to one another and the earth-it's so non integrative,when integration is not present you get chaos and rigidity. That's what we are seeing in depression, anxiety and suicide and that's what we are seeing in climate change issues. So whether you are talking about social justice issues, or climate injustices, its all about us as a contemporary culture missing the reality of interconnection.....If we Identify this problem it can be a win win win. For the individual you can liberate yourself from the idea of a separate self, for our human relationships we will realize we are all one human family differentiated but linked, and for the planet which is waiting for us to wake up . Human beings have excessively differentiated themselves from nature and so we are using the earth like a trash can. Instead of realizing that we are fundamentally interconnected to nature and that's a true way to live an integrated life. People all around the earth are waiting for to wake up from this weird slumber of a delusion of a separate self

Anger is a completely natural emotion. It’s a strong signal that our needs aren’t being met. Evolutionarily it protects us when we perceive a threat in our environment. The destructive effects of anger come from how we handle it, not from the anger itself. When we can differentiate the stories of blame from our unmet needs, we can express ourselves more constructively. Feeling “manipulated” or “betrayed” indicates that your emotions are colored by an interpretation about the other person’s intentions. To honor the intensity of your experience without getting entangled in the blame game, see those words as information that points back to your feelings and needs. Investigate what’s in your heart. When you tell yourself, “I’m being manipulated,” how do you feel on the inside? What do you need? Once this is clear, work on conveying the depth of your feelings without blame. Express the rawness of your emotions and connect them to what matters to you. If you can’t find other words (and if you think the other person will understand), you could take responsibility for the blame by saying something such as, “I’m telling myself a story that you betrayed me.” This indicates your subjective interpretation while leaving space for the other person’s experience.

When you know yourself only through content, you will also think you know what is good or bad for you. You differentiate between events that are 'good for me' and those that are 'bad.' This is a fragmented perception of the wholeness of life in which everything is interconnected, in which every event has its necessary place and function within the totality. ... Behind the sometimes seemingly random or even chaotic succession of events in our lives as well as in the world lies concealed the unfolding of a higher order and purpose. ... But we can glimpse it, and more than that, align ourselves with it, which means be conscious participants in the unfolding of that higher purpose.

Dear father, It's been five years today, but makes no difference! Not a day goes by without me remembering your pure green eyes, the tone of your voice singing In Adighabza, or your poems scattered all around the house. Dear father, from you I have learned that being a girl doesn't mean that I can't achieve my dreams, no matter how crazy or un-urban they might seem. That you raised me with the utmost of ethics and morals and the hell with this cocooned society, if it doesn't respect the right to ask and learn and be, just because I'm a girl. Dear father, from you I have learned to respect all mankind, and just because you descend from a certain blood or ethnicity, it doesn't make you better than anybody else. It's you, and only you, your actions, your thoughts, your achievements, are what differentiates you from everybody else. At the same time, thank you for teaching me to respect and value where I came from, for actually taking me to my hometown Goboqay, for teaching me about my family tree, how my ancestors worked hard and fought for me to be where I am right now, and to continue on with the legacy and make them all proud. Dear father, from you and mom, I have learned to speak in my mother tongue. A gift so precious, that I have already made a promise to do the same for my unborn children. Dear father, from you I have learned to be content, to fear Allah, to be thankful for all that I have, and no matter what, never loose faith, as it's the only path to solace. Dear father, from you I have learned that if a person wants to love you, then let them, and if they hurt you, be strong and stand your ground. People will respect you only if you respect yourself. Dear father, I'm pretty sure that you are proud of me, my sisters and our dear dear Mom. You have a beautiful grand daughter now and a son in-law better than any brother I would have ever asked for. Till we meet again, Shu wasltha'3u. الله يرحمك يا غالي. (الفاتحة) على روحك الطاهرة.

With our desire to have more, we find ourselves spending more and more time and energy to manage and maintain everything we have. We try so hard to do this that the things that were supposed to help us end up ruling us. We eventually get used to the new state where our wishes have been fulfilled. We start taking those things for granted and there comes a time when we start getting tired of what we have. We're desperate to convey our own worth, our own value to others. We use objects to tell people just how valuable we are. The objects that are supposed to represent our qualities become our qualities themselves. There are more things to gain from eliminating excess than you might imagine: time, space, freedom and energy. When people say something is impossible, they have already decided that they don't want to do it. Differentiate between things you want and things you need. Leave your unused space empty. These open areas are incredibly useful. They bring us a sense of freedom and keep our minds open to the more important things in life. Memories are wonderful but you won't have room to develop if your attachment to the past is too strong. It's better to cut some of those ties so you can focus on what's important today. Don't get creative when you are trying to discard things. There's no need to stock up. An item chosen with passion represents perfection to us. Things we just happen to pick up, however, are easy candidates for disposal or replacement. As long as we stick to owning things that we really love, we aren't likely to want more. Our homes aren't museum, they don't need collections. When you aren't sure that you really want to part with something, try stowing it away for a while. Larger furniture items with bold colors will in time trigger visual fatigue and then boredom. Discarding things can be wasteful. But the guilt that keeps you from minimizing is the true waste. The real waste is the psychological damage that you accrue from hanging on to things you don't use or need. We find our originality when we own less. When you think about it, it's experience that builds our unique characteristics, not material objects. I've lowered my bar for happiness simply by switching to a tenugui. When even a regular bath towel can make you happy, you'll be able to find happiness almost everywhere. For the minimalist, the objective isn't to reduce, it's to eliminate distractions so they can focus on the things that are truly important. Minimalism is just the beginning. It's a tool. Once you've gone ahead and minimized, it's time to find out what those important things are. Minimalism is built around the idea that there's nothing that you're lacking. You'll spend less time being pushed around by something that you think may be missing. The qualities I look for in the things that I buy are: - the item has a minimalistic kind of shape and is easy to clean - it's color isn't too loud - I'll be able to use it for a long time - it has a simple structure - it's lightweight and compact - it has multiple uses A relaxed moment is not without meaning, it's an important time for reflection. It wasn't the fallen leaves that the lady had been tidying up, it was her own laziness that she had been sweeping away. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit. With daily cleaning, the reward may be the sense of accomplishment and calmness we feel afterward. Cleaning your house is like polishing yourself. Simply by living an organized life, you'll be more invigorated, more confident and like yourself better. Having parted with the bulk of my belongings, I feel true contentment with my day-to-day life. The very act of living brings me joy. When you become a minimalist, you free yourself from all the materialist messages that surround us. All the creative marketing and annoying ads no longer have an effect on you.

I gave them the same advice that had worked for me: Start by stocking your sense memory. Smell everything and attach words to it. Raid your fridge, pantry, medicine cabinet, and spice rack, then quiz yourself on pepper, cardamom, honey, ketchup, pickles, and lavender hand cream. Repeat. Again. Keep going. Sniff flowers and lick rocks. Be like Ann, and introduce odors as you notice them, as you would people entering a room. Also be like Morgan, and look for patterns as you taste, so you can, as he does, “organize small differentiating units into systems.” Master the basics of structure—gauge acid by how you drool, alcohol by its heat, tannin by its dryness, finish by its length, sweetness by its thick softness, body by its weight—and apply it to the wines you try. Actually, apply it to everything you try. Be systematic: Order only Chardonnay for a week and get a feel for its personality, then do the same with Pinot Noir, and Sauvignon Blanc, and Cabernet Franc (the Wine Folly website offers handy CliffsNotes on each one’s flavor profile). Take a moment as you drink to reflect on whether you like it, then think about why. Like Paul Grieco, try to taste the wine for what it is, not what you imagine it should be. Like the Paulée-goers, splurge occasionally. Mix up the everyday bottles with something that’s supposed to be better, and see if you agree. Like Annie, break the rules, do what feels right, and don’t be afraid to experiment.

Differentiation in an existing market can take one of three forms. You can describe differences in product attributes (faster, cheaper, less filling, 30% more), in distribution channel (pizza in 30 minutes, home delivery, see your nearest dealer, build it yourself on the Web), or in service (five-year, 50,000-mile warranty; 90-day money-back guarantee; lifetime warranty).

Differentiating Yourself  Pursuing a differentiation strategy has merit over pursuing a low-cost strategy. Focusing and sharpening your strengths is a major step in developing competitive advantage—the thing that you can do better than anyone else.  The first step is to take stock of your resources and capabilities and assess whether they match your intentions. Do you have what is called “strategic fit”? Aligning your resources and capabilities with your intentions puts you in the best position for crafting and executing a successful strategy.  To help you achieve this, develop a personal USP, a one-sentence description of what you offer people that few others can match. Now do the same for a trusted friend and exchange the results. This is sometimes the best way of taking your personal skills inventory.

In Buddhism the term self has two meanings that must be differentiated in order to avoid confusion. One meaning of self is “person,” or “living being.” This is the being who loves and hates, who performs actions and accumulates good and bad karma, who experiences the fruits of those actions, who is reborn in cyclic existence, who cultivates spiritual paths, and so on. The other meaning of self occurs in the term selflessness, where it refers to a falsely imagined, overconcretized status of existence called “inherent existence.” The ignorance that adheres to such an exaggeration is indeed the source of ruination, the mother of all wrong attitudes—perhaps we could even say devilish.

yourself.” “Maybe we should analyze it. Maybe a little discovery is in order.” “Maybe a little getting under the covers is in order. Baby?” “Yes?” “Are you going to take off your overcoat? Feels like making it with a flasher.” “Good point. Jesus, Pep,” he sighed soulfully. “Keep taking off the coat. That’s it. Now how about the jacket? There you go. . . .” “Six months ago I was happily married.” Pepper rolled her eyes. “Married, okay. Happily? Let’s look at it. But could we maybe be in the now instead of the then?” “Sorry, I’m so damned awkward sometimes. Do you like the top or the bottom?” Pepper stared. “This ain’t summer camp, and I ain’t a bunk bed. Now look here, Chiefy, we are two grown adults, we are colleagues, we have discovered a mutual attraction. We are neither of us cheating on anyone, inasmuch as our spouses filed for divorce. We are both heterosexual—” “What’s that supposed to mean?” “It’s a statement of fact intended to differentiate myself from your prior partner for the purpose of putting you at ease so as to . . . oh, c’mere . . . initiate foreplay . . .

Do recall how you behaved as a child: Maybe your child is just like you once were. (The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree!) Ask yourself what you would have liked to make your childhood easier and more pleasurable. More trips to the playground, free time, or cuddling? Fewer demands? Lower expectations? Try saying, “When I was a kid and life got rough, I liked to climb trees. How about you?” Do respect your child’s needs, even if they seem unusual: “You sure do like a tight tuck-in! There, now you’re as snug as a bug in a rug.” Or, “I’ll stand in front of you while we’re on the escalator. I won’t let you fall.” Do respect your child’s fears, even if they seem senseless: “I see that your ball bounced near those big kids. I’ll go with you. Let’s hold hands.” Your reassurances will help her trust others. Do say “I love you”: Assure your child that you accept and value who she is. You cannot say “I love you” too often! Do follow your instincts: Your instincts will tell you that everyone needs to touch and be touchable, to move and be movable. If your child’s responses seem atypical, ask questions, get information, and follow up with appropriate action. Do listen when others express concerns: When teachers or caregivers suggest that your child’s behavior is unusual, you may react with denial or anger. But remember that they see your child away from home, among many other children. Their perspective is worth considering. Do educate yourself about typical child development: Read. Take parent education classes. Learn about invariable stages of human development, as well as variable temperaments and learning styles. It’s comforting to know that a wide variety of behaviors falls within the normal range. Then, you’ll find it easier to differentiate between typical and atypical behavior. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, and a six-year-old is just a six-year-old! Do seek professional help: SPD is a problem that a child can’t overcome alone. Parents and teachers can’t “cure” a child, just as a child can’t cure himself. Early intervention is crucial. Do keep your cool: When your child drives you crazy, collect your thoughts before responding, especially if you are angry, upset, or unpleasantly surprised. A child who is out of control needs the calm reassurance of someone who is in control. She needs a grown-up. Do take care of yourself: When you’re having a hard day, take a break! Hire a babysitter and go for a walk, read a book, take a bath, dine out, make love. Nobody can be expected to give another person undivided attention, and still cope.

Adecade ago, Bill Gates wrote: “The most meaningful way to differentiate your company from your competition, the best way to put distance between you and the crowd, is to do an outstanding job with information. How you gather, manage, and use information will determine whether you win or lose.

If you think a competitor sucks, say so. When you do that, you’ll find that others who agree with you will rally to your side. Being the anti-______ is a great way to differentiate yourself and attract followers.

The S curve is not just important as a model in its own right; it’s also the jack-of-all-trades of mathematics. If you zoom in on its midsection, it approximates a straight line. Many phenomena we think of as linear are in fact S curves, because nothing can grow without limit. Because of relativity, and contra Newton, acceleration does not increase linearly with force, but follows an S curve centered at zero. So does electric current as a function of voltage in the resistors found in electronic circuits, or in a light bulb (until the filament melts, which is itself another phase transition). If you zoom out from an S curve, it approximates a step function, with the output suddenly changing from zero to one at the threshold. So depending on the input voltages, the same curve represents the workings of a transistor in both digital computers and analog devices like amplifiers and radio tuners. The early part of an S curve is effectively an exponential, and near the saturation point it approximates exponential decay. When someone talks about exponential growth, ask yourself: How soon will it turn into an S curve? When will the population bomb peter out, Moore’s law lose steam, or the singularity fail to happen? Differentiate an S curve and you get a bell curve: slow, fast, slow becomes low, high, low. Add a succession of staggered upward and downward S curves, and you get something close to a sine wave. In fact, every function can be closely approximated by a sum of S curves: when the function goes up, you add an S curve; when it goes down, you subtract one. Children’s learning is not a steady improvement but an accumulation of S curves. So is technological change. Squint at the New York City skyline and you can see a sum of S curves unfolding across the horizon, each as sharp as a skyscraper’s corner. Most importantly for us, S curves lead to a new solution to the credit-assignment problem. If the universe is a symphony of phase transitions, let’s model it with one. That’s what the brain does: it tunes the system of phase transitions inside to the one outside. So let’s replace the perceptron’s step function with an S curve and see what happens.

Good advice for anyone wanting to make an impact with a product, a service or even a message is to differentiate yourself.

Find a way to differentiate yourself.

Big stress or little stress—your body reacts the same way. The human body doesn’t differentiate between a major or minor stress. Regardless of the catalyst, a typical stress reaction floods the body with a wave of 1,400 biochemical events. If this happens too frequently, we age prematurely, our cognitive function is affected, and we are drained of energy and clarity.8

The best way to free yourself from this incessant chatter is to step back and view it objectively. Just view the voice as a vocalizing mechanism that is capable of making it appear like someone is in there talking to you. Don’t think about it; just notice it. No matter what the voice is saying, it’s all the same. It doesn’t matter if it’s saying nice things or mean things, worldly things or spiritual things. It doesn’t matter because it’s still just a voice talking inside your head. In fact, the only way to get your distance from this voice is to stop differentiating what it’s saying. Stop feeling that one thing it says is you and the other thing it says is not you. If you’re hearing it talk, it’s obviously not you. You are the one who hears the voice. You are the one who notices that it’s talking.

If you think a competitor sucks, say so. When you do that, you’ll find that others who agree with you will rally to your side. Being the anti-______ is a great way to differentiate yourself and attract followers. For example, Dunkin’ Donuts positioned itself as the anti-Starbucks. Its ads once mocked Starbucks for using “Fritalian” terms instead of small, medium, and large. Another Dunkin’ campaign was centered on a taste test in which it beat Starbucks. There was even a site called DunkinBeatStarbucks.com where visitors could send e-cards with statements like “Friends don’t let friends drink Starbucks.

Why don’t you ask yourself why you’re trusting your life to someone who can’t even differentiate between a real and an imaginary threat?

Watch what they do, not what they say Watching what your customers are doing—or trying to do—with your product can light the way forward. But you have to be careful to pay attention to what they do and not just what they say. Expect to have your theories of human behavior tested Your theory about how individuals and groups behave should underlie your strategy, your product design, your incentive program—every decision you make. But be open and alert to when your customers show you a different theory or direction. That could become your product’s point of differentiation. Follow the leaders: Your customers To grow your business, you may have to give up control. Look for instances when your customers hack or hijack your product, and then go along for the ride. Get Mr. Spock and Dr. McCoy working together Customer data is your Mr. Spock, detached and logical. Customer emotion is your Dr. McCoy, passionate and all too human. Think of yourself as Captain Kirk, responsible for making the two work together to get the best out of each.

having a Grand Slam Offer helps with all three of the requirements for growth: getting more customers, getting them to pay more, and getting them to do so more times. How? It allows you to differentiate yourself from the marketplace. In other words, it allows you to sell your product based on VALUE not on PRICE.

market. I want to leave you with some key takeaways: Any product can be positioned in multiple markets. Your product is not doomed to languish in a market where nobody understands how awesome it is. Great positioning rarely comes by default. If you want to succeed, you have to determine the best way to position your product. Deliberate, try, fail, test and try again. Understanding what your best customers see as true alternatives to your solution will lead you to your differentiators. Position yourself in a market that makes your strengths obvious to the folks you want to sell to. Use trends to make your product more interesting to customers right now, but be very cautious. Don’t layer on a trend just for the sake of being trendy—it’s better to be successful and boring, rather than fashionable and bewildering. Knowing how to do something is not the same as understanding how to teach someone else how to do it. As leaders, we often become very good at doing things that we have a very hard time explaining to the teams that work with us. This book is my attempt to codify and teach one of the most complicated processes I’ve learned to do in my career. I sincerely hope it offers you a shortcut to better position your products to succeed.

Ego is the aspect of your human self that supports the story. If you had no story [of who you are], you would have no ego. You need ego to operate in your role as an individual. Its task is to differentiate your story from other people's stories. [...] If you sense defensiveness or fear [in response to certain ideas about yourself or "how life works"]... that's [often] ego protecting itself.

One way to make yourself less vulnerable to copycats is to build a moat around your business. How Can I Build a Moat? As you scale your company, you need to think about how to proactively defend against competition. The more success you have, the more your competitors will grab their battering ram and start storming the castle. In medieval times, you’d dig a moat to keep enemy armies from getting anywhere near your castle. In business, you think about your economic moat. The idea of an economic moat was popularized by the business magnate and investor Warren Buffett. It refers to a company’s distinct advantage over its competitors, which allows it to protect its market share and profitability. This is hugely important in a competitive space because it’s easy to become commoditized if you don’t have some type of differentiation. In SaaS, I’ve seen four types of moats. Integrations (Network Effect) Network effect is when the value of a product or service increases because of the number of users in the network. A network of one telephone isn’t useful. Add a second telephone, and you can call each other. But add a hundred telephones, and the network is suddenly quite valuable. Network effects are fantastic moats. Think about eBay or Craigs-list, which have huge amounts of sellers and buyers already on their platforms. It’s difficult to compete with them because everyone’s already there. In SaaS—particularly in bootstrapped SaaS companies—the network effect moat comes not from users, but integrations. Zapier is the prototypical example of this. It’s a juggernaut, and not only because it’s integrated with over 3,000 apps. It has widened its moat with nonpublic API integrations, meaning that if you want to compete with it, you have to go to that other company and get their internal development team to build an API for you. That’s a huge hill to climb if you want to launch a Zapier competitor. Every integration a customer activates in your product, especially if it puts more of their data into your database, is another reason for them not to switch to a competitor. A Strong Brand When we talk about your brand, we’re not talking about your color scheme or logo. Your brand is your reputation—it’s what people say about your company when you’re not around.

The more strongly you identify with an extreme group, the harder you seek to differentiate yourself from more moderate groups that threaten your values.

Stay humble and customer-focused. No matter what business you are in, you are serving your customers. You differentiate yourself by how well you satisfy, and keep satisfying, your customers’ needs. Don’t become so enamored with your idea or product that you believe it will “sell itself.” There is always a better widget waiting in the wings. What will make your ideas successful is your personal ability to convince customers that you stand behind what you are selling.

Strive to become a better person, and, instead of comparing yourself to others, differentiate. The goal is to be slightly better than who you were the day before. The only person you should try to be better than is the person you were yesterday.

Here’s another analogy. Human beings bring only a handful of facial features to the blueprint of how we look—two eyes, two eyebrows, a nose, a mouth, a pair of cheekbones, and two ears, all pasted onto a somewhat ovular-to-round face. That particular blueprint doesn’t often vary much, either. Interestingly enough, this is about the same number of essential storytelling parts and milestones that each and every story needs to showcase in order to be successful. Now, consider this: With only these eleven variables to work with, ask yourself how often you see two people who look exactly alike. In a crowd of ten thousand faces, you would be able to differentiate each and every one of them, other than a set of twins or two in attendance. Where we humans are concerned, the miracle of originality resides in the Creator, who applies an engineering-driven process—eleven variables— to an artistic outcome. Where art is concerned, there is something to be learned from that.

You can shift the odds in your favor by differentiating yourself from others, because a good strategy seeks uniqueness. Rather than a plan, a strategy is a framework for decision making. It is an original choice about direction, which enables subsequent choices about action. It prepares the organization to make those choices. Without a strategy, the actions taken by an organization degenerate into arbitrary sets of activity. A strategy enables people to reflect on the activity and gives them a rationale for deciding what to do next. A robust strategy is not dependent on competitors doing any single thing. It does not seek to control an independent will. Instead, it should be a “system of expedients” – with the emphasis on system.

Countersignaling You would think, based on the previous section, that if you have the ability to signal your type, you should. That way, you differentiate yourself from those who can’t make the same signal. And yet, some of the people most able to signal refrain from doing so. As Feltovich, Harbaugh, and To explain: The nouveau riche flaunt their wealth, but the old rich scorn such gauche displays. Minor officials prove their status with petty displays of authority, while the truly powerful show their strength through gestures of magnanimity. People of average education show off the studied regularity of their script, but the well educated often scribble illegibly. Mediocre students answer a teacher’s easy questions, but the best students are embarrassed to prove their knowledge of trivial points. Acquaintances show their good intentions by politely ignoring one’s flaws, while close friends show intimacy by teasingly highlighting them. People of moderate ability seek formal credentials to impress employers and society, but the talented often downplay their credentials even if they have bothered to obtain them. A person of average reputation defensively refutes accusations against his character, while a highly respected person finds it demeaning to dignify accusations with a response.6 Their insight is that in some circumstances, the best way to signal your ability or type is by not signaling at all, by refusing to play the signaling game.

God is the constant Interlocutor with the soul.  This voice so constant and insistent, you do not know how to differentiate it from yourself.  [...] it really cannot be taught. It can only be heard.  When I can just stop and enjoy this interlocution, it is an ENJOYMENT.  When I refuse to recognize or honor this voice, it is an ABSENCE.  You really do not have to try hard, nothing perfect needs to be done. 

The thing between men and women is not about power or equality. It is about differentiation and respect.

It's not as though there is anything wrong with being American, although perhaps in a land of immigrants the only way to differentiate yourself is to cling onto a piece of the land you left, even if it is several generations behind you.

You were suffering depersonalization, which is when you feel divorced from your own personal self. You don’t feel your own bodily sensations or emotions. The world seems hazy, and your connection with yourself breaks down.” “I have that a lot. What causes it?” “A traumatic childhood, usually in the early stages of differentiation of self, combined with high anxiety levels.

Along the way, I will introduce you to three very different types of meditation that I recommend including in your practice: breathwork, visualization, and sound. All three have benefits, but the simplest way to differentiate them is to know that you do breathwork for the physical benefits—to find stillness and balance, to calm yourself; visualization for the psychological benefits—to heal the past and prepare for the future; and chanting for the psychic benefits—to connect with your deepest self and the universe, for real purification.

Ecosystem carryover is about relational synergies—taking the relationships that you developed in one ecosystem to help launch a position in a new ecosystem, and using that to differentiate yourself from a standard entrant/diversifier.

Just as a fish can pass through water but not through ice, which is simply concentrated water, so mental and emotional energy patterns become fixed when they encounter concentrated consciousness. The very act of differentiating the amount of awareness focused on one particular object over any other creates clinging. And the result of clinging is that selective thoughts and emotions stay in one place long enough to become the building blocks of the psyche.

All the trouble begins with the importance of self-differentiation, putting yourself at the centre of the world, of your imagination, as if you should matter to everyone.

Your potential to create wealth is found between your education on how to make money, and your willingness to live in poverty. By education on how to make money, I am referring here to the many skills you need to acquire for a job, in communication, but also organizational and ethical skills. By willingness to live in poverty, I am referring here to the sacrifices you are willing to make. You see, people fear poverty as if they could avoid it, but the one who escapes it faster, is the one who embraces it better. This means spending as less as possible in your habits, not worrying about what others think of you, and committing yourself to become a servant, even a slave, to your higher self. The reason why so many people struggle to accumulate wealth, is because they are avoiding both of these things just mentioned. They don't want to work, for themselves or others, they aren't willing to make sacrifices, they care a lot about what others think of them, they don't want to save any money, they spend without any sense of responsibility, and they also have no interest in investing on their education, either through formal means or by reading books. Most people don't read, they are waiting for the world to offer them the solutions they want, and the trust luck and shortcuts more than they trust their own capacity to achieve things with their own efforts. That's why they can't get to where they want in life. What I just said, can be applied to any other area of life. Even a good marriage requires education on how to make it work and sacrifices to make it work, and just as much as a dog will require you to sacrifice your time and learn better ways of communicating with him. Your own existence depends on a balance of an education on opportunities and a commitment to find them. So what is the most imbecile thing anyone can tell you? The most dumb persons you will ever find, are those who tell you the exact opposite of what I just said, and in doing so, separate everything in different categories. They will say that happiness doesn't require wealth, or that wealthy individuals are miserable. They will say that love requires luck, or that education isn't necessary to become successful. And you have quite a bunch of idiots in this world, marketing their foolish views on others, as if they were absolute truth. You tend to buy into such views with the love and attachment you feel for them. Thus, be wary of the merchants of incompetence. They will try to sell you the most stupid ideas about life. And if you trust them, you will fail, and keep on failing, until you realize you trusted the wrong people. If you think education is expensive, know that stupidity is a lot more. It can cost you an entire existence in the dark. The path to enlightenment is a path of integration, while the distance is measured in segregations. Stupidity is found in the relativity of everything. The dumber one is, the more he or she will think in terms of differentiations. The wiser one is, the more he or she will focus on the similarities and correlations, because enlightenment is found in an upward route towards oneness.

After extensive reading, I feel like the MOST IMPORTANT ADVICE is always left out…the most important being… … Understand How the Hiring Manager Thinks Secret #1 3 Questions That Determine If You Are A Candidate Can You Do The Job? Will You Like The Job Enough To Stay There? Can We Stand To Work With You? Secret #2 4 Ways To Differentiate Yourself From All Other Candidates: Have You Made Money For Your Employers? Have You Saved Money For Your Employers? Have You Increased the Productivity of Your Employers? Have You Made A Difference at Your Employers? Everything I did before, during and after the interview was geared toward answering those questions in as much detail as possible.

The very act of differentiating the amount of awareness focused on one particular object over any other creates clinging. And the result of clinging is that selective thoughts and emotions stay in one place long enough to become the building blocks of the psyche.

important parts: The current situation: Taking into consideration your evolving customer base, your customers’ evolving needs, and your differentiated bets, ask yourself: Do I need an ecosystem to pull off the proposition?

Those with BPD often lack boundaries, as they find it hard to differentiate where they begin and others end. The separation between

Min ma jifhimx sewwa l-karattru tiegħi jista' jidħak bija, jgħajjarni miġnun, stramb, bniedem b'demmu ffriżat...! Iżda b'liema jedd tkejjel lil ħaddieħor b'xibrek? L-għaliex kulħadd ipoġġi lilu nnifsu bħala r-regola u jittimbra lil dawk li m'humiex bħalu b'imġienen? Jien naf li jien differenti minn ħaddieħor, iżda b'daqshekk m'iniex miġnun. Għandi dritt infassal ħajti kif irrid jien u mhux kif ifassluha l-biċċa l-kbira tal-bnedmin!

Differentiation is Survival and the Universe Wants You to be Typical. If living things [don’t] work actively to prevent it, they eventually merge into their surroundings, and cease to exist as autonomous beings. The world pull[s] at you in an attempt to make you normal. You must work to maintain your distinctiveness. We all know that distinctiveness—originality—is valuable. We are all taught to ‘be yourself.’ What I’m really asking you to do is to embrace and be realistic about how much energy it takes to maintain that distinctiveness. The world wants you to be typical—in a thousand ways, it pulls at you. Don’t let it happen. The world wants you to, as Alec Benjamin sings, change what you are for what it wants you to be. You have to pay a price for your distinctiveness, and it’s worth it…don’t expect it to be easy or free.

The best possible version of yourself—the most loving, kind, productive, and self-aware version—is who you really are. Everything else is the byproduct of coping mechanisms you’ve developed and picked up from other people. If social media didn’t exist, what would you do with your life? If you knew that you wouldn’t be able to show off, impress, or even share what it was you chose to do with your life, how would it change your ambitions? This differentiates what you are doing because you want to do it from what you are doing for the sake of how it looks to other people.

There’s a time and a place for confidence, but your army (confidence) can’t march too far forward of your supply lines (expertise) or you’ll be caught without what you’ll need in order to win the war. There’s a healthy stretching that always pulls you forward, but you have to know enough about your field of impact. Crafting a positioning should tend toward the honest and boring side of this balance. Start by detailing your successful experience, and you can define that in two ways. As you list these instances, concentrate where you’ve been effective on behalf of a client and also made money yourself. I suppose you could add the element of where you’ve enjoyed the work, too, but the truth is that you’re not likely to even list these instances unless that happens to be true. So concentrate on impact and revenue. Eliminate any where both weren’t true. Don’t worry too much about recency, either. Prospects aren’t going to write you off if a particular demonstration of your expertise is more than three years old, for instance. They don’t look that deeply at the claims you make, and you, the expert, are far tougher on yourself than they will be. As we talked about in Foundation Chapter B, you’re attempting to craft a positioning where you are less interchangeable so that withholding your expertise carries some meaning. Think of the options as a spectrum, with the right side depicting a completely undifferentiated firm (I’m an accountant) and the left side depicting the most focused firm you could imagine (I’m an accountant who works with U.S.-based multi-location casual dining brands). At the beginning of this exercise, you are toward the right, wanting to move toward the left and be more differentiated than you are now. You’re aiming for fewer competitors so that your expertise supports a price premium in your work. As you march from right to left, you want to make a complete journey and make really smart positioning decisions. As you work out the intricacies of the positioning journey, there are two forces that slow your progress: one good and one bad.

In certain monasteries there is an intensive meditative training that shows us how to experience our world as vibrations. When attention to this level becomes highly developed and the mind concentrated, sound is experienced as a series of vibrations at the ear and then at the heart. Then sight and thought can be experienced as vibrations. You can even sense yourself about to think. It’s like a little burp that wants to come, a prethought vibration that signals that a thought is about to emerge from the unconscious or the mind. It would be interesting to study subjects who’ve learned how to deliberately synchronize their inner vibrations or in some way work with the vibratory aspect of consciousness. When we speak of compassion or love for one another, we tend to lump these states all together. But there are many forms of compassion—loving-kindness, joy, gratitude, forgiveness, and equanimity—and each has different depths and different trainings. I would like to see a study that differentiates them. What happens when you teach a joy meditation to people who are depressed, as opposed to when you teach them a meditation on friendliness or a mental practice of gratitude? We could take these different contemplative practices and see which are most effective in different circumstances. Father Keating spoke about silence. In the Buddhist tradition, one of my teachers described twenty-one levels of silence, including silence of darkness, luminous silence where the body or space becomes filled with light, and silence with and without content. Again, these may be associated with brain states and traits that we can investigate, differentiate, and learn from. Most importantly, they point to vast inner possibilities. Western psychology has been so focused on pathology and the healing of disease that we have neglected our human potential. I would love to see research that goes further, that investigates the extremes of mental well-being and, ultimately, the nature of consciousness itself. There is much to learn about consciousness from contemplative practice. In meditation we can turn and shift identity from the content of experience to consciousness itself. We can examine consciousness and learn how to release identity from consciousness, and come to a kind of freedom beyond any states.

Differentiation and value today come from unlocking your creative potential, not owning a factory or a farm. The only sustainable competitive advantage left is being the best version of yourself.

Once you pick a point of differentiation, ask yourself the following: Is it relevant to your readers?

Therefore, the best way to know His voice is to get to know Him. Spend time in His Word and immerse yourself in His truth. Because as you do, you’ll be able to differentiate God’s direction from the messages the world, the enemy, or your flesh are sending you. You will know His voice, and He will certainly lead you well.

YOUR THREE UNIQUES Other common marketing terms for this are “differentiators” and “value proposition.” Plainly put, these are what make you different, what make you stand out, and what you’re competing with. If you line yourself up against 10 of your competitors, you might all share one of these uniques. Some of you may even share two, but no one else should have the three you do. You need to settle on three qualities that will truly make your company unique to the ideal customer.

If internet and social media can be down for five days and during those five days , you don’t have people to talk to . You need to assess and evaluate your life. No matter how addicted you are on social media, you need to bond with physical people around you. There is no connection that beats human contact. Don’t lose what differentiate us from robots. Allow yourself to feel. Never shutdown your emotions or feelings.

recommend including in your practice: breathwork, visualization, and sound. All three have benefits, but the simplest way to differentiate them is to know that you do breathwork for the physical benefits—to find stillness and balance, to calm yourself; visualization for the psychological benefits—to heal the past and prepare for the future; and chanting for the psychic benefits—to connect with your deepest self and the universe, for real purification.

Prompts (for High School Teachers Who Write Poetry)" Dante Di Stefano Write about walking into the building as a new teacher. Write yourself hopeful. Write a row of empty desks. Write the face of a student you’ve almost forgotten; he’s worn a Derek Jeter jersey all year. Do not conjecture about the adults he goes home to, or the place he calls home. Write about how he came to you for help each October morning his sophomore year. Write about teaching Othello to him; write Wherein of antres vast and deserts idle, rough quarries, rocks and hills whose heads touch heaven. Write about reading his obituary five years after he graduated. Write a poem containing the words “common” “core,” “differentiate,” and “overdose.” Write the names of the ones you will never forget: “Jenna,” “Tiberious,” “Heaven,” “Megan,” “Tanya,” “Kingsley” “Ashley,” “David.” Write Mari with “Nobody’s Baby” tattooed in cursive on her neck, spitting sixteen bars in the backrow, as little white Mike beatboxed “Candy Shop” and the whole class exploded. Write about Zuly and Nely, sisters from Guatemala, upon whom a thousand strange new English words rained down on like hail each period, and who wrote the story of their long journey on la bestia through Mexico, for you, in handwriting made heavy by the aquís and ayers ached in their knuckles, hidden by their smiles. Write an ode to loose-leaf. Write elegies on the nub nose of a pink eraser. Carve your devotion from a no. 2 pencil. Write the uncounted hours you spent fretting about the ones who cursed you out for keeping order, who slammed classroom doors, who screamed “you are not my father,” whose pain unraveled and broke you, whose pain you knew. Write how all this added up to a life. -- Dante Di Stefano. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on May 4, 2019, by the Academy of American Poets.

When you work to differentiate yourself, you beat the competition without competing. When you reach towards your best self, the fear removes itself.

If you want your artwork to be timeless, just 'do you'. It’s the only way to differentiate yourself from the rest. Get to know yourself and then put everything into creating what’s authentic to you. – Salariya Publishing Interview

Isabella Di Fabio Website If you are designing a website and want more visitors, we recommend that you continue to explore tips that you can use when creating a website. If you have any tips for writing website content for your website or other types of content, please feel free to share them with us. Isabella Secret Story telling of Optimize a Website - This allows you to optimize your articles with the appropriate keywords that can attract visitors to your website. SEO best practices that help your readers find more great content by linking to specific words and phrases. So when you write content for your websites, use SEO best practices to help you improve your page rank and key keywords. If you follow the steps above, you can learn how to write web page content that will attract readers and search engines, generate revenue and ensure that your pages do everything they can to help you grow your business. These five steps give you a solid foundation on which to grow your website, no matter what type of website you create. Before you write a word about content for your websites, you know what content you are writing and How will it work for you? Isabella Di Fabio Be aware that your company owns the rights to all content on its website, including the content on your website. To be clear, your site is not protected by copyright, and you cannot copyright any of the contents of the site that includes the pages, images, videos, links, text, audio and video content of your site. You need to ask yourself how differentiating content should be, who created it, and how you know if it really makes a significant contribution to your website. Your website should generate content without trying to guess what might go down well in search engines. Feed the real interest in your topic from the readers of your website to the topic and control the traffic on this topic. Isabella Di Fabio Secret Story of Web Design - In other words, write content that answers questions, explain how you can do something for your readers, and provide the quality information you want. It's one thing to create content optimized for search engine bots, but it's another to write it in a way that makes Google search more valuable. Create content that users actually want to read and create it in the best possible quality. When you learn how to write content on your website, you want to consider all the ways you can encourage the reader to become active on the site.

You should be looking for difficulties, not the easy option. The easy path is the life to anonymity and endless regret. The hard path is the one that gives you a purpose in life and brings out everything best in you. You have to become smarter, stronger, superior to overcome resistance. If you flee from the hard path, you will never encounter your higher self. How do you differentiate yourself from six and half billion other people? By doing hard things. The harder the challenge you take on, the fewer people will be in competition with you. You will have to make enormous sacrifices. If you don’t, you won’t achieve anything. It’s as simple as that.

Think carefully as you consider Quadrants I and III. It’s easy to think because something is urgent, it’s important. A quick way to differentiate between these two quadrants is to ask yourself if the urgent activity contributed to an important objective. If not, it probably belongs in Quadrant III.

The most meaningful way to differentiate your company from your competition, the best way to put distance between you and the crowd, is to do an outstanding job with information. How you gather, manage, and use information will determine whether you win or lose.

Don’t use the header of your website to differentiate yourself from somebody else.

Rule 1: Are you acting out of laziness? If so, is this a characterization you want about yourself? Rule 2: Three major tasks a day, maximum. Differentiate between important tasks, urgent tasks, and simple wasted motion. Rule 3: Create daily limitations and requirements for yourself. These keep you within the bounds of what you know you need to do. These are also the building blocks of good habits. Rule 4: Sometimes we lose sight of what we want to accomplish. Thus, reaffirm your intentions by stating “I want,” “I will,” and “I won’t” statements. Rule 5: Try to look into the future, 10 minutes, hours, and days at a time. Do you like what you see when you consider not following through? Is it worth the benefit to the current self at the expense of the future self? Probably not. Rule 6: It’s just 10 minutes, right? So if you want to quit, it’s just 10 minutes. And if you need to wait, it’s just 10 minutes.

Differentiation is the courage to lead people to a difficult place while still being deeply connected. Connected to yourself and your conviction, connected to the people you are leading, and remaining nonanxious in the face of anxious responses. It is the ability to walk into an anxious situation and lead people into a new reality while maintaining caring connection to them even when they are sabotaging your efforts. Jesus, not surprisingly, is a model of differentiated leadership.

Simply this: Do an activity as well as you can do it right now AND keep searching for ways to do it better in the future. Nearly everything you do can be improved in some way. Commit to a habit of excellence in everything you do. In so doing, you will differentiate yourself and your work from that of your peers, for whom “good” is good enough.

To WOW, you must differentiate yourself, which means do something a little unconventional and innovative. You must do something that’s above and beyond what’s expected. And whatever you do must have an emotional impact on the receiver.

To speak and to be understood is a freedom. It is perhaps the most fundamental freedom. To summon words intentionally, and have another person understand your meaning and connect with it, is to be unbound. Conversely, without it, a part of you is caged. You feel betrayed by a spotty brain-tongue connection. And you notice when others don't catch your full drift. Maybe it's the context of what you mean; maybe it's the inflection in your voice; maybe it's undercutting yourself by putting the emphasis on the wrong syllable. This trapped feeling is far more acute when you move in a language that isn't your own. There are intricacies andsubtleties that matter a great deal to communicating. Without them, your meaning is stuck in your throat. This is how I felt after arriving in Canada, where I had to translate simple thoughts into English, with all the added social cues, before I could get them past my lips. This translation work is labour. It's time and effort spent trying to wrangle unruly words that won't fit in your mouth. God, have you tried to say "parallelogram"? Have you tried to differentiate it from a rhombus? When will I ever need to say "parallelogram?" Anyway: it's mental gymnastics, and the only reward is blank looks on the faces of people who can tell you're trying to say something but hear another. Maybe I messed up the syntax? Maybe my pronunciation was off and now I have to spend twenty minutes convincing you I'm not stupid? Damn, I can't believe some people can just speak and be understood. The luxury!