Gap And The Gain Quotes

Propose a theory to explain one of there eternal mysteries: Mona Lisa's smile, crop circles, or Velveeta. Here is a theory of love: you find a sister, you gain a brother; you lose a sister, you lose a brother; you lose a cat, you find a girl, you kiss a girl, you find the cat, you hope that there is nothing left to lose, and all there is, is there to find.

Seth Godin said: “The rule is simple: the person who fails the most will win. If I fail more than you do, I will win. Because in order to keep failing, you’ve got to be good enough to keep playing.”12,13

If you focus on what you lack, you lose what you have. If you focus on what you have, you gain what you lack.”6

The way to measure your progress is backward against where you started, not against your ideal.” —Dan Sullivan

Happiness is not something you pursue. Happiness is not somewhere in the future. Decades of scientific research is clear on this point: happiness is where you start, not where you finish.

BRIDGES. The Rule is that, when being pursued by the forces of Darkness, you are going to need to cross a Bridge, and there will be no Bridge. While the Tour is waiting to find a way across, the forces of the Dark have time to catch up. Even if there is supposed to be a Bridge on the route, you are likely to arrive to find it broken — whereupon the forces of the Dark gain steadily again. The only Bridges sure to be still in place are ANCIENT ENGINEERING PROJECTS, and they will be huge, with, as soon as you get to the middle, a tendency to develop a small but impassible gap right at the apex.

whatever you have to do to gain self-knowledge, do it. Find out who you are and what you want. Then you can stop wasting your life energy and your money on stuff that doesn’t matter to you—and start making financial decisions that will get you to your true goals.

Given the changing realities of class in our nation, widening gaps between the rich and poor, and the continued feminization of poverty, we desperately need a mass-based radical feminist movement that can build on the strength of the past, including the positive gains generated by reforms, while offering meaningful interrogation of existing feminist theory that was simply wrongminded while offering us new strategies.

At long last, somebody believes in her. Tonight in this exchange she has gained the tools with which she will build her self esteem: She has been chosen and she has security. Maybe this is all that a person ever needs to succeed. Pearl has been picked, and that has begun to define her.

A small businesses ability to gain an edge for a profitable niche is not by just focusing on the dynamic market gap, but by identifying a market within the gap.

What preoccupies us is the way we define success.” —Arianna Huffington

If you focus on what you lack, you lose what you have. If you focus on what you have, you gain what you lack.

Books, be they physical objects or electronic pulses, are way cool. They are idea houses. So let those who want to read from machines. Those who love the feel, the smell, the gilt edging and the pretty covers and the soft paper, and the kinetic memories will enjoy the physical objects. Either form can be artifact. So long as we're all reading, and gaining joy from it, does it really matter so much?

Being in the GAIN means you measure yourself backward, against where you were before. You measure your own progress. You don’t compare yourself to something external. You don’t measure yourself against your ideals.

Speakers from the Mediterranean region, for instance, like to put their faces very close, relatively speaking, to those they are addressing. A common scene when people from southern Europe and northern Europe are conversing, as at a cocktail party, is for the latter to spend the entire conversation stealthily retreating, to try to gain some space, and for the former to keep advancing to close the gap. Neither speaker may even be aware of it.

According to neuroscientists, when we stir up a long-term memory, it floats in our consciousness, unstable, for a window of approximately three hours. During this time, the memory is malleable. The present infiltrates the past. We add details to fill in the gaps. Then the brain re-encodes the memory as if it were new, writing over the old one. As it sinks back down into the depths of our minds, we are not even aware of what we have gained or lost, or why.

To Be the Famous..." To be the famous isn’t attractive, Not this could ever elevate, You needn’t to make your archive active, You needn’t your scripts to be all saved. Self-offering’s aimed by creation, But ballyhoo or cheap success, It is a shame, if worthless persons Are talks of towns’ populace. But you’ve to live without phony, To live such life that, after all, To gain love of the space symphony, And answer to the future’s call, And oft to leave gaps in your traces In fate, but in the papers, crooked, To mark the chapters and main places On margins of your being’s book, To fully sink in the unknown, And hide in it your own steps Like hide itself, if mist is grown, The whole landscape of the place. The others, by the living traces, Will pass your way through, bit by bit, But wins and losses of your battles You have not to discern on it. You’ve never – not by fate or folly – To lose an atom of your face, But – be alive, alive and only, Alive and only, till your last.

Soon the air of the high place was blowing in through the gaps in the masonry, the open bays, where the wind flowed like water round the arches of a bridge. Borluut felt refreshed fanned by this sea-breeze coming from the beaches of the sky: It seemed to be sweeping up dead leaves inside him. New paths, leading elsewhere, appeared in his soul; fresh clearings were revealed. Finally he found himself. Total oblivion as a prelude to taking possession of one's self! He was like the first man on the first day to whom nothing has yet happened. The delights of metamorphosis. He owed them to the tall tower, to the summit he had gained where the battlemented platform was ready for him, a refuge in the infinite. From that height he could no longer see the world, he no longer understood it. Yes, each time he was seized with vertigo, with a desire to lose his footing, to throw himself off, but not towards the ground, into the abyss with its spirals of belfries and roofs over the depths of the town below. It was the abyss above of which he felt the pull. He was more and more bewildered. Everything was becoming blurred - before his eyes, inside his head - because of the fierce wind, the boundless space with nothing to hold on to, the clouds he had come too close to, which long continued to journey on inside him. The delights of sojourning among the summits have their price.

Live with Areté: Express your highest self in every moment. If we want to be on good terms with our highest self, we need to close the gap between what we’re capable of and what we’re actually doing. This is really about being your best version in the here and now. It’s about using reason in our actions and living in harmony with deep values. This is obviously easier said than done, what supports this ambitious goal is to separate good from bad and focus on what we control.

In other words, the VMPFC, in healthy people, integrates many pieces of information gained from experience (e.g., many samples from the different decks) and translates that information into an emotional signal that gives the decision maker good advice about what to do. And once again, this advice, this gut feeling, may precede any conscious awareness of what’s good or bad and why. This explains why people with VMPFC damage make disastrous real-life decisions, despite their good performance on standard laboratory reasoning tests. They “know,” but they don’t “feel,” and feelings are very helpful.

Harmonious passion is related to having high levels of grit, whereas obsessive passion is not.23 If you’re obsessively passionate, you’re thinking short-term. You’re trying to force things to go your way. But you don’t truly want whatever it is you’re seeking. You just think you need it because you’re unresolved internally. Whether you get what you want or not, sooner or later you’ll shift that unhealthy need onto something else—the hedonic treadmill will continue. Similar to harmonious passion, intrinsic motivation is also related to having high levels of grit, whereas extrinsic motivation is not.24

Bookshops are oceans and sections are like tides, they grow and they shrink, they grow and the shrink. It depends on the season and what's selling and what new trends are emerging. Scandi Noir, Dystopian YA, Adult Coloring In, Hygge. It only takes one bestseller to start a tsunami of copycats. Just as you think the swell is here to stay, sales start to taper off and the bookshop breathes and contracts and swallows whatever stock didn't sell, reabsorbs it back into the master section, back into crime or YA or crafts and we rearrange everything to fill the gap until the next trend gains momentum. A good bookseller can sense when the tides are turning, when sales are starting to wane. A bad bookseller doesn't adapt to change, will cling to those declining sales instead of embracing the next big thing. A really bad bookseller will favor their personal taste over customer interest.

The Genetics of Asthma lab is one of countless research projects at universities and biotech firms around the country hunting for the genes that are responsible for health disparities in America. They are supplementing a large body of published studies that claim to show that racial gaps in disease prevalence or mortality are caused by genetic differences. In addition to asthma, disparities in infant mortality, diabetes, cancer, and hypertension have all been attributed in the scientific literature to genetic vulnerability that varies according to race. Most of these studies never even examined the genotypes of research subjects, as Burchard’s lab does; they just infer a genetic source of racial differences when they fail to find another explanation. As interest in health disparities converges with the genomic science of race, a new brand of racial stereotyping is gaining hold in biomedical research.

Instead of focusing on getting more resources, tipping point leaders concentrate on multiplying the value of the resources they have. When it comes to scarce resources, there are three factors of disproportionate influence that executives can leverage to dramatically free resources, on the one hand, and multiply the value of resources, on the other. These are hot spots, cold spots, and horse trading. Hot spots are activities that have low resource input but high potential performance gains. In contrast, cold spots are activities that have high resource input but low performance impact. In every organization, hot spots and cold spots typically abound. Horse trading involves trading your unit’s excess resources in one area for another unit’s excess resources to fill remaining resource gaps. By learning to use their current resources right, companies often find they can tip the resource hurdle outright. What

Throughout history, white women have chosen racial solidarity with white men over gender solidarity with women of color in an attempt to gain access to the fruits of capitalist triumph. An alternative to that erroneous path is to choose solidarity with other women, other mothers in particular: to seek the resonances between our lives so that we may begin to repair the gaps. Erich Fromm wrote 'Important and radical changes are necessary if love is to become a social and not highly individualistic, marginal phenomenon.' I asked Erin Spahr of the Perinatal Mood Disorders clinic at Johns Hopkins what her strategies were for low-income women of color versus upper-middle-class white women. She responded that in all cases, she tried to validate the woman's experience. She tried to provide a sense of safety, to help the woman discover her own fears o that she could be present emotionally for her child. She listened. This is a form of love- a space between people, for confessions and hopes and flaws, and for the seed of solidarity to germinate.

Michael Freeman was thirty-five years old – a former Special Forces soldier turned policeman. He was a tall and slim black man, with grey-flecked hair and dark almond-shaped eyes. His smile was tight-lipped – half knowing and half strategic. It hid a mouthful of craggy teeth. A childhood in Detroit's East Side with an aggressive, alcoholic father had taught him to play things close to his chest, to look and listen. His colleagues knew him as a patient thinker, sedulous, missing nothing given time. Intellectually savvy and emotionally guarded, he exuded certitude. In Afghanistan, in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, he spent several weeks as a mounted outlier with the Northern Alliance in the Alma Tak Mountains, beyond the range of reinforcement or rescue – drinking filtered ditchwater and eating nuts scavenged from corpses – and calling down massive airstrikes on Taliban positions. He gained a certain reputation. Word spread the length of the Darya Suf River valley, through the Tiangi Gap to the stronghold at Mazar-i-Sharif that there was a monster loose in the mountains and the Taliban called him ‘bor-buka', which seemed to mean black or devil or whirlwind, and, at times, all of these things.

1. Connect with Your Why Start by identifying your key motivations. Why do you want to reach your goal in the first place? Why is it important personally? Get a notebook or pad of paper and list all the key motivations. But don’t just list them, prioritize them. You want the best reasons at the top of your list. Finally, connect with these motivations both intellectually and emotionally. 2. Master Your Motivation There are four key ways to stay motivated as you reach for your goals: Identify your reward and begin to anticipate it. Eventually, the task itself can become its own reward this way. Recognize that installing a new habit will probably take longer than a few weeks. It might even take five or six months. Set your expectations accordingly. Gamify the process with a habit app or calendar chain. As Dan Sullivan taught me, measure the gains, not the gap. Recognize the value of incremental wins. 3. Build Your Team It’s almost always easier to reach a goal if you have friends on the journey. Intentional relationships provide four ingredients essential for success: learning, encouragement, accountability, and competition. There are at least seven kinds of intentional relationships that can help you grow and reach your goals: ​‣ ​Online communities ​‣ ​Running and exercise groups ​‣ ​Masterminds ​‣ ​Coaching and mentoring circles ​‣ ​Reading and study groups ​‣ ​Accountability groups ​‣ ​Close friendships If you can’t find a group you need, don’t wait. Start your own.

Fresh Prints We're inundated with the news That all is at unrest. We've not a clue What this world's coming to, Just thank the Lord we're blessed. Beloved, this very day You thought you'd never live to see Is just the one God preordained And chose for you and me. We're not called to shake our heads And utter “what a pity.” We're called as candles on a hill And towers in the city. We can draw far more to Christ than tracts Or fancy steeples We are proof in breathing flesh— God moves among His people! Please understand, this race you run Is not just for your prize. Grab young hands, courageous band, Run for their very lives! For us, we must live for today, For them, live for tomorrow. Redeem the time for many blind For there is none to borrow! The prints of history's heroes Will soon fade into the dust, If there will be fresh prints, my friend, It is up to us. Footprints that walk the talk that says, “I'll go where You will lead!” Kneeprints that bridge the gap And make the hedge to intercede. God, kick us off our cushioned seats Don't let us turn our heads! Let's cease to hide behind the cross And carry it instead! You beckon us, “My warriors, The time has come, ARISE! Draw your swords, fight the fight, Sound the battle cry.” “Where are My few who dare to say, ‘Come follow Him with me?’ Would you lay down your own dear life So that My Son they'll see?” “Consider, Child, carefully— Am I quite worth the cost? To surrender hearts to holiness And count all gains but loss?” “I call you from your comfort zone, Dare you be one of few? If you'll not leave fresh prints, My child, Then I must ask you, who?” If you'll not lead the way, My child, Then look around you, Who?

The crowd as silent,holding their breaths.Hot wind rustled in the trees as the ax gleamed in the sun.Luce could feel that the end was coming,but why? Why had her soul dragged her here? What insight abouther past,or the curse, could she possibly gain from having her head cut off? Then Daniel dropped the ax to the ground. "What are you doing?" Luce asked. Daniel didn't answer.He rolled back his shoulders, turned his face toward the sky, and flung out her arms. Zotz stepped forward to interfere,but when he touched Daniel's shoulder,he screamed and recoiled as if he'd been burned. And then- Daniel's white wings unfurled from his shoulders.As they extended fully from his sides,huge and shockingly bright against the parched brown landscape, they sent twenty Mayans hurtling backward. Shouts rang out around the cenote: "What is he?" "The boy is winged!" "He is a god! Sent to us by Chaat!" Luce thrashed against the ropes binding her wrists and her ankles.She needed to run to Daniel.She tried to move toward him,until- Until she couldn't move anymore. Daniel's wings were so bright they were almost unbearable. Only, now it wasn't just Daniel's wings that were glowing. It was...all of him. His entire body shone.As if he'd swallowed the sun. Music filled the air.No,not music, but a single harmonious chord.Deafening and unending,glorious and frightening. Luce had heard it before...somewhere. In the cemetery at Sword&Cross, the last night she'd been there,the night Daniel had fought Cam,and Luce hadn't been allowed to watch.The night Miss Sophia had dragged her away and Penn had died and nothing had ever been the same.It had begun with that very same chord,and it was coming out of Daniel.He was lit up so brightly,his body actually hummed. She swayed where she stood,unable to take her eyes away.An intense wave of heat stroked her skin. Behind Luce,someone cried out.The cry was followed by another,and then another,and then a whole chorus of voices crying out. Something was burning.It was acrid and choking and turned her stomach instantly. Then,in the corner of her vision,there was an explosion of flame, right where Zotz had been standing a moment before. The boom knocked her backward,and she turned away from the burning brightness of Daniel,coughing on the black ash and bitter smoke. Hanhau was gone,the ground where she'd stood scorched black.The gap-toothed man was hiding his face,trying hard not to look at Daniel's radiance.But it was irresistible.Luce watched as the man peeked between his fingers and burst into a pillar of flame. All around the cenote,the Mayans stared at Daniel.And one by one,his brilliance set them ablaze.Soon a bright ring of fire lit up the jungle,lit up everyone but Luce. "Ix Cuat!" Daniel reached for her. His glow made Luce scream out in pain,but even as she felt as if she were on the verge of asphyxiation, the words tumbled from her mouth. "You're glorious." "Don't look at me," he pleaded. "When a mortal sees an angel's true essence, then-you can see what happened to the others.I can't let you leave me again so soon.Always so soon-" "I'm still here," Luce insisted. "You're still-" He was crying. "Can you see me? The true me?" "I can see you." And for just a fraction of a second,she could.Her vision cleared.His glow was still radiant but not so blinding.She could see his soul. It was white-hot and immaculate,and it looked-there was no other way to say it-like Daniel. And it felt like coming home.A rush of unparalleled joy spread through Luce.Somewhere in the back of her mind,a bell of recognition chimed. She'd seen him like this before. Hadn't she? As her mind strained to draw upon the past she couldn't quite touch,the light of him began to overwhelm her. "No!" she cried,feeling the fire sear her heart and her body shake free of something.

There are truths which are best recognized by mediocre heads, because they are most appropriate for them; there are truths which have charm and seductive power only for mediocre minds: — at this very point we are pushed back onto this perhaps unpleasant proposition, since the time the spirit of respectable but mediocre Englishmen — I cite Darwin, John Stuart Mill, and Herbert Spencer — is successfully gaining pre-eminence in the middle regions of European taste. In fact, who could doubt how useful it is that such spirits rule from time to time? It would be a mistake to think that highly cultivated spirits who fly off to great distances would be particularly skilful at establishing many small, common facts, collecting them, and pushing to a conclusion: — they are, by contrast, as exceptional men, from the very start in no advantageous position vis-à-vis the “rules.” In the final analysis, they have more to do than merely have knowledge — for they have to be something new, to mean something new, to present new values! The gap between knowing something and being able to do something is perhaps greater as well as more mysterious than people think. It’s possible that the man who can act in the grand style, the creating man, will have to be a person who does not know; whereas, on the other hand, for scientific discoveries of the sort Darwin made a certain narrowness, aridity, and conscientious diligence, in short, something English, may not be an unsuitable arrangement. Finally we should not forget that the English with their profoundly average quality have already once brought about a collective depression of the European spirit. What people call “modern ideas” or “the ideas of the eighteenth century” or even “French ideas” — in other words, what the German spirit has risen against with a deep disgust — were English in origin. There’s no doubt of that. The French have been only apes and actors of these ideas, their best soldiers, as well, and at the same time unfortunately their first and most complete victims. For with the damnable Anglomania of “modern ideas” the âme française [French soul] has finally become so thin and emaciated that nowadays we remember almost with disbelief its sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, its profoundly passionate power, its resourceful nobility. But with our teeth we must hang on to the following principle of historical fairness and defend it against the appearance of the moment: European noblesse [nobility] — in feeling, in taste, in customs, in short, the word taken in every higher sense — is the work and invention of France; European nastiness, the plebeian quality of modern ideas, the work of England.

He watched her pace toward him. She stopped just short of his chair and looked down at him. Her loose hair slipped over her shoulder. “I remember something. I’m not sure if it happened or not. Will you tell me?” “Yes,” he whispered. “I remember lying with you on the lawn of the imperial palace’s spring garden.” He shifted. Lamplight pulsed over his face. He shook his head. “I remember finding you in your suite.” This memory was coming to her now. It had a similar flavor as the last one. “I promised to tell you my secrets. You held a book. Or kindling? You were making a fire.” “That didn’t happen.” “I kissed you.” She touched the hollow at the base of his neck. His pulse was wild. “Not then,” he said finally. “But I have before.” There was a rush of images. It was as if the melody she’d imagined while lying in the dark had been dunked in the green liquor. All the cold stops gained heat and ran together. It was easy to remember Arin, especially now. Her hand slid to his chest. The cotton of his shirt was hot. “Your kitchens. A table. Honey and flour.” His heart slammed against her palm. “Yes.” “A carriage.” “Yes.” “A balcony.” Breath escaped him like a laugh. “Almost.” “I remember falling asleep in your bed when you weren’t here.” He pulled back slightly, searched her face. “That didn’t happen.” “Yes it did.” His mouth parted, but he didn’t speak. The blacks of his eyes were bright. She wondered what it would be like to give her body what it wanted. It knew something she didn’t. Her heart sped, her blood was lush in her veins. “The first day,” she said. “Last summer. Your hair was a mess. I wanted to sweep it back and make you meet my eyes. I wanted to see you.” His chest rose and fell beneath her hand. “I don’t know. I can’t--I don’t know what you wanted.” “I never said?” “No.” She lowered her mouth to his. She tasted him: the raw burn of liquor on his tongue. She felt him swallow, heard the low, dry sound of it. He pulled her down to him, tangled his hands in her hair, sucked the breath from her lips. She became uncertain whose breath was whose. He kissed her back, fingertips fanning across her face, then gone, nowhere. Then: a light touch along the curve of her hip, just barely. A stone skipping the surface of the water. “Strange,” he murmured into her mouth. She wasn’t listening. She was rippling, the sensation spreading wide. Stone on water, dimpled pockets of pressure. The wait for the stone to finally drop down. Suddenly she knew--or thought she knew--what he found strange as he traced where a dagger should have been. To see a part of her missing. She felt her missing pieces, the stark gaps. She was arrested by the thought (it pierced her, sharp and surreal) that she had become transparent, that if he touched her again his hand would go right through her, into air, into the empty spaces of who she was now.

In respect to the employment of troops, ground may be classified as dispersive, frontier, key, communicating, focal, serious, difficult, encircled, and death. When a feudal lord fights in his own territory, he is in dispersive ground. Here officers and men long to return to their nearby homes. When he makes but a shallow penetration into enemy territory he is in frontier ground. Ground equally advantageous for the enemy or me to occupy is key ground. Ground equally accessible to both the enemy and me is communicating. This is level and extensive ground in which one may come and go, sufficient in extent for battle and to erect opposing fortifications. When a state is enclosed by three other states its territory is focal. He who first gets control of it will gain the support of All-under-Heaven. When the army has penetrated deep into hostile territory, leaving far behind many enemy cities and towns, it is in serious ground. When the army traverses mountains, forests, precipitous country, or marches through defiles, marshlands, or swamps, or any place where the going is hard, it is in difficult ground. Ground to which access is constricted, where the way out is tortuous, and where a small enemy force can strike my larger one is called 'encircled.' Ground in which the army survives only if it fights with the courage of desperation is called 'death.' Therefore, do not fight in dispersive ground; do not stop in the frontier borderlands. Do not attack an enemy who occupies key ground; in communicating ground do not allow your formations to become separated. In focal ground, ally with neighboring states; in deep ground, plunder. In difficult ground, press on; in encircled ground, devise stratagems; in death ground, fight. In dispersive ground I would unify the determination of the army. In frontier ground I would keep my forces closely linked. In key ground I would hasten up my rear elements. In communicating ground I would pay strict attention to my defenses. In focal ground I would strengthen my alliances. I reward my prospective allies with valuables and silks and bind them with solemn covenants. I abide firmly by the treaties and then my allies will certainly aid me. In serious ground I would ensure a continuous flow of provisions. In difficult ground I would press on over the roads. In encircled ground I would block the points of access and egress. It is military doctrine that an encircling force must leave a gap to show the surrounded troops there is a way out, so that they will not be determined to fight to the death. Then, taking advantage of this, strike. Now, if I am in encircled ground, and the enemy opens a road in order to tempt my troops to take it, I close this means of escape so that my officers and men will have a mind to fight to the death. In death ground I could make it evident that there is no chance of survival. For it is the nature of soldiers to resist when surrounded; to fight to the death when there is no alternative, and when desperate to follow commands implicitly.

The 9/11 Commission warned that Al Qaeda "could... scheme to wield weapons of unprecedented destructive power in the largest cities of the United States." Future attacks could impose enormous costs on the entire economy. Having used up the surplus that the country enjoyed as part of the Cold War peace dividend, the U.S. government is in a weakened financial position to respond to another major terrorist attack, and its position will be damaged further by the large budget gaps and growing dependence on foreign capital projected for the future. As the historian Paul Kennedy wrote in his book The Rise and Fall of Great Powers, too many decisions made in Washington today "bring merely short-term advantage but long-term disadvantage." The absence of a sound, long-term financial strategy could bring about a deterioration that, in his words, "leads to the downward spiral of slower growth, heavier taxes, deepening domestic splits over spending priorities and a weakening capacity to bear the burdens of defense." Decades of success in mobilizing enormous sums of money to fight large wars and meet other government needs have led Americans to believe that ample funds will be readily available in the event of a future war, terrorist attack, or other emergency. But that can no longer be assumed. Budget constraints could limit the availability or raise the cost of resources to deal with new emergencies. If government debt continues to pile up, deficits rise to stratospheric levels, and heave dependence on foreign capital grows, borrowing the money needed will be very costly. [Alexander] Hamilton understood the risks of such a precarious situation. After suffering through financial shortages, lack of adequate food and weapons, desertions, and collapsing morale during the Revolution, he considered the risk that the government would have difficulty in assembling funds to defend itself all too real. If America remains on its dangerous financial course, Hamilton's gift to the nation - the blessing of sound finances - will be squandered. The U.S. government had no higher obligation that to protect the security of its citizens. Doing so becomes increasingly difficult if its finances are unsound. While the nature of this new brand of warfare, the war on terrorism, remains uncharted, there is much to be gained if our leaders look to the experiences of the past for guidance in responding to the challenges of the future. The willingness of the American people and their leaders to ensure that the nation's finances remain sound in the face of these new challenges - sacrificing parochial interests for the common good - is the price we must pay to preserve the nation's security and thus the liberties that Hamilton and his generation bequeathed us.

Rushing out the door on his way back to the street, he ran into someone with his shoulder. Turning to apologize to them, he stopped, horrified at what he saw. It was the white-eyed man he’d met a week ago. “Watch your back.” He said standing there just long enough for Raven to take in the meat between his teeth, the milky, nearly opaque color of his eyes and the madness within them. Then, after only a few seconds, he was gone, vanished into the crowd as if he had never existed. Certain his mind was playing tricks and tired of being terrified for his sanity, he headed down the street as fast as he could in pursuit. As he rushed through the tightly packed crowd, he saw others like the man he’d just seen, and each of their white eyes gazed blankly into his. A woman here, a hunched drifter there, shapes and faces that shifted and darted all around him. “Watch your back.” They hissed, and he tried to move faster, his heart racing and the nerves of his body jangling painfully with fear as he fought to get beyond them. Hands reached out for his clothes, pulling him in different directions as they tugged and he struggled to be free. Their fingers felt like talons clasped into the folds and gaps of his clothing, ripping and popping stitches in their fervor to gain some small grasp on his flesh beneath his jacket. Along with the horror of their cold, dead eyes, he could smell some strangeness—a sickly sweet smell of rot and decay only barely closeted by preserving fluids. The smell dug into his sinuses as their fingers and hands dug at him. He gagged, his teeth clenched tight as he exerted energy he didn’t really have. He pushed away from them and on through the empty space he saw at the end of this group of pedestrians. Many of whom mingled with what he now felt must be the dead, wholly unaware of why he flailed and pushed against them.

How did I bridge the gap from depression to elation? Well, I worked hard at improving all aspects of my game. I got stronger mentally and physically. I had good coaching, I studied the other players, and I learned from the history of the NBA. I gained confidence, ability, and intelligence. In short:I learned the game within the game.

Is there a larger metaphysical moral to be drawn from the above analysis of the metaphysics of time and change? I have defined the essence of change as the actualization of a pre-existing potentiality. I have also defined instants as the limits of a process of infinite potential division. It is my contention that these two potentialities are but different aspects of one and the same radical potentiality that lies at the heart of nature itself. Both are necessary for the explanation of change. The actualization of potentiality would not be possible without the potentiality that characterizes time; and if, as I would also contend (without space for a defense here) there is no time without change, the potentiality at the root of time would not be possible without the eduction of form from potentiality that is the essential note of change. In change, form succeeds form: every coming-to-be is a passing-away and every passing-away is a coming-to-be. Change is, then, a continuous process of loss and gain that is without gap and without contradiction. Change is instantaneous: without instants as limits it could not take place. To search for an actual instant of change, however, is to search in vain, for there are no actual instants at all. To search for a transition that does not consist in the actualization of potentiality is to search for a chimera. Transition there must be, and without the exceedingly small there is no transition; but to look for it in the exceedingly small is to miss its presence in the process at large. Ultimately the process is unfathomable – as unfathomable as the very potentiality that explains the finitude of the material universe and everything within it. In metaphysics, this is all the explanation we can hope for. In metaphysics, this is all the explanation we need.

Moreover, these changes occurred when most American households actually found their real incomes stagnant or declining. Median household income for the last four decades is shown in the chart above. But this graph, disturbing as it is, conceals a far worse reality. The top 10 percent did much better than everyone else; if you remove them, the numbers change dramatically. Economic analysis has found that “only the top 10 percent of the income distribution had real compensation growth equal to or above . . . productivity growth.”14 In fact, most gains went to the top 1 percent, while people in the bottom 90 percent either had declining household incomes or were able to increase their family incomes only by working longer hours. The productivity of workers continued to grow, particularly with the Internet revolution that began in the mid-1990s. But the benefits of productivity growth went almost entirely into the incomes of the top 1 percent and into corporate profits, both of which have grown to record highs as a fraction of GNP. In 2010 and 2011 corporate profits accounted for over 14 percent of total GNP, a historical record. In contrast, the share of US GNP paid as wages and salaries is at a historical low and has not kept pace with inflation since 2006.15 As I was working on this manuscript in late 2011, the US Census Bureau published the income statistics for 2010, when the US recovery officially began. The national poverty rate rose to 15.1 percent, its highest level in nearly twenty years; median household income declined by 2.3 percent. This decline, however, was very unequally distributed. The top tenth experienced a 1 percent decline; the bottom tenth, already desperately poor, saw its income decline 12 percent. America’s median household income peaked in 1999; by 2010 it had declined 7 percent. Average hourly income, which corrects for the number of hours worked, has barely changed in the last thirty years. Ranked by income equality, the US is now ninety-fifth in the world, just behind Nigeria, Iran, Cameroon, and the Ivory Coast. The UK has mimicked the US; even countries with low levels of inequality—including Denmark and Sweden—have seen an increasing gap since the crisis. This is not a distinguished record. And it’s not a statistical fluke. There is now a true, increasingly permanent underclass living in near-subsistence conditions in many wealthy states. There are now tens of millions of people in the US alone whose condition is little better than many people in much poorer nations. If you add up lifetime urban ghetto residents, illegal immigrants, migrant farm-workers, those whose criminal convictions sharply limit their ability to find work, those actually in prison, those with chronic drug-abuse problems, crippled veterans of America’s recently botched wars, children in foster care, the homeless, the long-term unemployed, and other severely disadvantaged groups, you get to tens of millions of people trapped in very harsh, very unfair conditions, in what is supposedly the wealthiest, fairest society on earth. At any given time, there are over two million people in US prisons; over ten million Americans have felony records and have served prison time for non-traffic offences. Many millions more now must work very long hours, and very hard, at minimum-wage jobs in agriculture, retailing, cleaning, and other low-wage service industries. Several million have been unemployed for years, exhausting their savings and morale. Twenty or thirty years ago, many of these people would have had—and some did have—high-wage jobs in manufacturing or construction. No more. But in addition to growing inequalities in income and wealth, America exhibits

After a novel technology is introduced and begins gaining momentum, we tend to envision it in its final form—seriously overinflating our expectations for both its developmental timetable and its short-term potential. Invariably, when these technologies fail to live up to the initial hype—usually in that gap between deception and disruption on our list of the Six Ds—public sentiment for the technology falls into the trough of disillusionment. And this is where a great many of the technologies discussed in chapter 3 now sit. But when technologies are in the trough, we are again swayed by the hype (this time, the negative hype) and consistently fail to believe they’ll ever emerge, thus missing their massively transformative potential.

Outside the Republican Convention hall, there were plenty of people who did not feel 400 percent bigger and more hopeful in 1900. Although the ferment over silver had died down, the impetus for social change and radical reform had not. Progressive activists and journalists were beginning to focus national attention on the widening gap between rich and poor, on the problems of cities, political corruption, the rights of women, the depletion of natural resources, continuing racial inequality, and the power of big business. The new Governor of Wisconsin, Republican reformer Robert M. La Follette, gained national prominence pledging to

This adaptive capacity is the crucial leadership element for a changing world (see fig. 7.1). While it is grounded on the professional credibility that comes from technical competence and the trust gained through relational congruence, adaptive capacity is also its own set of skills to be mastered. These skills include the capacity to calmly face the unknown to refuse quick fixes to engage others in the learning and transformation necessary to take on the challenge that is before them to seek new perspectives to ask questions that reveal competing values and gaps in values and actions to raise up the deeper issues at work in a community to explore and confront resistance and sabotage to learn and change without sacrificing personal or organizational fidelity to act politically and stay connected relationally to help the congregation make hard, often painful decisions to effectively fulfill their mission in a changing context This capacity building is more than just some techniques to master. It’s a set of deeply developed capabilities that are the result of ongoing transformation in the life of a leader.

Dons to me were sports-jacketed figures with pastel ties, reclining under the great chestnut-tree at Balliol in apparent indolence, but all the while razor-keen to detect inconsistencies in attitude or standpoint. I say 'attitude or standpoint' since formal argument held little appeal. I agreed...that some of the inconsistencies...could be approached ratiocinatively, and examined for logical contradiction; but the deeper kinds of awareness were to be reached intuitively rather than through rationalizations. This in fact constituted my justification for studying imaginative literature...rather than history or philosophy or psychology. I held that when one sensed (rather than 'detected') a defect of style, a false emphasis of rhythm, or an inadequate characterization, one was at that point gaining insight into the real subject of enquiry, through the gap between the thing made and its potentiality; and from that point one must go forward and into the work, not outward into analogy and speculation, however brilliant. What I was looking for was not a methodology but a way of life, one which would encourage and sustain a maximum receptivity to works of art.

Live with Areté: Express your highest self in every moment. If we want to be on good terms with our highest self, we need to close the gap between what we’re capable of and what we’re actually doing.

This country is indeed in a melancholy situation; sunk in ease, devoted to the pursuits of gain, incumbered with a complicated and perplexed constitution, divided among themselves in interest and sentiment, they seem afraid of every thing.” While deteriorating in their economy and lack of national unity, as Adams now saw it, and with a deep gap between rich and poor, they remain “too complacent,” with a faded pride in the “strong sense of independence and republican temper” that was once so vital a trait of the national character.

The rule is simple: the person who fails the most will win. If I fail more than you do, I will win. Because in order to keep failing, you’ve got to be good enough to keep playing.

I don't think we set and achieve goals in an effort to become happy. We do it because we are happy and want to expand our happiness.

I don't think we set and achieve goals in an effort to become happy. We do it because we are happy and want to expand our happiness

Why does all of this matter, though? It matters because without being conscious and intentional, you can easily “forget” or lose sight of your former GAINS. You can forget what you previously struggled with and overcame. You can take for granted how far you’ve come, ignore your progress, and miss out on the confidence of remembering where you were. This is why it is incredibly powerful and important to keep journals, records, or “annual reviews.” Like Jill, you can look back and be reminded of the easily forgotten past. You can be reminded that the “normal life” you’re now living may be the dreams—or even beyond the dreams—of your former self.

There was that gap between adults and children that reserved to each secrets that were hidden from the other. When you were old enough, you became privy to the secrets that belonged only to adults and lost in turn those that belonged only to children. You did not ever gain all of one or lose all of the other; of each, some you kept and some you never gained.

Wealth is where history shows up in your wallet, where your financial freedom is determined by compounding interest on decisions made long before you were born. That is why the Black-white wealth gap is growing despite gains in Black education and earnings, and why the typical Black household owns only $17,600 in assets. Still, having little to no intergenerational wealth and facing massive systemic barriers, descendants of a stolen people have given America the touch-tone telephone, the carbon filament in the lightbulb, the gas mask, the modern traffic light, blood banks, the gas furnace, open-heart surgery, and the mathematics to enable the moon landing. Just imagine the possibilities if—in addition to rebuilding the pathways for all aspirants to the American Dream—we gave millions more Black Americans the life-changing freedom that a modest amount of wealth affords. A 2020 Citigroup report calculated that “if racial gaps for Blacks had been closed 20 years ago, U.S. GDP could have benefitted by an estimated $16 trillion.

But ideas can create culture, and culture is perhaps the most powerful force shaping human identity and decision-making.

The reason the hedonic treadmill exists is because people aren’t taught how to be happy.

But ideas can create culture, and culture is perhaps the most powerful force shaping human identity and decision-making.3

Staring at your phone right before bed is one of the worst

When your happiness is tied to something in the future, then your present is diminished. You don’t feel happy, confident, or successful. But maybe in the future you will be, or so the logic goes.

Communication gap—>Difference in expectation—>Develop taken for granted attitude—>Create entitlement behaviour—> Lead to low gratitude feeling—> Gain low positive energy--->vaccoum is filled with negative energy.

Your happiness as a person is dependent on what you measure yourself against. The antidote to being in the GAP is to measure yourself by the GAIN. More specifically, you measure your own GAINS, rather than worrying about other people. This is how you become self-determined: You have an internal reference point. You stop measuring yourself against others. You only measure yourself against yourself. You measure the GAIN, not the GAP.

No one else can define success for you. Defining your own success criteria is how you become self-determined. This is how you develop an internal reference system. You decide how you will measure yourself.

A fundamental aspect of being in the GAIN is to live your life in a self-determined way. You stop living in the GAP and measuring yourself based on ideals, but rather live based on clear measurables that you yourself have chosen.

Use this rule if you’re often over-committed or too scattered. If you’re not saying ‘HELL YEAH!’ about something, say ‘no.’ When deciding whether to do something, if you feel anything less than ‘Wow! That would be amazing! Absolutely! Hell yeah!’—then say ‘no.’” —Derek Sivers19

sometimes your hardest experiences can be your most potent peak experiences—which teach you lessons and provide perspectives that truly clarify what you want for yourself.

research shows that imagining the absence of a positive event in your life has a more powerful effect on you than simply looking back on that positive event. Likewise, imagining the absence of an important person in your life can be more powerful than simply appreciating the fact that they are in your life.

Thankfully, in the real world we don’t literally lose the thing we go into the GAP about. But we do damage it. We damage our own experience. And when it comes to other people, we damage them as well.

We go into the GAP about ourselves, undervaluing and underappreciating ourselves. We go into the GAP about other people, turning them into a problem or an enemy. We go into the GAP about far too many things, and perhaps it’s a good time to stop complaining.

In psychology, inattentional blindness occurs when you are so fixated on one thing that you fail to see everything else going on around you.7 It’s easy to miss the GAINS happening throughout our lives or businesses because we may have tunnel vision on the problem in front of us.

Don’t let your past be forgotten. Always measure backward.

He pinched her side through the thick material of her sweater. “Where’s your freshman 15? You’re still a skinny little thing. I know your parents didn’t skip out on the meal plan.” Ryleigh kissed his stubble-spackled cheek. “I’ve gained five pounds. I’m a third of the way there, thank you.” Peter slipped a hand into the back pocket of her jeans, giving her butt a light squeeze. “I think it all went right here.” “Put me down.” She laughed, smacking his shoulder. Ryleigh trailed the pad of her thumb along his rough facial hair, noticing a foreign smattering of gray. “You’ll be a silver fox before 40 at this rate.” “Well, it’s definitely your fault. You stress me out. You’re making my hair turn white.

After I had finished giving the account of my shame, he spoke, impatiently. ''Listen,' he said, piercing me with his cold, blue gaze. 'You must deal with this. You must get those guys, one by one, and crush them. Especially that guy!' My father named the main protagonist, and continued. ''Not yet; you must wait a couple of days. You must catch him by surprise. A good beating from you is what he needs, and I can assure you – he will never think of crossing you again! You see, if you don't do this now, others will come and push you around. You must show them you're not a doormat!'' My father's whole being was charged with some unseen energy, a power which, since I never felt any real closeness to him, seemed frightening to me. I knew he loved me; I knew he would kill for me – I was sure that he would die for me if he had to; yet, since our relationship was deprived of tenderness, there was no sense of warmth to bridge the gap between my gentle, undeveloped heart and his manly strength. I did not feel protected that night, and I did not feel understood. My heart strained under the weight of the utter loneliness which rushed in, adding to the effect of the assault that had taken place earlier. I did not know it at the time, but I do now: it was not an exhortation that I needed, no call to battle. I hungered for understanding and compassion; I yearned for manly warmth, to be held and loved by the one who was stronger than me – the one who would make all things right in the end, regardless of what I did or didn’t do. Instead, I felt helpless and alone. It is difficult, indeed impossible, to develop a fighter's heart and be a warrior who fights to defend himself and others, unless one has first been so nurtured with masculine love and so immersed in it as a boy, that his confidence and strength he is called to display later in life are not false, but genuine, deep and natural, flowing from within. A boy cannot do that by himself; he first needs to belong in the world of men... And it was that which I doubted – my ability to qualify for belonging in that world; the world of my father. This was the only world I ever desired to enter, and now, finally, just as I had feared it would happen, the gate to that world was shut in my face. Not being good enough to gain the right to enter, I lost the opportunity to possess all that could have been granted to me there: an identity, self-worth, and manly courage.

Simon Doiban is a name that is synonymous with the beauty industry. As a serial entrepreneur, Doiban has made a name for himself by launching and scaling successful beauty businesses. From his early beginnings in the industry to his current role as a beauty industry advisor, Doiban has demonstrated an innovative and entrepreneurial spirit that has enabled him to succeed in a highly competitive market. Doiban’s journey in Miami in the beauty industry began when he launched his first beauty startup, a Beauty Spa with updated technology. The startup was an instant hit and quickly gained a large following. However, Doiban was not content with just one successful business. He went on to launch several other beauty startups, each one building on the success of the previous one. Following the example of the first business, he launch a second location of the Beauty Spa in one of the most concurrent zones in Miami, Brickell City Center. This marked the beginning of Doiban’s career as a serial entrepreneur in the beauty industry in Miami Area. Over the years, Doiban has launched and scaled several other beauty startups, each one building on the success of the previous one. His latest venture is a beauty consulting academy. The company has been praised for its innovative approach to beauty and has already gained a large following. Doiban’s success in the beauty industry can be attributed to his entrepreneurial spirit and his willingness to take risks. He has a deep understanding of the beauty market and has been able to identify gaps in the market that he can fill with his innovative products and services. He has also been able to build a loyal following of customers who trust his brand and appreciate the high-quality products that he provides. In conclusion, Simon Doiban is a serial entrepreneur who has made a name for himself in the beauty industry. His innovative and entrepreneurial spirit has enabled him to launch and scale successful beauty businesses, and his latest venture is set to revolutionize the beauty industry even further. As the beauty industry continues to evolve, it will be exciting to see what Doiban has in store for us next.

bringing in folding chairs to place in the aisles. She didn’t know Reverend Kelley, but she had met his elder daughter, Kim Randall, through her community service, and her heart went out to the Kelley family. The life of every clergyman in the region was at risk, including Dewan’s life, a thought she could hardly bear. But everyone had to be wondering who the killer would target as his next victim. With her head held high and a brave expression on her face, she entered the sanctuary and found her spot in the front row between Deacon Fuqua and his wife, Dionne. She leaned across and spoke to the deacon. “Should someone adjust the air-conditioning? With so many people packed inside the church, it’s bound to get hot.” “It’s being done,” Deacon Fuqua told her. “Can you believe this crowd? I see God’s hand in this prayer vigil that Dewan organized.” “God’s hand is in everything my husband does,” she said. A flurry of activity up on the podium at the front of the sanctuary gained Tasha’s attention. The members of the choir, decked out in their white and gold robes, were taking their places and preparing to sing God’s praises. She closed her eyes, her every thought a prayer for all those whose hearts were heavy tonight. Patsy and Elliott Floyd had arrived in time to find seats in the middle aisle, a few pews from the back of the building. As she glanced around, Patsy was pleased to see so many of her parishioners here this evening. She had sent out e-mails to the entire congregation and made numerous personal phone calls. Tonight’s prayer vigil was of great importance on several different levels. First and foremost, Bruce Kelley needed the combined strength of this type of group praying. Second, holding this vigil at the black Baptist church went a long way toward bridging the gap between black and white Christians in the area. Third, this was an example of how all churches, regardless of their doctrine, could support one another. And coming together to pray for one of their own would bring strength and comfort to the ministers and their families who were living each day with fear in their hearts. As they sat quietly side by side, Elliott reached between them and took her hand in his. They had been married for nearly thirty years, and they had stayed together through thick and thin. They had argued often in the early years, mostly because Elliott had never been at home and she’d been trapped there with two toddlers. She had not been as understanding as she should have been. After all, Elliott had been holding down a part-time job and putting

Practice mental subtraction to remind yourself of the GAINS in your life. Create a GAIN Tiny Habit Recipe for getting out of the GAP, such as the five-minute rule the women’s soccer coach used.

When performance is measured, performance improves. When performance is measured and reported back, the rate of improvement accelerates.” —Pearson’s Law

The GAP is a habit. It’s a habit we can fall into literally hundreds of times per day. We can spend hours each day in the GAP—unhappy, resentful, regretful.

The first step to learning new things is the realisation that we don’t know. Some get stuck on this step, and some never arrive to it. Some get to advance to the second step, which is accepting that we don't know. Thereafter, some will further advance into seeking knowledge to fill the gap. Then, some will seek understanding of that knowledge. From that group, which is usually only a few individuals, some will apply that understanding to obtain results. But the process doesn't end there. Because some will analyse those results. Then after that, some will report the results for others to gain insight. Then the cycle starts again. In the end, the question is: where are you in this process of learning?

You have an ideal in your mind, and you’re measuring yourself against your ideal, rather than against the actual progress you’ve made. This is why you’re unhappy with what you’ve done, and it’s probably why you’re unhappy with everything in your life.

Phase 1: Discovery 1. Define the problem statement What is the challenge that will be solved? The problem statement is defined at this step and becomes the foundation of the project. Here is a sample problem statement: The company has more than one hundred thousand email addresses and has sent more than one million emails in the last twelve months, but open rates remain low at 8 percent, and sales attributed to email have remained flat since 2018. Based on current averages, a 2 percentage-point lift in email open rates could produce a $50,000 increase in sales over the next twelve months. It’s important to note that a strong and valid problem statement should include the value of solving the problem. This helps ensure that the project is worth the investment of resources and keeps everyone focused on the goal. 2. Build and prioritize the issues list What are the primary issues causing the problem? The issues are categorized into three to five primary groups and built into an issues tree. Sample issues could be: •​Low open rates •​Low click rates •​Low sales conversion rates 3. Identify and prioritize the key drivers. What factors are driving the issues and problem? Sample key drivers could include: •​List fatigue •​Email creatives •​Highly manual, human-driven processes •​Underutilized or missing marketing technology solutions •​Lack of list segmentation •​Lack of reporting and performance management •​Lack of personalization 4. Develop an initial hypothesis What is the preliminary road map to solving the problem? Here is a sample initial hypothesis: AI-powered technologies can be integrated to intelligently automate priority use cases that will drive email efficiency and performance. 5. Conduct discovery research What information can we gain about the problem, and potential solutions, from primary and secondary research? •​How are talent, technology, and strategy gaps impacting performance? •​What can be learned from interviews with stakeholders and secondary research related to the problem? Ask questions such as the following: •​What is the current understanding of AI within the organization? •​Does the executive team understand and support the goal of AI pilot projects?

We can be motivated out the wazoo by gaining an understanding of all these power packed psychological truths yet somehow lack the basic engine needed to turn all that positive advice into the outcomes we desire. The science of quality management needs a seat at that table. Without it, a perplexing gap can be created when we set out to apply all that psychologically proven information to produce the specific type of life or career we want. Understanding how quality is defined, built, and managed was the missing link for me.

Your goal [...] is tp be less a product of the times and to gain the ability to transform your relationship to your generation. A key way of doing this is through active associations with people of different generations. If you are younger, you try to interact more with those of older generations. Some of them, who seem to have a spirit you can identify with, you can try to cultivate as mentors and role models. Others you relate to as you would your peers- not feeling superior or inferior but paying deep attention to their values, ideas, and perspectives, helping to widen your own.

Call it archaic, but I think confession is liberation. It is easy to think that in injustice only the oppressed have their freedom to gain. In truth, the liberation of the oppressor is also at stake. Whether it's the privilege we've inherited or space we've stolen, what began as guilt will mutate into shame, which is much more sinister and decidedly heavier on the soul. It doesn't just weigh on the heart; it slithers into the gap of every joint, making everything swollen and tender. We learn to walk differently in order to carry the shame, but then we become prone to manipulate things like nearness and connection just to relieve our own swelling […] Truth-telling is critical to repair. But confession alone—which tends to serve the confessor more than the oppressed—will never be enough. Reparations are required. To expect repair without some kind of remittance would be injustice doubled. What has been stolen must be returned. This is not vengeance, it's restoration.

Krav Maga pays attention to the need to close the gap quickly when attacking an opponent. The advance, while kicking or punching, is made with a forward leap. Using gravity to initiate the move, push forward with the toes in an attempt to lodge one of your limbs in the opponent’s body as quickly as possible. Krav Maga training calls for a maximum range of the body’s limbs when practicing attacks, and the use of folded limbs to attack in the closer range. The idea is to gain the maximum acceleration possible with the limb used and to keep the speed at its max when in contact with the opponent’s pressure points. Remember that when the motion comes to a complete stop, it must have started to slow down a split second before. Once a strike is executed we need to maintain full speed if we want to incur maximum damage or if we want to stun him. Therefore we cannot afford to lower the speed of our motion a split second before the strike or a split second after. Aim at the pressure point you want to strike, make sure you use maximum speed, and make sure you do not stop when you reach the range where your target is or will be in the next second. Take into account that your opponent might start to move forward or backwards, which means he won’t stay still exactly where you were aiming for. If your arm or leg comes to a complete stop upon contact with the opponent, it indicates you must have slowed down a second before and the speed was not fast enough to create the desired momentum. To maintain maximum speed at the contact point with the targeted pressure point, the striking limb should be immediately retracted back. This helps keep up the speed while accelerating. It is faster to retract the hand without the body. We then let the body continue its motion forward while the hand is retracted backward. This sequence ensures that the body weight supports our punch without letting us lose speed.

Call it archaic, but I think confession is liberation. It is easy to think that in injustice only the oppressed have their freedom to gain. In truth, the liberation of the oppressor is also at stake. Whether it’s the privilege we’ve inherited or space we’ve stolen, what began as guilt will mutate into shame, which is much more sinister and decidedly heavier on the soul. It doesn’t just weigh on the heart; it slithers into the gap of every joint, making everything swollen and tender. We learn to walk differently in order to carry the shame, but then we become prone to manipulate things like nearness and connection just to relieve our own swelling. When wounders, finally becoming exhausted of their dominion, dismantle their delusion of heroism or victimhood and begin to tell the truth of their offense, a sacred rest becomes available to them. You are no longer fighting to suspend the delusion of self. You can just lie down and be in your own flawed skin. And as you rest, the conscience you were born with slowly begins to regenerate, and your mobility changes. You walk past the shattered porch light without your nose to the ground. You can look your father in the eyes. You realize there are other ways to move in the world. It’s not only relief, it’s freedom. Truth-telling is critical to repair. But confession alone—which tends to serve the confessor more than the oppressed—will never be enough. Reparations are required. To expect repair without some kind of remittance would be injustice doubled. What has been stolen must be returned. This is not vengeance, it’s restoration. Maybe you know the verse that says if someone slaps you on the right cheek, turn and bare your left cheek to them too. But before all that, Exodus says eye for eye, tooth for tooth, burn for burn. Payment, consequence. Any injustice demands something of us. But the only thing more healing than forcing someone to pay is when a person chooses to pay by their own conviction. I have always wondered why Christ had to die. If we needed saving, if wrath was to be had, couldn’t God just snap his fingers or send a great wind or blink and have everything wrong made right again? Why is it nothing but the blood? Nothing else? This will always be strange to me. But if it’s true, the law is cosmic and eternal. Maybe it’s written into everything, and even God themself is not too bold to undo the way things were meant to be. Maybe they needed to show us what the most tragic and noble reparation could look like, the sacrifice of life itself, so we might learn the courage to choose to make repairs when our moments come. But some will die in their cowardice.

Baba used to tell me that there are many ways to lead," she said, remembering the words he shared with her. "Some people are strong in their physical being, others mentally, but he would say that a battle is never won on the front lines alone. It's won through hearts and minds, through commitment and strategy. As my father's daughter, I know I have what it takes within me." She stood straighter, gaining confidence. "Besides, isn't the purpose of the royal council to fill in the gaps, to balance the monarch's strengths and weaknesses? If I didn't need help defending Agrabah, then wouldn't that mean I didn't need... you?

According to research in economic decision-making, if a person feels they’ve been given an unfair deal, they will often reject the offer entirely, even when doing so leaves them with nothing rather than something.14,15,16 Research shows that people with low emotional intelligence are highly sensitive to “fairness violations.”17 They really want everything to be “totally fair” or “weighted in their favor” or they’ll be upset—essentially throwing a tantrum to get what they want or trying to prove that they’re in control.18 They quickly get emotionally attached to what they believe “should be theirs,” and if they don’t get that, they break down. They go into the GAP because

As this model of work gains ever more prominence, as fixed premises and traditional jobs are subsumed into the space of flows and flexible contracts, there is the prospect of this sort of remote-controlled labour spreading out from the entrepreneurial sphere to become the norm. The supposedly classless society of the future might well arrange itself around an elite of WiFi managers serviced by a mass of virtual assistants who are kept occupied well beyond their nominal work duties. This will be a society where self-marketing is just another administrative task, employment involves fitting multiple differently shaped assignments into every available gap, and there is no real beginning or end to the working day; a world in which we are all either willing or reluctant jugglers.

the gross national product could no longer be confused with our gross national happiness. the fact that any such movement would be resisted tooth and nail, points to the heart of the problem. the influence of major corporations, not only on the economy, but also on the government, and on our ways of thinking. US militarism and foreign policy over the last century or so, cannot be comprehended without noticing how they have served the interests of big American companies, rather than the American people. our public priorities make little sense, attacking Iraq, enormous military expenditure, no national health system, the growing gap between rich and poor, etc., without understanding the role of corporate media in capturing our attention and moulding our opinions. in a country that prides itself on its democratic traditions, they are the means by which self-serving elites have gained control over national priorities.

There is a growing gap between short-term gain and profit and long-term consequences.

As they gain experience scientists reach a stage when they look back upon their own beginnings in research and wonder how they had the temerity to embark upon it considering how thoroughly ignorant and and equipped they were. That may well have been so; but fortunately their temperaments must have been sufficiently sanguine to assure them that they were not likely to fail where so many others not very unlike themselves had succeeded, and sufficiently realistic, too, to understand that their equipment would never be complete down to the last button- that there would always be gaps and shortcomings in their knowledge and that to be any good they would have to go on learning all their lives.

The challenge of productivity (and life) is in bridging the gap between what we know and what we do.

The defining characteristic of economics in the 1950s is that the country got rich by making the poor less poor. Average wages doubled from 1940 to 1948, then doubled again by 1963. And those gains focused on those who had been left behind for decades before. The gap between rich and poor narrowed by an extraordinary amount.

research shows that imagining the absence of a positive event in your life has a more powerful effect on you than simply looking back on that positive event. Likewise, imagining the absence of an important person in your life can be more powerful than simply appreciating the fact that they are in your life. One study found that mentally subtracting a material possession you’ve previously enjoyed increases your happiness with that item more than simply thinking back on when you purchased

This brings up a highly nuanced and crucial distinction: you can want something and be 100% committed to that thing without needing it. This is the counterintuitive reality: by no longer needing what you want, you are actually far more enabled to get it.

Something Dan Sullivan has noticed in coaching tens of thousands of entrepreneurs since 1974—over 47 years!—is that most of them are mentally “here” but wanting to be “there.” It really doesn’t matter where they are now and how great their lives are, they continually wish they were “there.” Many high achievers have a hard time being “here.” And although it’s great to have goals and vision and be driven, you’re in the GAP if you’re “here” but wishing you were “there.” Playing a longer game allows you to embrace being “here.” Yes, you have goals and vision, but you’re completely happy where you’re at.

The goal of creating an environment of freedom is that as an individual, you actually live your life according to your own choosing rather than compulsion.

An experience only becomes valuable and useful once you’ve transformed it into a GAIN.

Research in psychology shows that confidence is not what creates success, but rather, prior success is actually what creates confidence.

Transforming” your experiences means you go back to your former experiences again and again and, through your evolving thinking and reasoning, change what those experiences mean to you. You also continually extract new lessons from those experiences

By continuously learning, you’ll be enabled to do what your former self couldn’t do. You’ll be able to create what your former self couldn’t create. You’ll be able to have what your former self couldn’t have.

The past is nothing more than the meaning you ascribe to it. Traumatic experiences can be changed. They are not fixed. Motivation is often broken into one of two categories: approach or avoid.

Tope Awotona, founder of Calendly, started three very different companies for three completely different communities before eventually building the scheduling software business in 2013. In 2020, Calendly posted nearly $70 million in annual recurring revenue, more than double its 2019 figure. But Awotona’s first company was a dating app that never really got off the ground. The second was projectorspot.com, which sold (obviously) projectors, but sales were poor and margins small. He tried again with a third startup, selling grills, but as he says, “I didn’t know anything about grills and I didn’t want to! I lived in an apartment, and never even grilled.” Not only was he not part of the grilling community, but he didn’t even want to be! He took a different approach to building Calendly. He had been a sales rep earlier in his career, and he knew the hassle of sending multiple emails to schedule meetings. He had even run into the scheduling problem while trying to sell his own products as an entrepreneur. As time went on and his other ideas failed to gain traction, he saw a gap in the marketplace and resolved to address it for the community of sales reps he cared about and understood. He says that “the journey to creating something that’s impactful, something that serves people, something that you know people are willing to open up their wallets and pay for—is not something that you can do just for money.” While lots of people have scheduling fatigue, Awotona focused on problems specific to sales reps, which helped him define a problem he could both solve and monetize. What does that mean for you? First, get involved in those communities wherever they are, offline and online. Then, contribute, teach, and, most important, listen. Finally, use the filters above to make sure you are picking the right community to serve. Then, your problem becomes: Which problem should I pick?

Everyone who grows achieves their progress and improvement by transforming frustrating and painful failures into rules and measurements for satisfying success.

When you’re in the GAIN, you transform your experiences. In the GAP, you compare your experiences to other people’s, and feel worse off as a result. You don’t take ownership of your experiences, but instead, you distance yourself emotionally from them, which ends up creating debilitating trauma of varying degrees.