Learning Continuity Plan Quotes

I walked past Malison, up Lower Main to Main and across the road. I didn’t need to look to know he was behind me. I entered Royal Wood, went a short way along a path and waited. It was cool and dim beneath the trees. When Malison entered the Wood, I continued eastward.  I wanted to place his body in hallowed ground. He was born a Mearan. The least I could do was send him to Loric. The distance between us closed until he was on my heels. He chose to come, I told myself, as if that lessened the crime I planned. He chose what I have to offer. We were almost to the cemetery before he asked where we were going. I answered with another question. “Do you like living in the High Lord’s kitchens?” He, of course, replied, “No.” “Well, we’re going to a better place.” When we reached the edge of the Wood, I pushed aside a branch to see the Temple of Loric and Calec’s cottage. No smoke was coming from the chimney, and I assumed the old man was yet abed. His pony was grazing in the field of graves. The sun hid behind a bank of clouds. Malison moved beside me. “It’s a graveyard.” “Are you afraid of ghosts?” I asked. “My father’s a ghost,” he whispered. I asked if he wanted to learn how to throw a knife. He said, “Yes,” as I knew he would.  He untucked his shirt, withdrew the knife he had stolen and gave it to me. It was a thick-bladed, single-edged knife, better suited for dicing celery than slitting a young throat. But it would serve my purpose. That I also knew. I’d spent all night projecting how the morning would unfold and, except for indulging in the tea, it had happened as I had imagined.  Damut kissed her son farewell. Malison followed me of his own free will. Without fear, he placed the instrument of his death into my hand. We were at the appointed place, at the appointed time. The stolen knife was warm from the heat of his body. I had only to use it. Yet I hesitated, and again prayed for Sythene to show me a different path. “Aren’t you going to show me?” Malison prompted, as if to echo my prayer.

Learning After some time, you learn the subtle difference between holding a hand and imprisoning a soul; You learn that love does not equal sex, and that company does not equal security, and you start to learn…. That kisses are not contracts and gifts are not promises, and you start to accept defeat with the head up high and open eyes, and you learn to build all roads on today, because the terrain of tomorrow is too insecure for plans… and the future has its own way of falling apart in half. And you learn that if it’s too much even the warmth of the sun can burn. So you plant your own garden and embellish your own soul, instead of waiting for someone to bring flowers to you. And you learn that you can actually bear hardship, that you are actually strong, and you are actually worthy, and you learn and learn…and so every day. Over time you learn that being with someone because they offer you a good future, means that sooner or later you’ll want to return to your past. Over time you comprehend that only who is capable of loving you with your flaws, with no intention of changing you can bring you all happiness. Over time you learn that if you are with a person only to accompany your own solitude, irremediably you’ll end up wishing not to see them again. Over time you learn that real friends are few and whoever doesn’t fight for them, sooner or later, will find himself surrounded only with false friendships. Over time you learn that words spoken in moments of anger continue hurting throughout a lifetime. Over time you learn that everyone can apologize, but forgiveness is an attribute solely of great souls. Over time you comprehend that if you have hurt a friend harshly it is very likely that your friendship will never be the same. Over time you realize that despite being happy with your friends, you cry for those you let go. Over time you realize that every experience lived, with each person, is unrepeatable. Over time you realize that whoever humiliates or scorns another human being, sooner or later will suffer the same humiliations or scorn in tenfold. Over time you learn to build your roads on today, because the path of tomorrow doesn’t exist. Over time you comprehend that rushing things or forcing them to happen causes the finale to be different form expected. Over time you realize that in fact the best was not the future, but the moment you were living just that instant. Over time you will see that even when you are happy with those around you, you’ll yearn for those who walked away. Over time you will learn to forgive or ask for forgiveness, say you love, say you miss, say you need, say you want to be friends, since before a grave, it will no longer make sense. But unfortunately, only over time…

Chess teaches foresight, by having to plan ahead; vigilance, by having to keep watch over the whole chess board; caution, by having to restrain ourselves from making hasty moves; and finally, we learn from chess the greatest maxim in life - that even when everything seems to be going badly for us we should not lose heart, but always hoping for a change for the better, steadfastly continue searching for the solutions to our problems.

In life, the question is not if you will have problems, but how you are going to deal with your problems. If the possibility of failure were erased, what would you attempt to achieve? The essence of man is imperfection. Know that you're going to make mistakes. The fellow who never makes a mistake takes his orders from one who does. Wake up and realize this: Failure is simply a price we pay to achieve success. Achievers are given multiple reasons to believe they are failures. But in spite of that, they persevere. The average for entrepreneurs is 3.8 failures before they finally make it in business. When achievers fail, they see it as a momentary event, not a lifelong epidemic. Procrastination is too high a price to pay for fear of failure. To conquer fear, you have to feel the fear and take action anyway. Forget motivation. Just do it. Act your way into feeling, not wait for positive emotions to carry you forward. Recognize that you will spend much of your life making mistakes. If you can take action and keep making mistakes, you gain experience. Life is playing a poor hand well. The greatest battle you wage against failure occurs on the inside, not the outside. Why worry about things you can't control when you can keep yourself busy controlling the things that depend on you? Handicaps can only disable us if we let them. If you are continually experiencing trouble or facing obstacles, then you should check to make sure that you are not the problem. Be more concerned with what you can give rather than what you can get because giving truly is the highest level of living. Embrace adversity and make failure a regular part of your life. If you're not failing, you're probably not really moving forward. Everything in life brings risk. It's true that you risk failure if you try something bold because you might miss it. But you also risk failure if you stand still and don't try anything new. The less you venture out, the greater your risk of failure. Ironically the more you risk failure — and actually fail — the greater your chances of success. If you are succeeding in everything you do, then you're probably not pushing yourself hard enough. And that means you're not taking enough risks. You risk because you have something of value you want to achieve. The more you do, the more you fail. The more you fail, the more you learn. The more you learn, the better you get. Determining what went wrong in a situation has value. But taking that analysis another step and figuring out how to use it to your benefit is the real difference maker when it comes to failing forward. Don't let your learning lead to knowledge; let your learning lead to action. The last time you failed, did you stop trying because you failed, or did you fail because you stopped trying? Commitment makes you capable of failing forward until you reach your goals. Cutting corners is really a sign of impatience and poor self-discipline. Successful people have learned to do what does not come naturally. Nothing worth achieving comes easily. The only way to fail forward and achieve your dreams is to cultivate tenacity and persistence. Never say die. Never be satisfied. Be stubborn. Be persistent. Integrity is a must. Anything worth having is worth striving for with all your might. If we look long enough for what we want in life we are almost sure to find it. Success is in the journey, the continual process. And no matter how hard you work, you will not create the perfect plan or execute it without error. You will never get to the point that you no longer make mistakes, that you no longer fail. The next time you find yourself envying what successful people have achieved, recognize that they have probably gone through many negative experiences that you cannot see on the surface. Fail early, fail often, but always fail forward.

When I look at a child, I see a living, breathing person, made in God's image, for whom God has a plan. As parent educators, we need to embrace a new notion of learning...we need to engage the hearten order to effectively educate the child. Our vision of a well-educated child is a child who has a heart for learning, a child who has the tools he needs to continue to learn for a lifetime and a child who has the love to want to do it.

We have time for everything: to sleep, to run from one place to another, to regret having mistaken and to mistake again, to judge the others and to forgive ourselves we have time for reading and writing, for making corrections to our texts, to regret ever having written we have time to make plans and time not to respect them, we have time for ambitions and sicknesses, time to blame the destiny and the details, we have time to watch the clouds, advertisements or some ordinary accident, we have time to chase our wonders away and to postpone the answers, we have time to break a dream to pieces and then to reinvent it, we have time to make friends, to lose friends, we have time to receive lessons and forget them afterwards, we have time to receive gifts and not to understand them. We have time for them all. There is no time for just a bit of tenderness. When we are aware about to do this we die. I’ve learned that you cannot make someone love you; All you can do is to be a loved person. the rest … depends on the others. I’ve learned that as much as I care others might not care. I’ve learned that it takes years to earn trust and just a few seconds to lose it. I’ve learned that it does not matter WHAT you have in your life but WHO you have. I’ve learned that your charm is useful for about 15 minutes Afterwards, you should better know something. I’ve learned that no matter how you cut it, everything has two sides! I’ve learned that you should separate from your loved ones with warm words It might be the last time you see them! I’ve learned that you can still continue for a long time after saying you cannot continue anymore I’ve learned that heroes are those who do what they have to do, when they have to do it, regardless the consequences I’ve learned that there are people who love But do not know how to show it ! I’ve learned that when I am upset I have the RIGHT to be upset But not the right to be bad! I’ve learned that real friendship continues to exist despite the distance And this is true also for REAL LOVE !!! I’ve learned that if someone does not love you like you want them to It does not mean that they do not love you with all their heart. I’ve learned that no matter how good of a friend someone is for you that person will hurt you every now and then and that you have to forgive him. I’ve learned that it is not enough to be forgiven by others Sometimes you have to learn to forgive yourself. I’ve learned that no matter how much you suffer, The world will not stop for your pain. I’ve learned that the past and the circumstances might have an influence on your personality But that YOU are responsible for what you become !!! I’ve learned that if two people have an argument it does not mean that they do not love each other I’ve learned that sometimes you have to put on the first place the person, not the facts I’ve learned that two people can look at the same thing and can see something totally different I’ve learned that regardless the consequences those WHO ARE HONEST with themselves go further in life. I’ve learned that life can be changed in a few hours by people who do not even know you. I’ve learned that even when you think there is nothing more you can give when a friend calls you, you will find the strength to help him. I’ve learned that writing just like talking can ease the pains of the soul ! I’ve learned that those whom you love the most are taken away from you too soon … I’ve learned that it is too difficult to realise where to draw the line between being friendly, not hurting people and supporting your oppinions. I’ve learned to love to be loved.

God’s plan to suicide himself could not work, though, as long as He existed as a unified entity outside of space-time and matter. Seeking to nullify His oneness so that He could be delivered into nothingness, he shattered Himself—Big Bang-like—into the time-bound fragments of the universe, that is, all those objects and organisms that have been accumulating here and there for billions of years. In Mainländer’s philosophy, “God knew that he could change from a state of super-reality into non-being only through the development of a real world of multiformity.” Employing this strategy, He excluded Himself from being. “God is dead,” wrote Mainländer, “and His death was the life of the world.” Once the great individuation had been initiated, the momentum of its creator’s self-annihilation would continue until everything became exhausted by its own existence, which for human beings meant that the faster they learned that happiness was not as good as they thought it would be, the happier they would be to die out.

Her sweet smell drove my body higher as I nibbled on the edge of her earlobe. “I’m not stopping you. You plan. I’ll kiss.” Echo turned her head to look at me over her shoulder. My siren became a temptress with that seductive smile on her lips. A mistake on her part. I caressed her cheek and kissed those soft lips. I expected her to shy away. We’d been playing this game for over an hour: she plotted while I teased.Leaving for the summer was important to her and she was important to me. But instead of the quick peck I’d anticipated, she moved her lips against mine. A burning heat warmed my blood. It was a slow kiss at first—all I meant it to be, but then Echo touched me. Her hands on my face, in my hair. And then she angled her body to mine. Warmth, enticing pressure on all the right parts, and Echo’s lips on mine—fireworks. She became my world. Filling my senses so that all I felt and saw and tasted was her. Kisses and touches and whispered words of love and when my hand skimmed down the curve of her waist and paused on the hem of her jeans my body screamed to continue, but my mind knew it was time to stop. With a sigh, I moved my lips once more against hers before shifting and pulling her body to my side. “I’m in love with you.” Echo settled her head in the crook of my arm as her fingertips lazily touched my face. “I know. I love you, too.” “I’m sorry I didn’t say it sooner.” If I had, then maybe we never would have been apart. “It’s okay,” she murmured. “We’re together now and that’s all that matters.” I kissed her forehead and she snuggled closer to me. The world felt strange. For the first time in my life, I wasn’t fighting someone or something. My brothers were safe. Echo knew the truth. Soon, I’d be free from high school and foster care. Hopefully, I’d be admitted on late acceptance to college. Contentment and happiness were unfamiliar emotions, but ones I could learn to live with. “Do you mind?” she asked in a small voice that indicated nerves. “That we’re taking it slow?” “No.” And it was the truth. Everything in her life was in flux and she needed strong, steady and stable. Oddly, she found those three things in me. Who would ever have guessed I’d be the reliable sort? “Besides, taking it slow creates buildup. I like anticipation.” Her body rocked with silent giggles and my lips turned up. I loved making her happy.

She's an Alchemist," continued Nathan. "Not a chauffeur. There's a big difference." Actually, there were days at Amberwood I doubted that. "Come, Miss Sage. If you've wasted your day driving my son here, the least I can do is buy you lunch." I shot a panicked look at Adrian. It wasn't panicked because I was afraid of being with Moroi. I'd long since gotten used to these sorts of situations. What I was unsure of was if Adrian really wanted me around for his family reunion. That hadn't been part of the plan. Also, I wasn't sure that I really wanted to be around for said reunion either. "Dad-" Adrian attempted. "I insist," said Nathan crisply. "Pay attention and learn common courtesy." He turned and began walking away, assuming we'd follow. We did. "Should I find a reason to leave?" I whispered to Adrian. "Not when he uses his 'I insist' voice," came the muttered response.

Let me tell you a story,” I say instead. “Once upon a time, there was a girl whose life was saved by the faery king—” “This story sounds distinctly familiar. I think I might have heard it somewhere before.” I shush him and say not to interrupt. “If anyone asked her how she felt about the king, she would have said she loathed him. He ruthlessly trained her to fight his own kind. He taught her to kill. She learned from his lessons how to quiet the rage that burned inside her. But she had already decided that one day, when she had grown strong enough and learned everything she could about battle, she was going to murder him.” Kiaran goes still, his eyes glittering in the darkness. He says nothing. “Her opportunity came one night when he decided she was ready to hunt her first faery. It was a skriker that had been terrorizing a nearby village, slaughtering children in the night. The king handed the girl his sword and ordered her to kill the goblin-like creature. “She barely won. But in the end, as she thrust the sword deep into the monster’s gut, she felt something so profoundly that she thought it would consume her. So she told the king. She whispered the words and meant them with every part of her rage-filled soul: ‘I hate you. I hate all of you.’ When she lifted the sword again, she intended to pierce it right through his heart. “That was the first time the girl had ever seen the faery king smile.” I lift my hand and press my palm to Kiaran’s cheek. “You’ll have to finish the story. She never knew why he smiled. Just that one day, she wanted to see him do it again. So she dropped the sword and spared his life. And she never told the king what really happened that night.” Kiaran looks amused. “The king knew the girl’s plan all along. He smiled because he decided he liked her. She kept things interesting.” I stare at him. “So the faery king is a deranged sort. As the girl always suspected.” “How about his side of this story?” He pulls me close, his lips soft on my shoulder. “He never told the girl that during a hunt, when she ran alongside him with the wind in her hair and the moonlight behind her, that she was the most magnificent thing he had ever seen and he wanted her.” Then Kiaran’s hands are in my hair, lips brushing mine. “And when the king watched her in battle, she’d look over at him with a smile and he desired her. “It was never at once,” he continued. “It was after everything they had gone through and then it was the king and the girl facing an entire army together. And he knew the truth. His heart was hers. It always was. It always will be.” A shadow crosses Kiaran’s irises. A reminder that he’s still fighting. Just to be here. With me. He shuts his eyes, expression strained. Before I can ask if he’s all right, he pulls me against him and holds me close. His next words are spoken under his breath, so low I wonder if I heard them at all. “The girl helps the king keep his darkness at bay.

The key is to build a continuous learning culture of experimenters versus specialists, where it's everyone's job to be accountable toward creating and capturing customer value.

Your songs are good, Amanda. And I’m not just saying that. I stared at him in disbelief. I get given a lot of music, he continued. It’s like that on the road, you know, we get handed mountains of demo tapes every night. And they’re, you know, not always good. Your songs are good. I don’t know what your plans are. But I hope you keep going. I just wanted to say that.

In a real road-construction situation, I would never get out of my car when traffic is backed up, walk over to the foreman of the crew, and ask if I can help make the road so that it all moves more quickly. Yet I found myself doing just that with God in my past when He was trying to repair me. Construction sites have caution cones and broken pavement and heavy equipment I'm not qualified to operate. I must have looked just as out of place trying to make repairs on myself all those years. When I put my trust in Him and have patience in Him as the foreman of my life--the One who is repairing a broken relationship with my mom, building me a stronger and healthier body and assembling healthier friendships and a marriage with a solid foundation--I live a life with much fewer obstructions on my ultimate commute to becoming fearless. And I trust that God has made the plans to finish the good work He has already begun. He will continue constructing the life He knows I'm meant to lead as I travel freely in my journey of "becoming.

High school basically continued with bouts of her getting drunk and then stopping for a day. There was not one major moment or birthday celebration during which she could remain sober. I learned how to plan my joy. I would front-load my birthdays with breakfast activities or plan to be with her for only the beginning of an event. Then I would go off to be with friends and know that that would be the last I would see of my mother’s real facial expressions.

I know this may be a disappointment for some of you, but I don’t believe there is only one right person for you. I think I fell in love with my wife, Harriet, from the first moment I saw her. Nevertheless, had she decided to marry someone else, I believe I would have met and fallen in love with someone else. I am eternally grateful that this didn’t happen, but I don’t believe she was my one chance at happiness in this life, nor was I hers. Another error you might easily make in dating is expecting to find perfection in the person you are with. The truth is, the only perfect people you might know are those you don’t know very well. Everyone has imperfections. Now, I’m not suggesting you lower your standards and marry someone with whom you can’t be happy. But one of the things I’ve realized as I’ve matured in life is that if someone is willing to accept me—imperfect as I am—then I should be willing to be patient with others’ imperfections as well. Since you won’t find perfection in your partner, and your partner won’t find it in you, your only chance at perfection is in creating perfection together. There are those who do not marry because they feel a lack of “magic” in the relationship. By “magic” I assume they mean sparks of attraction. Falling in love is a wonderful feeling, and I would never counsel you to marry someone you do not love. Nevertheless—and here is another thing that is sometimes hard to accept—that magic sparkle needs continuous polishing. When the magic endures in a relationship, it’s because the couple made it happen, not because it mystically appeared due to some cosmic force. Frankly, it takes work. For any relationship to survive, both parties bring their own magic with them and use that to sustain their love. Although I have said that I do not believe in a one-and-only soul mate for anyone, I do know this: once you commit to being married, your spouse becomes your soul mate, and it is your duty and responsibility to work every day to keep it that way. Once you have committed, the search for a soul mate is over. Our thoughts and actions turn from looking to creating. . . . Now, sisters, be gentle. It’s all right if you turn down requests for dates or proposals for marriage. But please do it gently. And brethren, please start asking! There are too many of our young women who never go on dates. Don’t suppose that certain girls would never go out with you. Sometimes they are wondering why no one asks them out. Just ask, and be prepared to move on if the answer is no. One of the trends we see in some parts of the world is our young people only “hanging out” in large groups rather than dating. While there is nothing wrong with getting together often with others your own age, I don’t know if you can really get to know individuals when you’re always in a group. One of the things you need to learn is how to have a conversation with a member of the opposite sex. A great way to learn this is by being alone with someone—talking without a net, so to speak. Dates don’t have to be—and in most cases shouldn’t be—expensive and over-planned affairs. When my wife and I moved from Germany to Salt Lake City, one of the things that most surprised us was the elaborate and sometimes stressful process young people had developed of asking for and accepting dates. Relax. Find simple ways to be together. One of my favorite things to do when I was young and looking for a date was to walk a young lady home after a Church meeting. Remember, your goal should not be to have a video of your date get a million views on YouTube. The goal is to get to know one individual person and learn how to develop a meaningful relationship with the opposite sex.

17.  According as circumstances are favorable, one should modify one’s plans. [Sun Tzu, as a practical soldier, will have none of the “bookish theoric.” He cautions us here not to pin our faith to abstract principles; “for,” as Chang Yu puts it, “while the main laws of strategy can be stated clearly enough for the benefit of all and sundry, you must be guided by the actions of the enemy in attempting to secure a favorable position in actual warfare.” On the eve of the battle of Waterloo, Lord Uxbridge, commanding the cavalry, went to the Duke of Wellington in order to learn what his plans and calculations were for the morrow, because, as he explained, he might suddenly find himself Commander-in-chief and would be unable to frame new plans in a critical moment. The Duke listened quietly and then said: “Who will attack the first tomorrow—I or Bonaparte?” “Bonaparte,” replied Lord Uxbridge. “Well,” continued the Duke, “Bonaparte has not given me any idea of his projects; and as my plans will depend upon his, how can you expect me to tell you what mine are?”75] 18.  All warfare is based on deception. [The truth of this pithy and profound saying will be admitted by every soldier. Col. Henderson tells us that Wellington, great in so many military qualities, was especially distinguished by “the extraordinary skill with which he concealed his movements and deceived both friend and foe.”] 19. 

In these pages, we keep returning to one foundational principle: providing the possibility of emotional/relational safety for our people, be they patients, children, partners, friends or strangers. We are able to make this offer when they are experiencing their own neuroception of safety, not continuously, but as the baseline to which we return after our system has adaptively moved into sympathetic arousal or dorsal withdrawal in response to inner and outer conditions. When we neuroceive safety, we humans automatically begin to open into vulnerability, and the movement of our "inherent treatment plan" (Sills, 2010) has a greater probability of coming forward. When we have a neuroception of threat, we adaptively tighten down at many levels, from physical tension to activation of the protective skills we have learned over a lifetime (Levine, 2010). In that state, our innate healing path will often wisely stay hidden until more favorable conditions arrive.

As you renew your mental dimension, you reinforce your personal management (Habit 3). As you plan, you force your mind to recognize high leverage Quadrant II activities, priority goals, and activities to maximize the use of your time and energy, and you organize and execute your activities around your priorities. As you become involved in continuing education, you increase your knowledge base and you increase your options. Your economic security does not lie in your job; it lies in your own power to produce—to think, to learn, to create, to adapt. That’s true financial independence. It’s not having wealth; it’s having the power to produce wealth. It’s intrinsic.

Introductory paragraph incorporating the thesis: After a challenging childhood marked by adversity, Adam Parrish has become a successful freshman at Harvard University. In the past, he had spent his time doubting himself, fearing he would become like his father, obsessing that others could see his trailer-park roots, and idealizing wealth, but now he has built a new future where no one has to know where he's come from. Before becoming a self-actualized young man at Harvard, Adam had been deeply fascinated by the concept of the ley lines and also supernaturally entangled with one of the uncanny forests located along one, but he has now focused on the real world, using only the ghost of magic to fleece other students with parlor trick tarot card readings. He hasn't felt like himself for months, but he is going to be just fine. Followed by three paragraphs with information that supports the thesis. First: Adam understands that suffering is often transient, even when it feels permanent. This too shall pass, etc. Although college seems like a lifetime, it is only four years. Four years is only a lifetime if one is a guinea pig. Second paragraph, building on the first point: Magic has not always been good for Adam. During high school, he frequently immersed himself in it as a form of avoidance. Deep down, he fears that he is prone to it as his father is prone to abuse, and that it will eventually make him unsuitable for society. By depriving himself of magic, he forces himself to become someone valuable to the unmagic world, i.e. the Crying Club. Third paragraph, with the most persuasive point: Harvard is a place Ronan Lynch cannot be, because he cannot survive there, either physically or socially. Without such hard barriers, Adam will surely continue to return to Ronan Lynch again and again, and thus fall back in with bad habits. He will never achieve the life of financial security and recognition he planned. Thesis restated, bringing together all the information to prove it: Although life is unbearable now, and Adam Parrish seems to have lost everything important to him in the present by pursuing the things important to him in the past, he will be fine. Concluding paragraph describing what the reader just learned and why it is important for them to have learned it: He will be fine. He will be fine. He will be fine. He will be fine.

Everything must be balanced. Nature is balanced. The beasts live in harmony. Humans have not learned to do that. They continue to destroy themselves. There is no harmony, no plan to what they do. It’s so different in nature. Nature is balanced. Nature is energy and life … and restoration. And humans just destroy. They destroy nature. They destroy other humans. They will eventually destroy themselves.” This was an ominous

Before you immerse yourself into 3-D living, you have the ability to preview the parameters of earthly life, to oversee the aspects of your own plan, purpose, and intent within a specific climate of consciousness. You choose the moment and the time of your birth, as well as your genealogical bloodline, which is rich with an ancestral encoding of perceptions based on many lessons in living. In the here and now, you forget your plans in order to play your version of the game of life more effectively. You immerse yourself in your identity and become fully engaged in the process of exploring and experiencing the path you have chosen. The course of your life is a significant and purposeful journey that continuously confronts and stimulates you to develop your abilities. You actually learn about the nature of existence as you learn how to operate your biological form. You

1. Recruit the smallest group of people who can accomplish what must be done quickly and with high quality. Comparative Advantage means that some people will be better than others at accomplishing certain tasks, so it pays to invest time and resources in recruiting the best team for the job. Don’t make that team too large, however—Communication Overhead makes each additional team member beyond a core of three to eight people a drag on performance. Small, elite teams are best. 2. Clearly communicate the desired End Result, who is responsible for what, and the current status. Everyone on the team must know the Commander’s Intent of the project, the Reason Why it’s important, and must clearly know the specific parts of the project they’re individually responsible for completing—otherwise, you’re risking Bystander Apathy. 3. Treat people with respect. Consistently using the Golden Trifecta—appreciation, courtesy, and respect—is the best way to make the individuals on your team feel Important and is also the best way to ensure that they respect you as a leader and manager. The more your team works together under mutually supportive conditions, the more Clanning will naturally occur, and the more cohesive the team will become. 4. Create an Environment where everyone can be as productive as possible, then let people do their work. The best working Environment takes full advantage of Guiding Structure—provide the best equipment and tools possible and ensure that the Environment reinforces the work the team is doing. To avoid having energy sapped by the Cognitive Switching Penalty, shield your team from as many distractions as possible, which includes nonessential bureaucracy and meetings. 5. Refrain from having unrealistic expectations regarding certainty and prediction. Create an aggressive plan to complete the project, but be aware in advance that Uncertainty and the Planning Fallacy mean your initial plan will almost certainly be incomplete or inaccurate in a few important respects. Update your plan as you go along, using what you learn along the way, and continually reapply Parkinson’s Law to find the shortest feasible path to completion that works, given the necessary Trade-offs required by the work. 6. Measure to see if what you’re doing is working—if not, try another approach. One of the primary fallacies of effective Management is that it makes learning unnecessary. This mind-set assumes your initial plan should be 100 percent perfect and followed to the letter. The exact opposite is true: effective Management means planning for learning, which requires constant adjustments along the way. Constantly Measure your performance across a small set of Key Performance Indicators (discussed later)—if what you’re doing doesn’t appear to be working, Experiment with another approach.

Dropping familiar tools is particularly difficult for experienced professionals who rely on what Weick called over learned behavior. That is, they have done the same thing in response to the same challenges over and over until the behavior has become so automatic that they no longer even recognize it as a situation-specific tool. Research on aviation accidents, for example, found that "a common pattern was the crew's decision to continue with their original plan" even when conditions changed dramatically.

My opponent . . . what is he going to do? In game theory analysis the followers of eighteenth-century statistician Thomas Bayes hold that the world is made up of constantly changing knowledge, and in determining the probability of an event—what Zagaev was planning, in this case—you have to continually readjust your predictions as you learn new bits of information. The odds that he’ll play rock, as opposed to paper or scissors, change from 331/3 percent, for instance, if you learn that your opponent has a muscle problem that makes it painful for him to form a fist. But

another important function of the learning level of the pyramid is that it keeps reminding us that we might be mistaken in our views and opinions. Maybe an objective I’ve been insisting upon at work is unwise, for example. Or maybe a strategy I’ve been taking with my child is hurtful. Or maybe the lesson structure we had planned isn’t working, and so on. The learning level of the pyramid keeps inviting us toward humility. It reminds us that the person or group we wish would change may not be the only one who needs to change! It continually invites us to hone our views and opinions.

Murray continues: “Concerning all acts of initiative, and creation, there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: That the moment one definitely commits oneself then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamt would come his way. I have learned a deep respect for one of Goethe’s concepts: ‘Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, Begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.

As soon as we formulate a hypothesis that we want to test, the product development team should be engineered to design and run this experiment as quickly as possible, using the smallest batch size that will get the job done. Remember that although we write the feedback loop as Build-Measure-Learn because the activities happen in that order, our planning really works in the reverse order: we figure out what we need to learn and then work backwards to see what product will work as an experiment to get that learning. Thus, it is not the customer, but rather our hypothesis about the customer, that pulls work from product development and other functions. Any other work is waste.

In the end I concluded, nothing ventured, nothing gained. (A vital ethos to follow if life is to have flavor, I have since learned.) I knew I should at least attempt Selection. If I failed, well at least I would fail while trying. Facedown in the dirt. Knowing that I had given it my all. (Oh, and what’s more, I knew that the SAS required secrecy from anyone attempting Selection, which was perfect. If I failed, I concluded, at least no one would know!) So that was the plan; but in truth, if I could have had any idea of the pain and battering that my body would go through on Selection, I would have realized it was insane to continue with this mad dream. But luckily, we never really know what the future holds.

The thinking self is rather like a time machine: it continually pulls us into the future and the past. We spend a huge amount of time worrying about, planning for, or dreaming of the future, and a huge amount of time rehashing the past. This makes perfect sense in terms of evolution. The “don’t get killed” device needs to plan ahead and anticipate problems. It also needs to reflect on the past, to learn from it. But even when our mind is thinking about the here and now, it’s generally being judgmental and critical, struggling against reality instead of accepting it. And this constant mental activity is an enormous distraction. For a huge part of every day, the thinking self completely diverts our attention from what we’re doing.

Okay, I’m going to tell you what I think. It’s like this,” he said grimly. “Quit or don’t quit. Take the promotion or not take it. But, if you take the graveyard shift, mark my words, we will eventually—I don’t know how, and I don’t know when—live to regret it.” Without saying another word he walked inside. In bed Alexander let her kiss his hands. He was on his back, and Tatiana sidled up to him naked, kneeling by his side. Taking his hands, she kissed them slowly, digit by digit, knuckle by knuckle, pressing them to her trembling breasts, but when she opened her mouth to speak, Alexander took his hands away. “I know what you’re about to do,” he said. “I’ve been there a thousand times. Go ahead. Touch me. Caress me. Whisper to me. Tell me first you don’t see my scars anymore, then make it all right. You always do, you always manage to convince me that whatever crazy plan you have is really the best for you and me,” he said. “Returning to blockaded Leningrad, escaping to Sweden, Finland, running to Berlin, the graveyard shift. I know what’s coming. Go ahead, I’ll be good to you right back. You’re going to try to make me all right with you staying in Leningrad when I tell you that to save your hard-headed skull you must return to Lazarevo? You want to convince me that escaping through enemy territory across Finland’s iced-over marsh while pregnant is the only way for us? Please. You want to tell me that working all Friday night and not sleeping in my bed is the best thing for our family? Try. I know eventually you’ll succeed.” He was staring at her blonde and lowered head. “Even if you don’t,” he continued, “I know eventually, you’ll do what you want anyway. I don’t want you to do it. You know you should be resigning, not working graveyard—nomenclature, by the way, that I find ironic for more reasons that I care to go into. I’m telling you here and now, the path you’re taking us on is going to lead to chaos and discord not order and accord. It’s your choice, though. This defines you—as a nurse, as a woman, as a wife—pretend servitude. But you can’t fool me. You and I both know what you’re made of underneath the velvet glove: cast iron.” When Tatiana said nothing, Alexander brought her to him and laid her on his chest. “You gave me too much leeway with Balkman,” he said, kissing her forehead. “You kept your mouth shut too long, but I’ve learned from your mistake. I’m not keeping mine shut—I’m telling you right from the start: you’re choosing unwisely. You are not seeing the future. But you do what you want.” Kneeling next to him, she cupped him below the groin into one palm, kneading him gently, and caressed him back and forth with the other. “Yes,” he said, putting his arms under his head and closing his eyes. “You know I love that, your healing stroke. I’m in your hands.” She kissed him and whispered to him, and told him she didn’t see his scars anymore, and made it if not all right then at least forgotten for the next few hours of darkness.

The Last Words of Jesus Some of the most profound lessons of the scriptures are contained in the brief but poignant words Jesus uttered from the cross. There is a sermon in each, but let us focus on Jesus’ words when he said, “It is finished” (John 19:30). I see a number of meanings in these words. He had finished the bitter cup, the cup of trembling, right down to the last taste of vinegar on his lips, offered mockingly in response to his request “I thirst” (John 19:28). He had completed his mission, his Father’s will; the grand moment in the Father’s plan of mercy and happiness had been accomplished. But that grand moment also included his suffering. No other throughout the long ages of man has ever—nor will ever—suffer to the degree he did, yet there came a time in that suffering when he could say, “It is finished.” It was finished, and that will likewise be true of each human soul. No matter what we have suffered, are now suffering, or may yet suffer, there will come a time when we will all echo his words: “It is finished!” Our tears will be changed, and though they will continue to flow, they will be tears of relief, tears of gratitude, tears of joy. The former things will have passed away. That passing away will be so complete and the rejoicing so full that we will not remember, save for the lessons we have learned, our past pain. Isaiah, who was specifically enjoined to speak words of comfort to the people, recorded the Lord’s words: “For, behold, I create new heavens and a new earth: and the former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind. But be ye glad and rejoice” (Isaiah 65:17–18).

All of us have to learn how to invent our lives, make them up, imagine them. We need to be taught these skills; we need guides to show is how. Without them, our lives get made up for us by other people. Human beings have always joined in groups to imagine how best to live and help one another carry out the plan. The essential function of human community is to arrive at some agreement on what we need, what life ought to be, what we want our children to learn, and then to collaborate in learning and teaching so that we and they can go on the way we think is the right way. Small communities with strong traditions are often clear about the way they want to go, and good at teaching it. But tradition may crystallize imagination to the point of fossilizing it as dogma and forbidding new ideas. Larger communities, such as cities, open up room for people to imagine alternatives, learn from people of different traditions, and invent their own ways to live. As alternatives proliferate, however, those who take the responsibility of teaching find little social and moral consensus on way they should be teaching -- what we need, what life ought to be. In our time of huge populations exposed continuously to reproduced voices, images, and words used for commercial and political profit, there are too many people who want to and can invent us, own us, shape and control us through seductive and powerful media. It's a lot to ask of a child to find a way through all that alone. Nobody can do anything very much, really, alone. What a child needs, what we all need, is to find some other people who have imagined life along lines that make sense to us and allow some freedom, and listen to them. Not hear passively, but listen.

For me, grief is alive. She’s a cold, unforgiving bitch who lurks in the shadows. When I’m tired or stressed, she’s always ready to pounce, to make me feel weak and incapable. Sometimes she frightens me with how big she is, but with help, I’m learning to beat her back, and now when she attacks, she’s a little smaller than the last time. Healing is a choice. I made the decision to heal. It wasn’t easy or pleasant or anything I wanted to do but the alternative was to continue to live in pain and I just couldn’t do that anymore. The pain sucks me dry and I was at risk of shriveling up and blowing away. So every morning I decide to be a little bit better. Sure, there are days I screw up completely, but then I start again. I initiated a hug with a friend. No big deal for most people, but for me it was an act of courage. Tiny steps add up. At least that’s the plan.

The principles of Jiu Jitsu can be applied to every endeavor in life. You have stay calm when you are in bad situations. You need to cover and conceal your intent with other maneuvers. You need to utilize the simplest and most efficient methods. You need to prioritize your focus of effort. You need to train until you trust yourself to move intuitively, without having to think. You need to move at the right time. You have to defend critical areas. You should not attack your enemy’s strongpoints. You must utilize leverage. You cannot let your emotions drive your decisions. You have to establish a good base foundation to build upon. You cannot be overly aggressive, but you can’t just allow things to happen. When you make a move, you have to believe in what you are doing. You have to be mentally strong. You have to keep an open mind. You have to continuously learn new techniques while always reinforcing the fundamentals. You have to adapt your plan if circumstances change.

It has been noted in various quarters that the half-illiterate Italian violin maker Antonio Stradivari never recorded the exact plans or dimensions for how to make one of his famous instruments. This might have been a commercial decision (during the earliest years of the 1700s, Stradivari’s violins were in high demand and open to being copied by other luthiers). But it might also have been because, well, Stradivari didn’t know exactly how to record its dimensions, its weight, and its balance. I mean, he knew how to create a violin with his hands and his fingers but maybe not in figures he kept in his head. Today, those violins, named after the Latinized form of his name, Stradivarius, are considered priceless. It is believed there are only around five hundred of them still in existence, some of which have been submitted to the most intense scientific examination in an attempt to reproduce their extraordinary sound quality. But no one has been able to replicate Stradivari’s craftsmanship. They’ve worked out that he used spruce for the top, willow for the internal blocks and linings, and maple for the back, ribs, and neck. They’ve figured out that he also treated the wood with several types of minerals, including potassium borate, sodium and potassium silicate, as well as a handmade varnish that appears to have been composed of gum arabic, honey, and egg white. But they still can’t replicate a Stradivarius. The genius craftsman never once recorded his technique for posterity. Instead, he passed on his knowledge to a number of his apprentices through what the philosopher Michael Polyani called “elbow learning.” This is the process where a protégé is trained in a new art or skill by sitting at the elbow of a master and by learning the craft through doing it, copying it, not simply by reading about it. The apprentices of the great Stradivari didn’t learn their craft from books or manuals but by sitting at his elbow and feeling the wood as he felt it to assess its length, its balance, and its timbre right there in their fingertips. All the learning happened at his elbow, and all the knowledge was contained in his fingers. In his book Personal Knowledge, Polyani wrote, “Practical wisdom is more truly embodied in action than expressed in rules of action.”1 By that he meant that we learn as Stradivari’s protégés did, by feeling the weight of a piece of wood, not by reading the prescribed measurements in a manual. Polyani continues, To learn by example is to submit to authority. You follow your master because you trust his manner of doing things even when you cannot analyze and account in detail for its effectiveness. By watching the master and emulating his efforts in the presence of his example, the apprentice unconsciously picks up the rules of the art, including those which are not explicitly known to the master himself. These hidden rules can be assimilated only by a person who surrenders himself to that extent uncritically to the imitation of another.

Staying Free of Destructive Relationships Do not make friends with a hot-tempered person, do not associate with one easily angered, or you may learn their ways and get yourself ensnared. PROVERBS 22:24-25 Lord, Your Word says that a good friend is not so changeable that You never know how they are going to act from day to day. Help me to never be like that, and to not continue in a relationship with someone who is like that. Enable me to recognize right away when a person is often angry, negative, and destructive toward me so that I won’t continue on with them as a friend. Help me to be rid of any relationships in my life that are negative in an ongoing way. Although I can’t control how another person treats me, with Your help I can refuse to allow them to continue to treat me badly. Show me if I have any destructive relationship in my life and enable me to separate myself from that person. Help me to recognize that when a person continually makes me feel badly about myself and my life, they are not part of Your plan for me. In Jesus’ name I pray.

Revitalized and healthy, I started dreaming new dreams. I saw ways that I could make a significant contribution by sharing what I’ve learned. I decided to refocus my legal practice on counseling and helping start-up companies avoid liability and protect their intellectual property. To share some of what I know, I started a blog, IP Law for Startups, where I teach basic lessons on trade secrets, trademarks, copyrights, and patents and give tips for avoiding the biggest blunders that destroy the value of intellectual assets. Few start-up companies, especially women-owned companies that rarely get venture capital funding, can afford the expensive hourly rates of a large law firm to the get the critical information they need. I feel deeply rewarded when I help a company create a strategy that protects the value of their company and supports their business dreams. Further, I had a dream to help young women see their career possibilities. In partnership with my sister, Julie Simmons, I created lookilulu.com, a website where women share their insights, career paths, and ways they have integrated motherhood with their professional pursuits. When my sister and I were growing up on a farm, we had a hard time seeing that women could have rewarding careers. With Lookilulu® we want to help young women see what we couldn’t see: that dreams are not linear—they take many twists and unexpected turns. As I’ve learned the hard way, dreams change and shift as life happens. I’ve learned the value of continuing to dream new dreams after other dreams are derailed. I’m sure I’ll have many more dreams in my future. I’ve learned to be open to new and unexpected opportunities. By way of postscript, Jill writes, “I didn’t grow up planning to be lawyer. As a girl growing up in a small rural town, I was afraid to dream. I loved science, but rather than pursuing medical school, I opted for low-paying laboratory jobs, planning to quit when I had children. But then I couldn’t have children. As I awakened to the possibility that dreaming was an inalienable right, even for me, I started law school when I was thirty; intellectual property combines my love of law and science.” As a young girl, Jill’s rightsizing involved mustering the courage to expand her dreams, to dream outside of her box. Once she had children, she again transformed her dreams. In many ways her dreams are bigger and aim to help more people than before the twists and turns in her life’s path.

These same experiences are occurring to people all over the planet. After we grasp the first nine Insights, each of us is left at the same place—trying to live this reality day-to-day, in the face of what seems to be a growing pessimism and divisiveness all around us. But at the same time, we are continuing to gain a greater perspective and clarity about our spiritual situation, about who we really are. We know we are awakening to a much larger plan for planet Earth. “The Tenth is about maintaining our optimism and staying awake. We’re learning to better identify and believe in our own intuitions, knowing that these mental images are fleeting recollections of our original intention, of how we wanted our lives to evolve. We wanted to follow a certain path in life, so that we could finally remember the truth that our life experiences are preparing us to tell, and bring this knowledge into the world. “We are now seeing our lives from the higher perspective of the Afterlife. We know that our individual adventures are occurring within the context of the long history of human awakening. With this memory, our lives are grounded, put into context; we can see the long process through which we have been spiritualizing the physical dimension, and what we have left to do.

Knowledgeable observers report that dating has nearly disappeared from college campuses and among young adults generally. It has been replaced by something called “hanging out.” You young people apparently know what this is, but I will describe it for the benefit of those of us who are middle-aged or older and otherwise uninformed. Hanging out consists of numbers of young men and young women joining together in some group activity. It is very different from dating. For the benefit of some of you who are not middle-aged or older, I also may need to describe what dating is. Unlike hanging out, dating is not a team sport. Dating is pairing off to experience the kind of one-on-one association and temporary commitment that can lead to marriage in some rare and treasured cases. . . . All of this made dating more difficult. And the more elaborate and expensive the date, the fewer the dates. As dates become fewer and more elaborate, this seems to create an expectation that a date implies seriousness or continuing commitment. That expectation discourages dating even more. . . . Simple and more frequent dates allow both men and women to “shop around” in a way that allows extensive evaluation of the prospects. The old-fashioned date was a wonderful way to get acquainted with a member of the opposite sex. It encouraged conversation. It allowed you to see how you treat others and how you are treated in a one-on-one situation. It gave opportunities to learn how to initiate and sustain a mature relationship. None of that happens in hanging out. My single brothers and sisters, follow the simple dating pattern and you don’t need to do your looking through Internet chat rooms or dating services—two alternatives that can be very dangerous or at least unnecessary or ineffective. . . . Men, if you have returned from your mission and you are still following the boy-girl patterns you were counseled to follow when you were 15, it is time for you to grow up. Gather your courage and look for someone to pair off with. Start with a variety of dates with a variety of young women, and when that phase yields a good prospect, proceed to courtship. It’s marriage time. That is what the Lord intends for His young adult sons and daughters. Men have the initiative, and you men should get on with it. If you don’t know what a date is, perhaps this definition will help. I heard it from my 18-year-old granddaughter. A “date” must pass the test of three p’s: (1) planned ahead, (2) paid for, and (3) paired off. Young women, resist too much hanging out, and encourage dates that are simple, inexpensive, and frequent. Don’t make it easy for young men to hang out in a setting where you women provide the food. Don’t subsidize freeloaders. An occasional group activity is OK, but when you see men who make hanging out their primary interaction with the opposite sex, I think you should lock the pantry and bolt the front door. If you do this, you should also hang up a sign, “Will open for individual dates,” or something like that. And, young women, please make it easier for these shy males to ask for a simple, inexpensive date. Part of making it easier is to avoid implying that a date is something very serious. If we are to persuade young men to ask for dates more frequently, we must establish a mutual expectation that to go on a date is not to imply a continuing commitment. Finally, young women, if you turn down a date, be kind. Otherwise you may crush a nervous and shy questioner and destroy him as a potential dater, and that could hurt some other sister. My single young friends, we counsel you to channel your associations with the opposite sex into dating patterns that have the potential to mature into marriage, not hanging-out patterns that only have the prospect to mature into team sports like touch football. Marriage is not a group activity—at least, not until the children come along in goodly numbers.

The Cistercian monks built simple and harmonious buildings out of the local limestone, with plain colours and few ornaments. The plans involved regular repetitions: the doors, windows and roof vaults wouldn’t vary much, so that the eye would easily find points of reference. Everything felt solid and enduring. Our natural human frailty was to contrast with the immemorial tone of the masonry. The monks were particularly keen on cloisters: covered walkways opening onto a quiet central square around which one could take de-stressing walks even on a rainy afternoon. The abbey at Cîteaux was just one of thousands built with similar intentions over a period of hundreds of years. It’s not an accident that architecture that sets out to create a contemplative and serene atmosphere can easily get labelled ‘monastic’, though in truth there’s nothing inherently religious or Christian about the pursuit of calm. The longing for serenity is a continuing, widespread human need, although the overtly religious background to abbeys and monasteries has an unfortunate association: making calm places erroneously seem as if they were inherently connected to a belief in Jesus. We need to rediscover the search for calm as a fundamental ambition of all architecture, not least for the buildings of our own harried times.

Good friendship, in Buddhism, means considerably more than associating with people that one finds amenable and who share one's interests. It means in effect seeking out wise companions to whom one can look for guidance and instruction. The task of the noble friend is not only to provide companionship in the treading of the way. The truly wise and compassionate friend is one who, with understanding and sympathy of heart, is ready to criticize and admonish, to point out one's faults, to exhort and encourage, perceiving that the final end of such friendship is growth in the Dhamma. The Buddha succinctly expresses the proper response of a disciple to such a good friend in a verse of the Dhammapada: 'If one finds a person who points out one's faults and who reproves one, one should follow such a wise and sagacious counselor as one would a guide to hidden treasure' If we associate closely with those who are addicted to the pursuit of sense pleasures, power, riches and fame, we should not imagine that we will remain immune from those addictions: in time our own minds will gradually incline to these same ends. If we associate closely with those who, while not given up to moral recklessness, live their lives comfortably adjusted to mundane routines, we too will remain stuck in the ruts of the commonplace. If we aspire for the highest — for the peaks of transcendent wisdom and liberation — then we must enter into association with those who represent the highest. Even if we are not so fortunate as to find companions who have already scaled the heights, we can well count ourselves blessed if we cross paths with a few spiritual friends who share our ideals and who make earnest efforts to nurture the noble qualities of the Dhamma in their hearts. When we raise the question how to recognize good friends, how to distinguish good advisors from bad advisors, the Buddha offers us crystal-clear advice. In the Shorter Discourse on a Full-Moon Night (MN 110) he explains the difference between the companionship of the bad person and the companionship of the good person. The bad person chooses as friends and companions those who are without faith, whose conduct is marked by an absence of shame and moral dread, who have no knowledge of spiritual teachings, who are lazy and unmindful, and who are devoid of wisdom. As a consequence of choosing such bad friends as his advisors, the bad person plans and acts for his own harm, for the harm of others, and the harm of both, and he meets with sorrow and misery. In contrast, the Buddha continues, the good person chooses as friends and companions those who have faith, who exhibit a sense of shame and moral dread, who are learned in the Dhamma, energetic in cultivation of the mind, mindful, and possessed of wisdom. Resorting to such good friends, looking to them as mentors and guides, the good person pursues these same qualities as his own ideals and absorbs them into his character. Thus, while drawing ever closer to deliverance himself, he becomes in turn a beacon light for others. Such a one is able to offer those who still wander in the dark an inspiring model to emulate, and a wise friend to turn to for guidance and advice.

Grabbing my hair and pulling it to the point my skull throbs, I rock back and forth while insanity threatens to destroy my mind completely. Father finally did what Lachlan started. Destroyed my spirit. The angel is gone. The monster has come and killed her. Lachlan Sipping his whiskey, Shon gazes with a bored expression at the one-way mirror as Arson lights the match, grazing the skin of his victim with it as the man convulses in fear. “Show off,” he mutters, and on instinct, I slap the back of his head. He rubs it, spilling the drink. “The fuck? We are wasting time, Lachlan. Tell him to speed up. You know if you let him, he can play for hours.” All in good time, we don’t need just a name. He is saving him for a different kind of information that we write down as Sociopath types furiously on his computer, searching for the location and everything else using FBI databases. “Bingo!” Sociopath mutters, picking up the laptop and showing the screen to me. “It’s seven hours away from New York, in a deserted location in the woods. The land belongs to some guy who is presumed dead and the man accrued the right to build shelters for abused women. They actually live there as a place of new hope or something.” Indeed, the center is advertised as such and has a bunch of stupid reviews about it. Even the approval of a social worker, but then it doesn’t surprise me. Pastor knows how to be convincing. “Kids,” I mutter, fisting my hands. “Most of them probably have kids. He continues to do his fucked-up shit.” And all these years, he has been under my radar. I throw the chair and it bounces off the wall, but no one says anything as they feel the same. “Shon, order a plane. Jaxon—” “Yeah, my brothers will be there with us. But listen, the FBI—” he starts, and I nod. He takes a beat and quickly sends a message to someone on his phone while I bark into the microphone. “Arson, enough with the bullshit. Kill him already.” He is of no use to us anyway. Arson looks at the wall and shrugs. Then pours gas on his victim and lights up the match simultaneously, stepping aside as the man screams and thrashes on the chair, and the smell of burning flesh can be sensed even here. Arson jogs to a hose, splashing water over him. The room is designed security wise for this kind of torture, since fire is one of the first things I taught. After all, I’d learned the hard way how to fight with it. “On the plane, we can adjust the plan. Let’s get moving.” They spring into action as I go to my room to get a specific folder to give to Levi before I go, when Sociopath’s hand stops me, bumping my shoulder. “Is this a suicide mission for you?” he asks, and I smile, although it lacks any humor. My friend knows everything. Instead of answering his question, I grip his shoulder tight, and confide, “Valencia is entrusted to you.” We both know that if I want to destroy Pastor, I have to die with him. This revenge has been twenty-three years in the making, and I never envisioned a different future. This path always leads to death one way or another, and the only reason I valued my life was because I had to kill him. Valencia will be forever free from the evils that destroyed her life. I’ll make sure of it. Once upon a time, there was an angel. Who made the monster’s heart bleed.

Using magnetoencephalography, a technique that measures the weak magnetic fields given off by a thinking brain, researchers have found that higher-rated chess players are more likely to engage the frontal and parietal cortices of the brain when they look at the board, which suggests that they are recalling information from long-term memory. Lower-ranked players are more likely to engage the medial temporal lobes, which suggests that they are encoding information. The experts are interpreting the present board in terms of their massive knowledge of past ones. The lower ranked players are seeing the board as something new...[de Groot] argued that expertise in the field of shoemaking, painting, building, or confectionary, is the result of the same accumulation of experiential linkings. According to Erikson, what we call expertise is really just vast amounts of knowledge, pattern-based retrieval, and planning mechanisms acquired over many years of experience in the associated domain. In other words, a great memory isn't just a byproduct of expertise; it is the essence of expertise. Whether we realize it or not, we are all like those chess masters and chicken sexers- interpreting the present in light of what we've learned in the past and letting our previous experiences shape not only how we perceive our world, but also the moves we end up making in it... Our memories are always with us, shaping and being shaped by the information flowing through our senses in a continuous feedback loop. Everything we see, hear, and smell is inflected by all the things we've seen, heard, and smelled in the past...Who we are and what we do is fundamentally a function of what we remember.

Here’s the four point battle plan, which we’ll return to at the end of the book: Disregard the Doomsayers: The misguided belief that “it’s too late” to act has been co-opted by fossil fuel interests and those advocating for them. It’s just another way of legitimizing business-as-usual and a continued reliance on fossil fuels. We must reject the overt doom and gloom that we increasingly encounter in today’s climate discourse. A Child Shall Lead Them: The youngest generation is fighting tooth and nail to save their planet, and there is a moral authority and clarity in their message that none but the most jaded ears can fail to hear. They are the game-changers that climate advocates have been waiting for. We should model our actions after theirs and learn from their methods and their idealism. Educate, Educate, Educate: Most hard-core climate-change deniers are unmovable. They view climate change through the prism of right-wing ideology and are impervious to facts. Don’t waste your time and effort trying to convince them. But there are many honest, confused folks out there who are caught in the crossfire, victims of the climate-change disinformation campaign. We must help them out. Then they will be in a position to join us in battle. Changing the System Requires Systemic Change: The fossil fuel disinformation machine wants to make it about the car you choose to drive, the food you choose to eat, and the lifestyle you choose to live rather than about the larger system and incentives. We need policies that will incentivize the needed shift away from fossil fuel burning toward a clean, green global economy. So-called leaders who resist the call for action must be removed from office.

The first obstacle [to liberal education] is the learning situation itself. What is the ideal learning situation? It is the more or less continuous contact between a student and his teacher, who is another student, more advanced in many ways, but still learning himself. This situation usually does not prevail; in fact, it is extremely rare. Since the immemorial, institutions of learning, especially higher learning, have been established, called „schools“ — and the ambiguity of the term becomes immediately apparent. Institutionalization means ordering activities into certain patters; in the case of learning activities, into classes, schedules, courses, curriculums, examinations, degress, and all the venerable and sometimes ridiculous paraphernalia of academic life. The point is that such institutionalization cannot be avoided: both the gregarious and the rational character of man compel him to impose upon himself laws and regulations. Moreover, the discipline of learning itself seems to require an orderly and planned procedure. And yet we all know how this schedule routine can interfere with the spontaneity of questioning and of leaning and the occurrence of genuine wonderment. A student may even never become aware that there is the possibility of spontaneous learning which depends merely on himself and on nobody and nothing else. Once the institutional character of learning tends to prevail, the goal of liberal education may be completely lost sight of, whatever other goals may be successfully reached. And I repeat, this obstacle is not extraneous to learning. It is prefigured in the methodical and systematic character of exploratory questioning. It has to be faced over and over again.

All of us have to learn how to invent our lives, make them up, imagine them. We need to be taught these skills; we need guides to show us how. Without them, our lives get made up for us by other people. Human beings have always joined in groups to imagine how best to live and help one another carry out the plan. The essential function of human community is to arrive at some agreement on what we need, what life ought to be, what we want our children to learn, and then to collaborate in learning and teaching so that we and they can go on the way we think is the right way. Small communities with strong traditions are often clear about the way they want to go, and good at teaching it. But tradition may crystallize imagination to the point of fossilizing it as dogma and forbidding new ideas. Larger communities, such as cities, open up room for people to imagine alternatives, learn from people of different traditions, and invent their own ways to live. As alternatives proliferate, however, those who take the responsibility of teaching find little social and moral consensus on what they should be teaching -- what we need, what life ought to be. In our time of huge populations exposed continuously to reproduced voices, images, and words used for commercial and political profit, there are too many people who want to and can invent us, own us, shape and control us through seductive and powerful media. It's a lot to ask of a child to find a way through all that alone. Nobody can do anything very much, really, alone. What a child needs, what we all need, is to find some other people who have imagined life along lines that make sense to us and allow some freedom, and listen to them. Not hear passively, but listen.

Any relationship will have its difficulties, but sometimes those problems are indicators of deep-rooted problems that, if not addressed quickly, will poison your marriage. If any of the following red flags—caution signs—exist in your relationship, we recommend that you talk about the situation as soon as possible with a pastor, counselor or mentor. Part of this list was adapted by permission from Bob Phillips, author of How Can I Be Sure: A Pre-Marriage Inventory.1 You have a general uneasy feeling that something is wrong in your relationship. You find yourself arguing often with your fiancé(e). Your fiancé(e) seems irrationally angry and jealous whenever you interact with someone of the opposite sex. You avoid discussing certain subjects because you’re afraid of your fiancé(e)’s reaction. Your fiancé(e) finds it extremely difficult to express emotions, or is prone to extreme emotions (such as out-of-control anger or exaggerated fear). Or he/she swings back and forth between emotional extremes (such as being very happy one minute, then suddenly exhibiting extreme sadness the next). Your fiancé(e) displays controlling behavior. This means more than a desire to be in charge—it means your fiancé(e) seems to want to control every aspect of your life: your appearance, your lifestyle, your interactions with friends or family, and so on. Your fiancé(e) seems to manipulate you into doing what he or she wants. You are continuing the relationship because of fear—of hurting your fiancé(e), or of what he or she might do if you ended the relationship. Your fiancé(e) does not treat you with respect. He or she constantly criticizes you or talks sarcastically to you, even in public. Your fiancé(e) is unable to hold down a job, doesn’t take personal responsibility for losing a job, or frequently borrows money from you or from friends. Your fiancé(e) often talks about aches and pains, and you suspect some of these are imagined. He or she goes from doctor to doctor until finding someone who will agree that there is some type of illness. Your fiancé(e) is unable to resolve conflict. He or she cannot deal with constructive criticism, or never admits a mistake, or never asks for forgiveness. Your fiancé(e) is overly dependant on parents for finances, decision-making or emotional security. Your fiancé(e) is consistently dishonest and tries to keep you from learning about certain aspects of his or her life. Your fiancé(e) does not appear to recognize right from wrong, and rationalizes questionable behavior. Your fiancé(e) consistently avoids responsibility. Your fiancé(e) exhibits patterns of physical, emotional or sexual abuse toward you or others. Your fiancé(e) displays signs of drug or alcohol abuse: unexplained absences of missed dates, frequent car accidents, the smell of alcohol or strong odor of mouthwash, erratic behavior or emotional swings, physical signs such as red eyes, unkempt look, unexplained nervousness, and so on. Your fiancé(e) has displayed a sudden, dramatic change in lifestyle after you began dating. (He or she may be changing just to win you and will revert back to old habits after marriage.) Your fiancé(e) has trouble controlling anger. He or she uses anger as a weapon or as a means of winning arguments. You have a difficult time trusting your fiancé(e)—to fulfill responsibilities, to be truthful, to help in times of need, to make ethical decisions, and so on. Your fiancé(e) has a history of multiple serious relationships that have failed—a pattern of knowing how to begin a relationship but not knowing how to keep one growing. Look over this list. Do any of these red flags apply to your relationship? If so, we recommend you talk about the situation as soon as possible with a pastor, counselor or mentor.

When Bush and Clinton were talking in 1984, Bush told Clinton ‘when the American people become disillusioned with Republicans leading them into the New World Order, you, as a Democrat, will be put into place.’ I expect that Clinton will be our next President based on that conversation I heard.” “This is serious information!” Billy looked up from his work. “Its no wonder the Feds are worried about your revealing what you know.” “There are a lot of people who know what I know7,” I assured him. “And even more are waking up to reality fast. People with Intelligence operating on a Need-to-Know are gaining insight into a bigger picture with the truth that is emerging. They gain one more piece of the puzzle and the Big Picture suddenly comes into focus. When it does, their paradigms shift. Mark and I are also aware of numerous scientists waking up to the reality of a New World Order agenda who are furious that they’ve been mislead and used. These people are uniting with strength, and the New World Order elite will need to play their hold card and switch political parties. Watch and see. Clinton will appear to ‘defeat’ Bush according to plan, while Bush continues business as usual from behind the scenes of the New World Order.” “Who do you think will follow Clinton?” “A compliant, sleeping public mesmerized by his Oxford learned charisma.” Billy looked up from his work again to clarify his question. “I mean into the Presidency.” “Hillary?” I smiled half-heartedly. “Seriously, she is brighter than Bill, and is even more corrupt. Knowing her, she’d probably rather work behind the scenes, although she may be used as another appearance of ‘change’ since she’s a woman. That’s just speculation based on how these criminals operate. They want to keep their power all in the family. I did see Bush, Jr. being conditioned, and trained for the role of President at the Mount Shasta, California military programming compound in 19868. He’s not very bright, though, so I don’t know how they could possibly prop him up…

After I returned from that morning, our telephone rang incessantly with requests for interviews and photos. By midafternoon I was exhausted. At four o’clock I was reaching to disconnect the telephone when I answered one last call. Thank heavens I did! I heard, “Mrs. Robertson? This is Ian Hamilton from the Lord Chamberlain’s office.” I held my breath and prayed, “Please let this be the palace.” He continued: “We would like to invite you, your husband, and your son to attend the funeral of the Princess of Wales on Saturday in London.” I was speechless. I could feel my heart thumping. I never thought to ask him how our name had been selected. Later, in London, I learned that the Spencer family had given instructions to review Diana’s personal records, including her Christmas-card list, with the help of her closest aides. “Yes, of course, we absolutely want to attend,” I answered without hesitating. “Thank you so much. I can’t tell you how much this means to me. I’ll have to make travel plans on very short notice, so may I call you back to confirm? How late can I reach you?” He replied, “Anytime. We’re working twenty-four hours a day. But I need your reply within an hour.” I jotted down his telephone and fax numbers and set about making travel arrangements. My husband had just walked in the door, so we were able to discuss who would travel and how. Both children’s passports had expired and could not be renewed in less than a day from the suburbs where we live. Caroline, our daughter, was starting at a new school the very next day. Pat felt he needed to stay home with her. “Besides,” he said, “I cried at the wedding. I’d never make it through the funeral.” Though I dreaded the prospect of coping with the heartbreak of the funeral on my own, I felt I had to be there at the end, no matter what. We had been with Diana at the very beginning of the courtship. We had attended her wedding with tremendous joy. We had kept in touch ever since. I had to say good-bye to her in person. I said to Pat, “We were there for the ‘wedding of the century.’ This will be ‘the funeral of the century.’ Yes, I have to go.” Then we just looked at each other. We couldn’t find any words to express the sorrow we both felt.

These same experiences are occurring to people all over the planet. After we grasp the first nine Insights, each of us is left at the same place—trying to live this reality day-to-day, in the face of what seems to be a growing pessimism and divisiveness all around us. But at the same time, we are continuing to gain a greater perspective and clarity about our spiritual situation, about who we really are. We know we are awakening to a much larger plan for planet Earth. “The Tenth is about maintaining our optimism and staying awake. We’re learning to better identify and believe in our own intuitions, knowing that these mental images are fleeting recollections of our original intention, of how we wanted our lives to evolve. We wanted to follow a certain path in life, so that we could finally remember the truth that our life experiences are preparing us to tell, and bring this knowledge into the world. “We are now seeing our lives from the higher perspective of the Afterlife. We know that our individual adventures are occurring within the context of the long history of human awakening. With this memory, our lives are grounded, put into context; we can see the long process through which we have been spiritualizing the physical dimension, and what we have left to do.” Wil paused momentarily and moved closer to us. “Now we will see if enough groups like this one come together and remember, if enough people around the world grasp the Tenth. As we have seen, it is now our responsibility to keep the intention, to ensure the future. “The polarization of Fear is still rising, and if we are to resolve it and move on, each of us must participate personally. We must watch our thoughts and expectations very carefully, and catch ourselves every time we treat another human being as an enemy. We can defend ourselves, and restrain certain people, but if we dehumanize them, we add to the Fear. “We all are souls in growth; we all have an original intention that is positive; and we can all remember. Our responsibility is to hold that idea for everyone we meet. That’s the true Interpersonal Ethic; that’s how we uplift, that’s the contagion of the new awareness that is encircling the planet. We either fear that human culture is falling apart, or we can hold the Vision that we are awakening. Either way, our expectation is a prayer that goes out as a force that tends to bring about the end we envision. Each of us must consciously choose between these two futures.

Chet couldn’t wipe away his smile. “I have learned much since we parted ways, and one of those lessons is that a static force, even in mass, can be crushed by a dynamic one.” Wellington‘s face stiffened. “What kind of foolish talk is that?” “You will find out. On the Fourth of July, as you sit here in your governor’s mansion pandering to your public servants—using them to climb into more power, you will learn what it feels like to have everything you believe in shatter before your very eyes.” Wellington shifted irritably in his seat. “What sort of riddle is that, Chet? You and I have been in this political game our entire lives. You know how it works, and that’s not going to change. Ever. One party controls the knobs of politics with one hand, and the other party controls the knobs with the other hand. But they are all one body, members of a political ruling class. That’s what we do. This isn’t anything new.” Chet pushed his brows over his eyes in a gaze that could melt steel. “You will not be able to stop the ramifications of its impact. This thing I’m about to unleash upon you, I’m doing to you because you are an evil man. I used to be, I’ll give you that. But I changed, luckily, before death found me. And I will not let you get away with what you are doing to this country.” Wellington was aghast. “So you’re involved with terrorism now, are you? What are you going to do?” Chet shook his head. “The truth isn’t something you can hide from people. They all feel it even if they don’t understand the intentions behind the madness.” Wellington was in a near panic in anticipation over what Chet was planning. “I can have you followed, you know. Everyone you speak to will be monitored. Surely you know that? And who are you to decide what the best position for anything is? You don’t have a right to make decisions for the masses. If you were sitting in my seat, perhaps. But you’re not.” “If you hadn’t cheated, I would be in your chair.” Chet pierced Wellington with his squinted eyes. “And because of that, I have decided that you aren’t able to make decisions for the masses either, and I’ll see to it that you won’t continue to do so.” Chet pushed back his chair and stood up dramatically. “Enjoy this office because you won’t be here long.” Wellington contorted his face in panic. “What are you doing? What’s going to happen? Tell me at least that much! Was it so bad between us that we can’t reason with each other? Maybe we could make a deal. What if I make you my presidential running mate?” Chet didn’t answer. He headed for the door, unsure as to why he had said that last part. He still didn’t really know what was going to happen. But with Rick Stevens headed down in a few days with a multimillion dollar car, anything was possible. But now Wellington would know that Chet was behind the crazy driver who refused to pull over.

Performance measure. Throughout this book, the term performance measure refers to an indicator used by management to measure, report, and improve performance. Performance measures are classed as key result indicators, result indicators, performance indicators, or key performance indicators. Critical success factors (CSFs). CSFs are the list of issues or aspects of organizational performance that determine ongoing health, vitality, and wellbeing. Normally there are between five and eight CSFs in any organization. Success factors. A list of 30 or so issues or aspects of organizational performance that management knows are important in order to perform well in any given sector/ industry. Some of these success factors are much more important; these are known as critical success factors. Balanced scorecard. A term first introduced by Kaplan and Norton describing how you need to measure performance in a more holistic way. You need to see an organization’s performance in a number of different perspectives. For the purposes of this book, there are six perspectives in a balanced scorecard (see Exhibit 1.7). Oracles and young guns. In an organization, oracles are those gray-haired individuals who have seen it all before. They are often considered to be slow, ponderous, and, quite frankly, a nuisance by the new management. Often they are retired early or made redundant only to be rehired as contractors at twice their previous salary when management realizes they have lost too much institutional knowledge. Their considered pace is often a reflection that they can see that an exercise is futile because it has failed twice before. The young guns are fearless and precocious leaders of the future who are not afraid to go where angels fear to tread. These staff members have not yet achieved management positions. The mixing of the oracles and young guns during a KPI project benefits both parties and the organization. The young guns learn much and the oracles rediscover their energy being around these live wires. Empowerment. For the purposes of this book, empowerment is an outcome of a process that matches competencies, skills, and motivations with the required level of autonomy and responsibility in the workplace. Senior management team (SMT). The team comprised of the CEO and all direct reports. Better practice. The efficient and effective way management and staff undertake business activities in all key processes: leadership, planning, customers, suppliers, community relations, production and supply of products and services, employee wellbeing, and so forth. Best practice. A commonly misused term, especially because what is best practice for one organization may not be best practice for another, albeit they are in the same sector. Best practice is where better practices, when effectively linked together, lead to sustainable world-class outcomes in quality, customer service, flexibility, timeliness, innovation, cost, and competitiveness. Best-practice organizations commonly use the latest time-saving technologies, always focus on the 80/20, are members of quality management and continuous improvement professional bodies, and utilize benchmarking. Exhibit 1.10 shows the contents of the toolkit used by best-practice organizations to achieve world-class performance. EXHIBIT 1.10 Best-Practice Toolkit Benchmarking. An ongoing, systematic process to search for international better practices, compare against them, and then introduce them, modified where necessary, into your organization. Benchmarking may be focused on products, services, business practices, and processes of recognized leading organizations.

You’re going to do great,” Lizzy said as they reached the mini Tiki bar. The air was cool in the high fifties and the scent of various meats on the grill filled the air. Even though they’d had the party catered, apparently Grant had insisted on grilling some things himself. “I wouldn’t have recommended you apply for it otherwise.” Athena ducked behind the bar and grinned at the array of bottles and other garnishes. She’d been friends with Lizzy the past couple months and knew her friend’s tastes by now. As she started mixing up their drinks she said, “If I fail, hopefully they won’t blame you.” Lizzy just snorted but eyed the drink mix curiously. “Purple?” “Just wait. You’ll like it.” She rolled the rims of the martini glasses in sugar as she spoke. “Where’d you learn to do this?” “I bartended a little in college and there were a few occasions on the job where I had to assist because staff called out sick for an event.” There’d been a huge festival in Madrid she’d helped out with a year ago where three of the staff had gotten food poisoning, so in addition to everything else she’d been in charge of, she’d had to help with drinks on and off. That had been such a chaotic, ridiculous job. “At least you’ll have something to fall back on if you do fail,” Lizzy teased. “I seriously hope not.” She set the two glasses on the bar and strained the purple concoction into them. With the twinkle lights strung up around the lanai and the ones glittering in the pool, the sugar seemed to sparkle around the rim. “This is called a wildcat.” “You have to make me one of those too!” The unfamiliar female voice made Athena look up. Her eyes widened as her gaze locked with Quinn freaking Brody, the too-sexy-man with an aversion to virgins. He was with the tall woman who’d just asked Athena to make a drink. But she had eyes only for Quinn. Her heart about jumped out of her chest. What was he doing here of all places? At least he looked just as surprised to see her. She ignored him because she knew if she stared into those dark eyes she’d lose the ability to speak and then she’d inevitably embarrass herself. The tall, built-like-a-goddess woman with pale blonde hair he was with smiled widely at Athena. “Only if you don’t mind,” she continued, nodding at the drinks. “They look so good.” “Ah, you can have this one. I made an extra for the lush here.” She tilted her head at Lizzy with a half-smile. Athena had planned to drink the second one herself but didn’t trust her hands not to shake if she made another. She couldn’t believe Quinn was standing right in front of her, looking all casual and annoyingly sexy in dark jeans and a long-sleeved sweater shoved up to his elbows. Why did his forearms have to look so good? “Ha, ha.” Lizzy snagged her drink as Athena stepped out from behind the bar. “Athena, this is Quinn Brody and Dominique Castle. They both work for Red Stone but Dominique is almost as new as you.” Forcing a smile on her face, Athena nodded politely at both of them—and tried to ignore the way Quinn was staring at her. She’d had no freaking idea he worked for Red Stone. He looked a bit like a hungry wolf. Just like on their last date—two months ago. When he’d decided she was too much trouble, being a virgin and all. Jackass. “It’s so nice to meet you both.” She did a mental fist pump when her voice sounded normal. “I promised Belle I’d help out inside but I hope to see you both around tonight.” Liar, liar. “Me too. Thanks again for the drink,” Dominique said cheerfully while Lizzy just gave Athena a strange look. Athena wasn’t sure what Quinn’s expression was because she’d decided to do the mature thing—and studiously ignore him.

that everything that had ever happened to me had been a loving step in that process of my progression. every person, every circumstance, and every incident was custom created for me. It was as if the entire universe existed for my higher good and development. I felt so loved, so cherished, and so honored. I realized that not only was I being embraced by deity, but also that I myself was divine, and that we all are. I knew that there are no accidents in this life. That everything happens for a reason. yet we always get to choose how we will experience what happens to us here. I could exercise my will in everything, even in how I felt about the wreck and the death of my family members. God didn't want me to hurt and feel put upon as if my son and wife had been taken from me. He was simply there assisting me to decide how I was going to experience it. He was providing me with the opportunity, in perfect love, to exercise my personal agency in this entire situation. I knew my wife and son were gone. They had died months earlier, but time didn't exist where I was at that moment. rather than having them ripped away from me, I was being given the opportunity to actually hand them over to God. To let them go in peace, love, and gratitude. Everything suddenly made sense. Everything had divine order. I could give my son to God and not have him taken away from me. I felt my power as a creator and cocreator with God to literally let go of all that had happened to me. I held my baby son as God himself held me. I experienced the oneness of all of it. Time did not matter. Only love and order existed. Tamara and Griffin had come into my life as perfect teachers. And in leaving me in such a way, they continued as perfect teachers to bring me to that point of remembering who I was. remembering that I was created in God's image and actually came from Him. I was aware now that I could actually walk with God, empowered by what I was learning in my life. I felt the divine energy of the being behind me inviting me to let it all go and give Griffin to Him. In all that peace and knowledge, I hugged my little boy tightly one last time, kissed him on the cheek, and gently laid him back down in the crib. I willingly gave him up. No one would ever take him away from me again. He was mine. We were one, and I was one with God. As soon as I breathed in all that peace, I awoke, back into the pain and darkness of my hospital bed, but with greater perspective. I marveled at what I had just experienced. It was not just a dream. It felt too real. It was real to me, far more real than the pain, the grief, and my hospital bed. Griffin was alive in a place more real than anything here. And Tamara was there with him. I knew it. As the years have passed, I've often wondered how I could have put my son back in the crib the way I did. Maybe I should have held on and never let go. But in that place, it all made sense. I realized that no one ever really dies. We always live on. I had experienced a God as real and tangible as we are. He knows our every heartache, yet allows us to experience and endure them for our growth. His is the highest form of love; He allows us to become what we will. He watches as we create who we are. He allows us to experience life in a way that makes us more like Him, divine creators of our own destiny. My experience showed me purpose and order. I knew there was a master plan far greater than my limited earthly vision. I also learned that my choices were mine alone to make. I got to decide how I felt, and that made all the difference in the universe. even in this tragedy, I got to determine the outcome. I could choose to be a victim of what had happened or create something far greater.

In the contemporary world there are two classes of bad plans-the plans invented and put into practice by men who do not accept our ideal postulates, and the plans invented and put into practice by the men who accept them, but imagine that the ends proposed by the prophets can be achieved by wicked or unsuitable means. Hell is paved with good intentions, and it is probable that plans made by well-meaning people of the second class may have results no less disastrous than plans made by evil-intentioned people of the first class. Which only shows, yet once more, how right the Buddha was in classing unawareness and stupidity among the deadly sins. Let us consider a few examples of bad plans belonging to these two classes. In the first class we must place all Fascist and all specifically militaristic plans. Fascism, in the words of Mussolini, believes that "war alone brings up to its highest tension all human energy and puts the stamp of nobility upon the peoples who have the courage to meet it." Again, "a doctrine which is founded upon the harmful postulate of peace is hostile to Fascism." The Fascist, then, is one who believes that the bombardment of open towns with fire, poison and explosives (in other words, modern war) is intrinsically good. He is one who rejects the teaching of the prophets and believes that the best society is a national society living in a state of chronic hostility towards other national societies and preoccupied with ideas of rapine and slaughter. He is one who despises the non-attached individual and holds up for admiration the person who, in obedience to the boss who happens at the moment to have grabbed political power, systematically cultivates all the passions (pride, anger, envy, hatred) which the philosophers and the founders of religions have unanimously condemned as the most maleficent, the least worthy of human beings. All fascist planning has one ultimate aim: to make the national society more efficient as a war machine. Industry, commerce and finance are controlled for this purpose. The manufacture of substitutes is encouraged in order that the country may be self-sufficient in time of war. Tariffs and quotas are imposed, export bounties distributed, exchanges depreciated for the sake of gaining a momentary advantage or inflicting loss upon some rival. Foreign policy is conducted on avowedly Machiavellian principles; solemn engagements are entered into with the knowledge that they will be broken the moment it seems advantageous to do so; international law is invoked when it happens to be convenient, repudiated when it imposes the least restraint on the nation's imperialistic designs. Meanwhile the dictator's subjects are systematically educated to be good citizens of the Fascist state. Children are subjected to authoritarian discipline that they may grow up to be simultaneously obedient to superiors and brutal to those below them. On leaving the kindergarten, they begin that military training which culminates in the years of conscription and continues until the individual is too decrepit to be an efficient soldier. In school they are taught extravagant lies about the achievements of their ancestors, while the truth about other peoples is either distorted or completely suppressed. the press is controlled, so that adults may learn only what it suits the dictator that they should learn. Any one expressing un-orthodox opinions is ruthlessly persecuted. Elaborate systems of police espionage are organized to investigate the private life and opinions of even the humblest individual. Delation is encouraged, tale-telling rewarded. Terrorism is legalized. Justice is administered in secret; the procedure is unfair, the penalties barbarously cruel. Brutality and torture are regularly employed.

although we write the feedback loop as Build-Measure-Learn because the activities happen in that order, our planning really works in the reverse order: we figure out what we need to learn and then work backwards to see what product will work as an experiment to get that learning

The Atlanta International Airport, power outage of 2017, its economic impact in terms of losses and inconveniences to the travelling public with more than 1,000 flights grounded just days before the start of the Christmas travel rush, was a good lesson. Not, to mention a reminder of the importance of Business Continuity Planning-BCP to aviation as an industry. What is surprising is, nobody seems to have learned anything from it. BCP is still where it was before the debacle, largely unheard off since the international sectoral leadership, as well as airports continue to feign selective amnesia, the regulators- CAA’s are even worse off, as many pretend to have never, heard of it, since the industrial gospel is yet to begin propagating for it !

How This Bad Habit Hurts Your Productivity Yielding to others’ demands for your time and attention lessens your productivity in five ways. First, it disrupts your work flow. You lose whatever momentum you managed to build through focused attention. Without distractions, that momentum helps you to complete tasks in less time. Second, it allows other people to dictate how you spend your time. You’re never in charge of your day, which means you can’t accurately plan it. Indeed, any plans you make are little more than wishes, or best-case scenarios. Third, saying “yes” gives you less time to address your own responsibilities. That can be disastrous if you’re working under an impending deadline. The people you help benefit by completing their tasks, but your own tasks remain unfinished. You may even be forced to work overtime to meet your responsibilities (see Day 7 for more on this bad habit). Fourth, it reduces the quality of your work. After spending considerable time helping others meet their responsibilities, you may be forced to rush through your own in order to finish them under deadline. The more you rush, the greater the likelihood you’ll make mistakes. While one or two mistakes are unlikely to cause a major problem, work littered with them will. Fifth, you risk suffering from burnout. Continuously relenting to others’ demands increases your stress levels. Deadlines loom and your work piles up as you spend your available time helping coworkers with their tasks. It’s tough to be productive when you’re feeling overstretched and under pressure. Let’s make a change. Following are seven steps to take if you want to learn to say “no” to your coworkers, friends and family members.

Smart Acupuncture Pointers That Will Boost Your Knowledge How much have you learned in the past about acupuncture? Acupuncture is often symbolized by the patient, face-down, with needles protruding from their bodies in various locations. Perhaps it would surprise you to know that acupuncture is really very beneficial; although, you must be informed to make a wise choice regarding treatment. Read this post to learn all that you can about it. There is a lot more to acupuncture than the treatments involving needles. This medicinal practice is associated with a philosophy. You should learn more about the philosophy of acupuncture to adopt a healthier lifestyle. There are plenty of meditation exercises, home remedies and other practices you can use to introduce acupuncture in the different aspects of your life. Keep in mind that it may take some time for you to feel the full benefits from your acupuncture treatments. It may take more than one or two visits to find relief from pain or improvement in your conditions. Make sure you are ready to commit to the full program recommended. If you want to know more about acupuncture, but fear needles, see if your practitioner is familiar with laser treatments. This type of acupuncture uses lasers instead of needles. This does not hurt at all, and lots of people claim that it works really well in relieving their conditions. You should drink plenty of water before you attend your scheduled acupuncture session. It has been shown that people who are well hydrated respond better to treatments. While you should not consume a lot of food before a session, it is a great idea for you to drink a good amount of water. Herbs Talk to a doctor about anything you are taking if you plan on having acupuncture treatments. If you are currently taking medication, herbs, or supplements, you need to speak to your doctor about what you can continue to take. They may have to make changes to what you're taking before or in between your acupuncture treatments. Ask your acupuncturist if there are certain herbs you should consume in between sessions. Remember, this is a holistic practice. There are many different things to it compared to Western medicine. Herbs are a big part of it. They can help relax your body and remove any sort of pain left over from your session. Before your procedure, the acupuncturist may recommend herbal treatments. Such herbs can be helpful, but they may result in undesirable side effects or harmful drug interactions. Therefore, talk with your doctor before starting any herbal regimen. Are you currently taking any medications, vitamins, or herbs? If so, get in touch with your doctor and ask him whether or not you can continue to take these things before and during your acupuncture sessions. You would hate for your acupuncture sessions to be less effective because you did not know you weren't supposed to take any of these things. Hopefully, you are more comfortable with the idea of scheduling an acupuncture appointment. Acupuncture can be very beneficial. Follow the tips presented here to make the most of your therapy by visiting rosholistic.com

Tops Tips About Acupuncture That Anyone Can Follow Do you have aches and pains that do not seem to respond to traditional medicines? If you do, you may want to give acupuncture a try. This form of medicine has been around for thousands of years, and has becoming quite popular among Western medicine. If you want to find out more about it, read the following article. Some people find acupuncture treatments are quite effective for migraine headaches. One very positive aspect of this type of alternative treatment is the lack of any side effects. Even though very fine needles are inserted into the flesh at specific points, most people do not feel any pain at all from the procedure. In most places around the United States, a license is required to practice acupuncture. Before going to a new office, ask to see the acupuncturists credentials. It is important to ask how experienced they are and where they went to school. Any place that can not provide this information should be visited with caution. Ask your acupuncturist about the style they use. Acupuncture is a very complex discipline and there are several methods acupuncturists can use to relieve pain or stress. Make sure the methods your acupuncturist uses are painless. If you are new to acupuncture, ask if you can get a very simple treatment to get used to the sensatin. Understand that acupuncture focus on the entire well being of you as a person. In Western culture, it's often the norm to concentrate on symptoms, what's ailing you immediately. That's not true of acupuncture. It looks at the big picture and tries to help your entire body. It's a major difference in thought. Herbs Talk to a doctor about anything you are taking if you plan on having acupuncture treatments. If you are currently taking medication, herbs, or supplements, you need to speak to your doctor about what you can continue to take. They may have to make changes to what you're taking before or in between your acupuncture treatments. Ask your acupuncturist if there are certain herbs you should consume in between sessions. Remember, this is a holistic practice. There are many different things to it compared to Western medicine. Herbs are a big part of it. They can help relax your body and remove any sort of pain left over from your session. Herbal treatments could be suggested to you by your acupuncturist before treatment. As beneficial as certain herbs are, if you are on certain medications, you may develop side effects. You should check with your doctor for possible issues before adding herbs to your treatment. Are you currently taking any medications, vitamins, or herbs? If so, get in touch with your doctor and ask him whether or not you can continue to take these things before and during your acupuncture sessions. You would hate for your acupuncture sessions to be less effective because you did not know you weren't supposed to take any of these things. Acupuncture can give you relief from pain that no other methods can provide. Just take your time to learn more about it so you will be comfortable with the idea. Talk to people who have gone through treatments. The more find out about acupuncture by visiting rosholistic.com

Get Educated About Acupuncture With These Simple To Follow Tips Acupuncture can be a great experience for people that are informed about the process and the benefits that can result. Rather than assuming that acupuncture will be very uncomfortable or painful, keep reading on to find out the truth. The tips in this article should give you some clarity about the process! Make sure you contact your insurance company prior to scheduling acupuncture appointments. There may be some treatments or specific programs that are covered and others that your insurance company might not pay for. Prior to treatment, check out insurance issues with both your insurance company and the acupuncturist. If you are nervous about acupuncture, and you are not sure if it is right for you, do not be afraid to ask questions. Believe it or not, one of the most common inquiries is whether or not the acupuncturist practices a painless style of treatment. Your fears may be eased when you hear some of the answers. Some vitamins or supplements should be stopped if you are starting acupuncture treatments. Ask your specialist if there should be any certain medications or vitamins that you stop taking before the treatments begin. You don't want to inadvertently stall your progress. It is always important that you feel comfortable with the person preforming acupuncture on you. Being uncomfortable and remaining tense through the treatments can end up being counterproductive to your therapy. Find an acupuncturist that you feel totally comfortable with and once you do, stick with that person. You can even give other people referrals. Herbs Talk to a doctor about anything you are taking if you plan on having acupuncture treatments. If you are currently taking medication, herbs, or supplements, you need to speak to your doctor about what you can continue to take. They may have to make changes to what you're taking before or in between your acupuncture treatments. Ask your acupuncturist if there are certain herbs you should consume in between sessions. Remember, this is a holistic practice. There are many different things to it compared to Western medicine. Herbs are a big part of it. They can help relax your body and remove any sort of pain left over from your session. Acupuncturists often recommend herbal treatments prior to a session. These herbs can benefit you, but they may either have side effects or wreak havoc with your current medication. Speak to your main doctor prior to taking herbal supplements so as not to cause problems. Are you currently taking any medications, vitamins, or herbs? If so, get in touch with your doctor and ask him whether or not you can continue to take these things before and during your acupuncture sessions. You would hate for your acupuncture sessions to be less effective because you did not know you weren't supposed to take any of these things. If you want to try acupuncture and you have not heard that much about it, you can learn more about the process by reading about it or asking friends. However, the tips in this article should have given you some idea on how it works. Now you can make the decision about going through with it, if it's right for you!

Get Educated About Acupuncture With These Simple To Follow Tips Acupuncture can be a great experience for people that are informed about the process and the benefits that can result. Rather than assuming that acupuncture will be very uncomfortable or painful, keep reading on to find out the truth. The tips in this article should give you some clarity about the process! Make sure you contact your insurance company prior to scheduling acupuncture appointments. There may be some treatments or specific programs that are covered and others that your insurance company might not pay for. Prior to treatment, check out insurance issues with both your insurance company and the acupuncturist. If you are nervous about acupuncture, and you are not sure if it is right for you, do not be afraid to ask questions. Believe it or not, one of the most common inquiries is whether or not the acupuncturist practices a painless style of treatment. Your fears may be eased when you hear some of the answers. Some vitamins or supplements should be stopped if you are starting acupuncture treatments. Ask your specialist if there should be any certain medications or vitamins that you stop taking before the treatments begin. You don't want to inadvertently stall your progress. It is always important that you feel comfortable with the person preforming acupuncture on you. Being uncomfortable and remaining tense through the treatments can end up being counterproductive to your therapy. Find an acupuncturist that you feel totally comfortable with and once you do, stick with that person. You can even give other people referrals. Herbs Talk to a doctor about anything you are taking if you plan on having acupuncture treatments. If you are currently taking medication, herbs, or supplements, you need to speak to your doctor about what you can continue to take. They may have to make changes to what you're taking before or in between your acupuncture treatments. Ask your acupuncturist if there are certain herbs you should consume in between sessions. Remember, this is a holistic practice. There are many different things to it compared to Western medicine. Herbs are a big part of it. They can help relax your body and remove any sort of pain left over from your session. Acupuncturists often recommend herbal treatments prior to a session. These herbs can benefit you, but they may either have side effects or wreak havoc with your current medication. Speak to your main doctor prior to taking herbal supplements so as not to cause problems. Are you currently taking any medications, vitamins, or herbs? If so, get in touch with your doctor and ask him whether or not you can continue to take these things before and during your acupuncture sessions. You would hate for your acupuncture sessions to be less effective because you did not know you weren't supposed to take any of these things. If you want to try acupuncture and you have not heard that much about it, you can learn more about the process by reading about it or asking friends. However, the tips in this article should have given you some idea on how it works by visit rosholistic.com

Then I practiced doing that on the blog for months and months. Hinge moments came, reshaping my passion and adding important details to my plan. Over time I learned to plan out posts weeks in advance and set some goals I planned to hit. I stayed flexible to allow the plan to develop as I continued to practice.

Many people report that the greatest fear they face today is the fear of not having enough money to maintain their lifestyle throughout retirement. Does this sound like you? Social Security is still a vital role in retirement income. The greatest benefit Social Security provides is regular income that is guaranteed to increase over time and continue as long as you live. Keep in mind, Social Security taxes are just that – taxes. As a result, a worker’s retirement security is entirely dependent upon political decisions. Nevertheless, for now, this benefit makes Social Security one of the most valuable sources of income during one’s retirement. Unfortunately, most Americans do not know much about Social Security. They know even less about how to maximize the benefits that may help sustain them throughout retirement. Whether you are depending upon Social Security to make a significant impact on your retirement income or just a part of your entire financial portfolio, it would be wise to understand which claiming options are available to get the most out of your Social Security income. Even in these tough times and volatile markets, we help our clients take a comprehensive approach to their retirement planning. We offer a complimentary service that we call Social Security Maximization or SSI Max. There are hundreds of ways to claim your Social Security, but which one is right for you and your family? One simple mistake or misjudgment of the program can cost you thousands of dollars that you rightfully deserve. Download our free eBook: 4 Myths about Social Security Income to learn a few common misconceptions about Social Security Income. Find out your SSI Max Strategy Our team of experts use a proprietary system that links to the government’s official Social Security website. It only takes a few minutes to generate your SSI Max Report. Click here to see a sample report and act quickly to get your very own personalized report. Just schedule a call with me to find out your very own, optimal SSI Max Strategy! Click here to schedule now! P.S. – Be sure to ask me about including a “Shortfall Analysis” in your report. Our clients are LOVING this feature! Seriously! What is it? Our Advanced Case Design team builds a comprehensive financial plan best suited for your specific situation by considering all of your retirement vehicles. This is, without a doubt, the best retirement planning offer you will see in a very, very long time!

I am not super-attached to my career,' Audrey Tautou says in that sultry, Gallic voice of hers, a glint of recklessness in her big brown eyes. 'I have several plan Bs: I want to become a sailor; I like to draw; I would love to learn many things, but I don’t have time…' She trails off, leaving an uncertain silence hanging over the Kensington hotel room where we’ve met to discuss her latest film, a delightful comic confection called Beautiful Lies. 'That is the problem, you know,' she continues, more carefully. 'That is the reason why I will quit acting very soon.' She lets out a strange little laugh, a creaky exhalation, as if her own admission has taken her by surprise... 'I didn’t want to have this power,' she says, with a shrug. 'I would rather have freedom; and to find that you have to stop being in big, exposed movies. I don’t surf on the big waves. When I see them coming, I take my board and go straight back to the beach.'... 'I am always surprised to be chosen by a director for a role because I never understand why they like me,' she says. Surely, I suggest, that is false modesty, coming from one of Europe’s most bankable stars. 'Oh no, really, I am serious,' she says, leaning forward and planting her feet back on the carpet. 'I am always surprised to be cast.' Does her track record – in Jeunet’s hits; or in Stephen Frears’s acclaimed Dirty Pretty Things, or as a compellingly self-possessed Coco Chanel in Anne Fontaine’s 2009 biopic – not give her at least a little confidence? 'No,' she says with a scowl, 'pas du tout.' 'A few months ago, I watched one of my old movies and I thought to myself, 'Oh, Jesus!’ Thank God that at the point I made that film I didn’t realise the extent to which I was terrible. Oh, mon dieu! Mon dieu!' But surely, I say, she can take from that the reassurance that she has only improved as an actress. 'Or,' she says, jabbing a finger in the air, 'I say to myself, does it simply mean that if in another 10 years I rewatch the films I am making today I will say, 'Oh mon dieu, how terrible I was then.’ She laughs that odd, breathy laugh again and then looks me dead in the eye. 'You have to be very careful in this life.

Minsky was an ardent supporter of the Cyc project, the most notorious failure in the history of AI. The goal of Cyc was to solve AI by entering into a computer all the necessary knowledge. When the project began in the 1980s, its leader, Doug Lenat, confidently predicted success within a decade. Thirty years later, Cyc continues to grow without end in sight, and commonsense reasoning still eludes it. Ironically, Lenat has belatedly embraced populating Cyc by mining the web, not because Cyc can read, but because there’s no other way. Even if by some miracle we managed to finish coding up all the necessary pieces, our troubles would be just beginning. Over the years, a number of research groups have attempted to build complete intelligent agents by putting together algorithms for vision, speech recognition, language understanding, reasoning, planning, navigation, manipulation, and so on. Without a unifying framework, these attempts soon hit an insurmountable wall of complexity: too many moving parts, too many interactions, too many bugs for poor human software engineers to cope with. Knowledge engineers believe AI is just an engineering problem, but we have not yet reached the point where engineering can take us the rest of the way. In 1962, when Kennedy gave his famous moon-shot speech, going to the moon was an engineering problem. In 1662, it wasn’t, and that’s closer to where AI is today. In industry, there’s no sign that knowledge engineering will ever be able to compete with machine learning outside of a few niche areas. Why pay experts to slowly and painfully encode knowledge into a form computers can understand, when you can extract it from data at a fraction of the cost? What about all the things the experts don’t know but you can discover from data? And when data is not available, the cost of knowledge engineering seldom exceeds the benefit. Imagine if farmers had to engineer each cornstalk in turn, instead of sowing the seeds and letting them grow: we would all starve.

Passage Four: From Functional Manager to Business Manager This leadership passage is often the most satisfying as well as the most challenging of a manager’s career, and it’s mission-critical in organizations. Business mangers usually receive significant autonomy, which people with leadership instincts find liberating. They also are able to see a clear link between their efforts and marketplace results. At the same time, this is a sharp turn; it requires a major shift in skills, time applications, and work values. It’s not simply a matter of people becoming more strategic and cross-functional in their thinking (though it’s important to continue developing the abilities rooted in the previous level). Now they are in charge of integrating functions, whereas before they simply had to understand and work with other functions. But the biggest shift is from looking at plans and proposals functionally (Can we do it technically, professionally, or physically?) to a profit perspective (Will we make any money if we do this?) and to a long-term view (Is the profitability result sustainable?). New business managers must change the way they think in order to be successful. There are probably more new and unfamiliar responsibilities here than at other levels. For people who have been in only one function for their entire career, a business manager position represents unexplored territory; they must suddenly become responsible for many unfamiliar functions and outcomes. Not only do they have to learn to manage different functions, but they also need to become skilled at working with a wider variety of people than ever before; they need to become more sensitive to functional diversity issues and communicating clearly and effectively. Even more difficult is the balancing act between future goals and present needs and making trade-offs between the two. Business managers must meet quarterly profit, market share, product, and people targets, and at the same time plan for goals three to five years into the future. The paradox of balancing short-term and long-term thinking is one that bedevils many managers at this turn—and why one of the requirements here is for thinking time. At this level, managers need to stop doing every second of the day and reserve time for reflection and analysis. When business managers don’t make this turn fully, the leadership pipeline quickly becomes clogged. For example, a common failure at this level is not valuing (or not effectively using) staff functions. Directing and energizing finance, human resources, legal, and other support groups are crucial business manager responsibilities. When managers don’t understand or appreciate the contribution of support staff, these staff people don’t deliver full performance. When the leader of the business demeans or diminishes their roles, staff people deliver halfhearted efforts; they can easily become energy-drainers. Business managers must learn to trust, accept advice, and receive feedback from all functional managers, even though they may never have experienced these functions personally.

If you want to build up your condition and become able to run for 30 minutes continuously, then this 8-week walk/run plan will help you achieve just that: Week 1 – Start walking for five minutes to warm up. Jog for one minute, then return to walking and walk for 6 minutes. Repeat this three times. It is recommended to run for three sessions this first week. Week 2 – Warm yourself by walking for five minutes. Run for 2 minutes, then walk for five. Repeat this four times. Do three running sessions this week. Week 3 – Again, start by walking for 5 minutes. Switch to running and jog for 4 minutes and slow down by walking for 2. Repeat this four times. Do four sessions of running this week. Week 4 – After walking for five minutes, run for 5 and walk for 2 minutes. Repeat this 4 times. This session should be done three times this week. Week 5 – After warming up, run for 8 minutes and walk for two. Repeat

What is the difference between an anxiety reaction and an anxiety attack? Perhaps it can best be explained by degree. The victim of an anxiety attack feels an overall loss of control, of being unable to cope with the situation that caused the symptoms. Thoughts such as “I’m afraid I’m going crazy” or “I’m afraid I’m going to pass out” or “I’m afraid I’m losing control” may occupy the victim’s mind. For those who suffer repeated anxiety attacks, fear of the anxiety symptoms, such as dizziness and sweating, may become as prominent as the fear of the event that causes the symptoms. If you experience a panic attack, follow the steps below to bring it under control. Please note that these steps are not designed to “cure” the panic attack, but they will help you handle it better when it occurs. If you like, jot down these six steps and keep them handy (in your purse or wallet). That way, you’ll have a plan of action the next time a panic attack occurs. 1. Accept the reality. Acknowledge that a panic attack is upon you. Admitting you are panicked does not mean agreeing to continue having panic attacks forever. All it means is that, for the moment, you have to accept the reality and learn to flow with it. Panic attacks do end, and with stress management, you will learn to control your anxiety. 2. Roll with the punch. Just as professional boxers are trained to roll with the punch instead of turning into it, so must you learn to go with the flow of the panic attack. Don’t deny your feelings. Roll with them, and do what you can to make yourself as comfortable as possible until your relaxation techniques bring down your extreme stress level. 3. Try to float with it. Learn to get in touch with your relaxation response, and use deep breathing and mental imagery to float through the panic experience. Go with the force, not against it, to create a sense of ease. Think of a surfer riding a wave. 4. Tell someone you trust. If you are with someone who is close to you, you may feel better if you let that person know you are experiencing an anxiety attack. This can relieve a lot of internal pressure on you (you won’t feel the need to cover up). 5. Use relaxation techniques to bring down your stress level. But this can only be applied once you have mastered the techniques. After you give yourself permission to roll with the attack, you can apply relaxation techniques to bring it down. An increase of even three degrees in hand temperature is enough to abort an anxiety attack. 6. Remember FEAR means FALSE EVIDENCE APPEARS REAL.

A leader’s checklist for planning should include the following: • Analyze the mission. —Understand higher headquarters’ mission, Commander’s Intent, and endstate (the goal). —Identify and state your own Commander’s Intent and endstate for the specific mission. • Identify personnel, assets, resources, and time available. • Decentralize the planning process. —Empower key leaders within the team to analyze possible courses of action. • Determine a specific course of action. —Lean toward selecting the simplest course of action. —Focus efforts on the best course of action. • Empower key leaders to develop the plan for the selected course of action. • Plan for likely contingencies through each phase of the operation. • Mitigate risks that can be controlled as much as possible. • Delegate portions of the plan and brief to key junior leaders. —Stand back and be the tactical genius. • Continually check and question the plan against emerging information to ensure it still fits the situation. • Brief the plan to all participants and supporting assets. —Emphasize Commander’s Intent. —Ask questions and engage in discussion and interaction with the team to ensure they understand. • Conduct post-operational debrief after execution. —Analyze lessons learned and implement them in future planning.

Turning Rejection Around What if your friendly, hopeful conversation starter is not met with signals of approval or interest? If the person you approach is fidgety, avoids eye contact, appears uneasy, and exhibits none of the signals of welcome, chances are he or she is not interested in interaction—at least not at that moment. The first thing to do is slow down. Be patient, and give the person time to relax with you. If you present yourself as relaxed and open to whatever develops (whether a good conversation, a valuable working relationship, even friendship or romance), your companion may in time relax too. Use your verbal skills to create an interesting conversation and a sense of ease to break the tension. Don’t pressure yourself to be able to define a relationship from the first meeting. Keep your expectations general, and remember the playfulness factor. Enjoy someone’s company with no strings attached. Don’t fabricate obligations where none exist. It may take several conversations for a relationship to develop. If you had hoped for romance but the feelings appear not to be reciprocated, switch your interest to friendship, which has its own rich rewards. What if you are outright rejected? Rejection at any point—at first meeting, during a date, or well into a relationship—can be painful and difficult for most of us. But there are ways to prevent it from being an all-out failure. One thing I like to tell my clients is that the Chinese word for failure can be interpreted to mean “opportunity.” And opportunities, after all, are there for the taking. It all depends on how you perceive things. There is a technique you can borrow from salespeople to counter your feelings of rejection. High-earning salespeople know that you can’t succeed without being turned down at least occasionally. Some even look forward to rejection, because they know that being turned down this time brings them that much closer to succeeding next time around. They may even learn something in the process. So keep this in mind as you experiment with your new, social self: Hearing a no now may actually bring you closer to the bigger and better yes that is soon to happen! Apply this idea as you practice interacting: Being turned down at any point in the process helps you to learn a little more—about how to approach a stranger, have a conversation, make plans, go on a date, or move toward intimacy. If you learn something positive from the experience, you can bring that with you into your next social situation. Just as in sales, the payoff in either romance or friendship is worth far more than the possible downfall or minor setback of being turned down. A note on self-esteem: Rejection can hurt, but it certainly does not have to be devastating. It’s okay to feel disappointed when we do not get the reaction we want. But all too often, people overemphasize the importance or meaning of rejection—especially where fairly superficial interactions such as a first meeting or casual date are concerned. Here are some tips to keep rejection in perspective: -Don’t overthink it. Overanalysis will only increase your anxiety. -Keep the feelings of disappointment specific to the rejection situation at hand. Don’t say, “No one ever wants to talk to me.” Say, “Too bad the chemistry wasn’t right for both of us.” -Learn from the experience. Ask yourself what you might have done differently, if anything, but then move on. Don’t beat yourself up about it. If those thoughts start, use your thought-stopping techniques (p. 138) to control them. -Use your “Adult” to look objectively at what happened. Remember, rejecting your offer of conversation or an evening out does not mean rejecting your whole “being.” You must continue to believe that you have something to offer, and that there are open, available people who would like to get to know you.

Smart entrepreneurs have grabbed this opportunity with a vengeance. Now online lesson-plan marketplaces such as Gooru Learning, Teachers Pay Teachers, and Share My Lesson allow teachers who want to devote more of their time to other tasks the ability to purchase high-quality (and many lesser-quality) lesson plans, ready to go. With sensors, data, and A.I., we can begin, even today, testing for the learning efficacy of different lectures, styles, and more. And, because humans do a poor job of incorporating massive amounts of information to make iterative decisions, in the very near future, computers will start doing more and more of the lesson planning. They will write the basic lessons and learn what works and what doesn’t for specific students. Creative teachers will continue, though, to be incredibly valuable: they will learn how to steer and curate algorithmic and heuristically updated lesson creation in ways that computers could not necessarily imagine. All of this is, of course, a somewhat bittersweet development. Teaching is an idealistic profession. You probably remember a special teacher who shaped your life, encouraged your interests, and made school exciting. The movies and pop culture are filled with paeans to unselfish, underpaid teachers fighting the good fight and helping their charges. But it is becoming clearer that teaching, like many other white-collar jobs that have resisted robots, is something that robots can do—possibly, in structured curricula, better than humans can. The

Seven Steps of Relationship Development For people with social anxiety, dating can be particularly stressful. There are many unknowns: “Does this person share my interest?” “Will it work out?” and so on. Here are a few guidelines to help keep you on track through the initial stages of a potentially romantic relationship: 1. Develop conversation that explores areas of common interest or experience. 2. Make it clear that you like the person, and make plans to meet again. 3. Make a follow-up call to arrange your first date, and plan an interesting or enjoyable time. Be prepared with suggestions, but be flexible. 4. On your first date: -Be yourself—and be attentive. -Continue exploring areas of mutual interest. -Determine if there is positive chemistry and if a relationship is worth pursuing. If a potential relationship is developing, both individuals usually drop hints about doing other things together. Each expresses enthusiasm through eye contact, voice qualities, body language, and a developing conversation that expresses a sincere desire to learn more about each other. 5. Continue to see each other and share your feelings. Let the other person know how you are feeling about him or her. The frequency of contact is usually a good indicator of whether a romantic relationship is developing; less intensity is likely to mean it is something more casual. 6. Consider being romantic—sending flowers, having a candlelight dinner, and so on. 7. If the chemistry develops, you may be ready to become involved physically. Take it slowly. Good things are not rushed.

Groups are, in a sense, a microcosm of the real world. In all groups, there are leaders and followers . . . and many people who fall somewhere in between. Some groups are professionally led, and some are self- or volunteer-directed. In every group, there will be people you like and people you don’t, people who seek you out, and people who do not. Understanding and joining in the group process and making it work for you is what is important. Experiment with several groups, if you like, to find the ones that you enjoy the most. Strive to find a group in which you think you would feel comfortable expressing yourself or interacting with others and which has an appropriate meaning for you (a self-help group should address your particular issues; a hobby club should focus on something you enjoy). Attend the group a few times to get a sense of how members interact with each other. If the thought of doing so still causes you anxiety, continue working on stress management, and remain fairly passive in the group until you feel more comfortable. In my own social therapy group program, our purpose is to help individuals learn how to control social anxiety and refine their interactive skills. Social anxiety is a people-oriented problem, which makes group experience important both theoretically and practically. Some traditional therapists have called my program unorthodox because it encourages patients to talk to and learn from each other—as opposed to the isolation and protection offered by many of the more conservative therapies. But I say that social interaction is something you learn by doing. My groups are places to practice, make mistakes, and experience success in a supportive yet challenging environment. Of course, even in such a supportive setting, resistance still arises. In a “friendly” forum, stressors can be explored and confronted more easily, however, and I have found that the degree to which a person uses the group is often a good indicator of how well he or she is progressing therapeutically. Good attendance shows effort and commitment; poor attendance indicates that a person is giving in to anxiety. I’ve heard all the excuses and manipulations—canceling plans is typical of people with avoidance problems related to social anxiety. (I’m sometimes tempted to open a garage to repair all those cars that break down on group night!) Yet often, after overcoming the initial stage of anxiety, many participants enjoy the process. As you consider the option of incorporating various kinds of groups in your community into your self-help program, remember that groups can be a very important component of your map for change. Groups can provide you with the opportunity to practice the skills that are crucial to your success. Make sure that your expectations are realistic and that you understand the purpose and the limitations of whatever group you join.

Our minds thus grow in spots; and like grease-spots, the spots spread. But we let them spread as little as possible: we keep unaltered as much of our old knowledge, as many of our old prejudices and belief, as we can. We patch and tinker more than we renew. The novelty soaks in; it stains the ancient mass; but it is also tinged by what absorbs it. Our past apperceives and co-operates; and in the new equilibrium in which each step forward in the process of learning terminates, it happens relatively seldom that the new fact is added raw. More usually it is embedded cooked, as one might say, or stewed down in the sauce of the old. New truths thus are resultants of new experiences and of old truths combined and mutually modifying one another. And since this is the case in the changes opinion of to-day, there is no reason to assume that it has not been so at all times. It follows that very ancient modes of thought may have survived through all the later changes in men's opinions. The most primitive ways of thinking may not yet be wholly expunged. Like our five fingers, our ear-bones, our rudimentary caudal appendage, or our other 'vestigial' peculiarities, they may remain as indelible tokens of events in our race-history. Our ancestors may at certain moments have struck into ways of thinking which they might conceivably not have found. But once they did so, and after the fact, the inheritance continues. When you begin a piece of music in a certain key, you must keep the key to the end. You may alter your house ad libitum, but the ground-plan of the first architect persists - you can make great changes, but you cannot change a Gothic church into a Doric temple. You may rinse and rinse the bottle, but you can't get the taste of the medicine or whiskey that first filled it wholly out. My thesis now is this, that our fundamental ways of thinking about things are discoveries of exceedingly remote ancestors, which have been able to preserve themselves throughout the experience of all subsequent time. They form one great stage of equilibrium in the human mind's development, the stage of common sense. Other stages have grafted themselves upon this stage, but have never succeeded in displacing it.

Sweet Dreams In the evening I like to “cash out”—something I learned from waiting tables in my youth. Before we could go home, we had to cash out, meaning turn in all our receipts, credit card slips, and cash. Everything had to add up, or there was big trouble! It’s important to cash out your day’s performance. Compared to your plan for the day, how did it go? What do you need to carry over to tomorrow’s plan? What else needs to be added, based on what showed up throughout the day? What’s no longer important and needs to be scratched out? Additionally, I like to log into my journal any new ideas, ah-has or insights I picked up throughout the day—this is how I’ve collected more than forty journals of incredible ideas, insights, and strategies. Finally, I like to read at least ten pages of an inspirational book before going to sleep. I know the mind continues to process the last information consumed before bedtime, so I want to focus my attention on something constructive and helpful in making progress with my goals and ambitions. That’s it. All hell can break loose throughout the day, but because I control the bookends, I know I’m always going to start and finish strong.

A strong product culture means that the team understands the importance of continuous and rapid testing and learning. They understand that they need to make mistakes in order to learn, but they need to make them quickly and mitigate the risks. They understand the need for continuous innovation. They know that great products are the result of true collaboration. They respect and value their designers and engineers. They understand the power of a motivated product team. A strong VP product will understand the importance of a strong product culture, be able to give real examples of her own experiences with product culture, and have concrete plans for instilling this culture in your company.

Solvay Business School Professor Paul Verdin and I developed a perspective that frames an organization's strategy as a hypothesis rather than a plan.62 Like all hypotheses, it starts with situation assessment and analysis –strategy's classic tools. Also, like all hypotheses, it must be tested through action. When strategy is seen as a hypothesis to be continually tested, encounters with customers provide valuable data of ongoing interest to senior executives.

And you learn all kinds of things, he continued, you learn who the real God of the black man is! Not this blue-eyed, long haired Jesus individual - no! And let me arks you: how comes I never even really heard of him or his name before I get up in there? Look it up. You learn a lot that you can't learn in school, because these people won't tell you nothing, nothing about African kings, nothing about Egyptian queens, nothing about Mohammed, they hide it all, they hide the whole of our history so we feel like we're nothing, we feel like we're at the bottom of the pyramid, that's the whole plan, but the truth is we built the fucking Pyramids.

Interestingly, Freeman describes a set of circumstances in which the unstructured group can, in fact, work: It is task oriented. Its function is very narrow and very specific, like putting on a conference or putting out a newspaper. It is the task that basically structures the group. The task determines what needs to be done and when it needs to be done. It provides a guide by which people can judge their actions and make plans for future activity. It is relatively small and homogeneous. Homogeneity is necessary to insure that participants have a “common language” for interaction. People from widely different backgrounds may provide richness to a consciousness-raising group where each can learn from the others’ experience, but too great a diversity among members of a task-oriented group means only that they continually misunderstand each other. Such diverse people interpret words and actions differently. They have different expectations about each other’s behavior and judge the results according to different criteria. If everyone knows everyone else well enough to understand the nuances, they can be accommodated. Usually, they only lead to confusion and endless hours spent straightening out conflicts no one ever thought would arise. There is a high degree of communication. Information must be passed on to everyone, opinions checked, work divided up, and participation assured in the relevant decisions. This is only possible if the group is small and people practically live together for the most crucial phases of the task. Needless to say, the number of interactions necessary to involve everybody increases geometrically with the number of participants. This inevitably limits group participants to about five, or excludes some from some of the decisions. Successful groups can be as large as 10 or 15, but only when they are in fact composed of several smaller subgroups which perform specific parts of the task, and whose members overlap with each other so that knowledge of what the different subgroups are doing can be passed around easily. There is a low degree of skill specialization. Not everyone has to be able to do everything, but everything must be able to be done by more than one person. Thus no one is indispensable. To a certain extent, people become interchangeable parts. Here

The first real community problem came when it was learned that the entire supply of school study spools were lost in the crashed ships. There was talk among the colonists of sending a ship back to Earth at once for replacements, but Vidac stepped in and took over. He called a meeting with the three Space Cadets, Jeff Marshall, and Professor Sykes, and told them of his plan. "I want you to make new study spools on every subject you can remember," Vidac ordered. "Simple arithmetic, spelling, geography, celestial studies, physics, in fact, everything that you learned in prep school–and before that." "That may be all right for boys," grumbled Professor Sykes, still smarting under the refusal of his violent protest at being taken from his uranium studies and placed in charge of the school problem. "But what about the girls? There are quite a few of them and they need special consideration." "What kind of consideration?" asked Vidac. "Well, whatever it is a girl has to know. Sew, cook, keep house, take care of children and–and–" The professor sputtered, hesitated, and concluded lamely, "A–a lot of things!" Vidac smiled. "Very well. I'll speak to a few of the mothers and see if I can't get you some assistance. In the meantime, I want you, Corbett, Manning, Astro, and Marshall to do what you can about beginning the children's schooling." "All right," snorted Sykes, "but I can think of better ways to spend the next two or three weeks." "And one more thing, Professor," continued Vidac. "I want it clearly understood that you are responsible for the cadets. For what they do, or don't do!

I could feel the tension leaving her as she gave in, her kisses rich and consuming as I explored her mouth with mine. I moved my hand that final inch, my thumb dragging its way up the centre of her panties until I found her clit and pressed down, making her gasp in pleasure. I began circling my thumb against her through her panties and she arched her back, her thighs widening further to give me all the access I wanted to destroy her. I kissed harder as I began to unhook her shirt buttons with my free hand, wanting to see those fucking tits I'd been jerking off over in the flesh. Her hands continued to move across my bare skin as I kept working her clit and I gave up trying to take my time with her as she started panting with need. I shifted my hand, pushing her panties aside and growling with desire as I found her pussy soaked and ready for me and I immediately sank a finger deep inside her. Tory moaned, her voice rough and breathy and so fucking sexy that I had to fight the urge to drop my pants and drive my cock into her here and now so that I could hear what it sounded like when I really made her scream. But thanks to fucking Teddy, I knew I didn't have time to fuck her the way I ached to and I didn't want to rush through something I'd been daydreaming about for so long. So I was going to feel her coming for me like this, take control of her pleasure and leave her wanting more so that she was aching for me as much as possible the next time we found ourselves alone like this and I could really show her what I was made of. My other hand found her tit and I squeezed it through her bra, groaning at the fullness in my palm and breaking our kiss as I worked my way down her body to better service her hardened nipple. Tory leaned back, giving me a perfect fucking view of her with her shirt swinging wide and her skirt hitched up around her waist as I drove my finger in and out of her tight pussy. I yanked her bra down, my dick jerking at the sight of her pink nipple before my mouth descended on it and I sucked it between my lips, coupling the move with the addition of a second finger driving inside her. She moaned even louder, her pussy tightening like a vice around my fingers while I sucked on her nipple and felt her body surging towards its climax like I was playing the most exquisite instrument in the world. The moment I felt her coming for me, I reared up and kissed her hard, swallowing her cries of pleasure and tasting her lust as I dragged my tongue over hers. My dick was fucking aching and I growled with a desperate, needy plea of my flesh which I knew I didn't have time to answer as the heat of our kisses softened and I slowly drew my fingers back out of her, fixing her panties into place again. I broke off our kiss with a surge of effort, mentally planning to give Teddy the lesson from hell for forcing me to cut this shit short after I'd waited so long to claim it. Tory blinked up at me in surprise and I had to fight the urge to pout like a bitch as I read the desire in her body and knew she'd been hoping to come all over my cock again after that stunning first round. “I have a student coming in a minute to learn the art of Vampirism from an expert,” I explained, wishing I could just cancel the damn thing, but my mom had already been calling me out on not attending a bunch of these sessions and as our family name was linked to them, it was a bad look for me to miss any more of them. “So that was purely for my benefit?” Tory asked in surprise as she began to re-button her shirt. My jaw ticked with frustration, though I couldn't claim she was the only one of us who had gotten something out of that. “Oh no, I got plenty from that too,” I promised her, my gaze sweeping over her body appreciatively as I began to mentally plan all the things I wanted to do to every inch of her if I was lucky enough to get to do this with her again. (Caleb POV)

Teams were involved in creating new technologies, processes, and systems. • Cross-functional teams were formed around new great ideas. • Customers were involved from the inception of each feature concept. It’s important to understand that the old approach did not lack customer feedback or customer involvement in the planning process. In the true spirit of genchi gembutsu, Intuit product managers (PMs) would do “follow-me-homes” with customers to identify problems to solve in the next release. However, the PMs were responsible for all the customer research. They would bring it back to the team and say, “This is the problem we want to solve, and here are ideas for how we could solve it.” Changing to a cross-functional way of working was not smooth sailing. Some team members were skeptical. For example, some product managers felt that it was a waste of time for engineers to spend time in front of customers. The PMs thought that their job was to figure out the customer issue and define what needed to be built. Thus, the reaction of some PMs to the change was: “What’s my job? What am I supposed to be doing?” Similarly, some on the engineering side just wanted to be told what to do; they didn’t want to talk to customers. As is typically the case in large-batch development, both groups had been willing to sacrifice the team’s ability to learn in order to work more “efficiently.

Why do we continue to accept scarcity as given, treating it as the central organizing principle of our economics, policymaking, city planning, and personal ethics? Why do we continue to act like the farmer who, upon learning that his dog is lying on a pile of hay meant for cattle to eat and baring his teeth when the cows come near, chooses to drop their rations, feeding them with what scraps he can snatch from the edge of the pile? Why don’t we just move the dog?

Leadership is not always an open or closed lid but the continuous action of leading. It is not a Win, Lose; Winner Takes All; but a Win, Win if you never stop learning to lead. A leader that falls short of the mark and uses the wisdom of their past history of pitfalls and blunders can develop into a more powerful leader than before. This successful leadership style can be proven and altered over time, therefore; nothing is instant gratification. It takes time, hard work, planning, and prayer to become a great leader and maintain leadership." – Terrance Robinson, Artist, Author, and Educator

Leadership is not always an open or closed case but the continuous action of leading. It is not a Win, Lose; Winner Takes All; but a Win, Win if you never stop learning to lead. A leader that falls short of the mark and uses the wisdom of their past history of pitfalls and blunders can develop into a more effective leader than before. This successful leadership style can be proven and altered over time, therefore; nothing is instant gratification. It takes time, hard work, planning, and prayer to become a great leader and maintain leadership.

For example, consider one of Intuit’s flagship products. Because TurboTax does most of its sales around tax season in the United States, it used to have an extremely conservative culture. Over the course of the year, the marketing and product teams would conceive one major initiative that would be rolled out just in time for tax season. Now they test over five hundred different changes in a two-and-a-half-month tax season. They’re running up to seventy different tests per week. The team can make a change live on its website on Thursday, run it over the weekend, read the results on Monday, and come to conclusions starting Tuesday; then they rebuild new tests on Thursday and launch the next set on Thursday night. As Scott put it, “Boy, the amount of learning they get is just immense now. And what it does is develop entrepreneurs, because when you have only one test, you don’t have entrepreneurs, you have politicians, because you have to sell. Out of a hundred good ideas, you’ve got to sell your idea. So you build up a society of politicians and salespeople. When you have five hundred tests you’re running, then everybody’s ideas can run. And then you create entrepreneurs who run and learn and can retest and relearn as opposed to a society of politicians. So we’re trying to drive that throughout our organization, using examples which have nothing to do with high tech, like the website example. Every business today has a website. You don’t have to be high tech to use fast-cycle testing.” This kind of change is hard. After all, the company has a significant number of existing customers who continue to demand exceptional service and investors who expect steady, growing returns. Scott says, It goes against the grain of what people have been taught in business and what leaders have been taught. The problem isn’t with the teams or the entrepreneurs. They love the chance to quickly get their baby out into the market. They love the chance to have the customer vote instead of the suits voting. The real issue is with the leaders and the middle managers. There are many business leaders who have been successful because of analysis. They think they’re analysts, and their job is to do great planning and analyzing and have a plan.

Am I Not Worthy of Continual Worship? Can you learn to thank Me for everything? I have called you out of darkness to experience the light. I have tremendous plans for you, and I intend to build you in My love. Yet I allow many trials to happen in order to grow you and stretch your faith. How can gold be proven valuable unless it is tested? Beloved, do not hate My tests, but accept them wholeheartedly. I have determined to bless you greater than the trial you may suffer. Not every trial have I desired for you. Not every hardship have I created. I create that which stretches you for growth. But there are deep hardships that are not given by My hand. Nor were they in My desire for you. Nevertheless, I have allowed them and will comfort you in the midst of them. I will be a shield to you and establish a new blessing for you once again. I am able to create good from evil. Consider the heart of man! For out of the wicked, I have brought forth repentance and life. Consider Job’s life. Who destroyed him? Was it My hand or the Satan, who pressed Me for an opportunity? It was My enemy, no doubt. And you have seen the blessing I gave Job afterward. You have seen the end I had desired for Him. Indeed, I am very compassionate and full of mercy. But Job, in the midst of his pain, praised Me. Can you do this? Can you thank Me for hardship? The hardship I do lay on a man’s shoulders is for eternal life. Now, having this wisdom, can you thank Me through your trials? Can you thank Me for them? When deep trials abound, can you still worship Me? I have only ever sought to bless you. Never has My heart been set on your destruction. So set your face to worship Me. Am I not worthy?

Set the table: Decide exactly what you want. Clarity is essential. Write out your goals and objectives before you begin. Plan every day in advance: Think on paper. Every minute you spend in planning can save you five or ten minutes in execution. Apply the 80/20 Rule to everything: Twenty percent of your activities will account for 80 percent of your results. Always concentrate your efforts on that top 20 percent. Consider the consequences: Your most important tasks and priorities are those that can have the most serious consequences, positive or negative, on your life or work. Focus on these above all else. Practice creative procrastination: Since you can't do everything, you must learn to deliberately put off those tasks that are of low value so that you have enough time to do the few things that really count. Use the ABCDE Method continually: Before you begin work on a list of tasks, take a few moments to organize them by value and priority so you can be sure of working on your most important activities. Focus on key result areas: Identify and determine those results that you absolutely, positively have to get to do your job well, and work on them all day long. The Law of Three: Identify the three things you do in your work that account for 90 percent of your contribution, and focus on getting them done before anything else. You will then have more time for your family and personal life. Prepare thoroughly before you begin: Have everything you need at hand before you start. Assemble all the papers, information, tools, work materials, and numbers you might require so that you can get started and keep going. Take it one oil barrel at a time: You can accomplish the biggest and most complicated job if you just complete it one step at a time. Upgrade your key skills: The more knowledgeable and skilled you become at your key tasks, the faster you start them and the sooner you get them done. Leverage your special talents: Determine exactly what it is that you are very good at doing, or could be very good at, and throw your whole heart into doing those specific things very, very well. Identify your key constraints: Determine the bottlenecks or choke points, internal or external, that set the speed at which you achieve your most important goals, and focus on alleviating them. Put the pressure on yourself: Imagine that you have to leave town for a month, and work as if you had to get all your major tasks completed before you left. Maximize your personal power: Identify your periods of highest mental and physical energy each day, and structure your most important and demanding tasks around these times. Get lots of rest so you can perform at your best. Motivate yourself into action: Be your own cheerleader. Look for the good in every situation. Focus on the solution rather than the problem. Always be optimistic and constructive. Get out of the technological time sinks: Use technology to improve the quality of your communications, but do not allow yourself to become a slave to it. Learn to occasionally turn things off and leave them off. Slice and dice the task: Break large, complex tasks down into bite-sized pieces, and then do just one small part of the task to get started. Create large chunks of time: Organize your days around large blocks of time where you can concentrate for extended periods on your most important tasks. Develop a sense of urgency: Make a habit of moving fast on your key tasks. Become known as a person who does things quickly and well. Single handle every task: Set clear priorities, start immediately on your most important task, and then work without stopping until the job is 100 percent complete. This is the real key to high performance and maximum personal productivity.

to many of the skills in this book, there is much the average civilian can learn from an operative’s mindset. First and foremost, that mindset is defined by preparedness and awareness. Whether in home territory or under deepest cover, operatives are continually scanning the general landscape for threats even when they’re not on the clock. Civilians, too, can train their minds toward habits such as scouting exit routes in crowded restaurants or building spur-of-the-moment escape plans. This kind of vigilance allows an operative confronted with sudden danger to take

Legal risks may be daunting, but you may be surprised to learn that the most common objection I have heard over the years to building an MVP is fear of competitors—especially large established companies—stealing a startup’s ideas. If only it were so easy to have a good idea stolen! Part of the special challenge of being a startup is the near impossibility of having your idea, company, or product be noticed by anyone, let alone a competitor. In fact, I have often given entrepreneurs fearful of this issue the following assignment: take one of your ideas (one of your lesser insights, perhaps), find the name of the relevant product manager at an established company who has responsibility for that area, and try to get that company to steal your idea. Call them up, write them a memo, send them a press release—go ahead, try it. The truth is that most managers in most companies are already overwhelmed with good ideas. Their challenge lies in prioritization and execution, and it is those challenges that give a startup hope of surviving.10 If a competitor can outexecute a startup once the idea is known, the startup is doomed anyway. The reason to build a new team to pursue an idea is that you believe you can accelerate through the Build-Measure-Learn feedback loop faster than anyone else can. If that’s true, it makes no difference what the competition knows. If it’s not true, a startup has much bigger problems, and secrecy won’t fix them. Sooner or later, a successful startup will face competition from fast followers. A head start is rarely large enough to matter, and time spent in stealth mode—away from customers—is unlikely to provide a head start. The only way to win is to learn faster than anyone else. Many startups plan to invest

In the ensuing pause, he heard the sound of Albert barking outside. With despairing impatience, Christopher wondered if the blasted dog was ever going to be quiet. “He wants to protect you,” Beatrix said. “He’s wondering where I’ve taken you.” Christopher let out a taut sigh. “Perhaps I shouldn’t stay. He’ll bark for hours.” “Nonsense. Albert must learn to adapt to your plans. I’ll bring him inside.” Her authoritative manner rankled Christopher, no matter that she was right. “He might damage something,” he said, rising to his feet. “He can’t do any worse than the goat,” Beatrix replied, standing to face him. Politely Rohan stood as well, watching the two of them. “Miss Hathaway--” Christopher continued to object, but he fell silent, blinking, as she reached out and touched his chest. Her fingertips rested over his heart for the space of one heartbeat. “Let me try,” she said gently. Christopher fell back a step, his breath catching. His body responded to her touch with disconcerting swiftness. A lady never put her hand to any area of a man’s torso unless the circumstances were so extreme that…well, he couldn’t even imagine what would justify it. Perhaps if his waistcoat was on fire, and she was trying to put it out. Other than that, he couldn’t think of any defensible reason. And yet if he were to point out the breach of etiquette, the act of correcting a lady was just as graceless. Troubled and aroused, Christopher gave her a single nod.

If successful strategic thinking is regarded as a process of continuously asking challenging questions and critically and creatively thinking through the strategic issues, then learning to construct effective critical reflective processes is just as important as finding “the solution.” Thus, we must invest as much (if not more) in learning to think strategically as we do in pursuing strategic plans.

If we purchased the land, the zoo would be enlarged from four acres to six. At the time, it seemed like an enormous step to take. We argued back and forth. We talked, dreamed, and planned. Steve always seemed to worry about the future. “If anything happens to me, promise that you’ll take care of the zoo.” “Of course I will,” I said. “That’s easy to promise, but nothing is going to happen to you. Don’t worry.” “Will you still love me if a croc grabs me and I lose an arm or a leg?” “Yes, of course I would still love you,” I said. But there were many evenings when he would run through improbably scenarios, just checking to see how I really felt. One night he looked particularly concerned, his brow furrowed. “What’s up?” I asked. “Tell me why you married me.” I laughed. “Because you’re hot in the cot.” That broke the tension, and he laughed too. We both relaxed a little bit. But he would sometimes wonder if I’d married him just because I loved him, or if it was because he was a bit of Tarzan and Croc Dundee and Indiana Jones all rolled into one. “I’m in love with Steve Irwin,” I assured him, “and part of the reason I love you is because you are such a staunch advocate for wildlife. Your empathy and compassion for all animals is part of it too. But most of all, I know that destiny brought us together.” Steve continued our serious discussion, and he spoke of his mortality. He was convinced that he would never reach forty. That’s why he was in such a hurry all the time, to get as much done as he could. He didn’t feel sad about it. He only felt the motivation to make a difference before he was gone. “I’m not afraid of death,” he said. “I’m only afraid of dying. I don’t want to get sick and dwindle. I love working hard and playing hard and living hard, and making every moment count.” I learned so much from Steve. He helped me reevaluate my own purpose, my own life. What would happen if I didn’t make it to forty? What legacy would I leave? That evening he was unusually contemplative. “None of our petty problems really matter,” he said. I agreed. “In a hundred years, what difference is it going to make, worrying about this two acres of land? We need to focus on the real change that will make the world a better place for our children and grandchildren.” Steve gave me a strange look. Children? We had never discussed having children much, because we were flat strapped. The thought of filming more documentaries, running the zoo, and raising a family was just too daunting. But that evening we did agree on one thing: We would spend some of my savings and make the leap to enlarge the zoo. We were both so happy with our decision. “We’re lucky that we met before I became the Crocodile Hunter,” he said. I knew what he was talking about. It made things a lot easier, a lot more clear-cut. I had fallen in love with Steve Irwin, not the guy on TV. “I don’t know how they do it,” he said. “Who?” I asked. “People in the limelight,” he said. “How do they tell who’s in it for them and who’s just after their celebrity? It puts a new slant on everything. Not for us, though,” he added. “Too right,” I agreed.

Ernie strolled into the dungeon, carrying a shovel over his shoulder and whistling a bit of a happy tune under his breath. “Finished burying that sword, Mr. Haverstein, just like you asked me to, and there’ll be no finding it now, not with it being buried in the graveyard . . . Oh . . . hello, Miss Plum. I wasn’t expecting to find you down here in the, um, dungeon.” Ernie shot a glance to Bram, who only had a grimace to send him in return. Shifting the shovel to his other shoulder, Ernie blinked far too innocent eyes Lucetta’s way. “How goes the wedding plans?” “I’d rather discuss why you were burying the sword, and where this graveyard is, and exactly what, or who, is buried in it,” Lucetta returned. “I’ve always thought a wedding right around Christmas would be lovely,” Ernie continued as if Lucetta hadn’t spoken. “I’m sure Abigail and Iris would agree with you, Ernie, which is why I’m also sure they’re going to be incredibly disappointed to learn that there will be no wedding, at least not one that will ever see me married to your boss—Mr. Madman Haverstein.” Bram

Just last year, Mrs. Clinton claimed that as secretary of state she didn’t carry a work phone. It was too cumbersome and inconvenient for her to carry two phones. She didn’t have room for them. Then we learned she carried an iPhone and BlackBerry, neither government issued nor encrypted. Then we learned she carried an iPad and an iPad mini. But she claimed she didn’t do email. Then we learned she had email—on a private server. But then she claimed her email was for personal correspondence, yoga, and wedding planning. Then we learned her email contained government business as well—lots of it. Listen, nobody transmits classified material on the Internet! Nobody! You transmit classified material via a closed-circuit, in-house intranet or even physically via courier. You can’t even photocopy classified data except on a machine specially designed for hush-hush material, and even then you still require permission from whatever agency and issuer the document originated. So the only way for that material to be transmitted over an email is for her or someone in her office to dictate, Photoshop, or white-out the classified material in question, to remove any letterhead, or to duplicate the material by rewriting it in an email. Government email accounts are never allowed to accept emails from nongovernment email accounts. We’re supposed to delete them right away. Exceptions exist for communications with private contractors, but those exceptions are built into the system. I repeat: To duplicate classified material without permission or to send it over an unsecured channel is completely illegal. That’s why every government agency employs burn bags, safes, and special folders for anything marked Confidential, Secret, and Top Secret. People have lost their careers and gone to jail for far less. Yet Hillary Clinton transmitted classified material by the figurative ton. No one else can operate like that in government. But she takes her normal shortcuts and continues to lie about it. There is no greater example of double standards in leadership than First Lady, Senator, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Is it too inconvenient or cumbersome for her to follow the same rules that agents in the field have to follow? Maybe it would make morale too high? Clinton’s behavior harkens to the old motto: “The beatings will continue until morale improves.

A startup’s job is to (1) rigorously measure where it is right now, confronting the hard truths that assessment reveals, and then (2) devise experiments to learn how to move the real numbers closer to the ideal reflected in the business plan.

Learn about Public Service Loan Forgiveness The PSLF Program (Public Service Loan Forgiveness) encourages people to proceed and continue their participation in public service careers. In this program, eligible individuals are entitled for forgiveness of their remaining balance that is due on their federal student loans. However, they may only qualify if they were able to make 120 payments on these loans, which are under a particular repayment plan. These individuals also have a full-time employment status from public service companies, so they may qualify for the PSLF. Let’s discuss Public Service Loan Forgiveness with The Student Loan Help Center Team. How to Obtain Remaining Balances on Direct Loans If you want to have remaining balances on your direct loans forgiven through the PSLF, you must be able to make 120 monthly payments on direct loans. Furthermore, these payments should be full and made on time. Another important qualification is securing the payment after October 1, 2007. When you make these monthly payments, keep in mind that you should be a full-time employee at any accredited public service company. Important Details about Eligible Loans for Forgiveness As The Student Loan Help Center CEO Bruce Mesnekoff Said Loans that are eligible for the PSLF program are those you have received from a direct loan. On the other hand, Perkins Loans, Federal Family Education Loans (FFEL) and other types of student loans are not valid for PSLF. If you have an existing Perkins loan or FFEL, you have the option to consolidate these into direct consolidation loans, so you may avail of the outstanding benefits offered by the PSLF. Make sure, though, that the payments made on the new loan will be counted toward your payment requirement, which will last for 120 months. Facts about Qualifying Repayment Plans You will be able to maximize your benefits from the PSLF by repaying loans on the IBR (Income Based Repayments) or the ICR (Income Contingent Repayments. These plans enable you to qualify for the PSLF program. The 10-year repayment plan also qualifies you for the PSLF, as well as other plans where the monthly payment you make is equivalent or more than what you are required to pay under the standard 10-year repayment scheme. Before you decide on the best repayment scheme for paying off your direct loans, make sure you are aware of the costs and implications of such decision. When you extend the period in securing your payments for PSLF qualifying payments, you can reduce the remaining balance on your loan when you satisfy all the eligibility requirements for the PSLF program. Moreover, you will have zero balance on loans to be forgiven when you are able to make all 120 monthly payments through the 10 year standard repayment scheme. You can expect a great reduction on your monthly payments under the ICR or IBR plans, as compared to other qualifying repayment options for the PSLF program. Moreover, the repayment term is likely to extend. With a longer period in repaying your loans, you can expect additional interest to accumulate on your loan. Keep in mind, though, that your inability to meet the PSLF requirements will entitle you to pay off the entire loan balance, as well as the accrued interest.

both hands against the door. “Feet wider apart. That’s right. Like in the American movies.” Satisfied, Qazi patted the man down. “What, no gun? A GRU man without a gun …” Qazi carefully felt the man’s crotch and the arms above the wrists. “First humor and now this! The GRU will become a laughingstock. But of course there is a microphone.” Qazi lifted all the pens from the Russian’s shirt pocket and examined them, one by one. “It had better be here, Chekhov, or you will have to part with your buttons and your shoes.” It was in the third pen. “Now turn around and sit against the door.” The Russian’s face was covered with perspiration, his fleshy lips twisted in a sneer. “The shoes.” Qazi examined them carefully and tossed them back. “Now the coat.” This he scrutinized minutely. From the uppermost of the large three buttons on the front of the coat a very fine wire was just visible buried amid the thread that held the button on. Qazi sawed the button free with a small pocketknife, then dropped the pen and button down a commode. He tossed the coat back to Chekhov. “And the belt.” After a quick glance, Qazi handed it back. “Hurry, we have much to say to each other.” He unscrewed the silencer and replaced the pistol in his ankle holster. He opened the door as the Russian scrambled awkwardly to his feet. An hour later the two men were seated in the Sistine Chapel against the back wall, facing the altar and Michelangelo’s masterpiece The Last Judgment behind it. On the right the high windows admitted a subdued light. Qazi kept his eyes on the tourists examining the paintings on the ceiling and walls. “Is it in Rome, as General Simonov promised?” “Yes. But you must tell us why you want it.” “Is it genuine, or is it a masterpiece from an Aquarium print shop?” The Aquarium was the nickname for GRU headquarters in Moscow. The Russian’s lips curled, revealing yellow, impacted teeth. This was his smile. “We obtained it from Warrant Officer Walker.” “Ah, those Americans! One wonders just how long they knew about Walker’s activities.” The Russian raised his shoulders and lowered them. “Why do you want the document?” “El Hakim has not authorized me to reveal his reasons. Not that we don’t trust you. We value the goodwill of the Soviet Union most highly. And we intend to continue to cultivate that goodwill. But to reveal what you do not need to know is to take the risk that the Americans will learn of our plans through their activities against you.” “If you are implying they have penetrated—” “Chekhov, I am not implying anything. I am merely weighing risks. And I am being very forthright with you. No subterfuge. No evasion. Just the plain truth. Surely a professional like you can appreciate that?” “This document is very valuable.

The most important pillar behind innovation and opportunity—education—will see tremendous positive change in the coming decades as rising connectivity reshapes traditional routines and offers new paths for learning. Most students will be highly technologically literate, as schools continue to integrate technology into lesson plans and, in some cases, replace traditional lessons with more interactive workshops. Education will be a more flexible experience, adapting itself to children’s learning styles and pace instead of the other way around. Kids will still go to physical schools, to socialize and be guided by teachers, but as much, if not more, learning will take place employing carefully designed educational tools in the spirit of today’s Khan Academy, a nonprofit organization that produces thousands of short videos (the majority in science and math) and shares them online for free. With hundreds of millions of views on the Khan Academy’s YouTube channel already, educators in the United States are increasingly adopting its materials and integrating the approach of its founder, Salman Khan—modular learning tailored to a student’s needs. Some are even “flipping” their classrooms, replacing lectures with videos watched at home (as homework) and using school time for traditional homework, such as filling out a problem set for math class. Critical thinking and problem-solving skills will become the focus in many school systems as ubiquitous digital-knowledge tools, like the more accurate sections of Wikipedia, reduce the importance of rote memorization. For children in poor countries, future connectivity promises new access to educational tools, though clearly not at the level described above. Physical classrooms will remain dilapidated; teachers will continue to take paychecks and not show up for class; and books and supplies will still be scarce. But what’s new in this equation—connectivity—promises that kids with access to mobile devices and the Internet will be able to experience school physically and virtually, even if the latter is informal and on their own time.