Positive Phone Quotes

What’s your favourite position?” “I usually play winger.” “Zach, I adore you, but you can’t make soccer jokes during phone sex. It just isn’t done.

An incomplete list: No more diving into pools of chlorinated water lit green from below. No more ball games played out under floodlights. No more porch lights with moths fluttering on summer nights. No more trains running under the surface of cities on the dazzling power of the electric third rail. No more cities. No more films, except rarely, except with a generator drowning out half the dialogue, and only then for the first little while until the fuel for the generators ran out, because automobile gas goes stale after two or three years. Aviation gas lasts longer, but it was difficult to come by. No more screens shining in the half-light as people raise their phones above the crowd to take pictures of concert states. No more concert stages lit by candy-colored halogens, no more electronica, punk, electric guitars. No more pharmaceuticals. No more certainty of surviving a scratch on one's hand, a cut on a finger while chopping vegetables for dinner, a dog bite. No more flight. No more towns glimpsed from the sky through airplane windows, points of glimmering light; no more looking down from thirty thousand feet and imagining the lives lit up by those lights at that moment. No more airplanes, no more requests to put your tray table in its upright and locked position – but no, this wasn't true, there were still airplanes here and there. They stood dormant on runways and in hangars. They collected snow on their wings. In the cold months, they were ideal for food storage. In summer the ones near orchards were filled with trays of fruit that dehydrated in the heat. Teenagers snuck into them to have sex. Rust blossomed and streaked. No more countries, all borders unmanned. No more fire departments, no more police. No more road maintenance or garbage pickup. No more spacecraft rising up from Cape Canaveral, from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, from Vandenburg, Plesetsk, Tanegashima, burning paths through the atmosphere into space. No more Internet. No more social media, no more scrolling through litanies of dreams and nervous hopes and photographs of lunches, cries for help and expressions of contentment and relationship-status updates with heart icons whole or broken, plans to meet up later, pleas, complaints, desires, pictures of babies dressed as bears or peppers for Halloween. No more reading and commenting on the lives of others, and in so doing, feeling slightly less alone in the room. No more avatars.

If you can't put magnolia on a wall then there are always a million other colors you can use, if you can't pay your phone bill then just write letters telling them. I'm not playing down the importance of these things, yes you need money for food, yes you need food to survive, but you also need sleep to have energy, to smile to be happy, and to be happy so you can laugh, just so you don't keel over with a heart attack. People forget they have options. And they forget that those things really don't matter. They should concentrate on what they have and not what they don't have. And by the way, wishing and dreaming doesn't mean concentrating on what you don't have, it's positive thinking that encourages hoping and believing, not whining and moaning.

I'm assuming you didn't just call me to come out of the closet to a blind woman' 'Oh, it's something I do everyday,' Kate said, enjoying Faith's sense of humor. 'I open up a phone book, randomly select a name, dial it, and when they answer, I proclaim I'm a lesbian and then hang up.

Boundaries to Consider I say no to things I don’t like. I say no to things that don’t contribute to my growth. I say no to things that rob me of valuable time. I spend time around healthy people. I reduce my interactions with people who drain my energy. I protect my energy against people who threaten my sanity. I practice positive self-talk. I allow myself to feel and not judge my feelings. I forgive myself when I make a mistake. I actively cultivate the best version of myself. I turn off my phone when appropriate. I sleep when I’m tired. I mind my business. I make tough decisions because they’re healthy for me. I create space for activities that bring me joy. I say yes to activities that interest me despite my anxiety about trying them. I experience things alone instead of waiting for the “right” people to join me.

Life is not about control or making things happen in the ways we think they should happen. In fact, it's rather arrogant for us to be on this planet that's been here for so long and expect to be able to control life on it. If we want to see changes, then our task is to set things in motion, not to micromanage and make them happen in the ways we think they should. If we have something that is possessing us, such as alcohol or our television sets or our cell phones, then it could be time to let it go and move on with our lives. If we're holding on to resentment and anger, we're simply raising our own stress levels and blood pressure, but we're not contributing anything positive to the situation--and it's time to let it go.

During the shoot in November 2003, I was vaguely aware of the stylist’s sulky demeanor and eye-rolling vibe, but I blocked her out. Some fashion people are snotty drama queens; this is not news. Whatever was going on with her, I was determined to be positive and not get infected by her energy. Later, Fiorella told me that the entire time I was in makeup, the stylist had been clomping up and down the hall, sputtering into her cell phone, “I can’t believe I have to style a FAT GIRL!” Believe it, bitch.

BLESSINGS ARE IMMEASURABLE You can Lose a child Or a parent, The love of your life, A good job, A game, A deal, A bet, An idea, Your favorite thing, Money, Your best friend, A moment, An opportunity, A chance, Your keys, Your mind, Your health, Your identity, Your virginity, Your religion, Your shirt, Your license, ID or Passport, Phone or phone number, Hope, Faith, Luck, Your pride, Or your house, And feel like You've lost everything, And keep on losing. Stop Counting losses And start counting your blessings. Only then, Will you discover that losses Are easier to point out And count Than blessings, And that blessings Outnumber your losses For they are truly Immeasurable. It is only normal that People count losses with Their minds, And ignore To count blessings With the graciousness Of their hearts.

To summarize, the morning ritual is as follows: (1) wake up at the same time, (2) don’t check your phone, (3) boil some water and squeeze a quarter of a lemon into it, (4) meditate for five minutes, (5) read a positive affirmation that you’ve written on a Post-it note and repeat a few times throughout the day. Spending ten to fifteen minutes in the morning sets you up for an entirely different way of being and prevents cravings later in the day. Do the same thing every day for thirty to forty days to make this process automatic.

Bronagh,” I said, grinning at my sister. “What is your favourite position in bed?” Dominic looked at his lady, a smirk playing on his lips. Bronagh mulled my question over in her mind then after some serious consideration she said, “Near the wall, so I’m closest to me phone when it’s chargin’.” I tittered at her answer, then looked to Dominic and burst into laughter. The look of hurt and betrayal was plastered all over his sculpted face. “Kicking me in the nuts would have been less painful, Bronagh,” he muttered as he stood up and practically dragged himself, and his wounded ego, out of the room

I hate all electronic toys: cell phones, e-mail, PalmPilots, handheld Global Positioning System equipment, and the whole raft of gadgets that intrude on solitude. When I was a kid I used to disappear into the woods all day. Now I can walk in the wilderness without wasting my valuable time. As I hike along I can call anyone in the world, schedule an appointment, take a picture of me standing next to a tree and then send the person a map so he or she can join me there. Solitude has been snuffed out.

One of the study’s major findings was that in the successful relationships, positive attention outweighed negative on a daily basis by a factor of five to one. This positive attention wasn’t about dramatic actions like throwing over-the-top birthday parties or purchasing a dream home. It took the form of small gestures, such as: using a pleased tone of voice when receiving a phone call from the partner, as opposed to an exasperated tone or a rushed pace that implied the partner’s call was interrupting important tasks inquiring about dentist appointments or other details of the other person’s day putting down the remote control, newspaper, or telephone when the other partner walked through the door arriving home at the promised time—or at least calling if there was a delay These small moments turned out to be more predictive of a loving, trusting relationship than were the more innovative steps of romantic vacations and expensive presents. Possibly, that’s because small moments provide consistent tending and nurturing.

You want to check your legal position, you do, mate. Under law the Quest for Ultimate Truth is quite clearly the inalienable prerogative of your working thinkers. Any bloody machine goes and actually finds it and we’re straight out of a job, aren’t we? I mean, what’s the use of our sitting up half the night arguing that there may or may not be a God if this machine only goes and gives you his bleeding phone number the next morning?

On the fifth day I knew Kaidan would have made it home. I held my breath and called him. I listened to every charming word of his voice mail, then hung up. That evening I sat on my bed and called again. This time I left a message. “Hi, Kai, um, Kaidan. It's me. Anna. I'm just trying to see if you made it home safely. I'm sure you probably did. Just checking. You can call me anytime. If you want. Anyway. Okay, bye.” I hung up and buried my shamed face into a pillow. Now I was leaving messages after he'd made it clear he wanted zero to do with me? Next thing I knew I'd be frequenting his shows to give him psycho stares from the back, and then doing late-night drive-bys to see what girl he was bringing home. The thought of him with another girl made me writhe in discomfort and curl up in the fetal position. Day six was our first day of back-to-school shopping. We still had a month before school began, but the state issued a tax-free day, so stores were having big sales. I eyed all the teensy skirts and fashionable shirts dangling on mannequins. I tried to imagine Kaidan's reaction if I came dressed like that to one of his shows, some guy other than Jay on my arm. Ugly stalker thoughts. I was full of them. Two weeks passed, and I was still tripping over chairs to grab the phone every time it rang, like now. This time it was Jay.

The Lover Reconsiders Wait... You. Come hither come closer come here, shrug and wriggle your way out of those clothes, shed them like baby teeth, like snakeskin, like feathers from the molt of a phoenix come here let me hold you let my arms draw you closer come hither let me be suffused with your scent come here now. I want to kiss you, I want to kiss you, I want to kiss my way down your body and back up again give me your guided tour, teach me of your landmarks those hips of yours are strangers to my touch but I mean to make their acquaintance so yes there here I want to kiss you I want to learn what you whisper when you kiss with your heart’s shutters open I want to nip at your lower lip I want the rush of blood to make that mouth tingle I want to talk in quiet tones to all of you come hither come closer come here Now, bolt the door, now, unplug the phone, now warn the neighbors to ignore the racket I do not want fifteen minutes of your time I want the whole fucking night. Now let me see the smile you save for special occasions Now don’t pick a favorite position pick five Now I want to bathe myself in you Now now now like the Ganges, like the Red Sea, like the Amazon I want to follow you down to your ocean Now I want to savor you, lover, come to me make time and I will make you breakfast I want to become overfamiliar with your tastes come hither come closer come here come now you.

so cute and quaint. It actually makes me feel so positive about books. That people are still so afraid of books that they’ll ban a book, they’ll keep their kid from reading a book, and yet their kid has an iPhone in their hands, access to every porn site in the world, access to all the porn that has ever been created, and yet they want my book banned because a teenage boy twice mentions masturbation. I think it says some-thing about books still being far more powerful. That the written word is still far more powerful than people think it is.

But we now know that even small victories, or micro-successes—a productive conversation with your boss, or a positive phone call with a client, a compliment from a colleague or friend—can have the same impact. They stimulate the winner effect, causing the release of testosterone and dopamine, which in turn build confidence.

Sir Roderick Glossop, Honoria’s father, is always called a nerve specialist, because it sounds better, but everybody knows that he’s a sort of janitor to the looney-bin. I mean to say, when your uncle the Duke begins to feel the strain a bit and you find him in the blue drawing room sticking straws in his hair, old Glossop is the first person you send for. ... Practically every posh family in the country has called him in at one time or another, and I suppose that, being in that position—I mean, constantly having to sit on people’s heads while their nearest and dearest phone to the asylum to send round the waggon—does tend to make a chappie take what you call a warped view of humanity.

Next question.” He swipes the screen of his phone, but he’s not looking at it; he’s staring at me. Trying to intimidate me. Trying to see who’ll blink first. “Did you leave DC because (A) you couldn’t find any hotties to make out with? Or (B) your East Coast boyfriend is an ankle buster and you’d heard about legendary West Coast D, so you had to find out for yourself if the rumors were true?” he says with a smirk. “Idiot,” Grace mumbles, shaking her head. I may not understand some of his phrasing, but I get the gist. I feel myself blushing. But I manage to recover quickly and get a jab in. “Why are you so interested in my love life?” “I’m not. Why are you evading the question? You do that a lot, by the way.” “Do what?” “Evade questions.” “What business is that of yours?” I say, secretly irritated that he’s figured me out... Porter scoffs. “Seeing how this is your first day on the job, and may very well be your last, considering the turnover rate for this position? And seeing how I have seniority over you? I’d say, yeah, it’s pretty much my business.” “Are you threatening me?” I ask. He clicks off his phone and raises a brow. “Huh?” “That sounded like a threat,” I say. “Whoa, you need to chill. That was not . . .” He can’t even say it. He’s flustered now, tucking his hair behind his ear. “Grace . . .” Grace holds up a hand. “Leave me out of this mess. I have no idea what I’m even witnessing here. Both of you have lost the plot.

Gustavo Tiberius speaking." “It’s so weird you do that, man,” Casey said, sounding amused. “Every time I call.” “It’s polite,” Gus said. “Just because you kids these days don’t have proper phone etiquette.” “Oh boy, there’s the Grumpy Gus I know. You miss me?” Gus was well aware the others could hear the conversation loud and clear. He was also aware he had a reputation to maintain. “Hadn’t really thought about it.” “Really.” “Yes.” “Gus.” “Casey.” “I miss you.” “I miss you too,” Gus mumbled into the phone, blushing fiercely. “Yeah? How much?” Gus was in hell. “A lot,” he said truthfully. “There have been allegations made against my person of pining and moping. False allegations, mind you, but allegations nonetheless.” “I know what you mean,” Casey said. “The guys were saying the same thing about me.” Gus smiled. “How embarrassing for you.” “Completely. You have no idea.” “They’re going to get you packed up this week?” “Ah, yeah. Sure. Something like that.” “Casey.” “Yes, Gustavo.” “You’re being cagey.” “I have no idea what you mean. Hey, that’s a nice Hawaiian shirt you’ve got on. Pink? I don’t think I’ve seen you in that color before.” Gus shrugged. “Pastor Tommy had a shitload of them. I think I could wear one every day for the rest of the year and not repeat. I think he may have had a bit of a….” Gus trailed off when his hand started shaking. Then, “How did you know what I was wearing?” There was a knock on the window to the Emporium. Gus looked up. Standing on the sidewalk was Casey. He was wearing bright green skinny jeans and a white and red shirt that proclaimed him to be a member of the 1987 Pasadena Bulldogs Women’s Softball team. He looked ridiculous. And like the greatest thing Gus had ever seen. Casey wiggled his eyebrows at Gus. “Hey, man.” “Hi,” Gus croaked. “Come over here, but stay on the phone, okay?” Gus didn’t even argue, unable to take his eyes off Casey. He hadn’t expected him for another week, but here he was on a pretty Saturday afternoon, standing outside the Emporium like it was no big deal. Gus went to the window, and Casey smiled that lazy smile. He said, “Hi.” Gus said, “Hi.” “So, I’ve spent the last two days driving back,” Casey said. “Tried to make it a surprise, you know?” “I’m very surprised,” Gus managed to say, about ten seconds away from busting through the glass just so he could hug Casey close. The smile widened. “Good. I’ve had some time to think about things, man. About a lot of things. And I came to this realization as I drove past Weed, California. Gus. It was called Weed, California. It was a sign.” Gus didn’t even try to stop the eye roll. “Oh my god.” “Right? Kismet. Because right when I entered Weed, California, I was thinking about you and it hit me. Gus, it hit me.” “What did?” Casey put his hand up against the glass. Gus did the same on his side. “Hey, Gus?” “Yeah?” “I’m going to ask you a question, okay?” Gustavo’s throat felt very dry. “Okay.” “What was the Oscar winner for Best Song in 1984?” Automatically, Gus answered, “Stevie Wonder for the movie The Woman in Red. The song was ‘I Just Called to Say I Love You.’” It was fine, of course. Because he knew answers to all those things. He didn’t know why Casey wanted to— And then he could barely breathe. Casey’s smile wobbled a little bit. “Okay?” Gus blinked the burn away. He nodded as best he could. And Casey said, “Yeah, man. I love you too.” Gus didn’t even care that he dropped his phone then. All that mattered was getting as close to Casey as humanely possible. He threw open the door to the Emporium and suddenly found himself with an armful of hipster. Casey laughed wetly into his neck and Gus just held on as hard as he could. He thought that it was possible that he might never be in a position to let go. For some reason, that didn’t bother him in the slightest.

But you should see the sky tonight. Screw your astrology apps. Screw your games. Look up sometime. There is a whole wing of positive psychology--my therapist told me--that says the greatest way to affect your outlook on life is to consider what you already have more that what you don't have. And so I might not have a cell phone on me, or a sister at home, or a Dad at all, or a future, but holy shit I have the sky.

After a heated dispute, we each undertook an assignment for the next class: to engage in one pleasurable activity and one philanthropic activity, and write about both. The results were life-changing. The afterglow of the “pleasurable” activity (hanging out with friends, or watching a movie, or eating a hot fudge sundae) paled in comparison with the effects of the kind action. When our philanthropic acts were spontaneous and called upon personal strengths, the whole day went better. One junior told about her nephew phoning for help with his third-grade arithmetic. After an hour of tutoring him, she was astonished to discover that “for the rest of the day, I could listen better, I was mellower, and people liked me much more than usual.” The exercise of kindness is a gratification, in contrast to a pleasure. As a gratification, it calls on your strengths to rise to an occasion and meet a challenge. Kindness is not accompanied by a separable stream of positive emotion like joy; rather, it consists in total engagement and in the loss of self-consciousness. Time stops.

the six of us are supposed to drive to the diner in Hastings for lunch. But the moment we enter the cavernous auditorium where the girls told us to meet them, my jaw drops and our plans change. “Holy shit—is that a red velvet chaise lounge?” The guys exchange a WTF look. “Um…sure?” Justin says. “Why—” I’m already sprinting toward the stage. The girls aren’t here yet, which means I have to act fast. “For fuck’s sake, get over here,” I call over my shoulder. Their footsteps echo behind me, and by the time they climb on the stage, I’ve already whipped my shirt off and am reaching for my belt buckle. I stop to fish my phone from my back pocket and toss it at Garrett, who catches it without missing a beat. “What is happening right now?” Justin bursts out. I drop trou, kick my jeans away, and dive onto the plush chair wearing nothing but my black boxer-briefs. “Quick. Take a picture.” Justin doesn’t stop shaking his head. Over and over again, and he’s blinking like an owl, as if he can’t fathom what he’s seeing. Garrett, on the other hand, knows better than to ask questions. Hell, he and Hannah spent two hours constructing origami hearts with me the other day. His lips twitch uncontrollably as he gets the phone in position. “Wait.” I pause in thought. “What do you think? Double guns, or double thumbs up?” “What is happening?” We both ignore Justin’s baffled exclamation. “Show me the thumbs up,” Garrett says. I give the camera a wolfish grin and stick up my thumbs. My best friend’s snort bounces off the auditorium walls. “Veto. Do the guns. Definitely the guns.” He takes two shots—one with flash, one without—and just like that, another romantic gesture is in the bag. As I hastily put my clothes back on, Justin rubs his temples with so much vigor it’s as if his brain has imploded. He gapes as I tug my jeans up to my hips. Gapes harder when I walk over to Garrett so I can study the pictures. I nod in approval. “Damn. I should go into modeling.” “You photograph really well,” Garrett agrees in a serious voice. “And dude, your package looks huge.” Fuck, it totally does. Justin drags both hands through his dark hair. “I swear on all that is holy—if one of you doesn’t tell me what the hell just went down here, I’m going to lose my shit.” I chuckle. “My girl wanted me to send her a boudoir shot of me on a red velvet chaise lounge, but you have no idea how hard it is to find a goddamn red velvet chaise lounge.” “You say this as if it’s an explanation. It is not.” Justin sighs like the weight of the world rests on his shoulders. “You hockey players are fucked up.” “Naah, we’re just not pussies like you and your football crowd,” Garrett says sweetly. “We own our sex appeal, dude.” “Sex appeal? That was the cheesiest thing I’ve ever—no, you know what? I’m not gonna engage,” Justin grumbles. “Let’s find the girls and grab some lunch

Many of us go through our days attending to multiple stimuli simultaneously without giving any one thing our full and complete attention. We eat while watching TV and check our email while in the presence of our families. We think about our problems in the middle of a conversation or during an otherwise positive experience. We talk on the phone while driving and choose to distract ourselves from everyday tasks rather than attending to them. We escape the small moments rather than recognizing life is the small moments.

You know, everything adds up. It’s what I keep saying in my books and in Cosmo. If you do every little thing you can do in your own modest position, one thing leads to another. So do it and be it and write the letters and make the phone calls and get on with it.

She wasn’t getting it. They never teased her. They never followed her around with their phones, trying to catch her in a compromising position. They never called her a ho-bag or a troll or said she danced like an elephant on crank. They never, not once, dribbled pee in her ballet bag or stuck shaved pubes in her ChapStick. They never told her she wouldn’t ever be good enough to make the New York City Ballet, and that they’d wave to her from the stage, maybe, one day, if they remembered who she was when they were famous.

Here’s my full list of guidelines for how to apply the principles of this chapter to email communication. 1. Emails should contain as few words as possible. 2. Make it easy to see your central point at a glance, in one screen. 3. Never send an email that could emotionally affect another person unless it’s pure positive feedback. 4. Emotional issues must be discussed by phone; email should be used only to book a time for a call. 5. If you accidentally break rule number four, phone the person immediately, apologize, and discuss the issue by phone.

It was getting late, but sleep was the furthest thing from my racing mind. Apparently that was not the case for Mr. Sugar Buns. He lay back, closed his eyes, and threw an arm over his forehead, his favorite sleeping position. I could hardly have that. So, I crawled on top of him and started chest compressions. It seemed like the right thing to do. "What are you doing?" he asked without removing his arm. "Giving you CPR." I pressed into his chest, trying not to lose count. Wearing a red-and-black football jersey and boxers that read, DRIVERS WANTED. SEE INSIDE FOR DETAILS, I'd straddled him and now worked furiously to save his life, my focus like that of a seasoned trauma nurse. Or a seasoned pot roast. It was hard to say. "I'm not sure I'm in the market," he said, his voice smooth and filled with a humor I found appalling. He clearly didn't appreciate my dedication. "Damn it, man! I'm trying to save your life! Don't interrupt." A sensuous grin slid across his face. He tucked his arms behind his head while I worked. I finished my count, leaned down, put my lips on his, and blew. He laughed softly, the sound rumbling from his chest, deep and sexy, as he took my breath into his lungs. That part down, I went back to counting chest compressions. "Don't you die on me!" And praying. After another round, he asked, "Am I going to make it?" "It's touch-and-go. I'm going to have to bring out the defibrillator." "We have a defibrillator?" he asked, quirking a brow, clearly impressed. I reached for my phone. "I have an app. Hold on." As I punched buttons, I realized a major flaw in my plan. I needed a second phone. I could hardly shock him with only one paddle. I reached over and grabbed his phone as well. Started punching buttons. Rolled my eyes. "You don't have the app," I said from between clenched teeth. "I had no idea smartphones were so versatile." "I'll just have to download it. It'll just take a sec." "Do I have that long?" Humor sparkled in his eyes as he waited for me to find the app. I'd forgotten the name of it, so I had to go back to my phone, then back to his, then do a search, then download, then install it, all while my patient lay dying. Did no one understand that seconds counted? "Got it!" I said at last. I pressed one phone to his chest and one to the side of his rib cage like they did in the movies, and yelled, "Clear!" Granted, I didn't get off him or anything as the electrical charge riddled his body, slammed his heart into action, and probably scorched his skin. Or that was my hope, anyway. He handled it well. One corner of his mouth twitched, but that was about it. He was such a trouper. After two more jolts of electricity--it had to be done--I leaned forward and pressed my fingertips to his throat. "Well?" he asked after a tense moment. I released a ragged sigh of relief,and my shoulders fell forward in exhaustion. "You're going to be okay, Mr. Farrow." Without warning, my patient pulled me into his arms and rolled me over, pinning me to the bed with his considerable weight and burying his face in my hair. It was a miracle!

You just let the machines get on with the adding up,” warned Majikthise, “and we’ll take care of the eternal verities, thank you very much. You want to check your legal position, you do, mate. Under law the Quest for Ultimate Truth is quite clearly the inalienable prerogative of your working thinkers. Any bloody machine goes and actually finds it and we’re straight out of a job, aren’t we? I mean, what’s the use of our sitting up half the night arguing that there may or may not be a God if this machine only goes and gives you his bleeding phone number the next morning?

Greg looked at Aunt Dahlia. “You need to leave.” “I already told her that,” Ham growled. Greg ignored Ham like he didn’t exist and said to Aunt Dahlia, “I’ll ask the manager to have you removed.” “Since I dine here once a month, I doubt he’ll choose removing me over removing the lot of you.” She twirled her finger in the air to indicate us all. “Do you think,” Nina started and I looked at her to see her looking at Max, “that this is normal? I mean, does this kind of thing happen to other people in the world? I really want to know.” Max smiled at his wife. I looked back at Aunt Dahlia to see, scarily, she was looking at me. “You need to phone your father.” “No, she doesn’t.” This was said by Kami Maxwell. I leaned forward and plonked my forehead on the table. --- “Is there a problem here?” A mild-mannered-looking suited man I suspected was the manager entered the situation. “No, I’m simply having a word with my niece,” my aunt replied. “Yes, this woman interrupted my wife’s dinner in an extremely unpleasant way,” Greg contradicted. “She’s not your wife,” Ham grunted. Uh-oh. Shocking the crap out of me, Greg, with narrowed eyes and anger contorting his face, instantly fired back at Ham, “She’ll always be my wife.” I went still. The table went still. I fancied the restaurant went still as I was pretty certain I watched ice form in a thick layer, crackling and groaning all around Ham. “Well shit.” His words were sarcastic but that didn’t mean they weren’t dripping icicles. “See I’m in a position to apologize since I fucked your wife against the wall before we left to come here.” This was when I plonked my head on the table again. “Oh my,” Nina breathed as she glanced at Max. “We haven’t done that in a while, darling. We should do that again.

Work hard. Work dirty. Choose your favourite spade and dig a small, deep hole; located deep in the forest or a desolate area of the desert or tundra. Then bury your cellphone and then find a hobby. Actually, 'hobby' is not a weighty enough word to represent what I am trying to get across. Let's use 'discipline' instead. If you engage in a discipline or do something with your hands, instead of kill time on your phone device, then you have something to show for your time when you're done. Cook, play music, sew, carve, shit - bedazzle! Or, maybe not bedazzle... The arrhythmic is quite simple, instead of playing draw something, fucking draw something! Take the cleverness you apply to words with friends and utilise it to make some kick ass cornbread, corn with friends - try that game. I'm here to tell you that we've been duped on a societal level. My favourite writer, Wendell Berry writes on this topic with great eloquence, he posits that we've been sold a bill of goods claiming that work is bad. That sweating and working especially if soil or saw dust is involved are beneath us. Our population especially the urbanites, has largely forgotten that working at a labour that one loves is actually a privilege.

Unknown to the sleeping family, three of their cell phones had been covertly switched on, providing the STU with interior audio listening devices paid for and put in position by the Edmonds themselves.  To the STU Team members, what civilians didn’t know about their own cell phones was simply mind boggling.

A man fishes for two reasons: he’s either sport fishing or fishing to eat, which means he’s either going to try to catch the biggest fish he can, take a picture of it, admire it with his buddies and toss it back to sea, or he’s going to take that fish on home, scale it, fillet it, toss it in some cornmeal, fry it up, and put it on his plate. This, I think, is a great analogy for how men seek out women. See, men are, by nature, hunters, and women have been put in the position of being the prey. Think about it: it used to be that a man “picked” a wife, a man “asked” a woman to dinner, a man had to get “permission” from a woman’s father to have her hand in marriage, and even, in some cases, to date her. We pursued—in fact, we’ve been taught all our lives that it was not only a good thing to chase women, but natural. Women have bought into this for years, too; how many times have you or one of your girls said, “I like it when a man pursues me,” or “I need him to romance me and give me flowers and make me feel like I’m wanted”? Flowers, jewelry, phone calls, dates, sweet talk—these are all the weapons in our hunting arsenal when we’re coming for you. But the question always remains: once we hook you, what will we do with you? Taking a cue from my love

They had found out. Before I could panic, I made myself stretch my fingers wide and take a calming breath. You already knew this was bound to happen. At least that’s what I told myself. The more I thought about it, the more I should have been appreciative that the people at the chapel in Las Vegas hadn’t recognized him. Or that people on the street had been oblivious and hadn’t seen us going in and out of there. Or that the receptionist at the acupuncturist hadn’t snapped a picture on her phone and posted it online. Because I might not understand all people, much less most of them, but I understood nosey folks. And nosey folks would do something like that without a second thought. Yet, I reminded myself that there was nothing to be embarrassed about. It would be fine. So, one gossip site posted about us getting married. Whoop-de-do. There was probably a thousand sites just like it. I briefly thought about Diana hearing about it, but I’d deal with that later. There was no use in getting scared now. She was the only one whose reaction I cared about. My mom and sisters’ opinions and feelings weren’t exactly registering at the top of my list now… or ever. I made myself shove them to the back of my thoughts. I was tired of being mad and upset; it affected my work. Plus, they’d made me sad and mad enough times in my life. I wasn’t going to let them ruin another day. Picking my phone up again, I quickly texted Aiden back, swallowing my nausea at the same time. Me: Who told you? Not even two minutes passed before my phone dinged with a response. Miranda: Trevor’s blowing up my phone. Eww. Trevor. Me: We knew it was going to happen eventually, right? Good luck with Trev. I’m glad he doesn’t have my number. And I was even gladder there wasn’t a home phone; otherwise, I’m positive he would have been blowing it up too. I managed to get back to looking at images on the screen for a few more minutes—a bit more distracted than usual—when the phone beeped again. It was Aiden/Miranda. I should really change his contact name. Miranda: Good luck? I’m not answering his calls. What? Me: That psycho will come visit if you don’t. Was that me being selfish? Yes. Did I care? No. Aiden: I know. Uh. Me: You’re always at practice… Aiden: Have fun. This asshole! I almost laughed, but before I could, he sent me another message. Aiden: I’ll get back to him in a couple days. Don’t worry. Snorting, I texted back. Me: I’m not worried. If he drops by, I’ll set him up in your room. Aiden: You genuinely scare me. Me: You don’t know how many times you barely made it through the day alive, for the record. He didn’t text me back after that

Write out your ideal schedule as if you are doing what you love, so you visualize exactly how your day will go. Find times and ways to do whatever activities you can that actively pursue your purpose. Set calendar or phone alerts to help you stay on track. Looking back, it will surprise you at how quickly your ideal schedule became your reality.

If a relationship is a net positive in your life, by all means, you should continue it, and you also need to do your part to be a positive influence in the other person’s life. But, if that relationship is a net negative, you might want to reconsider continuing with the relationship.” 34 Wes and Sugar’s Addictive Wes sat down on his couch, his phone in hand.

I am very certain that I do not want to waste my time with the 'drains'. There are so many beautiful, positive and uplifting things in life. There is so much beauty, so much joy. Life is so short and so fleeting. It is entirely up to us to enjoy each moment. There will of course be moments when you feel sad, hopeless, and despondent and, as though, all is lost. When that happens, it is time to pick up the phone and call the best radiator you know.

Peter and I were downstairs alone, the last two people to be picked up. We were sitting on the couch. I kept texting my dad, Where are uuuuuu? Peter was playing a game on his phone. And then, out of nowhere, he said, “Your hair smells like coconuts.” We weren’t even sitting that close. I said, “Really? You can smell it from there?” He scooted closer and took a sniff, nodding. “Yeah, it reminds me of Hawaii or something.” “Thanks!” I said. I wasn’t positive it was a compliment, but it seemed like enough of one to say thanks. “I’ve been switching between this coconut one and my sister’s baby shampoo, to do an experiment on which makes my hair softer--” Then Peter Kavinsky leaned right in and kissed me, and I was stunned. I’d never thought of him any kind of way before that kiss. He was too pretty, too smooth. Not my type of boy at all. But after he kissed me, he was all I could think about for months after.

When I was in the sixth grade, I asked my mother if she thought I was pretty and she put down her phone and took off her glasses and said, “That’s not something you need to worry about, Emory. There are far more important things to be worried about than looks.” I still think about how she just didn’t say Yes. How it shouldn’t be hard for a mom to just say Yes, you’re pretty. They tell us plenty of critical things, how hard is it to throw some positives in there?

It is no easy thing to be in your mid-twenties and realize that, holy shit, this is it, this is as good as it gets, and from here it's all downhill, the fun's over, the hijinks have jinked their last, nothing lies ahead but drudgery and toil and a sagging belly and death. It's harder yet when a stupid bitch, a numbfuck cunt, one of those horrible sweet-smelling OMG types who wouldn't talk to you in high school and sure as fuck won't talk to you now, takes position on your elbow with a cell phone jammed into her cheek, yammering away. Because who wants to listen to the stream of shit coming out of her mouth? Gossip about friends. Gossip about enemies. Gossip about celebrities. Gossip about gossip. Not a thought in her head. Not a fact. Nothing of interest. Nothing of worth. Just an avalanche of verbal rubbish. The Patriots took on the Redcoats, the Blue fought the Gray, the National Guard stormed the beaches of Normandy, so this submoronic cretin could stand here in her designer boots and talk about what happened at the club last night.

The last time I’d been unwell, suicidally depressed, whatever you want to call it, the reactions of my friends and family had fallen into several different camps: The Let’s Laugh It Off merchants: Claire was the leading light. They hoped that joking about my state of mind would reduce it to a manageable size. Most likely to say, ‘Feeling any mad urges to fling yourself into the sea?’ The Depression Deniers: they were the ones who took the position that since there was no such thing as depression, nothing could be wrong with me. Once upon a time I’d have belonged in that category myself. A subset of the Deniers was The Tough Love people. Most likely to say, ‘What have you got to be depressed about?’ The It’s All About Me bunch: they were the ones who wailed that I couldn’t kill myself because they’d miss me so much. More often than not, I’d end up comforting them. My sister Anna and her boyfriend, Angelo, flew three thousand miles from New York just so I could dry their tears. Most likely to say, ‘Have you any idea how many people love you?’ The Runaways: lots and lots of people just stopped ringing me. Most of them I didn’t care about, but one or two were important to me. Their absence was down to fear; they were terrified that whatever I had, it was catching. Most likely to say, ‘I feel so helpless … God, is that the time?’ Bronagh – though it hurt me too much at the time to really acknowledge it – was the number one offender. The Woo-Woo crew: i.e. those purveying alternative cures. And actually there were hundreds of them – urging me to do reiki, yoga, homeopathy, bible study, sufi dance, cold showers, meditation, EFT, hypnotherapy, hydrotherapy, silent retreats, sweat lodges, felting, fasting, angel channelling or eating only blue food. Everyone had a story about something that had cured their auntie/boss/boyfriend/next-door neighbour. But my sister Rachel was the worst – she had me plagued. Not a day passed that she didn’t send me a link to some swizzer. Followed by a phone call ten minutes later to make sure I’d made an appointment. (And I was so desperate that I even gave plenty of them a go.) Most likely to say, ‘This man’s a miracle worker.’ Followed by: ‘That’s why he’s so expensive. Miracles don’t come cheap.’ There was often cross-pollination between the different groupings. Sometimes the Let’s Laugh It Off merchants teamed up with the Tough Love people to tell me that recovering from depression is ‘simply mind over matter’. You just decide you’re better. (The way you would if you had emphysema.) Or an All About Me would ring a member of the Woo-Woo crew and sob and sob about how selfish I was being and the Woo-Woo crew person would agree because I had refused to cough up two grand for a sweat lodge in Wicklow. Or one of the Runaways would tiptoe back for a sneaky look at me, then commandeer a Denier into launching a two-pronged attack, telling me how well I seemed. And actually that was the worst thing anyone could have done to me, because you can only sound like a self-pitying malingerer if you protest, ‘But I don’t feel well. I feel wretched beyond description.’ Not one person who loved me understood how I’d felt. They hadn’t a clue and I didn’t blame them, because, until it had happened to me, I hadn’t a clue either.

I shook my head and stood up from my seated position. I walked over to the desk and looked at the writing Caleb was talking about. Bronagh Murphy was written in capital letters while the rest was in lower case letters. I’d bet my life that Bronagh carved her name into the desk over the years in school, and Nico added the rest to it when he moved here. What a fucker. I snickered to myself as I took out my phone, took a picture of it, and sent it to Nico and Bronagh with the caption: Vandalising school property. I’m ashamed to know both of you.

Hey Pete. So why the leave from social media? You are an activist, right? It seems like this decision is counterproductive to your message and work." A: The short answer is I’m tired of the endless narcissism inherent to the medium. In the commercial society we have, coupled with the consequential sense of insecurity people feel, as they impulsively “package themselves” for public consumption, the expression most dominant in all of this - is vanity. And I find that disheartening, annoying and dangerous. It is a form of cultural violence in many respects. However, please note the difference - that I work to promote just that – a message/idea – not myself… and I honestly loath people who today just promote themselves for the sake of themselves. A sea of humans who have been conditioned into viewing who they are – as how they are seen online. Think about that for a moment. Social identity theory run amok. People have been conditioned to think “they are” how “others see them”. We live in an increasing fictional reality where people are now not only people – they are digital symbols. And those symbols become more important as a matter of “marketing” than people’s true personality. Now, one could argue that social perception has always had a communicative symbolism, even before the computer age. But nooooooothing like today. Social media has become a social prison and a strong means of social control, in fact. Beyond that, as most know, social media is literally designed like a drug. And it acts like it as people get more and more addicted to being seen and addicted to molding the way they want the world to view them – no matter how false the image (If there is any word that defines peoples’ behavior here – it is pretention). Dopamine fires upon recognition and, coupled with cell phone culture, we now have a sea of people in zombie like trances looking at their phones (literally) thousands of times a day, merging their direct, true interpersonal social reality with a virtual “social media” one. No one can read anymore... they just swipe a stream of 200 character headlines/posts/tweets. understanding the world as an aggregate of those fragmented sentences. Massive loss of comprehension happening, replaced by usually agreeable, "in-bubble" views - hence an actual loss of variety. So again, this isn’t to say non-commercial focused social media doesn’t have positive purposes, such as with activism at times. But, on the whole, it merely amplifies a general value system disorder of a “LOOK AT ME! LOOK AT HOW GREAT I AM!” – rooted in systemic insecurity. People lying to themselves, drawing meaningless satisfaction from superficial responses from a sea of avatars. And it’s no surprise. Market economics demands people self promote shamelessly, coupled with the arbitrary constructs of beauty and success that have also resulted. People see status in certain things and, directly or pathologically, use those things for their own narcissistic advantage. Think of those endless status pics of people rock climbing, or hanging out on a stunning beach or showing off their new trophy girl-friend, etc. It goes on and on and worse the general public generally likes it, seeking to imitate those images/symbols to amplify their own false status. Hence the endless feedback loop of superficiality. And people wonder why youth suicides have risen… a young woman looking at a model of perfection set by her peers, without proper knowledge of the medium, can be made to feel inferior far more dramatically than the typical body image problems associated to traditional advertising. That is just one example of the cultural violence inherent. The entire industry of social media is BASED on narcissistic status promotion and narrow self-interest. That is the emotion/intent that creates the billions and billions in revenue these platforms experience, as they in turn sell off people’s personal data to advertisers and governments. You are the product, of course.

With deep theoretical roots (e.g., Bandura 1973; Dollard et al. 1939), there are at least two functions of aggression: aggression that serves to attain some goal of the perpetrator (i.e., instrumental aggression, which can be considered planful and cool-headed) and aggression that is impulsively enacted in response to some provocation, real or imagined (i.e., reactive aggression, which can be considered unplanned and hot-headed). A simple example of instrumental aggression is an attack on the victim for some material reward, such as money or an iPhone. Reactive aggression is exemplified by an outburst to a perceived or actual slight. For child developmentalists, the distinction is important because each is associated with a unique developmental trajectory and consequent socioemotional outcomes. For example, reactively aggressive children are more apt to display poor psychological adjustment because their dysregulation leads to related social difficulties such as peer rejection (Coie and Koeppl 1990). By contrast, instrumentally aggressive children are not necessarily dysregulated. Moreover, their success at goal attainment may even lead to positive peer regard.

The silent treatment is a form of emotional abuse typically employed by people with narcissistic tendencies. It is designed to (1) place the abuser in a position of control; (2) silence the target’s attempts at assertion; (3) avoid conflict resolution/personal responsibility/compromise; or (4) punish the target for a perceived ego slight. (..) The target, who may possess high emotional intelligence, empathy, conflict-resolution skills, and the ability to compromise, may work diligently to respond to the deafening silence. He or she may frequently reach out to the narcissistic person via email, phone, or text to resolve greatly inflated misunderstandings, and is typically met with continued disdain, contempt, and silence. Essentially, the narcissistic person’s message is one of extreme disapproval (..) The silent treatment is a form of emotional abuse that no one deserves nor should tolerate. If an individual experiences this absence of communication, it is a sure sign that he or she needs to move on and heal. The healing process can feel like mourning the loss of a relationship that did not really exist and was one-way in favor of the ego-massaging person with narcissism.

Your phone’s vibrating,” Scottie says. She takes my cell phone out of her pocket, the phone she has stolen from me to text her friend. She doesn’t even care that she has disobeyed. She doesn’t care that she said “finger-fucked” in front of me. It’s as though I’m not a father. I don’t recognize the number, so I don’t answer. I like to let people leave messages, and then I’ll call back after I rehearse what to say. “You never answer your phone,” Scottie says. “What if someone needs help?” “Then they can leave a message and I’ll call right back.” Alex takes the phone out of my hands. “Hello?” she says. “What the—? Do I not exist, girls? Do you realize I’m in charge here?” Scottie whispers, “Who is it?” “Oh, no,” Alex says. “This is the right number. This is his assistant…Sharon.” Scottie opens her mouth, delighted. I’ve always been impressed by Alex’s effortless ability to lie. “That sounds nice,” Alex says, then punches me lightly on the arm. “Where? Great. And for how long? Okay. Well, thanks. Maybe we’ll peek in on Sunday. Thanks so much. Okay.” She closes the phone. “Well?” “That was a Realtor, Dad, from Brian’s office. She says she’d be happy to show you the house you called about. Well done, Dad. Very clever.” “Good one, King,” Sid says. “What about Brian?” I ask. I feel strange talking about this with Joanie in the room. I position myself so that I face away from her.

AN INCOMPLETE LIST: No more diving into pools of chlorinated water lit green from below. No more ball games played out under floodlights. No more porch lights with moths fluttering on summer nights. No more trains running under the surface of cities on the dazzling power of the electric third rail. No more cities. No more films, except rarely, except with a generator drowning out half the dialogue, and only then for the first little while until the fuel for the generators ran out, because automobile gas goes stale after two or three years. Aviation gas lasts longer, but it was difficult to come by. No more screens shining in the half-light as people raise their phones above the crowd to take photographs of concert stages. No more concert stages lit by candy-colored halogens, no more electronica, punk, electric guitars. No more pharmaceuticals. No more certainty of surviving a scratch on one’s hand, a cut on a finger while chopping vegetables for dinner, a dog bite. No more flight. No more towns glimpsed from the sky through airplane windows, points of glimmering light; no more looking down from thirty thousand feet and imagining the lives lit up by those lights at that moment. No more airplanes, no more requests to put your tray table in its upright and locked position—but no, this wasn’t true, there were still airplanes here and there. They stood dormant on runways and in hangars. They collected snow on their wings. In the cold months, they were ideal for food storage. In summer the ones near orchards were filled with trays of fruit that dehydrated in the heat. Teenagers snuck into them to have sex. Rust blossomed and streaked. No more countries, all borders unmanned. No more fire departments, no more police. No more road maintenance or garbage pickup. No more spacecraft rising up from Cape Canaveral, from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, from Vandenburg, Plesetsk, Tanegashima, burning paths through the atmosphere into space. No more Internet. No more social media, no more scrolling through litanies of dreams and nervous hopes and photographs of lunches, cries for help and expressions of contentment and relationship-status updates with heart icons whole or broken, plans to meet up later, pleas, complaints, desires, pictures of babies dressed as bears or peppers for Halloween. No more reading and commenting on the lives of others, and in so doing, feeling slightly less alone in the room. No more avatars.

Put your glasses on mate ….. Come down from there, you’re gonna kill yourself …. Well, what does your Method Statement say? …. Right, let’s get you re-inducted. You need a reminder of site rules ….. Where are your outriggers, mate? ….. Put your glasses on ….. Put your glasses on …. Put your glasses on …. Oh, they steam up, do they? I’ve never heard that one before …. Where’s your mask? If you breathe this shit in you’re going to kill yourself. Silicosis is incurable ….. Right STOP! Do not reverse another inch without a banksman ….. Don’t put your glasses on just because you see me walk around the corner. They won’t protect MY eyes …. Hook yourself on, what’s the matter with you? Are all you scaffolders superhuman or something? ….. Put your glasses on ….. Oi! What stops me walking right in there? Where’s your barriers and signage? ….. Oi! I’m getting showered in fucking sparks here. And so is that can of petrol ….. Put your glasses on …. Where’s the flashback arrestor on this bottle of propane? ….. Hey, pal, stop welding until you’ve sheeted up ….. What are you doing climbing up there? Where’s your supervisor? What did he say about access in this morning’s Safe Start briefing? Nothing? Right, he can sit through another induction tomorrow ….. Where are the retaining pins to the joint clamps in this concrete pump line? SEAMUS! Fucking deal with this, will you? ….Put your glasses on …. Hey! Hey! Come here! Why have you got a nail instead of an ‘R’ clip to the quick-hitch system on your excavator bucket? NO! IT WON’T DO! WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU? If that bucket falls on someone they’re not going to get up again. And you trust a fucking nail to hold it in position! Take this machine out of service immediately until you’ve got the proper ‘R’ clip! ….. Put your glasses on …. Where’s the edge protection. Who removed the edge protection? Right, let me phone for a scaffolder ….. Put your glasses on ….. Oi! Get out from under there! Never, ever stand underneath a suspended load. Even if all the equipment’s been inspected, which it obviously has, you can never trust the crane driver. He can be taken ill suddenly ….. Come here, mate, let’s have a little chat. Why are you working on Fall Arrest? You’re supposed to be working on Fall Restraint (FR ‘restrains’ you going near the perimeter edge of the building, FA ‘arrests’ your fall if, well, if you fall. If you’re hanging off a building we’ve got less than ten minutes to reach you before you start going into toxic shock brought on by suspension trauma. In other words, we need a Rescue Plan, which is why we’d prefer people work on Fall Restraint)

It’s easy to underestimate how profound and holistic Roddenberry’s vision of the techscape of the future was. By today’s standards, the available technology of 1964 was downright primitive. Doors did not open automatically when we approached them. The first handheld calculator was still in the future, as were microwave ovens and cell phones. 1964 was a year before most Americans had even heard of a place called Vietnam, five years before man walked on the moon, 25 years before anyone ever surfed the Internet. Your phone had a curly cord, and the new innovation of “touchtone” dialing was merely a year old. Even the television sets that viewers watched would be considered positively prehistoric today. Most TVs were black-and-white models, and the majority of those sets had no remote control. There was no cable or satellite; rabbit ears and roof-top antennas were the norm. The world looked, and was, different.

Qualities such as honesty, determination, and a cheerful acceptance of stress, which can all be identified through probing questionnaires and interviews, may be more important to the company in the long run than one's college grade-point average or years of "related experience." Every business is only as good as the people it brings into the organization. The corporate trainer should feel his job is the most important in the company, because it is. Exalt seniority-publicly, shamelessly, and with enough fanfare to raise goosebumps on the flesh of the most cynical spectator. And, after the ceremony, there should be some sort of permanent display so that employees passing by are continuously reminded of their own achievements and the achievements of others. The manager must freely share his expertise-not only about company procedures and products and services but also with regard to the supervisory skills he has worked so hard to acquire. If his attitude is, "Let them go out and get their own MBAs," the personnel under his authority will never have the full benefit of his experience. Without it, they will perform at a lower standard than is possible, jeopardizing the manager's own success. Should a CEO proclaim that there is no higher calling than being an employee of his organization? Perhaps not-for fear of being misunderstood-but it's certainly all right to think it. In fact, a CEO who does not feel this way should look for another company to manage-one that actually does contribute toward a better life for all. Every corporate leader should communicate to his workforce that its efforts are important and that employees should be very proud of what they do-for the company, for themselves, and, literally, for the world. If any employee is embarrassed to tell his friends what he does for a living, there has been a failure of leadership at his workplace. Loyalty is not demanded; it is created. Why can't a CEO put out his own suggested reading list to reinforce the corporate vision and core values? An attractive display at every employee lounge of books to be freely borrowed, or purchased, will generate interest and participation. Of course, the program has to be purely voluntary, but many employees will wish to be conversant with the material others are talking about. The books will be another point of contact between individuals, who might find themselves conversing on topics other than the weekend football games. By simply distributing the list and displaying the books prominently, the CEO will set into motion a chain of events that can greatly benefit the workplace. For a very cost-effective investment, management will have yet another way to strengthen the corporate message. The very existence of many companies hangs not on the decisions of their visionary CEOs and energetic managers but on the behavior of its receptionists, retail clerks, delivery drivers, and service personnel. The manager must put himself and his people through progressively challenging courage-building experiences. He must make these a mandatory group experience, and he must lead the way. People who have confronted the fear of public speaking, and have learned to master it, find that their new confidence manifests itself in every other facet of the professional and personal lives. Managers who hold weekly meetings in which everyone takes on progressively more difficult speaking or presentation assignments will see personalities revolutionized before their eyes. Command from a forward position, which means from the thick of it. No soldier will ever be inspired to advance into a hail of bullets by orders phoned in on the radio from the safety of a remote command post; he is inspired to follow the officer in front of him. It is much more effective to get your personnel to follow you than to push them forward from behind a desk. The more important the mission, the more important it is to be at the front.

Here are my 12 Rules for Living: I go to bed and get up at the same time seven days per week (8 p.m. and 4 a.m., respectively). I stick to my diet, avoid caffeine after 1 p.m., and avoid alcohol within three hours of bedtime. I write for at least sixty minutes first thing every morning. I do not check email before noon and I do not talk on the phone unless it is a scheduled interview or conference call. I act polite and courteous, and I do not swear. I create a to-do list at the start & end of every workday and update my daily gratitude & achievement journal. I do not engage in confrontations with anyone, in-person or online. This is a waste of time and energy. If I have caused harm, I apologize and fix the situation. And then I take a deep breath, relax, breathe out, and re-focus my efforts back on my work and goals. I am guided by these two phrases: “Nothing matters.” – I can only work towards my big goals and my vision of helping others, while the opinions of others do not matter. “It will all be over soon.” – Everything, both good and bad, comes to an end. I must enjoy the good while it lasts, and persevere through the bad until I have beaten it. Everything that happens to me—good and bad—is my personal responsibility. I blame no one but myself. These are the choices I’ve made—this is the life I’m living. I accept the consequences of my actions. I will help ten million men and women transform their lives. I will not be the person I don’t want to be. I will not be petty, jealous, or envious, or give in to any other of those lazy emotions. I will not gossip or speak badly of others, no matter who I am with or what environment I am in. I will not be negative when it is easier to be positive. I will not hurt others when it is possible to help. I will know the temptations, situations and environments in life that I must avoid, and I will, in fact, avoid them, even if it means loosening relationships with others who “live” in those environments. It’s my life and that matters more than what other people think of me. “I will always keep the child within me alive.” – Frank McKinney. I will make time to laugh and play every day. “I will write with honesty and feeling.” – Ted Nicholas. The opinion of others does not matter. What matters is the number of people that I can help by sharing advice and encouragement in my writing. My 12 Rules have made me much happier

The late Marlon Brando was once asked if he considered himself the best actor in Hollywood. That was a treacherous question, but Brando answered it in a creative way. He said, “It doesn’t matter whether I’m the best actor. I’m the best-positioned actor. People know me, and they want me around. I make life interesting for the people around me. It’s fun for me and it’s fun for them. I’m not always a nice guy, but I’m never the same guy twice. That’s why studios want to put me in movies, and that’s why the public wants to see me there.” Are you like Brando in this respect? Do you get together with your colleagues even when you don’t have to? If the answer is yes, you’re on the right track. If the answer is no, ask yourself, whom would you rather be with? Then think about how you can make a career move in that direction. Do you communicate with your colleagues even when it’s not strictly necessary—by phone, e-mail, or in person? Or are you more comfortable being on your own? There probably has never been a person who was more challenged in this area than Howard Hughes. He was undeniably a technical expert, and he was certainly unforgettable. He could design an airplane, fly it, and also direct a movie about it.

Ask the right questions. Julianne and I were recently at our first rehearsal for a new dance tour we’re putting together. The first part of the morning went great--we were having a blast, and we hadn’t danced together in years so it felt amazing to be working off each other. We were excited, just ripping through stuff. We sat down for lunch and I had an idea for a lift. We decided to try it. Jules was in sneakers, and I flipped her around and her foot stuck. I heard a pop and saw her face. Pain rippled across it. We both knew it was bad but resisted the urge to panic. Her first question was, “How can we get this fixed fast?” Not “Why me?” or “Why did this have to happen today?” There was no self-pity or “Woe is me.” The right questions put you in a positive place to deal and heal. Pain happens, but suffering is a choice. After Julianne asked me that, we got on the phone with our list of people who had great doctors and made the calls. She had X-rays and MRIs, and she’s now in a boot to treat a torn tendon. But it’s getting better every day thanks to laser and ultrasound treatments. Here’s the thing: powerful people never throw pity parties for themselves. You will never hear my little sister moaning, “Why me?” when something goes wrong.

On October 2, 1982, Lisa Toscano and I entered a marriage covenant, and she became Lisa Bevere. On that very day she took the position of my wife. She’s not more my wife today than the day I married her, nor will she be more my wife forty years from now. Positionally, she fully became my wife on that wedding day; the work was complete. Similarly, in Christ we were made holy and clean on the day of our salvation, and we will never be more holy. However, once Lisa became my wife, her behavior began to align with her position. Before she was my wife, she dated other guys, gave them her phone number, lived for her own desires, and all the other things single women do, but now she didn’t do these things any longer. Her actions aligned with the covenant we made together. This behavior has grown more mature in aligning with our covenant the longer we’ve been married. Listen to what the apostle Peter writes: [Live] as children of obedience [to God]; do not conform yourselves to the evil desires [that governed you] in your former ignorance [when you did not know the requirements of the Gospel]. But as the One Who called you is holy, you yourselves also be holy in all your conduct and manner of living. For it is written, You shall be holy, for I am holy. (1 Peter 1:14–16 AMPC)

In a 1997 showdown billed as the final battle for supremacy between natural and artificial intelligence, IBM supercomputer Deep Blue defeated Garry Kasparov. Deep Blue evaluated two hundred million positions per second. That is a tiny fraction of possible chess positions—the number of possible game sequences is more than atoms in the observable universe—but plenty enough to beat the best human. According to Kasparov, “Today the free chess app on your mobile phone is stronger than me.” He is not being rhetorical. “Anything we can do, and we know how to do it, machines will do it better,” he said at a recent lecture. “If we can codify it, and pass it to computers, they will do it better.” Still, losing to Deep Blue gave him an idea. In playing computers, he recognized what artificial intelligence scholars call Moravec’s paradox: machines and humans frequently have opposite strengths and weaknesses. There is a saying that “chess is 99 percent tactics.” Tactics are short combinations of moves that players use to get an immediate advantage on the board. When players study all those patterns, they are mastering tactics. Bigger-picture planning in chess—how to manage the little battles to win the war—is called strategy. As Susan Polgar has written, “you can get a lot further by being very good in tactics”—that is, knowing a lot of patterns—“and have only a basic understanding of strategy.

More than anything, we have lost the cultural customs and traditions that bring extended families together, linking adults and children in caring relationships, that give the adult friends of parents a place in their children's lives. It is the role of culture to cultivate connections between the dependent and the dependable and to prevent attachment voids from occurring. Among the many reasons that culture is failing us, two bear mentioning. The first is the jarringly rapid rate of change in twentieth-century industrial societies. It requires time to develop customs and traditions that serve attachment needs, hundreds of years to create a working culture that serves a particular social and geographical environment. Our society has been changing much too rapidly for culture to evolve accordingly. There is now more change in a decade than previously in a century. When circumstances change more quickly than our culture can adapt to, customs and traditions disintegrate. It is not surprising that today's culture is failing its traditional function of supporting adult-child attachments. Part of the rapid change has been the electronic transmission of culture, allowing commercially blended and packaged culture to be broadcast into our homes and into the very minds of our children. Instant culture has replaced what used to be passed down through custom and tradition and from one generation to another. “Almost every day I find myself fighting the bubble-gum culture my children are exposed to,” said a frustrated father interviewed for this book. Not only is the content often alien to the culture of the parents but the process of transmission has taken grandparents out of the loop and made them seem sadly out of touch. Games, too, have become electronic. They have always been an instrument of culture to connect people to people, especially children to adults. Now games have become a solitary activity, watched in parallel on television sports-casts or engaged in in isolation on the computer. The most significant change in recent times has been the technology of communication — first the phone and then the Internet through e-mail and instant messaging. We are enamored of communication technology without being aware that one of its primary functions is to facilitate attachments. We have unwittingly put it into the hands of children who, of course, are using it to connect with their peers. Because of their strong attachment needs, the contact is highly addictive, often becoming a major preoccupation. Our culture has not been able to evolve the customs and traditions to contain this development, and so again we are all left to our own devices. This wonderful new technology would be a powerfully positive instrument if used to facilitate child-adult connections — as it does, for example, when it enables easy communication between students living away from home, and their parents. Left unchecked, it promotes peer orientation.

Time management also involves energy management. Sometimes the rationalization for procrastination is wrapped up in the form of the statement “I’m not up to this,” which reflects the fact you feel tired, stressed, or some other uncomfortable state. Consequently, you conclude that you do not have the requisite energy for a task, which is likely combined with a distorted justification for putting it off (e.g., “I have to be at my best or else I will be unable to do it.”). Similar to reframing time, it is helpful to respond to the “I’m not up to this” reaction by reframing energy. Thinking through the actual behavioral and energy requirements of a job challenges the initial and often distorted reasoning with a more realistic view. Remember, you only need “enough” energy to start the task. Consequently, being “too tired” to unload the dishwasher or put in a load of laundry can be reframed to see these tasks as requiring only a low level of energy and focus. This sort of reframing can be used to address automatic thoughts about energy on tasks that require a little more get-up-and-go. For example, it is common for people to be on the fence about exercising because of the thought “I’m too tired to exercise.” That assumption can be redirected to consider the energy required for the smaller steps involved in the “exercise script” that serve as the “launch sequence” for getting to the gym (e.g., “Are you too tired to stand up and get your workout clothes? Carry them to the car?” etc.). You can also ask yourself if you have ever seen people at the gym who are slumped over the exercise machines because they ran out of energy from trying to exert themselves when “too tired.” Instead, you can draw on past experience that you will end up feeling better and more energized after exercise; in fact, you will sleep better, be more rested, and have the positive outcome of keeping up with your exercise plan. If nothing else, going through this process rather than giving into the impulse to avoid makes it more likely that you will make a reasoned decision rather than an impulsive one about the task. A separate energy management issue relevant to keeping plans going is your ability to maintain energy (and thereby your effort) over longer courses of time. Managing ADHD is an endurance sport. It is said that good soccer players find their rest on the field in order to be able to play the full 90 minutes of a game. Similarly, you will have to manage your pace and exertion throughout the day. That is, the choreography of different tasks and obligations in your Daily Planner affects your energy. It is important to engage in self-care throughout your day, including adequate sleep, time for meals, and downtime and recreational activities in order to recharge your battery. Even when sequencing tasks at work, you can follow up a difficult task, such as working on a report, with more administrative tasks, such as responding to e-mails or phone calls that do not require as much mental energy or at least represent a shift to a different mode. Similarly, at home you may take care of various chores earlier in the evening and spend the remaining time relaxing. A useful reminder is that there are ways to make some chores more tolerable, if not enjoyable, by linking them with preferred activities for which you have more motivation. Folding laundry while watching television, or doing yard work or household chores while listening to music on an iPod are examples of coupling obligations with pleasurable activities. Moreover, these pleasant experiences combined with task completion will likely be rewarding and energizing.

Reagan Truman’s cell phone clamored in the darkness. It took several rings to find it. “Hello,” she mumbled, hoping she didn’t wake her uncle in the next room. “Rea, this is Noah.” “It’s late, Noah.” She pulled she string on an old Tiffany-style lamp that was probably five times her age. Something was wrong; not even Noah called this late. “I know, Rea. But I need to talk to you.” She shoved her hair out of her face and tried to force sleep away. “All right, what’s up?” “I’m in the hospital, Rea. I was hurt tonight in Memphis.” “How bad?” she laughed nervously. She’d almost asked if he was still alive. There was a long pause on the line. “I don’t know. Bad. Broken arm, two ribs, but it’s my back that has me worried.” He didn’t speak for a moment. When he began again, he sounded more like a frightened boy than a man of twenty. “I’m hurt bad enough to maybe kick me off the circuit. When I hit the dirt, I was out cold. They said I kept yelling your name in the ambulance, but I don’t remember. All I remember is the pain.” “Noah, what can I do? Do you want me to go over to your folk’s house? I think they’re in town. I could call your sister, Alex.” “No, I don’t want them to worry. I know mom. She’ll freak out and dad will start lecturing me like I’m still a kid. I don’t want them to know anything until I know how serious it is. They’re still not telling me much yet.” He paused, and she knew he was fighting to keep his voice calm. “Rea, I got to face this before I ask them to. If it’s nothing, they don’t even need to know. If it’s crippling, I got to have a plan.” She understood. Noah had always been their positive, sunny child. The McAllens had already lost one son eight years ago. She’d seen the panic in their eyes once when Noah had been admitted to the hospital after an accident. She understood why he’d want to save them pain. “What can I do?” He was silent for a moment, and then he said simply, “Come get me. No matter how bad it is, I want you near when I find out.

The climate for relationships within an innovation group is shaped by the climate outside it. Having a negative instead of a positive culture can cost a company real money. During Seagate Technology’s troubled period in the mid-to-late 1990s, the company, a large manufacturer of disk drives for personal computers, had seven different design centers working on innovation, yet it had the lowest R&D productivity in the industry because the centers competed rather than cooperated. Attempts to bring them together merely led people to advocate for their own groups rather than find common ground. Not only did Seagate’s engineers and managers lack positive norms for group interaction, but they had the opposite in place: People who yelled in executive meetings received “Dog’s Head” awards for the worst conduct. Lack of product and process innovation was reflected in loss of market share, disgruntled customers, and declining sales. Seagate, with its dwindling PC sales and fading customer base, was threatening to become a commodity producer in a changing technology environment. Under a new CEO and COO, Steve Luczo and Bill Watkins, who operated as partners, Seagate developed new norms for how people should treat one another, starting with the executive group. Their raised consciousness led to a systemic process for forming and running “core teams” (cross-functional innovation groups), and Seagate employees were trained in common methodologies for team building, both in conventional training programs and through participation in difficult outdoor activities in New Zealand and other remote locations. To lead core teams, Seagate promoted people who were known for strong relationship skills above others with greater technical skills. Unlike the antagonistic committees convened during the years of decline, the core teams created dramatic process and product innovations that brought the company back to market leadership. The new Seagate was able to create innovations embedded in a wide range of new electronic devices, such as iPods and cell phones.

We had a second date that night, then a third, and then a fourth. And after each date, my new romance novel protagonist called me, just to seal the date with a sweet word. For date five, he invited me to his house on the ranch. We were clearly on some kind of a roll, and now he wanted me to see where he lived. I was in no position to say no. Since I knew his ranch was somewhat remote and likely didn’t have many restaurants nearby, I offered to bring groceries and cook him dinner. I agonized for hours over what I could possibly cook for this strapping new man in my life; clearly, no mediocre cuisine would do. I reviewed all the dishes in my sophisticated, city-girl arsenal, many of which I’d picked up during my years in Los Angeles. I finally settled on a non-vegetarian winner: Linguine with Clam Sauce--a favorite from our family vacations in Hilton Head. I made the delicious, aromatic masterpiece of butter, garlic, clams, lemon, wine, and cream in Marlboro Man’s kitchen in the country, which was lined with old pine cabinetry. And as I stood there, sipping some of the leftover white wine and admiring the fruits of my culinary labor, I was utterly confident it would be a hit. I had no idea who I was dealing with. I had no idea that this fourth-generation cattle rancher doesn’t eat minced-up little clams, let alone minced-up little clams bathed in wine and cream and tossed with long, unwieldy noodles that are difficult to negotiate. Still, he ate it. And lucky for him, his phone rang when he was more than halfway through our meal together. He’d been expecting an important call, he said, and excused himself for a good ten minutes. I didn’t want him to go away hungry--big, strong rancher and all--so when I sensed he was close to getting off the phone, I took his plate to the stove and heaped another steaming pile of fishy noodles onto his plate. And when Marlboro Man returned to the table he smiled politely, sat down, and polished off over half of his second helping before finally pushing away from the table and announcing, “Boy, am I stuffed!” I didn’t realize at the time just how romantic a gesture that had been.

Imagine yourself sitting at a computer, about to visit a website. You open a Web browser, type in a URL, and hit Enter. The URL is, in effect, a request, and this request goes out in search of its destination server. Somewhere in the midst of its travels, however, before your request gets to that server, it will have to pass through TURBULENCE, one of the NSA’s most powerful weapons. Specifically, your request passes through a few black servers stacked on top of one another, together about the size of a four-shelf bookcase. These are installed in special rooms at major private telecommunications buildings throughout allied countries, as well as in US embassies and on US military bases, and contain two critical tools. The first, TURMOIL, handles “passive collection,” making a copy of the data coming through. The second, TURBINE, is in charge of “active collection”—that is, actively tampering with the users. You can think of TURMOIL as a guard positioned at an invisible firewall through which Internet traffic must pass. Seeing your request, it checks its metadata for selectors, or criteria, that mark it as deserving of more scrutiny. Those selectors can be whatever the NSA chooses, whatever the NSA finds suspicious: a particular email address, credit card, or phone number; the geographic origin or destination of your Internet activity; or just certain keywords such as “anonymous Internet proxy” or “protest.” If TURMOIL flags your traffic as suspicious, it tips it over to TURBINE, which diverts your request to the NSA’s servers. There, algorithms decide which of the agency’s exploits—malware programs—to use against you. This choice is based on the type of website you’re trying to visit as much as on your computer’s software and Internet connection. These chosen exploits are sent back to TURBINE (by programs of the QUANTUM suite, if you’re wondering), which injects them into the traffic channel and delivers them to you along with whatever website you requested. The end result: you get all the content you want, along with all the surveillance you don’t, and it all happens in less than 686 milliseconds. Completely unbeknownst to you. Once the exploits are on your computer, the NSA can access not just your metadata, but your data as well. Your entire digital life now belongs to them.

Imagine yourself sitting at a computer, about to visit a website. You open a Web browser, type in a URL, and hit Enter. The URL is, in effect, a request, and this request goes out in search of its destination server. Somewhere in the midst of its travels, however, before your request gets to that server, it will have to pass through TURBULENCE, one of the NSA’s most powerful weapons. Specifically, your request passes through a few black servers stacked on top of one another, together about the size of a four-shelf bookcase. These are installed in special rooms at major private telecommunications buildings throughout allied countries, as well as in US embassies and on US military bases, and contain two critical tools. The first, TURMOIL, handles “passive collection,” making a copy of the data coming through. The second, TURBINE, is in charge of “active collection”—that is, actively tampering with the users. You can think of TURMOIL as a guard positioned at an invisible firewall through which Internet traffic must pass. Seeing your request, it checks its metadata for selectors, or criteria, that mark it as deserving of more scrutiny. Those selectors can be whatever the NSA chooses, whatever the NSA finds suspicious: a particular email address, credit card, or phone number; the geographic origin or destination of your Internet activity; or just certain keywords such as “anonymous Internet proxy” or “protest.” If TURMOIL flags your traffic as suspicious, it tips it over to TURBINE, which diverts your request to the NSA’s servers. There, algorithms decide which of the agency’s exploits—malware programs—to use against you. This choice is based on the type of website you’re trying to visit as much as on your computer’s software and Internet connection. These chosen exploits are sent back to TURBINE (by programs of the QUANTUM suite, if you’re wondering), which injects them into the traffic channel and delivers them to you along with whatever website you requested. The end result: you get all the content you want, along with all the surveillance you don’t, and it all happens in less than 686 milliseconds. Completely unbeknownst to you. Once the exploits are on your computer, the NSA can access not just your metadata, but your data as well. Your entire digital life now belongs to them.

Every day we have plenty of opportunities to be upset, to be frustrated, and to be offended. Maybe the day’s plans didn’t work out, or somebody was rude at the office, or a job that should have taken one hour took three. Life is full of inconveniences. There will always be interruptions and difficult people. We can’t control all our circumstances, but we can control our reactions. I’ve heard it said that life is 10 percent what happens to you and 90 percent how you respond. Go into each day positive, hopeful, and expecting God’s favor. But at the same time be realistic, knowing that most days will not go exactly as you planned. If you become stressed because you are off schedule, frustrated because someone offended you, or upset because your child wouldn’t eat breakfast, you are giving away your power. It’s good to have plans, but at the first part of every day submit those plans to God and just say, “God, this is what I would like to accomplish today. But I know You’re in control, so I submit my plans to You. And I’ve decided in advance that no matter what comes my way, I will stay in peace, knowing You are directing my steps and that all things will work together for my good.” But too many people these days have the wrong approach to life. They think they can’t be happy unless they control all their circumstances and everything goes their way. But that’s not realistic. You have to come to the place where you can say, “I don’t have to have my way to have a good day. My plans don’t have to work out for me to be happy. Everybody doesn’t have to treat me right for life to be enjoyable. I have already made up my mind: No matter what does or doesn’t happen, I will stay in peace and enjoy this day.” The Scripture says that “no one will take away your joy” (John 16:22 NIV). No circumstance can take your peace. No interruption can take your enthusiasm. You have to give it away. The next time you’re tempted to be upset and frustrated, ask yourself, Is this worth giving my power away? Or, This man is rude to me on the phone. I don’t even know him. Is it worth giving him my joy? Or, This coworker left me out of a meeting; is it worth giving away my peace? You may not have the victory, not because you can’t, but because you keep giving it away. Life is too short to be upset and offended. If you allow your circumstances to control your joy, there will always be some reason to be discouraged.

I breathed in a deep dose of night air, trying to calm my schoolgirl nervousness. “I, umm…” I began. “I decided to stick around here a little while.” There. I’d said it. This was all officially real. Without a moment of hesitation, Marlboro Man wrapped his ample arms around my waist. Then, in what seemed to be less than a second, he hoisted me from my horizontal position on the bed of his pickup until we were both standing in front of each other. Scooping me off my feet, he raised me up to his height so his icy blue eyes were level with mine. “Wait…are you serious?” he asked, taking my face in his hands. Squaring it in front of his. Looking me in the eye. “You’re not going?” “Nope,” I answered. “Whoa,” he said, smiling and moving in for a long, impassioned kiss on the back of his Ford F250. “I can’t believe it,” he continued, squeezing me tightly. Our knees buckled under the heat, and before I knew it we were back where we’d been before, rolling around and kissing manically in the bed of his diesel pickup. Occasionally my arm would hit a crowbar and my head would slam against a spare tire or a cattle prod or a jack; I didn’t care, of course. I’d said what I wanted to say that night. Everything else--even minor head injuries--was a piece of cake. We stayed there a long, long time, the balmy night air giving us no good reason to leave. Under the innumerable stars, amidst all the embraces and kisses and sounds from the surrounding livestock, I suddenly felt more at peace in my decision than I had since my phone call with Rhonda the Realtor that morning. I felt at home, comfortable, nestled in, wonderful. My life had changed that day, changed in a way I never, ever, could have predicted. My big-city plans--plans many months in the making--had all at once been smashed to smithereens by a six-foot cowboy with manure on his boots. A cowboy I’d known, essentially, for less than three weeks. It was the craziest thing I’d ever done, deciding to take an impulsive walk down this new and unexpected path. And while I secretly wondered how long it would take for me to regret my decision, I rested easily, at least for that night, in the knowledge that I’d had the courage to step out on such an enormous limb. It was late. Time to go. “Want me to drive you home now?” Marlboro Man asked, lacing our fingers together, kissing the back of my hand. “Or, do you…” He paused, considering his words. “Do you want to come stay at my place?

The successful individual sales producer wins by being as selfish as possible with her time. The more often the salesperson stays away from team members and distractions, puts her phone on Do Not Disturb (DND), closes her door, or chooses to work for a few hours from the local Panera Bread café, the more productive she’ll likely be. In general, top producers in sales tend to exhibit a characteristic I’ve come to describe as being selfishly productive. The seller who best blocks out the rest of the world, who maintains obsessive control of her calendar, who masters focusing solely on her own highest-value revenue-producing activities, who isn’t known for being a “team player,” and who is not interested in playing good corporate citizen or helping everyone around her, is typically a highly effective seller who ends up on top of the sales rankings. Contrary to popular opinion, being selfish is not bad at all. In fact, for an individual contributor salesperson, it is a highly desirable trait and a survival skill, particularly in today’s crazed corporate environment where everyone is looking to put meetings on your calendar and take you away from your primary responsibilities! Now let’s switch gears and look at the sales manager’s role and responsibilities. How well would it work to have a sales manager who kept her office phone on DND and declined almost every incoming call to her mobile phone? Do we want a sales manager who closes her office door, is concerned only about herself, and is for the most part inaccessible? No, of course not. The successful sales manager doesn’t win on her own; she wins through her people by helping them succeed. Think about other key sales management responsibilities: Leading team meetings. Developing talent. Encouraging hearts. Removing obstacles. Coaching others. Challenging data, false assumptions, wrong attitudes, and complacency. Pushing for more. Putting the needs of your team members ahead of your own. Hmmm. Just reading that list again reminds me why it is often so difficult to transition from being a top producer in sales into a sales management role. Aside from the word sales, there is truly almost nothing similar about the positions. And that doesn’t even begin to touch on corporate responsibilities like participating on the executive committee, dealing with human resources compliance issues, expense management, recruiting, and all the other burdens placed on the sales manager. Again,

But there were problems. After the movie came out I couldn’t go to a tournament without being surrounded by fans asking for autographs. Instead of focusing on chess positions, I was pulled into the image of myself as a celebrity. Since childhood I had treasured the sublime study of chess, the swim through ever-deepening layers of complexity. I could spend hours at a chessboard and stand up from the experience on fire with insight about chess, basketball, the ocean, psychology, love, art. The game was exhilarating and also spiritually calming. It centered me. Chess was my friend. Then, suddenly, the game became alien and disquieting. I recall one tournament in Las Vegas: I was a young International Master in a field of a thousand competitors including twenty-six strong Grandmasters from around the world. As an up-and-coming player, I had huge respect for the great sages around me. I had studied their masterpieces for hundreds of hours and was awed by the artistry of these men. Before first-round play began I was seated at my board, deep in thought about my opening preparation, when the public address system announced that the subject of Searching for Bobby Fischer was at the event. A tournament director placed a poster of the movie next to my table, and immediately a sea of fans surged around the ropes separating the top boards from the audience. As the games progressed, when I rose to clear my mind young girls gave me their phone numbers and asked me to autograph their stomachs or legs. This might sound like a dream for a seventeen-year-old boy, and I won’t deny enjoying the attention, but professionally it was a nightmare. My game began to unravel. I caught myself thinking about how I looked thinking instead of losing myself in thought. The Grandmasters, my elders, were ignored and scowled at me. Some of them treated me like a pariah. I had won eight national championships and had more fans, public support and recognition than I could dream of, but none of this was helping my search for excellence, let alone for happiness. At a young age I came to know that there is something profoundly hollow about the nature of fame. I had spent my life devoted to artistic growth and was used to the sweaty-palmed sense of contentment one gets after many hours of intense reflection. This peaceful feeling had nothing to do with external adulation, and I yearned for a return to that innocent, fertile time. I missed just being a student of the game, but there was no escaping the spotlight. I found myself dreading chess, miserable before leaving for tournaments. I played without inspiration and was invited to appear on television shows. I smiled.

me to be honest about his failings as well as his strengths. She is one of the smartest and most grounded people I have ever met. “There are parts of his life and personality that are extremely messy, and that’s the truth,” she told me early on. “You shouldn’t whitewash it. He’s good at spin, but he also has a remarkable story, and I’d like to see that it’s all told truthfully.” I leave it to the reader to assess whether I have succeeded in this mission. I’m sure there are players in this drama who will remember some of the events differently or think that I sometimes got trapped in Jobs’s distortion field. As happened when I wrote a book about Henry Kissinger, which in some ways was good preparation for this project, I found that people had such strong positive and negative emotions about Jobs that the Rashomon effect was often evident. But I’ve done the best I can to balance conflicting accounts fairly and be transparent about the sources I used. This is a book about the roller-coaster life and searingly intense personality of a creative entrepreneur whose passion for perfection and ferocious drive revolutionized six industries: personal computers, animated movies, music, phones, tablet computing, and digital publishing. You might even add a seventh, retail stores, which Jobs did not quite revolutionize but did reimagine. In addition, he opened the way for a new market for digital content based on apps rather than just websites. Along the way he produced not only transforming products but also, on his second try, a lasting company, endowed with his DNA, that is filled with creative designers and daredevil engineers who could carry forward his vision. In August 2011, right before he stepped down as CEO, the enterprise he started in his parents’ garage became the world’s most valuable company. This is also, I hope, a book about innovation. At a time when the United States is seeking ways to sustain its innovative edge, and when societies around the world are trying to build creative digital-age economies, Jobs stands as the ultimate icon of inventiveness, imagination, and sustained innovation. He knew that the best way to create value in the twenty-first century was to connect creativity with technology, so he built a company where leaps of the imagination were combined with remarkable feats of engineering. He and his colleagues at Apple were able to think differently: They developed not merely modest product advances based on focus groups, but whole new devices and services that consumers did not yet know they needed. He was not a model boss or human being, tidily packaged for emulation. Driven by demons, he could drive those around him to fury and despair. But his personality and passions and products were all interrelated, just as Apple’s hardware and software tended to be, as if part of an integrated system. His tale is thus both instructive and cautionary, filled with lessons about innovation, character, leadership, and values.

Develop a rapid cadence. Ideal running requires a cadence that may be much quicker than you’re used to. Shoot for 180 footfalls per minute. Developing the proper cadence will help you achieve more speed because it increases the number of push-offs per minute. It will also help prevent injury, as you avoid overstriding and placing impact force on your heel. To practice, get an electronic metronome (or download an app for this), set it for 90+ beats per minute, and time the pull of your left foot to the chirp of the metronome. Develop a proper forward lean. With core muscles slightly engaged to generate a bracing effect, the runner leans forward—from the ankles, not from the waist. Land underneath your center of gravity. MacKenzie drills his athletes to make contact with the ground as their midfoot or forefoot passes directly under their center of gravity, rather than having their heels strike out in front of the body. When runners become proficient at this, the pounding stops, and the movement of their legs begins to more closely resemble that of a spinning wheel. Keep contact time brief. “The runner skims over the ground with a slithering motion that does not make the pounding noise heard by the plodder who runs at one speed,” the legendary coach Percy Cerutty once said.7 MacKenzie drills runners to practice a foot pull that spends as little time as possible on the ground. His runners aim to touch down with a light sort of tap that creates little or no sound. The theory is that with less time spent on the ground, the foot has less time to get into the kind of trouble caused by the sheering forces of excessive inward foot rolling, known as “overpronation.” Pull with the hamstring. To create a rapid, piston-like running form, the CFE runner, after the light, quick impact of the foot, pulls the ankle and foot up with the hamstring. Imagine that you had to confine your running stride to the space of a phone booth—you would naturally develop an extremely quick, compact form to gain optimal efficiency. Practice this skill by standing barefoot and raising one leg by sliding your ankle up along the opposite leg. Perform up to 20 repetitions on each leg. Maintain proper posture and position. Proper posture, MacKenzie says, shifts the impact stress of running from the knees to larger muscles in the trunk, namely, the hips and hamstrings. The runner’s head remains up and the eyes focused down the road. With the core muscles engaged, power flows from the larger muscles through to the extremities. Practice proper position by standing with your body weight balanced on the ball of one foot. Keep the knee of your planted leg slightly bent and your lifted foot relaxed as you hold your ankle directly below your hip. In this position, your body is in proper alignment. Practice holding this position for up to 1 minute on each leg. Be patient. Choose one day a week for practicing form drills and technique. MacKenzie recommends wearing minimalist shoes to encourage proper form, but not without taking care of the other necessary work. A quick changeover from motion-control shoes to minimalist shoes is a recipe for tendon problems. Instead of making a rapid transition, ease into minimalist shoes by wearing them just one day per week, during skill work. Then slowly integrate them into your training runs as your feet and legs adapt. Your patience will pay off.

Most of the time, you should be using the positive/playful voice. It’s the voice of an easygoing, good-natured person. Your attitude is light and encouraging. The key here is to relax and smile while you’re talking. A smile, even while talking on the phone, has an impact tonally that the other person will pick up on.

Thanks to the knowledge revolution, we have more information and more choices than ever before. But we also have more decisions to make and less time to make them as the pace of life picks up greater speed with each so-called labor-saving technological advance. The boundaries between home and the workplace are eroding as work reaches people by cell phone and e-mail, anywhere anytime. The rules are also eroding and the temptation to cut corners and bend ethical standards is powerful. Everywhere people are finding it hard to set and maintain boundaries. No is today’s biggest challenge.

... the Belgians took ivory, the Americans cobal, and now billions of Earthlings carry little bits of Africa around with them in their pockets. ... Extraction and export of minerals, both legal and illegal, have been controlled and taxed by competing militias and organized crime; away from the relative stability of the cities, thest groups continue to terrorize local populations and use the proceeds of this export trade to finance ongoing wars over local populations and use the proceeds of this export trade to finance ongoing wars over local territorial positions. The smoldering conflict is a war partially financed with the manufacturing capital of smart phones and laptops; inevitably, the smooth skin of the device demands gore to feed its gloss. ... The most heinous circumstances are the most allegorically rich, but even absent the anarchic brutality of these wars and the Conradian odor of campaigns against them, the lesson is more global: there is no Stack without a vast immolation and involution the Earth's mineral cavities. The Stack terraforms the host planet by drinking and vomiting its elemental juices and spitting up mobile phones.

... the Belgians took ivory, the Americans cobalt, and now billions of Earthlings carry little bits of Africa around with them in their pockets. ... Extraction and export of minerals, both legal and illegal, have been controlled and taxed by competing militias and organized crime; away from the relative stability of the cities, thest groups continue to terrorize local populations and use the proceeds of this export trade to finance ongoing wars over local populations and use the proceeds of this export trade to finance ongoing wars over local territorial positions. The smoldering conflict is a war partially financed with the manufacturing capital of smart phones and laptops; inevitably, the smooth skin of the device demands gore to feed its gloss. ... The most heinous circumstances are the most allegorically rich, but even absent the anarchic brutality of these wars and the Conradian odor of campaigns against them, the lesson is more global: there is no Stack without a vast immolation and involution the Earth's mineral cavities. The Stack terraforms the host planet by drinking and vomiting its elemental juices and spitting up mobile phones.

I had to think about this message for a few days to get clear on my own response. I don’t think that anything you say here is wrong or overstated or unusual. Many people find themselves needing assistance and support because of bad decisions repeated over a lifetime. Many people program shop. Many people abuse the system. Many people misdirect resources. Many people don’t try to improve their circumstances. Here’s my perspective: I choose not to think about this. The reality is that these same bad decisions, abuses of the system, etc., can happen regardless of the structure of the system. And I have made a really deliberate choice in my life to prioritize grace over fairness. That’s not the right decision for everyone, and I’m not saying that my personal preferences always make sound policy. But this is where I am. I choose grace. So even though many people create their own circumstances (some over and over and over again), I want them to have a place to live and food to eat and the opportunity to live with more ease even if they will likely blow that opportunity. I choose not to think about cigarettes or televisions or iPhones or how hard someone works compared to how hard I work. That search for justice makes me miserable and gets me nowhere. I can’t control anyone’s choices, motivation, or path, and I certainly don’t think government can. That’s why I’m leaning more toward universal basic income. Let’s dismantle the layers of administrators designed to essentially control people and just provide them with charity and the opportunity to later repay that charity by contributing to the system. Again, this is in no way a criticism of your position, which is valid and one I understand. This is just where I am. 19

I’d spent months requesting interviews with Hillary. Always the answer from Brooklyn, no matter how positive or substantive the topic, was either stone-cold silence or a hard no. But there I was in Bryant Park, picking up my phone to . . . “Amy, it’s Donald Trump . . .

Of course, problems come in threes, or at least twos. Rarely onesies. Major Truman Preston could hear the First Family screaming at each other and could care less. What worried him was that the White House was in lockdown, the president seemed a bit off his rocker, and he couldn’t get an outside line on his Department of Defense–issue cell phone. He needed to check in with his supervisor at the Pentagon, but neither cell nor landlines were working. So he sat on the second floor of the Residence, tucked away in a corner, a position he was more than used to, and held the football on his lap. Forty-five pounds of deadweight, with the emphasis on the dead. The surface of the case was dinged and battered and bruised from years of traveling. The damn case was older than he was. You’d think someone would have made the decision to swap the old thing out for a new case. Although the interior was updated with the latest electronics, never the outside. Tradition mattered, even in apparently trivial ways. Despite the turmoil raging and the lack of communication, Preston was his usual calm self

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But you should see the sky tonight. Screw your astrology apps. Screw your games. Look up sometime. There is a whole wing of positive psychology--my therapist told me--that says the greatest way to affect your outlook on life is to consider what you already have more than what you don't have. And so I might not have a cell phone on me, or a sister at home, or a Dad at all, or a future, but holy shit I have the sky.

Listed below are three basic rules that will help you become a successful candidate. Remember, however, that you need not be offered a job in every case to consider yourself successful. Rather, you are successful if you keep the job search process going in a professional manner. In working with countless people in the process of looking for a job, I have concluded that, for those who are currently unemployed, the full-time job should be just that: looking for a job. For those who currently have a job, but are openly seeking a better position with new challenges or a higher salary, take comfort in knowing you are working from a position of strength; use that knowledge to add to your self-esteem. In all cases, see yourself from the employer’s point of view. In their eyes, you are a more likely candidate if you behave professionally before and after the interview (with appropriate inquiry and follow-up—more on that later) and if you interact appropriately during the interview itself. As you continue to look for a job, remember the following tips for success: 1. When you call about a job prospect, get as much information as you can about the position and the company—including the name of the person doing the interviewing. Don’t be put off by feelings of anxiety—you have a right to “interview” them too. If possible, go to the library and research the company. By the time of your interview, you will feel more confident—and less anxious—because you will have resources from which to draw during your conversation. 2. If you have time to mail your resume before your scheduled interview, do so. But be sure to include a cover letter as well. While the resume gives background information about you, the cover letter explains why you are writing and briefly describes what makes you a good candidate for the job. Don’t allow low self-esteem to make you afraid to “sell yourself!” Only you can say why you would be an asset to the company. And one more thing—write the letter to a particular person, not “To Whom It May Concern” or “Dear Sir or Madam.” Most of the time, a prospective employer’s receptionist is willing to tell you exactly whom to contact. Use courtesy titles (“Dear Mrs. Smith”), unless the person is someone you already know on a first-name basis. 3. Do follow up. An appropriate measure of assertiveness goes a long way. Most employers appreciate someone who is diligent and communicates a genuine interest in the position. But don’t be aggressive. Limit your contact to a follow-up note, a phone call two weeks later, and perhaps a third one a few weeks after that. Be sure to let them know that if another, more appropriate, position comes along, you would be interested to learn about it. Again, by communicating properly and creating your own opportunities, you can achieve some control over your own destiny.

It may help you to jot down a few notes to alleviate any fear of becoming tongue-tied—your name, the position or company you are interested in, how you can be reached, any questions you may have. You won’t be reading it verbatim, but it may be comforting to refer back to it now and then as your conversation progresses. Know your message clearly. Have a plan for exactly what information you want to convey and what you intend to find out. It helps to visualize your success in the call beforehand, and if you feel anxious, to do relaxation exercises before you get on the phone. The importance of your image continues with any subsequent contact you make prior to the interview, such as your cover letter and resume.

A Professional Image The image you project begins with the first phone call you make. If you feel some initial anxiety, remind yourself that other people are calling too; you are entitled to inquire as well. Be professional, giving your name and the reason for your call, and then ask the name of the appropriate person to contact. At smaller establishments, the person who answers the phone may well be the person doing the hiring, so you should project a professional image from the outset. Your phone manner, including language, tone of voice, and level of assertiveness, is reflected even in a short telephone conversation. That first phone call is what may or may not get you in the door for an interview. If you don’t conduct yourself professionally, that may be as far as it goes. For example, I once received a phone call from someone interested in a position I had advertised. The man who called about the job—who may not have realized that “the boss” himself would answer the phone—was eating as he spoke to me. If he cared so little about the position that he could not make the effort to behave professionally, how would he act on the job? It wasn’t worth my time to find out! To prepare yourself mentally for the initial phone call, determine first of all how you would like to be perceived. This behavior rehearsal exercise will help to put you in the proper frame of mind for making the call. Sit back in a comfortable chair, close your eyes, take a deep breath . . . let go. Now, use the TV screen in your head to picture yourself making the phone call. See, hear, smell, touch the scene. See yourself being confident, communicating clearly, and receiving a favorable response. Above all, you are relaxed and natural.

I become familiar with cold hard grounds. On a Friday night, I drink three too many glasses of wine and I call Finn. She makes no black humor jokes. It is not an erotic mess anymore, like Sabine once told me it was. The conflict and torture is not a sign of intelligence anymore, as Finn once told me it was. It is ugly. We are exhausted. Gutted. You're too hard! she yells at me. Be soft, she orders. I'm confused, I tell her. I don't know what to grieve. I can't be in a relationship with anyone, she says, so if you have to grieve something, grieve that. She says this strongly. She means it. When we get off the phone I am in fetal position on the bathroom floor, holding my heart, while it literally aches.

Sometimes we break people's trust accidentally. An infraction such as not returning a phone call, missing a deadline, being late for an appointment, divulging a confidence, or speaking out of turn can damage our perceived character and reputation.

The crew advised us to learn the locator and security identifier methods that were so common on Earth. In most nations we would have no choice, but in a few we could choose to abstain. When I asked Will Nelson why those systems had been developed, he told me that the coded anklets had been introduced as a more convenient version of credit cards and had soon become status symbols. Someone equipped with an anklet could receive phone calls anywhere and could pick up merchandise in a store and walk out with it, free of the delay of waiting in a checkout line. As another visible sign of special privilege, the anklet wearer could walk directly on board a plane without stopping either at a ticket counter or a gate. It was only some time later, Nelson told me, that the records of position made possible by the anklets became legal evidence in courts of law. His advice to me was direct: unless I just couldn't stand the notion, I would be a lot better off letting the immigration guards at Freeport Seven put an anklet on me. If I didn't, I would be annoyed by time-wasting delays at every national border, and I'd be hassled at every residential town, museum, and shopping enclave.

about my No. 1 goal and decide which three things I’m going to do on this day to move closer toward reaching it. For example, at the time of this writing, my No. 1 goal is to deepen the love and intimacy in my marriage. Each morning I plan three things I can do to make sure that my wife feels loved, respected, and beautiful. When I get up, I put on a pot of coffee, and while it’s brewing, I do a series of stretches for about ten minutes—something I picked up from Dr. Oz. If you’ve lifted weights your whole life as I have, you get stiff. I realized that the only way I was going to incorporate more stretching into my life was to make it a routine. I had to figure out where in my schedule I could stick it in—and while the coffee’s brewing is as good a time as any. Once I’ve stretched and poured my cup, I sit in my comfy leather recliner, set my iPhone for thirty minutes (no more, no less), and read something positive and instructional. When the alarm sounds, I take my most important project and

Part 1: Readiness and Reminders Choose a place where you’ll feel comfortable and are unlikely to be disturbed. Get your props ready, shut the door, dim the lights, and turn off the phone or whatever else might be distracting. Relaxation Pose (Shavasana) Stretch yourself out on a thick blanket or mat on the floor. Either close your eyes or keep them slightly open… To help you relax your hips and legs, try letting your heels be about two feet apart. It’s fine to make your own adjustments so that your legs and hips feel comfortable and at ease… Allow your feet and toes to rest out to the sides, and let go… Now, bring your attention to your hips… Notice how the weight of your hips is resting on the ground… If it feels uneven, lift them up slightly, then settle back down until it feels even and balanced on both sides. Shift your attention to your shoulders. Feel the placement of your shoulders, exactly where they are… You’re invited to move your shoulders down from your ears and tuck your shoulder blades under for more support. Have your arms out to each side with your palms up. Settle the very back of your head on the floor or thin cushion and tuck your chin so that it’s slightly lower than your forehead. Adjust your hair if it’s in the way. Make sure that your head and neck are nicely aligned with your spine. Feel free to adjust your clothing and props, making sure that every part of your body feels as steady and comfortable as possible. Remind yourself to let the yoga nidra process happen naturally by being openly aware. It’s common to tune out while feeling deeply quiet and at ease while vaguely aware of what’s happening outside. Return your attention to the guiding instructions if you get distracted unnecessarily. Go ahead and add your own personal reminders for keeping on track and having a more meaningful time. Say it positively and in the present tense. Please take a big breath in through your nose and sigh it out through your mouth… Feel free to breathe in and sigh out a few more times.

7 Outstanding Tips for Banner Printing Choosing to produce a printed banner is a fantastic way to maximize your promotional requirements, it helps you to give maximum stand out and showcase your brand. There are a range of options from large PVC banners to simple roller banner solutions to suit all purposes of banner printing. Let’s look at some important points that can help you to make the most out of your printed banner. 1. Use High resolution images While going for banner printing, having good quality images is imperative. If you carry your own camera, then your camera should be able to take decent quality images, but be careful with images from the internet. Not only could you infringe copyright law but the quality is usually quite poor. 2. Clever use of color Your banner printing should be such that maximizes the use of color. Imagine the environment, where will your banner be positioned? What does your competition look like? Then, you can use color to ensure that you stand out from the crowd. If you are an established business, be sure to use your brand colors and clearly position your logo towards the top of the banner, this will make sure you develop a consistent brand identity throughout your marketing material. 3. Count your words Using a large amount of written text can look busy, messy and be off putting to your audience. Try to work out on your key message or brand values and make the banner big and bold. A short & striking message or a graphic will work a hundred times better than a hundred words. The banner printing is meant to grab attention of the viewer, not bore them. 4. Reveal your benefit Succinctly convey your key benefit in your banner headline. Do you have the best price? The best service? The best quality product? Whatever it is, make your banner printing known, specific to your audience and make it centralized. 5. Include an offer Make a time – limited offer to motivate customers to respond quickly. Your offer might even be included in your headline to simplify your banner. 6. Create a memorable call to action Make it clear what customers should do next in order to take advantage of your special offer. Your call to action should be succinct as well as memorable, such as an easy-to-remember URL or phone number. Remember that potential customers will only have a few seconds to digest your banner, so they must be able to retain the action step at a glance. 7. Less is more It is a simple rule but one that makes all the difference. It is very tempting to use a banner to get across every possible message and cram it full of content and images, however from an end user perspective big, bold and simple messaging and graphics is the most effective way to grab attention as well as looking professional and confident.

It’s clear why politicians in power might find it convenient to get advance notice of statistics so they can plan to crow about them if they’re good—or if they’re bad, to get their story straight or create a distraction. But it’s far from clear that this is in the public interest. Why shouldn’t everyone, on all sides of the debate, get access to the numbers at the same time, once they’re ready? (There is a compromise position: ministers could receive the statistics thirty minutes in advance and sit alone, without access to a cell phone, to compose a response. Quite apart from being pleasingly like sending powerful people back to sit exams, this is how journalists are sometimes given sensitive official releases. We cope. I was told a story about a Canadian statistician explaining this approach at an international gathering of colleagues. Her Russian counterpart chimed in with a question: “How does that approach work if the minister wishes to change the statistics?” Exactly.)

Keep your weak hand up by your face, so that you can easily defend your head if a punch is unexpectedly thrown. Use the weak hand to scratch your head or cheek, brush your hair, wipe your brow, adjust your hat, etc., but keep that hand up. Remember that you will most likely be reacting to an assault, and therefore it will take too long to bring a hand up from your waist to your head to defend yourself against a sneak attack. Cover This block/cover comes from boxing, and is identical to the one taught in my book The Cook Method of the Sap for Law Enforcement and Civilians. The weak (left) hand comes up and brings the hand to the ear as though you are talking on the phone. The upraised elbow and bent arm create a large, strong defense against any type of blow, especially a hook punch, which is difficult to defend against by trying to parry or block with the hand. You can also think of this move as raising the left elbow upward. In close, this shielding move can be used as a strike, hitting the attacker with an upward elbow strike. Train this move by having a partner slowly and lightly swing with his right hand at your head. If you get boxing headgear and gloves, you can gradually increase the speed and power of this strike. It is also possible for your partner to swing at your head using the punch mitts. Hammerfist As the left elbow comes up and the left hand is placed just off your ear, your right hand –which has been resting near your left armpit-- snaps outward, striking with the bottom of the fist. Aim for the opponent's jawline. A problem with punching on the street is that it's easy to damage your knuckles when hitting someone's skull or teeth. The bottom-of-the-fist blow, also known as a hammerfist, is a very powerful blow that can be delivered with little risk of injury to the knuckles or wrist. It has proven itself to be devastatingly effective in the full-contact cage matches of the mixed martial arts. Practice doing both motions at the same time; raising the left elbow up to cover the head while striking out with the right hammerfist. Practice slowly at first, then move to the heavy bag. You can also have a partner with the focus mitts swing the right mitt while holding the left mitt up as a target for you to hit with the right hand. Once you have the form down, make the move explosive. Burst outward with the elbow and hammerfist simultaneously. Snap the hammerfist, bringing it quickly back to the start position. Another tip as you practice this move is to drop your head down, so that your chin and the side of your face are not exposed. With your chin down, the striking right hand and arm will help to shield your head from attacks with the opponent's left hand. This is how you defend yourself when an opponent has surprised you with a flurry of punches –not by trying to block a rain of blows, but by striking while protecting your head.

Exercise 1: A Happy Moment First of all, make sure you are in a quiet place, with no distractions.  Put your phone away, switch the TV off, and give this a shot. What I want you to do is to close your eyes and think back to a time you were positive, relaxed or optimistic. A happy moment. Maybe you were spending time with a loved one, or on holiday. It doesn't matter how long ago it was; yesterday, last week, or 20 years ago. Perhaps it was a time when you were a child. No matter how long ago it was, try to remember exactly how you felt, physically and emotionally. Don't put too much thought into how you feel – just relax in reliving this happy moment. Feel free to smile or laugh out loud as you do it, and at the same time don't worry if your mind wanders a little; slowly and gently bring your thoughts back to this sheer sense of bliss. Try this for just five minutes. When you have finished turn the page and try the next step. Finished? Great! So, after that five minutes, how do you feel? Take your notebook (or at the very least a sheet of paper if you can't find a book) and write down the answer to the following question. If you could sum up your emotions during those five minutes, what three words would you use? (i.e. happy, confident, relaxed.) Use whatever words you feel are most appropriate. Sometimes words may be hard to come by; if you can't think of any words you might decide to draw or sketch how you felt. That's okay too. Don't spend too long on writing this down – a minute or two should be fine. Once you're done, let's move on to the next exercise.

In this exercise we try to untangle the knot of pain and/or anger created by conflict. Even if the relationship is not one you want to salvage or have the option of rebuilding, this exercise will help you let go of anger and find peace. Before you start, visualize yourself in the other person’s shoes. Acknowledge their pain and understand that it is why they are causing you pain. Then, write a letter of forgiveness. List all the ways you think the other person did you wrong. Forgiving another person honestly and specifically goes a long way toward healing the relationship. Start each item with “I forgive you for…” Keep going until you get everything out. We’re not sending this letter, so you can repeat yourself if the same thing keeps coming to mind. Write everything you wanted to say but never had a chance. You don’t have to feel forgiveness. Yet. When you write it down, what you’re doing is beginning to understand the pain more specifically so that you can slowly let it go. Acknowledge your own shortcomings. What was your role, if any, in the situation or conflict? List the ways you feel you did wrong, starting each with the phrase “Please forgive me for…” Remember you can’t undo the past, but taking responsibility for your role will help you understand and let go of your anger toward yourself and the other person. When you are done with this letter, record yourself reading it. (Most phones can do this.) Play it back, putting yourself in the position of the objective observer. Remember that the pain inflicted on you isn’t yours. It’s the other person’s pain. As Wayne Dyer once wrote, when you squeeze an orange, you get orange juice. When you squeeze someone full of pain, pain comes out. Instead of absorbing it or giving it back, if you forgive, you help diffuse the pain.

A common fear for companies is that if they open up a space for customers to share their problems, that it will be really negative and toxic. To that, I always remind them that any negativity that people feel toward your product is already being shared, just not in spaces where you have access and influence. It's much better to be able to own the space where these conversations are happening, to hear what people are saying, and be able to proactively respond. Kobe always recommends taking any heated conversations offline, “Ask the member to chat over email or phone where you can address their concerns one-on-one, or even escalate to a senior customer support agent to address sensitive situations.” Even in the most negative communities, over time you can turn the corner and develop a culture of positivity and optimism by continuing to show up, make your customers feel heard, and address their concerns with honesty and transparency.

invite her to help you pick out a ringtone on your phone. Then set the timer together for an agreed-upon time. When it goes off, it is time to go.

Getting Off the Island of Lost Boys and Girls The first step to getting off this God-forsaken island is to understand ministry is wherever you are as a disciple of Jesus. When I first chose the public-university route, Christian friends would say, “Wow, I’m really surprised you’re not going into ministry.” But they had no idea of the ministry happening all around me, through me, and growing inside of me. They weren’t there when I carried my drunk classmate to her dorm room at 3:00 a.m. and slept on her floor to make sure she was safe. They weren’t hearing the midnight conversations between my Jewish roommate and me. They didn’t know how much ministry was happening as I lit the menorah with her at Hanukkah or how the presence of God filled our room as we read the Easter story together that same year. They didn’t know about the lunches with my atheist professors who wore me down as they challenged my charismatic upbringing and tried to tell me there was no God. They didn’t see me wrestling with my faith and that with each day God was perfecting it. Ministry is all around us, and if we let him, he’ll show us it isn’t confined to a position in a church building that we fear can be stolen. It’s in the everyday hugs and phone calls we make, in teachers grading papers and doctors charting medical information, in stay-at-home moms and dads packing lunches with little notes where Jesus shows up, and the Kingdom advances because we are right where he wants us. When we learn that ministry is right where we are, we go big, we don’t hold back, and we don’t wait for something better. We stop being afraid it can be stolen. We don’t care if we’re overlooked. It might be holding back your roommate’s hair after a long night of partying or rocking a sleeping baby or mowing your neighbor’s lawn. This isn’t selfie material. Setting sail with the Great Commission (go and make disciples) and the Great Commandment (love God and love people) as our North Star keeps us off the Island of Lost Boys and Girls.

reward system But there’s a reward system you can use to keep yourself motivated. Here are some suggestions: Buy yourself an advent calendar, and for each day you don’t look at his profile or engage with him in any capacity, enjoy the treat for that day. If you can’t afford an advent calendar or can’t find one in the shops, make yourself a journal – on each successful day, write something amazing about yourself, and on a day where you did trip up, write something that reminds you of why you started doing this thirty-day challenge. Getting into the habit of saying nice things about yourself prepares you to become so used to compliments that you aren’t dangerously swooned when others recognise your greatness. Every ten days that pass without you breaking the rule, take yourself on a really nice solo date to an upscale bar, or your favourite club or restaurant, and imagine the room is full of men who are all waiting to be picked by you, the goddess. For even spicier results, wear something red so you feel even sexier. Getting into the habit of going out to bars and social environments alone will not just put you in a position of meeting new people, it will also quell your fear of being alone. There’s nothing more powerful than a woman who knows how to hold her own in a room full of strangers. Or, if you feel ready, each time you make it to the ten-day mark, why don’t you try practising your new confidence on your dating apps and let yourself be taken out? By the time the thirty-day window ends, you will have gone on three different dates with three new guys, which will significantly lower the hype around the man you’ve been thinking of. You never know: one of these guys could end up being far more interesting, way hotter and maybe even richer. As you get closer to the end of the thirty-day period, why not have a spa booked to mark the last day? It will be a period of reflection, relaxation, and remembering how far you’ve come within just a month of leaving a situation that could have dragged your life in a completely different direction. You deserve to meet the woman you’re destined to become: take the time to do so. Set a reminder on your phone every couple of days that says ‘It’s time to finally choose yourself for once. Don’t let him win!’ When it gets hard, ask yourself: At what point will I be the victor here? When will I finally walk away with my head held high? This must end at some point – why not now?

Everything is good and okay / because more than anything else, / phone calls are about saying positive things / so the other person doesn't feel bad.

Like fish in water, we are swimming at all times in an ocean of energy. Look around you: Everything is energy! Everything you see is part of the electromagnetic spectrum. Not only light bulbs and computers and iPhones but planets, animals, stars, and entire galaxies — it’s all electrical. The page you’re reading, the chair you’re sitting in, the ground beneath your feet, the planet you live on, the sun that heats that planet are ultimately just electromagnetic energy vibrating at different frequencies — in other words, electricity. It’s all energy, frequency, and vibration. Every single thing in our observable universe is in constant motion on an atomic or subatomic level — even things like rocks that appear motionless. As the great physicist Richard Freyman says, “Everything jiggles,” or as I like to put it, “Everything jitterbugs,” thanks to the exchange of positive and negative forces that gives rise to this dance of energy. There’s no such thing as a “noun” when we get right down to it, because everything is actually a process. (Interestingly, the Hopi language doesn’t contain any nouns, and it better reflects the essential fluidity of the world around us.)

Remember to be sincere—after all, there might really be an emergency. But more often than not, he’ll mutter a little excuse, tuck his phone back into his pocket, and start enjoying the night again. Victory is yours! You’ve succeeded in tactfully spreading the social antibody against “phubbing,” a word coined by the ad agency McCann for the Macquarie Dictionary. Phubbing, a portmanteau of phone and snubbing, means “to ignore (a person or one’s surroundings) when in a social situation by busying oneself with a phone or other mobile device.” The dictionary assembled experts to create the word in order to give people a way to call out the problem. Now it’s up to us to start using the term so that it may become another positive social antibody in our arsenal against distractions in social settings.

Moving from “features” to “benefits” and then to “value” often confuses people, particularly folks who come from a technical background. An engineer by training, I often viewed features and the benefits derived from those features as interchangeable early in my career. For many consumer technical products, features are presented as valuable in their own right—but only because we do the translation to value automatically in our heads. For example, phone makers have often represented the quality of their cameras by talking about the number of megapixels. Consumers have been trained to translate megapixels to photo quality and therefore believe that cameras with more megapixels take better photos. Digging a bit deeper, the value of “better photos” for most consumers means sharper, more detailed images when printed or zoomed in.

Let's start at the beginning: the first step of the unmasking process is realizing you're Autistic. It might not feel like it's an active step toward self-acceptance or authenticity, but coming to understand yourself as disabled is a pretty dramatic reframing of your life. Almost every neuro-diverse person I've spoken to for this book shared that discovering they were Autistic was a powerful aha moment, one that prompted them to rethink every narrative they'd believed about who they were. Painful labels they'd carried around inside themselves for years suddenly didn't seem as relevant: it wasn't that they were stupid, or clueless, or lazy, they were just disabled. It wasn't that their effort had never been enough, or that they were fundamentally wrong or bad. They simply hadn't been treated with the compassion they deserved, or given the tools that would have allowed them to flourish. Naming their position in society as a disabled person helped them to externalize that which had long been internalized. It proved that none of their suffering had been their fault.

The same thing is true with positive experiences, like the butterfly. Somebody you like comes up to you and says, “You know, I really like you. You’re very attractive to me, and I enjoy being with you.” That is such a nice experience that you immediately cling to the beautiful things they said. They go back to what they were doing, but you can’t. You can’t focus on your work because the impressions left in your mind keep distracting you. This is the opposite of Be Here Now; you’re practicing Be There Then. You just had a beautiful experience, and you ruined it. You ruined it by holding on to it, like the butterfly. You ruined it by creating a preference about one of life’s experiences. Now every time the phone rings, and it’s not the person who said the nice things, you get disappointed. Be aware that you did this. Somebody said something nice to you, and you couldn’t handle it. You couldn’t just let it be a nice experience. Instead, you clung to it in your mind, and it actually messed you up.