Primed To Perform Quotes

If a man says: “But I realize that my natural endowments are mediocre—shall I then suffer, be ashamed, have an inferiority complex?” The answer is: “In the basic, crucial sphere, the sphere of morality and action, it is not your endowments that matter, but what you do with them.” It is here that all men are free and equal, regardless of natural gifts. You can be, in your own modest sphere, as good morally as the genius is in his—if you live by the same rules. Find your goal within yourself, in whatever work you are honestly capable of performing. Never make others your prime goal. Demand nothing from others as an unearned gift and grant them nothing unearned. Live by your own rational judgments. Be independent in whatever judgments you hold or actions you undertake, and do not venture beyond your own capacity, into spheres where you’ll have to become a parasite and a second-hander. You’ll be surprised how decent and wonderful a human being you’ll become, and how much honest, legitimate human affection and appreciation you’ll get from others.

She tried to open the bottle, but the top slipped through her fingers without moving. He took the bottle from her hand and opened it using only his thumb and index finger. Alice thought there was nothing special in the gesture, that she could have done it herself, like anyone else, if only her hands hadn't been so sweaty. And yet she found it strangely fascinating, like a small heroic feat performed specially for her.

Humanity is an organism, inherently rejecting all that is deleterious, that is, wrong, and absorbing after trial what is beneficial, that is, right. If so disposed, the Architect of the Universe, we must assume, might have made the world and man perfect, free from evil and from pain, as angels in heaven are thought to be; but although this was not done, man has been given the power of advancement rather than of retrogression. The Old and New Testaments remain, like other sacred writings of other lands, of value as records of the past and for such good lessons as they inculcate. Like the ancient writers of the Bible our thoughts should rest upon this life and our duties here. "To perform the duties of this world well, troubling not about another, is the prime wisdom," says Confucius, great sage and teacher. The next world and its duties we shall consider when we are placed in it.

Demand for a product is affected by the cost and quality, broadly defined, of substitute products. If the cost of a substitute falls in relative terms, or if its ability improves to satisfy the buyer’s needs, industry growth will be adversely affected (and vice versa). Examples are the inroads that television and radio have made on the demand for live concerts by symphony orchestras and other performing groups; the growth in demand for magazine advertising space as television advertising rates climb sharply and prime advertising television time becomes increasingly scarce; and the depressing effect of rising prices on the demand of such products as chocolate candy and soft drinks relative to their substitutes.

I need to Amazon Prime some sage and perform an ancient cleansing ritual under a full moon in the center of town.

...The happy Warrior... is he... who, with a natural instinct to discern what knowledge can perform, is diligent to learn; abides by this resolve, and stops not there, but makes his moral being his prime care.

Apple Stores produce more sales per square foot than any other retailer in the United States, including luxury stores like Tiffany.

In one study, participants were primed with high-achievement words (related to winning, excellence, etc.) flashed on a computer screen. Each word appeared only for an instant, too fast for conscious deliberation. Participants with high-achievement motivation performed significantly better on tasks after being primed with the words than those with low achievement motivation.

He was the perfect gentleman and, unlike the salesmen in the Fitzrovia hotel, there were no attempts at fumbling—in fact they often performed an awkward little dance around their small office to avoid touching at all, as if Juliet were a desk or a chair, not a girl in her prime. It seemed that she had acquired all the drawbacks of being a mistress and none of the advantages—like sex. (She was becoming bolder with the word, if not the act.) For Perry, it seemed to be the other way round—he had all the advantages of having a mistress and none of the drawbacks. Like sex.

A man must think well before he marries. He must be a tender and considerate husband and realize that there is no other human being to whom he owes so much of love and regard and consideration as he does to the woman who with pain bears and with labor rears the children that are his. No words can paint the scorn and contempt which must be felt by all right-thinking men, not only for the brutal husband, but for the husband who fails to show full loyalty and consideration to his wife. Moreover, he must work, he must do his part in the world. On the other hand, the woman must realize that she has no more right to shirk the business of wifehood and motherhood than the man has to shirk his business as breadwinner for the household. Women should have free access to every field of labor which they care to enter, and when their work is as valuable as that of a man it should be paid as highly. Yet normally for the man and the woman whose welfare is more important than the welfare of any other human beings, the woman must remain the housemother, the homekeeper, and the man must remain the breadwinner, the provider for the wife who bears his children and for the children she brings into the world. No other work is as valuable or as exacting for either man or woman; it must always, in every healthy society, be for both man and woman the prime work, the most important work; normally all other work is of secondary importance, and must come as an addition to, not a substitute for, this primary work. The partnership should be one of equal rights, one of love, of self-respect, and unselfishness, above all a partnership for the performance of the most vitally important of all duties. The performance of duty, and not an indulgence in vapid ease and vapid pleasure, is all that makes life worth while.

CHARACTER of the HAPPY WARRIOR.   Who is the happy Warrior? Who is he   Whom every Man in arms should wish to be?   —It is the generous Spirit, who, when brought   Among the tasks of real life, hath wrought   Upon the plan that pleased his childish thought:   Whose high endeavours are an inward light   That make the path before him always bright:   Who, with a natural instinct to discern   What knowledge can perform, is diligent to learn;   Abides by this resolve, and stops not there, 10   But makes his moral being his prime care;   Who, doom'd to go in company with Pain,   And Fear, and Bloodshed, miserable train!

constant marking down of her performance is wildly at odds with the reality of the minority government. Despite the government’s wafer-thin margin, the parliament is remarkably stable; but it’s depicted as though we are living through the last days of Rome. Gillard is implementing reforms and the parliament has passed a record amount of legislation—around 180 bills to date—but the press talks endlessly of a government close to collapse. Australia is economically robust compared to faltering international economies, but you’d be forgiven for thinking the Australian economy is on the point of disintegration. The media’s primary focus is on personalities and politics, not policies or the running of the country.

math performance in Asian American women, built around the stereotypes of Asians being good at math, and women not. Half the subjects were primed to think of themselves as Asian before a math test; their scores improved. Half were primed about gender; scores declined. Moreover, levels of activity in cortical regions involved in math skills changed in parallel.

Of all the social ties we have at work, the boss/employee relationship, what Daniel Goleman has cleverly termed a “vertical couple,” is the single most important social bond you can cultivate at work. Studies have found that the strength of the bond between manager and employee is the prime predictor of both daily productivity and the length of time people stay at their jobs.

It is a fact of life on our beleaguered little planet that widespread torture, famine and governmental criminal irresponsibility are much more likely to be found in tyrannical than in democratic governments. Why? Because the rulers of the former are much less likely to be thrown out of office for their misdeeds than the rulers of the latter. This is error-correcting machinery in politics. The methods of science, with all its imperfections, can be used to improve social, political and economic systems, and this is, I think, true no matter what criterion of improvement is adopted. How is this possible if science is based on experiment? Humans are not electrons or laboratory rats. But every act of Congress, every Supreme Court decision, every Presidential National Security Directive, every change in the Prime Rate is an experiment. Every shift in economic policy, every increase or decrease in funding for Head Start, every toughening of criminal sentences is an experiment. Exchanging needles, making condoms freely available, or decriminalizing marijuana are all experiments. Doing nothing to help Abyssinia against Italy, or to prevent Nazi Germany from invading the Rhineland was an experiment. Communism in Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union and China was an experiment. Privatizing mental health care or prisons is an experiment. Japan and West Germany investing a great deal in science and technology and next to nothing on defense - and finding that their economies boomed - was an experiment. Handguns are available for self-protection in Seattle, but not in nearby Vancouver, Canada; handgun killings are five times more common in Seattle and the handgun suicide rate is ten times greater in Seattle. Guns make impulsive killing easy. This is also an experiment. In almost all of these cases, adequate control experiments are not performed, or variables are insufficiently separated. Nevertheless, to a certain and often useful degree, such ideas can be tested. The great waste would be to ignore the results of social experiments because they seem to be ideologically unpalatable.

We become more successful when we are happier and more positive. For example, doctors put in a positive mood before making a diagnosis show almost three times more intelligence and creativity than doctors in a neutral state, and they make accurate diagnoses 19 percent faster. Optimistic salespeople outsell their pessimistic counterparts by 56 percent. Students primed to feel happy before taking math achievement tests far outperform their neutral peers. It turns out that our brains are literally hardwired to perform at their best not when they are negative or even neutral, but when they are positive.

Lincoln Highway offered the kind of dramatic stories usually reserved for prime time, and thus began a trend toward quality programming on Saturday mornings. The stories were of people scattered along the 3,000–mile length of U.S. Route 30, which stretched from Philadelphia to Portland and was popularly known as the Lincoln Highway. Most surprising, even to radio insiders, was the long line of top performers willing to appear at that time of day. Listeners could rise on days off and hear Burgess Meredith portraying a young man who flees the city for farm life, or Raymond Massey as the owner of a trailer camp somewhere in middle America.

Solomon resumes talking to the envoys of Sheba: "Go back and tell her what you have seen, how the rare substance she thinks we value can be scraped up anywhere as soil. Tell her the elaborate throne she loves looks more like a bandage over a hurt place. We admire Ibrahim, who left his kingdom so quickly. With us, one genuine kneeling down in total humility would buy hundreds of governments. Our currency is an eagerness to accept the gift of soul change. Nothing else. Sheba's sumptuous life is just a hole in the ground with children playing in it, pretending to be kings and prime ministers. We perform reverse alchemy, transmuting gold mines into abandoned sites!

Fervent partisans of democracy often grant that democracy and the market are substitutes. As Kuttner puts it, “The democratic state remains the prime counterweight to the market.”45 Their complaint is that the public has less and less say over its destiny because corporations have more and more say over theirs. To “save democracy,” the people must reassert its authority. Fair enough. Though their opponents greatly overstate the extent of privatization and deregulation, these policies take decisions out of the hands of majorities and put them into the hands of business owners. But the critics rarely wonder if this transfer might be desirable. They treat less reliance on democracy as automatically objectionable. This is another symptom of democratic fundamentalism. If all that an economist had to say against a government program were, “That’s government intervention. Government is supplanting markets!” he would be pigeonholed, then marginalized, as a market fundamentalist. But when an equally simplistic cry goes up in the name of democracy, there is a sympathetic audience. It is logically possible that clear-eyed business greed makes better decisions than confused voter altruism. Why not at least compare their performance, instead of prejudging?

I’ve known Florence long, sir, but I’ve never known her so lovely as to-night. It’s as if the ghosts of her past were abroad in the empty streets. The present is sleeping; the past hovers about us like a dream made visible. Fancy the old Florentines strolling up in couples to pass judgment on the last performance of Michael, of Benvenuto! We should come in for a precious lesson if we might overhear what they say. The plainest burgher of them in his cap and gown had a taste in the matter! That was the prime of art, sir. The sun stood high in heaven, and his broad and equal blaze made the darkest places bright and the dullest eyes clear. We live in the evening of time! We grope in the gray dusk, carrying each our poor little taper of selfish and painful wisdom, holding it up to the great models and to the dim idea, and seeing nothing but overwhelming greatness and dimness. The days of illumination are gone! But do you know I fancy—I fancy”—and he grew suddenly almost familiar in this visionary fervor—“I fancy the light of that time rests upon us here for an hour! I have never seen the David so grand, the Perseus so fair! Even the inferior productions of John of Bologna and of Baccio Bandinelli seem to realize the artist’s dream. I feel as if the moonlit air were charged with the secrets of the masters, and as if, standing here in religious contemplation, we might—we might witness a revelation!” Perceiving at this moment, I suppose, my halting comprehension reflected in my puzzled face, this interesting rhapsodist paused and blushed. Then with a melancholy smile, “You think me a moonstruck charlatan, I suppose. It’s not my habit to hang about the piazza and pounce upon innocent tourists. But to-night I confess I’m under the charm. And then somehow I fancied you too were an artist!

Baron, Baroness Originally, the term baron signified a person who owned land as a direct gift from the monarchy or as a descendant of a baron. Now it is an honorary title. The wife of a baron is a baroness. Duke, Duchess, Duchy, Dukedom Originally, a man could become a duke in one of two ways. He could be recognized for owning a lot of land. Or he could be a victorious military commander. Now a man can become a duke simply by being appointed by a monarch. Queen Elizabeth II appointed her husband Philip the Duke of Edinburgh and her son Charles the Duke of Wales. A duchess is the wife or widow of a duke. The territory ruled by a duke is a duchy or a dukedom. Earl, Earldom Earl is the oldest title in the English nobility. It originally signified a chieftan or leader of a tribe. Each earl is identified with a certain area called an earldom. Today the monarchy sometimes confers an earldom on a retiring prime minister. For example, former Prime Minister Harold Macmillan is the Earl of Stockton. King A king is a ruling monarch. He inherits this position and retains it until he abdicates or dies. Formerly, a king was an absolute ruler. Today the role of King of England is largely symbolic. The wife of a king is a queen. Knight Originally a knight was a man who performed devoted military service. The title is not hereditary. A king or queen may award a citizen with knighthood. The criterion for the award is devoted service to the country. Lady One may use Lady to refer to the wife of a knight, baron, count, or viscount. It may also be used for the daughter of a duke, marquis, or earl. Marquis, also spelled Marquess. A marquis ranks above an earl and below a duke. Originally marquis signified military men who stood guard on the border of a territory. Now it is a hereditary title. Lord Lord is a general term denoting nobility. It may be used to address any peer (see below) except a duke. The House of Lords is the upper house of the British Parliament. It is a nonelective body with limited powers. The presiding officer for the House of Lords is the Lord Chancellor or Lord High Chancellor. Sometimes a mayor is called lord, such as the Lord Mayor of London. The term lord may also be used informally to show respect. Peer, Peerage A peer is a titled member of the British nobility who may sit in the House of Lords, the upper house of Parliament. Peers are ranked in order of their importance. A duke is most important; the others follow in this order: marquis, earl, viscount, baron. A group of peers is called a peerage. Prince, Princess Princes and princesses are sons and daughters of a reigning king and queen. The first-born son of a royal family is first in line for the throne, the second born son is second in line. A princess may become a queen if there is no prince at the time of abdication or death of a king. The wife of a prince is also called a princess. Queen A queen may be the ruler of a monarchy, the wife—or widow—of a king. Viscount, Viscountess The title Viscount originally meant deputy to a count. It has been used most recently to honor British soldiers in World War II. Field Marshall Bernard Montgomery was named a viscount. The title may also be hereditary. The wife of a viscount is a viscountess. (In pronunciation the initial s is silent.) House of Windsor The British royal family has been called the House of Windsor since 1917. Before then, the royal family name was Wettin, a German name derived from Queen Victoria’s husband. In 1917, England was at war with Germany. King George V announced that the royal family name would become the House of Windsor, a name derived from Windsor Castle, a royal residence. The House of Windsor has included Kings George V, Edward VII, George VI, and Queen Elizabeth II.

Breeding has made the creation of new species illegal. DISILLUSIONMENT CHARMS The wizard on the street also plays a part in the concealment of magical beasts. Those who own a Hippogriff, for example, are bound by law to enchant the beast with a Disillusionment Charm to distort the vision of any Muggle who may see it. Disillusionment Charms should be performed daily, as their effects are apt to wear off. MEMORY CHARMS When the worst happens and a Muggle sees what he or she is not supposed to see, the Memory Charm is perhaps the most useful repair tool. The Memory Charm may be performed by the owner of the beast in question, but in severe cases of Muggle notice, a team of trained Obliviators may be sent in by the Ministry of Magic. THE OFFICE OF MISINFORMATION The Office of Misinformation will become involved in only the very worst magical–Muggle collisions. Some magical catastrophes or accidents are simply too glaringly obvious to be explained away by Muggles without the help of an outside authority. The Office of Misinformation will in such a case liaise directly with the Muggle prime minister to seek a plausible non-magical explanation for the event. The unstinting efforts of this office in persuading Muggles that all photographic evidence of the Loch Ness kelpie is fake have gone some way to salvaging a situation that at one time looked exceedingly dangerous. 7. In his 1972 book Muggles Who Notice, Blenheim Stalk asserts that some residents of Ilfracombe escaped the Mass Memory Charm. ‘To this day, a Muggle bearing the nickname “Dodgy Dirk” holds forth in bars along the south coast on the subject of a “dirty great flying lizard” that punctured his lilo.’ 8. For a fascinating examination of this fortunate tendency of Muggles, the reader might like to consult The Philosophy of the Mundane: Why the Muggles Prefer Not to Know, Professor Mordicus Egg (Dust & Mildewe, 1963). 9. The largest department at the Ministry of Magic is the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, to which the remaining six departments are all, in some respect, answerable – with the possible exception of the Department of Mysteries.

In 1910 Leroux had his greatest literary success with Le Fantôme de l’Opéra (The Phantom of the Opera). This is both a detective story and a dark romantic melodrama and was inspired by Leroux’s passion for and obsession with the Paris Opera House. And there is no mystery as to why he found the building so fascinating because it is one of the architectural wonders of the nineteenth century. The opulent design and the fantastically luxurious furnishings added to its glory, making it the most famous and prestigious opera house in all Europe. The structure comprises seventeen floors, including five deep and vast cellars and sub cellars beneath the building. The size of the Paris Opera House is difficult to conceive. According to an article in Scribner’s Magazine in 1879, just after it first opened to the public, the Opera House contained 2,531 doors with 7,593 keys. There were nine vast reservoirs, with two tanks holding a total of 22,222 gallons of water. At the time there were fourteen furnaces used to provide the heating, and dressing-rooms for five hundred performers. There was a stable for a dozen or so horses which were used in the more ambitious productions. In essence then the Paris Opera House was like a very small magnificent city. During a visit there, Leroux heard the legend of a bizarre figure, thought by many to be a ghost, who had lived secretly in the cavernous labyrinth of the Opera cellars and who, apparently, engineered some terrible accidents within the theatre as though he bore it a tremendous grudge. These stories whetted Leroux’s journalistic appetite. Convinced that there was some truth behind these weird tales, he investigated further and acquired a series of accounts relating to the mysterious ‘ghost’. It was then that he decided to turn these titillating titbits of theatre gossip into a novel. The building is ideal for a dark, fantastic Grand Guignol scenario. It is believed that during the construction of the Opera House it became necessary to pump underground water away from the foundation pit of the building, thus creating a huge subterranean lake which inspired Leroux to use it as one of his settings, the lair, in fact, of the Phantom. With its extraordinary maze-like structure, the various stage devices primed for magical stage effects and that remarkable subterranean lake, the Opera House is not only the ideal backdrop for this romantic fantasy but it also emerges as one of the main characters of this compelling tale. In using the real Opera House as its setting, Leroux was able to enhance the overall sense of realism in his novel.

Several teams of German psychologists that have studied the RAT in recent years have come up with remarkable discoveries about cognitive ease. One of the teams raised two questions: Can people feel that a triad of words has a solution before they know what the solution is? How does mood influence performance in this task? To find out, they first made some of their subjects happy and others sad, by asking them to think for several minutes about happy or sad episodes in their lives. Then they presented these subjects with a series of triads, half of them linked (such as dive, light, rocket) and half unlinked (such as dream, ball, book), and instructed them to press one of two keys very quickly to indicate their guess about whether the triad was linked. The time allowed for this guess, 2 seconds, was much too short for the actual solution to come to anyone’s mind. The first surprise is that people’s guesses are much more accurate than they would be by chance. I find this astonishing. A sense of cognitive ease is apparently generated by a very faint signal from the associative machine, which “knows” that the three words are coherent (share an association) long before the association is retrieved. The role of cognitive ease in the judgment was confirmed experimentally by another German team: manipulations that increase cognitive ease (priming, a clear font, pre-exposing words) all increase the tendency to see the words as linked. Another remarkable discovery is the powerful effect of mood on this intuitive performance. The experimenters computed an “intuition index” to measure accuracy. They found that putting the participants in a good mood before the test by having them think happy thoughts more than doubled accuracy. An even more striking result is that unhappy subjects were completely incapable of performing the intuitive task accurately; their guesses were no better than random. Mood evidently affects the operation of System 1: when we are uncomfortable and unhappy, we lose touch with our intuition. These findings add to the growing evidence that good mood, intuition, creativity, gullibility, and increased reliance on System 1 form a cluster. At the other pole, sadness, vigilance, suspicion, an analytic approach, and increased effort also go together. A happy mood loosens the control of System 2 over performance: when in a good mood, people become more intuitive and more creative but also less vigilant and more prone to logical errors. Here again, as in the mere exposure effect, the connection makes biological sense. A good mood is a signal that things are generally going well, the environment is safe, and it is all right to let one’s guard down. A bad mood indicates that things are not going very well, there may be a threat, and vigilance is required. Cognitive ease is both a cause and a consequence of a pleasant feeling.

Even the way we describe seemingly straightforward tasks can make a difference in how people perform. In one experiment, subjects were asked to play either the “Wall Street Game” or the “Community Game,” a task designed to measure people’s willingness to cooperate under different conditions.19 In reality, they were the exact same game. But those who had been primed to think of community were more likely to be cooperative than those thinking of Wall Street. What we expect from people (and from ourselves) manifests itself in the words we use, and those words can have a powerful effect on end results. This means, as you will continue to see in the coming chapters, that the best managers and leaders view each interaction as an opportunity to prime their employees for excellence.

ready for prime time. Never mind his immense popularity, a recent Grammy for best pop album, or a concert tour that grossed $ 72.4 million. For critics, the

Before going to bed, they take a few minutes to read over the mathematical or literary work they did during the day—especially if they’ve reached a plateau or feel stuck. The mind then works all night to close the loop, and they wake up in the morning with “inspiration.” It seems magical, but it isn’t so much magical as it is the result of effective priming of the mental pump. The OTT principle and prioritization with a list

infrastructure companies. Amazon is so good at infrastructure that its fastest-growing and most profitable business (AWS) is all about allowing other companies to leverage Amazon’s computing infrastructure. Amazon also makes money by offering Fulfillment by Amazon to other merchants who envy its mastery of logistics, which ought to strike fear into the hearts of frenemies like UPS and FedEx. In addition to its eighty-six gigantic fulfillment centers, Amazon also has at least fifty-eight Prime Now hubs in major markets, allowing it to beat UPS and FedEx on performance by offering same-day delivery of purchases in less than two hours. Amazon has also built out “sortation” centers that let it beat UPS and FedEx on price by shipping small packages via the United States Postal Service for about $ 1 rather than paying FedEx or UPS around $ 4.50.

new research in psychology and neuroscience shows that it works the other way around: We become more successful when we are happier and more positive. For example, doctors put in a positive mood before making a diagnosis show almost three times more intelligence and creativity than doctors in a neutral state, and they make accurate diagnoses 19 percent faster. Optimistic salespeople outsell their pessimistic counterparts by 56 percent. Students primed to feel happy before taking math achievement tests far outperform their neutral peers. It turns out that our brains are literally hardwired to perform at their best not when they are negative or even neutral, but when they are positive.

Hear me out.” He held his hand toward me to silence my negations as he made his pitch. He could have said anything—that he was a purported billionaire who had built my favorite road in Pakistan, that he could buy me a power plant or build me a nuclear weapon. But he opted for honesty. “I know, I’m not as tall as you’d like,” Sharif explained. “I’m not as fit as you’d like. I’m fat, and I’m old. But I would still like to be your friend.” “No,” I said. “No way.” He then offered me a job running his hospital, a job I was eminently unqualified to perform. “It’s a huge hospital,” he said. “You’d be very good at it.” He said he would only become prime minister again if I were his secretary. I

Man as an individualised soul is essentially causal-bodied,” my guru explained. “That body is a matrix of the thirty-five ideas required by God as the basic or causal thought forces from which He later formed the subtle astral body of nineteen elements and the gross physical body of sixteen elements. “The nineteen elements of the astral body are mental, emotional, and lifetronic. The nineteen components are intelligence; ego; feeling; mind (sense-consciousness); five instruments of knowledge, the subtle counterparts of the senses of sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch; five instruments of action, the mental correspondence for the executive abilities to procreate, excrete, talk, walk, and exercise manual skill; and five instruments of life force, those empowered to perform the crystallising, assimilating, eliminating, metabolising, and circulating functions of the body. This subtle astral encasement of nineteen elements survives the death of the physical body, which is made of sixteen gross chemical elements. “God thought out different ideas within Himself and projected them into dreams. Lady Cosmic Dream thus sprang out decorated in all her colossal endless ornaments of relativity. “In thirty-five thought categories of the causal body, God elaborated all the complexities of man’s nineteen astral and sixteen physical counterparts. By condensation of vibratory forces, first subtle, then gross, He produced man’s astral body and finally his physical form. According to the law of relativity, by which the Prime Simplicity has become the bewildering manifold, the causal cosmos and causal body are different from the astral cosmos and astral body; the physical cosmos and physical body are likewise characteristically at variance with the other forms of creation. “The fleshly body is made of the fixed, objectified dreams of the Creator. The dualities are ever present on earth: disease and health, pain and pleasure, loss and gain.

Believing you have underachievers on your team creates underachievers.16

Rudolf Diesel deliberately set out to design a new, more efficient, prime mover, and by 1897 his first (heavy and stationary) engine had reached an efficiency of 30 percent, double the performance of the best steam engines.[40] But the first marine engine was installed only in 1912 on Christian X, a Danish freighter. Diesel-powered ships carried much less fuel than coal-fired steamers, but could travel further without refueling because the new engines were nearly twice as efficient—and because, per unit of mass, diesel oil contains nearly twice as much energy. An

Before dinner each night the two leaders, Hopkins, and various other members of the president’s official family gathered for cocktails in the Red Room. Roosevelt sat by a tray of bottles and mixed the cocktails himself. This was a cherished part of the president’s daily routine, his “children’s hour,” as he sometimes called it, when he let the day’s tensions and stresses slip away. “He loved the ceremony of making the drinks,” said Churchill’s daughter Mary Soames; “it was rather like, ‘Look, I can do it.’ It was formidable. And you knew you were supposed to just hand him your glass, and not reach for anything else. It was a lovely performance.” Roosevelt did not take drink orders, but improvised new and eccentric concoctions, variations on the whiskey sour, Tom Collins, or old-fashioned. The drinks he identified as “martinis” were mixed with too much vermouth, and sometimes contaminated with foreign ingredients such as fruit juice or rum. Churchill, who preferred straight whiskey or brandy, accepted Roosevelt’s mysterious potions gracefully and usually drank them without complaint, though Alistair Cooke reported that the prime minister sometimes took them into the bathroom and poured them down the sink.

Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) Stripping Secure sockets layer (SSL) stripping is a man in the middle attack against all SSL and early versions of TLS connections. The attack is performed anywhere a man in the middle attack can happen, which makes wireless hotspots a prime location. The attack works by intercepting the initial connection request for HTTPS, redirecting it to an HTTP site, and then mediating in the middle. The reason the attack works is because the beginning of an SSL or TLS (v1.0 or v1.1) handshake is vulnerable to attack. The main defense is technical: only use TLS 1.2 or 1.3, as these versions have protections against the specific attack method.

Performance was steady because the funds didn’t have to recognize when loans went bad – instead, they could just roll the loan over. It was a kind of ‘extend and pretend’ approach.

Despite compelling new knowledge about learning, how the brain works, and what constitutes effective classroom groupings, classrooms have changed little over the past 100 years. We still assume that children of a given age are enough like each other that they can and should traverse the same curriculum in the same fashion. Further, schools act as though all children should finish classroom tasks as near to the same moment as possible, and that school year should be the same length for all learners. To this end, teachers generally assess student content mastery via tests based on specific chapters of the adopted textbook and summative tests at the end of designated marking periods. Teachers use the same grading system for all children of a given age and grade, whatever their starting point at the beginning of the year, with grades providing little if any indication of whether individual students have grown since the previous grading period or the degree to which students' attitudes and habits of mind contributed to their success or stagnation. Toward the end of the school year, schools administer standardized tests on the premise that all students of a certain age should have reached an average level of performance on the prescribed content by the testing date. Teachers, students, and schools that achieve the desired level of performance are celebrated; those that do not perform as desired are reprimanded, without any regard to the backgrounds, opportunities, and support systems available to any of the parties. Curriculum often has been based on goals that require students to accumulate and retain a variety of facts or to practice skills that are far removed from any meaningful context. Drill-and-practice worksheets are still a prime educational technology, a legacy of behaviorism rooted firmly in the 1930s. Teachers still largely run "tight ship" classes and are likely to work harder and more actively than their students much of the time.

Of an entirely different order is Brennan’s magnificent performance as Pop Gruber, an aging grifter in Nobody Lives Forever (November 1, 1946), starring John Garfield as a con man, Nick Blake, who eventually goes straight after falling in love with Gladys Halvorsen (Geraldine Fitzgerald, in the prime of her beauty). The script by W. R. Burnett, one of masters of film noir, provides not just Brennan, but also George Coulouris (Doc Ganson) with more dimension than is usually accorded heavies in crime dramas.

In a study performed by Margaret Shih and her colleagues at Harvard, a group of Asian women were given similar math tests on two separate occasions.7 The first time around, they were primed to think about the fact that they were women, stereotypically worse at math than men. The second time around, they were told to focus on their identity as Asians, generally thought to be math whizzes compared to other ethnic groups. The result: The women performed far better in the second situation than they did in the first. Their math IQs hadn’t changed and neither had the difficulty of the questions. But in the second instance they believed more in their ability, and this was enough to make a substantive difference in performance.

The Concise Oxford Dictionary defines the verb to coach as to “tutor, train, give hints to, prime with facts.” This does not help us much, for those things can be done in many ways, some of which bear no relationship to coaching. Coaching is as much about the way these things are done as about what is done. Coaching delivers results in large measure because of the supportive relationship between the coach and the coachee, and the means and style of communication used. The coachee does acquire the facts, not from the coach but from within himself, stimulated by the coach. Of course, the objective of improving performance is paramount, but how that is best achieved is what is in question.

The 4-Hour Workweek Films: The Bourne Identity, Shaun of the Dead “Flow” album: Gran Hotel Buenos Aires by Federico Aubele “Wake-up” album: One-X by Three Days Grace The 4-Hour Body Films: Casino Royale, Snatch “Flow” album: Luciano Essential Mix (2009, Ibiza) featuring DeadMau5 “Wake-up” album: Cold Day Memory by Sevendust The 4-Hour Chef Films: Babe (Yes, the pig movie. It was the first thing that popped up for free under Amazon Prime. I watched it once as a joke and it stuck. “That’ll do, pig. That’ll do.” Gets me every time.) “Flow” album: “Just Jammin’” extended single track by Gramatik “Wake-up” album: Dear Agony by Breaking Benjamin Tools of Titans Films: None! I was traveling and used people-watching at late-night cafés in Paris and elsewhere as my “movie.” “Flow” album: I Choose Noise by Hybrid “Wake-up” album: Over the Under by Down

St. Benedict's Rule, chapter 16: “‘Seven times in the day,’ says the Prophet [psalmist], ‘I have rendered praise to you.’ Now that sacred number of seven will be fulfilled by us if we perform the offices of our service at the time of the morning office, of prime, of terce, of sext, of none, of vespers and of compline, since it was of these day hours that he said, ‘Seven times in the day I have rendered praise to you.’ For as to the night office the same Prophet says, ‘In the middle of the night I arose to glorify you.

My Valet and I continued our voyeuristic endeavor. We were Peeping Toms. Both women were in their prime and their shapely naked bodies were delightful to behold. My lover and I wanted to see what lesbian sex was about, so we continued watching the two passionate women. For two gay boys, watching women making out was quite an educational experience. Before tonight, I had no idea what lesbians did when they performed the sex act. I did know that women could achieve multiple orgasms within short intervals. Our professors had taught us that in sex education classes. But I had never, in reality, witnessed women making love, until now.

Got a hot date tonight, Sarge?” Ro chuckled as he handed Syn the next group of Illustra’s entertainers that were being picked up for questioning. Syn flushed but chose to ignore Ro’s smug grin. “Shut up,” he mumbled, and flipped open the next file. He flinched so hard his neck popped. Syn’s breath caught at the image that stared back at him. “Oh yeah. This is the one I wanted to mention, he might be a prime suspect.” Syn threw his hand up, stopping Ro. This couldn’t be happening. “I thought we’d concluded that the killers were women from that crazy-ass men-bashing group, BTNS?” “Yes, we did. But hear me out; there may be more players in this. Starman was definitely taken out by women but he could’ve been set up by others. This guy's name is Furious Gray Barkley. During questioning, the owner of Illustra, Johnathan Mack said that Furious Barkley, who performs as Furious Styles, was scheduled to do a movie with Sasha Pain but declined. Furious’ replacement was our vic.” Ro rubbed his smooth face and kept talking, oblivious to Syn’s inner turmoil. “Kicker is, although this Furious Gray Barkley has no priors, he’s also known as Furious Gray Nicks. Husband to Patrick Nicks. That image there is a photo that was given to the Charlotte Mecklenburg Police Department when Furious’ husband filed a missing persons on him almost a year ago. Furious is on the run and I want to know why. I contacted the husband but had to leave a message. I already sent Jameson to pick him up. He works at a pub in ... hmmm.” Ro’s eyebrows rose. “In your neighborhood.

So training smart, training effectively, involves cycling through the three zones in any given week or training block: 75 percent easy running, 5 to 10 percent running at target race paces, and 15 to 20 percent fast running or hill training in the third zone to spike the heart and breathing rates. In my 5-days-a-week running schedule, that cycle looks like this: On Monday, I cross-train. Tuesday, I do an easy run in zone one, then speed up to a target race pace for a mile or two of zone-two work. On Wednesday, it’s an easy zone-one run. Thursday is an intense third-zone workout with hills, speed intervals, or a combination of the two. Friday is a recovery day to give my body time to adapt. On Saturday, I do a relaxed run with perhaps another mile or two of zone-two race pace or zone-three speed. Sunday is a long, slow run. That constant cycling through the three zones—a hard day followed by an easy or rest day—gradually improves my performance in each zone and my overall fitness. But today is not about training. It’s about cranking up that treadmill yet again, pushing me to run ever faster in the third zone, so Vescovi can measure my max HR and my max VO2, the greatest amount of oxygen my heart and lungs can pump to muscles working at their peak. When I pass into this third zone, Vescovi and his team start cheering: “Great job!” “Awesome!” “Nice work.” They sound impressed. And when I am in the moment of running rather than watching myself later on film, I really think I am impressing them, that I am lighting up the computer screen with numbers they have rarely seen from a middle-aged marathoner, maybe even from an Olympian in her prime. It’s not impossible: A test of male endurance athletes in Sweden, all over the age of 80 and having 50 years of consistent training for cross-country skiing, found they had relative max VO2 values (“relative” because the person’s weight was included in the calculation) comparable to those of men half their age and 80 percent higher than their sedentary cohorts. And I am going for a high max VO2. I am hauling in air. I am running well over what should be my max HR of 170 (according to that oft-used mathematical formula, 220 − age) and way over the 162 calculated using the Gulati formula, which is considered to be more accurate for women (0.88 × age, the result of which is then subtracted from 206). Those mathematical formulas simply can’t account for individual variables and fitness levels. A more accurate way to measure max HR, other than the test I’m in the middle of, is to strap on a heart rate monitor and run four laps at a 400-meter track, starting out at a moderate pace and running faster on each lap, then running the last one full out. That should spike your heart into its maximum range. My high max HR is not surprising, since endurance runners usually develop both a higher maximum rate at peak effort and a lower rate at rest than unconditioned people. What is surprising is that as the treadmill

The knights performed their feats with very little planning and rarely did their post-feat paperwork, but they made up for these shortcomings with their fearlessness, their strength, and their energy. The king was also lucky to have a very good prime minister. The minister saw that taxes were collected, that the majority of the revenues were wisely spent to improve the kingdom, and that the excess monies were well managed. One day the prime minister died, and the king asked his bravest and most fearless knight to be the new minister. Unfortunately, the knight chosen for the job liked jumping on his white charger more than he liked caring for the affairs of the kingdom. He continued to gallop off to slay dragons whenever he had the opportunity and neglected tax collections, investments, improvements, and repairs. After only a short time, the king ran out of money, the peasants ran out of patience, and the kingdom collapsed.

For example, seeing a rectangle of a particular orientation facilitates performance on a subsequent grasping task, provided that the object to be grasped shares that orientation (Craighero, Fadiga, Umiltà, & Rizzolatti, 1996). This priming occurs even when the orientation of the rectangle does not reliably predict the orientation of the object to be grasped. A striking corollary is that visual input can activate covert motor

Risk heightens focus and flow follows focus. This means that the fight-or-flight response primes the body—chemically and psychologically—for the flow state. Athletes report moving through one to get to the other.

John Howard performed a triple reverse somersault on his promise to never, ever introduce a GST under a government he led, and was met with no such opprobrium. Unlike Gillard, he consistently lied to the Australian people about his intentions.

All told, the performance of George Marshall in many of his roles was less than awe-inspiring. Yet, the far right excepted, the paeans were incessant, the applause unrelieved. The discrepancy may well have originated in Americans’ yearning for a platonic ideal of a triumphant military leader above politics, deceit, and selfish ambition—in a word, a George Washington—which they located in a fallible man of sterling character but unremarkable powers. Only a very few keen observers saw beyond the conventional wisdom. In effect, the Olympian persona that Marshall himself created protected him, though imperfectly, from criticism, both in his prime and in his future historical reputation.

The Pakistan Election Commission failed to perform its fairness as an international standard even though the voting time couldn't pass and match that; only 8 hours for voting were not appropriate. Imran Khan may manage to form an unstable government with unwanted compromises in question, which, indeed, degrade him more, as he went too far to victimize Muslim League N and Pakistan Peoples Party Zardari; however, he cannot fulfill what he promised to the people of Pakistan nor will he be able to execute new and standard foreign policy independently. Any compromise will cause him to be an opportunist for power, especially to become the prime minister at all costs. It does not seem that any party will cooperate with him to form even a weak government. As a fact, even in the leading position of the PTI in elections, the confused establishment faces grave defeat in the face of compromise for a coalition government that holds slurs and severe consequences. Pakistani media airing Imran Khan as a prime minister is not only false but also misleading to the nation. Though Khan's PTI is a leading party in the elections, it does not have the required seats to form a full-fledged government, nor has any other party or parties shown their willingness to join PTI for that purpose. In this context, why does the Pakistani media execute something that does not define the reality within the strong foes such as the PMLN and PPP? Let's realize and wait for the coming days to see how the sun rises and what the shape and outcome will be. The media seem non-professional and irresponsible. 

When I checked myself out in the bedroom mirror, I looked rather suave and primed for action. I performed a few test karate chops and jujitsu kicks, then modeled some debonair poses. “The name’s Ripley,” I purred smoothly. “Benjamin Ripley.” It was at this point that I noticed Erica standing in the doorway.

Flow is a state of self-forgetfulness, the opposite of rumination and worry: instead of being lost in nervous preoccupation, people in flow are so absorbed in the task at hand that they lose all self-consciousness, dropping the small preoccupations—health, bills, even doing well, of daily life. In this sense moments of flow are egoless. And although people perform at their peak while in flow, they are unconcerned with how they are doing, with thoughts of success or failure—the sheer pleasure of the act itself is what motivates them. A child who is naturally talented in music or movement, for example, will enter flow more easily in that domain than in those where she is less able. That initial passion can be the seed for high levels of attainment, as the child comes to realize that pursuing the field, whether it be dance, math, or music, is a source of the joy of flow. And since it takes pushing the limits of one's ability to sustain flow, that becomes a prime motivator for getting better and better; it makes the child happy. Pursuing flow through learning is a more humane, natural, and very likely more effective way to marshal emotions in the service of education.

Many leaders forget that there are actually two types of performance, both important yet mutually opposed. Most organizations manage tactical performance—the ability to execute against a plan. But adaptive performance—the ability to diverge from a plan—is just as important. Because tactical performance and adaptive performance are opposites, they live in a tension that few leaders have learned how to balance.

For many people, the pursuit of money and status can supply them with plenty of motivation and focus. Such types would consider figuring out their calling in life a monumental waste of time and an antiquated notion. But in the long run this philosophy often yields the most impractical of results. We all know the effects of “hyperintention”: If we want and need desperately to sleep, we are less likely to fall asleep. If we absolutely must give the best talk possible at some conference, we become hyperanxious about the result, and the performance suffers. If we desperately need to find an intimate partner or make friends, we are more likely to push them away. If instead we relax and focus on other things, we are more likely to fall asleep or give a great talk or charm people. The most pleasurable things in life occur as a result of something not directly intended and expected. When we try to manufacture happy moments, they tend to disappoint us. The same goes for the dogged pursuit of money and success. Many of the most successful, famous, and wealthy individuals do not begin with an obsession with money and status. One prime example would be Steve Jobs, who amassed quite a fortune in his relatively short life. He actually cared very little for material possessions. His singular focus was on creating the best and most original designs, and when he did so, good fortune followed him.

There are only three of these activities that the Systems Integrator MUST provide and MUST be expert at. These are: Project Management, Systems Engineering, and Subcontract Management. Everything else can be assigned to subcontractors to perform, but these three activities must be performed by the prime contractor.

For example, multiplying two six-digit prime numbers like 323,123 and 596,977 together is a relatively easy task. With a minute and a pencil and paper, you would get 192,896,999,171. But if instead you were given the number 192,896,999,171 and asked to find the two prime numbers that divide it, you would need a lot more time to test all of the different possibilities. In public-key encryption the numbers are much larger, but computers have to perform very similar tasks.

I heard Lucien first. 'Back off.' A low female laugh. Everything in me went still and cold at that sound. I'd heard it once before- in Rhysand's memory. Keep going. They were distracted, horrible as it was. Keep going, keep going, keep going. 'I thought you'd seek me out after the Rite,' Ianthe purred. They couldn't be more than thirty feet through the trees. Far enough away not to hear my presence, if I was quiet enough. 'I was obligated to perform the Rite,' Lucien snapped. 'That night wasn't the product of desire, believe me.' 'We had fun, you and I.' 'I'm a mated male now.' Every second was the ringing of my death knell. I'd primed everything to fall; I'd long since stopped feeling any guilt or doubt about my plan. Not with Alis now safely away. And yet- and yet- 'You don't act that way with Feyre.' A silk-wrapped threat. 'You're mistaken.' 'Am I?' Twigs and leaves crunched, as if she was circling him. 'You put your hands all over her.' I had done my job too well, provoked her jealousy too much with every instance I'd found ways to get Lucien to touch me in her presence, in Tamlin's presence. 'Do not touch me,' he growled. And then I was moving. I masked the sound of my footfalls, silent as a panther as I stalked to the little clearing where they stood. Where Lucien stood, back against a tree- twin bands of blue stone shackled around his wrists. I'd seen them before. On Rhys, to immobilise his power. Stone hewn from Hybern's rotted land, capable of nullifying magic. And in this case... holding Lucien against that tree as Ianthe surveyed him like a snake before a meal. She slid a hand over the broad panes of his chest, his stomach. And Lucien's eyes shot to me as I stepped between the trees, fear and humiliation reddening his golden skin. 'That's enough,' I said. Ianthe whipped her head to me. Her smile was innocent, simpering. But I saw her note the pack, Tamlin's bandolier. Dismiss them. 'We were in the middle of a game. Weren't we, Lucien?' He didn't answer. And the sight of those shackles on him, however she'd trapped him, the sight of her hand still on his stomach- 'We'll return to the camp when we're done,' she said, turning to him again. Her hand slid lower, not for his own pleasure, but simply to throw it in my face that she could-

political conditions in Romania.”57 At the end of this multilevel dialogue between authorities, courts, and the plaintiff, Valentina Colien had successfully performed her German Volkszugehörigkeit. She was recognized as an ethnic German after convincing two courts that her entire life in Romania had revolved around her Germanness and that she had left Romania because of this ethnic identity. Even her opposition to the communist regime was supposedly derived from her being German, which for the German court had to be the prime motivation for all her actions. Remarkably, however, Colien’s Jewish background was not discussed or even referred to at any point in this court matter. The only way that it can be understood from the ruling that Colien was Jewish is from the fact that she received Israeli citizenship while in Tel Aviv. As will be discussed below, as the number of Jewish applicants for expellee cards increased, the Jewish faith and its implications for German Volkszugehörigkeit became the object of more explicit controversy.

In fact, they are. In a remarkable experiment, Margaret Shin, Todd Pittinsky, and Nalini Ambady asked Asian-American women to take an objective math exam. But first they divided the women into two groups. The women in one group were asked questions related to their gender. For example, they were asked about their opinions and preferences regarding coed dorms, thereby priming their thoughts for gender-related issues. The women in the second group were asked questions related to their race. These questions referred to the languages they knew, the languages they spoke at home, and their family’s history in the United States, thereby priming the women’s thoughts for race-related issues. The performance of the two groups differed in a way that matched the stereotypes of both women and Asian-Americans. Those who had been reminded that they were women performed worse than those who had been reminded that they were Asian-American. These results show that even our own behavior can be influenced by our stereotypes, and that activation of stereotypes can depend on our current state of mind and how we view ourselves at the moment.

great performers never just hope they’ll be on top of their game. Rather, they actively create the specific conditions that will elicit their personal best, priming themselves for performance.

How do I need to perform to do that? These athletes have trained themselves to create a rich mental picture of what they’re doing and how they’re doing it when they’re performing at their best. This mental visualization process makes them feel more confident and primes them to physically perform at their best in the actual event.

Steeped in a literature claiming that men were created in the image of a warrior God, it’s no wonder evangelicals were receptive to sentiments like those expressed by Jerry Falwell in his 2004 sermon, “God is Pro-War.” Having long idealized cowboys and soldiers as models of exemplary Christian manhood, evangelicals were primed to embrace Bush’s “‘ cowboy’ approach” and his “Lone Ranger mentality.” God created men to be aggressive—violent when necessary—so that they might fulfill their sacred role of protector. 27 At the 2004 Republican National Convention, Christian recording artist Michael W. Smith stood on the stage of New York’s Madison Square Garden, declaring his love for his president and his country. He then recounted how, only six weeks after the September 11 attacks, he had found himself in the Oval Office with his good friend, President Bush. They spoke of the firefighters and other first responders who had given their lives trying to save others. “Hey W,” said the presidential “W” to the singer. “I think you need to write a song about this.” Smith did as he was asked. And there, standing before the convention audience as patriotic images flashed on the screen behind him, he performed “There She Stands,” a song about the symbol of the nation, the American flag, standing proudly amid the rubble. It was a small rhetorical step to change the feminine “beauty” all men were created to fight for into the nation herself. 28

A land acknowledgement or territorial acknowledgement is a formal statement, often spoken at the beginning of a public event, that it is taking place on land originally inhabited by or belonging to indigenous people. In Canada, land acknowledgements became popular after the 2015 Truth and Reconciliation Commission report (which argued that the country's Indian residential school system had amounted to cultural genocide) and the election of liberal prime minister Justin Trudeau that same year.[2] By 2019, they were a regular practice at events including National Hockey League games, ballet performances and parliament meetings. Critics of land acknowledgements have described them as excesses of political correctness or expressed concerns that they amount to empty gestures that avoid actually addressing the issues of indigenous communities. Ensuring the factual accuracy of acknowledgments can be difficult due to problems like conflicting land claims or unrecorded land exchanges between indigenous groups. In the United States, the practice of land acknowledgements has been described as "catching on" as of 2020.

In a second experiment, researchers did not prime race, but instead the students were randomly assigned to one of two treatments.41 In both groups, the instructions said the exercises would become increasingly challenging. In one group, the instructions said the test was designed to measure personal factors correlated with natural athletic ability. Natural athletic ability was defined as “one’s natural ability to perform complex tasks that require hand-eye coordination, such as shooting, throwing, or hitting a ball or other moving objects.” In the other, the same test was presented as measuring “sports intelligence,” or “personal factors correlated with the ability to think strategically during an athletic performance.” In the “natural ability” condition, the African Americans did much better than the whites. In the “sports intelligence” condition, the whites did much better than the African Americans. Everyone, including the blacks themselves, had bought into the stereotype of the African American natural athlete and the white natural strategic player.

The English at least have the saving grace of being able to laugh at themselves. Which must be based upon a profound self-assurance. Since the performance of the state as a whole has been less than impressive in the last five decades, its roots must be in the individual. The English do not take pride in the achievements of their governments: they know they consist at best of ‘characters’ and at worst of charlatans. If a British Prime Minister appeared on television and began addressing them as American Presidents address their people (‘Mah feller Mericans’ as Richard Nixon used to say) their audience would fall about laughing.

there.” Disconnecting the call before Mimi could lambaste her further, she tossed the phone on the bed and darted for the bathroom. Her toe caught on the bedpost, sending a shot of pain through her foot and up her leg. Howling with righteous indignation, she called the bed a few choice names as she hobbled her way to the tub. Performing the world’s fastest strip down, she jumped into the shower and nearly slipped. “Holy fright,” she barked, catching herself on the handrail. Her brain was still groggy with sleep, her toe ached like a mofo, and she’d almost head-butted herself with the shower. This was clearly not her day. Like, at all. She needed a strong cup of coffee, STAT. And better karma. And apparently, a new alarm clock. Lathering the shampoo into her long, unruly curls, Evangeline replayed her evening. She had read for an hour before turning off the bedside lamp, and she distinctly remembered flipping the alarm to the on position. Having purchased the alarm clock radio at a secondhand store in what she thought was a great deal, she now figured it was past its prime, and she’d need to buy a new one when she got paid on Friday. Because who wouldn’t love to spend what little she earned on a new small appliance? After playing the lather-and-rinse game with the conditioner, she washed her body before carefully stepping from the shower to grab a towel. The last thing she needed was to do the splits across the linoleum floor. Her dang toe still throbbed to the tempo of an agitated mariachi band. After a quick towel drying that left her hair dripping rivulets down her back, she chose a blousy blue top, black gaucho pants, and a pair of ballet flats, which she managed to slip into without ripping, breaking, or slipping on anything.

Disconnecting the call before Mimi could lambaste her further, she tossed the phone on the bed and darted for the bathroom. Her toe caught on the bedpost, sending a shot of pain through her foot and up her leg. Howling with righteous indignation, she called the bed a few choice names as she hobbled her way to the tub. Performing the world’s fastest strip down, she jumped into the shower and nearly slipped. “Holy fright,” she barked, catching herself on the handrail. Her brain was still groggy with sleep, her toe ached like a mofo, and she’d almost head-butted herself with the shower. This was clearly not her day. Like, at all. She needed a strong cup of coffee, STAT. And better karma. And apparently, a new alarm clock. Lathering the shampoo into her long, unruly curls, Evangeline replayed her evening. She had read for an hour before turning off the bedside lamp, and she distinctly remembered flipping the alarm to the on position. Having purchased the alarm clock radio at a secondhand store in what she thought was a great deal, she now figured it was past its prime, and she’d need to buy a new one when she got paid on Friday. Because who wouldn’t love to spend what little she earned on a new small appliance? After playing the lather-and-rinse game with the conditioner, she washed her body before carefully stepping from the shower to grab a towel. The last thing she needed was to do the splits across the linoleum floor. Her dang toe still throbbed to the tempo of an agitated mariachi band. After a quick towel drying that left her hair dripping rivulets down her back, she chose a blousy blue top, black gaucho pants, and a pair of ballet flats, which she managed to slip into without ripping, breaking, or slipping on anything.

In India, music as well as painting and the drama is considered a divine art. Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva—the Eternal Trinity—were the first musicians. The Divine Dancer Shiva is scripturally represented as having worked out the infinite modes of rhythm in His cosmic dance of universal creation, preservation and dissolution, while Brahma accentuated the time-beat with the clanging cymbals and Vishnu sounded the holy mridanga or drum. Krishna, an incarnation of Vishnu, is always shown in Hindu art with a flute, on which he plays the enrapturing song that recalls to their true home the human souls wandering in maya delusion. Saraswati, Goddess of Wisdom, is symbolised as performing on the vina, mother of all stringed instruments. The Sama Veda of India contains the world’s earliest writings on musical science. The foundation stone of Hindu music is the ragas or fixed melodic scales. The six basic ragas branch out into 126 derivative raginis (wives) and putras (sons). Each raga has a minimum of five notes: a leading note (vadi or king), a secondary note (samavadi or prime minister), helping notes (anuvadi, attendants) and a dissonant note (vivadi, the enemy). Each one of the six basic ragas has a natural correspondence with a certain hour of the day, season of the year and a presiding deity who bestows a particular potency. Thus (1) the Hindole Raga is heard only at dawn in the spring, to evoke the mood of universal love; (2) Deepaka Raga is played during the evening in summer, to arouse compassion; (3) Megha Raga is a melody for midday in the rainy season, to summon courage; (4) Bhairava Raga is played in the mornings of August, September, October, to achieve tranquillity; (5) Sri Raga is reserved for autumn twilights, to attain pure love; (6) Malkounsa Raga is heard at midnights in winter, for valour. The ancient rishis discovered these laws of sound alliance between nature and man. Because nature is an objectification of Aum, the Primal Sound or Vibratory Word, man can obtain control over all natural manifestations through the use of certain mantras or chants.

dampened his spirit. Dr Singh never really recovered from that initial deflation of his authority and it came to affect multiple areas of governance. Even though the economy performed well in the early part of UPA-2,

In God we trust, all others must bring data. Edwards Deming.

Adaptive performance is most critical with Customer Service.

Inability to see the impact of your work can significantly affect ToMo.

What makes a difference between Apple Store and any other? Describe your best day at work: my best day at Apple was more like six months. Sales target was not tough, Justin cleared it before half of the day was over.

After nearly collapsing under the pressures of poverty, loneliness, and an addiction to Dexedrine, Spark sought help for her drug use and began to work seriously on a first novel, The Comforters (1957), partly with the financial and emotional support of the novelist Graham Greene. Though a late fiction writer, Spark began producing novels and stories at a rapid pace. In 1961 she wrote The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, widely considered her masterpiece. The novel follows a teacher at a girls’ school who carefully and manipulatively cultivates the minds and morals of a select handful of promising pupils. In 1969, it was adapted into an Academy Award–winning film starring Maggie Smith and was a Royal Command Performance.

The research overwhelmingly showed that competition holds people back from working or learning at their best. For a variety of reasons, optimal performance at most tasks not only doesn’t require people to try to beat one another—it requires that they be freed from such an arrangement. There is no trade-off. Cooperation makes more sense than competition if we care mostly about bottom-line results, just as it does if our prime concern is how people feel about themselves and those around them.

The presidency is a prime symbol of our national unity. The election of the president (with his alternate, the vice-president) is the only political act that we perform together as a nation; voting in the presidential election is certainly the political choice most significant to the American people, and most closely attended to by them. No matter, then, can be of higher political importance than our considering whether, in any given instance, this act of choice is to be undone, and the chosen president dismissed from office in disgrace. Everyone must shrink from this most drastic of measures.

What my research with priming race and test performance, and Bargh's research with the interrupters, and Maier's experiment with the ropes show is that people are ignorant of the things that affect their actions, yet they rarely feel ignorant. We need to accept our ignorance and say 'I don't know' more often.

Kundalini is a primitive spirit, a creative force that typically resides in a dormant state within our bodies. We realize our innate power and completeness upon awakening. We know there is everything within us that we need to be happy and fulfilled. Kundalini is not a physical reality but a perceptible reality. Once we have been awakened, we are shedding our old tendencies, and negativity like a snake sheds off its old skin. The kundalini is said to empower us with Shakti — that Divine Mother's primordial energy. Charged with this feminine creative force, we get filled with the vigor, enthusiasm, willpower, and self-confidence that we need to shake off negative memories and emotions hidden deep within our subconscious mind. Our mind is getting dormant. Issues and issues that had once held our focus now seem insignificant. Such a mind-state automatically produces intuitive wisdom.  Released from the endless chain of uncertainty and misunderstanding, insight is our guardian and guide.  The strength of discernment is unfailing. The reason kundalini awakening is such a remarkable aspect of spiritual awakening is that it is not based on complex theological arguments or religious norms that are culturally defined. Instead, Kundalini concentrates on the divine's immediate, ultimate experience within us. And regardless of your particular religious background and values, we can all use kundalini yoga to assist in our spiritual evolution. Most ancient myths allude to the meaning of kundalini. Tiresias narrative is a prime example. If Tiresias–the ancient Greek seer discovered two copulating snakes, he would stick his staff between them to distinguish them. He was immediately turned into a woman and remained like that for seven years until he was able to repeat his action and turn back into a male. In this novel, the force of change, powerful enough to completely reverse both male and female physical polarities, emerges from the fusion of the two serpents, passed on by the ring. Tiresias staff was later passed on to Hermes along with serpents. Several medical organizations use the ancient Greek icon of Hermes, the Greek god and messenger of all gods, called “Karykeion.” In occult Hermetic philosophy, Hermes Caduceus represents the masculine's potential as a central phallic rod surrounded by two coupling serpents ' writhing, woven Shakti energies. The rod also represents the spine (sushumna), while the serpents perform metaphysical currents (pranas) along the inda and pingala channels from the chakra at the base of the spine to the pineal gland in a double helix pattern.

In uncertain times, Mr. President,” the prime minister said, “the call of religious and ethnic solidarity can be intoxicating. And it’s not so hard for politicians to exploit that, in India or anywhere else.” I nodded, recalling the conversation I’d had with Václav Havel during my visit to Prague and his warning about the rising tide of illiberalism in Europe. If globalization and a historic economic crisis were fueling these trends in relatively wealthy nations—if I was seeing it even in the United States with the Tea Party—how could India be immune? For the truth was that despite the resilience of its democracy and its impressive recent economic performance, India still bore little resemblance to the egalitarian, peaceful, and sustainable society Gandhi had envisioned. Across the country, millions continued to live in squalor, trapped in sunbaked villages or labyrinthine slums, even as the titans of Indian industry enjoyed lifestyles that the rajas and moguls of old would have envied. Violence, both public and private, remained an all-too-pervasive part of Indian life. Expressing hostility toward Pakistan was still the quickest route to national unity, with many Indians taking great pride in the knowledge that their country “had developed a nuclear weapons program to match Pakistan’s, untroubled by the fact that a single miscalculation by either side could risk regional annihilation.

ON DECEMBER 8, 1941, cinemas and theaters in Japan were made to temporarily suspend their evening performances and broadcast a speech recorded by Prime Minister Tojo Hideki earlier that day. U.S. films—films such as Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, which the Japanese relished in easier times—were now officially banned. That night, audiences were confronted with the voice of a leader who hardly resembled Jimmy Stewart. Tojo was a bald and bespectacled man of middle age with no remarkable features other than his mustache. His exaggerated buckteeth existed only in Western caricatures, but he did not look like a senior statesman who had just taken his country to war against a most formidable enemy, and his voice was memorable only for its dullness. He recited the speech, “On Accepting the Great Imperial Command,” with the affected diction of a second-rate stage actor. Our elite Imperial Army and Navy are now fighting a desperate battle. Despite the empire’s every possible effort to salvage it, the peace of the whole of East Asia has collapsed. In the past, the government employed every possible means to normalize U.S.-Japan diplomatic relations. But the United States would not yield an inch on its demands. Quite the opposite. The United States has strengthened its ties with Britain, the Netherlands, and China, demanding unilateral concessions from our Empire, including the complete and unconditional withdrawal of the imperial forces from China, the rejection of the [Japanese puppet] Nanjing government, and the annulment of the Tripartite Pact with Germany and Italy. Even in the face of such demands, the Empire persistently strove for a peaceful settlement. But the United States to this day refused to reconsider its position. Should the Empire give in to all its demands, not only would Japan lose its prestige and fail to see the China Incident to its completion, but its very existence would be in peril. Tojo, in his selective explanation of the events leading to Pearl Harbor, insisted that the war Japan had just initiated was a “defensive” war. He faithfully echoed Japan’s deep-seated feelings of persecution, wounded national pride, and yearning for greater recognition, which together might be called, for the want of a better phrase, anti-Westernism. It was a sentimental speech, and it was notable for what was left unsaid.

because there was a new face in the chorus, and rumor—in the person of his friend Aubrey—said she was a promising possibility as a mistress. And indeed she was, Lucien had to admit—at least, she would be for Aubrey, who had come into his title and had full control of his fortune. But not for someone like Lucien—a young man on a strict allowance and whose title of Viscount Hartford was only a courtesy one, borrowed from his father. Being my lord was, he had found, one of the few benefits of being the only son of the Earl of Chiswick. “She’s quite attractive, as game pullets go,” he told Aubrey carelessly after the play, as they cracked the first bottle of wine at their club. “Have her with my blessing.” Aubrey snorted. “You know, Lucien, it’s just as well you’re not looking for a high-flyer, for you damned well couldn’t afford her.” Lucien forced a smile. “She’s not my sort, as it happens.” “Balderdash—she’s any man’s sort.” Not mine, Lucien thought absently. He might have said it aloud if the sentiment hadn’t been so startlingly true. How odd—for the chorus girl had been a prime piece, buxom and long-limbed and flashy, as well as incredibly flexible as she moved around the stage. How could he not be interested? Aubrey was looking at him strangely, so Lucien said, “If she’s so much to your taste, I’m surprised you didn’t go around to the stage door after the performance and make yourself known.” “Strategy, my friend. Never let a woman guess exactly how interested you are.” Aubrey waved a hand at a waiter to bring another bottle, and as they drank it, he detailed his plan for winning the chorus girl. “It’s too bad you can’t join the fun, for I’m certain she has a friend,” Aubrey finished. “The gossips have it that your father is never without a lightskirt, so why should he object to you having one?” “Oh, not a lightskirt. Only the finest of the demimonde will do for the Earl of Chiswick.” Lucien drained his glass. “I’m meant to be on the road to Weybridge at first light—for the duke’s birthday, you know. A few hours’ sleep before I climb into a jolting carriage will not come amiss.” “Too late.” Aubrey tilted his head toward the nearest window. “Dawn’s breaking now, if I’m not mistaken. You won’t mind if I don’t come to see you off? Deadly dull it is, waving good-bye—and I’ve a mind for a hand or two of piquet before I go home.” Lucien walked from the club to his rooms in Mount Street, hoping a fresh breeze might help clear his head. The post-chaise Uncle Josiah had ordered for him was already waiting. The horses stamped impatiently, snorting in the cool morning air, and the postboys looked bored. Nearby, Lucien’s valet paced—but he

The impressive performance of the Indian economy in the 2004-08 period and its ability to withstand the immediate impact of the Lehmann collapse contributed to India’s global standing and to Dr Singh’s global image. Leaving the London G-20 summit in April 2009, President Barack Obama went to Germany where a young school student asked him which politician he admired. Obama’s instant reply was that among existing world leaders he admired Dr Singh of India the most.

2.2 USING VISUALIZATION FOR PREGAME PREPARATION Ah, visualization! No, it’s not daydreaming, though it might sound a bit like it; it’s a technique where your young athlete imagines themselves succeeding in their sport, right down to the feel of the ball and the cheer of the crowd. This has been used by many elite athletes from soccer superstar Lionel Messi to football favorite Tom Brady. Think of it as a mental rehearsal that primes their body and mind for top-notch performance.

Within each player the kind of relationship that exists between Self 1 and Self 2 is the prime factor in determining one’s ability to translate his knowledge of technique into effective action. In other words, the key to better tennis—or better anything—lies in improving the relationship between the conscious teller, Self 1, and the natural capabilities of Self 2.