Rep Quotes

There are no shortcuts—everything is reps, reps, reps.

I wanted to tell you that I couldn't stop thinking about your face. That you had burrowed your way so deep into my veins that I would fucking bleed you. That if I died tomorrow, I could go a happy man for having felt your lips on my skin.

You're right, baby. We began out of something ugly. But what we became was something beautiful. I just wish I could make you see that.

Ona je živjela u stalnom strahu da će nešto važno i lijepo u životu propustiti. Često je putovala a još češće patila jer ne putuje. Smatrala je da su pravi povod i sreća uvijek negdje drugdje stalno je bila puna planova kako da ih uhvati za rep kako da u stalnom gibanju pronađe onaj kristalni trenutak kada se barem tako kažu snovi život pretvara u bajku.

The ‘Three Tumors’ is the nickname given to the three heavenly officials who don’t have a good rep but have a good relationship with each other, and they are Ming Guan, Ling Wen, and my brother. ‘I can’t believe it’s not Xie Lian, Xie Lian, and Xie Lian.’ Xie Lian thought.

From the bodybuilding days on, I learned that everything is reps and mileage. The more miles you ski, the better a skier you become; the more reps you do, the better your body.

Holy bad boy Batman!

Then you need to fight for him. Don't give up on something like that. It doesn't come along very often. And when you find it, you hold on tight. You lock that shit down with an iron fist and you never, ever let go. Even when life tries to take it from you, you smack life upside its head like a little bitch and you keep on fighting for it.

Stop it!" she hissed. I frowned and rubbed my arm. "What are you talking about?" I whispered back. Riley pointed at me, waggling her finger. "I know that look on your face! You're picturing him naked with you naked.

I knew Jordan's type. And I was attracted to them like bees to tasty, hormone soaked honey.

We're in Des Moines, Iowa today, were in Omaha, Nebraska yesterday and Boise, Idaho the day before. When we landed at the airport in Boise, from Portland, Oregon this lady from our plane came up from behind as we walked down the terminal. She approached me and said "Taylor, I just love your song and want to wish you great things in you career." I looked and her and said "Well, THANK YOU!" and then said " who did you talk to?". (and then pointed to my Mom and the Label rep we were traveling with) I was convinced that one of them had talked to the lady on the plane and told her about me and my song. The lady said "neither one" and then I said "Well, how did you know who I was?" and the lady said "because I listen to radio and I watched your video". This was the first time someone had actually KNOWN who I was and MY NAME. wow. I just walked over and hugged her, and said ...."You're the first person who's ever done that, thankyou." It was an amazing moment to remember, and I always will.

So what did I do? I crawled back into my bed and ate another gallon of ice creamy goodness and tried to forget the tattooed bartender who had bulldozed his way into my life. Stupid dick wad.

Dear lord, the flash of his gleaming white teeth was like a hot button to my nether regions. Down vagina! Down, girl.” Bad Rep by A. Meredith Walters

Speaking of friends…why did our new coyote buddies run from you?” – Sundown “I’m that badass.” – Sasha “Seriously.” – Sundown “O ye of little faith. You doubt my rep? My skills?” – Sasha “And your brains.” – Sundown

Wow, Mrs. Collins is a freaking miracle worker. Dangerous Noah Hutchins on the straight and narrow. If you don’t watch out she’ll ruin your rep with the girls." I lowered my voice. "Not that it matters. I only care what one girl thinks about me.

I do not want to know things, I want to understand things. I want to answer every question ever posed me. I want to leave no room for anyone to doubt me.

You have taken my heart, every inch of me Maysie. I don't know that I have anything else to give you that you don't have already

Reps, reps, reps

The Man has a branch office in each of our brains, his corporate emblem is a white albatross, each local rep has a cover known as the Ego, and their mission in this world is Bad Shit. We do know what's going on, and we let it go on. As long as we can see them, stare at them, those massively moneyed, once in a while. As long as they allow us a glimpse, however rarely. We need that. And they know it - how often, under what conditions...

It matters to me, Mays. It matters a lot. I don't like seeing some other guy touching you. Not when it should be me touching you

But tell me, Mays, why is it that all I can fucking think about is you? Why am I so eager to take another guy's head off for touching you? Why is it when I lay in bed at night I wish it was you there beside me?

Cop a squat, animals and folks. I don’t want to be here any more than the rest of you so make it fast and get out of my hair. Let’s quickly run down the bullshit pedagogy. Hear ye…Who the hell wrote this crap?...Welcome to the Omegrion Chamber. Here we gather, one rep from each branch of the two patrias. We come in peace (he paused to snort derisively) to make peace. I’m your mediator, Savitar, and if you don’t know that by now, you need to be hit in the head with a jackhammer and replaced because you’re too stupid to represent your patria. But in case you’re dense and forgot, I am the summation of all that was and what will one day be again. I make order from chaos and chaos from order, which is how I got drafted into this shit. Now let’s get on with this before I start splitting your hairs. (Savitar)

Do you need to hear that I haven't stopped missing you for one single since we broke up? Do I have to tell you that my heart hurts with how much I love you?

Chasing after you..again

Half-reps may build your ego but they also build half a phyqique.

I hope I always deserve you

She had exposed her hands while she tutored me. Shit. I'd forgotten about her scars. Hell, she'd forgotten about her scars-until now. I wanted that moment back, and to see her smile again. "Then who did? I't's been a while since i've been in a fight. My rep will be ruin if i'm good for too long." She fought it, but i won. The smile returned for a brief dazling moment.

I meant what I said, Mays. I love you. So damn much. And you'll wake up in the morning and realize you threw away something fucking perfect for NOTHING!

Have a life that matters. A life with purpose. Find your own way but don’t lose sight of the journey.

Nurse: "You look like a pharmaceutical rep. you can leave samples in the closet." Joe: "I'm actually a lawyer." Nurse: "My condolences.

Why, Maysie? What more do you need me to tell you? Haven't I already handed my fucking guts to you on a platter? What else do you need to hear?

Whatever happened in those more than one hundred years, from the time my great-great-great grandfather studied law to the time when my own father took his bar exam in 1989, I may never know. Perhaps it was just greed and the good, old-fashion corruption that comes with power. The Drexlers have moved from the fight for human rights to the fight for corporations and wealthy individuals. We file their taxes, write their contracts, clean up their messes. As I see it, we have become little more than glorified Public Relations reps

I hated him calling you 'his girl.' Because I want you all to myself

14. Muddy Road Tanzan and Ekido were once traveling together down a muddy road. A heavy rain was still falling. Coming around a bend, they met a lovely girl in a silk kimono and sash, unble to cross the intersection. "Come on, girl," said Tanzan at once. Lifting her in his arms, he carriedher over the mud. Ekido did not speak again until that night when they reached a lodging temple. Then he could no longer restrain himself. "We monks don't go near females," he told Tanzan, "especially not young and lovely ones. It is dangerous. Why did you do that?" "I left the girl there," said Tanzan. "Are you still carrying her?

It is clear from the evidence presented in this book that the pharmaceutical industry does a biased job of disseminating evidence - to be surprised by this would be absurd - whether it is through advertising, drug reps, ghostwriting, hiding data, bribing people, or running educational programmes for doctors.

Don't start this immature shit, please. If I gave a damn about any of those girls would I be here right now?

I know I'm with Olivia. I know that was a deal breaker for you. But goddamn it, I don't want to be with her. I only want you. It has only been you from the moment you walked into Barton's.

Fuck the lot of you and your hypocritical bullshit. You sit around spouting brotherhood. You don't know the first thing about being a brother. Or being a man. Because a real man sure as hell would never have disrespected a woman the way each and everyone of you have disrespected Maysie.

Stop running, girl It won't always feel like this

Come home with me tonight. Please. Let's figure all this out...together

This. I can't keep doing this. I can't keep pretending that I don't want you. That I can handle seeing other guys watch you and look at you. Jesus, Mays, I wanted to beat the shit out of Gio! And I would have! I see fucking red when another guy even breathes in your direction! I can't keep lying to myself that I don't care about you. Because I do. SO damn much.

1. A Cup of Tea Nan-in, a Japanese master during the Meiji era (1868-1912), recieved a university professor who came to inqure about Zen. Nan-in served tea. He poured his visitor's cup full, and then kept on pouring. The professor watched the overflow until he could no longer restrain himself. "It is overfull. No more will go in!" "Like this cup," Nan-in said, "you are full of your own opinions and speculations. How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your up?

I love you, Maysie," he said in a strangled whisper

Thankfully, Coach had taught me a way of embracing the pain. He called that overwhelming rust of hurt 'The Moment of No Return', a point of pure agony when the body told an athlete to quit, to rest, because the pain was so damn tough. It was a tipping point. He reckoned that if an athlete dropped in The Moment, then all the pain that went before it was pointless, the muscles wouldn't increase their current strength. But if he could work through the pinch and run another two reps, maybe 3, them the body would physically improve in that time, and that was when an athlete grew stronger.

He was also a terrific baseball player. That’s what had helped him refine his waist: tens of thousands of reps twisting to swing a bat.

I'm sorry if I pissed you off.I'm sorry if I acted like a fucker.But I'm not sorry for chasing off that pansy ass that used to have what's mine.Because you're my girl now and I won't have that asshole sniffing around where he doesn't belong.

Writing is a muscle. Smaller than a hamstring and slightly bigger than a bicep, and it needs to be exercised to get stronger. Think of your words as reps, your paragraphs as sets, your pages as daily workouts. Think of your laptop as a machine like the one at the gym where you open and close your inner thighs in front of everyone, exposing both your insecurities and your genitals. Because that is what writing is all about.

If you want to master a habit, the key is to start with repetition, not perfection. You don’t need to map out every feature of a new habit. You just need to practice it. This is the first takeaway of the 3rd Law: you just need to get your reps in.

I've been miserable. I can't sleep. I can't eat. I've wanted to pound down your doora million times. But I kept telling myself you just needed your space. That you'd sort your shit out. So I give you space. Then Riley tells me you're as miserable as I am. So I agree to come here. I had it all worked out in my head, Mays. I was going to come here and beg you to take me back. Hell, I was going to get on my knees if I had to. Because all I know is that I can't be without you.

Guys won't admit it, but we're all obsessed with our biceps. I did three sets of ten reps, thirty-five pounds on each side. I knew I was pushing it, especially since we have practice this afternoon, but what the fuck. That was going to be my motto today. What the fuck.

I'll save the sacking for later," he continues. "We can mimic the plays of our conjugal union in the privacy of my backyard. We can roll around on the lawn like animals and invent our own naughty games-Naked Leap Frog-Marshal May I-Hide the Peak-Red Light, Green Light District-Obstacle Intercourse-Hot Lava-Capture the Sector-Skyla Says-the possibilities are endless. Our throbbing loins will rep the victory. The entire scenario is, as you would say-made of win."~ Marshall

Gee, Vernon, now you're scaring me. Not the union rep." She gave a deliberate shudder. "You won't be so smart when you're hit with a lawsuit, and I start bleeding that rich husband you hooked." "My God, Peabody, a lawsuit. I feel faint." "Don't worry, Lieutenant, I'll catch you.

So here I am, watching you run. I wish you'd stop trying to leave. How easy you forget that you're my reason to breathe.

Didn't we talk about this Mays?" she asked. I looked away from her. "It's just hanging out." "And denial is just a river in Egypt. You ain't foolin' nobody," she quipped.

Did I need medication? Or did I need someone to talk to? Someone, that is, who would do more than charge the going rate for nodding and whip out a prescription pad before the first fifty minutes were up. Was I physiologically depressed? At an innate biochemical disadvantage? Or was reaching for the pad just the way things were done because the doc had been well patronized by the drug reps and had plenty of samples in her file cabinet?

If the feet of enlightenment moved, the great ocean would overflow; If that head bowed, it would look down upon the heavens. Such a body has no place to rest. . . . Let another continue this poem.

Similarly, he forgot - or never really understood - that we live in a culture where men, as a group, have more power than women. This isn't a controversial statement, despite the protestations of guys who funnel their frustration that not all extremely young, conventionally attractive women want to sleep with them into and argument that women, as a group, have "all the power." (Bill Maher, repping for his fan base, famously jokes that men have to do all sorts of shit to get laid, but women only have to do "their hair.") The really great thing about this argument is how the patently nonsensical premise - that some young women's ability to manipulate certain men equals a greater degree of gendered power than say, owning the presidency for 220-odd years - obscures the most chilling part: in this mindset, "all the power" means, simply, the power to withhold consent. Let that sink in for a minute. If one believes women are more powerful that men because we own practically all of the vaginas, then women's power to withhold consent to sex is the greatest power there is. Which means the guy who can take away a woman's right to consent is basically a superhero. Right?

Faith, to me, is knowing in the solid core of your soul that the work is already done, even as the idea is being conceived in your mind. It is being as sure as you are about your dreams as you are about anything you know as a hard fact.” Rep. John Lewis, D-GA

Every time the mind wanders away from the awareness of the breath, notice that it has wandered and bring your awareness back to the breath. This can be likened to a rep in the gym—every time you bring your mind back, you are building your "muscle" of attention.

Seeing the smile in your eyes, I have forgotten that people die

Who gives a damn about their reputation? Oh, that would be me.

5. If You Love, Love Openly Twenty monks and one nun, who was named Eshun, were practicing meditation with a certain Zen master. Eshun was very pretty even though her head was shaved and her dress plain. Several monks secretly fell in love with her. One of them wrote her a love letter, insisting upon a private meeting. Eshun did not reply. The following day the master gave a lecture to the group, and when it was over, Eshun arose. Addressing the one who had written her, she said: "If you really love me so much, come and embrace me now.

There wasn’t much that scared her. She was the strongest person I’d ever known. And I’m not talking about the kind of strength that’s measured by the number of reps someone can perform. I’m talking about being fearless. About standing up for yourself. About not caring what people think.

The greatest of all logical truths, and the one of which writers on philosophy are most apt to lose sight, the difference between words and things, has been most strenuously insisted on by him (cp. Rep.; Polit.; Cratyl), although he has not always avoided the confusion of them in his own writings (e.g. Rep.).

After all, you aren’t built to be transformed in a single day. You are built to improve little by little, connection by connection, rep by rep. As Wooden also said, “Don’t look for the big, quick improvement. Seek the small improvement one day at a time. That’s the only way it happens—and when it happens, it lasts.

It wasn’t just 1) the artwork and sleeve notes on the album sleeve. It wasn’t 2) the possibility of a hidden track, or a little message carved in the final groove. It wasn’t 3) the mahogany richness of the quality of sound. (But CD sound was clean, the reps argued. It had no surface noise. To which Frank replied, “Clean? What’s music got to do with clean? Where is the humanity in clean? Life has surface noise! Do you want to listen to furniture polish?”) It wasn’t even 4) the ritual of checking the record before carefully lowering the stylus. No, most of all it was about the journey. 5) The journey that an album made from one track to the next, with a hiatus in the middle, when you had to get up and flip the record over in order to finish. With vinyl, you couldn’t just sit there like a lemon. You had to get up off your arse and take part.

A person has only so much juice, and it’s ideally kept for your homeboys, not all pissed away on strangers before three in the day. Simple as that sounds, it was a game changer for me. I taught myself to save the juice. It’s a skill, like weight training, you do reps. Tell yourself ten times each night, don’t spend your juice on those sirens, worrying about the life screaming past on its way to getting tanked. Don’t spend it on the customers around you at Walmart Supercenter, just do your job without feeling the madness or sadness, the moms on the brink of snatching their kids bald-headed. The carts loaded with cases of PBR and Pampers.

I’m recognized in public about 80 percent of the time across this country, but during the other 20 percent when I’m not, I get pissed when I realize how shabbily other people must be treated every day. When store clerks or airline reps do suddenly recognize me and get nice after being grumpy when they didn’t know who I was, I get testy right back.

Aren’t you prepared to fight for it? To fight for happiness? To fight for me?” he asks, prompting me to peek at him. “Because I’m ready to fight for you, Adeline. I’m already armored up and set for battle, and I’m pretty fuckin’ determined to win. Because the prize is you.” His valor is admirable, if wasted. “But at what cost, Josh? Your career, your rep—” A hand is sealed across my mouth, silencing me. “I don’t care.” He sounds so adamant. “As long as the cost isn’t you.

I don't like seeing some other guy touching you. Not when it should be me touching you.

It is too clear and so it is hard to see. A dunce once searched for a fire with a lighted lantern. Had he known what fire was, He could have cooked his rice much sooner.

A person may appear a fool and yet not be one. They may only be guarding their wisdom carefully.

Meeting a Zen master on the road, Face him neither with words nor silence. Give him an uppercut And you will be called one who understands Zen.

Today you meet more folks than your ancestors could imagine … some in passing. Some for a crucial instant. Others for tangled decades. Biology can’t keep up. Our overworked temporal lobes cannot “know” the face-name-reps of ten billion people!

When what one does, reps, or 'spits', repetitively, is foul or beastly - one summons spiritual undertakers to dine on fleshly parasites. In various forms, nature's law purges all that becomes wasteful. Change your game, or the game will change you.

9. The Moon Cannot Be Stolen Ryokan, a Zen master, lived the simplest kind of life in a little hut at the foot of the mountain. One evening a thief visited the hut only to discover there was nothing in it to steal. Ryokan returned and caught him. "You may have come a long way to visit me," he told the prowler, "and you should not return empty-handed. Please take my clothes as a gift." Ryokan sat naked, watching the moon. "Poor fellow," he mused, "I wish I could give him this beautiful moon.

13. A Buddha In Tokyo in th Meiji era there lived two prominent teachers of opposite characteristics. One, Unsho, an instructor in Shingon, kept Buddha's precepts scrupulously. He never drank intoxicants, nor did he eat after eleven o'clock in the morning. The other teacher, Tanzan, a professor of philosophy at the Imperial University, never observed the precepts. When he felt like eating he ate, and when he felt like sleeping in the daytime he slept. One da Unsho visited Tanzan, who was drinking wine at the time, not even a drop of which is supposed to touch the tongue of a Buddhist. "Hello, brother," Tanzan greeted him. "Won't you have a drink?" "I never drink!" exclaimed Unsho solemnly. "One who never drinks is not even human," said Tanzan. "Do you mean to call me inhuman just because I do not indulge in intoxicating liquids!" exclaimed Unsho in anger. "Then if I am not human, wht am I?" "A Buddha," answered Tanzan.

The human world never figured out the phenomenal expense it took to create New Atlantis, or the unlikelihood that it would ever be possible again. To them, it looked as if we pulled our Gotham out of a cereal box. They saw their abandoned buildings turn into craters overnight, and assumed that that was the sort of thing we would always be capable of doing. Not a bad rep to have.

Pain splits us into two. When someone who is suffering says, “I’m fine, I’m fine,” it is not because she is fine, it is because her inner self told her outer self to say the words “I am fine.” Sometimes she will even slip and say, “We’re fine.” Others assume she’s referring to herself and her people, but she is not. She is referring to both of her selves: her hurt self and her representative, the one fit for public consumption. Pain transforms one woman into two so that she has someone to walk with, someone to sit with her in the dark when everyone else leaves. I am not alone. I have my hurt self, but I also have this representative of me. She will continue on. Maybe I can permanently hide my hurt self and send our rep out into the world and she can smile and wave and carry on as if this never happened. We can breathe when we get home. In public, we will just pretend forever. I

Hacking a national election is simple. Exploit a vulnerability in the manufacturer's network, poison the tabulation software update with self-deleting malware and let the manufacturer send to their field reps and election consultants who update the election systems.

If you meet a fencing-master on the road, you may give him your sword, If you meet a poet, you may offer him your poem. When you meet others, say only a part of what you intend. Never give the whole thing at once.

Most people didn't even think aliens really existed. And among those who did believe, "my" relatives had a bad rep. Little, gray and creepy. Known for cattle mutilations, abductions, and an extreme fascination with probing of all kinds. Not that any of those rumors were true, as far as I knew. Exept for the being little and gray-that bit was accurate, as far as I could tell, based on my own physiology and the Internet, of course.

Bast’s ears pricked at this news. Oh yes, this is good, she gloated inwardly. Felicity could be a useful tool if she was close to the Vanguard’s commanding officer. A plan began to form in her mind, an opportunity for some amusement and a chance to take down her target. Too good to miss. She laughed. “Lucky you. I don’t suppose he has any spare seats for us poor sales reps out here scrabbling to earn a living.” Felicity smiled. “I’d ask, but I suspect the answer would be only if I stayed here to free up a seat—and I’m not that self-sacrificial.” She laughed. “See you on the Dock, Yelendi. Mr Cardington, maybe I’ll be able to catch up with you soon. It’s been nice chatting with you both.

There’s something else about this list that really jumps out. Take another look at the top five attributes listed there—the key characteristics defining a world-class sales experience: Rep offers unique and valuable perspectives on the market. Rep helps me navigate alternatives. Rep provides ongoing advice or consultation. Rep helps me avoid potential land mines. Rep educates me on new issues and outcomes. Each of these attributes speaks directly to an urgent need of the customer not to buy something, but to learn something. They’re looking to suppliers to help them identify new opportunities to cut costs, increase revenue, penetrate new markets, and mitigate risk in ways they themselves have not yet recognized. Essentially this is the customer—or 5,000 of them at least, all over the world—saying rather emphatically, “Stop wasting my time. Challenge me. Teach me something new.

Giving people favors is a time-honored way of gaining loyalty. Pharmaceutical reps do it. The salespeople manning cosmetic counters do it. Lobbyists do it. Men with big crushes on impossibly beautiful women do it. Gifts work on our feelings in a couple of ways: they change the way we experience something, and they push our "reciprocate!" button. When we have the mandate to be objective and an incentive not to be, our biases often win the day-even if we don't think they will. Favors deeply affect our preferences and our loyalties.

Every love song I write now is because of you. Every song I will ever write for the rest of my life will be because of you.

though. Our Azadian friends are always rather nonplussed by our lack of a flag or a symbol, and the Culture rep here—you’ll meet him tonight if he remembers to turn up—thought it was a pity there was no Culture anthem for bands to play when our people come here, so he whistled them the first song that came into his head, and they’ve been playing that at receptions and ceremonies for the last eight years.” “I thought I recognized one of the tunes they played,” Gurgeh admitted. The drone pushed his arms up and made some more adjustments. “Yes, but the first song that came into the guy’s head was ‘Lick Me Out’; have you heard the lyrics?” “Ah.” Gurgeh grinned. “That song. Yes, that could be awkward.” “Damn right. If they find out they’ll probably declare war. Usual Contact snafu.

The default to studying men at times veered into absurdity: in the early sixties, observing that women tended to have lower rates of heart disease until their estrogen levels dropped after menopause, researchers conducted the first trial to look at whether supplementation with the hormone was an effective preventive treatment. The study enrolled 8,341 men and no women. (Although doctors began prescribing estrogens to postmenopausal women in droves - by the midseventies, a third would be taking them - it wasn't until 1991 that the first clinical study of hormone therapy was conducted in women.) An NIH-supported pilot study from Rockefeller University looked at how obesity affected breast and uterine cancer didn't enroll a single woman. While men can develop breast cancer - and a small number of them do each year - as Rep. Snowe noted drily at the congressional hearings, 'Somehow I find it hard to believe that the male-dominated medical community would tolerate a study of prostate cancer that used only women as research subjects.

We go quiet as the next episode picks up exactly where it left off. Antoine manages to subdue Marie-Thérèse, and the two proceed to argue for ten minutes. Don’t ask me about what, because it’s in French, but I do notice that the same word—héritier—keeps popping up over and over again during their fight. “Okay, we need to look up that word,” I say in aggravation. “I think it’s important.” Allie grabs her cell phone and swipes her finger on the screen. I peek over her shoulder as she pulls up a translation app. “How do you think you spell it?” she asks. We get the spelling wrong three times before we finally land on a translation that makes sense: heir. “Oh!” she exclaims. “They’re talking about the father’s will.” “Shit, that’s totally it. She’s pissed off that Solange inherited all those shares of Beauté éternelle.” We high five at having figured it out, and in the moment our palms meet, pure clarity slices into me and I’m able to grasp precisely what my life has become. With a growl, I snatch the remote control and hit stop. “Hey, it’s not over yet,” she objects. “Allie.” I draw a steady breath. “We need to stop now. Before my balls disappear altogether and my man-card is revoked.” One blond eyebrow flicks up. “Who has the power to revoke it?” “I don’t know. The Man Council. The Stonemasons. Jason Statham. Take your pick.” “So you’re too much of a manly man to watch a French soap opera?” “Yes.” I chug the rest of my margarita, but the salty flavor is another reminder of how low I’ve sunk. “Jesus Christ. And I’m drinking margaritas. You’re bad for my rep, baby doll.” I shoot her a warning look. “Nobody can ever know about this.” “Ha. I’m going to post it all over the Internet. Guess what, folks—Dean Sebastian Kendrick Heyward-Di Laurentis is over at my place right now watching soaps and drinking girly drinks.” She sticks her tongue out at me. “You’ll never get laid again.” She’s right about that. “Can you at least add that the night ended with a blowjob?” I grumble. “Because then everyone will be like, oh, he suffered through all that so he could get his pole waxed.” “Your pole waxed? That’s such a gross description.” But her eyes are bright and she’s laughing as she says it.

The body that isn't used to. maybe the ninth, tenth... eleventh, and twelfth rep with a certain weight. So that makes the body grow, then. Going through this pain barrier. Experiencing pain in your muscles and aching... and just go on and go on. And this last two or three or four repetitions... that's what makes the muscle then grow. And that divides one from a champion and one from not being a champion. lf you can go through this pain barrier, you may get to be a champion. lf you can't go through, forget it. And that's what most people lack, is having the guts. The guts to go in and just say, ''l'll go through and l don't care what happens.'' lt aches, and if l fall down.... l have no fear of fainting in a gym... because l know it could happen. l threw up many times while l was working out. But it doesn't matter, because it's all worth it.

He shook his head no and said, “It is now among us.” Roark also pressed him on the limits of the program, and Hayden suggested that the only real limit had been imposed by Rep. Nancy Pelosi in exchange for going along with the program and maintaining her silence about it. Hayden told Roark that “Pelosi had repeatedly warned him not to go beyond the CT [counterterrorism] target, and for now they were adhering to that.” In other words, the Bush administration and NSA eventually wanted to use the domestic spying program for purposes that had nothing to do with the global war on terror.

efficiently means providing slots in our schedules where we can maintain an attentional set for an extended period. This allows us to get more done and finish up with more energy. Related to the manager/worker distinction is that the prefrontal cortex contains circuits responsible for telling us whether we’re controlling something or someone else is. When we set up a system, this part of the brain marks it as self-generated. When we step into someone else’s system, the brain marks it that way. This may help explain why it’s easier to stick with an exercise program or diet that someone else sets up: We typically trust them as “experts” more than we trust ourselves. “My trainer told me to do three sets of ten reps at forty pounds—he’s a trainer, he must know what he’s talking about. I can’t design my own workout—what do I know?” It takes Herculean amounts of discipline to overcome the brain’s bias against self-generated motivational systems. Why? Because as with the fundamental attribution error we saw in Chapter 4, we don’t have access to others’ minds, only our own. We are painfully aware of all the fretting and indecision, all the nuances of our internal decision-making process that led us to reach a particular conclusion. (I really need to get serious about exercise.) We don’t have access to that (largely internal) process in others, so we tend to take their certainty as more compelling, in many cases, than our own. (Here’s your program. Do it every day.)

Operation Diamond would neutralize antiwar protesters with mugging squads and kidnapping teams; Operation Coal would funnel cash to Rep. Shirley Chisholm, a black congresswoman from Brooklyn seeking the Democratic presidential nomination, in an effort to sow racial and gender discord in the party; Operation Opal would use electronic surveillance against various targets, including the headquarters of Democratic presidential candidates Edmund Muskie and George McGovern; Operation Sapphire would station prostitutes on a yacht, wired for sound, off Miami Beach during the Democratic National Convention.

Here’s a great home workout that allows you to train and work on the usual issues I find ailing most people: • Right-leg Bulgarian Split Squats with the dumbbell in the suitcase position, 10 reps • Left-leg Bulgarian Split Squats with the dumbbell in the suitcase position, 10 reps • Goblet Squats with the dumbbell cradled on the chest, 10 reps • Deep Push-ups, chest touching the floor, with the push-up handles, 10 reps • Doorway Chin-ups or Pull-ups, 10 reps • Ab Wheel, 10 reps Try to do these six exercises one after another straight through without resting much between movements. Repeat this sequence, after a minute or two of rest, three to five times.

Trying to figure out where you fit while you’re living in a vanilla world is brutal. You basically never see yourself reflected back at you anywhere but porn. So your whole identity is super sexualized from the start. Which is so fucking weird, especially when you’re a kid. If you ever see any kind of Dom type on tv, ten times out of ten, people aren’t just making fun of them, they’re actually saying this person is a sadist and also a psychopath or a predator or a murderer, and they’re huge and scary and dressed in leather and latex and carrying whips. All that’s even available is warped caricatures of what vanilla people think kink is. It’s gross, and it makes it so hard to actually find your identity and not be ashamed when it’s just all bad rep written for shock value by people who have no idea what they’re talking about.

How are things going with your brothers?” “The judge set a date to hear me out after graduation. Mrs.Collins has been prepping me.” “That is awesome!” “Yeah.” “What’s wrong?” “Carrie and Joe hired a lawyer and I lost visitation.” Echo placed her delicate hand over mine.“Oh, Noah. I am so sorry." I’d spent countless hours on the couch in the basement, staring at the ceiling wondering what she was doing. Her laughter, her smile, the feel of her body next to mine, and the regret that I let her walk away too easily haunted me. Taking the risk, I entwined my fingers with hers. Odds were I’d never get the chance to be this close again. "No, Mrs. Collins convinced me the best thing to do is to keep my distance and follow the letter of the law." "Wow, Mrs. Collins is a freaking miracle worker. Dangerous Noah Hutchins on the straight and narrow. If you don’t watch out she’ll ruin your rep with the girls." I lowered my voice. "Not that it matters. I only care what one girl thinks about me." She relaxed her fingers into mine and stroked her thumb over my skin. Minutes into being alone together, we fell into each other again, like no time had passed. I could blame her for ending us, but in the end, I agreed with her decision. “How about you, Echo? Did you find your answers?” “No.” If I continued to disregard breakup rules, I might as well go all the way. I pushed her curls behind her shoulder and let my fingers linger longer than needed so I could enjoy the silky feel. “Don’t hide from me, baby. We’ve been through too much for that.” Echo leaned into me, placing her head on my shoulder and letting me wrap an arm around her. “I’ve missed you, too, Noah. I’m tired of ignoring you.” “Then don’t.” Ignoring her hurt like hell. Acknowledging her had to be better. I swallowed, trying to shut out the bittersweet memories of our last night together. “Where’ve you been? It kills me when you’re not at school.” “I went to an art gallery and the curator showed some interest in my work and sold my first piece two days later. Since then, I’ve been traveling around to different galleries, hawking my wares.” “That’s awesome, Echo. Sounds like you’re fitting into your future perfectly. Where did you decide to go to school?” “I don’t know if I’m going to school.” Shock jolted my system and I inched away to make sure I understood. “What the fuck do you mean you don’t know? You’ve got colleges falling all over you and you don’t fucking know if you want to go to school?” My damned little siren laughed at me. “I see your language has improved.” Poof—like magic, the anger disappeared. “If you’re not going to school, then what are your plans?” "I’m considering putting college off for a year or two and traveling cross-country, hopping from gallery to gallery.” “I feel like a dick. We made a deal and I left you hanging. I’m not that guy who goes back on his word. What can I do to help you get to the truth?” Echo’s chest rose with her breath then deflated when she exhaled. Sensing our moment ending, I nuzzled her hair, savoring her scent. She patted my knee and broke away. “Nothing. There’s nothing you can do.” "I think it’s time that I move on. As soon as I graduate, this part of my life will be over. I’m okay with not knowing what happened.” Her words sounded pretty, but I knew her better. She’d blinked three times in a row.

Sheepwalking I define “sheepwalking” as the outcome of hiring people who have been raised to be obedient and giving them a brain-dead job and enough fear to keep them in line. You’ve probably encountered someone who is sheepwalking. The TSA “screener” who forces a mom to drink from a bottle of breast milk because any other action is not in the manual. A “customer service” rep who will happily reread a company policy six or seven times but never stop to actually consider what the policy means. A marketing executive who buys millions of dollars’ worth of TV time even though she knows it’s not working—she does it because her boss told her to. It’s ironic but not surprising that in our age of increased reliance on new ideas, rapid change, and innovation, sheepwalking is actually on the rise. That’s because we can no longer rely on machines to do the brain-dead stuff. We’ve mechanized what we could mechanize. What’s left is to cost-reduce the manual labor that must be done by a human. So we write manuals and race to the bottom in our search for the cheapest possible labor. And it’s not surprising that when we go to hire that labor, we search for people who have already been trained to be sheepish. Training a student to be sheepish is a lot easier than the alternative. Teaching to the test, ensuring compliant behavior, and using fear as a motivator are the easiest and fastest ways to get a kid through school. So why does it surprise us that we graduate so many sheep? And graduate school? Since the stakes are higher (opportunity cost, tuition, and the job market), students fall back on what they’ve been taught. To be sheep. Well-educated, of course, but compliant nonetheless. And many organizations go out of their way to hire people that color inside the lines, that demonstrate consistency and compliance. And then they give these people jobs where they are managed via fear. Which leads to sheepwalking. (“I might get fired!”) The fault doesn’t lie with the employee, at least not at first. And of course, the pain is often shouldered by both the employee and the customer. Is it less efficient to pursue the alternative? What happens when you build an organization like W. L. Gore and Associates (makers of Gore-Tex) or the Acumen Fund? At first, it seems crazy. There’s too much overhead, there are too many cats to herd, there is too little predictability, and there is way too much noise. Then, over and over, we see something happen. When you hire amazing people and give them freedom, they do amazing stuff. And the sheepwalkers and their bosses just watch and shake their heads, certain that this is just an exception, and that it is way too risky for their industry or their customer base. I was at a Google conference last month, and I spent some time in a room filled with (pretty newly minted) Google sales reps. I talked to a few of them for a while about the state of the industry. And it broke my heart to discover that they were sheepwalking. Just like the receptionist at a company I visited a week later. She acknowledged that the front office is very slow, and that she just sits there, reading romance novels and waiting. And she’s been doing it for two years. Just like the MBA student I met yesterday who is taking a job at a major packaged-goods company…because they offered her a great salary and promised her a well-known brand. She’s going to stay “for just ten years, then have a baby and leave and start my own gig.…” She’ll get really good at running coupons in the Sunday paper, but not particularly good at solving new problems. What a waste. Step one is to give the problem a name. Done. Step two is for anyone who sees themselves in this mirror to realize that you can always stop. You can always claim the career you deserve merely by refusing to walk down the same path as everyone else just because everyone else is already doing it.

In a memoir of her tenure as secretary of state, published in June 2014, Hillary Clinton gave her most detailed account of her actions to date. She denounced what she called “misinformation, speculation, and flat-out deceit” about the attacks, and wrote that Obama “gave the order to do whatever was necessary to support our people in Libya.” She wrote: “Losing these fearless public servants in the line of duty was a crushing blow. As Secretary I was the one ultimately responsible for my people’s safety, and I never felt that responsibility more deeply than I did that day.” Addressing the controversy over what triggered the attack, and whether the administration misled the public, she maintained that the Innocence of Muslims video had played a role, though to what extent wasn’t clear. “There were scores of attackers that night, almost certainly with differing motives. It is inaccurate to state that every single one of them was influenced by this hateful video. It is equally inaccurate to state that none of them were.” Clinton’s account was greeted with praise and condemnation in equal measure. As Clinton promoted her book, a new investigation was being launched by the House Select Committee on the Events Surrounding the 2012 Terrorist Attack in Benghazi. Chaired by former federal prosecutor Rep. Trey Gowdy, a South Carolina Republican, the committee’s creation promised to drive questions about Benghazi into the 2016 presidential campaign and beyond.

Obviously, in those situations, we lose the sale. But we’re not trying to maximize each and every transaction. Instead, we’re trying to build a lifelong relationship with each customer, one phone call at a time. A lot of people may think it’s strange that an Internet company is so focused on the telephone, when only about 5 percent of our sales happen through the telephone. In fact, most of our phone calls don’t even result in sales. But what we’ve found is that on average, every customer contacts us at least once sometime during his or her lifetime, and we just need to make sure that we use that opportunity to create a lasting memory. The majority of phone calls don’t result in an immediate order. Sometimes a customer may be calling because it’s her first time returning an item, and she just wants a little help stepping through the process. Other times, a customer may call because there’s a wedding coming up this weekend and he wants a little fashion advice. And sometimes, we get customers who call simply because they’re a little lonely and want someone to talk to. I’m reminded of a time when I was in Santa Monica, California, a few years ago at a Skechers sales conference. After a long night of bar-hopping, a small group of us headed up to someone’s hotel room to order some food. My friend from Skechers tried to order a pepperoni pizza from the room-service menu, but was disappointed to learn that the hotel we were staying at did not deliver hot food after 11:00 PM. We had missed the deadline by several hours. In our inebriated state, a few of us cajoled her into calling Zappos to try to order a pizza. She took us up on our dare, turned on the speakerphone, and explained to the (very) patient Zappos rep that she was staying in a Santa Monica hotel and really craving a pepperoni pizza, that room service was no longer delivering hot food, and that she wanted to know if there was anything Zappos could do to help. The Zappos rep was initially a bit confused by the request, but she quickly recovered and put us on hold. She returned two minutes later, listing the five closest places in the Santa Monica area that were still open and delivering pizzas at that time. Now, truth be told, I was a little hesitant to include this story because I don’t actually want everyone who reads this book to start calling Zappos and ordering pizza. But I just think it’s a fun story to illustrate the power of not having scripts in your call center and empowering your employees to do what’s right for your brand, no matter how unusual or bizarre the situation. As for my friend from Skechers? After that phone call, she’s now a customer for life. Top 10 Ways to Instill Customer Service into Your Company   1. Make customer service a priority for the whole company, not just a department. A customer service attitude needs to come from the top.   2. Make WOW a verb that is part of your company’s everyday vocabulary.   3. Empower and trust your customer service reps. Trust that they want to provide great service… because they actually do. Escalations to a supervisor should be rare.   4. Realize that it’s okay to fire customers who are insatiable or abuse your employees.   5. Don’t measure call times, don’t force employees to upsell, and don’t use scripts.   6. Don’t hide your 1-800 number. It’s a message not just to your customers, but to your employees as well.   7. View each call as an investment in building a customer service brand, not as an expense you’re seeking to minimize.   8. Have the entire company celebrate great service. Tell stories of WOW experiences to everyone in the company.   9. Find and hire people who are already passionate about customer service. 10. Give great service to everyone: customers, employees, and vendors.

So, absent the chance to make every job applicant work as hard as a college applicant, is there some quick, clever, cheap way of weeding out bad employees before they are hired? Zappos has come up with one such trick. You will recall from the last chapter that Zappos, the online shoe store, has a variety of unorthodox ideas about how a business can be run. You may also recall that its customer-service reps are central to the firm’s success. So even though the job might pay only $11 an hour, Zappos wants to know that each new employee is fully committed to the company’s ethos. That’s where “The Offer” comes in. When new employees are in the onboarding period—they’ve already been screened, offered a job, and completed a few weeks of training—Zappos offers them a chance to quit. Even better, quitters will be paid for their training time and also get a bonus representing their first month’s salary—roughly $2,000—just for quitting! All they have to do is go through an exit interview and surrender their eligibility to be rehired at Zappos. Doesn’t that sound nuts? What kind of company would offer a new employee $2,000 to not work? A clever company. “It’s really putting the employee in the position of ‘Do you care more about money or do you care more about this culture and the company?’ ” says Tony Hsieh, the company’s CEO. “And if they care more about the easy money, then we probably aren’t the right fit for them.” Hsieh figured that any worker who would take the easy $2,000 was the kind of worker who would end up costing Zappos a lot more in the long run. By one industry estimate, it costs an average of roughly $4,000 to replace a single employee, and one recent survey of 2,500 companies found that a single bad hire can cost more than $25,000 in lost productivity, lower morale, and the like. So Zappos decided to pay a measly $2,000 up front and let the bad hires weed themselves out before they took root. As of this writing, fewer than 1 percent of new hires at Zappos accept “The Offer.