Speed Of Trust Quotes

We judge ourselves by our intentions and others by their behaviour.

Trust is equal parts character and competence... You can look at any leadership failure, and it's always a failure of one or the other.

Many have marked the speed with which Muad'Dib learned the necessities of Arrakis. The Bene Gesserit, of course, know the basis of this speed. For the others, we can say that Muad'Dib learned rapidly because his first training was in how to learn. And the first lesson of all was the basic trust that he could learn. It is shocking to find how many people do not believe they can learn, and how many more believe learning to be difficult. Muad'Dib knew that every experience carries its lesson.

The first job of a leader—at work or at home—is to inspire trust. It’s to bring out the best in people by entrusting them with meaningful stewardships, and to create an environment in which high-trust interaction inspires creativity and possibility.

The best time to plant a tree is twenty years ago. The second best time is today.

In a high-trust relationship, you can say the wrong thing, and people will still get your meaning. In a low-trust relationship, you can be very measured, even precise, and they’ll still misinterpret you.

Above all, success in business requires two things: a winning competitive strategy, and superb organizational execution. Distrust is the enemy of both. I submit that while high trust won't necessarily rescue a poor strategy, low trust will almost always derail a good one.

Once there was a boy,” said Jace. Clary interrupted immediately. “A Shadowhunter boy?” “Of course.” For a moment a bleak amusement colored his voice. Then it was gone. “When the boy was six years old, his father gave him a falcon to train. Falcons are raptors – killing birds, his father told him, the Shadowhunters of the sky. “The falcon didn’t like the boy, and the boy didn’t like it, either. Its sharp beak made him nervous, and its bright eyes always seemed to be watching him. It would slash at him with beak and talons when he came near: For weeks his wrists and hands were always bleeding. He didn’t know it, but his father had selected a falcon that had lived in the wild for over a year, and thus was nearly impossible to tame. But the boy tried, because his father told him to make the falcon obedient, and he wanted to please his father. “He stayed with the falcon constantly, keeping it awake by talking to it and even playing music to it, because a tired bird was meant to be easier to tame. He learned the equipment: the jesses, the hood, the brail, the leash that bound the bird to his wrist. He was meant to keep the falcon blind, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it – instead he tried to sit where the bird could see him as he touched and stroked its wings, willing it to trust him. Hee fed it from his hand, and at first it would not eat. Later it ate so savagely that its beak cut the skin of his palm. But the boy was glad, because it was progress, and because he wanted the bird to know him, even if the bird had to consume his blood to make that happen. “He began to see that the falcon was beautiful, that its slim wings were built for the speed of flight, that it was strong and swift, fierce and gentle. When it dived to the ground, it moved like likght. When it learned to circle and come to his wrist, he neary shouted with delight Sometimes the bird would hope to his shoulder and put its beak in his hair. He knew his falcon loved him, and when he was certain it was not just tamed but perfectly tamed, he went to his father and showed him what he had done, expecting him to be proud. “Instead his father took the bird, now tame and trusting, in his hands and broke its neck. ‘I told you to make it obedient,’ his father said, and dropped the falcon’s lifeless body to the ground. ‘Instead, you taught it to love you. Falcons are not meant to be loving pets: They are fierce and wild, savage and cruel. This bird was not tamed; it was broken.’ “Later, when his father left him, the boy cried over his pet, until eventually his father sent a servant to take the body of the bird away and bury it. The boy never cried again, and he never forgot what he’d learned: that to love is to destroy, and that to be loved is to be the one destroyed.

Some people say they have 20 years experience, when in reality, they have 1 year's experience repeated 20 times. (Stephen M R Covey to Richie Norton when Norton asked if he was too young to train older executives for Covey.)

Sooner or later, you will have to decide. Whether you want to drift with the current or whether you want to lay down your own path. Trust me, nobody in this world really knows where he is headed. Yes, of course, you will find people who say that they know how to live their lives. But even they can’t answer where their lives would lead. So, decide! What is more important to you? How? Where? Or why?

You will speed up your growth by being selfish. So imagine that the people you’re looking at can actually take care of themselves. And if you ask for what you want and trust that the other person will say yes or no powerfully, it will make things very interesting.

A person has integrity when there is no gap between intent and behavior…when he or she is whole, seamless, the same—inside and out. I call this “congruence.” And it is congruence—not compliance—that will ultimately create credibility and trust.

we judge ourselves by our intentions and others by their behavior. This is why, as we’ll discuss later, one of the fastest ways to restore trust is to make and keep commitments—even very small commitments—to ourselves and to others.

The moment there is suspicion about a person’s motives, everything he does becomes tainted. —MAHATMA GANDHI

Left untended, knowledge and skill, like all assets, depreciate in value—surprisingly quickly. —DAVID MAISTER, BUSINESS AUTHOR AND CONSULTANT

There are no moral shortcuts in the game of business—or life. There are, basically, three kinds of people: the unsuccessful, the temporarily successful, and those who become and remain successful. The difference is character.

Whether you’re on a sports team, in an office or a member of a family, if you can’t trust one another there’s going to be trouble.

Your driver is on the steer, driving you and you can feel free to doze in the car; this is trust built on competence. Competence is to ensure that your actions put people's hearts at ease when things are in your hands.

(S × E)T = R ([Strategy times Execution] multiplied by Trust equals Results)

The trust we have in people and in organizations comes, in part, from believing that they do care.

When you break the big laws, you do not get liberty; you do not even get anarchy. You get the small laws.

Trust is the coin of the realm for creating the harmony, speed, and teamwork to achieve success at the lowest cost.

The principle is simply this: We tend to get what we expect—both from ourselves and from others. When we expect more, we tend to get more; when we expect less, we tend to get less.

LET MY LOVE ENFOLD YOU in the radiance of My Glory. Sit still in the Light of My Presence, and receive My Peace. These quiet moments with Me transcend time, accomplishing far more than you can imagine. Bring Me the sacrifice of your time, and watch to see how abundantly I bless you and your loved ones. Through the intimacy of our relationship, you are being transformed from the inside out. As you keep your focus on Me, I form you into the one I desire you to be. Your part is to yield to My creative work in you, neither resisting it nor trying to speed it up. Enjoy the tempo of a God-breathed life by letting Me set the pace. Hold My hand in childlike trust, and the way before you will open up step by step. HEBREWS 13:15; 2 CORINTHIANS 3:18; PSALM 73:23–24

Love skimmed over the surface like a sailboat, grabbing me up and carrying me along one minute, the speed dizzying, the view passing by so quickly I couldn't take it in. The next minute, my little love boat was swamped in a storm, overturned, the sail pointing toward the murky depths, everything upside down. I was trying to swim with legs of lead. I'd never thought of love this way—as something that moved with the ebb and flow of currents. Push and pull. Joy and pain. Fear and trust. Falling, and trying to balance, and falling again.

Low trust causes friction, whether it is caused by unethical behavior or by ethical but incompetent behavior (because even good intentions can never take the place of bad judgment). Low trust is the greatest cost in life and in organizations, including families. Low trust creates hidden agendas, politics, interpersonal conflict, interdepartmental rivalries, win-lose thinking, defensive and protective communication—all of which reduce the speed of trust. Low trust slows everything—every decision, every communication, and every relationship.

I'm sorry, I had a meeting" I stand behind his chair. "Liar," under my breath. "You weren't at a meeting," take a breath, gain speed, bursting, "You were with Angie in the office. I saw you. I saw you. You clamp us down, you think no one knows. You hurt my brother! My sister! You hurt my friend! Small trusting prey, huh? You had to squash some weak person already in pain, thinking she loved you. You could have chosen to hurt me! But I'm not worth enough, I never am and you picked poor Angie, you were going to RAPE her, I SAW YOU TRY TO RAPE ANGIE, you fucking MONSTER!

One thing to be careful of with regard to skills is what author Jim Collins calls “the curse of competence.” It’s the idea that sometimes we become good at doing something we’re not really talented in or passionate about. As my father often says, “Your current skill-set may or may not correspond with your natural talents.” We need to make certain that the skills we develop don’t limit or define us. At the end of the day, talent provides a deeper well than skills.

There is one thing that is common to every individual, relationship, team, family, organization, nation, economy, and civilization throughout the world—one thing which, if removed, will destroy the most powerful government, the most successful business, the most thriving economy, the most influential leadership, the greatest friendship, the strongest character, the deepest love. On the other hand, if developed and leveraged, that one thing has the potential to create unparalleled success and prosperity in every dimension of life. Yet, it is the least understood, most neglected, and most underestimated possibility of our time. That one thing is trust.

Teams bring together a broader mix of skills that exceed those of any single individual. 2. Teams jointly develop and strive toward clear goals. 3. Teams can adjust with greater speed and effectiveness. 4. Trust and confidence are more easily built in teams.

Commitment, trust, and voluntary cooperation are not merely attitudes or behaviors. They are intangible capital. They allow companies to stand apart in the speed, quality, and consistency of their execution and to implement strategic shifts fast at low cost.

If you currently travel abroad or plan to in the future, make sure you understand the cultural convention of the country that you are visiting. Particularly with regard to greetings. If someone gives you a weak hand-shake, don't grimace. If anyone takes your arm, don't wince. If you are in the Middle East and a person wants to hold your hand, hold it. If you are a man visiting Russia, don't be surprised when your male host kisses your cheek, rather than hand. All of these greetings are as natural as way to express genuine sentiments as an American handshake. I am honored when an Arab or Asian man offers to take my hand because I know that it is a sign of high respect and trust. Accepting these cultural differences is the first step to better understanding and embracing diversity.

A leader doesn’t need any credit…. He’s getting more credit than he deserves anyway. —ROBERT TOWNSEND, FORMER CEO, AVIS

You can't trust even thieves these days.

for every thousand people hacking at the leaves of evil, there is one striking at the roots.

Low trust causes friction, whether it is caused by unethical

If we can't trust ourselves, we'll have a hard time trusting others.

we judge ourselves by our intentions and others by their behavior.

Trust, but verify. —RONALD REAGAN

And it all boils down to two simple questions: 1) Do I trust myself? and 2) Am I someone others can trust? With regard to having trust in self, it often begins with the little things.

The ability to establish, grow, extend, and restore trust with all stakeholders—customers, business partners, investors, and coworkers—is the key leadership competency of the new global economy.

keeping your commitment becomes hard, you have two choices: You can change your behavior to match your commitment, or you can lower your values to match your behavior. One choice will strengthen your integrity; the other will diminish it and erode your confidence in your ability to make and keep commitments in the future. In addition, that shift in direction with regard to values—even if it’s slight—will create a change in trajectory that will create a far more significant difference in destination down the road.

When you get emotional, slow your thoughts down, and listen attentively (write it down). That way, you'll be able to hear what you are thinking. You do this becoming very still and very quiet, and recording your thoughts. These high-speed thoughts and internal reactions always precede your feelings and emotions. Trust me, you did tell yourself something if you now feel anger, mad, anxious, frustrated, sad or depressed. From now on, whenever you get upset, listen ever so carefully, to what you are telling yourself.

In The Terrible Speed of Mercy, Jonathan Rogers’s wonderful biography of Flannery O’Connor, he writes about her willingness to tell the stories she was called to tell, even if it meant the critics and the audience sometimes missed her point entirely. She took a long view, and though it was painful, stayed true to her calling and trusted that it was God’s business what he did with her stories after they were written. She wrote, “God may use my work to save some people and to test the faith of others, but that’s His business and none of mine.

Above all, success in business requires two things: a winning competitive strategy, and superb organizational execution. Distrust is the enemy of both.” I submit that while high trust won’t necessarily rescue a poor strategy, low trust will almost always derail a good one.

It becomes obvious the moment we acknowledge the futility of breeding men for special qualities as we breed cocks for game, greyhounds for speed, or sheep for mutton. What is really important in Man is the part of him that we do not yet understand. Of much of it we are not even conscious, just as we are not normally conscious of keeping up our circulation by our heart pump, though if we reject it we die. We are therefore driven to the conclusion that when we have carried selection as far as we can by rejecting from the list of eligible parents all persons who are uninteresting, unpromising, or blemished without any set-off, we shall have to trust to the guidance of fancy (alias Voice of Nature), both in the breeders and the parents, for that superiority in the unconscious self which will be the true characteristic of the Superman.

A humble person is more concerned about what is right than about being right, about acting on good ideas than having the ideas, about embracing new truth than defending outdated position, about building the team than exalting self, about recognizing contribution than being recognized for making it.

More profoundly, Nihilist "simplification" may be seen in the universal prestige today accorded the lowest order of knowledge, the scientific, as well as the simplistic ideas of men like Marx, Freud, and Darwin, which underlie virtually the whole of contemporary thought and life. We say "life," for it is important to see that the Nihilist history of our century has not been something imposed from without or above, or at least has not been predominantly this; it has rather presupposed, and drawn its nourishment from, a Nihilist soil that has long been preparing in the hearts of the people. It is precisely from the Nihilism of the commonplace, from the everyday Nihilism revealed in the life and thought and aspiration of the people, that all the terrible events of our century have sprung. The world-view of Hitler is very instructive in this regard, for in him the most extreme and monstrous Nihilism rested upon the foundation of a quite unexceptional and even typical Realism. He shared the common faith in "science," "progress," and "enlightenment" (though not, of course, in "democracy"), together with a practical materialism that scorned all theology, metaphysics, and any thought or action concerned with any other world than the "here and now," priding himself on the fact that he had "the gift of reducing all problems to their simplest foundations." He had a crude worship of efficiency and utility that freely tolerated "birth control", laughed at the institution of marriage as a mere legalization of a sexual impulse that should be "free", welcomed sterilization of the unfit, despised "unproductive elements" such as monks, saw nothing in the cremation of the dead but a "practical" question and did not even hesitate to put the ashes, or the skin and fat, of the dead to "productive use." He possessed the quasi-anarchist distrust of sacred and venerable institutions, in particular the Church with its "superstitions" and all its "outmoded" laws and ceremonies. He had a naive trust in the "natural mom, the "healthy animal" who scorns the Christian virtues--virginity in particular--that impede the "natural functioning" of the body. He took a simple-minded delight in modern conveniences and machines, and especially in the automobile and the sense of speed and "freedom" it affords. There is very little of this crude Weltanschauung that is not shared, to some degree, by the multitudes today, especially among the young, who feel themselves "enlightened" and "liberated," very little that is not typically "modern.

The world of conspiracy theories is one where stupid people dismiss the expertise of highly qualified people, and attribute to these experts a wicked desire to lie to and gull the masses. In other words, they portray experts as sinister enemies of the people. Conspiracy theories reflect the increasingly prevalent notion that the average, uneducated person is always right – can always see the real truth of a situation – while the educated experts are always wrong because they are deliberately lying to the people to further a conspiracy by the elite against the people. It is increasingly being perceived as a “sin”, a crime, to be smart, to be an expert. Average people do not like smart people, do not trust them, and are happy to regard them as nefarious conspirators. They are constructing a fantasy world where the idiot is always right and honest, and anyone who opposes the idiot always wrong and dishonest. A global Confederacy of Dunces is being established, whose cretinous values are transmitted by bizarre memes that crisscross the internet at a dizzying speed, and which are always accepted uncritically as the finest nuggets of truth. Woe betide anyone who challenges the Confederacy. They will be immediately trolled.

However, as you’ll learn in this book, when you trust that the Universe has your best intentions in mind, you can unravel yourself from that which you do not want.

[H]e who cannot change the very fabric of his thought will never be able to change reality, and will never, therefore, make any progress.

Trust me. Killing things is much easier than this,” I said. “Although for all I know, I am killing you.” “Can you speed it up a little?” he asks. “No. Shut up and eat your pears,” I say.

Pursue good marks from those whose opinions your boss respects. Your new boss’s opinion of you will be based in part on direct interactions and in part on what she hears about you from trusted others.

Some people say you can’t change behavior. But there is clear evidence to indicate that people can and do change behavior—sometimes dramatically—and that doing so often produces extraordinary results.

Leadership is getting results in a way that inspires trust. It’s maximizing both your current contribution and your ability to contribute in the future by establishing the trust that makes it possible.

the focus was clearly not on activities, but on results. In addition to the benefit of differentiating between results and activities, there’s another positive dimension to taking responsibility for results.

Yes, real life can be stranger than fiction. It can change in the blink of an eye. Everything we know, love, trust and rely on can be turned on its head at a blinding, wrecking-ball speed we can’t hope to resist.

How do you hunt?” he asks. “Trust me. Killing things is much easier than this,” I said. “Although for all I know, I am killing you.” “Can you speed it up a little?” he asks. “No. Shut up and eat your pears,” I say.

What happens when we do this time after time? What’s the net result of repeated failure to make and keep commitments to ourselves? It hacks away at our self-confidence. Not only do we lose trust in our ability to make and keep commitments, we fail to project the personal strength of character that inspires trust. We may try to borrow strength from position or association. But it’s not real. It’s not ours . . . and people know it. And whether we realize it or not, that impacts the bottom line.

In the words of the artist-critic Clive James: “Common sense and a sense of humor are the same thing, moving at different speeds. A sense of humor is just common sense, dancing. Those who lack humor are without judgment and should be trusted with nothing.

Want to know if someone is lying or betraying your trust? Notice that during a conversation the person has these four attitudes: he leans on his hand, he leans on his face, he crosses his arms and he maintains a posture that is tilted somewhere, not erect.

Many have remarked the speed with which Muad’Dib learned the necessities of Arrakis. The Bene Gesserit, of course, know the basis of this speed. For the others, we can say that Muad’Dib learned rapidly because his first training was in how to learn. And the first lesson of all was the basic trust that he could learn. It is shocking to find how many people do not believe they can learn, and how many more believe learning to be difficult. Muad’Dib knew that every experience carries its lesson. —FROM “THE HUMANITY OF MUAD’DIB” BY THE PRINCESS IRULAN

Better Associations: If you associate yourself with a change maker, Your life will by all means become better. You will wink at challenges and begin to think. In times of frustrations, you will not sink. If you miss the way to a great destination, Just look for those going to that direction. Mount the shoulders of a giant believer And you will become a great achiever. People around you determine your speed. They will influence the growth of your seed. People you are around will decide your strength And also the figure of your success’ length I trust you want to become a better you. It matters, what your associates plan to do. It depends, where your companions want to go. It relies on what your friends believe and know. Quit friendships that build you nothing Choose friends who bring out of you something One iron sharpens another iron Go along with great people and ride on.

It’s been my experience that the people who gain trust, loyalty, excitement, and energy fast are the ones who pass on the credit to the people who have really done the work. A leader doesn’t need any credit. . . . He’s getting more credit than he deserves anyway. —ROBERT TOWNSEND, FORMER CEO, AVIS

The success of big business and the well-being of the world have never been more closely linked. Global issues cannot be removed from the business world because business has only one world in which to operate. Businesses cannot succeed in societies that fail. —JORMA OLLILA, CHAIRMAN AND CEO, NOKIA

I felt a warm hand touch mine. “Are you okay?” “If you mean am I injured, then the answer is no. If you mean am I ‘okay’ as in am-I-confident-I’m-still-sane, the answer is still no.” Ren frowned. “We have to find a way to get across the chasm.” “You’re certainly welcome to give it a try.” I waved him off and went back to drinking my water. He moved to the edge and peered across, looking speculatively at the distance. Changing back to a tiger, he trotted a few paces back in the direction we had come from, turned, and ran at full speed toward the hole. “Ren, no!” I screamed. He leapt, clearing the hole easily, and landed lightly on his front paws. Then he trotted a short distance away and did the same thing to come back. He landed at my feet and changed back to human form. “Kells, I have an idea.” “Oh, this I’ve got to hear. I just hope you don’t plan on including me in this scheme of yours. Ah. Let me guess. I know. You want to tie a rope to your tail, leap across, tie it off, and then have me pull my body across the rope, right?” He cocked his head as if considering it, and then shook his head. “No, you don’t have the strength to do something like that. Plus, we have no rope and nothing to tie a rope to.” “Right. So what’s the plan?” He held my hands and explained. “What I’m proposing will be much easier. Do you trust me?” I was going to be sick. “I trust you. It’s just-“ I looked into his concerned blue eyes and sighed. “Okay, what do I have to do?” “You saw that I was able to clear the gap pretty well as a tiger, right? So what I need you to do is to stand right at the edge and wait for me. I’ll run to the end of the tunnel, build up speed, and leap as a tiger. At the same time, I want you to jump up and grab me around my neck. I’ll change to a man in midair so that I can hold onto you, and we’ll fall together to the other side.” I snorted noisily and laughed. “You’re kidding, right?” He ignored my skepticism. “We’ll have to time it precisely, and you’ll have to jump too, in the same direction, because if you don’t, I’ll just hit you full power and drive us both over the edge.” “You’re serious? You seriously want me to do this?” “Yes, I’m serious. Now stand here while I make a few practice runs.” “Can’t we just find another corridor or something?” “There aren’t any. This is the right way.” Reluctantly, I stood near the edge and watched him leap back and forth a few times. Observing the rhythm of his running and jumping, I began to grasp the idea of what he wanted me to do. All too quickly Ren was back in front of me again. “I can’t believe you’ve talked me into doing this. Are you sure?” I asked. “Yes, I’m sure. Are you ready?” “No! Give me a minute to mentally write a last will and testament.” “Kells, it’ll be fine.” “Sure it will. Alright, let me take in my surroundings. I want to make sure I can record every minute of this experience in my journal. Of course, that’s probably a moot point because I’m assuming that I’m going to die in the jump anyway.” Ren put his hand on my cheek, looked in my eyes, and said fiercely, “Kelsey, trust me. I will not let you fall.

We all have a stake in the truth. Society functions based on an assumption that people will abide by their word - that truth prevails over mendacity. For the most part, it does. If it didn't, relationships would have a short shelf life, commerce would cease, and trust between parents and children would be destroyed. All of us depend on honesty, because when truth is lacking we suffer, and society suffers. When Adolf Hitler lied to Neville Chamberlain, there was not peace in our time, and over fifty million people paid the price with their lives. When Richard Nixon lied to the nation, it destroyed the respect many had for the office of the president. When Enron executives lied to their employees, thousands of lives were ruined overnight. We count on our government and commercial institutions to be honest and truthful. We need and expect our friends and family to be truthful. Truth is essential for all relations be they personal, professional, or civic.

God says that he will give you grace to handle the disappointments that lie ahead; your task is to live for him in the present. At first, this feels reckless, as if you were enjoying the thrill of a speeding car when you are courting devastation at the next turn. But it isn’t reckless to trust in God rather than yourself.

On the other hand, trust produces speed. And, as Stephen points out, the greatest trust-building key is “results.” Results build brand loyalty. Results inspire and fire up a winning culture. The consistent production of results not only causes customers to increase their reorders, it also compels them to consistently recommend you to others.

Katniss?” Peeta says. I meet his eyes, knowing my face must be some shade of green. He mouths the words. “How about that kiss?” I burst out laughing because the whole thing is so revolting I can’t stand it. “Something wrong?” he asks a little too innocently. “I . . . I’m no good at this. I’m not my mother. I’ve no idea what I’m doing and I hate pus,” I say. “Euh!” I allow myself to let out a groan as I rinse away the first round of leaves and apply the second. “Euuuh!” “How do you hunt?” he asks. “Trust me. Killing things is much easier than this,” I said. “Although for all I know, I am killing you.” “Can you speed it up a little?” he asks. “No. Shut up and eat your pears,” I say.

What distinguishes love-driven leaders from tyrants? "Great affection" coupled with the passion to see others "run at full speed towards perfection." Love-driven leadership is not urging others forward without concern for their aspirations, well-being, or personal needs. Nor is it being the nice-guy manager who overlooks underperformance that could damage a subordinate's long-term prospects. Instead, love-driven leaders hunger to see latent potential blossom and to help it happen. In more prosaic terms, when do children, students, athletes, or employees achieve their full potential? When they're parented, taught, coached, or managed by those who engender trust, provide support and encouragement, uncover potential, and set high standards.

If it is humanly possible, you should plan to have one or more in-person meetings with your boss early on. It is essential to make face-to-face connections early on to begin to establish a basis of confidence and trust (the same is true if you’re leading a virtual team). So if this means you need to fight for the resources and fly halfway around the world, you should do it.

Once upon a time, we made a revolution. We said we were tired of hunger, of sweat and of lice. So we cut throats, and broke skulls, and poured blood, our blood, their blood, to wash a clean road for freedom. Now look around you. Look around you, Comrade Taganov, Party member since 1915! Do you see where men live, men, our brothers? Do you see what they eat? Have you ever seen a woman falling on the street, vomiting blood on the cobblestones, dying of hunger? I have. Did you see the limousines speeding at night? Did you see who’s in them? There’s a nice little comrade we have in the Party. A smart young man with a brilliant future. Pavel Syerov’s the name. Have you ever seen him open his wallet to pay for a whore’s champagne? Did you ever wonder where he gets the money? Did you ever go to the European roof garden? Not often, I bet. But if you had, you’d see the respectable Citizen Morozov getting indigestion on caviar. Who is he? Just assistant manager of the Food Trust. The State Food Trust of the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics. We’re the leaders of the world proletariat and we’ll bring freedom to all suffering humanity!

Recently, as I was teaching this concept, a CFO—who deals with numbers all the time—came up to me and said, “This is fascinating! I’ve always seen trust as a nice thing to have, but I never, ever, thought of it in terms of its impact on economics and speed. Now that you’ve pointed it out, I can see it everywhere I turn. “For example, we have one supplier in whom we have complete trust. Everything happens fast with this group, and the relationship hardly costs us anything to maintain. But with another supplier, we have very little trust. It takes forever to get anything done, and it costs us a lot of time and effort to support the relationship. And that’s costing us money—too much money!” This CFO was amazed when everything suddenly fell into place in his mind. Even though he was a “numbers” guy, he had not connected the dots with regard to trust. Once he saw it, everything suddenly made sense. He could immediately see how trust was affecting everything in the organization, and how robust and powerful the idea of the relationship between trust, speed, and cost was for analyzing what was happening in his business and for taking steps to significantly increase profitable growth.

What the hell was that?!" Tom asked, fighting his way to his feet. "That..was not normal," Bram said, gripping the wheel like he was afraid to let go. "I modified the engine somewhat," Renfield confessed. That grin started sneaking back onto his face. "Modifications?" Gram asked. He slowly released his death grip on the steering wheel and turned around to look at Ren. "What modifications?" "Modification." Ren really stressed the shun at the end of the word. "I just removed the governor. I told you some parts needed to come out. You were there when I did it!" "The what?" I asked. Bram stared at Renfield, his expression going completely slack. "You did what? I didn't see you...You did what?" "What's a governor?" "You didn't," Tom said, voice filled with awe. "You are not telling me that you left a piece of the engine behind on the ground. " Renfield sighed and turned to address me, waving a hand casually. "The governor, on an airship engine, caps the maximum speed the engine can achieve. So,by taking the governor off, I've allowed us to go much faster." "And then we'll blow up!" Bram yelled. "Because you took a safety valve off!" "You've turned the ship into a freaking death trap!" Tom shouted. "It isn't critical. We just have to be mindful of the engine pressure ourselves, that's all! Trust me, she can take it!

Better associations __________________ If you associate yourself with a change maker, Your life will by all means become better. You will wink at challenges and begin to think. In times of frustrations, you will not sink. If you miss the way to a great destination, Just look for those going to that direction. Mount the shoulders of a giant believer And you will become a great achiever. People around you determine your speed. They will influence the growth of your seed. People you are around will decide your strength And also the figure of your success’ length I trust you want to become a better you. It matters, what your associates plan to do. It depends, where your companions want to go. It relies on what your friends believe and know. Quit friendships that build you nothing Choose friends who bring out of you something One iron sharpens another iron Go along with great people and ride on.

There are vanishingly few of them, those days when the game can still surprise us. When it does happen, it comes without warning; we just have to trust that we’ll recognize it. So when the echo of the skates cutting into the ice bounds up the banks of seating, Sune stops and pauses for a moment before casting one final glance over his shoulder again. He sees the fifteen-year-old turn, holding his stick lightly in his hand, then set off again at blistering speed, and Sune will remember this as one of the true blessings in his life: seeing the impossible happen in Beartown for a third time. The caretaker looks up from the screws in the railing and sees the old coach sink onto one of the seats on the top row. At first he seems to be seriously ill. Then the caretaker realizes that it’s because he’s never seen the old man laugh before. Sune is breathing through his nose with tears in his eyes, and the whole rink smells of cherry blossom.

WORKING TOGETHER We shape our self to fit this world and by the world are shaped again. The visible and the invisible working together in common cause, to produce the miraculous. I am thinking of the way the intangible air passed at speed round a shaped wing easily holds our weight. So may we, in this life trust to those elements we have yet to see or imagine, and look for the true shape of our own self, by forming it well to the great intangibles about us.

Finally, understand that when keeping your commitment becomes hard, you have two choices: You can change your behavior to match your commitment, or you can lower your values to match your behavior. One choice will strengthen your integrity; the other will diminish it and erode your confidence in your ability to make and keep commitments in the future. In addition, that shift in direction with regard to values—even if it’s slight—will create a change in trajectory that will create a far more significant difference in destination down the road.

Asking why separates opportunity from a distracting time waste. When opportunities abound (meetups, Twitter chats, speed networking, reunions, summits, and seminars), how do you efficiently and quickly sort the productive from the less than productive? Here's the why filter I use: Is the opportunity aligned with my goal(s)? Will my participation add value to the other attendees and be valuable for me? Does the opportunity expand my network and/or strengthen existing relationships? What does my gut say? (Yes, I'm a big believer in trusting your gut.)

THIS IS WHAT they want. The words tumbled through Sophie’s mind as she raced up the spiral staircase, counting her steps, trying to guess which door to take. The first handle she tried was locked. Another opened into darkness. A third revealed a path that glowed with eerie blue balefire sconces. The floor shook as she hesitated and threads of dust slipped through the ceiling, scratching her throat and making it hurt to breathe. She followed the flames. Back and forth the halls snaked—a careful maze, designed to deceive. Swallow. Separate. The tremors grew with every step, the shifting subtle but unmistakable. And too far away. No one else would feel the ripples swelling, like waves gathering speed. They were too focused on their celebration. Too caught up in their imagined victory. Too trusting. Too blind. Too late. The ground rattled harder, the first fissures crackling the stones. This is what they want. ONE THIS IS A security nightmare!” Sandor grumbled, keeping his huge gray hand poised over his enormous black sword. His squeaky voice reminded Sophie more of a talking mouse than a deadly bodyguard. Several prodigies raced past, and Sandor pulled Sophie closer as the giggling group jumped to pop the candy-filled bubbles floating near the shimmering crystal trees. All around them, kids were running through the confetti-covered atrium in their amber-gold Level Three uniforms, capes flying as they caught snacks and bottles of lushberry juice and stuffed tinsel-wrapped gifts into the long white thinking caps dangling from everyone’s lockers. The Midterms Celebration was a Foxfire Academy tradition—hardly the impending doom Sandor was imagining. And yet, Sophie understood his concern. Every parent roaming the streamer-lined halls. Every face she didn’t recognize. Any of them could be a rebel.

FIRST WAVE: SELF TRUST The first wave, Self Trust, deals with the confidence we have in ourselves—in our ability to set and achieve goals, to keep commitments, to walk our talk—and also with our ability to inspire trust in others. The whole idea is to become, both to ourselves and to others, a person who is worthy of trust. The key principle underlying this wave is credibility, which comes from the Latin root credere, meaning “to believe.” In this first wave, we will explore the “4 Cores of Credibility,” where we will discuss ways to increase our credibility in order to firmly establish trust with ourselves and with others. The end result of high character and high competence is credibility, judgment, and influence.

In this book you have learned the following starter techniques to create better conversation, better selling and better belief. That’s called ... rapport! Technique #1: Tell your prospect a fact that you both can agree upon. Technique #2: Pacing your speed to match your prospect. Technique #3: Tell your prospect two facts you both can agree upon. Technique #4: Smile. Technique #5: Most people. Technique #6: Everybody knows. Technique #7: Everybody says. Technique #8: Well, you know how. Technique #9: There is an old saying. Technique #10: What would you like to know first? Technique #11: Sincere compliment. Technique #12: Get your prospect to do the talking. Technique #13: Avoid a “WHY” question your prospect has to defend.

A wealth of research confirms the importance of face-to-face contact. One experiment performed by two researchers at the University of Michigan challenged groups of six students to play a game in which everyone could earn money by cooperating. One set of groups met for ten minutes face-to-face to discuss strategy before playing. Another set of groups had thirty minutes for electronic interaction. The groups that met in person cooperated well and earned more money. The groups that had only connected electronically fell apart, as members put their personal gains ahead of the group’s needs. This finding resonates well with many other experiments, which have shown that face-to-face contact leads to more trust, generosity, and cooperation than any other sort of interaction. The very first experiment in social psychology was conducted by a University of Indiana psychologist who was also an avid bicyclist. He noted that “racing men” believe that “the value of a pace,” or competitor, shaves twenty to thirty seconds off the time of a mile. To rigorously test the value of human proximity, he got forty children to compete at spinning fishing reels to pull a cable. In all cases, the kids were supposed to go as fast as they could, but most of them, especially the slower ones, were much quicker when they were paired with another child. Modern statistical evidence finds that young professionals today work longer hours if they live in a metropolitan area with plenty of competitors in their own occupational niche. Supermarket checkouts provide a particularly striking example of the power of proximity. As anyone who has been to a grocery store knows, checkout clerks differ wildly in their speed and competence. In one major chain, clerks with differing abilities are more or less randomly shuffled across shifts, which enabled two economists to look at the impact of productive peers. It turns out that the productivity of average clerks rises substantially when there is a star clerk working on their shift, and those same average clerks get worse when their shift is filled with below-average clerks. Statistical evidence also suggests that electronic interactions and face-to-face interactions support one another; in the language of economics, they’re complements rather than substitutes. Telephone calls are disproportionately made among people who are geographically close, presumably because face-to-face relationships increase the demand for talking over the phone. And when countries become more urban, they engage in more electronic communications.

one of the hottest topics today is ethics—ethics discussions, ethics curriculum, ethics training, codes of ethics. This book shows that while ethics is fundamentally important and necessary, it is absolutely insufficient. It shows that the so-called soft stuff is hard, measurable, and impacts everything else in relationships, organizations, markets, and societies. Financial success comes from success in the marketplace, and success in the marketplace comes from success in the workplace. The heart and soul of all of this is trust. This work goes far beyond not only my work, but also beyond anything I have read on the subject of trust. It goes beyond ethical behavior in leadership, beyond mere “compliance.” It goes deep into the real “intent” and agenda of a person’s heart, and then into the kind of “competence” that merits consistent public confidence.

I took a deep breath. I had to be careful. No heat. Just light. I wiped my damp palms on my coat and spread my arms. Almost before I’d formed the call, the light was rushing toward me. It came from every direction, from a million stars, from a sun still hidden below the horizon. It came with relentless speed and furious intent. “Oh, Saints,” I had time to whisper. Then the light was blazing through me and the night came apart. The sky exploded into brilliant gold. The surface of the water glittered like a massive diamond, reflecting piercing white shards of sunlight. Despite my best intentions, the air shimmered with heat. I closed my eyes against the brightness, trying to focus, to regain control. I heard Baghra’s harsh voice in my head, demanding that I trust my power: It isn’t an animal that shies away from you or chooses whether or not to come when you call it. But this was like nothing I’d felt before.

coat!” the manager repeated. “Then you won’t have to pay the tax.” “But I have to sign a form,” my father exclaimed. “I have to declare the things I’ve bought and am bringing into the country.” “Don’t declare it; just wear it,” the manager said once again. “Don’t worry about the tax.” My father was silent for a moment, and then he said, “Look, frankly I’m not as worried about having to pay the tax as I am about this new salesman you’re training. He’s watching you. He’s learning from you. What is he going to think when you sign his commission? What kind of trust is he going to have in you in managing his career?” Can you see why employees don’t trust their managers? Most of the time, it’s not the huge, visible withdrawals like major ethics violations that wipe out organizational trust. It’s the little things—a day at a time, a weak or dishonest act at a time—that gradually weaken and corrode credibility. Whoever

May God give us faith to fully trust His Word though everything else witness the other way. C. H. P. When is the time to trust?Is it when all is calm, When waves the victor’s palm, And life is one glad psalm Of joy and praise?Nay! but the time to trust Is when the waves beat high, When storm clouds fill the sky, And prayer is one long cry, O help and save! When is the time to trust?Is it when friends are true?Is it when comforts woo, And in all we say and doWe meet but praise?Nay! but the time to trust Is when we stand alone, And summer birds have flown, And every prop is gone, All else but God. What is the time to trust?Is it some future day, When you have tried your way, And learned to trust and pray By bitter woe?Nay! but the time to trust Is in this moment’s need, Poor, broken, bruised reed!Poor, troubled soul, make speed To trust thy God. What is the time to trust?Is it when hopes beat high, When sunshine gilds the sky, And joy and ecstasy Fill all the heart?Nay! but the time to trust Is when our joy is fled, When sorrow bows the head, And all is cold and dead, All else but God. SELECTED

That I commit to a life of opening and learning, that I commit to learning at a speed that is vigilant and awake, that I commit to knowing where my empathies lean and why they lean there, that I become increasingly familiar with the why of what raises my voice, that I become increasingly familiar with the why of what lulls me to silence, that I be haunted by the ghosts of who my silences have harmed, that I acknowledge that haunting is love, that I trust love lives in whatever points at the dark, that I acknowledge that shame would likely be my laziest gesture, that I stop denying I am a whole person, and my wholeness is often unlovable, and my wholeness is often lovable, that I own the possibility that there isn't a thing one could say about the person I am that I could wholeheartedly deny; All of it-yes, all of the ugly - yes, all of the beauty-, yes, I have failed and will continue to fail, I have loved and will continue to love, I am committed to leaning and opening, I want people around me who are committed to learning and opening, people who are failing and loving, people who are stalking their own vigilance, the speed of their own compassion saying, 'FASTER FASTER FASTER.

I was unhappy there and going through a rough transition, so I was desperate for any friend I could find that I could talk to. I thought that's what he was. We had this secret from my mom, who I didn't like much at the time. It was a harmless secret, so I didn't feel bad about it. All we did was go to the movies and hang out doing fun things all day. It wasn't until much later that the warning signs began, but I was still too young and stupid to see them for what they were at the time. Basically, he was patient as he built up the trust between us. He became a close friend and convinced me that he was on my side somehow. He took total advantage of my ignorance and totally betrayed me a few years later, when he slept with me. After my mom found out, she went psychotic and all she gave a fuck about was what had been done to her. She didn't care about anything except for how hurt she was by what had happened. She blamed me and him equally, telling me that sixteen years old was old enough to know better. Even though I never initiated a goddamn thing with him, and never would have. Even though it happened in the apartment she and I had gotten together, that he was not supposed to be staying in.

Jesus walked a path of "suffering servanthood." We Christians say glibly that we are "saved by the death and resurrection of Jesus" but seem to understand this as some kind of heavenly transaction on his part, instead of an earthly transformation on his and our part. We need to deeply trust and allow both our own dyings and our own certain resurrections, just as Jesus did! This is the full pattern of transformation. If we trust both, we are indestructible. That is how Jesus "saves" us from meaninglessness, cynicism, hatred, and violence--which is indeed death. God is Light, yet this full light is hidden in darkness so only the sincere seeker finds it. It seems we all must go into darkness to see the light, which is counter-intuitive for the ego. Our age and culture resists this language of "descent." We made Christianity, instead, into a religion of "ascent," where Jesus became a self-help guru instead of a profound wisdom-guide who really transformed our mind and heart. Reason, medicine, wealth, technology, and speed (all good in themselves) have allowed us to avoid the quite normal and ordinary "path of the fall" as the way to transform the separate and superior self into a much larger identity that we call God.

In a dream I sometimes have, I am frantically trying to save as much as I can from my childhood home before I am forced to leave forever because of some disaster. In this dream, from which I awake with my jaw clenched like a fist, I grab whatever I can reach, take whatever I can carry. Always my childhood books and our family photo albums, but sometimes also the silver candlesticks, the things on my father's desk, the paintings on the walls. Maybe it comes from the speed with which my family changed shape one day, maybe it comes from moving, maybe it comes from my grandmother's hinted horror of losing everything in the Holocaust, but I cannot part with a dented pot that I remember my mother putting on the stove each week. Or the sofa my father bought with his first pay cheque, which was never comfortable when I was growing up and is not comfortable now. I cannot part with the lipstick I found softly rolling in an empty drawer months after my mother left. Or a shopping list on an envelope in her handwriting. In a world that changes so quickly, and where everyone eventually leaves, our stuff is the one thing we can trust. It testifies, through the mute medium of Things, that we were part of something greater than ourselves.

Once there was a boy. When the boy was 6 years old, his father gave him a falcon to train. Falcons are raptors - killing birds, his father told him, the Shadowhunters of the sky. The falcon didn't like the boy, and he didn't like it, either. Its sharp beak made him nervous, and its bright eyes always seemed to be watching him. It would slash at him with his beak and talons when he came near: For weeks his wrists and hands were always bleeding. He didn't know it, but his father had selected a falcon that had lived in the wild for over a year, and thus was nearly impossible to train. But the boy tried, because his father had told him to make the falcon obedient, and he wanted to please his father. He stayed with the falcon constantly, keeping it awake by talking to it and even playing music to it, because a tired bird was ment to be easier to tame. He leard the equipment: the jesses, the hood, the brail, the leash that bound the bird to his wrist. He was ment to keep the bird blind, but he couldn't bring himself to do it - instead he tryed to sit where the bird could see him as he touched and stroked its wings, willing it to trust him. He fed it from his hand, and at first it would not eat. Later it ate so savagely that the beak cut his palm. But the boy was glad, because it was progress, and because he wanted the bird to know him, even if it had to consume his blood to make that happen. He began to see that the falcon was beautiful, that its slim wings were built for the speed of flight, that it was strong and swift, fierce and gentle. When it dived to the ground, it moved like light. When it learned to circle and land on his wrist, he nearly shouted with delight. Sometimes the bird would hop to his sholder and but its beak in his hair. He knew his falcon loved him, and when he was certain that it was not just tamed but perfectly tamed, he went to his father and showed him what he had done, expecting him to be proud. Instead his father took the bird, now tame and trusting, in his hands, and broke its neck. 'I told you to make him obedient,' his father said, and dropped the falcon's lifeless body to the ground. "Instead, you taught it to love you. Falcons are not ment to be loving pets: They are fierce and wild, savage and cruel. This bird was not tamed; it was broken.' Later, when his father left him, the boy cried over his pet, until his father sent a servant to take the body of the bird away and bury it. The boy never cried again, and he never forgot what he'd learned: That to love is to destroy, and to be loved is to be the one destroyed.

Why trust this account when humanity has never been so rich, so healthy, so long-lived? When fewer die in wars and childbirth than ever before—and more knowledge, more truth by way of science, was never so available to us all? When tender sympathies—for children, animals, alien religions, unknown, distant foreigners—swell daily? When hundreds of millions have been raised from wretched subsistence? When, in the West, even the middling poor recline in armchairs, charmed by music as they steer themselves down smooth highways at four times the speed of a galloping horse? When smallpox, polio, cholera, measles, high infant mortality, illiteracy, public executions and routine state torture have been banished from so many countries? Not so long ago, all these curses were everywhere. When solar panels and wind farms and nuclear energy and inventions not yet known will deliver us from the sewage of carbon dioxide, and GM crops will save us from the ravages of chemical farming and the poorest from starvation? When the worldwide migration to the cities will return vast tracts of land to wilderness, will lower birth rates, and rescue women from ignorant village patriarchs? What of the commonplace miracles that would make a manual labourer the envy of Caesar Augustus: pain-free dentistry, electric light, instant contact with people we love, with the best music the world has known, with the cuisine of a dozen cultures? We’re bloated with privileges and delights, as well as complaints, and the rest who are not will be soon.

The Warrior His gift is the gift of passion and a commitment to something larger than himself in the world. The Warrior fights for what he loves. He has a mission that is bigger than his woman, his relationship or himself. He’s not a fighter, per se, but he aligns with what he cares about. By loving something bigger than himself, he inspires respect, honor, and a woman’s devotion. The Warrior is about living life on your own terms. The Sage His gift is the gift of integrity and an unbreakable trust. A man can see a woman’s beauty, communicate his love, and direct and offer his passion, but all that is nothing without trust. A woman never fully surrenders herself until she feels trust. Trust is not simply upholding vows of monogamy. It’s trusting that you truly see and know her. It’s trusting you can take her somewhere she can’t get to on her own. It’s trusting she can relax into your leadership and directionality. The opportunity of The Sage is integrity. Trust what you know. Use your word as a bond and do the right thing. Note: The Sage and the Warrior are partners in spirit. The Warrior, without integrity of mind, body, and spirit – and without the power of his truth – can do only harm. If you’ve struck out to fight the good fight and found yourself beaten by anger or misdirected energy, or you have lost the support of your woman, you likely lacked the integrity of The Sage. With greater alignment of values and actions, you can act on what you care about in a good way and have an impact you cannot have without it. If you’re not getting the support and the speed you want in your mission, check on where you might be lacking integrity.

Let's get out of here. You and me, mi amor. !Vamos!" I breathe a sigh of relief as I straddle Julio and Brittany hops on behind me. She wraps her arms around my waist, holding on tight as I speed out of the parking lot. We fly through the streets; which eventually become a blur. I don't even stop when rain starts pouring down. "Can we stop now?" she yells through the deafening storm. I park under an old abandoned bridge by the lake. Heavy rain pounds the cement surrounding us, but we have our own secluded place. Brittany hops to the ground. "You're a stupid jerk," she says. "You can't deal drugs. It's dangerous and stupid, and you promised me. You'll risk going to jail. Jail, Alex. You may not care, but I do. I won't let you ruin your life." "What do you want to hear?" "Nothing. Everything. Say something so I don't stand here feeling like a complete idiot." "The truth is . . . Brittany, look at me." "I can't," she says as she stares at the pouring rain. "I'm so tired of thinking of every scary scenario." I pull her against me. "Don't think, muneca. Everything will work itself out." "But--" "No buts. Trust me." My mouth closes over hers. The smell of rain and cookies eases my nerves. My hand braces the small of her back. Her hands grip my soaked shoulders, urging me on. My hands slide under her shirt, and my fingers trace her belly button. "Come to me," I say, then lift her until she's straddling me over my bike. I can't stop kissing her. I whisper how good she feels to me, mixing Spanish and English with every sentence. I move my lips down her neck and linger there until she leans back and lets me take her shirt off. I can make her forget about the bad stuff. When we're together like this, hell, I can't think of anything else but her.

Key Points: ● Transparency - Blockchain offers significant improvements in transparency compared to existing record keeping and ledgers for many industries. ● Removal of Intermediaries – Blockchain-based systems allow for the removal of intermediaries involved in the record keeping and transfer of assets. ● Decentralization – Blockchain-based systems can run on a decentralized network of computers, reducing the risk of hacking, server downtime and loss of data. ● Trust – Blockchain-based systems increase trust between parties involved in a transaction through improved transparency and decentralized networks along with removal of third-party intermediaries in countries where trust in the intermediaries doesn’t exist. ● Security – Data entered on the blockchain is immutable, preventing against fraud through manipulating transactions and the history of data. Transactions entered on the blockchain provide a clear trail to the very start of the blockchain allowing any transaction to be easily investigated and audited. ● Wide range of uses - Almost anything of value can be recorded on the blockchain and there are many companies and industries already developing blockchain-based systems. These examples are covered later in the book. ● Easily accessible technology – Along with the wide range of uses, blockchain technology makes it easy to create applications without significant investment in infrastructure with recent innovations like the Ethereum platform. Decentralized apps, smart contracts and the Ethereum platform are covered later in the book. ● Reduced costs – Blockchain-based ledgers allow for removal of intermediaries and layers of confirmation involved in transactions. Transactions that may take multiple individual ledgers, could be settled on one shared ledger, reducing the costs of validating, confirming and auditing each transaction across multiple organizations. ● Increased transaction speed – The removal of intermediaries and settlement on distributed ledgers, allows for dramatically increased transaction speeds compared to a wide range of existing systems.

55. We should, therefore, have a guardian, as it were, to pluck us continually by the ear and dispel rumours and protest against popular enthusiasms. For you are mistaken if you suppose that our faults are inborn in us; they have come from without, have been heaped upon us. Hence, by receiving frequent admonitions, we can reject the opinions which din about our ears. 56. Nature does not ally us with any vice; she produced us in health and freedom. She put before our eyes no object which might stir in us the itch of greed. She placed gold and silver beneath our feet, and bade those feet stamp down and crush everything that causes us to be stamped down and crushed. Nature elevated our gaze towards the sky and willed that we should look upward to behold her glorious and wonderful works. She gave us the rising and the setting sun, the whirling course of the on-rushing world which discloses the things of earth by day and the heavenly bodies by night, the movements of the stars, which are slow if you compare them with the universe, but most rapid if you reflect on the size of the orbits which they describe with unslackened speed; she showed us the successive eclipses of sun and moon, and other phenomena, wonderful because they occur regularly or because, through sudden causes they help into view – such as nightly trails of fire, or flashes in the open heavens unaccompanied by stroke or sound of thunder, or columns and beams and the various phenomena of flames. 57. She ordained that all these bodies should proceed above our heads; but gold and silver, with the iron which, because of the gold and silver, never brings peace, she has hidden away, as if they were dangerous things to trust to our keeping. It is we ourselves that have dragged them into the light of day to the end that we might fight over them; it is we ourselves who, tearing away the superincumbent earth, have dug out the causes and tools of our own destruction; it is we ourselves who have attributed our own misdeeds to Fortune, and do not blush to regard as the loftiest objects those which once lay in the depths of earth. 58. Do you wish to know how false is the gleam that has deceived your eyes? There is really nothing fouler or more involved in darkness than these things of earth, sunk and covered for so long a time in the mud where they belong. Of course they are foul; they have been hauled out through a long and murky mine-shaft. There is nothing uglier than these metals during the process of refinement and separation from the ore. Furthermore, watch the very workmen who must handle and sift the barren grade of dirt, the sort which comes from the bottom; see how soot-besmeared they are! 59. And yet the stuff they handle soils the soul more than the body, and there is more foulness in the owner than in the workman.

We chose not to discuss a world warmed beyond two degrees out of decency, perhaps; or simple fear; or fear of fearmongering; or technocratic faith, which is really market faith; or deference to partisan debates or even partisan priorities; or skepticism about the environmental Left of the kind I'd always had; or disinterest in the fates of distant ecosystems like I'd also always had. We felt confusion about the science and its many technical terms and hard-to-parse numbers, or at least an intuition that others would e easily confused about the science and its many technical terms and hard-to-parse numbers. we suffered from slowness apprehending the speed of change, or semi-conspiratorial confidence in the responsibility of global elites and their institutions, or obeisance toward those elites and their institutions, whatever we thought of them. Perhaps we felt unable to really trust scarier projections because we'd only just heard about warming, we thought, and things couldn't possibly have gotten that much worse just since the first Inconvenient Truth; or because we liked driving our cars and eating our beef and living as we did in every other way and didn't want to think too hard about that; or because we felt so "postindustrial" we couldn't believe we were still drawing material breaths from fossil fuel furnaces. Perhaps it was because we were so sociopathically good at collating bad news into a sickening evolving sense of what constituted "normal," or because we looked outside and things seemed still okay. Because we were bored with writing, or reading, the same story again and again, because climate was so global and therefore nontribal it suggested only the corniest politics, because we didn't yet appreciate how fully it would ravage our lives, and because, selfishly, we didn't mind destroying the planet for others living elsewhere on it or those not yet born who would inherit it from us, outraged. Because we had too much faith in the teleological shape of history and the arrow of human progress to countenance the idea that the arc of history would bend toward anything but environmental justice, too. Because when we were being really honest with ourselves we already thought of the world as a zero-sum resource competition and believed that whatever happened we were probably going to continue to be the victors, relatively speaking anyway, advantages of class being what they are and our own luck in the natalist lottery being what it was. Perhaps we were too panicked about our own jobs and industries to fret about the future of jobs and industry; or perhaps we were also really afraid of robots or were too busy looking at our new phones; or perhaps, however easy we found the apocalypse reflex in our culture and the path of panic in our politics, we truly had a good-news bias when it came to the big picture; or, really, who knows why-there are so many aspects to the climate kaleidoscope that transforms our intuitions about environmental devastation into n uncanny complacency that it can be hard to pull the whole picture of climate distortion into focus. But we simply wouldn't, or couldn't, or anyway didn't look squarely in the face of science.

Days like that I feel that my mind is going 1,000,000 miles an hour, visions of the past, present, and future race through my mind. It races, like a train as if I was looking out the window of the car while it is speeding down the line. I am on a track that will never end.' 'I feel that I am going to derail from this runaway train that I am becoming. I cannot sleep at night, because of the fear inside me.' 'I feel restless, depressed, and loveless as well as not content with myself. I would have to say that my passion for life is gone; my imagination is the only thing that keeps me going.' 'I write the day's events that have gone by in my book of life of all the pastimes, while dreaming of what could have been in it, and besides what has not been in it.' 'If this does not stop, I am going to crack. I look into my mirror, and I do not see me, I see an impression of what I used to be.' 'I see my long brown hair that covers part of my face and covers my blue eyes of emotion. I see the cross around my neck that brings me confidence.' 'I hide behind a smile; I see the body in which nobody thinks is without drought flawless.' 'The bare body that is touched in all ways, yet I tried to hide behind my makeup. I gasp at my pale skin and the look of my body.' 'I am 95 pounds, really tiny; surely there is someone that would find me attractive?' 'I wonder if I can find someone who can think for themselves. I want someone who will love me, for who I am- and not what they want me to be.' 'Most importantly, I need someone that will not use me. Is that too much to ask for?' 'Fear!' 'Anxiety is something that I have inside, it is the source of the things which lead to distress. Not finding someone that loves me, for who I am, is some of my fears.' 'I fear the fact that I am most likely going to be alone forever. Another being that everyone that has meaning in my life is fading away from me it seems.' 'I fear not having a family by my side at all times. I have tears about the overwhelming struggle to rebuild my reputation, which has been destroyed.' 'I ask this question if I was to die tomorrow would anybody come to my wake, to see me lying there?' 'I fear what society has done to me. I fear that I have no trust in anyone or anything. I fear that my life has no meaning.' 'I fear that I will never get out of this hell.' 'I just want to start my life and get a degree in nursing someday from- 'The Conemaugh School of Nursing,' if I can make it through all of this. I do not think that is too much to ask for or is it?' 'I think that if I could be left alone, with the one that I want. I could have a life; you know what I am sure of it. I fear that the towering entity will never collapse, and the demons will keep playing in my head. I fear that I will never have a social ability, to be part of the nobility of compatibility.' 'I fear that the terror will never stop in these innocent lives like mine, and they will not be saved. I fear that nobody will ever see my creativity or recognize me for the good in which I do for others. I feel like I am the only one left in this world, that I call my life.' 'All the beauty in life has been dejected, and it is all ablaze around me. Yes, I fear to be in the outside realm of things.' 'I want to scream yet no one is going to hear it. I ask- am I becoming institutionalized?