Strong Core Quotes

Am I tough? Am I strong? Am I hard-core? Absolutely. Did I whimper with pathetic delight when I sank my teeth into my hot fried-chicken sandwich? You betcha.

Sometimes people hold a core belief that is very strong. When they are presented with evidence that works against that belief, the new evidence cannot be accepted. It would create a feeling that is extremely uncomfortable, called cognitive dissonance. And because it is so important to protect the core belief, they will rationalize, ignore and even deny anything that doesn't fit in with the core belief.

He always was someone. Because the core of the sweet gum tree never changes. Like Nick, the deep red wood stays true to its nature. Strong, and steady, and pure.

You are perfect the way you are." Blay's voice was strong. "There is nothing wrong with who and what you have always been. I'm proud of you. And I love you. Now ... and always." Qhuinn's vision got wavy. Hard-core. "I'm proud of you. And I love you," Blay repeated. "Always. Forget about your old family ... you have me now. I am your family.

There were times he thought it would have been far better to never have known. Yet he continued to return to his core principle: that, in every situation, knowledge was better than ignorance. However agonizing, it was necessary to confront the facts. Only through knowing could a person become strong.

It's not my words that you should fear, but my silence. My words speak straight to the core but my absence will leave you speechless.

Kids wake up each day believing in the goodness of things, in the magic of what might be. They’re uncynical, believers at their core. We owe it to them to stay strong and keep working to create a more fair and humane world. For them, we need to remain both tough and hopeful, to acknowledge that there’s more growing to be done.

Sarah Palin appears to have no testable core conviction except the belief (which none of her defenders denies that she holds, or at least has held and not yet repudiated) that the end of days and the Second Coming will occur in her lifetime. This completes the already strong case for allowing her to pass the rest of her natural life span as a private citizen.

The core belief in having to be strong enough, characteristic of many people who develop chronic illness, is a defence. The child who perceives that her parents cannot support her emotionally had better develop an attitude of “I can handle everything myself.” Otherwise, she may feel rejected. One way not to feel rejected is never to ask for help, never to admit “weakness” — to believe that I am strong enough to withstand all my vicissitudes alone.

All the external adoration, respect and adulation in the word, can't drown out the internal voices that tell us, we are not good enough and unworthy of; happiness, love and an abundant life. When we need others to tell us were amazing, worthy and lovable, in order to feel good about ourselves, it is never enough. It goes into the bottomless pit where our inherent self-worth should be. It may feel like we are reaching out to receive love, but in actuality, we are seeking external noise to help drown out our negative core beliefs. Love blossoms from the inside out. That is why it is so important to do the work necessary to heal our emotional wounds, to love ourselves and stand strong in who we are. Only then, are we truly free to give and receive love, unconditionally and in abundance.

Music burst through him, perfect notes he hear rarely. Fire and ice, wind and calm, sky and earth, water and rock all fused together. Joley seemed as wild and turbulent s the sea, yet beneath her fiery passion, at the very core of her, she was as forceful and strong and as constant as the deepest ocean currents. Ilya seemed as calm as a windless sea, yet beneath the surface smoldered a volcano of such explosive magnitude, his power could easily sweep everything from his path. Together they completed each other, his melody and hers merging together into a single, perfect harmony.

We’re kindred spirits. And you’re strong, Nikki. There’s a core of strength and confidence in you that’s damn sexy.

Since having a strong core self relies on acceptance of feelings, being out of touch with the emotional side puts a person out of touch with herself. What then remains to be esteemed? Only a false self, a concoction of what we would like to imagine ourselves to be and what we have divined others want us to be. Sooner or later, people come to realize that this false self — wanting what they think they should want, feeling what they think they should feel — does not work for them. When they look inside themselves, they discover a frightening emptiness, a vacuum, an absence of a true self or of intrinsic motivation.

It's a trick question, Aquilla. A Mask is not made. She is remade. First she is destroyed. Stripped down to the trembling child that lives at her core. It doesn't matter how strong she thinks she is. Blackcliff diminishes, humiliates, and humbles her." "But if she survives, she is reborn. She rises from the shadow world of failure and despair so that she might become as fearful as that which destroyed her. So that she might know darkness and use it as her scim and shield in her mission to serve the Empire.

Our roots run deep and are strong to the core. I am proud to see women taking a stand. Many times, we have been fallen warriors; there have been plenty of times we have been wounded warriors, but we are still standing. We are standing up for our rights. We are standing up for a cause. We are standing up for movements that empower us to be heard, respected and appreciated! We are bold! We are courageous! We are thankful! We are grateful! We are blessed!

Change your focus, give power to the positive and starve the negative. We reduce our inner wisdom to think with logic that's been instilled in us whilst expecting miraculous results. Retrain the core issue and the pathway will build itself.

Meera heals her colossal plants and flowers with her strong prana, her core energy. Healing isn’t a feat a Low Grade can do.

She is opinionated, as most of us are, but you won’t find yourself impaled on her arguments; she doesn’t charge at you as some people do. What [she] does is walk slowly and steadily into a conversational battle, somehow managing to deflect all incoming targets until she is standing in your corner with her flag dug firmly into the ground. I think it comes from the deep-seated confidence she possesses in her core. I think it is the powerful combination of encouraged individualism and a strong family unit.

The truest love that ever heart Felt at its kindled core, Did through each vein, in quickened start, The tide of being pour. Her coming was my hope each day, Her parting was my pain; The chance that did her steps delay Was ice in every vein. I dreamed it would be nameless bliss, As I loved, loved to be; And to this object did I press As blind as eagerly. But wide as pathless was the space That lay our lives between, And dangerous as the foamy race Of ocean-surges green. And haunted as a robber-path Through wilderness or wood; For Might and Right, and Woe and Wrath, Between our spirits stood. I dangers dared; I hindrance scorned; I omens did defy: Whatever menaced, harassed, warned, I passed impetuous by. On sped my rainbow, fast as light; I flew as in a dream; For glorious rose upon my sight That child of Shower and Gleam. Still bright on clouds of suffering dim Shines that soft, solemn joy; Nor care I now, how dense and grim Disasters gather nigh. I care not in this moment sweet, Though all I have rushed o'er Should come on pinion, strong and fleet, Proclaiming vengeance sore: Though haughty Hate should strike me down, Right, bar approach to me, And grinding Might, with furious frown, Swear endless enmity. My love has placed her little hand With noble faith in mine, And vowed that wedlock's sacred band Our nature shall entwine. My love has sworn, with sealing kiss, With me to live--to die; I have at last my nameless bliss. As I love--loved am I!

The only truly reliable source of stability is a strong inner core and the willingness to change and adapt everything except that core.

I love the color black is because my roots run deep, and my core is strong.

Magic was at its core, she said, a kind of madness. It was a willingness to look at the corporeal world and to see it only as the story up to that point. That everything that followed could be changed. Rocks fell because the belief that they would fall was so strong. But that belief wasn’t binding. It didn’t have to be binding anyway. For a price.

But if she is a good woman, a strong woman, she won’t tolerate your childish needs for a pat on the head, collecting bigger toys, and being king of the mountain. A good woman will love the childlike part of you, but she wants your life to be guided by your deepest truths, not your untended childhood wounds. She wants to feel that at your core you have grown beyond the need for kudos and million-dollar toys. She wants to feel your self-generated strength of truth.

Although neither the Freudians nor the Jungians come right out and say it, they strongly suggest that we may have a core, a single basic carrier wave, or-to use language with which Jordan is comfortable-a single line of written code which cannot be stripped.' 'The PD,' Jordan said. 'The prime directive'. 'Yes,' the Head agreed. 'At bottom, you see, we are not Homo sapiens at all. Our core is madness. The prime directive is murder. What Darwin was too polite to say, my friends, is that we came to rule the earth not because we were the smartest, or even the meanest, but because we have always been the craziest, most murderous motherfuckers in the jungle.

If you’re going to build a strong culture, it’s paramount to make diversity one of your core values. This is what separates Bridgewater’s strong culture from a cult: The commitment is to promoting dissent. In hiring, instead of using similarity to gauge cultural fit, Bridgewater assesses cultural contribution.* Dalio wants people who will think independently and enrich the culture. By holding them accountable for dissenting, Dalio has fundamentally altered the way people make decisions. In a cult, core values are dogma. At Bridgewater, employees are expected to challenge the principles themselves. During training, when employees learn the principles, they’re constantly asked: Do you agree? “We have these standards that are stress tested over time, and you have to either operate by them or disagree with them and fight for better ones,” explains Zack Wieder, who works with Dalio on codifying the principles. Rather than deferring to the people with the greatest seniority or status, as was the case at Polaroid, decisions at Bridgewater are based on quality. The goal is to create an idea meritocracy, where the best ideas win. To get the best ideas on the table in the first place, you need radical transparency. Later, I’m going to challenge some of Dalio’s principles, but first I want to explain the weapons he has used to wage a war on groupthink.

When bad things happened to good people, or when innocent animals experienced human cruelty, it shook Steve to the core. His strong feelings demanded deep spiritual answers, and he searched for them all his life.

A vision had seized hold of me, like the demented fury of a hound that has sunk its teeth into the leg of a deer carcass and is shaking and tugging at the downed game so frantically that the hunter gives up trying to calm him. It was the vision of a large steamship scaling a hill under its own steam, working its way up a steep slope in the jungle, while above this natural landscape, which shatters the weak and the strong with equal ferocity, soars the voice of Caruso, silencing all the pain and all the voices of the primeval forest and drowning out all birdsong. To be more precise: bird cries, for in this setting, left unfinished and abandoned by God in wrath, the birds do not sing; they shriek in pain, and confused trees tangle with one another like battling Titans, from horizon to horizon, in a steaming creation still being formed. Fog-panting and exhausted they stand in this unreal misery - and I, like a stanza in a poem written in an unknown foreign tongue, am shaken to the core.

The cases described in this section (The Fear of Being) may seem extreme, but I have become convinced that they are not as uncommon as one would think. Beneath the seemingly rational exterior of our lives is a fear of insanity. We dare not question the values by which we live or rebel against the roles we play for fear of putting our sanity into doubt. We are like the inmates of a mental institution who must accept its inhumanity and insensitivity as caring and knowledgeableness if they hope to be regarded as sane enough to leave. The question who is sane and who is crazy was the theme of the novel One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest. The question, what is sanity? was clearly asked in the play Equus. The idea that much of what we do is insane and that if we want to be sane, we must let ourselves go crazy has been strongly advanced by R.D. Laing. In the preface to the Pelican edition of his book The Divided Self, Laing writes: "In the context of our present pervasive madness that we call normality, sanity, freedom, all of our frames of reference are ambiguous and equivocal." And in the same preface: "Thus I would wish to emphasize that our 'normal' 'adjusted' state is too often the abdication of ecstasy, the betrayal of our true potentialities; that many of us are only too successful in acquiring a false self to adapt to false realities." Wilhelm Reich had a somewhat similar view of present-day human behavior. Thus Reich says, "Homo normalis blocks off entirely the perception of basic orgonotic functioning by means of rigid armoring; in the schizophrenic, on the other hand, the armoring practically breaks down and thus the biosystem is flooded with deep experiences from the biophysical core with which it cannot cope." The "deep experiences" to which Reich refers are the pleasurable streaming sensations associated with intense excitation that is mainly sexual in nature. The schizophrenic cannot cope with these sensations because his body is too contracted to tolerate the charge. Unable to "block" the excitation or reduce it as a neurotic can, and unable to "stand" the charge, the schizophrenic is literally "driven crazy." But the neurotic does not escape so easily either. He avoids insanity by blocking the excitation, that is, by reducing it to a point where there is no danger of explosion, or bursting. In effect the neurotic undergoes a psychological castration. However, the potential for explosive release is still present in his body, although it is rigidly guarded as if it were a bomb. The neurotic is on guard against himself, terrified to let go of his defenses and allow his feelings free expression. Having become, as Reich calls him, "homo normalis," having bartered his freedom and ecstasy for the security of being "well adjusted," he sees the alternative as "crazy." And in a sense he is right. Without going "crazy," without becoming "mad," so mad that he could kill, it is impossible to give up the defenses that protect him in the same way that a mental institution protects its inmates from self-destruction and the destruction of others.

Yet he continued to return to his core principle: that, in every situation, knowledge was better than ignorance. However agonizing, it was necessary to confront the facts. Only through knowing could a person become strong.

I feel very strongly that every artist has one central story to tell. The struggle is to tell and retell that story over and over again, visual form, and try to challenge that story. But at the core that story remains the same. It's like the defining story of who you are. -Gregory Crewdson, "Brief Encounters" http://www.gregorycrewdsonmovie.com/

Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know (Jeremiah 33:3).

One of my core fears is that someone would think I can’t handle as much as the next person. It’s fundamental to my understanding of myself for me to be the strong one, the capable one, the busy one, the one who can bail you out, not make a fuss, bring a meal, add a few more things to the list. For me, everything becomes a lifestyle. Everything is an addiction.

A Leo Moon cannot be dominated. No matter how cogenial, generous, and loving other traits may be, even the shiest personality will have a surprisingly strong inner core of independence.

Our ballet master reminded us that strength and flexibility are inseparable—for one muscle to flex, another must open; to achieve length and limberness, we have to hold our cores strong.

It contains some - not all, but some - of the things I want my daughters to know. And the greatest of these is love. please know that you had mine, unconditional, and powerful and awesome. So strong that I can't believe it will die with me. I want to imagine it as a living thing that goes beyond my body and my death, as a vine that has grown and wound its way through the very core of you all, and cannot be uprooted or destroyed, but rather will hold you erect when everything else is crumbling and withering inside you.

In my own opinion (key word), the foundation of feminism is this: being able to choose. The core of anti-feminism is, conversely, telling a woman she can't do something solely because she's a woman—taking any choice away from her specifically because of her gender. ... One of the weird things about modern feminism is that some feminists seem to be putting their own limits on women's choices. That feels backward to me. It's as if you can't choose a family on your own terms and still be considered a strong woman. How is that empowering? Are there rules about if, when, and how we love or marry and if, when, and how we have kids? Are there jobs we can and can't have in order to be a "real" feminist? To me, those limitations seem anti-feminist in basic principle.

The Big Lie in the church today is that you are nothing more than “a sinner saved by grace.” You are a lot more than that. You are a new creation in Christ. The New Testament calls you a saint, a holy one, a son of God. In the core of your being you are a good man. Yes, there is a war within us, but it is a civil war. The battle is not between us and God; no, there is a traitor within who wars against our true heart fighting alongside the Spirit of God in us: A new power is in operation. The Spirit of life in Christ, like a strong wind, has magnificently cleared the air, freeing you from a fated lifetime of brutal tyranny at the hands of sin and death . . . Anyone, of course, who has not welcomed this invisible but clearly present God, the Spirit of Christ, won’t know what we’re talking about. But for you who welcome him, in whom he dwells . . . if the alive-and-present God who raised Jesus from the dead moves into your life, he’ll do the same thing in you that he did in Jesus . . . When God lives and breathes in you (and he does, as surely as he did in Jesus), you are delivered from that dead life. (Rom. 8:2–3, 9–11 The Message) The real you is on the side of God against the false self. Knowing this makes all the difference in the world.

Human beings have only a weak ability to process logic, but a very deep core capability of recognizing patterns. To do logical thinking, we need to use the neocortex, which is basically a large pattern recognizer. It is not an ideal mechanism for performing logical transformations, but it is the only facility we have for the job. Compare, for example, how a human plays chess to how a typical computer chess program works. Deep Blue, the computer that defeated Garry Kasparov, the human world chess champion, in 1997 was capable of analyzing the logical implications of 200 million board positions (representing different move-countermove sequences) every second. (That can now be done, by the way, on a few personal computers.) Kasparov was asked how many positions he could analyze each second, and he said it was less than one. How is it, then, that he was able to hold up to Deep Blue at all? The answer is the very strong ability humans have to recognize patterns. However, we need to train this facility, which is why not everyone can play master chess.

His thought turned to the Ring, but there was no comfort there, only dread and danger. No sooner had he come in sight of Mount Doom, burning far away, than he was aware of a change in his burden. As it drew near the great furnaces where, in the deeps of time, it had been shaped and forged, the Ring's power grew, and it became more fell, untameable except by some mighty will. As Sam stood there, even though the Ring was not on him but hanging by its chain about his neck, he felt himself enlarged, as if he were robed in a huge distorted shadow of himself, a vast and ominous threat halted upon the walls of Mordor. He felt that he had from now on only two choices: to forbear the Ring, though it would torment him; or to claim it, and challenge the Power that sat in its dark hold beyond the valley of shadows. Already the Ring tempted him, gnawing at his will and reason. Wild fantasies arose in his mind; and he saw Samwise the Strong, Hero of the Age, striding with a flaming sword across the darkened land, and armies flocking to his call as he marched to the overthrow of Barad-dur. And then all the clouds rolled away, and the white sun shone, and at his command the vale of Gorgoroth became a garden of flowers and trees and brought forth fruit. He had only to put on the Ring and claim it for his own, and all this could be. In that hour of trial it was his love of his master that helped most to hold him firm; but also deep down in him lived still unconquered his plain hobbit-sense: he knew in the core of his heart that he was not large enough to bear such a burden, even if such visions were not a mere cheat to betray him. The one small garden of a free gardener was all his need and due, not a garden swollen to a realm; his own hands to use, not the hands of others to command. 'And anyway all these notions are only a trick, he said to himself.

One thing of great importance can affect a small number of people. Equally so, a thing of little importance can affect a multitude. Either way, a happening - big or small - can affect an entire string of people. Occurrences can join us all together. You see, we're all made up of the same stuff. When something happens, it triggers something inside us that connects us to a situation, connects us to other people, lighting us up and linking us like little lights on a Christmas tree, twisted and turned but still connected to a wire. Some go out, others flicker, others burn strong and bright, yet we are all on the same line. I said at the beginning of this story that this was about people who find out who they are. About people who are unraveled and whose cores are revealed to all who count. And that all that count are revealed to them. You thought I was talking about Lou Suffern and the Turkey Boy, about Raphie, Jessica, and Ruth, didn't you? Wrong. I was talking about each of us. A lesson finds the common denominatior and links us all together, like a chain. At the end of that chain dangles a clock, and on the face of the clock registers the passing of time. We see it and we hear it, the hushed tick-tock, but often we don't feel it. Each second makes its mark on every single person's life - comes and then goes, quietly disappearing without fanfare, evaporating into air like steam from a piping hot Christmas pudding. Enough time leaves us warm; when our time is gone, it leaves us cold. Time is more precious than gold, more precious than diamonds, more precious than oil or any valuable treasures. It is time of which we do not have enough; it is time that causes the war within our hearts, and so we must spend it wisely. Time cannot be packaged and ribboned and left under trees for Christmas morning. Time can't be given. But it can be shared.

Centering Prayer is not about developing concentration, attaining clear mind, conscious presence, a strong witnessing “I,” some desired state. In Centering Prayer you merely practice and practice the core kenotic motion: “let go, make space, unclench”—thought by thought by thought.

I know there are some people out there who think I am supposed to end up in a room by myself with a gun and a bottle full of hate, a locked door and my slack mouth open like a disconnected phone. But I hate those people back from the core of my donkey soul and the hatred makes me strong and my survival is their failure, and my happiness would kill them so I shove joy like a knife into my own heart over and over and I force myself toward pleasure, and I love this November life where I run like a train deeper and deeper into the land of my enemies.

One good way to understand what conservatism is really about is to use the acronym FLINT to remember five core concepts: Free enterprise, Limited government, Individual liberty, National defense, and Traditional values. These five principles are a good summary of conservative thought in America today.

Principles of Liberty 1. The only reliable basis for sound government and just human relations is Natural Law. 2. A free people cannot survive under a republican constitution unless they remain virtuous and morally strong. 3. The most promising method of securing a virtuous and morally strong people is to elect virtuous leaders. 4. Without religion the government of a free people cannot be maintained. 5. All things were created by God, therefore upon him all mankind are equally dependent, and to Him they are equally responsible. 6. All men are created equal. 7. The proper role of government is to protect equal rights, not provide equal things. 8. Men are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights. 9. To protect man's rights, God has revealed certain principles of divine law. 10. The God-given right to govern is vested in the sovereign authority of the whole people. 11. The majority of the people may alter or abolish a government which has become tyrannical. 12. The United States of America shall be a republic. 13. A constitution should be structured to permanently protect the people from the human frailties of their rulers. 14. Life and Liberty are secure only so long as the Igor of property is secure. 15. The highest level of securitiy occurs when there is a free market economy and a minimum of government regulations. 16. The government should be separated into three branches: legislative, executive, and judicial. 17. A system of checks and balances should be adopted to prevent the abuse of power. 18. The unalienable rights of the people are most likely to be preserved if the principles of government are set forth in a written constitution. 19. Only limited and carefully defined powers should be delegated to the government, all others being retained by the people. 20. Efficiency and dispatch require government to operate according to the will of the majority, but constitutional provisions must be made to protect the rights of the minority. 21. Strong human government is the keystone to preserving human freedom. 22. A free people should be governed by law and not by the whims of men. 23. A free society cannot survive a republic without a broad program of general education. 24. A free people will not survive unless they stay strong. 25. "Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations; entangling alliances with none." 26. The core unit which determines the strength of any society is the family; therefore, the government should foster and protect its integrity. 27. The burden of debt is as destructive to freedom as subjugation by conquest. 28. The United States has a manifest destiny to be an example and a blessing to the entire human race.

Given that narcissists can often be quite vulnerable, again, because their self-esteem is so fragile and reliant on the judgments of other people, depression is not a surprising part of this picture. At times when they are depressed, especially for men, it is quite possible that their mood will be even more irritable than usual, or they will become more withdrawn, and seemingly more focused on themselves. The big-ticket symptoms we would like to see changed—the lack of empathy, the chronic entitlement, the grandiosity—tend to be most resistant to change, since they are linked so strongly to the core deficits of the disorder, such as an inability to regulate self-esteem.

May I be a pillar on which upon you stand, a leaning post for young ones, my lover and my friend. May I be a beam of light that you bestow upon your hopes, your dreams, your wisdom, so we may carry on. May I be a beacon, a tree with roots so strong, treetop spreading high and wide, a trunk so wide and long. May I be your music a flute for you to play whatever you desire with each forthcoming day. May I lose myself to find you, support all those who need my love, my core, my laughter, permeate my every deed.

Good horror is written by people who understand that fear is one of the cardinal passageways into the core of humanity. Good horror is generally written by folks who grew up on horror; books, movies, etc. You can’t simply decide to write—in any genre—if you don’t first have an understanding of the topic and a strong mental backlog of reference.

Equality is a lie,” Bane told her. “A myth to appease the masses. Simply look around and you will see the lie for what it is! There are those with power, those with the strength and will to lead. And there are those meant to follow—those incapable of anything but servitude and a meager, worthless existence. “Equality is a perversion of the natural order!” he continued, his voice rising as he shared the fundamental truth that lay at the core of his beliefs. “It binds the strong to the weak. They become anchors that drag the exceptional down to mediocrity. Individuals destined and deserving of greatness have it denied them. They suffer for the sake of keeping them even with their inferiors.

Trust is more than a value maximisation strategy; it embodies the core spirit of entrepreneurship.

that anxiety has at its core disquietude caused by ambiguity and a strong inclination toward problem solving. When

An honest answer is like a kiss on the lips” (Proverbs 24:26).

What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight. Build anyway.

Emotionally and physically, I’m an extremely fragile creation of God; while the strong will and character are formed out of the necessity to protect the vulnerable core.

The core of the anarchist tradition, as I understand it, is that power is always illegitimate, unless it proves itself to be legitimate. So the burden of proof is always on those who claim that some authoritarian hierarchic relation is legitimate. If they can't prove it, then it should be dismantled. Can you ever prove it? Well, it's a heavy burden of proof to bear, but I think sometimes you can bear it. So to take a homely example, if I'm walking down the street with my four-year-old granddaughter, and she starts to run into the street, and I grab her arm and pull her back, that's an exercise of power and authority, but I can give a justification for it, and it's obvious what the justification would be. And maybe there are other cases where you can justify it. But the question that always should be asked uppermost in our mind is, 'Why should I accept it?' It's the responsibility of those who exercise power to show that somehow it's legitimate. It's not the responsibility of anyone else to show that it's illegitimate. It's illegitimate by assumption, if it's a relation of authority among human beings which places some above others. That's illegitimate by assumption. Unless you can give a strong argument to show that it's right, you've lost.

Companies with strong product-driven or engineering cultures tend to be the ones that develop feature shocks. Firms with a culture of playing it safe and avoiding big risks typically suffer minivations. Hidden gems most often afflict companies that coddle the core business. And undeads are born in firms whose top-down cultures discourage feedback and criticism from below. Let

If you’re going to build a strong culture, it’s paramount to make diversity one of your core values. This is what separates Bridgewater’s strong culture from a cult: The commitment is to promoting dissent. In hiring, instead of using similarity to gauge cultural fit, Bridgewater assesses cultural contribution.* Dalio wants people who will think independently and enrich the culture. By holding them accountable for dissenting, Dalio has fundamentally altered the way people make decisions. In a cult, core values are dogma. At Bridgewater, employees are expected to challenge the principles themselves. During training, when employees learn the principles, they’re constantly asked: Do you agree? “We have these standards that are stress tested over time, and you have to either operate by them or disagree with them and fight for better ones,” explains Zack Wieder, who works with Dalio on codifying the principles. Rather than deferring to the people with the greatest seniority or status, as was the case at Polaroid, decisions at Bridgewater are based on quality. The goal is to create an idea meritocracy, where the best ideas win. To get the best ideas on the table in the first place, you need radical transparency.

The weaponization of this fearsome phantasm of “gender” is authoritarian at its core. Rolling back progressive legislation is surely fueled by backlash, but backlash describes only the reactive moment in this scene. The project of restoring the world to a time before “gender” promises a return to a patriarchal dream-order that may never have existed but that occupies the place of “history” or “nature”—an order that only a strong state can restore.

Yet he continued to return to his core principle: that, in every situation, knowledge was better than ignorance. However agonizing, it was necessary to confront the facts. Only through knowing could a person become strong. The

I love the color black because my roots run deep, and my core is strong. All of the hurt and pain I’ve been through, I never gave up. Life isn’t about pleasing others. To be honest, we think we lose a lot when we do not do what others want us to do—we might lose a lot at the moment because we are not walking in their line. However, when all is said and done, we stole from ourselves, and we lost the war. We cheated ourselves because we didn’t love ourselves enough. We have to have faith in ourselves and not in other people. They will leave you high and dry, and what you did for them wasn’t enough. After they rob you of everything, you and only you would be the only one sorting out the pieces.

A few months ago on a school morning, as I attempted to etch a straight midline part on the back of my wiggling daughter's soon-to-be-ponytailed blond head, I reminded her that it was chilly outside and she needed to grab a sweater. "No, mama." "Excuse me?" "No, I don't want to wear that sweater, it makes me look fat." "What?!" My comb clattered to the bathroom floor. "Fat?! What do you know about fat? You're 5 years old! You are definitely not fat. God made you just right. Now get your sweater." She scampered off, and I wearily leaned against the counter and let out a long, sad sigh. It has begun. I thought I had a few more years before my twin daughters picked up the modern day f-word. I have admittedly had my own seasons of unwarranted, psychotic Slim-Fasting and have looked erroneously to the scale to give me a measurement of myself. But these departures from my character were in my 20s, before the balancing hand of motherhood met the grounding grip of running. Once I learned what it meant to push myself, I lost all taste for depriving myself. I want to grow into more of a woman, not find ways to whittle myself down to less. The way I see it, the only way to run counter to our toxic image-centric society is to literally run by example. I can't tell my daughters that beauty is an incidental side effect of living your passion rather than an adherence to socially prescribed standards. I can't tell my son how to recognize and appreciate this kind of beauty in a woman. I have to show them, over and over again, mile after mile, until they feel the power of their own legs beneath them and catch the rhythm of their own strides. Which is why my parents wake my kids early on race-day mornings. It matters to me that my children see me out there, slogging through difficult miles. I want my girls to grow up recognizing the beauty of strength, the exuberance of endurance, and the core confidence residing in a well-tended body and spirit. I want them to be more interested in what they are doing than how they look doing it. I want them to enjoy food that is delicious, feed their bodies with wisdom and intent, and give themselves the freedom to indulge. I want them to compete in healthy ways that honor the cultivation of skill, the expenditure of effort, and the courage of the attempt. Grace and Bella, will you have any idea how lovely you are when you try? Recently we ran the Chuy's Hot to Trot Kids K together as a family in Austin, and I ran the 5-K immediately afterward. Post?race, my kids asked me where my medal was. I explained that not everyone gets a medal, so they must have run really well (all kids got a medal, shhh!). As I picked up Grace, she said, "You are so sweaty Mommy, all wet." Luke smiled and said, "Mommy's sweaty 'cause she's fast. And she looks pretty. All clean." My PRs will never garner attention or generate awards. But when I run, I am 100 percent me--my strengths and weaknesses play out like a cracked-open diary, my emotions often as raw as the chafing from my jog bra. In my ultimate moments of vulnerability, I am twice the woman I was when I thought I was meant to look pretty on the sidelines. Sweaty and smiling, breathless and beautiful: Running helps us all shine. A lesson worth passing along.

Fortunately, our colleges and universities are fully cognizant of the problems I have been delineating and take concerted action to address them. Curricula are designed to give coherence to the educational experience and to challenge students to develop a strong degree of moral awareness. Professors, deeply involved with the enterprise of undergraduate instruction, are committed to their students' intellectual growth and insist on maintaining the highest standards of academic rigor. Career services keep themselves informed about the broad range of postgraduate options and make a point of steering students away from conventional choices. A policy of noncooperation with U.S. News has taken hold, depriving the magazine of the data requisite to calculate its rankings. Rather than squandering money on luxurious amenities and exorbitant administrative salaries, schools have rededicated themselves to their core missions of teaching and the liberal arts. I'm kidding, of course.

Love, that most banal of things, that most clichéd of religious motivations, had more power—Sol now knew—than did strong nuclear force or weak nuclear force or electromagnetism or gravity. Love was these other forces, Sol realized. The Void Which Binds, the subquantum impossibility that carried information from photon to photon, was nothing more or less than love. But could love—simple, banal love—explain the so-called anthropic principle which scientists had shaken their collective heads over for seven centuries and more—that almost infinite string of coincidences which had led to a universe that had just the proper number of dimensions, just the correct values on electron, just the precise rules for gravity, just the proper age to stars, just the right prebiologies to create just the perfect viruses to become just the proper DNAs—in short, a series of coincidences so absurd in their precision and correctness that they defied logic, defied understanding, and even defied religious interpretation. Love? For seven centuries the existence of Grand Unification Theories and hyperstring post-quantum physics and Core-given understanding of the universe as self-contained and boundless, without Big Bang singularities or corresponding endpoints, had pretty much eliminated any role of God—primitively anthropomorphic or sophisticatedly post-Einsteinian—even as a caretaker or pre-Creation former of rules. The modern universe, as machine and man had come to understand it, needed no Creator; in fact, allowed no Creator. Its rules allowed very little tinkering and no major revisions. It had not begun and would not end, beyond cycles of expansion and contraction as regular and self-regulated as the seasons on Old Earth. No room for love there.

I remember the first time I heard your voice. I can still remember telling you how soothing I found it, how much it calmed me. It still does, even though we’re strangers. You’re silent, but your words are still very much alive in me. You are my home, even though the door is locked and the lights are off. It’s not a choice as much as it is a beautiful nagging that’s nearly impossible to ignore. But I’m locked out, left to wander, and I’ve found myself here. I know I left in a childish fit, and you locked the iron gate so tightly; you had to. So I was left out in the darkness, just me and the shadows that haunted me, the ones that led me away from you to begin with. You left me outside to face them. You wouldn’t let me lean on you to deal with them anymore. You are my home because you are the place I choose to return to over and over again. The place that, even when painful, means the most. You are my home because you have made me who I am, whether or not you realized what you were doing. You are my home because you showed me the best kind of love there is. You showed me real, genuine, love-you-so-much-it-hurts-and-changes-me-at-my-core love. It was a blissful combination of finally feeling alive mixed with the most painfully difficult challenge I never thought I’d have to deal with. I didn’t know I could ever feel so strongly that I’d end up there. And yet, I still believe, that although that love may have been all of those challenging things, it was still unconditional, undeniable, and above all, beautiful. Miraculous. And that’s what keeps me at your door.

And here’s what’s crazy: I was so afraid that if I faced the silence I would find that inside myself, there’s simply nothing, that I’m hollow like a set of Russian dolls missing the center doll, all shells and no core. Or I thought that what I would find in the silence is weak, crumbling, unable to face life without the swirling blanket of chaos. Instead, around every corner I’m finding that willingness to be fragile actually makes me strong. In the silence, I have found love. I have found love, and peace, and stillness, and gratitude. I used to overwork in order to feel important. What I’m learning now is that feeling important to someone else isn’t valuable to me the way I thought it was. Feeling connected is very valuable. But feeling helpful to strangers doesn’t do it for me anymore.

earthquake society has a way of bending you until you break, no matter how strong you think you are or how hard you try to fight back. it will try to fold you on top of yourself and shape you into something new—something prettier, smaller, less you and more them. but it doesn’t realize that by doing so, it’s creating a warrior out of you, one strong enough to sink mountains and raise tides. strong enough to reach inside the earth and shake it to its very core. strong enough to leave your mark on what’s tried to leave its mark on you.

Evolution, energy, and ethics are the core elements that will guide us along the challenging path toward the Life Era: the first - evolution - because a good understanding of our universal roots and of our place in the cosmic scheme of things will help us create a feasible future course; the second - energy - because our fate will bear strongly on the ways that humankind learns to use energy efficiently and safely; and the third - ethics - because global citizenship and a planetary society are crucial factors in the survival of our species.

I strongly believe that teachers need to tell students about great lives and make children understand their history and heritage. It is only through this that a love for the country is born that is based on knowledge and understanding. This is how children not only know what is good and what is evil but also learn to judge for themselves the distinction between the two. They then know the best way to behave in many situations. These lessons can form the moral core around which our personalities are formed—something that no one can take away from us however old we get.

For each man there are different perspectives, but at the core they are the same. Never violate a woman, nor harm a child. Do not lie, cheat or steal. These things are for lesser men. Protect the weak against the evil strong. And never allow thoughts of gain to lead you into pursuit of evil.

We now realize that behind each person’s gridlocked position lies something deep and meaningful—something core to that person’s belief system, needs, history, or personality. It might be a strongly held value or perhaps a dream not yet lived. These people can no more yield and compromise on this issue than they can give up “the bones” of who they are and what they value about themselves. Compromise seems like selling themselves out, which is unthinkable.       But when a relationship achieves a certain level of safety and one partner clearly communicates that he or she wants to know about the underlying meaning of the other partner’s position, the other partner can finally open up and talk about his or her feelings, dreams, and needs. Persuasion and problem solving are postposed. The goal is for each partner to understand the other’s dreams behind the position on the issue.

During our nighttime conversations, we spoke at great length about spirituality and belief. Steve’s faith had been tremendously tested. At times he would lash out and blame God, and sometimes he would proclaim that he did not believe in God at all. I knew he was just lashing out, and I’d try to use humor to get him back on track. “You can’t have it both ways,” I would gently remind him. When bad things happened to good people, or when innocent animals experienced human cruelty, it shook Steve to the core. His strong feelings demanded deep spiritual answers, and he searched for them all his life.

The movie, (X-Men: Days of Future Past), illustrates a spiritual journey that involves going back in time. The Purpose of the journey is to find the core grievance and let it be healed. When the grievance is healed in Forgiveness, all future scenarios of conflict and destruction are also healed. It is not that they have been prevented in time; it is that we have come to the realization that there was no time in which they could have existed. In the Happy Dream, everything is resolved. It becomes harmonious and then disappears. Wolverine is the agent strong enough to go back through time and ignite the mission of forgiveness. We can think of ourselves this way as well. We can imagine that our future self, or our higher Self, is orchestrating this whole thing for our awakening. We are just perceiving it in time, where we perceive ourselves to be. There is great love and compassion coming from the higher Self, the future self.

In the parking lot, she drove and parked in a dark area with no other cars around. She reclined her seat, and listened to music. Outside there were trees, a ditch, a bridge; another parking lot. It was very dark. Maybe the Sasquatch would run out from the woods. Chelsea wouldn’t be afraid. She would calmly watch the Sasquatch jog into the ditch then out, hairy and strong and mysterious—to be so large yet so unknown; how could one cope except by running?—smash through some bushes, and sprint, perhaps, behind Wal-Mart, leaping over a shopping cart and barking. Did the Sasquatch bark? It used to alarm Chelsea that this might be all there was to her life, these hours alone each day and night—thinking things and not sharing them and then forgetting—the possibility of that would shock her a bit, trickily, like a three-part realization: that there was a bad idea out there; that that bad idea wasn’t out there, but here; and that she herself was that bad idea. But recently, and now, in her car, she just felt calm and perceiving, and a little consoled, even, by the sad idea of her own life, as if it were someone else’s, already happened, in some other world, placed now in the core of her, like a pillow that was an entire life, of which when she felt exhausted by aloneness she could crumple and fall towards, like a little bed, something she could pretend, and believe, even (truly and unironically believe; why not?), was a real thing that had come from far away, through a place of no people, a place of people, and another place of no people, as a gift, for no occasion, but just because she needed—or perhaps deserved; did the world try in that way? to make things fair?—it.

The father and daughter made their way north, through unknown sylvan paradises where only the owls and skunks know their way around. The hard work of paddling non-stop for many hours had long since stopped being difficult for Saweyimew. In spite of her beauty and grace, her back had grown strong and sinewy from years of canoe trips. She reveled in the exhilaration it always brought her, after the first few hours left her body insensible to pain or discomfort. Warm and tingly, lulled into peaceful contemplation by hours of the rhythmic paddling, the smell of the water, exotic blooms, animal musk. It all combined as one to make her feel so alive. Especially when it rained, and her body steamed against the cool drops, feeling invincible against the elements. The mountain of her father's back was like a rock against anything nature could throw against them. The stream of fragrant pipe-smoke still flowing from his lips, regardless of any obstacle. She felt at that moment, nothing would ever stop her father's pipe from smoking. Nothing, not death, not any force of the living or spirit world, would ever still her father's heart. Rain cleansing her to the core, she was a spring of raw power and self-reliance, paddling against all adversity--their master completely. Her father's daughter. At times like that, when it rained, she entirely understood and shared her father's outlook on life.

Fr. Michael Scanlon, in his book Inner Healing, states that, “We have an attitudinal life which operates from the very core of our being. . . . This life determines broad general patterns of relating to others and to God.” He then speaks of five different problem patterns that alert him to a need to pray for what he calls a “heart healing.” These are: 1) A judgmental spirit that is harsh and demanding on self and others. 2) A strong perfectionist attitude demanding the impossible from self and others. 3) A strong pattern of fearing future events. 4) A sense of aloneness and abandonment in times of decision. 5) A preoccupation with one’s own guilt and a compulsion to compete for position and success.[4]

Showing up is what turns the people you know into your people. It’s at the core of creating and maintaining strong, meaningful bonds with friends, family, coworkers, and internet pals. Showing up is the act of bearing witness to people’s joy, pain, and true selves; validating their experiences; easing their load; and communicating that they are not alone in this life.

But those comparisons are meaningless. Because to me she is someone special. A 'complete presence,' I guess you could call it. All of her qualities are tightly bound into one core. You can't separate each individual quality to measure & analyse it, to say it's better or worse than the same quality in someone else. It's what's in her core that attracts me so strongly like a powerful magnet. It's beyond logic.

You ask me,’ a thoughtful Crumpet had once said in the smoking-room of the Drones Club, ‘why it is that at the mention of his Uncle Fred’s name Pongo Twistleton blenches to the core and calls for a couple of quick ones. I will tell you. It is because this uncle is pure dynamite. Every time he is in Pongo’s midst, with the sap running strongly in his veins, he subjects the unfortunate young egg to some soul-testing experience, luring him out into the open and there, right in the public eye, proceeding to step high, wide and plentiful. For though well stricken in years the old blister becomes on these occasions as young as he feels, which seems to be about twenty-two. I don’t know if you happen to know what the word “excesses” means, but those are what he invariably commits, when on the loose. Get Pongo to tell you some time about that day they had together at the dog races.

I can't live in the past, but the echoes of the past live on deep inside of the core of my being. I am learning to turn and face past experiences so that I may see them, touch them, feel them, bless them and finally own them. I am calling back the parts of myself that I abandoned when the pain was too strong and when life got 'too much'. I am accepting with Grace that my life is an exquisitely unique journey of mishap, magic and marvelous misadventure.

Whatever the country or the venue, whoever I find myself with, I strongly believe that whenever you agree to pay for something, you vote for it. I personally try to be in coherence with my core values (as much as possible) so, since I do not want to vote for animal exploitation in any form or under any circumstance, I do not derogate from my chosen alimentation. I do not un-veganize myself for the time of a meal. Even if it implies eating only bread and drinking only water... And being made fun of by workmates in a convention (be there, done that, got the t-shirt).

KNEE SURGERY I’D FIRST HURT MY KNEES IN FALLUJAH WHEN THE WALL FELL on me. Cortisone shots helped for a while, but the pain kept coming back and getting worse. The docs told me I needed to have my legs operated on, but doing that would have meant I would have to take time off and miss the war. So I kept putting it off. I settled into a routine where I’d go to the doc, get a shot, go back to work. The time between shots became shorter and shorter. It got down to every two months, then every month. I made it through Ramadi, but just barely. My knees started locking and it was difficult to get down the stairs. I no longer had a choice, so, soon after I got home in 2007, I went under the knife. The surgeons cut my tendons to relieve pressure so my kneecaps would slide back over. They had to shave down my kneecaps because I had worn grooves in them. They injected synthetic cartilage material and shaved the meniscus. Somewhere along the way they also repaired an ACL. I was like a racing car, being repaired from the ground up. When they were done, they sent me to see Jason, a physical therapist who specializes in working with SEALs. He’d been a trainer for the Pittsburgh Pirates. After 9/11, he decided to devote himself to helping the country. He chose to do that by working with the military. He took a massive pay cut to help put us back together. I DIDN’T KNOW ALL THAT THE FIRST DAY WE MET. ALL I WANTED to hear was how long it was going to take to rehab. He gave me a pensive look. “This surgery—civilians need a year to get back,” he said finally. “Football players, they’re out eight months. SEALs—it’s hard to say. You hate being out of action and will punish yourselves to get back.” He finally predicted six months. I think we did it in five. But I thought I would surely die along the way. JASON PUT ME INTO A MACHINE THAT WOULD STRETCH MY knee. Every day I had to see how much further I could adjust it. I would sweat up a storm as it bent my knee. I finally got it to ninety degrees. “That’s outstanding,” he told me. “Now get more.” “More?” “More!” He also had a machine that sent a shock to my muscle through electrodes. Depending on the muscle, I would have to stretch and point my toes up and down. It doesn’t sound like much, but it is clearly a form of torture that should be outlawed by the Geneva Convention, even for use on SEALs. Naturally, Jason kept upping the voltage. But the worst of all was the simplest: the exercise. I had to do more, more, more. I remember calling Taya many times and telling her I was sure I was going to puke if not die before the day was out. She seemed sympathetic but, come to think of it in retrospect, she and Jason may have been in on it together. There was a stretch where Jason had me doing crazy amounts of ab exercises and other things to my core muscles. “Do you understand it’s my knees that were operated on?” I asked him one day when I thought I’d reached my limit. He just laughed. He had a scientific explanation about how everything in the body depends on strong core muscles, but I think he just liked kicking my ass around the gym. I swear I heard a bullwhip crack over my head any time I started to slack. I always thought the best shape I was ever in was straight out of BUD/S. But I was in far better shape after spending five months with him. Not only were my knees okay, the rest of me was in top condition. When I came back to my platoon, they all asked if I had been taking steroids.

Me: It will get better, right? Eventually, it will get better. Scarlett: I’m sorry I’m not the type to lower our discourse to emoji use since you totally deserve a smiley face right now. Yes, it will get better. Me: Ha. It’s just. Whatever. Sorry to keep whining. Scarlett: That’s what I’m here for. BTW, that email you forwarded? My guess: TOTALLY A SECRET ADMIRER. Me: You’ve read too many books. I’m being set up. And stop YELLING AT ME. Scarlett: No way. I didn’t say he was a vampire. I said he was a secret admirer. Most def. Me: Wanna take bets? Scarlett: You should just know by now that I’m always right. It’s my one magic power. Me: What’s mine? Scarlett: TBD. Me: Thanks a lot. Scarlett: Kidding. You are strong. That’s your power, girl. Me: My arms are v. toned from stress-eating ALL the cookies. Hand to mouth. Repeat 323 times. Hard-core workout. Scarlett: Seriously, for a second, J? Just because you’re strong doesn’t mean you shouldn’t ask for help sometimes. Remember that. I’m here, ALWAYS, but you might want to take up that offer from someone local. Me: Whatever. Ugh. Thanks, Dr. Phil. I miss you! Scarlett: Miss you too! Go write back to SN. NOW. NOW. NOW. Now tell me the truth? Anyone at your school unusually pale?

After God, who is the central core pillar to any Christian marriage, there are four important marital relationship foundations. These are: * Self-Esteem - if you don't love yourself you will find it almost impossible to accept love from others. * Friendship - a strong friendship will sustain your marriage even when feelings of love are harder to find. * Laughter - it will improve your quality of life, your health and your relationships * Romance - feeling close to your partner can be the glue which holds your relationship together through the rough patches, but the absence of romance causes a void that problems will easily fill.

If man were infinitely malleable, there would have been nor revolutions; there would have been no change because a culture would have succeeded in making man submit to its patterns without resistance. But man, being only relatively malleable, has always reacted with protest against conditions which made the disequilibrium between the social order and his human needs too drastic or unbearable. The attempt to reduce this disequilibrium and the need to establish a more acceptable and desirable solution is at the very core of the dynamism of the evolution of man in history. Man's protest arose not only because of material suffering; specifically human needs...are an equally strong motivation for revolution and the dynamics of change.

Here are the four keys to successful commitments: 1. Strong desire: In order to fully commit to something, you need a clear and personally compelling reason. Without a strong desire you will struggle when the implementation gets difficult, but with a compelling desire, seemingly insurmountable obstacles are seen as challenges to be met. The desired end result needs to be meaningful enough to get you through the hard times and keep you on track. 2. Keystone actions: Once you have an intense desire to accomplish something, you then need to identify the core actions that will produce the result you’re after. In today’s world, many of us have become spectators rather than participants. We must remember that it’s what we do that counts. In most endeavors there are often many activities that help you accomplish your goal. However there are usually a few core activities that account for the majority of the results, and in some cases there are only one or two keystone actions that ultimately produce the result. It is critical that you identify these keystones and focus on them. 3. Count the costs: Commitments require sacrifice. In any effort there are benefits and costs. Too often we claim to commit to something without considering the costs, the hardships that will have to be overcome to accomplish your desire. Costs can include time, money, risk, uncertainty, loss of comfort, and so on. Identifying the costs before you commit allows you to consciously choose whether you are willing to pay the price of your commitment. When you face any of these costs, it is extremely helpful to recognize that you anticipated them and decided that reaching your goal was worth it. 4. Act on commitments, not feelings: There will be times when you won’t feel like doing the critical activities. We’ve all been there. Getting out of bed at 5:30 a.m. to jog in the winter cold can be daunting, especially when you’re in a toasty warm bed. It is during these times that you will need to learn to act on your commitments instead of your feelings. If you don’t, you will never build any momentum and will get stuck continually restarting or, as is so often the case, giving up. Learning to do the things you need to do, regardless of how you feel, is a core discipline for success.

A Passion for Everything For most of us, passion is employed only with regard to one thing, sex; or you suffer passionately and try to resolve that suffering. But I am using the word passion in the sense of a state of mind, a state of being, a state of your inward core, if there is such a thing, that feels very strongly, that is highly sensitive—sensitive alike to dirt, to squalor, to poverty, and to enormous riches and corruption, to the beauty of a tree, of a bird, to the flow of water, and to a pond that has the evening sky reflected upon it. To feel all this intensely, strongly, is necessary. Because without passion life becomes empty, shallow, and without much meaning. If you cannot see the beauty of a tree and love that tree, if you cannot care for it intensely, you are not living.

If you hurt any of your fingers, your whole body will feel its effect. Everything is connected. Infect one part of something, and a reaction will spread and affect the rest. We sit sometimes not knowing why we feel restless or sad, but in truth we are feeling transferred emotions moving through our atmosphere. We pick up on frequencies that come from near and far that affect us unconsciously. Humans are like moving antennas. We are magnetic entities living in an electromagnetic world. The core of the earth is a gigantic crystal that captures and amplifies strong energies in all directions. We all act and react as its transmitters and receivers. Every cause has effect and every effect has cause. All words and actions do matter. We are all connected. When one arm or foot is poisoned, the whole body becomes infected.

I’m not—I’m not talking about myself.” “Oh, darling,” her mother said, the sharp planes of her face softening. “We’re all talking about ourselves. Always, because the only way we see the world is through our own eyes. The way you’ve always seen Anthony in Will, and you’re so scared that he’s his dad all over again. That he’s weak at the core after all, and that he’ll disgrace you in the end, and desert you, too. This is all just one more way you’re afraid he’s done it. But he hasn’t, and he won’t, because he’s not his dad. He’s got you in him, too. He’s got the mum who stayed, and stuck. That’s why he’ll never do a runner on the people he loves, no matter how heavy the burden gets. He’ll take care of you until you’re in your grave, and he’ll take care of his brother and sisters as well. Because he’s strong to the core, and solid to the bone. Because he’s a good man.

Keeping a new church outwardly focused from the beginning is much easier than trying to refocus an inwardly concerned church. In order to plant a successful church, you have to know that you know that you are undeniably called by God. The call to start a new church plant is not the same as the call to serve in an existing church or work in a ministry-related organization. You may be the greatest preacher this side of Billy Graham but still not be called to start a church. If you think you may have allowed an improper reason, voice or emotion to lead you to the idea of starting a new church, back away now. Spend some more time with God. You don’t want to move forward on a hunch or because you feel “pretty sure” that you should be planting a church. You have to be completely certain. “You’re afraid? So what. Everybody’s afraid. Fear is the common ground of humanity. The question you must wrestle to the ground is, ‘Will I allow my fear to bind me to mediocrity?’” When you think of a people group that you might be called to reach, does your heart break for them? If so, you may want to consider whether God is specifically calling you to reach that group for His kingdom. Is your calling clear? Has your calling been confirmed by others? Are you humbled by the call? Have you acted on your call? Do you know for certain that God has called you to start a new church? Nail it down. When exactly were you called? What were the circumstances surrounding your call? How did it match up with the sources of proper calling? Do you recognize the four specific calls in your calling? How? How does your call measure up to biblical characteristics? What is the emerging vision that God is giving you with this call? As your dependence on God grows, so will your church. One of the most common mistakes that enthusiastic and well-meaning church starters make is to move to a new location and start trying to reach people without thinking through even a short-term strategy. Don’t begin until you count the cost. why would you even consider starting a church (the only institution Jesus left behind and the only one that will last forever) without first developing a God-infused, specific, winning strategy? There are two types of pain: the pain of front-end discipline and the pain of back-end regret. With the question of strategy development, you get to choose which pain you’d rather live with. Basically, a purpose, mission and vision statement provides guiding principles that describe what God has called you to do (mission), how you will do it (purpose) and what it will look like when you get it done (vision). Keep your statement simple. Be as precise as possible. Core values are the filter through which you fulfill your strategy. These are important, because your entire strategy will be created and implemented in such a way as to bring your core values to life. Your strategic aim will serve as the beacon that guides the rest of your strategy. It is the initial purpose for which you are writing your strategy. He will not send more people to you than you are ready to receive. So what can you do? The same thing Dr. Graham does. Prepare in a way that enables God to open the floodgates into your church. If you are truly ready, He will send people your way. If you do the work we’ve described in this chapter, you’ll be able to build your new church on a strong base of God-breathed preparation. You’ll know where you are, where you’re going and how you are going to get there. You’ll be standing in the rain with a huge bucket, ready to take in the deluge. However, if you don’t think through your strategy, write it down and then implement it, you’ll be like the man who stands in the rainstorm with a Dixie cup. You’ll be completely unprepared to capture what God is pouring out. The choice is yours!

FUNDAMENTAL FIVE  MONDAY - The first exercise you will do is the push-up. Try and perform 3 sets and as many reps as you can in each set. It is fine here if you use a raised platform for the hands as we are just trying to get stronger here. The second exercise you will perform is the dip exercise. Here you can do either a ledge dip if your strength is not strong enough, or some triceps dips if your strength is at a decent level. Keep trying to work towards the goal of doing 10 perfect triceps dips. Thirdly you will perform 3 sets of squats. Concentrate on good form here and try and descend as low as you are able to. Your target is to be able to perform 25 perfect reps before moving on. You can also do conditioning exercises here as well if that is part of your goal. Note that this is not required, as our main focus is to build strength. TUESDAY - On this day you will aim to perform a pulling exercise, ideally the chin-up. If you are not strong enough to perform any chin-ups, work with the row until your strength increases. Again, you should be aiming for 3 sets of as many reps as you can do, until you can do 10 perfect reps. The second exercise should be your core exercise. This can be any of the easier variations, such as the plank, crunch, dish, or hanging leg raise. Remember, that the sole aim here is to work up to performing 10 perfect hanging knee raises. WEDNESDAY - This is a rest day, and you should ensure that you get plenty of good food and sleep on this day. THURSDAY - This should be the same as Mondays workout. FRIDAY - This should be the same as Tuesdays workout. SATURDAY / SUNDAY - These are both rest days, as in the beginning it is important for your body to have enough rest and to be able to recover properly from the workouts. This also leaves you totally fresh for the week ahead. As was said before, only once you can perform the five fundamental movements and their required number of repetitions, you should move on to the next program.

Ottawa, Ontario July 1, 2017 The Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, today issued the following statement on Canada Day: Today, we celebrate the 150th anniversary of Confederation. We come together as Canadians to celebrate the achievements of our great country, reflect on our past and present, and look boldly toward our future. Canada’s story stretches back long before Confederation, to the first people who worked, loved, and built their lives here, and to those who came here centuries later in search of a better life for their families. In 1867, the vision of Sir George-Étienne Cartier and Sir John A. Macdonald, among others, gave rise to Confederation – an early union, and one of the moments that have come to define Canada. In the 150 years since, we have continued to grow and define ourselves as a country. We fought valiantly in two world wars, built the infrastructure that would connect us, and enshrined our dearest values – equality, diversity, freedom of the individual, and two official languages – in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. These moments, and many others, shaped Canada into the extraordinary country it is today – prosperous, generous, and proud. At the heart of Canada’s story are millions of ordinary people doing extraordinary things. They exemplify what it means to be Canadian: ambitious aspirations, leadership driven by compassion, and the courage to dream boldly. Whether we were born here or have chosen Canada as our home, this is who we are. Ours is a land of Indigenous Peoples, settlers, and newcomers, and our diversity has always been at the core of our success. Canada’s history is built on countless instances of people uniting across their differences to work and thrive together. We express ourselves in French, English, and hundreds of other languages, we practice many faiths, we experience life through different cultures, and yet we are one country. Today, as has been the case for centuries, we are strong not in spite of our differences, but because of them. As we mark Canada 150, we also recognize that for many, today is not an occasion for celebration. Indigenous Peoples in this country have faced oppression for centuries. As a society, we must acknowledge and apologize for past wrongs, and chart a path forward for the next 150 years – one in which we continue to build our nation-to-nation, Inuit-Crown, and government-to-government relationship with the First Nations, Inuit, and Métis Nation. Our efforts toward reconciliation reflect a deep Canadian tradition – the belief that better is always possible. Our job now is to ensure every Canadian has a real and fair chance at success. We must create the right conditions so that the middle class, and those working hard to join it, can build a better life for themselves and their families. Great promise and responsibility await Canada. As we look ahead to the next 150 years, we will continue to rise to the most pressing challenges we face, climate change among the first ones. We will meet these challenges the way we always have – with hard work, determination, and hope. On the 150th anniversary of Confederation, we celebrate the millions of Canadians who have come together to make our country the strong, prosperous, and open place it is today. On behalf of the Government of Canada, I wish you and your loved ones a very happy Canada Day.

If efficient copying is adaptive, such that natural selection should favor greater and greater reliance on social as opposed to asocial learning, then the tournament also establishes that a number of characteristics strongly evocative of human culture will follow automatically. With increasing copying inevitably comes greater behavioral diversity; the retention of cultural knowledge for long periods of time; conformity; and rapid turnover in behavior such as fads, fashions, and changes in technology. Provided copying errors or innovation introduce new behavioral variants, copying can simultaneously increase the knowledge base of a population and reduce the range of exploited behavior to a core of high-performance variants. Similar reasoning accounts for the observation that copying can lead to knowledge being retained over long periods of time, yet trigger rapid turnover in behavior. Low-level performance of suboptimal behavior is sufficient to retain large amounts of cultural knowledge in social learning populations, over long periods. A high level of copying increases the retention of cultural knowledge by several orders of magnitude.

He picked her up, took her into the bedroom, and placed her on the bed. Wow---it was like a floating cloud. Ramón reclaimed her lips before his mouth left hers to blaze a path down her body. Heat pooled in her belly as he made his descent. He leaned in to lavish attention on her right nipple, licking around in circle before sucking on it, and then her left. Julieta moaned as he worked his magic. Her buds hardened against the softness of his tongue. She came alive under his mouth, writhing beneath. This entire night seemed like such a fantasy, and it was only going to get better. His hand caressed her body, and he cupped her ass. She ran her hands through his thick black hair as he guided his mouth down to her panties. Julieta's core throbbed for him. The sight of his wide shoulders and strong back was almost enough to put her over the edge. She couldn't wait to ravage him---kiss down his chest, pleasure him, but Ramón was in control, and he was focused only on her. He kissed her belly and settled in between her legs. His lips pressed against her black lace panties, the heat of his mouth igniting her fire. He planted more kisses on her, focusing now on her thighs. Julieta was out of her mind with lust. "Stop teasing me." She wanted Ramón's mouth on her, and she wanted it now. She began to remove her panties, but Ramón quickly got the hint and took them off. He looked up at her, and a devilish grin graced his face. "Tell me what you want, babe." "Cómeme." "My pleasure." He began to lick her, starting with her thighs, before lapping in between her lips. Slow and sweet, deep and dirty, Julieta wanted all of him. Ramón's tongue pressed against her clit, and she gasped, a flash of pleasure overtaking her. "Ah, Ramón." "You taste so sweet." He hummed against her, and she ran her fingers through his hair, holding him as his tongue worked its magic. She cried out, desperate for release. Julieta wanted this moment---not just the intimacy, but the night---to last forever. Ramón was every fantasy she had ever had wrapped up into one---strong, sexy, sweet, and oh so skilled. His deep voice, his capable hands, his delicious mouth. Perfection. She completely surrendered to him. "Ramón." She couldn't hold back any longer, as he edged her over the top. One final lick and a wave of ecstasy crashed through her followed by shivers of joy radiating through her entire body.

Unchopping a Tree. Start with the leaves, the small twigs, and the nests that have been shaken, ripped, or broken off by the fall; these must be gathered and attached once again to their respective places. It is not arduous work, unless major limbs have been smashed or mutilated. If the fall was carefully and correctly planned, the chances of anything of the kind happening will have been reduced. Again, much depends upon the size, age, shape, and species of the tree. Still, you will be lucky if you can get through this stages without having to use machinery. Even in the best of circumstances it is a labor that will make you wish often that you had won the favor of the universe of ants, the empire of mice, or at least a local tribe of squirrels, and could enlist their labors and their talents. But no, they leave you to it. They have learned, with time. This is men's work. It goes without saying that if the tree was hollow in whole or in part, and contained old nests of bird or mammal or insect, or hoards of nuts or such structures as wasps or bees build for their survival, the contents will have to repaired where necessary, and reassembled, insofar as possible, in their original order, including the shells of nuts already opened. With spider's webs you must simply do the best you can. We do not have the spider's weaving equipment, nor any substitute for the leaf's living bond with its point of attachment and nourishment. It is even harder to simulate the latter when the leaves have once become dry — as they are bound to do, for this is not the labor of a moment. Also it hardly needs saying that this the time fro repairing any neighboring trees or bushes or other growth that might have been damaged by the fall. The same rules apply. Where neighboring trees were of the same species it is difficult not to waste time conveying a detached leaf back to the wrong tree. Practice, practice. Put your hope in that. Now the tackle must be put into place, or the scaffolding, depending on the surroundings and the dimension of the tree. It is ticklish work. Almost always it involves, in itself, further damage to the area, which will have to be corrected later. But, as you've heard, it can't be helped. And care now is likely to save you considerable trouble later. Be careful to grind nothing into the ground. At last the time comes for the erecting of the trunk. By now it will scarcely be necessary to remind you of the delicacy of this huge skeleton. Every motion of the tackle, every slightly upward heave of the trunk, the branches, their elaborately reassembled panoply of leaves (now dead) will draw from you an involuntary gasp. You will watch for a lead or a twig to be snapped off yet again. You will listen for the nuts to shift in the hollow limb and you will hear whether they are indeed falling into place or are spilling in disorder — in which case, or in the event of anything else of the kind — operations will have to cease, of course, while you correct the matter. The raising itself is no small enterprise, from the moment when the chains tighten around the old bandages until the boles hands vertical above the stump, splinter above splinter. How the final straightening of the splinters themselves can take place (the preliminary work is best done while the wood is still green and soft, but at times when the splinters are not badly twisted most of the straightening is left until now, when the torn ends are face to face with each other). When the splinters are perfectly complementary the appropriate fixative is applied. Again we have no duplicate of the original substance. Ours is extremely strong, but it is rigid. It is limited to surfaces, and there is no play in it. However the core is not the part of the trunk that conducted life from the roots up to the branches and back again. It was relatively inert. The fixative for this part is not the same as the one for the outer layers and the bark, and if either of these is involved

I think that thinking of our material universe, the one we perceive with our sense, as the only thing is not only foolish, it is arrogant. As well as, if I may add, in contradiction to theoretical physics. I believe — I have always believed — that there is meaning and purpose to life, although we may not understand that meaning and purpose. I think we catch glimpses of it here and there, and I honestly think that the universe communicates it to us, if we can listen for it — if our perceptions are finely enough tuned. All my life, I’ve had a strong sense of purpose, of being here for a reason that I might not at that moment understand, but that something, somewhere, understood. The times I’ve been unhappy in my life are when I’ve gone off the path, when I’ve realized that I made a choice taking me away from the way I was supposed to go. I remember what it was like to go to law school and to feel, so deeply that it went to my core, as though I was in the wrong place, as though I had stepped off the path. The path itself feels narrow and rocky, sometimes. Sometimes it feels as though I’m walking along a gulley, or a high cliff with winds. But it feels like a path, as though I’m going somewhere. I don’t know how to talk about this except by saying that we have instincts, and our instincts tell us these things, and we have to trust them.

Well, everyone is going to confront that gorilla on the threshold. Every one has him, unseen by mortal eye, and he whispers into your ear to entertain the unlovely thoughts of the world. And your every reaction that is unlovely, it feeds upon it; and your every thought that is kind and wonderful and loving, she feeds upon it. And the day will come, you will be strong enough to confront this. And may I tell you? it will take you the twinkling of a second to dissolve it. You don’t labor upon it. All it needs is the core of integrity within you. When you pledge yourself, and no one else, – you don’t swear upon your mother, you don’t swear upon a friend, you don’t swear upon the Bible; you pledge yourself to redeem it. At the moment you pledge yourself, – and within you, you know you mean it, – the whole thing dissolves. It’s no time at all in dissolving. And then all the energy returns to you, and you are stronger than ever before to go forward now and eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. And if you go forward and misuse it again, you start another form building; and one day you will dissolve it again. Eventually you will become completely awakened, and you will use your wonderful power only – not for the good, – that tree will come to an end, – for Life itself. For, eating of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil is this world. The day will come that you will eat of the Tree of Life that bears the fruit of truth and error. Error will embody itself here, and one day you will confront error, and the error will dissolve before your mind’s eye as truth begins to glow before you, because you are eating, then, of the Tree of Life as you formerly ate of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. And the combat of good and evil produces this monster, and the combat of truth and error produces an entirely different form of being, more glorious than that one of good and more horrible than this. The error will dissolve just as quickly when you confront error. So, if today your teaching is not true and you live by it, you are building something just as monstrous; but one day you will confront error, and you will discover that you lived by a false concept of God – something on the outside of Self; that you formerly worshipped, a little golden figure, made of gold and silver. It had eyes, but could not see. It had ears, but could not hear. It had a mouth, but could not speak. It had feet, and it could not walk. It made no sound within its throat. And those who made it are just like it. And those who trusted it are just like it, too. So, all the little icons in the world that people worship – these are the little things called “error”; and one day you will discover the true God. And when you discover the true God, you will find that He is all within your own wonderful being as your own wonderful human imagination. You’ll walk in the consciousness of being God. You don’t brag about it.

To make science the arbiter of metaphysics is to banish not only God from the world but also love, hate, meaning--to consider a world that is self-evidentlynot the world we live in. That's not to say that if you believe in meaning, you must also believe in God. It is to say, though, that if you believe that science provides no basis for God, then you are almost obligated to conclude that science provides no basis for meaning and, therefore, life itself doesn't have any. In other words, existential claims have no weight; all knowledge is scientific knowledge. Yet the paradox is that scientific methodology is the product of human hands and thus cannot reach some permanent truth. We build scientific theories to organize and manipulate the world, to reduce phenomena into manageable units. Science is based on reproducibility and manufactured objectivity. As strong as that makes its ability to generate claims about matter and energy, it also makes scientific knowledge inapplicable to the existential, visceral nature of human life, which is unique and subjective and unpredictable. Science may provide the most useful way to organize empirical, reproducible data, but its power to do so is predicated on its inability to grasp the most central aspects of human life: hope, fear, love, hate, beauty, envy, honor, weakness, striving, suffering, virtue. Between these core passions and scientific theory, there will always be a gap. No system of thought can contain the fullness of human experience.

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

Pastor Joel Osteen Oprah: I heard a sermon that you preached on the power of “I am.” And that sermon literally changed how I spoke power into my own life. I was shooting The Butler. I had heard that sermon. I was exhausted. We’d been shooting and shooting and shooting. And your voice came into my head—that whatever follows “I am” will determine what your experience will be. And so I literally thought, I’m going to try that because I’m exhausted. And I started saying, “I am getting my second wind. I am going to feel so much better by midnight, I’m going to want to shoot all night.” And I’m telling you, I started to feel differently. And I couldn’t believe that it happened so quickly. Pastor Joel Osteen: It’s an incredible principle, I don’t think we realize that what follows “I am,” we’re inviting into our life. You know, you say, “I am tired,” “I am frustrated,” “I am lonely,” you’ve invited that in. So the principle is to turn it around and invite what you want into your life. Oprah: So whatever follows “I am” will eventually find you. Joel: Yeah. I think a lot of times you’re going to say how you feel. I am lonely. I am tired. There’s a balance to it. I don’t think you’re denying the facts. Otherwise, I’m just hiding my head in the sand. It’s not so much that, it’s just not magnifying the negative. I talk about “I am the masterpiece,” “I am fearfully and wonderfully made,” “I am strong,” “I am talented.” That is speaking more to the core of what God put in each one of us. He has equipped us, he has empowered us. We have what we need to fulfill our destiny. But I do think that we have to bring it out. And you can’t bring it out being against yourself. And I think that is what keeps us from our destiny. Oprah: So we’ve heard that phrase, “Speaking truth to power.” It feels like when you understand that whatever follows “I am” is going to eventually find you, that if you start speaking all the positive aspects of yourself—“I am secure,” “I am valuable,” “I am approved,” “I am determined,” “I am generous”—when you start allowing what you want to be your truth, you begin to speak truth, the truth of “I am” to the power of what can be.

These are the general propositions that form this Humility Code: 1. We don’t live for happiness, we live for holiness. Day to day we seek out pleasure, but deep down, human beings are endowed with moral imagination. All human beings seek to lead lives not just of pleasure, but of purpose, righteousness, and virtue. As John Stuart Mill put it, people have a responsibility to become more moral over time. The best life is oriented around the increasing excellence of the soul and is nourished by moral joy, the quiet sense of gratitude and tranquillity that comes as a byproduct of successful moral struggle. The meaningful life is the same eternal thing, the combination of some set of ideals and some man or woman’s struggle for those ideals. Life is essentially a moral drama, not a hedonistic one. 2. Proposition one defines the goal of life. The long road to character begins with an accurate understanding of our nature, and the core of that understanding is that we are flawed creatures. We have an innate tendency toward selfishness and overconfidence. We have a tendency to see ourselves as the center of the universe, as if everything revolves around us. We resolve to do one thing but end up doing the opposite. We know what is deep and important in life, but we still pursue the things that are shallow and vain. Furthermore, we overestimate our own strength and rationalize our own failures. We know less than we think we do. We give in to short-term desires even when we know we shouldn’t. We imagine that spiritual and moral needs can be solved through status and material things. 3. Although we are flawed creatures, we are also splendidly endowed. We are divided within ourselves, both fearfully and wonderfully made. We do sin, but we also have the capacity to recognize sin, to feel ashamed of sin, and to overcome sin. We are both weak and strong, bound and free, blind and far-seeing. We thus have the capacity to struggle with ourselves. There is something heroic about a person in struggle with herself, strained on the rack of conscience, suffering torments, yet staying alive and growing stronger, sacrificing a worldly success for the sake of an inner victory.

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