Synergy Synergy Quotes

The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

When two brothers are busy fighting, an evil man can easily attack and rob their poor mother. Mankind should always stay united, standing shoulder to shoulder so evil can never cheat and divide them.

Teamwork makes the dream work

The human body resonates at the same frequency as Mother Earth. So instead of only focusing on trying to save the earth, which operates in congruence to our vibrations, I think it is more important to be one with each other. If you really want to remedy the earth, we have to mend mankind. And to unite mankind, we heal the Earth. That is the only way. Mother Earth will exist with or without us. Yet if she is sick, it is because mankind is sick and separated. And if our vibrations are bad, she reacts to it, as do all living creatures.

Your mind can be your enemy or friend. If you always follow your heart, your mind will feel neglected. If you follow only your mind, your heart will never forgive you. Never ignore your conscience, yet always be conscious of reason. Make your heart and mind friends and you will have peace of mind throughout life's seasons.

The Pool of Shared Meaning is the birthplace of synergy

Sarai had treasured every stage of Rachel's childhood, enjoying the day-to-day normalcy of things; a normalcy which she quietly accepted as the best of life. She had always felt that the essence of human experience lay not primarily in the peak experiences, the wedding days and triumphs which stood out in the memory like dates circled in red on old calendars, but, rather, in the unself-conscious flow of little things - the weekend afternoon with each member of the family engaged in his or her own pursuit, their crossings and connections casual, dialogues imminently forgettable, but the sum of such hours creating a synergy which was important and eternal.

And I was your moon because I shined brighter than any other star in your universe and you were my darkness. Without you I could not see the depth of my light and with you I could set the night a glow. So we needed one another—the dark and the light. Your fear. My courage. Connected, but separated. Different, but the same. A synergy that made no sense, but every bit of sense. We were neither a beginning, nor an end. We were somewhere in between our madness at sunset and the reality we awakened to with each sunrise. We were the ghosts of timing and fate. We were neither fantasy, nor reality--- we were a purpose somewhere in between.

Through synergy of intellect, artistry and grace came into existence the blessing of a dancer.

True love comes from synergy and trust, not merely chemistry.

Nobody can achieve success alone.

Synergy between thoughts and feelings reads the universe like an opened book.

Culture is more often a source of conflict than of synergy. Cultural differences are a nuisance at best and often a disaster.

The reason we avoid the word "synergy" is because people generally claim more synergistic benefits than will come. Yes, it exists, but there are so many false promises. Berkshire is full of synergies - we don't avoid synergies, just claims of synergies.

Working together as a team helps build a cohesive organization.

A truly intelligent person welcomes new ideas, for new ideas can add to the synergy of other accumulated ideas.

I like "multi-"...multiplicity, multicultural, multiplication etc. Any contribution to diversification and value augmentation is achievement.

Transitioning a business from current state to future state requires clear strategy, adaptability, synergy among all involved and a dedication to execution - among other things.

Let's architect a future of synergy between the natural and the built environment.

Artificial Intelligence is not a Man versus Machine saga; it’s in fact, Man with Machine synergy.

The dominant Western worldview is not based on seeing synergies and connections but on making distinctions and seeing differences.

It's good when employees enjoy working with each other and contribute to each other's productivity. That's an indicator of synergy within a company.

Without collaboration and synergy among various communities and socioeconomic groups, democracy will eventually fail as it “wastes exhausts and murders itself,” in the words of America’s founding father John Adams.

The life's work of Walt Disney and Ray Kroc had come full-circle, uniting in perfect synergy. McDonald's began to sell its hamburgers and french fries at Disney's theme parks. The ethos of McDonaldland and of Disneyland, never far apart, have finally become one. Now you can buy a Happy Meal at the Happiest Place on Earth.

Mission matching: an ask that creates synergistic congruence (aka win-win) between missions.

The net is not a net until it begins to work. Work your network today!

The world’s consultants spend their time advising on restructuring, optimizing processes and inventories, finding every possible source of cost savings and cost synergies. At the same time, the greatest cost of all is ignored: the cost of assumptions. The cost of relying on assumptions is going through the roof.

God would prefer us all to be united than divided. The devil would prefer us all to be divided than united. God prefers the man who loves than the one who hates. The devil prefers the man who hates than the one who loves.

Synergy is the only true way to world peace. Any sort of division will cripple the beast of unity.

People expect their Leaders to help them to achieve the common task. to build the synergy of teamwork and to respond to individuals and meet their needs

Each yoki-hijo trained in an ancient and powerful art. A deliberate, wondrous artistry requiring the full synergy of body and mind. Geological reorganization on the microscale, requiring acute understanding of gravitational equilibrium. In other words, they stacked rocks.

Permaculture Capital Stewardship, or Permaculture Investing, is about not just having a diversified portfolio, but having a portfolio where all of the assets within the portfolio have synergy and whereby that synergy is channeled toward maximized productivity for both shareholders and stakeholders. A permaculture investment portfolio has a multiplicative value effect.

Sometimes I wonder if I'm nothing more than the sum of who [my parents] were. Even worse, I worry that I don't add up nearly so well, that I'm just a shadowed reflection of them. Now that question hounds me a lot more often than I like to admit.

A poem isn't a good poem, until you need it.

Synergy without strategy results to waste of energy.

It's hard to tell where It is that I end And you begin, synergy

When you go to say hello to nature, put every redundant sound away, for nature is music, and that alone should suffice.

When an invincible weapon deals with an impenetrable defense, war is useless. The wisest decision is to ceasefire and do synergy.

Individual talent is an obstruction principally among teams that employ the facade of a synergy to diminish the majorities mediocrity.

Every time someone opens a book and begins to read, a synergy between the reader and the writer occurs across time and space.

You are it! You are the one you've been waiting for...be clear about your intentions and the universe will meet you wherever you are...

Karate is many things, but mainly it's about synergy, ebb and flow, trial and error, action and reaction, rhythm of life, progress . . .

It tales two to Tao.

God's strength is rooted in being faithful to his true Self, in just Being good. The Devil's strength depends on synergies, agreements, cooperation and beliefs.

So, as networks expand in size, their potential intellectual synergy increases much faster: “larger and denser populations equal faster technological advance.

Show up authentically and synergy will meet you there.

I know I can’t drive a truck. And I can’t run a bank. And I can’t count. And I can’t lead a movement. But I can f*ck up your mind.

The synergy of a group is as important— if not more important— than the talent of the individuals.

The portal was opening!

Dude, I'm not interested in holding you down. I'm interested in setting you free!" - Julian Rider to Rome Lockheed

Managing a portfolio is like managing a garden. You don’t just want different kinds of plants in your garden. You want those different plants to have synergy and to work together harmoniously to maximize productivity. In the same way, when different elements in the portfolio have synergy and work together to help each other maximize individual productivity, their collective yields can then be reinvested to maximize the productivity of the whole portfolio. There’s a compounding effect and a multiplicative value effect that takes place with the permaculture investing approach.

With a comprehensive action plan, a coalition can engage peole, ideas, and resources across sectorsto create a synergy of health and prevention efforts that will have a lasting effect on community health.

Jasper set an intercepting course towards that Rhylonian Star Duster. Maybe we can catch them on their blind side.” “Doesn’t this ship have a cloak?” Jaq asks. “Miss Synergy, I don’t know what they teach now a’days at the Academy, but ships do not wear clothes.

In a sense, one could speak of the secret life of colour. Despite its outward beckoning, like true beauty, colour is immensely hesitant in giving away its secrets. Painters learn to respect the hesitancy of colour and endeavour to refine their skill to become worthy of its revelations. A painter learns the language of colour slowly. As with any language, you struggle for a long time outside the language. There is a willed deliberateness to how you sequence the strange words to make a sentence.Then one day the language lets you in to where the words dance to your thoughts with ease and fluency. Perhaps for the painter there is a day when colour lets him in, when his palette sings with synergy and delight.

In some worlds there seems to be a synergy, but for the most part, what Kalkin said to you is the root truth: they are merely personifications of natural forces given whatever powers they possess by their worshippers. They have aspects that are perceived by mortals, and attributes they can wield.

A unified team is a force to be reckoned with. When teams pull together to serve a higher purpose, the synergy builds momentum and helps everyone head in the right direction. When people reunite, pull together, have each other’s backs, and strive to achieve a clearly defined purpose, the culture is empowered to produce extraordinary outcomes.

Hold the mail, I could swear that was funny. He must draw his powers from the others. A malevolent synergy, like when you multiply negative numbers.

Technology worked in synergy with an operator’s acumen, not in place of it.

Jasper!” Casey shouts, startling the young woman. “My cargo is talking to me!

Teamwork creates synergy and chemistry. We become unbreakable and believable.

The more we are united in our spirits, souls, and strengths, the more we will work hard through synergy for the great of everyone.

Unity is strength. Synergy is might. Teamwork is power.

What is synergy? Simply defined, it means that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. It

English: "Human society is a newly emerging superorganism." Česky: „Lidská společnost je nově vznikající superorganismus.

If we are in sync with nature, we will be in sync with ourselves because although we belong to Heaven, we are made from earth.

God’s plan is always for the present generation to build on the strengths of the previous. This is the synergy of the ages—multiplied power through generational agreement and honor.

It is absurd and anti-life to be part of a system that compels you to sit in confinement with people of exactly the same age and social class. That system effectively cuts you off from the immense diversity of life and the synergy of variety; indeed, it cuts you off from your own past and future, sealing you in a continuous present much the same way television does.

Jason’s team was a collection of individuals who learned to dynamically reconfigure their approaches to build varying synergies that maximised their potential in any given circumstance.

The thing about computers—it's like training a dog. You have to be smarter than the dog. If you make a computer smarter than you are, that has to be accident, synergy, or divine intervention.

She points to where he went and looks to the neutral Baumen. “He—he did that to me on purpose! He’s insane. Literally, insane!” The munchkin just shrugs. “Welcome aboard!” and returns unconcerned to his work.

We must think of ourselves as a tribe — as an international community that has come together with a common purpose of being initiated into the process. We all have to do it together. There is a link that happens — where THE growth, my growth, depends on the others' growth around us. We can no longer take these steps by ourselves. We have created a synergistic community. We must take a step towards knowledge together.

the essence of human experience lay not primarily in the peak experiences, the wedding days and triumphs which stood out in the memory like dates circled in red on old calendars, but, rather, in the unselfconscious flow of little things – the weekend afternoon with each member of the family engaged in his or her own pursuit, their crossings and connections casual, dialogues imminently forgettable, but the sum of such hours creating a synergy which was important and eternal.

Nature is medicinal; the sun, large bodies of water, and deep breaths of fresh air. Healing is found in the mountains, amidst a forest, by fire, and water. I still recall how healing it was to be home, my parents' island, waking up to tropical sounds of morning; monkeys, tropical birds, and tropical animals discussing their days, feet in sand, and the glorious sound of tropical rain. Visuals of lush greens and vibrant flowers, nature calls us into ourselves, nature calls us home

Men speak of God’s love for man… but if providence does not come in this hour, where is He then? My conclusion is simple. The Semitic texts from Bronze Age Palestine of which Christianity is comprised still fit uncomfortably well with contemporary life. The Old Testament depicts a God capricious and cruel; blood sacrifice, vengeance, genocide; death and destruction et al. Would He not approve of Herr Hitler and the brutal, tribalistic crusade against Hebrews and non-Christian ‘untermensch?’ One thing is inarguable. His church on Earth has produced some of the most vigorous and violent contribution to the European fascist cause. It is synergy. Man Created God, even if God Created Man; it all exists in the hubris and apotheosis of the narcissistic soul, and alas, all too many of the human herd are willing to follow the beastly trait of leadership. The idea of self-emancipation and advancement, with Europe under the jackboot of fascism, would be Quixotic to the point of mirthless lunacy.

She had always felt that the essence of human experience lay not primarily in the peak experiences, the wedding days and triumphs which stood out in the memory like dates circled in red on old calendars, but, rather, in the unself-conscious flow of little things—the weekend afternoon with each member of the family engaged in his or her own pursuit, their crossings and connections casual, dialogues imminently forgettable, but the sum of such hours creating a synergy which was important and eternal.

financial intelligence is a synergy of accounting, investing, marketing, and law. Combine those four technical skills and making money with money is easier than most people would believe. When it comes to money, the only skill most people know is to work hard.

But Sony couldn’t. It had pioneered portable music with the Walkman, it had a great record company, and it had a long history of making beautiful consumer devices. It had all of the assets to compete with Jobs’s strategy of integration of hardware, software, devices, and content sales. Why did it fail? Partly because it was a company, like AOL Time Warner, that was organized into divisions (that word itself was ominous) with their own bottom lines; the goal of achieving synergy in such companies by prodding the divisions to work together was usually elusive. Jobs did not organize Apple into semiautonomous divisions; he closely controlled all of his teams and pushed them to work as one cohesive and flexible company, with one profit-and-loss bottom line. “We don’t have ‘divisions’ with their own P&L,” said Tim Cook. “We run one P&L for the company.

The Syntellect Hypothesis which is the main focus of this book, as its title suggests, refers to a phase transition of a complex intelligent system to self-awareness of a living, conscious superorganism when intellectual synergy of its components reaches threshold complexity to become one supermind. This metamorphosis is associated with emergence of higher-order self-awareness and dimensionality of a new consciousness structure. As a bio-species merging with its advanced technology, human-machine civilization is now on the verge of the Syntellect Emergence, becoming one Global Mind.

technologists sometimes exploit the synergy between the two. By adding strawberry or vanilla—aromas we associate with sweetness—it’s possible to fool people into thinking a food is sweeter than it really is. Though sneaky, this is not necessarily bad, because it means the product can contain less added sugar. Which

As an artist, the voices you listen to ought to align with that inner Voice that knows who you are. When that foundation is set, then the rest of the voices can begin to build and work together, becoming the voice of a community, adding synergy and depth to your art that you couldn’t possibly manufacture on your own.

The finest SF comes to grips with life's mysteries, with our resentments against our own natures and our limited societies. It does so by asking basic questions in the artful, liberating way that is unique to this form of writing. Echoes of it are found in other forms of fiction - in the novel of ideas, in the historical novel, in the writings of the great philosophers and scientists; but the best SF does this all more searchingly, by taking what is in most people only a moment of wonder and rebellion against the arbitrariness of existence and making of it an art enriched by knowledge and possibility, expressing our deepest human longing to penetrate into the dark heart of the unknown.

Could synergy not create a new script for the next generation—one that is more geared to service and contribution, and is less protective, less adversarial, less selfish; one that is more open, more trusting, more giving, and is less defensive, protective, and political; one that is more loving, more caring, and is less possessive and judgmental?

In reality, for anybody to make real impact, he ought to be real. He ought to know the real position of materialism in purposefulness. He ought to understand the real reasons to act and the consequences for staying dormant. He ought to know the people who matter most in making true impacts and build the best synergy. As a matter of fact, he ought to be ready to embrace the real challenges that come with staying purposeful and making real impact. In fact, he ought to be able to turn what least counts and what is so uncanny to what really counts. He ought to be a mindset changer.He ought to know the real essence of time and timing and the value of patience and assertiveness. He ought to be strong. Living to leave footprints that count is what will make us count

To tighten the synergy between beliefs and rituals, the gods evolved desires and commandments that motivated people to participate in rituals, stick to fasts, maintain taboos, and make credible vows. The new doctrinal rituals more effectively transmit the faith, and, in turn, the new faith motivates the reinforcing rituals through the threat of supernatural punishment. This interlocking cycle helps perpetuate the faith from one generation to the next.50

Here’s a list (not exhaustive, by any means!) of phrases that make the Bullsh*t Bingo list. Scrub them from your vocabulary! They will make your talk sound dated and stale. • Synergy • Out of the box • Bottom line • Revisit • 24/7 • Out of the loop • Benchmark • Value-added • Proactive • Win-win • Think outside the box • Fast track • Result-driven • Empower (or empowerment) • Knowledge base • At the end of the day • Touch base • Ballpark • Game plan • Leverage

When we borrow the antibiotic compounds from plants, we do better to borrow them all, not just the single solitary most powerful among them. We lose the synergy when we take out the solitary compound. But most important, we facilitate the enemy, the germ, in its ability to outwit the monochemical medicine. The polychemical synergistic mix, concentrating the powers already evolved in medicinal plants, may be our best hope for confronting drug-resistant bacteria.

She had always felt that the essence of human experience lay not primarily in the peak experiences, the wedding days and triumphs which stood out in the memory like dates circled in red on old calendars, but, rather in the unselfconscious flow of little things - the weekend afternoon with each member of the family engaged in his or her own pursuit, their crossings and connections casual, dialogues imminently forgettable, but the sum of such hours creating a synergy which was important and eternal.

Many groups use the media and successfully manipulate what Theodor Adorno calls our psychological frailty. This psychological frailty correlates to anxiety. It also precedes and foments fascism, sexism, and racism. Because of our sense of free will, day-to-day anxiety can creep in as a form of guilt or the desire to belong / be loved. It is this frailty that is manipulated which may later be expressed in fascism, nationalism, sexism, racism. It's based on superego storytelling. But what's going on concurrent with all this is a shift from storytelling to storymaking. There's an entire subgroup, mostly the younger generations, that have been participating in gaming and social media in a way that will bring about a new synergy. This is Hegel's dialect approach to society. Jane McGonigal talks about this in her book Reality is Broken, Cathy Davis talks about this in her book Now You See It, Clay Shirky talks about this in his books Cognitive Surplus and Here Comes Everybody. Tapscott talks about this in his book Wikinomics.

I don't worry about how other people perceive me. I figure out what I want, and I work very hard to make it happen. Simple recipe. I didn't achieve any goals by having it given to me on a silver platter, through fibbing or exaggeration, nor through favours. When you work hard, the universe almost always brings people to you - synergy. The universe will reflect the energy you give it. Stop worrying about what other people think of you, or worrying about the limit(s) they have, in their heads, about your potential. The universe will bring you into your purpose organically. Nothing out of force tastes as good as what you have worked your ass off to achieve, and for which the universe synergistically opens up for you, and brings into your world. As well it is not about proving other people wrong; first and foremost prove your own negative inner voice wrong. The inner voice that internalized the negative energies of others. Sometimes we are our own biggest hurdle. And as a subsequent outcome of rewiring your inner voice, you'll leave others speechless at contesting their limitations of you...seeing the supernova you are.

The work of God requires stamina. Nehemiah sustained his stamina even through staggering difficulties. He persisted through both ridicule and discouragement, and he remained faithful when tempted to compromise. This tenacity is required of leaders who will make a difference. Will you crumble under the pressures, or will you face the trials with God’s strength? Many today question the possibility of revival. These naysayers see only the decaying moral condition of society and the disappointing lukewarm condition of churches. Revival, however, is not dependent on or the result of a flourishing spiritual condition. Some of the greatest revivals in Scripture came during the darkest times. Let us not look at the rubbish, but at Christ, the Rock, who can rebuild our country through revival. Let us be leaders God can use to bring revival. Nehemiah was not a man to sit idly by when there was tremendous need. Neither was he a man to attempt meeting such need in his own strength. God used Nehemiah to bring revival because Nehemiah began with supplication for God’s forgiveness and power. The task of rebuilding the walls could never have been completed by one man alone; it needed a leader who understood the power of synergy. Nehemiah’s willingness to be personally involved in the work, as well as his ability to convey the need to others, resulted in a task force that completed this enormous building project in a mere fifty-two days—to the glory of God. Like any godly leader, Nehemiah did not go unchallenged. Yet, he sustained his stamina in the face of every opposition. Nehemiah’s life proves that revival is possible, even when it appears the most unlikely. God sends revival through leaders willing to make a difference.

Power itself is founded largely on disgust. The whole of advertising, the whole of political discourse, is a public insult to the intelligence, to reason - but an insult in which we collaborate, abjectly subscribing to a silent interaction. The day of hidden persuasion is over: those who govern us now resort unapologetically to arm-twisting pure and simple. The prototype here was a banker got up like a vampire, saying, 'I am after you for your money' . A decade has already gone by since this kind of obscenity was introduced, with the government's blessing, into our social mores. At the time we thought the ad feeble because of its aggressive vulgarity. In point of fact it was a prophetic commercial, full of intimations of the future shape of social relationships, because it operated, precisely, in terms of disgust, avidity and rape. The same goes for pornographic and food advertising, which are also powered by shamelessness and lust, by a strategic logic of violation and anxiety. Nowadays you can seduce a woman with the words, 'I am interested in your cunt' . The same kind of crassness has triumphed in the realm of art, whose mounds of trivia may be reduced to a single pronouncement of the type, 'What we want from you is stupidity and bad taste' . And the fact is that we do succumb to this mass extortion, with its subtle infusion of guilt. It is true in a sense that nothing really disgusts us any more. In our eclectic culture, which embraces the debris of all others in a promiscuous confusion, nothing is unacceptable. But for this very reason disgust is nevertheless on the increase - the desire to spew out this promiscuity, this indifference to everything no matter how bad, this viscous adherence of opposites. To the extent that this happens, what is on the increase is disgust over the lack of disgust. An allergic temptation to reject everything en bloc: to refuse all the gentle brainwashing, the soft-sold overfeeding, the tolerance, the pressure to embrace synergy and consensus.

The spiritual world exists as a cosmos in itself. A cosmos containing worlds. And there is synergy and harmony amongst these worlds. What humam beings have done to their interpretation of this cosmos, is merely only that-- a human interpretation. The way things are here, you'd have me believing that there is some kind of great big race to win people over to this God or to that God; to that religion or to this religion. People see separation when in fact there is no separation that exists in the spiritual world. The unseen (heaven, God, angels, etc.) do not exist the way that we exist. We are the ones turning God against God and angel against angel. With our writings and our churches and our teachers and our pews.

Trust at the interpersonal level. Trustworthiness is the foundation of trust. Trust is the emotional bank account between two people that enables them to have a win-win performance agreement. If two people trust each other, based on the trustworthiness of each other, they can then enjoy clear communication, empathy, synergy, and productive interdependency. If one is incompetent, training and development can help. But if one has a character flaw, he or she must make and keep promises to increase internal security, improve skills, and rebuild relationships of trust. Trust—or the lack of it—is at the root of success or failure in relationships and in the bottom-line results of business, industry, education, and government.

For whatever reason, we humans can only understand or encounter holiness in small morsels at a time—in a Chalice, a piece of bread, a sip of wine. Any encounter with the sacred reminds us that it is enough to start somewhere, anywhere—it is enough to put one foot forward, to turn to Christ for one real moment. Wherever we begin, Real Life will seep out into other areas of our existence. Lately I have been thinking a lot about this and the implications it has for spiritual endeavors. Sacredness is not unilateral, as we perhaps assume. It is the token of relationship—between God and man, temporal and eternal, cosmic and earthly. It is, therefore, a two-way street or a stream with two sources. On the one hand is Christ, who makes objects holy by imbuing them with His presence. On the other hand is humanity—we must also participate in sanctifying things for them to become holy. In biblical understandings, the main way we do so is to set those things—times, objects, activities, or thoughts—apart from other things. The Holy Chalice, for example, is sacred not only because it has housed the presence of the Lord, but because we continue to devote it and offer it to God for that purpose. By setting the Chalice apart, we are saying to God that this great gift of the Eucharist is special to us. Over time, the Chalice comes to represent not only the Eucharist itself, but also our ongoing synergy or cooperation with Christ, our continual and appreciative “Yes” to His presence.

So, if you are predominantly a producer of intangible assets (writing software, doing design, producing research) you probably want to build an organization that allows information to flow, help serendipitous interactions, and keeps the key talent. That probably means allowing more autonomy, fewer targets, and more access to the boss, even if that is at the cost of influence activities. This seems to describe the types of autonomous organizations that the earlier writers, like Charles Leadbeater, had in mind. And it also seems to describe the increasing importance of systemic innovators. Such innovators are not inventors of single, isolated inventions. Rather, their role is to coordinate the synergies that successfully bring such an innovation to market.

Death Valley wasn't dead at all. It was asleep. It was simply waiting for the conditions of growth. When the conditions came, life returned to the heart of Death Valley. Human beings and human communities are the same. We need the right conditions for growth, in our schools, businesses, and communities, and in our individual lives. If the conditions are right, people grown in synergy with the people around them and the environments they create. If the conditions are poor, people protect themselves and their anxieties from neighbors and the world. Some of the elements of our growth are inside us. They include the need to develop our unique natural aptitudes and personal passions. Finding and nurturing them is the surest way to ensure our growth and fulfillment a as individuals.

So, all told, we’re under at least two kinds of illusions. One is about the nature of the conscious self, which we see as more in control of things than it actually is. The other illusion is about exactly what kind of people we are—namely, capable and upstanding. You might call these two misconceptions the illusion about our selves and the illusion about ourselves. They work in synergy. The first illusion helps us convince the world that we are coherent, consistent actors: we don’t do things for no reason, and the reasons we do them make sense; if our behaviors merit credit or blame, there is an inner us that deserves that credit or blame. The second illusion helps convince the world that what we deserve is credit, not blame; we’re more ethical than the average person, and we’re more productive than the average teammate. We have beneffectance.

Plants have long been, and still are, humanity’s primary medicines. They possess certain attributes that pharmaceuticals never will: 1) their chemistry is highly complex, too complex for resistance to occur — instead of a silver bullet (a single chemical), plants often contain hundreds to thousands of compounds; 2) plants have developed sophisticated responses to bacterial invasion over millions of years — the complex compounds within plants work in complex synergy with each other and are designed to deactivate and destroy invading pathogens through multiple mechanisms, many of which I discuss in this book; 3) plants are free; that is, for those who learn how to identify them where they grow, harvest them, and make medicine from them (even if you buy or grow them yourself, they are remarkably inexpensive); 4) anyone can use them for healing — it doesn’t take 14 years of schooling to learn how to use plants for your healing; 5) they are very safe — in spite of the unending hysteria in the media, properly used herbal medicines cause very few side effects of any sort in the people who use them, especially when compared to the millions who are harmed every year by pharmaceuticals (adverse drug reactions are the fourth leading cause of death in the United States, according to the Journal of the American Medical Association); and 6) they are ecologically sound. Plant medicines are a naturally renewable resource, and they don’t cause the severe kinds of environmental pollution that pharmaceuticals do — one of the factors that leads to resistance in microorganisms and severe diseases in people.

Gian Pero Frau, one of the most important characters in the supporting cast surrounding S'Apposentu, runs an experimental farm down the road from the restaurant. His vegetable garden looks like nature's version of a teenager's bedroom, a rebellious mess of branches and leaves and twisted barnyard wire. A low, droning buzz fills the air. "Sorry about the bugs," he says, a cartoonish cloud orbiting his head. But beneath the chaos a bloom of biodynamic order sprouts from the earth. He uses nothing but dirt and water and careful observation to sustain life here. Every leaf and branch has its place in this garden; nothing is random. Pockets of lettuce, cabbage, fennel, and flowers grow in dense clusters together; on the other end, summer squash, carrots, and eggplant do their leafy dance. "This garden is built on synergy. You plant four or five plants in a close space, and they support each other. It might take thirty or forty days instead of twenty to get it right, but the flavor is deeper." (There's a metaphor in here somewhere, about his new life Roberto is forging in the Sardinian countryside.) "He's my hero," says Roberto about Gian Piero. "He listens, quietly processes what I'm asking for, then brings it to life. Which doesn't happen in places like Siddi." Together, they're creating a new expression of Sardinian terreno, crossing genetic material, drying vegetables and legumes under a variety of conditions, and experimenting with harvesting times that give Roberto a whole new tool kit back in the kitchen. We stand in the center of the garden, crunching on celery and lettuce leaves, biting into zucchini and popping peas from their shells- an improvised salad, a biodynamic breakfast that tastes of some future slowly forming in the tangle of roots and leaves around us.

Having studied workplace leadership styles since the 1970s, Kets de Vries confirmed that language is a critical clue when determining if a company has become too cultish for comfort. Red flags should rise when there are too many pep talks, slogans, singsongs, code words, and too much meaningless corporate jargon, he said. Most of us have encountered some dialect of hollow workplace gibberish. Corporate BS generators are easy to find on the web (and fun to play with), churning out phrases like “rapidiously orchestrating market-driven deliverables” and “progressively cloudifying world-class human capital.” At my old fashion magazine job, employees were always throwing around woo-woo metaphors like “synergy” (the state of being on the same page), “move the needle” (make noticeable progress), and “mindshare” (something having to do with a brand’s popularity? I’m still not sure). My old boss especially loved when everyone needlessly transformed nouns into transitive verbs and vice versa—“whiteboard” to “whiteboarding,” “sunset” to “sunsetting,” the verb “ask” to the noun “ask.” People did it even when it was obvious they didn’t know quite what they were saying or why. Naturally, I was always creeped out by this conformism and enjoyed parodying it in my free time. In her memoir Uncanny Valley, tech reporter Anna Wiener christened all forms of corporate vernacular “garbage language.” Garbage language has been around since long before Silicon Valley, though its themes have changed with the times. In the 1980s, it reeked of the stock exchange: “buy-in,” “leverage,” “volatility.” The ’90s brought computer imagery: “bandwidth,” “ping me,” “let’s take this offline.” In the twenty-first century, with start-up culture and the dissolution of work-life separation (the Google ball pits and in-office massage therapists) in combination with movements toward “transparency” and “inclusion,” we got mystical, politically correct, self-empowerment language: “holistic,” “actualize,” “alignment.