Talent Sourcing Quotes

Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan 'Press On!' has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.

There is a fountain of youth: it is your mind, your talents, the creativity you bring to your life and the lives of people you love. When you learn to tap this source, you will truly have defeated age.

He values my understanding and talents more highly than my heart, but I am proud of the latter only. It is the sole source of everything of our strength, happiness, and misery. All the knowledge I possess every one else can acquire, but my heart is exclusively my own.

I do not write this in a spirit of sourness or personal disappointment of any kind, nor do I have any romantic attachment to suffering as a source of insight or virtue. On the contrary, I would like to see more smiles, more laughter, more hugs, more happiness and, better yet, joy. In my own vision of utopia, there is not only more comfort, and security for everyone — better jobs, health care, and so forth — there are also more parties, festivities, and opportunities for dancing in the streets. Once our basic material needs are met — in my utopia, anyway — life becomes a perpetual celebration in which everyone has a talent to contribute. But we cannot levitate ourselves into that blessed condition by wishing it. We need to brace ourselves for a struggle against terrifying obstacles, both of our own making and imposed by the natural world. And the first step is to recover from the mass delusion that is positive thinking.

Talent is the presence of ability and absence of understanding about the source and operation of knowledge.

Creator of all things, true source of light and wisdom, origin of all being, graciously let a ray of your light penetrate the darkness of my understanding. Take from me the double darkness in which I have been born, an obscurity of sin and ignorance. Give me a keen understanding, a retentive memory, and the ability to grasp things correctly and fundamentally. Grant me the talent of being exact in my explanations and the ability to express myself with thoroughness and charm. Point out the beginning, direct the progress, and help in the completion.

In some ways, we all are a bit like Pharaoh. When we’re riding high and on top of the world, we’re convinced that our good fortune is the result of our birthright or our ingenuity, or our talent, or our hard work. During those times, we refuse to acknowledge that everything good and everything worthwhile comes from the Lord. But God loves us enough to sometimes let life’s adversities smack us in the face as a wake-up call, to remind us that he is the source of our strength, our success, and our hope for the future.

What is the source of Character Assassination? Jealousy. Jealousy originates from Limitation. A jealous person sees you as having a gift, skill, charisma, talent, or ability that he or she does not have. The mindset of a jealous person is manipulation. How does a Jealous Person manipulate? A Jealous Person controls a group's perception of you, the Gifted Person, by possessing a group's opinion by claiming you are full of fault.

Flattery is addictive. Convince others they are special. Assure them they have talent. Make yourself the source of people's self worth. Doing so binds them to you and it preempts them from developing their skills and proving their true potential.

I rarely suffer lengthy emotional distress from contact with other people. A person may anger or annoy me, but not for long. I can distinguish between myself and another as beings of two different realms. It's a kind of talent (by which I do not mean to boast: it's not an easy thing to do, so if you can do it, it is a kind of a talent - a special power). When someone gets on my nerves, the first thing I do is transfer the object of my unpleasant feelings to another domain, one having no connection with me. Then I tell myself, Fine, I'm feeling bad, but I've put the source of these fellings into another zone, away from here, where I can examine it and deal with it later in my own good time. In other words, I put a freeze on my emotions. Later, when I thaw them out to perform the examination, I do occasionally find my emotions in a distressed state, but that is rare. The passage of time will usuallly extract the venom from most things and render them harmless. Then sooner or later, I forget about them.

Great leaders are most wanted. They are most wanted for what they do with their gifts and talents. Their dreams are so unique in such a way that their presence becomes a source of hope and courage for others to thread on along. Why won't they look for them?

The human mind is naturally creative, constantly looking to make associations and connections between things and ideas. It wants to explore, to discover new aspects of the world, and to invent. To express this creative force is our greatest desire, and the stifling of it the source of our misery. What kills the creative force is not age or a lack of talent, but our own spirit, our own attitude. We become too comfortable with the knowledge we have gained in our apprenticeships. We grow afraid of entertaining new ideas and the effort that this requires. to think more flexibly entails a risk-we could fail and be ridiculed. We prefer to live with familiar ideas and habits of thinking, but we pay a steep price for this: our minds go dead from the lack of challenge and novelty; we reach a limit in our field and lose control over our fate because we become replaceable.

You die. You get old and die. Your anger curdles, your grief dries, your talent fades on the page. Your cells metastasise into an army dedicated to the overthrow of you. You become dependent on paid strangers for the maintenance of your blood and your brittle bones. You understand that thought is the enemy, the source of all lesions, tumours, and sarcomas; then thought becomes flesh becomes the emblem of your shame.

If people who rely on natural spring of talent suddenly find they're exhausted their only source, they're in trouble.

Whatever your aptitudes, the greatest source of achievement is passion. Aptitude matters, but passion often matters more… If you love doing something, you’ll be constantly drawn to get better at it.

He values my understanding and talents more highly than my heart, but I am proud of the latter only. It is the sole source of everything of our strength, happiness, and misery. All the knowledge I possess every one else can acquire, but my heart is exclusively my own.

There is a fountain of youth: it is your mind, your talents, the creativity you bring to your life and the lives of people you love. When you learn to tap this source, you will truly have defeated age.

He values my understanding and talents more highly than my heart, but I am proud of the latter only. It is the sole source of everything of our strength, happiness, and misery. All the knowledge I possess every one else can acquire, but my heart is exclusively my own. May

There’s no reason anyone should ever feel lonely when there’s love everywhere. There’s no excuse for talented people to trudge through life. And if we weigh down our children, the very source that makes the stars blaze in the sky, then we may wake to realize we’ve lost something irretrievable.

All of us had problems, it seemed, whose sources were untraceable, crossing over one another like the trajectories of countless raindrops in a storm, blending to create a fog of delusion and counter-delusion. Powerful forces and connections were undoubtedly at play, yet they seemed to have no faces and no names, and it was anybody's guess what we - a crowd of deluded no-talents - could have possibly done to offend them. We had been caught up in a season of hideous magic from which nothing could offer us deliverance. ("Gas Station Carnivals")

I’ve become quite efficient, both technically and physically, at opening a hole in the hard rock and locating a new water vein. So as soon as I notice one water source drying up, I can move on right away to another. If people who rely on a natural spring of talent suddenly find they’ve exhausted their only source, they’re in trouble.

When a man is commonplace in discussion yet valued for what he writes that shows that his talents lie in his borrowed sources not in himself.

If I were poet now, I would not resist the temptation to trace my life back through the delicate shadows of my childhood to the precious and sheltered sources of my earliest memories. But these possessions are far too dear and sacred for the person I now am to spoil for myself. All there is to say of my childhood is that it was good and happy. I was given the freedom to discover my own inclinations and talents, to fashion my inmost pleasures and sorrows myself and to regard the future not as an alien higher power but as the hope and product of my own strength.

The way you carry yourself is a source of personal power—the kind of power that is the key to presence. It’s the key that allows you to unlock yourself—your abilities, your creativity, your courage, and even your generosity. It doesn’t give you skills or talents you don’t have; it helps you to share the ones you do have. It doesn’t make you smarter or better informed; it makes you more resilient and open. It doesn’t change who you are; it allows you to be who you are.

Think of your windshield as an energy source for your brain. Use pictures (the walls of many talent hotbeds are cluttered with photos and posters of their stars) or, better, video. One idea: Bookmark a few YouTube videos, and watch them before you practice, or at night before you go to bed.

There are many forms of poverty: economic poverty, physical poverty, emotional poverty, mental poverty, and spiritual poverty. As long as we relate primarily to each other's wealth, health, stability, intelligence, and soul strength, we cannot develop true community. Community is not a talent show in which we dazzle the world with our combined gifts. Community is the place where our poverty is acknowledged and accepted, not as something we have to learn to cope with as best as we can but as a true source of new life. Living community in whatever form - family, parish, twelve-step program, or intentional community - challenges us to come together at the place of our poverty, believing that there we can reveal our richness.

The power of men like me does not come solely from our ability to kill--which is no small talent in itself, true, but neither is it as rare as gold. No, the true source of our power is so obvious it sometimes goes unnoticed for what it is: our power comes from other men's lack of courage. There is even less courage in this world than here is talent for killing. Men like me rule because most men are faint of heart in the shadow of death.

You and I were put on this earth to serve something greater than our narrow interests. When our focus becomes self-centered instead of God-centered we lose our greatest source of power. Our God-given talents are meant to benefit others. When we use them for that greater purpose, we put faith into action to fulfill His plan for us. We make a difference in this world that helps prepare us for the next.

You carried me nine months before bringing me to life You polished my talent when I was less than five You always grant me mirth and surround me with angelic care Hence, giving you the world’s treasures are still not fair God created you to be the source of mercy on this hard planet You are the one who taught me speaking and every good habit I always pray to God during prostration and when I kneel That he bless your time and make me under your heel

Suppose then that you began with the proposition that boredom was a kind of pain caused by unused powers, the pain of wasted possibilities or talents, and was accompanied by expectations of the optimum utilization of capacities. Nothing actual ever suits pure expectation and such purity of expectation is a great source of tedium. People rich in abilities, in sexual feeling, rich in mind and in invention - all the highly gifted see themselves shunted for decades onto dull sidings, banished exiled nailed up in chicken coops. Imagination has even tried to surmount the problem by forcing boredom itself to yield interest.

Prayer is an essential part of conveying appreciation to our Heavenly Father. He awaits our expressions of gratefulness each morning and night in sincere, simple prayer from our hearts for our many blessings, gifts, and talents. Through expression of prayerful gratitude and thanksgiving, we show our dependence upon a higher source of wisdom and knowledge—God the Father and his Son, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. We are taught to ‘live in thanksgiving daily.’ (Alma 34:38.)

A strange, sweet sound pierced the air. "Skerden Fjerda, kende hjertzeeeeeng, lendten isen en de waaaanden." Fjerdan words Jesper didn't understand crested over the courtyard in a shimmering, perfect tenor that seemed to catch upon the black stone battlements. Wylan. The guards whirled, rifles pointed at the walkway that led to the courtyard, seeking the source of the sound. "Olander?" one called. "Nilson?" said another. Their guns were raised, but their voices were more bemused and curious than aggressive. What the hell is he doing? A silhouette appeared in the walkway arch, lurching left and right. "Skerden Fjerda, kende hjertzeeeeeng," Wylan sang, doing a surprisingly convincing impression of a drunk but very talented Fjerdan. The guards burst out laughing, joining in on the song. "Lendten isen . . .

Here is part of the problem, girls: we’ve been sold a bill of goods. Back in the day, women didn’t run themselves ragged trying to achieve some impressively developed life in eight different categories. No one constructed fairy-tale childhoods for their spawn, developed an innate set of personal talents, fostered a stimulating and world-changing career, created stunning homes and yardscapes, provided homemade food for every meal (locally sourced, of course), kept all marriage fires burning, sustained meaningful relationships in various environments, carved out plenty of time for “self care,” served neighbors/church/world, and maintained a fulfilling, active relationship with Jesus our Lord and Savior. You can’t balance that job description. Listen to me: No one can pull this off. No one is pulling this off. The women who seem to ride this unicorn only display the best parts of their stories. Trust me. No one can fragment her time and attention into this many segments.

In many ways, the work of a critic is easy. We risk very little, yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgment. We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read. But the bitter truth we critics must face is that, in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is probably more meaningful than our criticism designating it so. But there are times when a critic truly risks something, and that is in the discovery and defense of the new. The world is often unkind to new talent, new creations. The new needs friends. Last night, I experienced something new, an extraordinary meal from a singularly unexpected source. To say that both the meal and its maker have challenged my preconceptions about fine cooking is a gross understatement. They have rocked me to my core. In the past, I have made no secret of my disdain for Chef Gusteau's famous motto: "Anyone can cook." But I realize, only now do I truly understand what he meant. Not everyone can become a great artist, but a great artist can come from anywhere. It is difficult to imagine more humble origins than those of the genius now cooking at Gusteau's, who is, in this critic's opinion, nothing less than the finest chef in France. I will be returning to Gusteau's soon, hungry for more.

God lives within us, not above us. Sharing our gifts and talents with the world is the most powerful source of connection with God.

The trick is to not only deny the criticism any power over you, but, even more challenging, to not get caught up in the praise. There’s nothing wrong with blushingly accepting a compliment, but if you find yourself always seeking outside approval that you’re good enough or cool enough or talented enough or worthy enough, you’re screwed. Because if you base your self-worth on what everyone else thinks of you, you hand all your power over to other people and become dependent on a source outside of yourself for validation. Then you wind up chasing after something you have no control over, and should that something suddenly place its focus somewhere else, or change its mind and decide you’re no longer very interesting, you end up with a full-blown identity crisis.

When I found him, I was going to kill him. How dare he do this to me? What did he mean by getting himself kidnapped? He was a man, for gods’ sake. He was supposed to be able to fight off kidnappers. He was a bloody hero, talented and beautiful and an aristocrat to boot. Heroes didn’t get kidnapped. Heroes rescued kidnap victims. Leave it to a man, and a Source, to screw up something so simple.

But since Catt was more realist than fabulist, she understood her actual death at the hands of her killer would be something much slower. It would be a classical feminine death, like a marriage…Raised by meek working-class parents, she despised petty groveling and had no talent for making shit up. She wanted to be a “real” intellectual moving with dizzying freedom between high and low points in the culture. And to a certain extent, she’d succeeded. Catt’s semi-name attracted a following among Asberger’s boys, girls who’d been hospitalized for mental illness, sex workers, Ivy alumnae on meth, and always, the cutters. With her small self-made fortune, Catt saw herself as Moll Flanders, out-sourcing her visiting professorships and writing commissions to younger artists whose work she believed in. But she’d reached a point lately where the same young people she’d helped were blogging against her, exposing the ‘cottage industry’ she ran out of her Los Angeles compound facing the Hollywood sign … the same compound these bloggers had lived in rent-free after arriving from Iowa City, Alberta, New Zealand. Loathing all institutions, Catt had become one herself. Even her dentist asked her for money.

Flattery is addictive. Convince others they’re special. Assure them they have talent. Make yourself the source of people’s self-worth. Doing so binds them to you and it preempts them from developing their skills and proving their true potential.

God is the source of my supply. That supply is my supply now. His riches flow to me freely, copiously, and abundantly. I am forever conscious of my true worth. I give of my talents freely, and I am wonderfully, divinely compensated. Thank you, Father!

I feel as if it were not for me to record, even though this manuscript is intended for no eyes but mine, how hard I worked at that tremendous short-hand, and all improvement appertaining to it, in my sense of responsibility to Dora and her aunts. I will only add, to what I have already written of my perseverance at this time of my life, and of a patient and continuous energy which then began to be matured within me, and which I know to be the strong part of my character, if it have any strength at all, that there, on looking back, I find the source of my success. I have been very fortunate in worldly matters; many men have worked much harder, and not succeeded half so well; but I never could have done what I have done, without the habits of punctuality, order, and diligence, without the determination to concentrate myself on one object at a time, no matter how quickly its successor should come upon its heels, which I then formed. Heaven knows I write this, in no spirit of self-laudation. The man who reviews his own life, as I do mine, in going on here, from page to page, had need to have been a good man indeed, if he would be spared the sharp consciousness of many talents neglected, many opportunities wasted, many erratic and perverted feelings constantly at war within his breast, and defeating him. I do not hold one natural gift, I dare say, that I have not abused. My meaning simply is, that whatever I have tried to do in life, I have tried with all my heart to do well; that whatever I have devoted myself to, I have devoted myself to completely; that in great aims and in small, I have always been thoroughly in earnest. I have never believed it possible that any natural or improved ability can claim immunity from the companionship of the steady, plain, hard-working qualities, and hope to gain its end. There is no such thing as such fulfilment on this earth. Some happy talent, and some fortunate opportunity, may form the two sides of the ladder on which some men mount, but the rounds of that ladder must be made of stuff to stand wear and tear; and there is no substitute for thorough-going, ardent, and sincere earnestness. Never to put one hand to anything, on which I could throw my whole self; and never to affect depreciation of my work, whatever it was; I find, now, to have been my golden rules.

Elinor made no answer. Her thoughts were silently fixed on the irreparable injury which too early an independence and its consequent habits of idleness, dissipation, and luxury, had made in the mind, the character, the happiness, of a man who, to every advantage of person and talents, united a disposition naturally open and honest, and a feeling, affectionate temper. The world had made him extravagant and vain—Extravagance and vanity had made him cold-hearted and selfish. Vanity, while seeking its own guilty triumph at the expense of another, had involved him in a real attachment, which extravagance, or at least its offspring, necessity, had required to be sacrificed. Each faulty propensity in leading him to evil, had led him likewise to punishment. The attachment, from which against honour, against feeling, against every better interest he had outwardly torn himself, now, when no longer allowable, governed every thought; and the connection, for the sake of which he had, with little scruple, left her sister to misery, was likely to prove a source of unhappiness to himself of a far more incurable nature. From a reverie of this kind she was recalled at the end of some minutes by Willoughby, who, rousing himself from a reverie at least equally painful, started up in preparation for going, and said—

Prophecy of Balance (Year of the Cat) “There must be balance,” Source repeated, “For mankind to flourish on the Earth-Throne he’s seated.” His life is a gift from the gods, they created, And the power to wield choice, but the outcome is weighted. Seeing the harm and chaos humans manifest, Wore heavily upon the goodness within their immortal breast. But the gods disagreed, and two groups they split, Each one possessing their own talent and wit. One side fights for freedom of Man’s soul, But the other wants slavery, and Man to control. So Source cried, “Enough! Now Observers will be sent, To assist with human minds you’ve cleverly bent!” For balance, the pendulum won’t sway too far to one side, And Universal Laws each god must abide. The gods agreed, but did not stop with their plan, To influence mankind as much as they can.

You have a filter, a characteristic way of responding to the world around you. We all do. Your filter tells you which stimuli to notice and which to ignore; which to love and which to hate. It creates your innate motivations — are you competitive, altruistic, or ego driven? It defines how you think — are you disciplined or laissez-faire, practical or strategic? It forges your prevailing attitudes — are you optimistic or cynical, calm or anxious, empathetic or cold? It creates in you all of your distinct patterns of thought, feeling, and behavior. In effect, your filter is the source of your talents.

In many ways, the work of a critic is easy. We risk very little, yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgment. We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read. But the bitter truth we critics must face, is that in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is probably more meaningful than our criticism designating it so. But there are times when a critic truly risks something, and that is in the discovery and defense of the *new*. The world is often unkind to new talent, new creations. The new needs friends. Last night, I experienced something new: an extraordinary meal from a singularly unexpected source. To say that both the meal and its maker have challenged my preconceptions about fine cooking is a gross understatement. They have rocked me to my core. In the past, I have made no secret of my disdain for Chef Gusteau's famous motto, "Anyone can cook." But I realize, only now do I truly understand what he meant. Not everyone can become a great artist; but a great artist *can* come from *anywhere*. It is difficult to imagine more humble origins than those of the genius now cooking at Gusteau's, who is, in this critic's opinion, nothing less than the finest chef in France. I will be returning to Gusteau's soon, hungry for more.

True self-esteem comes from competence, not the other way around. Researchers have found that intense engagement in and commitment to an activity is a proven route to happiness and well-being. Well-developed talents and interests can be a great source of confidence for your child, no matter how different he might feel from his peers.

Elinor made no answer. Her thoughts were silently fixed on the irreparable injury which too early an independence, and its consequent habits of idleness, dissipation, and luxury, had made in the mind, the character of happiness, of a man who, to every advantage of person and talents, united a disposition naturally open and honest, and a feeling, affectionate temper. The world had made him extravagant and vain–extravagane and vanity had made him cold-hearted and selfish. Vanity while seeking its own guilty triumph at the expense of another, had involved him in a real attachment, which extravagance, or at least its offspring, necessity, had required to be sacrificed. Each faulty propensity in leading him to evil, had lead him likewise to punishment. The attachment, from which against honor, against feeling, against every better interest, he had outwardly torn himself, now, when no longer allowable, governed every thought; and the connection, for the sake of which he had, with little scrupule, left her sister to misery, was likely to prove a source of unhappiness to himself of a far more incurable nature.

We became the most successful advanced projects company in the world by hiring talented people, paying them top dollar, and motivating them into believing that they could produce a Mach 3 airplane like the Blackbird a generation or two ahead of anybody else. Our design engineers had the keen experience to conceive the whole airplane in their mind’s-eye, doing the trade-offs in their heads between aerodynamic needs and weapons requirements. We created a practical and open work environment for engineers and shop workers, forcing the guys behind the drawing boards onto the shop floor to see how their ideas were being translated into actual parts and to make any necessary changes on the spot. We made every shop worker who designed or handled a part responsible for quality control. Any worker—not just a supervisor or a manager—could send back a part that didn’t meet his or her standards. That way we reduced rework and scrap waste. We encouraged our people to work imaginatively, to improvise and try unconventional approaches to problem solving, and then got out of their way. By applying the most commonsense methods to develop new technologies, we saved tremendous amounts of time and money, while operating in an atmosphere of trust and cooperation both with our government customers and between our white-collar and blue-collar employees. In the end, Lockheed’s Skunk Works demonstrated the awesome capabilities of American inventiveness when free to operate under near ideal working conditions. That may be our most enduring legacy as well as our source of lasting pride.

If you are one of those people who can’t hold a lot in mind at once—you lose focus and start daydreaming in lectures, and have to get to someplace quiet to focus so you can use your working memory to its maximum—well, welcome to the clan of the creative. Having a somewhat smaller working memory means you can more easily generalize your learning into new, more creative combinations. Because you’re learning new, more creative combinations. Having a somewhat smaller working memory, which grows from the focusing abilities of the prefrontal cortex, doesn’t lock everything up so tightly, you can more easily get input from other parts of your brain. These other areas, which include the sensory cortex, not only are more in tune with what’s going on in the environment, but also are the source of dreams, not to mention creative ideas. You may have to work harder sometimes (or even much of the time) to understand what’s going on, but once you’ve got something chunked, you can take that chunk and turn it outside in and inside round—putting it through creative paces even you didn’t think you were capable of! Here’s another point to put into your mental chunker: Chess, that bastion of intellectuals, has some elite players with roughly average IQs. These seemingly middling intellects are able to do better than some more intelligent players because they practice more. That’s the key idea. Every chess player, whether average or elite, grows talent by practicing. It is the practice—particularly deliberate practice on the toughest aspects of the material—that can help lift average brains into the realm of those with more “natural” gifts. Just as you can practice lifting weights and get bigger muscles over time, you can also practice certain mental patterns that deepen and enlarge in your mind.

Hope, after all, is a perfect source of power. Why? You can create something new if you have hope, even in a situation where you have nothing else, and you can overcome difficulties in any desperate situation if you have hope. No preconditions are required for choosing hope. You don’t have to be young, have a lot of money, or have any special talent. Hope is something you just find. You discover hope for yourself—and if you can’t find it, then you create it.

Flowers in your garden always turn in the direction of light because they instinctively recognize their source of energy, strength & renewal. Let you become the source of light, hope, faith, sincerity, inspiration & love in your world. Let you remind yourself that you are complete in all senses & that you have God gifted beauty, abilities & talents. Let you uncover these gifts, nurture & develop these further to improve yourself & your world. Let your reflection & energy has the potential to transform everything surrounding you in ways that enable them to function at a higher level & ultimately be of greater purpose. Let all your actions, reciprocation & interactions with others & yourself be filled with grace & ease today. Let your body, mind & soul sing together in harmony to make you more happy both inside & outside while ending all kind of pretence, deceit & hypocrisy in you. Let you find more joy, peace & blessings with each passing day. Stay Healthy, Playful & Successful!

Mimi, all shadows are cast by light. There is a moment, a chance, when you face your greatest darkness, that you can turn, just a little bit, and trace the source of the shadow unto its origin. It is in those moments you have the chance to understand something about yourself and about the world that you may have never seen before. The darkness of your past is an opportunity. You are not the things that have happened to you. You are not your talents or your weakness, you are what you choose to be. There is no shadow you can cast that love, friendship, and kindness cannot overcome.

Many of those paths will be found in passions outside the classroom. While extroverts are more likely to skate from one hobby or activity to another, introverts often stick with their enthusiasms. This gives them a major advantage as they grow, because true self-esteem comes from competence, not the other way around. Researchers have found that intense engagement in and commitment to an activity is a proven route to happiness and well-being. Well-developed talents and interests can be a great source of confidence for your child, no matter how different he might feel from his peers.

What we need is release, or emancipation. Emancipation is fundamentally different from empowerment. With emancipation we are recognizing the inherent genius, energy, and creativity in all people, and allowing those talents to emerge. We realize that we don’t have the power to give these talents to others, or “empower” them to use them, only the power to prevent them from coming out. Emancipation results when teams have been given decision-making control and have the additional characteristics of competence and clarity. You know you have an emancipated team when you no longer need to empower them. Indeed, you no longer have the ability to empower them because they are not relying on you as their source of power.

asked him to imagine the following: If I selected an employee of the company at random, from any level or function or region, and that employee had an absolutely brilliant idea that would unlock a dramatic new source of growth for the company, how would he or she get it implemented? Does the company have an automatic process for testing a new idea, to see if it is actually any good? And does the company have the management tools necessary to scale this idea up to maximum impact, even if it doesn’t align with any of the company’s current lines of business? That’s what a modern company does: harnesses the creativity and talent of every single one of its employees. Jeff answered me directly: “That’s what your next book should be about.

1. Did you conduct one-to-one meetings with each salesperson on your team? 2. Did you ask each of them how they like to be managed? Are they coachable? 3. Did you inquire about their prior experience with their past manager? Was it positive or negative? 4. Did you set the expectations of your relationship with them? Did you ask them what they needed and expected from their manager? What changes do they want to see? 5. Did you inform them about how you like to manage and your style of management? This would open up the space for a discussion regarding how you may manage differently from your predecessor. 6. Did you let them know you just completed a coaching course that would enable you to support them even further and maximize their talents? 7. Did you explain to them the difference between coaching and traditional management? 8. Did you enroll them in the benefits of coaching? That is, what would be in it for them? 9. Did you let them know about your intentions, goals, expectations, and aspirations for each of them and for the team as a whole? 10. How have you gone about learning the ins and outs of the company?Are you familiar with the internal workings, culture, leadership team, and subtleties that make the company unique? Have you considered that your team may be the best source of knowledge and intelligence for this? Did you communicate your willingness and desire to learn from them as well, so that the learning and development process can be mutually reciprocated?

she enjoyed her continued glimpses into the inner workings of world affairs. She often would sit back in the middle of some long meeting and wonder how it was that these men and women had risen to the top of the global elite. They weren't marked by exceptional genius. The did not have extraordinarily deep knowledge or creative opinions. If there was one trait the best of them possessed, it was a talent for simplification. They had the ability to take a complex situation and capture the heart of the matter in simple terms. A second after they located the core fact of any problem, their observation seemed blindingly obvious, but somehow nobody had simplified the issue in quite those terms beforehand. They took reality and made it manageable for busy people. p338

Groupies and hangers-on somehow fancy themselves entitled to the narcissist’s favour and largesse, his time, attention, and other resources. They convince themselves that they are exempt from the narcissist’s rage and wrath and immune to his vagaries andabuse . This self-imputed and self-conferred status irritates the narcissist no end as it challenges and encroaches on his standing as the only source of preferential treatment and the sole decision-maker when it comes to the allocation of his precious and cosmically significant wherewithal. The narcissist is the guru at the centre of a cult. Like other gurus, he demands complete obedience from his flock: his spouse, his offspring, other family  members, friends, and colleagues. He feels entitled to adulation and special treatment by his followers. He punishes the wayward and the straying lambs. He enforces discipline, adherence to his teachings, and common goals. The less accomplished he is in reality – the more stringent his mastery and the more pervasive the brainwashing. Cult leaders are narcissists who failed in their mission to "be someone", to become famous, and to impress the world with their uniqueness, talents, traits, and skills. Such disgruntled narcissists withdraw into a "zone of comfort" (known as the "Pathological Narcissistic Space") that assumes the hallmarks of a cult. The – often involuntary – members of the narcissist's mini-cult inhabit a twilight zone of his own construction. He imposes on them an exclusionary or inclusionary shared psychosis, replete with persecutory delusions, "enemies", mythical-grandiose narratives, and apocalyptic scenarios if he is flouted. Exclusionary shared psychosis involves the physical and emotional isolation of the narcissist and his “flock” (spouse, children, fans, friends) from the outside world in order to better shield them from imminent threats and hostile intentions. Inclusionary shared psychosis revolves around attempts to spread the narcissist’s message in a missionary fashion among friends, colleagues, co-workers, fans, churchgoers, and anyone else who comes across the mini-cult. The narcissist's control is based on ambiguity, unpredictability, fuzziness, and ambientabuse . His ever-shifting whims exclusively define right versus wrong, desirable and unwanted, what is to be pursued and what to be avoided. He alone determines the rights and obligations of his disciples and alters them at will.

The mental features discoursed of as the analytical, are, in themselves, but little susceptible of analysis. We appreciate them only in their effects. We know of them, among other things, that they are always to their possessor, when inordinately possessed, a source of the liveliest enjoyment. As the strong man exults in his physical ability, delighting in such exercises as call his muscles into action, so glories the analyst in that moral activity which disentangles. He derives pleasure from even the most trivial occupations bringing his talents into play. He is fond of enigmas, of conundrums, of hieroglyphics; exhibiting in his solutions of each a degree of acumen which appears to the ordinary apprehension preternatural. His results, brought about by the very soul and essence of method, have, in truth, the whole air of intuition.

These are serious fears. But they're not the real fear. Not the Master Fear, the Mother of all Fears that's so close to us that even when we verbalize it we don't believe it. Fear That We Will Succeed. That we can access the powers we secretly know we possess. That we can become the person we sense in our hearts we truly are. This is the most terrifying prospect a human being can face, because it ejects him at one go (he imagines) from all the tribal inclusions his psyche is wired for and has been for fifty million years. We fear discovering that we are more than we think we are. More than our parents/children/teachers think we are. We fear that we actually possess the talent that our still, small voice tells us. That we actually have the guts, the perseverance, the capacity. We fear that we truly can steer our ship, plant our flag, reach our Promised Land. We fear this because, if it's true, then we become estranged from all we know. We pass through a membrane. We become monsters and monstrous. We know that if we embrace our ideals, we must prove worthy of them. And that scares the hell out of us. What will become of us? We will lose our friends and family, who will no longer recognize us. We will wind up alone, in the cold void of starry space, with nothing and no one to hold on to. Of course this is exactly what happens. But here's the trick. We wind up in space, but not alone. Instead we are tapped into an unquenchable, undepletable, inexhaustible source of wisdom, consciousness, companionship. Yeah, we lose friends. But we find friends too, in places we never thought to look. And they're better friends, truer friends. And we're better and truer to them. Do you believe me?

Hearing may make shorter intuitive leaps than sight, but it too is subject to illusions. The most pleasant of these are 'mondegreens,' named by the author Sylvia Wright from her youthful mishearing of the Scottish ballad that actually says, 'They hae slain the Earl o' Moray / and they layd him on the green'--not, alas, 'the Lady Mondegreen.' Children, with their relaxed expectations for logic, are a rich source of these (pledging allegiance to 'one Asian in the vestibule, with little tea and just rice for all'), but everyone has the talent to infer the ridiculous from the inaudible--and, what's more, to believe in it. Here, at least, we do behave like computers, in that our voice-recognition software has little regard for probability but boldly assumes we live in a world of surrealist poets. We are certain that Mick Jagger will never leave our pizza burning and that the Shadow knows what evil lurks in the hot cement.

It was Hitler’s style, his oratorical talents and his remarkable ability to transmit emotions and feelings in his speeches, that took him to the leadership of the ragtag party of misfits and adventurers that he joined in Munich in 1919 and that called itself the German Workers’ Party. The ideas he and the party spouted were all tattered; they were nothing but jargon inherited from the paranoid Austro-German border politics of the pre-1914 era, which saw “Germanness” threatened with inundation by “subject nationalities.” Even the combination “national socialist,” which Hitler added to the party’s name when he became leader in 1920, was borrowed from the same era and same sources. It was not the substance—there was no substance to the frantic neurotic tirades—that allowed the party to survive and later to grow. It was the style and the mood. It was above all the theater, the vulgar “art,” the grand guignol productions of the beer halls and the street.

KEY TAKEAWAYS – Sharpening Your Creative Mind PRACTICE UNNECESSARY CREATION Use personal creative projects to explore new obsessions, skills, or ways of working in a low-pressure environment. WANDER LONELY AS A CLOUD Make time for your mind—and body—to wander when you’re stuck. Disengaging from the problem allows your subconscious to do its work. DEFINE “FINISHED” FROM THE START Keep your inner perfectionist in check by defining what finished looks like at the beginning of a project. And when you get there, stop! DON’T GO ON AUTOPILOT Repetition is the enemy of insight. Take unorthodox—even wacky—approaches to solving your stickiest problems and see what happens. SEARCH FOR THE SOURCE When the well runs dry, don’t blame a lack of talent. Creative blocks frequently piggyback on other problems. See if you can identify them. LOVE YOUR LIMITATIONS Look at constraints as a benefit, rather than an impediment. They activate our creative thinking by upping the ante.

Wait,” said one of the guards. “Did you hear something?” Don’t look up. Oh, Saints, don’t look up. The guards moved in a slow circle, rifles raised. One of them craned his head back, scanning the roof. He began to turn. A strange, sweet sound pierced the air. “Skerden Fjerda, kende hjertzeeeeeng, lendten isen en de waaaanden.” Fjerdan words Jesper didn’t understand crested over the courtyard in a shimmering, perfect tenor that seemed to catch upon the black stone battlements. Wylan. The guards whirled, rifles pointed at the walkway that led to the courtyard, seeking the source of the sound. “Olander?” one called. “Nilson?” said another. Their guns were raised, but their voices were more bemused and curious than aggressive. What the hell is he doing? A silhouette appeared in the walkway arch, lurching left and right. “Skerden Fjerda, kende hjertzeeeeeng,” Wylan sang, doing a surprisingly convincing impression of a drunk but very talented Fjerdan. The guards burst out laughing, joining in on the song. “Lendten isen…

The Times Exclusive Reveal of Windermere Six Thanks to an anonymous source, the Times is pleased to share an exclusive list of the six children who were transported yesterday evening to Hollingsworth Hall, the magnificent and secluded home of Camilla Lenore DeMoss, the Countess of Windermere. They are, in no particular order: Oliver Appleby: Heir to the Appleby Jewelry fortune. This young chap is known to be an excellent student who also excels at rowing and cricket. Viola Dale: The Dales are well known throughout London for their dedication to social reform and relief for those in distress. Young Viola has been a presence on the charitable event circuit since the age of two. Frances Wellington: Miss Wellington's parents are internationally known art collectors who have an impeccable eye for up-and-coming talent in sculpture and painting. They also delve into gems of historical value. Frances is privately tutored, and her deliciously expensive introduction to London society is already being buzzed about. Barnaby Trundle: Young Barnaby attends school in South London. His father works in the textile industry. One of his teachers says Barnaby is "occasionally quick-tempered with other boys in his form." Edward Herringbone: The Herringbones are close acquaintances with the aforementioned Dales, their own admirable interests lying mainly in reducing poverty by increasing educational opportunities. Edward has been called "an indubitable library of a boy" by one of his teaching masters at St. Stephen's. Tabitha Crum: Miss Crum's father is employed by the Wilting Bank of South London. A neighbor of the family says that the lucky child "talks to herself" and calls the Crums "socially famished.

The Memory Business Steven Sasson is a tall man with a lantern jaw. In 1973, he was a freshly minted graduate of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. His degree in electrical engineering led to a job with Kodak’s Apparatus Division research lab, where, a few months into his employment, Sasson’s supervisor, Gareth Lloyd, approached him with a “small” request. Fairchild Semiconductor had just invented the first “charge-coupled device” (or CCD)—an easy way to move an electronic charge around a transistor—and Kodak needed to know if these devices could be used for imaging.4 Could they ever. By 1975, working with a small team of talented technicians, Sasson used CCDs to create the world’s first digital still camera and digital recording device. Looking, as Fast Company once explained, “like a ’70s Polaroid crossed with a Speak-and-Spell,”5 the camera was the size of a toaster, weighed in at 8.5 pounds, had a resolution of 0.01 megapixel, and took up to thirty black-and-white digital images—a number chosen because it fell between twenty-four and thirty-six and was thus in alignment with the exposures available in Kodak’s roll film. It also stored shots on the only permanent storage device available back then—a cassette tape. Still, it was an astounding achievement and an incredible learning experience. Portrait of Steven Sasson with first digital camera, 2009 Source: Harvey Wang, From Darkroom to Daylight “When you demonstrate such a system,” Sasson later said, “that is, taking pictures without film and showing them on an electronic screen without printing them on paper, inside a company like Kodak in 1976, you have to get ready for a lot of questions. I thought people would ask me questions about the technology: How’d you do this? How’d you make that work? I didn’t get any of that. They asked me when it was going to be ready for prime time? When is it going to be realistic to use this? Why would anybody want to look at their pictures on an electronic screen?”6 In 1996, twenty years after this meeting took place, Kodak had 140,000 employees and a $28 billion market cap. They were effectively a category monopoly. In the United States, they controlled 90 percent of the film market and 85 percent of the camera market.7 But they had forgotten their business model. Kodak had started out in the chemistry and paper goods business, for sure, but they came to dominance by being in the convenience business. Even that doesn’t go far enough. There is still the question of what exactly Kodak was making more convenient. Was it just photography? Not even close. Photography was simply the medium of expression—but what was being expressed? The “Kodak Moment,” of course—our desire to document our lives, to capture the fleeting, to record the ephemeral. Kodak was in the business of recording memories. And what made recording memories more convenient than a digital camera? But that wasn’t how the Kodak Corporation of the late twentieth century saw it. They thought that the digital camera would undercut their chemical business and photographic paper business, essentially forcing the company into competing against itself. So they buried the technology. Nor did the executives understand how a low-resolution 0.01 megapixel image camera could hop on an exponential growth curve and eventually provide high-resolution images. So they ignored it. Instead of using their weighty position to corner the market, they were instead cornered by the market.

You do that a great deal, don’t you?” He swallowed the rest of his wine. “What?” “Close up into yourself whenever someone tries to peer into your soul. Make a joke of it.” “If you came out here to lecture me,” he snapped, “don’t bother. Gran has perfected that talent. You can’t possibly compete.” “I only want to understand.” “I want to be consumed by a star, but we don’t all get what we want.” “What?” “Never mind.” Turning for the nearest door into the house, he started to stalk off, but she caught his arm. “Why are you so angry at your grandmother?” Maria asked. “I told you-she’s trying to ruin the lives of me and my siblings.” “By requiring you to marry so you can have children? I thought all lords and ladies were expected to do that. And the five of you are certainly old enough.” Her tone turned teasing. “Some of you are beyond being old enough.” “Watch it, minx,” he clipped out. “I’m not in the mood for having my nose tweaked tonight.” “Because of your grandmother, you mean. It’s not just her demand that has you angry, is it? It goes back longer than that.” Oliver glared at her. “Why do you care? Has she got you fighting her battles for her now?” “Hardly. She just informed me that I was, and I quote, ‘exactly the sort of woman who would not meet my requirements of a wife.’” A smile touched his lips at her accurate mimicking of Gran at her most haughty. “I told you she would think that.” “Yes,” she said dryly. “You both excel at insulting people.” “One of my many talents.” “There you go again. Making a joke to avoid talking about what makes you uncomfortable.” “And what is that?” “What did your grandmother do, besides giving you an ultimatum about marriage, that has you at daggers drawn?” Blast it all, would she not leave off? “How do you know she did anything? Perhaps I’m just contrary.” “You are. But that’s not what has you so angry at her.” “If you plan to spend the next two weeks asking ridiculous questions that have no answers, then I will pay you to return to London.” She smiled. “No, you won’t. You need me.” “True. But since I’m paying for the service you’re providing, I get some say in how it’s rendered. Bedeviling me with questions isn’t part of our bargain.” “You haven’t paid me anything yet,” she said lightly, “so I should think there’s some leeway in the terms. Especially since I’ve been working hard all evening furthering your cause. I just finished telling your grandmother that I have ‘feelings’ for you, and that I know you have ‘feelings’ for me.” “You didn’t choke on that lie?” he quipped. “I do have feelings for you-probably not the sort she meant, though apparently she believed me. But she was suspicious. She’s more astute than you give her credit for. First she accused us of acting a farce, and then, when I denied that, she accused me of thinking to marry you so I could gain a fortune from her down the line.” “And what did you say to that?” “I told her she could keep her precious fortune.” “Did you, indeed? I would have given my right arm to see that.” Maria was proving to be an endless source of amazement. No one ever stood up to Gran-except this American chit, with her naïve beliefs in justice and right and morality. It amazed him that she’d done it, considering how he’d treated her. No one, not even his siblings, had ever defended him with so little reason. It stirred something that had long lain dead inside him. His conscience? No, that wasn’t dead; it was nonexistent.

The belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary; men alone are quite capable of every wickedness.” Joseph Conrad   PROLOGUE     Washington, D.C. – 1945   It was one a.m. and the small pub was closing. The D.C. night was quiet and had died down, and he was spent. A long week of college classes and a part-time job in a small diner had left him purely exhausted. He slipped out of Joe’s Tavern and looked both ways down the foggy street before making his way along the sidewalk. Dim orange streetlights barely lit his way, every other one seemed to flicker, as if about to go out. The snapping of his shoes on the concrete was the only sound to keep him company. The quiet February night was cold and blustery, and the whiskey he’d consumed in the tavern was the only thing keeping him warm. He walked quickly past businesses, such as butcher shops and beauty shops. They were closed up tight for the night, and the weekend for that matter, and lay silent and dark as he passed. His breath turned to mist in the air as he hurried along. He pulled the collar of his beige trench coat up tighter around his throat as he walked with his head down. He only had five blocks to make it to his modest downtown apartment. His father was a high-ranking government official in the FBI and was paid very well for his talents. As a World War I vet, his father had seen his share of horrors and dumped every last ounce of his energy into his job at the FBI, fighting crime. He was well respected and valued amongst his civil service peers, supervisors, and subordinates. He thought about his father and how much he, too, respected him. It was hard to grow up

the best data consistently show that more than eight in ten Americans like or love their jobs. And incredibly, that result holds steady across the income distribution. This notion that “knowledge work” is fulfilling, but everyone who works in a garage or a restaurant loathes his or her life, is an incredible act of condescension masquerading as concern. The truth is much more egalitarian. Again, economic mobility is crucial, and stagnant wages are a huge problem for American families. But this doesn’t change the deep truth that work, not money, is the fundamental source of our dignity. Work is where we build character. Work is where we create value with our lives and lift up our own souls. Work, properly understood, is the sacred practice of offering up our talents for the service of others.

Eventually the talent supply runs out and you have to look elsewhere for the right team. Fortunately, there are some terrific sources of outstanding product talent in places such as India, Eastern Europe (especially the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia), Northern Europe (especially the Netherlands, Sweden, and Germany), Israel, China, Singapore, Australia, and New Zealand.

A Student’s Prayer (By St. Thomas Aquinas)   CREATOR of all things, true source of light and wisdom, origin of all being, graciously let a ray of your light penetrate the darkness of my understanding.   Take from me the double darkness in which I have been born, an obscurity of sin and of ignorance.   Give me a keen understanding, a retentive memory, and the ability to grasp things correctly and fundamentally.   Grant me the talent of being exact in my explanations and the ability to express myself with thoroughness and charm.   Point out the beginning, direct the progress, and help the completion. I ask this through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

If you are one of those people who can’t hold a lot in mind at once—you lose focus and start daydreaming in lectures, and have to get to someplace quiet to focus so you can use your working memory to its maximum—well, welcome to the clan of the creative. Having a somewhat smaller working memory means you can more easily generalize your learning into new, more creative combinations. Because your learning new, more creative combinations. Having a somewhat smaller working memory, which grows from the focusing abilities of the prefrontal cortex, doesn’t lock everything up so tightly, you can more easily get input from other parts of your brain. These other areas, which include the sensory cortex, not only are more in tune with what’s going on in the environment, but also are the source of dreams, not to mention creative ideas. You may have to work harder sometimes (or even much of the time) to understand what’s going on, but once you’ve got something chunked, you can take that chunk and turn it outside in and inside round—putting it through creative paces even you didn’t think you were capable of! Here’s another point to put into your mental chunker: Chess, that bastion of intellectuals, has some elite players with roughly average IQs. These seemingly middling intellects are able to do better than some more intelligent players because they practice more. That’s the key idea. Every chess player, whether average or elite, grows talent by practicing. It is the practice—particularly deliberate practice on the toughest aspects of the material—that can help lift average brains into the realm of those with more “natural” gifts. Just as you can practice lifting weights and get bigger muscles over time, you can also practice certain mental patterns that deepen and enlarge in your mind.

No one constructed fairy-tale childhoods for their spawn, developed an innate set of personal talents, fostered a stimulating and world-changing career, created stunning homes and yardscapes, provided homemade food for every meal (locally sourced, of course), kept all marriage fires burning, sustained meaningful relationships in various environments, carved out plenty of time for “self care,” served neighbors/church/world, and maintained a fulfilling, active relationship with Jesus our Lord and Savior. You can’t balance that job description.

Here is part of the problem, girls: we’ve been sold a bill of goods. Back in the day, women didn’t run themselves ragged trying to achieve some impressively developed life in eight different categories. No one constructed fairy-tale childhoods for their spawn, developed an innate set of personal talents, fostered a stimulating and world-changing career, created stunning homes and yardscapes, provided homemade food for every meal (locally sourced, of course), kept all marriage fires burning, sustained meaningful relationships in various environments, carved out plenty of time for “self care,” served neighbors/church/world, and maintained a fulfilling, active relationship with Jesus our Lord and Savior.

Therefore, perhaps Black citizenship would need to occur in stages: first, Black control of the police in their communities and Black control of all their criminal justice system (Black political prisoners would be released immediately and most Black prisoners—nearly all of whom are, in fact, political prisoners as well—would be freed or given new trials); second, Black control over where their taxes go; third, Black control over the education of their children; fourth, Black control over the rebuilding of housing and infrastructure in their communities; fifth, Black control over sources of food and healthcare.  None of this will be easy; but Black people have never had it easy in this country.  I imagine this would be a challenge welcomed by many Black people whose talents and energies could be channeled into building their own community for their own benefit and not merely to survive white supremacy.

Wisdom is a state of stability and unconcern. It is a balanced confidence based on stable reasons. Wisdom is not a talent or power sourced at your birth. It is the power of ruling over all the other powers you have born with.

Employee networks are extremely valuable to companies as a source of information. As Bill Gates wrote more than a decade ago, “The most meaningful way to differentiate your company from your competition, the best way to put distance between you and the crowd, is to do an outstanding job with information. How you gather, manage, and use information will determine whether you win or lose.”1

The important thing about outsourcing or global sourcing is that it becomes a very powerful tool to leverage talent, improve productivity and reduce work cycles.

Thank you Lord that you are the source of all that I have. Eery skill, talent, all finances and earthly possessions. Bless your Holy name. You are Jehovah Jireh the God who provides. Thank you Lord I am a good steward over all you provide. I honor you Lord with the tithe and first fruit of my increase. God everything I have is yours. Instruct my spending. Help me to be wise in the area of finances.

Letting our focus drift away from God can be a very dangerous thing. We may end up using our resources and talents to build little “towers” that call attention to ourselves. Even good things like church attendance and Bible study can become a source of pride if we’re not careful. When other people look at our life, we want them to see only one monument—our testimony of God’s goodness that points them toward our Lord and Savior.

Lack of Empathy To a Narcissistic vampire, other people are either prospective purveyors of Narcissistic supplies or invisible. More than any other vampire type, Narcissists are incapable of seeing their fellow humans as having wants, needs, talents, and desires of their own. Needless to say, this lack of empathy is the source of untold amounts of pain to the people who love them. But for their lack of human warmth, there is a lot about these vampires to love. Many people destroy themselves by believing that it’s their fault that Narcissists don’t love them back. They will work hard and long, some times for their whole lives, without realizing that these vampires can’t give what they don’t have. A particularly scary trait that Narcissists share with Antisocials is the ability to feign empathy when they want something. Narcissists are the best flatterers on the planet. They give great ego massages even as they’re draining people dry. Needless to say, this talent makes them great at politics. Even though Antisocials and Histrionics can be sexy, all the best seducers are Narcissists.

No matter how high a talented fly, he will always be under the wings of a Hustler

As a top talent recruiter, despite the rule, it doesn’t stop you to have more applications than what you need. However, at the end of the day, you have to make the final decision, which is to accept one application only.

Narcissistic Superstars draw you in because of their talents, abilities, and power. They are often special people, and you feel special being around them. You’re not. For Narcissists, other people are sources of supplies, rather than real, full-blown human beings. Only Superstars are threedimensional. One of the easiest ways to spot Narcissistic vampires is to look around when you need help at an inconvenient time. They’re the ones who aren’t there. Superstars’ histories are often impressive lists of achievements. Don’t be too impressed to find out how they’ve treated other people while they were doing their great deeds. Whatever happened to those other people is what will happen to you. There will always be two kinds of people in Superstars’ past. The people above them will always think they were wonderful, but if you really want to know what these vampires were like, you have to talk to their peers and the bit players in their lives. There is no greatness without narcissism, and narcissism is caustic to human relationships. The question you want answered about Superstars’ past is not whether they were Narcissistic, but how well they kept it contained.

As we reasoned, if our Chinese operations couldn’t beat their local competitors in China, how would we beat them when these local players eventually matured and expanded to developed markets? We started hiring talented Chinese locals for leadership positions, rather than bringing in expats, and developing more local sourcing for our products. Whereas companies tend to take a big brother approach, with corporate or business headquarters dictating solutions and reserving the right to sign off on projects, we gave our teams in China more autonomy and control as they became more capable. Our strategy of locating R&D facilities in developing countries helped us as well, not just because we could squeeze more value out of our R&D spending, but because we built up local expertise capable of designing products with features and specifications that local consumers wanted and that compared well with the offerings of local competitors.

The Linux story is a textbook case of how open-source software development can tap the widest possible talent pool to build the best, most robust, and most universally applicable technology.

LORD, My son looks at everyone around him and feels he doesn’t measure up. He doesn’t feel strong, smart, or talented. He doesn’t feel valued or appreciated. He doesn’t believe he has much to offer or that anyone would miss him if he wasn’t around. My son has forgotten who you say he is. Your Word says he is made in your image, and that what you made is very good (Gen. 1: 27, 31). He needs assurance that his life is not merely an accident, but lovingly planned and created by you in every detail. Give him the power to trust in your incredible love for him that is beyond our understanding. Thank you for the qualities that make my son who he is. I cherish his personality, his smile, and his unique outlook on the world. I see abilities and talents taking shape in his life. He is a gift to our family and has the potential to make the world a better place. Help my son to find his worth in your eyes instead of comparing himself to those around him. Let him believe you are working in him, molding him into the valuable person you’ve always planned for him to be. Guard my son’s mind from dwelling so much on his own defeat and insecurities that he forgets how awesome you are. Let him find peace and total satisfaction in you and you alone. Let him “taste and see” that you are good, and realize that you are the source of every wonderful gift in his life (Ps. 34: 8; James 1: 17). Use me to build up my son. Show me how to encourage him when he’s feeling down. Open my eyes to his strengths so I can affirm him. Give me wisdom for how to guide him in overcoming his weaknesses and insecurities. Thank you for creating my son and allowing me to share in his life. You are everything he needs—let him find his strength and joy in you. Amen.

Humility, for many Americans, is grounded in the teachings of the Judeo-Christian tradition, in which everyone is equal in the eyes of God because He created us and wants each and every one of us. Compared to God, who made us from dust, we might feel utterly insignificant. BUT (my favorite word in the Bible) God made us, so we have a place and a purpose, and He is willing to fill us with every good thing. All we have to do to escape the suffocating quarters of our own lives, to see ourselves with humility, is to recognize that we alone are not the source of all power, intellect, and talent. As we’re told in the Beatitudes, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven.

Ancient Master Requirements: Talent attribute two or more Tiers above lowest-Tier attribute Know three or more forms of Magic Race: Most Focus: Magic Zeal or Conviction one Tier lower than Willpower Restrictions: Must never reject an opportunity to learn a new type of magic (but see below). May not voluntarily increase Zeal or Conviction May not use or learn Divine Magic Some part of him was impressed at the depth of the class system, but that part was small indeed. Most of him was howling “get to the kewl powerz.” The knowledge slid into his mind, and he began to smile. Passive Abilities: Calculate aether-derived %RESOURCE% using an improved formula: 50+(Talent*50) Increased facility with improvised magic Decreased ability to use known spellforms Base aether to %RESOURCE% conversion ratio is 100% Basic Abilities: %RESOURCE%bolt (3 %RESOURCE% / damage, global cooldown, attack spell) Fires a bolt of %RESOURCE% energy at the target Gnostic Reflection (100 %RESOURCE%, 30s cooldown, mental trigger) Absorbs the energy of one spell targeting the caster, then targets the spell’s source with an identical spell using the caster’s parameters. Unknown magic types will not be replicated but can contribute to learning that type of magic. %RESOURCE% Metamorphosis (100 percent of current %RESOURCE%, 1/day, mental trigger) Converts all surrounding energy in a (Tier*Talent) meter radius as well as the caster’s physical form into %RESOURCE% for up to 60 seconds. During this time, damage to Health is applied to %RESOURCE%, only abilities or effects which use %RESOURCE% will function within the ability’s

Ancient Master Requirements: Talent attribute two or more Tiers above lowest-Tier attribute Know three or more forms of Magic Race: Most Focus: Magic Zeal or Conviction one Tier lower than Willpower Restrictions: Must never reject an opportunity to learn a new type of magic (but see below). May not voluntarily increase Zeal or Conviction May not use or learn Divine Magic Some part of him was impressed at the depth of the class system, but that part was small indeed. Most of him was howling “get to the kewl powerz.” The knowledge slid into his mind, and he began to smile. Passive Abilities: Calculate aether-derived %RESOURCE% using an improved formula: 50+(Talent*50) Increased facility with improvised magic Decreased ability to use known spellforms Base aether to %RESOURCE% conversion ratio is 100% Basic Abilities: %RESOURCE%bolt (3 %RESOURCE% / damage, global cooldown, attack spell) Fires a bolt of %RESOURCE% energy at the target Gnostic Reflection (100 %RESOURCE%, 30s cooldown, mental trigger) Absorbs the energy of one spell targeting the caster, then targets the spell’s source with an identical spell using the caster’s parameters. Unknown magic types will not be replicated but can contribute to learning that type of magic. %RESOURCE% Metamorphosis (100 percent of current %RESOURCE%, 1/day, mental trigger) Converts all surrounding energy in a (Tier*Talent) meter radius as well as the caster’s physical form into %RESOURCE% for up to 60 seconds. During this time, damage to Health is applied to %RESOURCE%, only abilities or effects which use %RESOURCE% will function within the ability’s area, %RESOURCE% pool is doubled, and %RESOURCE% regeneration is halted. When the effect expires, caster returns to physical form with a percentage of %RESOURCE% based on their Tier remaining.

Tesla Motors was created to accelerate the advent of sustainable transport. If we clear a path to the creation of compelling electric vehicles, but then lay intellectual property landmines behind us to inhibit others, we are acting in a manner contrary to that goal. Tesla will not initiate patent lawsuits against anyone who, in good faith, wants to use our technology. When I started out with my first company, Zip2, I thought patents were a good thing and worked hard to obtain them. And maybe they were good long ago, but too often these days they serve merely to stifle progress, entrench the positions of giant corporations and enrich those in the legal profession, rather than the actual inventors. After Zip2, when I realized that receiving a patent really just meant that you bought a lottery ticket to a lawsuit, I avoided them whenever possible. At Tesla, however, we felt compelled to create patents out of concern that the big car companies would copy our technology and then use their massive manufacturing, sales and marketing power to overwhelm Tesla. We couldn’t have been more wrong. The unfortunate reality is the opposite: electric car programs (or programs for any vehicle that doesn’t burn hydrocarbons) at the major manufacturers are small to non-existent, constituting an average of far less than 1% of their total vehicle sales. Given that annual new vehicle production is approaching 100 million per year and the global fleet is approximately 2 billion cars, it is impossible for Tesla to build electric cars fast enough to address the carbon crisis. By the same token, it means the market is enormous. Our true competition is not the small trickle of non-Tesla electric cars being produced, but rather the enormous flood of gasoline cars pouring out of the world’s factories every day. We believe that Tesla, other companies making electric cars, and the world would all benefit from a common, rapidly-evolving technology platform. Technology leadership is not defined by patents, which history has repeatedly shown to be small protection indeed against a determined competitor, but rather by the ability of a company to attract and motivate the world’s most talented engineers. We believe that applying the open source philosophy to our patents will strengthen rather than diminish Tesla’s position in this regard.[431]

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

Key learnings You can boost your brand and get more people to trust you by doing interviews with top industry leaders. By spending time with them asking questions, you get associated with their image and people will perceive you as an expert as well. Processes are key. If you want to get people from the top of the ladder on your podcast/interviews you need to start small and then keep leveling up. Communities die, families prosper. Your team will be the most important success factor of your company as you grow. The key source of talented people is actually the people you’ve already hired. Your team reflects your company culture. That’s why they need to be 100% involved. Making people’s lives easier is one of the most underrated skills in business. Transparency leads to trust. Don’t beat around the bush, tell it like it is and people will see they can trust you.

What have been our most productive sources for candidates when we need to boost our DE&I efforts for a particular role? How recently have we researched whether similar sources may be out there to the ones that have been most effective?

Resistance feeds on fear. We experience Resistance as fear. But fear of what?   Fear of the consequences of following our heart. Fear of bankruptcy, fear of poverty, fear of insolvency. Fear of groveling when we try to make it on our own, and of groveling when we give up and come crawling back to where we started. Fear of being selfish, of being rotten wives or disloyal husbands; fear of failing to support our families, of sacrificing their dreams for ours. Fear of betraying our race, our ’hood, our homies. Fear of failure. Fear of being ridiculous. Fear of throwing away the education, the training, the preparation that those we love have sacrificed so much for, that we ourselves have worked our butts off for. Fear of launching into the void, of hurtling too far out there; fear of passing some point of no return, beyond which we cannot recant, cannot reverse, cannot rescind, but must live with this cocked-up choice for the rest of our lives. Fear of madness. Fear of insanity. Fear of death.   These are serious fears. But they’re not the real fear. Not the Master Fear, the Mother of all Fears that’s so close to us that even when we verbalize it we don’t believe it.   Fear That We Will Succeed.   That we can access the powers we secretly know we possess.   That we can become the person we sense in our hearts we truly are.   This is the most terrifying prospect a human being can face, because it ejects him at one go (he imagines) from all the tribal inclusions his psyche is wired for and has been for fifty million years.   We fear discovering that we are more than we think we are. More than our parents/children/teachers think we are. We fear that we actually possess the talent that our still, small voice tells us. That we actually have the guts, the perseverance, the capacity. We fear that we truly can steer our ship, plant our flag, reach our Promised Land. We fear this because, if it’s true, then we become estranged from all we know. We pass through a membrane. We become monsters and monstrous.   We know that if we embrace our ideals, we must prove worthy of them. And that scares the hell out of us. What will become of us? We will lose our friends and family, who will no longer recognize us. We will wind up alone, in the cold void of starry space, with nothing and no one to hold on to.   Of course this is exactly what happens. But here’s the trick. We wind up in space, but not alone. Instead we are tapped into an unquenchable, undepletable, inexhaustible source of wisdom, consciousness, companionship. Yeah, we lose friends. But we find friends too, in places we never thought to look. And they’re better friends, truer friends. And we’re better and truer to them.   Do you believe me?

Cryptoassets adhere to a twenty-first century model of governance unique from all other asset classes and largely inspired by the open source software movement. The procurers of the asset and associated use cases are three pronged. First, a group of talented software developers decide to create the blockchain protocol or distributed application that utilizes a native asset. These developers adhere to an open contributor model, which means that over time any new developer can earn his or her way onto the development team through merit.

The Ponzi scheme is a specific and easily identifiably structure that isn’t applicable to Bitcoin but could be to some phony cryptoassets. While a truly innovative cryptoasset and its associated architecture requires a heroic coding effort from talented developers, because the software is open source, it can be downloaded and duplicated. From there, a new cryptoasset can be issued wrapped in slick marketing.

Another way to understand the difference between equality and equity is to realize that addressing equity issues strikes at the source of the problem rather than dealing with the symptoms, one by one. Our attachment to the myth of meritocracy—which is the notion that companies are structured to reward only the most talented and determined individuals15—is increasingly being viewed as out of touch because it doesn’t acknowledge our very real differences, and how much harder the journey up the ladder, or even onto the ladder, is for some. An insightful article by author Amy Sun makes this clear: Treating everyone exactly the same actually is not fair. What equal treatment does do is erase our differences and promote privilege. Equity is giving everyone what they need to be successful. Equality is treating everyone the same.16 Surrounding Yourself with a Trusted Few If you’ve recognized some of yourself in this chapter, you’re likely feeling motivated to take a closer look at your potential to be a more inclusive leader. Similarly, if you want to support your colleagues in their journey out of Unawareness, this chapter has likely provided many points of entry to transformational conversations. It’s important to note that this stage of your journey might be somewhat private. If you realize you haven’t given certain people a fair chance, you might not want to broadcast that to your colleagues. (Not only would this be damaging to your reputation, it could also make other people feel bad.) But as you become aware of your biases, you’ll start to understand how you can do things differently to better support others. It is a learning process, and it helps to have support from people you trust. When you’re ready, seek out conversations with a trusted few who can help you find your balance, your vocabulary, and begin to identify new skills.

Superior abilities... are the source of everything that is great and useful. Reduce everything to equality and you will bring everything to a standstill. One sometimes hears the same argument expressed today in the idea that the new information economy will allow the most talented individuals to increase their productivity many times over. The plain fact is that this argument is often used to justify extreme inequalities and to defend the privileges of the winners without much consideration for the losers, much less for the facts, and without any real effort to verify whether this very convenient principle can actually explain the changes we observe.

The point of intelligent automation is to enable a company’s scarcest and hardest-to-scale assets—its talented people—to focus on only those tasks that machines cannot do. Strengths in human qualities and abilities such as leadership, creativity, persuasiveness, critical thinking, and intuition will remain the source of the company’s competitive edge, precisely because they are hard to replicate.