Tremendous Performance Quotes

Coaxing drunken Shadowhunters into making fools of themselves was a favorite occupation among the Downworlders, and this performance had been a tremendous success.

No one is any longer carried away by the desire for the good to perform great things, no one is precipitated by evil into atrocious sins, and so there is nothing for either the good or the bad to talk about, and yet for that very reason people gossip all the more, since ambiguity is tremendously stimulating and much more verbose than rejoicing over goodness or repentance over evil.

It is impossible to control outcomes or results, although most of us have been programmed from a very young age to believe otherwise. The idea that we can perform actual ‘magic’ causes tremendous dysfunction, unnecessary suffering and prevents the development of emotional resilience.

Vonnegut had seen the worst of human conduct and refused to lie about the sort of trouble we were in, but who had not allowed his doubt to curdle into cynicism, who, for all his dark prognostication, was a figure of tremendous hope. The evidence was in his books, which performed the greatest feat of alchemy known to man: the conversion of grief into laughter by means of courageous imagination. Like any decent parent, he had made the astonishing sorrow of the examined life bearable.

Consider this: Most people live lives that are not particularly physically challenging. They sit at a desk, or if they move around, it’s not a lot. They aren’t running and jumping, they aren’t lifting heavy objects or throwing things long distances, and they aren’t performing maneuvers that require tremendous balance and coordination. Thus they settle into a low level of physical capabilities—enough for day-to-day activities and maybe even hiking or biking or playing golf or tennis on the weekends, but far from the level of physical capabilities that a highly trained athlete possesses.

When one ponders on the tremendous journey of evolution over the past three billion years or so, the prodigious wealth of structures it has engendered, and the extraordinarily effective teleonomic performances of living beings from bacteria to man, one may well find oneself beginning to doubt again whether all this could conceivably be the product of an enormous lottery presided over by natural selection, blindly picking the rare winners from among numbers drawn at random. [Nevertheless,] a detailed review of the accumulated modern evidence [shows] that this conception alone is compatible with the facts.

High performers whom exhibit tremendous self-control tend to be burden by their own competence. Studies indicate that being extraordinary competent can place a person under an unusual amount of stress because it raises other people’s expectation of them. The more task that an exemplary employee produces with a ‘go-getting personality’ while maintaining high quality relationships with peers and clients, the more an organization tends to underestimates their actual effort and the more it expects of them. Other people do not comprehend how difficult it is for a high performer to complete multifaceted tasks. They also tend to underestimate how much effort an enterprising person exerts who maintains a positive and pleasant attitude while completing difficult assignments.

At certain periods it becomes the dearest ambition of a man to keep a faithful record of his performances in a book; and he dashes at this work with an enthusiasm that imposes on him the notion that keeping a journal is the veriest pastime in the world, and the pleasantest. But, if he only lives twenty-one days, he will find out that only those rare natures that are made up of pluck, endurance, devotion to duty for duty's sake, and invincible determination, may hope to venture upon so tremendous an enterprise as the keeping of a journal and not sustain a shameful defeat.

This was a tremendous idea—that to find something out, it is better to perform some careful experiments than to carry on deep philosophical arguments.

Great leaders possess tremendous long-term clarity about what they’re trying to accomplish both personally and in their careers. And it’s this long-term perspective that builds character, wisdom, and self-discipline. Long-term thinking is the hallmark of high-performance living, yet it’s often neglected in favor of the treadmill of urgent activities of the moment.

Once we learn how to use adversity to our advantage, we can manufacture the helpful growth opportunity without actual danger or injury. I call this tool the internal solution—we can notice external events that trigger helpful growth or performance opportunities, and then internalize the effects of those events without their actually happening. In this way, adversity becomes a tremendous source of creative inspiration.

Carl Franzoni perhaps summed it up best when he declared rather bluntly that, “the Byrds’ records were manufactured.” The first album in particular was an entirely engineered affair created by taking a collection of songs by outside songwriters and having them performed by a group of nameless studio musicians (for the record, the actual musicians were Glen Campbell on guitar, Hal Blaine on drums, Larry Knechtel on bass, Leon Russell on electric piano, and Jerry Cole on rhythm guitar), after which the band’s trademark vocal harmonies, entirely a studio creation, were added to the mix. As would be expected, the Byrds’ live performances, according to Barney Hoskyns’ Waiting for the Sun, “weren’t terribly good.” But that didn’t matter much; the band got a lot of assistance from the media, with Time being among the first to champion the new band. And they also got a tremendous assist from Vito and the Freaks and from the Young Turks, as previously discussed.

There is no art form more intrinsically and blatantly American—in its casual violence, its bombastic braggadocio, its virulent jingoism, its populist defiance of respectability, and its intermittently awe-inspiring beauty—than professional wrestling. This lucrative enterprise is not a legitimate competition, but it is indisputably an expression of creativity. Its practitioners have a time-worn saying: “This ain’t ballet.” But it’s not that far from ballet: a kinetic method of storytelling, one that requires tremendous skill (and physical pain) to perform.

But as all pre-Christian cults were based on the idea of substitution, of representation, and tried to replace the irreplaceable, this worship was bound to remain vain. In the light of faith in Christ, the Letter to the Hebrews can dare to draw up this devastating balance sheet of the history of religion, although to express this view in a world seething with sacrifices must have seemed a tremendous outrage. It can dare to make this unqualified assertion that religions have run aground because it knows that in Christ the idea of the substitute, of the proxy, has acquired a new meaning. Christ, who in terms of the Law was a layman and held no office in Israel’s worship services, was—so the text says—the one true priest in the world. His death, which from a purely historical angle represented a completely profane event—the execution of a man condemned to death as a political offender—was in reality the one and only liturgy of the world, a cosmic liturgy, in which Jesus stepped, not in the limited arena of the liturgical performance, the Temple, but publicly, before the eyes of the world, through the curtain of death into the real temple, that is, before the face of God himself, in order to offer, not things, the blood of animals, or anything like that, but himself (Heb 9:11ff.). Let

The most obvious examples of pathological problems are: uncontrollable negative cash flow, continuous emigration of key human resources away from the organization, unresolved quality problems, rapidly declining market share, and tremendous drops in the company’s capacity to raise financial resources. Organizations with those problems can’t afford therapy because therapy takes time, and time is a resource those organizations do not have. Instead of an organizational therapist, the board should hire an organizational turnaround specialist who can temporarily take on the chief executive officer’s role, and perform whatever “surgery” is necessary.

Books? Yes, I read a lot, I’ve always read a lot. No, I’m not sure we do understand each other. I like to read best on the floor, or in bed, almost everything lying down, no, it has less to do with the books, above all it has to do with the reading, with black on white, with the letters, syllables, lines, the signs, the setting down, this inhuman fixing, this insanity, which flows from people and is frozen into expression. Believe me, expression is insanity, it arises out of our insanity. It also has to do with turning pages, with hunting from one page to the other, with flight, with complicity in an absurd, solidified effusion, with a vile overflow of verse, with insuring life in a single sentence, and, in turn, with the sentences seeking insurance in life. Reading is a vice which can replace all other vices or temporarily take their place in more intensely helping people live, it is a debauchery, a consuming addiction. No, I don’t take any drugs, I take books, of course I have certain preferences, many books don’t suit me at all, some I take only in the morning, others at night, there are books I don’t ever let go, I drag them around with me in the apartment, carrying them from the living room into the kitchen, I read them in the hall standing up, I don’t use bookmarks, I don’t move my lips while reading, early on I learned to read very well, I don’t remember the method, but you ought to look into it, they must have used an excellent method in our provincial elementary schools, at least back then when I learned to read. Yes I also realized, but not until later, that there are countries where people don’t know how to read, at least not quickly, but speed is important, not only concentration, can you please tell me who can keep chewing on a simple or even a complex sentence without feeling disgust, either with the eyes or the mouth, just keep on grinding away, over and over, a sentence which only consists of subject and predicate must be consumed rapidly, a sentence with many appositions must for that very reason be taken at tremendous speed, with the eyeballs performing an imperceptible slalom, since a sentence doesn’t convey anything to itself, it has to “convey” something to the reader. I couldn’t “work my way through” a book, that would almost be an occupation. There are people, I tell you, you come across the strangest surprises in this field of reading . . . I do profess a certain weakness for illiterates, I even know someone here who doesn’t read and doesn’t want to, a person who has succumbed to the vice of reading more easily understands such a state of innocence, really unless people are truly capable of reading they ought not to read at all.

The average working week was now twenty hours—but those twenty hours were no sinecure. There was little work left of a routine, mechanical nature. Men’s minds were too valuable to waste on tasks that a few thousand transistors, some photo-electric cells, and a cubic meter of printed circuits could perform. There were factories that ran for weeks without being visited by a single human being. Men were needed for trouble-shooting, for making decisions, for planning new enterprises. The robots did the rest. The existence of so much leisure would have created tremendous problems a century before. Education had overcome most of these, for a well-stocked mind is safe from boredom.

The first Western play to be performed in Beijing since the revolution was mounted while I was there. It was Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman. The choice seemed very strange. I regarded the play as being not merely highly Western in character but distinctly American. Its central figure is a salesman, “a man way out there in the blue riding on a smile and a shoeshine.” To my astonishment, the play was a tremendous success. But Arthur Miller, who had come to China to collaborate on production of the play, provided a satisfactory reason for its reception. “The play is about family,” he said, “and the Chinese invented family.” He might have added that the play is also about face, or the need to have the respect of the community, and the Chinese also invented face.

It was on one of these walks that Kicky performed his famous rescue act for which afterwards he was unmercifully teased by his family. The whole crowd of them had been for the usual Sunday walk, Kicky, Pem, and the children, and were returning home by the White Stone Pond. It was winter, and the ice frozen upon it about an inch thick, and as they came to the pond they noticed a mob of people shouting and pointing to the centre, where a miserable dog was slowly drowning, the ice having given way beneath him. Nobody was making the slightest attempt to save the wretched animal. Kicky, short-sighted without his glasses, was only aware that a dog was in difficulties in the water—he could not even see the ice. Stripping himself dramatically of his coat, his eyes flashing, he ran a few paces back and then took an enormous header on to a thin layer of ice that barely covered two foot of water. It was a tremendous sight! Cheered and applauded by the crowd, he plunged to the centre of the pond (still only three foot deep) and rescued the yelping dog, which covered his face with licks of gratitude.

I remember standing in the wings when Mother’s voice cracked and went into a whisper. The audience began to laugh and sing falsetto and to make catcalls. It was all vague and I did not quite understand what was going on. But the noise increased until Mother was obliged to walk off the stage. When she came into the wings she was very upset and argued with the stage manager who, having seen me perform before Mother’s friends, said something about letting me go on in her place. And in the turmoil I remember him leading me by the hand and, after a few explanatory words to the audience, leaving me on the stage alone. And before a glare of footlights and faces in smoke, I started to sing, accompanied by the orchestra, which fiddled about until it found my key. It was a well-known song called Jack Jones that went as follows: Jack Jones well and known to everybody Round about the market, don’t yer see, I’ve no fault to find with Jack at all, Not when ’e’s as ’e used to be. But since ’e’s had the bullion left him ’E has altered for the worst, For to see the way he treats all his old pals Fills me with nothing but disgust. Each Sunday morning he reads the Telegraph, Once he was contented with the Star. Since Jack Jones has come into a little bit of cash, Well, ’e don’t know where ’e are. Half-way through, a shower of money poured on to the stage. Immediately I stopped and announced that I would pick up the money first and sing afterwards. This caused much laughter. The stage manager came on with a handkerchief and helped me to gather it up. I thought he was going to keep it. This thought was conveyed to the audience and increased their laughter, especially when he walked off with it with me anxiously following him. Not until he handed it to Mother did I return and continue to sing. I was quite at home. I talked to the audience, danced, and did several imitations including one of Mother singing her Irish march song that went as follows: Riley, Riley, that’s the boy to beguile ye, Riley, Riley, that’s the boy for me. In all the Army great and small, There’s none so trim and neat As the noble Sergeant Riley Of the gallant Eighty-eight. And in repeating the chorus, in all innocence I imitated Mother’s voice cracking and was surprised at the impact it had on the audience. There was laughter and cheers, then more money-throwing; and when Mother came on the stage to carry me off, her presence evoked tremendous applause. That night was my first appearance on the stage and Mother’s last.

And justice is on the side of those nations that fight for their threatened existence. And this struggle for existence will spur these nations on to the most tremendous accomplishments in world history. If profit is the driving force for production in the democracies-a profit that industrialists, bankers, and corrupt politicians pocket-then the driving force in National Socialist Germany and Fascist Italy is the realization by millions of laborers that, in this war, it is they who are being fought against. They realize that the democracies, if they should ever win, would rage with the full capitalist cruelty, that cruelty of which only those are capable whose only god is gold, who know no human sentiments other than their obsession with profit, and who are ready to sacrifice all noble thought to this profit instinct without hesitation. National Socialist Germany, Fascist Italy, and allied Japan know that what is at stake in this war is not a form of government. It is not a question of some type of international structure for the future, but it is a question of whether this world belongs only to certain people and not also to others. An American politician coined the clever saying that, basically, this struggle is nothing other than an attempt by the have-nots to obtain something. That’s all right with us. While the outside world is setting about to steal from the have-nots the little that they possess, we confront the world of ownership with the decision to fight for the human rights of the have-nots and to secure for them that share in life to which these rights entitle them. This struggle is not an attack on the rights of other nations, but on the arrogance and avarice of a narrow capitalist upper class, one which refuses to acknowledge that the days are over when gold ruled the world, and that, by contrast, a future is dawning when the people will be the determining force in the life of a nation. It was this realization that lent wings to the National Socialist armies last year. And it will also help them triumph in the coming year. By fighting for the happiness of all people, we believe we most deserve the blessings of Providence. Until now, the Lord God has approved our struggle. If we perform our duties loyally and bravely, then He will not forsake us in the future either! New Year’s Proclamation to the National Socialists and Party Comrades January 1, 1941

In 1910 Leroux had his greatest literary success with Le Fantôme de l’Opéra (The Phantom of the Opera). This is both a detective story and a dark romantic melodrama and was inspired by Leroux’s passion for and obsession with the Paris Opera House. And there is no mystery as to why he found the building so fascinating because it is one of the architectural wonders of the nineteenth century. The opulent design and the fantastically luxurious furnishings added to its glory, making it the most famous and prestigious opera house in all Europe. The structure comprises seventeen floors, including five deep and vast cellars and sub cellars beneath the building. The size of the Paris Opera House is difficult to conceive. According to an article in Scribner’s Magazine in 1879, just after it first opened to the public, the Opera House contained 2,531 doors with 7,593 keys. There were nine vast reservoirs, with two tanks holding a total of 22,222 gallons of water. At the time there were fourteen furnaces used to provide the heating, and dressing-rooms for five hundred performers. There was a stable for a dozen or so horses which were used in the more ambitious productions. In essence then the Paris Opera House was like a very small magnificent city. During a visit there, Leroux heard the legend of a bizarre figure, thought by many to be a ghost, who had lived secretly in the cavernous labyrinth of the Opera cellars and who, apparently, engineered some terrible accidents within the theatre as though he bore it a tremendous grudge. These stories whetted Leroux’s journalistic appetite. Convinced that there was some truth behind these weird tales, he investigated further and acquired a series of accounts relating to the mysterious ‘ghost’. It was then that he decided to turn these titillating titbits of theatre gossip into a novel. The building is ideal for a dark, fantastic Grand Guignol scenario. It is believed that during the construction of the Opera House it became necessary to pump underground water away from the foundation pit of the building, thus creating a huge subterranean lake which inspired Leroux to use it as one of his settings, the lair, in fact, of the Phantom. With its extraordinary maze-like structure, the various stage devices primed for magical stage effects and that remarkable subterranean lake, the Opera House is not only the ideal backdrop for this romantic fantasy but it also emerges as one of the main characters of this compelling tale. In using the real Opera House as its setting, Leroux was able to enhance the overall sense of realism in his novel.

Yet let us reflect, where does the animal cease, where does man begin? — man, who is nature’s sole concern! As long as anyone desires life as he desires happiness, he has not yet raised his eyes above the horizon of the animal, for he only desires more consciously what the animal seeks through blind impulse. But that is what we all do for the greater part of our lives; usually we fail to emerge out of animality, we ourselves are the animals whose suffering seems to be senseless. But there are moments when we realize this: then the clouds are rent asunder, and we see that, in common with all nature, we are pressing towards something that stands high above us. In this sudden illumination we gaze around us and behind us with a shudder; we behold the more subtle beasts of prey and there we are in the midst of them. The tremendous coming and going of men on the great wilderness of the earth, their founding of cities and states their wars their restless assembling and scattering again, their confused mingling, mutual imitation, mutual outwitting and downtreading, their wailing in distress, their howls of joy in victory — all this is a continuation of animality; as though man was to be deliberately retrogressed and defrauded of his metaphysical disposition, indeed as though nature, after having desired and worked at man for so long, now drew back from him in fear and preferred to return to the unconsciousness of instinct. Nature needs knowledge and it is terrified of the knowledge it has need of; and so the flame flickers restlessly back and forth as though afraid of itself and seizes upon a thousand things before it seizes upon that on account of which nature needs knowledge at all. In individual moments we all know how the most elaborate arrangements of our life are made only so as to flee from the tasks we actually ought to be performing, how we would like to hide our head somewhere as though our hundred-eyed conscience could not find us out there, how we hasten to give our heart to the state, to money-making, to sociability or science merely so as no longer to possess it ourselves, how we labor at our daily work more ardently and thoughtlessly than is necessary to sustain our life because to us it is even more necessary not to have leisure to stop and think. Haste is universal because everyone is in flight from himself; universal too is the shy concealment of this haste because everyone wants to seem content and would like to deceive more sharp-eyed observers as to the wretchedness he feels; and also universal is the need for new tinkling word-bells to hang upon life and so bestow upon it an air of noisy festivity. Everyone is familiar with the strange condition in which unpleasant memories suddenly assert themselves and we then make great efforts, through vehement noise and gestures, to banish them from our minds: but the noise and gestures which are going on everywhere reveal that we are all in such a condition all the time, that we live in fear of memory and of turning inward. But what is it that assails us so frequently, what is the gnat that will not let us sleep? There are spirits all around us, every moment of our life wants to say something to us, but we refuse to listen to these spirit-voices. We are afraid that when we are alone and quiet something will be whispered into our ear, and so we hate quietness and deafen ourselves with sociability.

THE BEST PLACES TO WORK HAVE IT. THE HIGHEST-PERFORMING teams benefit from it. Because of it, individuals thrive professionally and personally—and teams and organizations flourish in our new economy. The “it” I’m referring to? The climate of your workplace. The feeling. The mood. “It” is the chemistry of how you, your team, and your organization work together. The way your workplace “feels” has a tremendous influence on people’s experience, morale, and performance. People thrive in a climate where they feel valued, where they know their contributions are meaningful, and where their core values are closely aligned with the values and character of their employer. Where they don’t feel valued, meaningful, and aligned . . . they just do their jobs. And today, in a world where opportunities to stand out are everywhere and the next killer idea can come from anywhere, “just doing our jobs” isn’t good enough.

Acceptance Today One thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Philippians 3:13-14 NKJV Manmade plans are fallible; God’s plans are not. Yet whenever life takes an unexpected turn, we are tempted to fall into the spiritual traps of worry, self-pity, or bitterness. God intends that we do otherwise. The old saying is familiar: “Forgive and forget.” But when we have been hurt badly, forgiveness is often difficult and forgetting is downright impossible. Since we can’t forget yesterday’s troubles, we should learn from them. Yesterday has much to teach us about tomorrow. We may learn from the past, but we should never live in the past. So if you’re trying to forget the past, don’t waste your time. Instead, try a different approach: learn to accept the past and live in the present. Then, you can focus your thoughts and your energies, not on the struggles of yesterday, but instead on the profound opportunities that God has placed before you today. Surrender to the Lord is not a tremendous sacrifice, not an agonizing performance. It is the most sensible thing you can do. Corrie ten Boom He does not need to transplant us into a different field. He transforms the very things that were before our greatest hindrances, into the chief and most blessed means of our growth. No difficulties in your case can baffle Him. Put yourself absolutely into His hands, and let Him have His own way with you. Elisabeth Elliot It is always possible to do the will of God. In every place and time it is within our power to acquiesce in the will of God. Elisabeth Elliot I pray hard, work hard, and leave the rest to God. Florence Griffith Joyner Contentment has a way of quieting insatiable desires. Mary Hunt Mature people are not emotionally and spiritually devastated by every mistake they make. They are able to maintain some kind of balance in their lives. Joyce Meyer Ultimately things work out best for those who make the best of the way things work out.

today, we need to take this point seriously. If we want to see a certain performance or certain attitude develop in those with whom we are working, we must remember the tremendous power of the personal example.

what’s most gratifying is that after 10 years and the tremendous growth we’ve had, I’m still here for the same reason I joined in the first place—that Red Hat is a pure-play open source company. Thanks again! Mark.

You will never become of any significance for God, unless you give all you have to perform some tremendous work for Him.

This book is easy to understand and gets your attention. The real life examples are effective in delivering the message on the tremendous power of personal accountability. At the Callaway Energy Center, we trained our leaders on personal accountability and used this book as a guide. This resulted in notable improvements in our teamwork, engagement, accountability, and performance. I highly recommend it.” —Fadi Diya, vice president, nuclear operations, Ameren Corporation

FOR MY SPIRITUAL LIFE... What’s the ONE Thing I can do to help others... ? What’s the ONE Thing I can do to improve my relationship with God... ? FOR MY PHYSICAL HEALTH... What’s the ONE Thing I can do to achieve my diet goals... ? What’s the ONE Thing I can do to ensure that I exercise... ? What’s the ONE Thing I can do to relieve my stress... ? FOR MY PERSONAL LIFE... What’s the ONE Thing I can do to improve my skill at ________... ? What’s the ONE Thing I can do to find time for myself... ? FOR MY KEY RELATIONSHIPS... What’s the ONE Thing I can do to improve my relationship with my spouse/partner... ? What’s the ONE Thing I can do to improve my children’s school performance... ? What’s the ONE Thing I can do to show my appreciation to my parents... ? What’s the ONE Thing I can do to make my family stronger... ? FOR MY JOB... What’s the ONE Thing I can do to ensure that I hit my goals... ? What’s the ONE Thing I can do to improve my skills... ? What’s the ONE Thing I can do to help my team succeed... ? What’s the ONE Thing I can do to further my career... ? FOR MY BUSINESS... What’s the ONE Thing I can do to make us more competitive... ? What’s the ONE Thing I can do to make our product the best... ? What’s the ONE Thing I can do to make us more profitable... ? What’s the ONE Thing I can do to improve our customer experience... ? FOR MY FINANCES... What’s the ONE Thing I can do to increase my net worth... ? What’s the ONE Thing I can do to improve my investment cash flow... ? What’s the ONE Thing I can do to eliminate my credit card debt... ? BIG IDEAS So how do you make The ONE Thing part of your daily routine? How do you make it strong enough to get extraordinary results at work and in the other areas of your life? Here’s a starter list drawn from our experience and our work with others. Understand and believe it. The first step is to understand the concept of the ONE Thing, then to believe that it can make a difference in your life. If you don’t understand and believe, you won’t take action. Use it. Ask yourself the Focusing Question. Start each day by asking, “What’s the ONE Thing I can do today for [whatever you want] such that by doing it everything else will be easier or even unnecessary?” When you do this, your direction will become clear. Your work will be more productive and your personal life more rewarding. Make it a habit. When you make asking the Focusing Question a habit, you fully engage its power to get the extraordinary results you want. It’s a difference maker. Research says this will take about 66 days. Whether it takes you a few weeks or a few months, stick with it until it becomes your routine. If you’re not serious about learning the Success Habit, you’re not serious about getting extraordinary results. Leverage reminders. Set up ways to remind yourself to use the Focusing Question. One of the best ways to do this is to put up a sign at work that says, “Until my ONE Thing is done—everything else is a distraction.” We designed the back cover of this book to be a trigger —set it on the corner of your desk so that it’s the first thing you see when you get to work. Use notes, screen savers, and calendar cues to keep making the connection between the Success Habit and the results you seek. Put up reminders like, “The ONE Thing = Extraordinary Results” or “The Success Habit Will Get Me to My Goal.” Recruit support. Research shows that those around you can influence you tremendously. Starting a success support group with some of your work colleagues can help inspire all of you to practice the Success Habit every day. Get your family involved. Share your ONE Thing. Get them on board. Use the Focusing Question around them to show them how the Success Habit can make a difference in their school work, their personal achievements, or any other part of their lives.

Change comes hard, because we find nothing more traditional than traditions. We put so much effort into designing and building these hierarchies that we are tremendously resistant to rethinking them in spite of the pressure to do so.

The blues emerge immediately after the overthrow of Reconstruction. During this period, unmediated African American voices were routinely silenced through the imposition of a new regime of censorship based on exile, assassination and massacre. The blues became an alternative form of communication, analysis, moral intervention, observation, celebration for a new generation that had witnessed slavery, freedom, and unfreedom in rapid succession between 1860 and 1875. Perhaps no other generation of a single ethnic group in the United States, except for Native Americans, witnessed such a tremendous tragedy in such a short period of time. Performer Cash McCall described the blues as the almost magical uncorking of the censored histories of countless people, places and events: Well, in the old days, you see, you weren’t allowed to express your feelings all that much. A lot of stuff was bottled up inside. Coming up from the old days until now … You can’t explain it in a conversation so the best way to do it is to sing.33 On the other hand, guitarist Willie Foster described them as the irrepressible voice of daily anguish: The black folks got the blues from working … You work all day long, you come home sometimes you didn’t have

Numerous Monroe protégés formed their own groups performing in his style. The most famous were Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs, respectively the guitarist-lead vocalist and the banjo picker who were core members of the classic Blue Grass Boys lineup of the late 1940s. They left to form the tremendously successful partnership of Flatt and Scruggs & the Foggy Mountain Boys, gaining crossover fame in the 1960s by contributing music to the soundtracks of the Beverly Hillbillies television show and the movie Bonnie and Clyde.

Cincinnatus. He was an emperor in the Roman Empire. Cincinnati, the city, by the way, is named after him because he was a big idol of George Washington’s. He is a great example of success because he was asked to reluctantly step into power and become the emperor and to help, because Rome was about to get annihilated by all the wars and battles. He was a farmer. Powerful guy. He went and took on the challenge, took over Rome, took over the army, and won the war. After they won the war, he felt he’d done his mission and was asked to go and be the emperor, and he gave the ring back and went back to farming. He didn’t only do this once. He did it twice. When they tried to overthrow the empire from within, they asked him back and he came back. He cleaned up the mess through great, great leadership. He had tremendous leadership quality in bringing people together. And again, he gave the ring back and went back to farming.

An audience is tremendously important in humor because it becomes an active participant in the performance. There is no humor until audience members get involved.

Once my locale was decided upon, the choice of my hero became automatic. The most popular breed of dogs along the Outer Banks (and at Life Boat Stations in general, for that matter) is the Chesapeake retriever, or the Chesapeake Bay dog, as he is also frequently called. The Chesapeake is probably the finest performer in the water of any breed. They are tremendously powerful swimmers, and no surf will daunt them or make their courage fail.

Those who’ve used perfectionism as a strategy for high performance and to feel in control can start to feel as if their standards are impossible to maintain once they become parents, and this can cause tremendous anxiety.

While Amazon’s claim of being okay with paying for people to train for jobs at other companies sounds altruistic—and it very well might be—a side benefit for Amazon is the type of workforce that program would encourage. Specifically, if people don’t want to be at Amazon, they have ways to leave. If they are taking advantage of the program, they are incentivized to work hard and perform well while at Amazon to not lose the tremendous opportunity of a paid-for education. It is an innovative—albeit counterintuitive—way to build a strong workforce. Pay to Quit is an example of another counterintuitive program that Amazon supports. Though it came originally from Zappos with Amazon’s acquisition of that company, Bezos touts it as a favorite way to build a strong workforce. Again, as he says in the 2013 Letter,

Seven years ago tonight, every dream I ever had came true. That's not something too many men get to claim. I'm very lucky, blessed, whichever you believe. Probably a lot of both. Tonight marks the anniversary of my debut performance at Ceasars Palace." On his cue, the crowd whipped into congratulary rapture. Blindsided by his recollection, Isavel was motionless. That's what he recalls happening on this date? "Indulgent, lazy, self-centered... jerk!" she said, grabbing her purse, thinking she'd climb over the seat. "I'm going home!" Before she could turn, hositing herself over, a spotlight landed on her. In the darkened arena Aidan and Isabel were face-to-face. He stared. The same way he did years ago in his pickup truck, holding tight to her wrist, the same way he did on the dance floor at the gala. The same way he did in the moment she left him. "If you can believe it," he said, still staring, "something even more important happened that day. As dreams of fame and fortune go, this topped everything. I've always know that." Then, in a softer voice: "And I'm a fool because I should have never given up." Even from her vantage point, Isabel could see the gulp roll through his throat. "It's my great privilege this evening to introduce my wife, Isabel Royce." He gestered to the box. Isabel responded by sinking to her seat. "What's he talking about?" she hissed to Mary Louise. "We're divorced!" From her right, Tanya nudged her. It was like being on a palace balcony, Isabel offering a deer-in-the-headlights wave to the subjects, a thoroughly baffled look at Aidan. In return, he smiled at her clear confusion. "My wife ..." Why is he calling me that? There was a mixed reaction, lots of gasps, some applause, and the disappointed groans from female fans. "She's done me the tremendous honor of making a rare appearance at one of my shows. Seven years ago, she agreed to marry me. At the time, my life was more trouble than promise. We were two scared kids who had nothing but each other. Really, it was all I needed. We were married in true Vegas fashion." Hoots and hollers echoed, his glance dropping to the stage floor. Sharing this was making the performer uncomfortable. He pushed on. "While most women would have been satisfied with a ring ... " His long fingers fluttered over the snake. "This was Isabel's idea of a permanent bond." It drew a wave of subtle laughter, Isabel included. "Do you remember how the story went?" he said, speaking only to Isabel in a crowd of thousands. "As long as I had it, I'd never be without you. Turns out, it wasn't a story, it was the absolute truth. Lately though," he said, turning back to his public narrative, "circumstance, some serious, some calculated, has prevented me from getting my wife's attention. So tonight I resorted to an old performer's trick, a captive audience. I planned this moment, Isabel, knowing you'd be here. Regardless of anything you may believe, I meant what I said on our wedding night, in the moment I said it. I love you. I always have.

This show was the most ambitious thing I’d done. Although the idea was simple, the fact that every piece of gear had to come onstage for tech check in the afternoon and then be removed again before the show was a lot of work for the crew. But the show was a success; the transparency and conceptual nature of its structure took away nothing from the emotional impact. It was tremendously gratifying. I didn’t perform for a while after that. It was hard to top that experience. I directed a feature film, married, and had a child, and I wanted to be around for as much of my daughter’s early years as I could. I continued to make records and launch other creative endeavors, but I didn’t perform.

That, in my opinion, was his primary leadership asset: his ability to teach people how to think and play at a different and much higher, and, at times, perfect level. He accomplished this in three ways: (1) he had a tremendous knowledge of all aspects of the game and a visionary approach to offense; (2) he brought in a great staff and coaches who knew how to coach, how to complement his own teaching of what we needed to know to rise to his standard of performance; and (3) he taught us to hate mistakes.

Catholics are worried about Communism: and they have a right to be, because the Communist revolution aims, among other things, at wiping out the Church. But few Catholics stop to think that Communism would make very little progress in the world, or none at all, if Catholics really lived up to their obligations, and really did the things Christ came on earth to teach them to do: that is, if they really loved one another, and saw Christ in one another, and lived as saints, and did something to win justice for the poor. For, she said, if Catholics were able to see Harlem, as they ought to see it, with the eyes of faith, they would not be able to stay away from such a place. Hundreds of priests and lay-people would give up everything to go there and try to do something to relieve the tremendous misery, the poverty, sickness, degradation, and dereliction of a race that was being crushed and perverted, morally and physically, under the burden of a colossal economic injustice. Instead of seeing Christ suffering in His members, and instead of going to help Him, Who said: “Whatsoever you did to the least of these my brethren, you did it to Me,” we preferred our own comfort: we averted our eyes from such a spectacle, because it made us feel uneasy: the thought of so much dirt nauseated us—and we never stopped to think that we, perhaps, might be partly responsible for it. And so people continued to die of starvation and disease in those evil tenements full of vice and cruelty, while those who did condescend to consider their problems, held banquets in the big hotels downtown to discuss the “Race situation” in a big rosy cloud of hot air. If Catholics, she said, were able to see Harlem as they should see it, with the eyes of faith, as a challenge to their love of Christ, as a test of their Christianity, the Communists would be able to do nothing there. But, on the contrary, in Harlem the Communists were strong. They were bound to be strong. They were doing some of the things, performing some of the works of mercy that Christians should be expected to do. If some Negro workers lose their jobs, and are in danger of starving, the Communists are there to divide their own food with them, and to take up the defence of their case.

Raw data has to be edited, converted to other formats, and linked with other datasets; statistical analysis has to be performed, sometimes with custom software; and plots and tables have to be created from the results. This is often done by hand, with bits of data copied and pasted into different data files and spreadsheets—a tremendously error-prone process. There

The debate is taking place on those extremes: either we cannot expect teachers to make a dent with poor kids, or poverty doesn’t matter. That’s not how the vast majority of Americans see the situation, though. And it’s certainly not how I view it. Having been a teacher in a low-performing urban school, I know firsthand how difficult it is to teach students who face a multitude of challenges before they even set foot in the schoolhouse door. These challenges are real and severe and have dire consequences. I don’t believe that educators and schools can fix all of society’s ills. That said, I do believe that schools and teachers can make a tremendous difference in the lives of kids who face these challenges every day. Do our children face significant obstacles that impact their ability to learn? Absolutely. Can we, as educators, still make an enormous difference in their lives, if we’re doing our jobs well? Absolutely. Those are not two mutually exclusive notions.

There was no getting around the fact that whoever this man was, he was a big guy, with a neck like a hydrant. He wore a gray sweatshirt and jeans, and something about his build reminded me of one of those performers in the circus who bend metal bars around their necks as a show of their strength. He wasn’t muscular like a weight-lifter or a professional athlete, just tremendously solid. He was a giant to my gargoyle, blacksmith to my scarecrow. I didn’t have to think hard to figure out what kind

The blade of grass was alone. Together, they were alone. They were alone together. The ground of the Realm was alone. The blade of grass was alone with the ground. Words flowed within him, arguments, changing shape and meaning, having no meaning. He gave them up only after a tremendous, jerking pain swept him. “I am in love with words,” Michael said. “They are my horse. I ride them, use them. But I can never kill them. Even if I cannot use words to get where I am going.” The realization of his dependence was enough. His aloneness suddenly became apparent, without words, truth, meaning or thought. The only way one can truly be alone is to be at one with everything, everybody... The entire universe, having only one voice. All the faces of creation, alone. Michael became aware of what he had been doing when he performed the small tricks the Crane Women had taught him. “To be alone is to be difficult to spot.” He could improve on that. “Aloneness means isolation from needs.” He could last indefinitely without food or water. “I only fight shadows. If I am alone, there is no enemy to fight.” And ultimately, no need to fight. “It is crazy to fight when you are alone.” He put down the blade of grass and looked up at the multitude of stars. Biri had helped him build this structure piece by piece, carefully. Now it began to collapse. The whole thing was ridiculous. How could he ever believe such

13 Simple Ways to Deliver Service Beyond Self 1. Make it Easy for People to Do Business with You. 2. Be an Awesome, Sincere Listener. 3. Listen to Customers’ Words and tone of voice, body language, and how they feel. Ask questions, listen, and meet them on their level. Explain, guide, educate, assist and do what is necessary to help them get the information they need to fully understand regarding their question or issue. 4. Show Enthusiasm. Greet customers with genuine interest. Give them your best. Think, act, and talk with positive enthusiasm and you will attract positive results. Your attitude is contagious! 5. Identify and Anticipate Needs. Most customer needs are more emotional rather than logical. 6. Under Promise & Over Deliver. Apply the principle of “Service Beyond Self” . . . give more than expected. Meet and exceed their expectations. If you can’t serve their needs, connect them with whoever can. 7. Make them Feel Important. Our deepest desire is to feel important. People rarely care how much you know until they know how much you care. Use their names, find ways to compliment them—and be sincere. 8. Take Responsibility for their Satisfaction. Do whatever is necessary to help them solve their problems. Let them know that if they can’t find answers to their questions to come back to you for help. 9. Treat your TEAM well. Fellow colleagues are your internal customers and need a regular dose of appreciation. Thank them and find ways to let them know how important they are. Treat your colleagues with respect; chances are they will have a higher regard for customers. 10. Choose an Attitude of Gratitude. Gratitude changes your perspective and helps you appreciate the good rather than simply taking it for granted. 11. Perform, Provide and Follow-Up. Always perform or provide your service in a spirit of excellence and integrity. If you say you’re going to do something—DO IT! There is tremendous value in being a resource for your customer. If you can help them to succeed, they are more likely to help you succeed. 12. Use Gracious Words. "Thank you, thank you very much.

12 Simple Ways to Deliver Service Beyond Self 1. Make it Easy for People to Do Business with You. 2. Be an Awesome, Sincere Listener. 3. Listen to Customers’ Words and tone of voice, body language, and how they feel. Ask questions, listen, and meet them on their level. Explain, guide, educate, assist and do what is necessary to help them get the information they need to fully understand regarding their question or issue. 4. Show Enthusiasm. Greet customers with genuine interest. Give them your best. Think, act, and talk with positive enthusiasm and you will attract positive results. Your attitude is contagious! 5. Identify and Anticipate Needs. Most customer needs are more emotional rather than logical. 6. Under Promise & Over Deliver. Apply the principle of “Service Beyond Self” . . . give more than expected. Meet and exceed their expectations. If you can’t serve their needs, connect them with whoever can. 7. Make them Feel Important. Our deepest desire is to feel important. People rarely care how much you know until they know how much you care. Use their names, find ways to compliment them—and be sincere. 8. Take Responsibility for their Satisfaction. Do whatever is necessary to help them solve their problems. Let them know that if they can’t find answers to their questions to come back to you for help. 9. Treat your TEAM well. Fellow colleagues are your internal customers and need a regular dose of appreciation. Thank them and find ways to let them know how important they are. Treat your colleagues with respect; chances are they will have a higher regard for customers. 10. Choose an Attitude of Gratitude. Gratitude changes your perspective and helps you appreciate the good rather than simply taking it for granted. 11. Perform, Provide and Follow-Up. Always perform or provide your service in a spirit of excellence and integrity. If you say you’re going to do something—DO IT! There is tremendous value in being a resource for your customer. If you can help them to succeed, they are more likely to help you succeed. Use Gracious Words. "Thank you, thank you very much.

Well, what shall it be?” said Lubotshka, blinking in the sunlight and skipping about the grass, “Suppose we play Robinson?” “No, that’s a tiresome game,” objected Woloda, stretching himself lazily on the turf and gnawing some leaves, “Always Robinson! If you want to play at something, play at building a summerhouse.” Woloda was giving himself tremendous airs. Probably he was proud of having ridden the hunter, and so pretended to be very tired. Perhaps, also, he had too much hard-headedness and too little imagination fully to enjoy the game of Robinson. It was a game which consisted of performing various scenes from The Swiss Family Robinson, a book which we had recently been reading.

Much energy goes into looking good and shoring up any holes that may appear in that image. This is where the pain starts, in the tremendous distance between idealistic expectations and actual performance.

show-stopper.” So despite the performance problems that we’ve seen, the promise of Java is tremendous

I am fully aware that the things I do are construed as absolute craziness. But in actuality, we are just having fun in God’s presence. We enjoy the happy presence of God and people get free from religion, so they stop taking themselves so seriously. Freedom from pride is liberating and empowering. The Lord loves to mock religion through us, because religion grieves Him tremendously. What we are never doing is trying to make a formula out of these crazy antics. In fact, most of these antics are gloriously deriding religious formula! Our antics are so crazy in fact that you would have to be a complete nutjob to think smoking a baby Jesus doll is the latest tool to get you to a new level with God. These silly acts don’t get us filled with the Spirit, nor are we trying to start a new denomination with this stuff. We do lots of fun, goofy things because we are already in the Spirit by His grace, and we’ve been set free from the performance-oriented version of Christianity.

In America there seems to be a widespread supposition that German soldiers always goosestep. This is not only a mistake; it would be an impossibility. The goosestep is a tribute and is performed before those of higher rank, and always when troops pass in review before the head of the government. The step is not a simple lifting of the leg stiffly and high on the upswing. It is a muscular feat that takes at the least three months of practice to acquire, and it requires a great physical effort and is a tremendous strain. Two hundred feet of goosestepping are all that the best

January 2013 Andy’s Message   Hi Young, I’m home after two weeks in Tasmania. My rowing team was the runner-up at the Lindisfarne annual rowing competition. Since you were so forthright with your OBSS experiences, I’ll reciprocate with a tale of my own from the Philippines.☺               The Canadian GLBT rowing club had organised a fun excursion to Palawan Island back in 1977. This remote island was filled with an abundance of wildlife, forested mountains and beautiful pristine beaches.               It is rated by the National Geographic Traveller magazine as the best island destination in East and South-East Asia and ranked the thirteenth-best island in the world. In those days, this locale was vastly uninhabited, except by a handful of residents who were fishermen or local business owners.               We stayed in a series of huts, built above the ocean on stilts. These did not have shower or toilet facilities; lodgers had to wade through knee-deep waters or swim to shore to do their business. This place was a marvellous retreat for self-discovery and rejuvenation. I was glad I didn’t have to room with my travelling buddies and had a hut to myself.               I had a great time frolicking on the clear aquiline waters where virgin corals and unperturbed sea-life thrived without tourist intrusions. When we travelled into Lungsodng Puerto Princesa (City of Puerto Princesa) for food and a shower, the locals gawked at us - six Caucasian men and two women - as if we had descended from another planet. For a few pesos, a family-run eatery agreed to let us use their outdoor shower facility. A waist-high wooden wall, loosely constructed, separated the bather from a forest at the rear of the house. In the midst of my shower, I noticed a local adolescent peeping from behind a tree in the woods. I pretended not to notice as he watched me lathe and played with himself. I was turned on by this lascivious display of sexual gratification. The further I soaped, the more aroused I became. Through the gaps of the wooden planks, the boy caught glimpses of my erection – like a peep show in a sex shop, I titillated the teenager. His eyes were glued to my every move, so much so that he wasn’t aware that his friend had creeped up from behind. When he felt an extra hand on his throbbing hardness, he let out a yelp of astonishment. Before long, the boys were masturbating each other. They stroked one another without mortification, as if they had done this before, while watching my exhibitionistic performance carefully. This concupiscent carnality excited me tremendously. Unfortunately, my imminent release was punctured by a fellow member hollering for me to vacate the space for his turn, since I’d been showering for quite a while. I finished my performance with an anticlimactic final, leaving the boys to their own devices. But this was not the end of our chance encounter. There is more to ‘cum’ in my next correspondence!               Much love and kisses,               Andy

When my Naval Academy students had finished reading the Iliad, I often asked them to tell me which of Homer’s characters they admired the most, and why. A popular reply was Hector, prince of Troy, and the reasons they gave most concerned their sense of why he fought. It may surprise some to learn that many of these highly competitive young American students favored a character who champions the losing side of the battle. But it is Hector’s humanity and nobility of character, not his unhappy fate, to which they were drawn. Homer’s Prince Hector is a man who fights with tremendous ferocity on the battlefield but who is not driven by rage or bloodlust. Although he relishes his moments of small-scale victory, we are given the impression that Hector fights not because he wants to but because he has a duty to his people. He would rather be at home with his wife and young son, Astynax, but he is the greatest warrior that the Trojans have. If he does not defend the city, it will certainly fall to the Greeks. His exceptional physical prowess and martial skills, combined with his standing in the community as a respected member of the royal family, create special responsibilities for him. By rights, his brother Paris (the cause of the crisis) should have offered himself up for the protection of Troy. However, since Paris chooses not to live up to his obligations, the burden shifts to Hector’s more capable (and unshirking) shoulders. The defense of the city is placed in his hands and all the hopes of the Trojan people are pinned on his performance as a fighter and a leader.

This almost miraculous performance was due to the working of the balance of power, which here produced a result which is normally foreign to it. By its nature that balance effects an entirely different result, namely, the survival of the power units involved; in fact, it merely postulates that three or more units capable of exerting power will always behave in such a way as to combine the power of the weaker units against any increase in power of the strongest. In the realm of universal history balance of power was concerned with states whose independence it served to maintain. But it attained this end only by continuous war between changing partners. The practice of the ancient Greek or the Northern Italian city-states was such an instance; wars between shifting groups of combatants maintained the independence of those states over long stretches of time. The action of the same principle safeguarded for over two hundred years the sovereignty of the states forming Europe at the time of the Treaty of Minster and Westphalia (1648). When, seventy-five years later, in the Treaty of Utrecht, the signatories declared their formal adherence to this principle, they thereby embodied it in a system, and thus established mutual guarantees of survival for the strong and the weak alike through the medium of war. The fact that in the nineteenth century the same mechanism resulted in peace rather than war is a problem to challenge the historian. The entirely new factor, we submit, was the emergence of an acute peace interest. Traditionally, such an interest was regarded as outside the scope of the state system. Peace with its corollaries of crafts and arts ranked among the mere adornments of life. The Church might pray for peace as for a bountiful harvest, but in the realm of state action it would nevertheless advocate armed intervention; governments subordinated peace to security and sovereignty, that is, to intents that could not be achieved otherwise than by recourse to the ultimate means. Few things were regarded as more detrimental to a community than the existence of an organized peace interest in its midst. As late as the second half of the eighteenth century, J. J. Rousseau arraigned trades people for their lack of patriotism because they were suspected of preferring peace to liberty. After 1815 the change is sudden and complete. The backwash of the French Revolution reinforced the rising tide of the Industrial Revolution in establishing peaceful business as a universal interest. Metternich proclaimed that what the people of Europe wanted was not liberty but peace. Gentz called patriots the new barbarians. Church and throne started out on the denationalization of Europe. Their arguments found support both in the ferocity of the recent popular forms of warfare and in the tremendously enhanced value of peace under the nascent economies.

None of us is shackled to our past or environment. We have tremendous personal control over the factors that improve our lives and performance. I share this because too many people think they can’t win without the ideal peer group. So before I tell you to improve your peer group, don’t for one second think you can’t improve your life on your own. Social support just makes personal development and overall life success easier, faster, and more enjoyable. For all these reasons, high performers spend more time with positive people than with negative people. They are more strategic and consistent in seeking to work with others at or above their level of competence, experience, or overall success.

What happens in the brain, he asked, if the person carrying out an automatic task suddenly makes a special effort to pay attention to that task? The PET scan kicked out the answer. When the young man again focused on the now-automatic keypad movements, his prefrontal cortex and anterior cingulate jerked awake, becoming metabolically active once again. This is a finding of tremendous importance, for it shows that mindful awareness has an activating effect on the brain, lighting it up. The take-home message of Passingham’s studies is that willfully engaging in mindful awareness while performing an automatic task activates the action-monitoring circuitry of the prefrontal cortex. It is this activation that can transform us from automatons to members in good standing of the species Homo sapiens (from Latin sapere, “to be wise”). Given the strong evidence for the involvement of the prefrontal cortex in the willful selection of self-initiated responses, the importance of knowing we can modulate the brain activity in that very area with a healthy dose of mindfulness can’t be overstated.

About twenty-five years ago the body channel received a tremendous boost from the discovery of mirror neurons in a laboratory in Parma, Italy. These neurons are activated when we perform an action, such as reaching for a cup, but also when we see someone else reach for a cup. These neurons don’t distinguish between our own behavior and that of someone else, so they allow one individual to get under another’s skin. Their actions become our own. This discovery has been hailed as being of equal importance to psychology as the discovery of DNA was for biology, because of its profound implications for imitation and other forms of bodily fusion.